Sovereign Nations and Global Markets: Modern British Conservatism and Hyperglobalism
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-856X.t01-1-00086 |
| Author | David Seawright,Andrew Gamble,David Baker |
| Date | 01 October 2002 |
| Published date | 01 October 2002 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
© Political Studies Association 2002. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF and
350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA 399
Sovereign nations and global markets:
modern British Conservatism
and hyperglobalism
DAVID BAKER, ANDREW GAMBLE and DAVID SEAWRIGHT
Abstract
In this article we seek to trace through the major stands of British Euroscepticism and con-
centrate, in particular, on the importance of a powerful ‘hyperglobalist’ Eurosceptical strand
within British Conservatism. We investigate the British Conservatives’ recent divisions over
European integration, against the background of the party’s increasingly marginal status in
British party politics. The piece also draws on findings from two recent surveys of the atti-
tudes of British parliamentarians to European integration, carried out by the Members of
Parliament Project for the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). We explore how
Conservative divisions of opinion are related in part to particular understandings of glob-
alisation and regionalisation and attempt to show how globalist ideology has unexpectedly
re-emphasised and bolstered the traditional nationalism of the Tory party and caused an
increasingly hostile attitude amongst many British Conservatives towards the European
project as it is presently constituted. We also examine recent attempts to map British
Conservative Euroscepticism on to continental varieties using a mixture of ideological posi-
tioning and party system (Taggart 1998), arguing that this ignores the extent to which British
Eurosceptics advance unique (in EU member state terms) hyperglobalist (rather than isola-
tionist or protectionist) arguments in objecting to further European integration.
The European issue shows that the change in the character of the
Conservative Party has been more important and more striking than
British Journal of Politics and International Relations,
Vol. 4, No. 3, October 2002, pp. 399–428
the changes in the formal rules which govern the distribution of power
in the parties. The behaviour of the party, certainly in the last 10 years,
and arguably in the last 20, has defied all the comfortable stereotypes
of the McKenzie era. (Berrington and Hague 1998, 6)
British Conservatives and globalisation
During the long ‘Thatcher decade’, British Conservatives played a key role
in articulating the neo-liberal doctrines of openness, flexibility and com-
petition, which were to become the dominant discourse of globalisation,
the idea of the unfettered global economy (King and Wood 1999; Scholte
2000). At the same time the party under Margaret Thatcher began to dis-
tance itself from its earlier strong commitment to the European Union and
began to re-emphasise one of the party’s oldest traditions—the importance
of national sovereignty and the sanctity of the nation state. This appar-
ently contradictory amalgam of attitudes towards globalisation has been
at the centre of the unfolding drama of the British Conservative Party and
Europe since the end of the Thatcher decade. Conservative divisions over
the European Union during the last 10 years provide a pertinent case study
to explore the relationship between modern Conservative ideology and the
changing political economy of the global order.
The Conservative Party has always prided itself on being a ‘broad
church’ containing a variety of conservative political groups and attitudes
ranging from centre-right interventionists, to moral fundamentalists, to
neo-liberal idealists. It has been the ascendancy of the neo-liberal idealists
which has most coloured British Conservative politics in recent times.
While many conservative (and some social democratic) movements and
parties have adopted neo-liberal economic policies, none of the other main-
stream European conservative parties has embraced the wider implications
of an unfettered global economy as warmly as have the British Conserva-
tives. But although they seem to have few qualms in subordinating British
sovereignty to the dictates of the global market, British Conservatives have
become much less keen on subordinating it to Europe.
The Conservatives were also once strongly in favour of European inte-
gration. Like other European parties of the right they played an important
role in developing both elite and popular support for European integra-
tion. The British Conservative Party proclaimed itself the ‘party of
Europe’,1 although the early dissidents in Conservative ranks were numer-
ous enough to oblige the Heath government to rely on pro-European MPs
D. Baker, A. Gamble and D. Seawright
© Political Studies Association 2002.
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