‘The Possible as the Art of Politics’: Understanding Consensus Politics
| Published date | 01 September 2002 |
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-9248.00005 |
| Date | 01 September 2002 |
| Subject Matter | Original Article |
‘The Possible as the Art of Politics’:
Understanding Consensus Politics
Richard Heffernan
Open University
Drawing on the Kuhnian model of scientific paradigms, this article suggests consensus politics
should be conceptualised not as an agreement or a settlement but as a political framework that
derives from an ideationally informed policy paradigm. Such a consensus constrains the auto-
nomy of governing elites, encouraging them to conform to an established policy agenda that
defines the ‘mainstream’ wherein ‘the possible is the art of politics’. In Britain, as demonstrated
by the replacement of a post-war social democratic paradigm by a contemporary neo-liberal
successor, periods of policy continuity and incremental reform have been matched by occasions
of dramatic political change. Any appreciation of consensus politics has therefore to explain change
as well as account for stability, something considerably under emphasised in the existing litera-
ture. Consensus politics are therefore best defined as a constrained space within which politics is
conducted and political actors differ, a paradigmatic framework from which political outcomes
emerge, and never as an agreement freely entered into. Looking at consensus politics beyond the
much commented upon post-war example, this article uses British politics since 1945 as an exem-
plar of consensus politics and an illustration of how a consensus can be forged, how it can endure
and how it may change.
In discussions of British politics, the term consensus, usually prefixed with the term
post-war, describes an ‘overlap between the economic, foreign and social policies
of both Labour and Conservative governments’ (Seldon, 1995, p. 42). The post-
war consensus thesis is best captured in David Marquand’s observation that ‘[f]rom
the mid-1940s to the mid-1970s, most of [Britain’s] political class shared a tacit
governing philosophy’ (Marquand, 1988, pp. 2–3). It contends that after 1945 all
governments, irrespective of party, pursued similar policies such as state man-
agement of the economy and full employment, and committed themselves to the
mixed economy and the welfare state. These policies, typified by Keynesian
economics and the Beveridgian welfare state, defined the ‘parameters which
bounded the set of policy options regarded by senior politicians and civil servants
as administratively practicable, economically affordable and politically acceptable’
(Kavanagh and Morris, 1994, pp. 13–14; Addison, 1994; Seldon, 1994, 1996). Such
was a standard received wisdom, one linked to a preconception among some
supporters and critics of the thesis, that this consensus was a matter of agreement
between parties, and an unstated, invariably harmonious agreement at that.
Recently, this notion of the post-war consensus has attracted much criticism, much
of it well judged. Critics challenge the very notion of policy agreement, emphasis-
ing the very real differences of aims and objectives, values and principles found
between Labour, the party of the left, and the Conservatives, the party of the right.
They argue that post-war politics marked less a moment of agreement and more
the clash of still opposing ideologies drawn from the left and right of the political
POLITICAL STUDIES: 2002 VOL 50, 742–760
© Political Studies Association, 2002.
Published by Blackwell Publishing, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
UNDERSTANDING CONSENSUS POLITICS 743
spectrum. (Kerr, 1999; Jones and Kandiah, 1996; Jones, 1996; Rollings, 1994;
Butler, 1993; Jeffreys, 1991). The very idea of a post-war consensus has fallen into
academic disrepute, and for a number of reasons. There has been, as Anthony
Seldon suggests, ‘confusion about what exactly is meant by it’ (Seldon, 1994, p.
503), but for the most part the concept of consensus politics has been ‘ill defined,
poorly explicated and inadequately analysed’ (Marlow, 1997, p. 7). Too often it has
been assumed and applied without proper or precise definition.
Using British politics as an exemplar, this article argues that the concept of con-
sensus, post-war or otherwise, provides a valuable analytical tool, and that there
is a need for it to be reformulated in light of criticism, not abandoned. While critics
rightly emphasise the complexity of domestic policy and highlight the conflicts and
contradictions that abound (so providing two very useful correctives to overtly sim-
plistic notions of consensus politics), they often argue that consensus did not exist
only in the limited terms they choose to see it. Consensus is neither a complete
‘convergence over policy’ (Kerr, 1999, p. 69), nor a ‘deeper more profound com-
mitment to a set of common beliefs, moral values and social aspirations’ (ibid). Too
often, however, pro-consensus writers give the impression, unintended or not, that
a consensus is some form of agreement. This is mistaken, but of course, the very
word ‘consensus’, the Latin for agreement, misleads in this regard. As critics of con-
sensus point out, disputation between parties is the stuff of party interaction, even
if some agreement on policy is evidenced (Pimlott, 1995), and the notion that a
consensus is an agreement does not stand up to a moment’s scrutiny.
My argument is that, at root, consensus politics reflect a dominant set of ideas, and
that such ideas structure political and policy agendas in a variety of ways, most
notably by diagnosing political and economic problems and prescribing policy
solutions. By providing policy makers with a compass, not necessarily a road map,
dominant ideas create the constraining framework that fashions consensus poli-
tics. They define what is ‘possible’, and prompt politics to be the ‘art’ of doing what
is possible. Such ideas also lie at the heart of what Hall calls a policy paradigm,
which ‘specifies the goals of policy ... the instruments that can be used to attain
them ... [and] the problems they are meant to be addressing’ (Hall, 1993, p. 279).
This article therefore conceptualises consensus as a status quo, one within which
incremental adjustments can be made, a ‘framework’ in which policy is built
around dominant ideas, not an ‘agreement’, and where political choices are struc-
tured by a predominant policy paradigm. A consensus characterises what is con-
sidered feasible (rather than necessarily desirable) and encourages conformity (if
not outright compliance) with an established political agenda, limiting what
governing actors can and cannot do.
Dramatic policy change is evidenced when a new consensus replaces a pre-
existing one. At present, as argued below, British governments, New Labour just
as much as old Thatcherite, work within a neo-liberal consensus in economic
policy, seeking to empower, free and liberalise the market in an ‘economic’ inter-
est by championing wealth creation, promoting business and encouraging entre-
preneurship. In contrast, after 1945, building on a collectivist political worldview
developed in the 1930s and 1940s, economic policy reflected a social democratic
consensus in which the role of the state was to manage the market, manipulating,
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