UK Politics

3 Key excerpts on "UK Politics"

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  eBook - ePub

  What is Politics?

  The Activity and its Study

  • Adrian Leftwich(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Polity

    (Publisher)

  This chapter advocates a conception of politics as global politics. It argues that the traditional distinction between domestic and international politics has become a conceptual fiction which, despite its hold on the wider public imagination, no longer reflects the realities of a highly interconnected world. Politics and governance are becoming globalized as the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 and the subsequent events vividly demonstrate. As the world confronts a new century, the classic questions of political life have been re-posed with greater urgency, namely: who rules, in whose interests, by what means, and to what purpose? Addressing these questions intellectually, however, requires moving beyond the mythical ‘Great Divide’ – namely the separation of the study of Politics from the study of International Relations – which has fragmented scholarly political analysis since the birth of the modern state. Analysing global politics is a radical endeavour which involves putting the pieces back together, thereby reconstructing in the process the study of Politics and International Relations.

  In discussing the distinctive form and dynamics of global politics, this chapter will seek to address four key questions:

  • What is global politics?
  • How is global politics to be understood?
  • Where does power lie in global politics?
  • Why does the study of global politics matter?

  2 Politics Beyond Borders: Towards a Global Politics

  Some time ago James Rosenau observed that, ‘Politics everywhere, it would seem, are related to politics everywhere else … now the roots … of political life can be traced to remote corners of the globe’ (cited in Mansbach, Ferguson et al., 1976: 22). As this paragraph took shape, the residents of Lee-on-the-Solent, a small English seaside town in Hampshire, could be heard some streets away, protesting against Home Office proposals to place an asylum centre in the town. Political oppression and economic collapse in distant nations have generated controversy in a normally quiescent residential village. By contrast, the Jubilee 2000 campaign brought together a global coalition of aid, development, religious, human rights and women’s organizations from across the North–South divide to campaign for the abolition of Third World debt. Coordinated campaigns within the national capitals of the G7 states (the USA, the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Japan and Canada) and at the G7 summits in the late 1990s forced the issue on to the global agenda and compelled a subsequent G7 policy response. Both these cases are manifestations of contemporary political globalization: namely, the intensification of worldwide political interconnectedness encompassing transnational policy problems, new systems of global regulation, political action at a distance and transnational solidarities.

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  Central Debates in British Politics

  • John Benyon, David Denver, Justin Fisher(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  PART ONE  

    Introduction: British Politics in Context

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  The Contexts of British Politics

  David Denver and Justin Fisher CHAPTER ONE  

  Political activity does not take place in a vacuum. Politics is only one aspect of any society – albeit an important aspect – and is set within a broader context. Indeed, we have used the plural ‘contexts’ in the title of this chapter to emphasise that the background to politics includes a number of different elements. We can identify distinct historical, social, economic, international and cultural contexts, each of which impinge importantly on current British politics and the debates which form the substance of this book. As is made clear in the other introductory chapter, these debates also involve enduring theoretical and practical questions about politics, but the way in which contemporary political issues are framed, interpreted and assessed is in large part a consequence of recent changes in the contexts of politics. Moreover, as we shall see, the social, economic, international and cultural contexts have been characterised by very rapid change in recent years.

  The International Context

  All states are part of an international system in which they interact with other states. The interaction may involve conflict, bilateral or multilateral co-operation, or co-operation mediated through international organisations such as NATO or the European Union. There are also non-state actors at the international level, such as multinational corporations or international currency speculators, which states may seek to regulate. The position of the United Kingdom in this international system has changed dramatically over the last fifty years and this clearly impinges on domestic politics. Two salient features are worth picking out – Britain’s decline from world power and its increased involvement in Europe.

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  The British Political Process

  An Introduction

  • Tony Wright(Author)
  • 2002(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  1 This may seem far removed from the way in which politics and politicians are frequently regarded in practice— where the focus is sometimes more on swine than pearls—but it is all the more reason to remember the ideal. At its best, politics is the means whereby human beings living in societies co-operate to negotiate their conflicts, tackle their problems and pursue their goals. At its worst, it is the scene of disorder, strife, corruption and tyranny. The modern world has witnessed the full range of political experiences.

  THE CONTEXT OF BRITISH POLITICS

  This book is about Britain, but the shape of British politics necessarily carries the imprint of the political experience of this wider world. As we shall see, there is much that is distinctive about the British political tradition (for example, a culture of liberty that predated democracy and was rooted in the common law, and the assertion of the rights of Parliament as the result of the constitutional struggles of the seventeenth century), but there is also much that can only be understood in the wider context of the politics of the modern world. Britain both contributed to this experience and drew from it. This remains the case today. Different political systems have to confront many of the same problems and feel the impact of many of the same forces, but they are also the product of particular histories, traditions and cultures. That is why they are different. They are organised differently (compare the federal constitutions of Germany, the United States or Australia with the unitary state in Britain), operate differently (for example, coalition politics is normal in much of Europe but abnormal in Britain) and behave differently (it has been said that a disgruntled Frenchman blocks the roads, a disgruntled American goes to court, and a disgruntled Englishman lobbies his MP). Such differences define the shape, flavour and character of political systems.

  The historian Eric Hobsbawm has described the shaping forces of the past two centuries in Europe in terms of a ‘dual revolution’ (The Age of Revolution, 1789– 1848)

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