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1
Palmer, Michael R. "The British nexus and the Russian liberals, 1905-1917." Thesis, University of Aberdeen, 2000. http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk:80/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=88128.
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Laity, Paul. "The British peace movement 1896-1916 : ideas and dilemmas." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1995. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.339819.
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Dubinski, R. David. "British liberals and radicals and the treatment of Germany, 1914-1920." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1992. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/272734.
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Proudman, Mark F. "Inventing economic imperialism : British liberals change their minds about capitalism and war." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2005. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.413528.
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So, Robyn Ann. "Incentives for activism in a moribund political party : the case of the BC Liberals." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1988. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/28284.
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This thesis explains why individuals are active in the British Columbia Liberal Party, considering it was finished as a viable force in BC politics following the 1975 election. What are their motivations and incentives, and the factors that govern them, given the party's inability to reward its workers in terms of winning elections? The analysis is conducted using a two-pronged theoretical approach. This approach posits first, that incentives are dependent on, and independent of, the Liberal Party's ends, including its political principles and its goal of being elected. Second, it posits their incentives arise from both personal gain and psychological needs.
Using survey data collected from the BC Liberal Party 1987 leadership convention, I demonstrate that activists are inspired by a variety of motivations that are both dependent on, and independent of, the party's ends. Due to their distinct ideological orientation and purposive concerns, the activists would not fit in any other provincial party. Analysis also reveals that there are two groups of Liberal activists—optimists and realists regarding the future success of the party. Paradoxically, the least optimistic are the most involved in party activity, and the most hopeful are the least involved. I demonstrated that closeness to the federal Liberal party influences the realists' activism in the provincial party. The existing literature on incentives for political party activism tends to focus on patronage, ideology and party-related concerns, such as policy, issues, leaders and candidates. As such, it diminishes the importance of psychological motivations. This thesis found the latter played an equally powerful role in governing motivations for political party activism. In this regard, this thesis has contributed to a more comprehensive understanding of party activism.Arts, Faculty of
Political Science, Department of
Graduate
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Häusler, Clemens Albert Josef. "The transatlantic exchange between American liberals, British Labourites, and German social democrats from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2010. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.609089.
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Sell, Geoffrey. "Liberal revival : Jo Grimond and the politics of British Liberalism 1956-1967." Thesis, Birkbeck (University of London), 1996. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.368855.
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Sayers, Anthony Michael. "Liberal party activists in British Columbia." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1988. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/28278.
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The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyze the nature and role of Liberal Party activists in the political life of British Columbia. As activists are at the central core of political parties, describing these activists is essential for understanding parties and the political process in general.
The description and analysis are based on the results of a survey of the 1987 Liberal leadership Convention conducted by several members of the Political Science Department at the University of British Columbia, including the author. The resulting information was collated and analyzed then compared with the accepted wisdom concerning Liberal supporters in British Columbia.
This thesis reveals the Liberal Party activists in British Columbia to be quite typical of activists found in other parties in Canada. As a result of the party's centre position in the polarized politics of this province, it does tend to attract activists disenchanted with this style of politics. This results in a heterogeneous collection of beliefs amongst activists. The success of the federal Liberal Party and the importance of many federal issues for Liberal Party sympathizers encourages provincial activists to adopt a federal oriented perspective on politics. This is at odds with the two major parties in British Columbia.Arts, Faculty of
Political Science, Department of
Graduate
9
Faulkes, Stewart Charles. "The strange death of British Liberalism : the Liberal Summer School movement and the making of the Yellow Book in the 1920s." Thesis, Goldsmiths College (University of London), 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.250711.
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Baines, Malcolm Ian. "The survival of the British Liberal Party, 1932-1959." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1989. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.290930.
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Perkins, James Andrew. "British liberalism and the Balkans, c. 1875-1925." Thesis, Birkbeck (University of London), 2014. http://bbktheses.da.ulcc.ac.uk/82/.
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This is a study of the place of the Balkans in British liberal politics from the late-Victorian era to the aftermath of the First World War. It argues that engagement with the region was part of a wider reformist dynamic in British politics and society in this period. The late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries saw the final collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and the emergence of independent successor states in the Balkans against a background of nationalist tension, political violence, and humanitarian suffering. This raised questions and concerns that resonated particularly strongly within British liberal political culture, as revealed through analysis of correspondence and memoir, journalism, public and parliamentary debate, humanitarian initiatives, political activism, and diplomacy. In particular, the thesis considers: the political agitation in response to atrocities in Ottoman Bulgaria in 1876 (chapter 1); the wider impact of this agitation on late-Victorian politics (chapter 2); the renewed activism in response to Ottoman misrule in early-twentieth century Macedonia (chapter 3); the dilemmas and debates generated by the Balkan Wars and the First World War between 1912 and 1918 (chapter 4); and the impact of this on the new internationalist agendas of the 1920s (chapter 5). Liberal engagement with the Balkans is shown to have intersected closely with domestic reformist political agendas, as well as with other international causes, both European and imperial. By exploring these intersections, the thesis re-examines aspects of change, continuity and conflict in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century British politics and society, and reconsiders the multifaceted relationships that linked that society to the rest of the world.
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Moore, Terrence O. "The enlightened curriculum : liberal education in eighteenth-century British schools." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/22504.
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This dissertation addresses three important aspects of intellectual and cultural history: the history of Enlightenment, the history of education, and the history of the formation of a British national identity. The culture of the English-speaking Enlightenment serves as the intellectual background of education reform in Britain. Eighteenth-century British moralists defined their age against the previous century of religious wars, of idle disputation in the academy, of a lack of concern for the useful and polite arts, and in turn favoured toleration, politeness, and commerce. New ideas of moral and social improvement manifested themselves in the creation of a new ideal type of individual: someone who was neither the warrior nor priest nor courtier of old, nor the industrialist of the future, but in a sense all of these combined and deprived of their most extreme features. The enlightened individual was, to use Locke's quartet of values, virtuous, industrious, polite, and learned. In order to ensure the ascendancy of this type of individual, and to form moral and polite individuals who would be "happy in themselves and useful to others", enlightened thinkers turned their attention to moulding the rising generation through education. The influence of this philosophical discussion on the changes in the British school curriculum over the course of the eighteenth century constitutes the overacting theme of my study. I trace the philosophical demand for education reform that began with Locke and continued through the Scottish moral philosophers to its actual impact on schools and the subjects of study. Using works of educational theory, schoolmaster treatises, private diaries, and school textbooks, I show how enlightened pedagogues cultivated the Lockean and Scottish aims of education by developing the corresponding "branches" of the liberal arts. Each branch of education was meant to form a part of the young mind: the sense, the taste, the imagination, the passions, and the reason.
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Scott, Logan. "Buckingham’s Republic of Letters: Defining the Limits of Free Expression in British Calcutta, 1818-1832." Thesis, Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/36023.
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The Marquis of Hastings’s decision in 1818 to repeal the censorship of Calcutta’s presses led many to believe the Governor General had inaugurated press freedom in Bengal, the political and intellectual centre of Britain’s Eastern Empire. With the steady inflow of non-Company merchants to India following the Charter Act of 1813, the East India Company was faced with the challenge of defending its remaining privileges, while simultaneously consolidating its newly acquired territories and developing enduring structures of governance. Building upon the work of Peter Marshall and Christopher Bayly, this thesis concentrates on the press debates of the early 1820s in order to highlight the Company’s role in preventing the emergence of an Anglo-Indian public sphere in Calcutta. Drawing on the experiences of Mirza Abu Taleb, James Silk Buckingham, and Rammohun Roy, this thesis also demonstrates the essentially transnational influences that informed these debates, while focusing on the interaction between Britons, Indians, and the Company’s military officers in Buckingham’s Calcutta Journal. It argues that despite the respective political ideologies of government officials, it was, in fact, primarily pragmatism that informed policy regarding free expression through print. In the wake of the Napoleonic and Revolutionary Wars, administrators worked to isolate and silence dissenting voices to prevent the outbreak of rebellion or independence movements, and the increasing engagement between Indians, Britons, and members of the Army proved too great a threat to Company-rule.
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Joyce, Norman Peter. "The electoral strategy and tactics of the British Liberal Party, 1945-1970." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 1989. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.321620.
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The options available to a minor political party concerning electoral strategy and tactics are usually greater than for a major political party. This thesis analyses the electoral objectives and the methods for their realisation put forward by the Liberal party in the period 1945 - 1970. The two strategies of the formation of a Liberal government and the realignment of the left are evaluated and the analysis is extended to include what is referred to as 'interim strategy'. The latter accepted that the party's strategy could not be accomplished as the consequence of the party's involvement in any one general election contest but needed to operate over a longer time scale. This suggested that the party required short term and long term electoral objectives arid the use made of interim strategy forms part of the examination of electoral strategy. The analysis of electoral tactics differentiates between 'primary tactics' and 'secondary tactics'. Primary tactics were the means presented to the electorate for the implementation of electoral strategy at a general election contest. Secondary tactics included a range of political activities carried out in the period between general election contests. Primary and secondary tactics are evaluated and in particular the extent to which electoral strategy and primary tactics were compatible with secondary tactics is analysed. The discussion of electoral strategy and tactics is not confined to ideas generated within the Liberal party but includes the views advanced by the Conservative arid Labour parties on the role of the Liberal party and Liberal supporters. The arguments presented in support of these views, and the Liberal party's response, forms part of the analysis of Liberal electoral strategy and tactics.
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Welland, Julia. "Masculinity and violence in the British military : liberal warriors and haunted soldiers." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2014. https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/masculinity-and-violence-in-the-british-military-liberal-warriors-and-haunted-soldiers(1d698a26-2095-4cce-a65c-38bb23b55922).html.
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Over the past decade British troops have been stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan as part of what was previously called the 'war on terror'. During this period reports have emerged of British soldiers engaging in sexual abuse against local detainees, the killing of innocent Iraqi and Afghan civilians, and the use of banned techniques during interrogations. At the same time, widely televised repatriations of dead and injured soldiers have taken place, and a combination of the proliferation in use of improvised explosive devices by enemy forces and improvements in battlefield medicine has meant increasing numbers of soldiers are returning home with limbs missing and permanent disfigurement. It is unpacking how these specific acts of wartime violence have become possible that this thesis is concerned with. Specifically, this project will ask questions about the relation between contemporary constructions of British militarised masculinity - what I call a 'liberal warrior' - and the enactment of wartime violence. At its core, this thesis will argue that a liberal warrior subjectivity will never be stable or 'complete', and that it is in its precariousness and attempts at stabilisation that specific militarised violences become possible. Building on a burgeoning feminist literature on militarised masculinities and appropriating Avery Gordon's epistemology of ghosts and hauntings, I detail a way of conceptualising a militarised masculine liberal warrior that avoids mapping 'hard' and 'fixed' borders. Constituted through gendered discourses and hierarchical gendered binaries, boundaries are marked around a liberal warrior that excludes traits and characteristics a liberal warrior is not. However, those traits and characteristics that a liberal warrior has attempted to expel remain an integral constituting part of what is included, haunting the subjectivity, and destabilising its attempts at coherent representation. I argue it is through the appearances of ghosts - the concrete materialisation of an aspect of a haunting - that notice can be given to the ever-presence of hauntings. Focusing specifically on attempts at expelling - exorcising - hauntings of (homo)sexual potential, uncontrollability, colonial desires and fears, and the brutality of warfare in the (re)construction of a liberal warrior, the thesis pays attention to the materialisations of ghosts across multiple sites, including basic training, barrack living and during a tour of duty. Emerging as the banal and mundane, and also as spectacular wartime violence, recognising these materialisations as ghosts has several effects. It draws attention to the (im)possibility of a liberal warrior and always already haunting presences, it allows the conceptual space between everyday soldiering 'doings' and the spectacularly violent to be bridged, and it reveals the ways in which attempts at expelling hauntings and (re)articulating the borders of a liberal warrior makes these (sometimes violent) appearances of ghosts possible.
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Henriksson, Tracey. "The metamorphosis of the Conservative Party under Thatcher." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1991. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/30679.
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In the postwar era, there has been a change in the nature of the British Conservative Party caused by the adoption of classical liberal ideas antithetical to its principles. This trend rapidly accelerated during the leadership of the Party by Margaret Thatcher who appeared oblivious to the fundamental incompatibility of liberalism and conservatism. She attempted to weld them together in her economic and social policies creating strong internal tensions within what was dubbed "Thatcherism". This clash became more pronounced as her reign as British Prime Minister continued and was part of the reason for her eventual downfall at the hands of her own party.
To illustrate the conversion of the Conservative Party to a more liberal standpoint we will consider two modern day political thinkers and the popularity of their positions. This approach is taken because their philosphies parallel the thinking of the postwar Conservative Party before Thatcher and under Thatcher's leadership. Michael Oakeshott, who fits into the conservative tradition and Friedrich Hayek, who embodies liberalism. Oakeshott's philosophy is in sharp contrast at important points to the ideas of Hayek, a self-confessed and proud liberal, whose ideas nevertheless found favour within the Conservative Party while many integral parts of conservatism, of which Oakeshott is a representative, were pushed aside.
The stridency and harshness with which Thatcher preached the doctrine of economic liberalism and ideology and also tried to retain certain conservative ideals such as, authority, nationalism and militarism constituted a serious and damaging tension within her programme as well as demonstrating the depth of the change that had occurred in the Conservative Party. This thesis seeks to point out these changes and illustrate the adverse effects caused by attempting to turn the Conservative Party into a promoter of classical liberal ideology and thereby partially explain the increasing shakiness of Thatcherism in the 1980's. Even though its leader never lost faith in its convictions or her determination to translate them into concrete policies .Arts, Faculty of
Political Science, Department of
Graduate
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Gerson, Gal. "Structures of knowledge in British progressive liberal thought 1890-1920 : society, nature and cultural legacies." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.264311.
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Guyver, Lynn. "Post Cold War moral geography : a critical analysis of representations of eastern Europe in post 1989 British fiction and drama." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2001. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.246786.
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Dover, Robert Matthew. "The Europeanisation of British defence policy 1997-2000 : a critical evaluation of liberal intergovernmentalism." Thesis, University of Bristol, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/1983/3c21933f-b199-447d-9ecf-eb9a2fdc7ee6.
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Mackley, Simon Edward. "British Liberal politics, the South African question, and the rhetoric of Empire, 1895-1907." Thesis, University of Exeter, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10871/23316.
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This thesis examines the public politics of Empire at the fin de siècle. Taking as its focus the relationships between the Liberal Party, imperial rhetoric and the South African question in British politics from the Jameson Raid of 1895 through to the Transvaal Colony elections of 1907, it analyses key episodes such as the 1899 outbreak of the South African War, the ‘methods of barbarism’ controversy of 1901 and the politics of ‘Chinese slavery’ in the run up to the general election of 1906. Eschewing a traditional focus on high politics, personal motivation and imperial thought, this thesis explores the public rhetoric of leading Liberal politicians, as evidenced in newspaper records and parliamentary proceedings. In doing so, this study identifies the key themes, languages and arguments which served as the framework through which Liberal speakers articulated both their specific responses to events in South Africa and advanced a wider Liberal approach to the politics of Empire. In focusing on Liberal politics as distinct from liberalism as political philosophy and avoiding a narrow factional focus, this thesis aims to further understandings of the role played by Empire within late-Victorian and Edwardian Liberal political culture. It argues that for all the internal divisions within the Liberal Party, Liberal speakers nonetheless maintained a largely consistent rhetoric of Empire in response to the South African question, emphasising the ideals of British imperial rule and the extent to which the Unionist government and the Boers respectively failed to meet such expectations. This thesis further suggests that the evidence explored provides a wider insight into the imperial factor in British political history, and challenges some of the assumptions of more minimalist accounts of the impact of the British Empire ‘at home’.
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Reeve, Jennifer. "Liberalism, race and humanitarianism : British colonial policy and Jewish refugees, 1938-1943." Thesis, University of East Anglia, 2016. https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/58597/.
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This thesis studies the British colonial response to Jewish refugees between 1938 and 1943. By assessing Britain’s ‘bystander’ response through the lens of the empire, this study expands on existing historiography and seeks not just to detail Britain’s limited action but also explain it. In this thesis, the concepts of liberalism, race and humanitarianism are used as analytical frameworks through which to examine British colonial policy. Specifically, in the interwar years, the scope of British (in)action was defined by liberal views on assimilation and the rights of individuals versus groups. Rather than antisemitism, a strict racial hierarchical and paternal system was used to justify British power and to protect British interests in the making of refugee policy. Finally, international humanitarianism was at a particular moment of development in the interwar years, both in terms of the intergovernmental system through which humanitarian action was channelled and in the socio-political expectation on governments to act. This was expressed in a conflict of short-term emergency aid and long-term developmental aid. The result was a colonial policy of compromise that saw officials try to connect the skills and financial assets of refugees with their overriding priority of colonial development and welfare. Through the use of official documents and refugee testimony, this study provides an account of the making and impact of colonial refugee policy and raises questions that remain relevant for us today.
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He, Miao. "An analysis of framing in British news media representations of China and the Chinese." Thesis, Loughborough University, 2010. https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/8470.
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At the beginning of the twenty-first century, with China's remarkable success in economic developments and greater openness to the outside world, two sharply opposing views of China have appeared in the Western perception of China - a rising superpower as well as a threat to the West, economically, militarily and environmentally. The West, particularly the US and Britain fears that China is likely to take advantage of its growing economic and geopolitical influence in order to change the world's power pattern. Within such a social context, this thesis sets out to explore if the old concepts of Orientalism on China has ever changed in modern times and how the modern images China and the Chinese are framed in the contemporary British news media. It is carried out through four cases – Chinese migration, Hong Kong handover (1997), Tibet issue and Sichuan Great Earthquake (2008). More specifically, the thesis examines: how the two dominating masterframes – ethno-nationalist and liberal individualist masterframes coexist or compete with each other in the reporting; and what the differences are between newspapers in terms of frame choice and the ratio of struggle between two frames. The study implies that the old Orientalist stereotypes, such as ‘Yellow Peril', which were used to describe China and the Chinese have not often appeared in the recent British news media representations in the selected four cases. Instead, the liberal individualist views have been widely and deeply embedded in the British news reporting, criticising China being essentially a Communist dictatorship as opposed to Western democracy. Additionally, the relations between two masterframes appear in three forms – coexistence or intertwining, supporting each other, and struggle.
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Thompson, Graeme. "Ontario's empire : liberalism and 'Britannic' nationalism in Laurier's Canada, 1887-1919." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2016. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:05b3237d-42d3-4644-950e-aa9d0b100573.
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This thesis examines the nexus of politics, ideology, and identity among Anglo-Canadian liberal intellectuals during Wilfrid Laurier's leadership of the Canadian Liberal party from 1887 to 1919. This 'Laurier era' was characterised by explosive demographic and economic expansion, the consolidation of Canada's political and constitutional order, and its rising international stature within British Empire. But it also witnessed divisive disputes over the nature and development of the new Confederation. These debates over 'Dominion nation-building' were central to Canadian political and intellectual life, shaping the evolution of liberal ideology and the growth of national and imperial sentiment. In particular, the thesis focuses on a group of liberal intellectuals and politicians who resided in or originated from the province of Ontario and associated with Laurier during his reign as Prime Minister and leader of the Opposition. It reinterprets their debates in global and local contexts, specifically through the lens of a 'Greater Ontario' - a virtual province of Canada and the British world comprised of 'Old' Ontario, with its metropolis at Toronto, and the 'neo-Ontarian' settler empire of the Prairie West. Its argument is threefold. First, it argues these liberals envisaged Canada, with 'Greater Ontario' at its heart, as a 'British nation' rooted in North America. Their growing sense of Canadian nationalism was distinctly 'Britannic' - indeed, 'British-American' - and drew upon civic as well as racial ideas of 'Britishness.' Second, it maintains that the political, ideological, and regional fault lines within Ontario's liberal tradition consequently shaped their competing visions of the Dominion, the British Empire, and the wider Anglo-world. And third, it contends that these debates illuminate the rise and subsequent disintegration of Wilfrid Laurier's Liberal party in 'Greater Ontario.' The thesis thus contributes a new perspective to the political and intellectual history of Canada and the British world.
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Perduniak, Michael Peter. "Pamphlets and politics : the British Liberal Party and the 'working man', c. 1867-c. 1925." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2013. https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/pamphlets-and-politics-the-british-liberal-party-and-the-working-man-c-1867c-1925(281a5a8d-f80b-47e9-9a52-b35f4ffedfc1).html.
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This thesis aims to provide a new perspective on the British Liberal Party during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries via an analysis of pamphlet literature produced in support of the party. The period under investigation saw the fortunes of the Liberal Party move from being the principal rival of the Conservative Party to one of three competing for power, with the Labour Party emerging as a party capable of forming a government. The thesis aims to contribute to scholarly debate on the subject by showing that there was indeed a ‘decline of Liberalism’ and ‘rise of Labour’, but that these themes can be best understood in terms of the appeals both parties made to the electorate. It will show that when analysed through the literature they or their supporters produced to win over voters, the Liberal Party can be seen to have failed to adapt to a shifting electorate, and that they did not react to developing critiques of Liberalism from the Labour Party and its constituent bodies in sufficient time to prevent Labour establishing itself as a credible party of government, thus removing one of the Liberal Party’s main advantages over Labour. The thesis will use a close analysis of the text contained within a sample of Liberal Party pamphlet literature to show that the party had particular problems when addressing itself to working-class voters, who became an increasingly important section of the electorate following franchise extensions in 1867, 1884 and 1918. It will show that the Liberal Party constructed their appeals to working-class voters using a constructed figure, which will be termed the ‘Liberal Working Man’, who was possessed of particular characteristics which made him suitable to hold the vote. The ‘Liberal Working Man’ was both conceived within models of political behaviour deriving from ‘whiggish’ forms of political history and also appealed to by using narratives of political history which stressed the need for him to support the Liberal Party. The thesis will show that the Liberals did nor realise until too late that their understanding of the working-class electorate was flawed and had contributed to the emergence of the Labour critique of their party, by which time the First World War had created a series of practical problems which hampered the party’s attempts to maintain working-class support. The Liberal Party will be shown to have been put into a position whereby its pamphlet appeals could no longer rely on the old assumptions with regards working-class electoral behaviour, and proved incapable of providing an adequate replacement for the concept in their attempts to garner support through electoral literature.
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Shapiro, Stephen Judah. "The British Army in Home Defense, 1844-1871: Militia and Volunteers in a Liberal Era." The Ohio State University, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1314979500.
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Boulton, Ben David. "Reconciling irreconcilables? : the British Government's approach to post-conflict peacebuilding." Thesis, University of Exeter, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10871/28535.
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A wide number of contributions to the peacebuilding literature have decried the limitations and constraints of liberal peacebuilding, to such an extent that the very term has begun to assume vaguely pejorative overtones. Concerns for the health and well-being of liberal peacebuilding have accumulated to the extent that Roland Paris has issued a plaintive call for liberal peacebuilding to be ‘saved’ (2010). In this thesis, I critically engage with the comprehensive approach, one of the central mechanisms that has enabled liberal peacebuilding to redefine and rearticulate its terms of reference. I begin from the assumption that the comprehensive approach does not anticipate the post-liberal peace that has been heralded by some observers (see Richmond, 2011); quite the contrary, it instead provides the basis for reformulation or adaptation within the terms that have been established by liberal peacebuilding. In continuing to hold out this tantalising possibility, the comprehensive approach continues, more than 20 years after its first articulation, to cast a seductive spell over its adherents. In this thesis, I critically assess how the comprehensive approach framework has been engaged and developed by one of its leading proponents (the British Government). I break the approach down into three dimensions of comprehensiveness (deepening, contextuality and complementarity), with a view to illustrating how the textual reproduction of each dimension has been accompanied by a set of contradictions and tensions. In doing so, I propose to explore how discursive ‘broadening’ and ‘deepening’ has been accompanied by a range of contradictions and tensions. In unravelling these contradictions, I then draw upon Foucauldian concepts and themes to argue that each and every advancement of freedom (whether through the form of empowerment, participation or contextual engagement) has been considerably more ambiguous than the standard narrative of the comprehensive approach – which reproduces the impression of an incremental progression – would have us believe. In questioning and probing the proposition that the comprehensive approach overcomes or reconciles the contradictions and tensions of liberal peacebuilding, I instead suggest a disconcerting reversion to prior points of reference.
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Hancock, John William. "The anatomy of the British Liberal Party, 1908-1918 : a study of its character and disintegration." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1993. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/251552.
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LaPlant, Katie Desiree. "Katherine Chidley, Damaris Masham, and Mary Wollstonecraft: The Development of a Liberal Feminist Tradition." Bowling Green State University / OhioLINK, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1394301444.
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Alston, Charlotte Lucy Rachael. "Russian liberalism and British journalism : the life and work of Harold Williams (1876-1928)." Thesis, University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/10443/1653.
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This thesis examines the career of Harold Williams (1876-1928), a journalist who, after training as a Methodist minister at home in New Zealand and taking a doctorate in philology in Germany, spent the years 1904-18 working as a foreign correspondent in Russia and in the 1920s became Foreign Editor of The Times in London. Although the thesis traces Williams's life as a whole, its particular concern is with his role as an interpreter of Russia to the British and the British to Russia. As a correspondent, Williams covered the 1905 revolution in Russia, the Duma period, the effect on Russia of the First World War, the fall of the tsarist monarchy and the coming of the Bolsheviks. Since, in 1917, his dispatches were appearing simultaneously in the Daily Chronicle, the Daily Telegraph and the New York Times, he played a not insignificant part in the fonnation of both British and American opinion about the Russian Revolution. Because he tended to take sides and pursue causes, his journalistic work was by no means entirely neutral. The thesis sheds light on his involvement in the Russian constitutional struggle, the movement for a rapprochement between Britain and Russia, the work of the British war-time propaganda bureau in Petro grad, the campaign by Russian emigres and western sympathisers to bring about western intervention in the Russian civil war, and the negotiation of the Locamo Treaty in the 1920s (which had the effect of isolating the Soviet Union). The proposition underlying the thesis is that although Williams was often admired for his modesty and his unassuming nature, he was nonetheless fiercely dedicated to the causes for which he chose to work. Sometimes, therefore, his journalism was a means to an end, a tool for the subtle promotion of the things in which he believed.
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Heselwood, Luke Anthony. "The impact of Anglo-Chinese relations on the development of British liberalism, 1842-1857." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2016. https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/the-impact-of-anglochinese-relations-on-the-development-of-british-liberalism-18421857(6f66493d-34e8-4661-a9ca-adcd9e5e5c21).html.
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Between 1842 and 1857, British interactions with the Qing Empire shaped and informed the development of British liberal attitudes. However, amid the widespread historiography devoted to uncovering international influences on British liberalism during this period, the impact of the Anglo-Chinese relationship remains a footnote. Instead, focus is given to how Europe, America and the British Empire assisted in the advancement of British politics and liberal thought. This thesis redresses this oversight – showing how Anglo-Chinese frictions in the mid-nineteenth century brought into question British notions of free trade, international law, diplomatic standards and non-intervention. Britain’s determination to improve its trading network in China matched by the Qing’s refusal to allow further Western expansion, informed British liberal debate and shaped political attitudes. Most notably, it resulted in Sir John Bowring, the former Foreign Secretary of the London Peace Society, ordering the military bombardment of the port of Canton in late 1856. The bombardment – which resulted in the second Anglo-Chinese conflict (1856-1860) – is well-documented by historians. However, the development of Bowring’s political convictions, which provided an ideological justification for war, has been overlooked. This thesis uncovers how interactions with China forced Bowring and the British expatriate community more generally to reconsider the meaning of free trade, the boundaries of international law and their commitment to non-intervention. In addition, it shows how Bowring’s actions resulted in a heated debate that captured the attention of Britain’s political elite and, through the General Election of 1857, the British public more generally. As a result, it facilitated an open and vibrant debate that queried whether, to secure British trade, military intervention could be deemed an acceptable diplomatic method – a discussion that forced the development of the nation’s liberal attitudes. This thesis tackles two relatively distinct areas of historical research that rarely interact. First, it sheds new light on the scholarship that has examined foreign influences on the development of British liberal ideas in the mid-nineteenth century. It shows that through an investigation of relations with peripheral nations such as China, historians can gain a fresh and more detailed perspective on how and why nineteenth century liberal attitudes developed. In addition, it challenges the existing framework adopted by Sinologists in their assessment of Anglo-Chinese relations. Recent studies remain focused on uncovering how nineteenth century Western expansion into the Qing Empire affected its political, legal and cultural development. This thesis reverses this approach – arguing that this relationship not only affected events within China but in addition, shaped British liberal debate and consolidated British political ideas. This thesis calls, therefore, for historians to reconsider the importance of relatively peripheral nations on the development of British ideals and liberal thinking in the mid-nineteenth century. By examining these new frontiers, it sheds new light on the making of British liberalism.
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Menz, Julian. "4/11 : Bias in the british press Us election 2008." Thesis, Uppsala University, Media and Communication, 2008. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-106772.
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Purpose/Aim: To study the existence and level of bias in British press coverage of the 2008 US presidential election.
Material/Method: A rhetorical analysis of 20 newspaper articles dealing with the election taken from The Guardian (liberal) and The Daily Telegraph (conservative) newspapers over a fiveday period up to and including the election.
Main Results: Bias was found to be present, although the level of bias proved significantly higher in the material selected from the liberal newspaper. The conservative newspaper selected exhibited significantly lower levels of bias. This trend was true of both news and opinion articles
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McKee, Vincent. "British social democratic factionalism 1981-1996 : case studies of the SDP 1981-88 and Liberal Democrats 1988-96." Thesis, London Metropolitan University, 1996. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.337121.
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Gammon, Earl. "Lineages of political economic subjectivity : Christian moral economy, technology and liberal narcissism in 19th century British social thought." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2007. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.437461.
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Sanderson-Nash, Emma Victoria. "Obeying the iron law? : changes to the intra-party balance of power in the British Liberal Democrats since 1988." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2011. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/7467/.
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This study examines intra-party power in the Liberal Democrats, looking at the formal role and remit of the various sectors that make up the party bureaucracy, and evaluating the exercise of power with regard to policy, campaigning and the use of resources. It is interested in two overarching questions: has the party professionalised, and has power moved toward the top? If so could this have had an impact on its electoral success? The theoretical context for this study is a well-established tradition of scholarship on party organisation going back to Moise Ostrogorski (1902) and Robert Michels (1911). The hierarchical nature of party organisations has been a constant refrain in this literature, especially in respect of major parties that are serious contenders for governmental office (McKenzie 1963; Kirchheimer 1966; Panebianco 1988; Katz & Mair 1995). This thesis offers a test of these theories by applying them to a smaller party that gradually evolved from a party of opposition to a party of government. While the incentives for intra-party centralisation are clear in office-seeking parties (the leadership requires maximum autonomy in order to devise and adapt a competitive strategy), this research explores whether it is a necessary precursor to electoral success. It will test whether the party has become more professional, or top-down, by looking at the policy making process, at the way the party campaigns, and at its distribution of resources. Finally the thesis examines the role of intra-party politics in achieving and maintaining the coalition with the Conservatives negotiated in May 2010. The research spans the lifetime of the party from 1988 to present day, and relies on an extensive series of semi-structured interviews with 70 individuals connected to the party including prominent politicians, senior staff and ordinary members. It argues that the party has become significantly more professional during this time, and that this was a contributory factor in delivering office.
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Murray, Scott W. "The origins of an illusion: British policy and opinion, and the development of Prussian liberalism, 1848-1871." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1990. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/28832.
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The massive historiography dealing with the problem of Germany's development in the first half of twentieth century has been strongly influenced by the notion that certain peculiar national characteristics led Germany down a Sonderweq, or "special path," which diverged from that of other Western European nations. However, by helping to focus scholarly attention on various political, social and intellectual developments which took place in Germany in the nineteenth century, the Sonderweq thesis has distracted scholars from examining more closely the possible impact which the interplay of international relations had on Germany's development during this pivotal period. The present study examines the extent to which British foreign policy affected the growth of authoritarianism and the decline of liberalism in Prussia during the period 1848-1871, and how certain Intellectual currents in England at the time affected both the formulation and the expression of British policy regarding Prussia.
By examining both the policies pursued by British statesmen at certain key points during the period 1848-1871, and the views expressed by a group of highly idealistic British liberal commentators who watched affairs in Prussia closely during this period, I have attempted to demonstrate the following: firstly, that existing interpretations of British policy regarding Prussia have overemphasized the role of liberal idealism in the calculations of British policy-makers, who appear instead to have consistently pursued pragmatic policies aimed at a Prussian-led unification of Germany; and secondly that it was this latter group of British commentators who provided policy-makers with a style of rhetoric which obfuscated the pragmatic considerations underlying British policy. Moreover, it was this same corpus of liberal, "Whig" commentary which laid the conceptual foundations for what was to become the standard interpretative approach to German history, particularly amongst Anglo-American historians writing since 1945 - the Sonderweq thesis. Thus, by separating the rhetoric from the actual practice of British policy, and by identifying the liberal biases which pervaded British liberal discourse on Prussia during this period, I have attempted to clarify Britain's role in the important developments taking place in Germany at this time, while broadening our appreciation of how and why subsequent scholarship on the German question has so readily embraced the notion that German history is "peculiar".Arts, Faculty of
History, Department of
Graduate
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Knapman, Gareth, and gareth_knapman@hotmail com. "Barbarian Nations in a Civilizing Empire: Naturalizing the Nation within the British Empire 1770-1870." RMIT University. Global Studies, Social Science and Planning, 2008. http://adt.lib.rmit.edu.au/adt/public/adt-VIT20081029.123025.
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This thesis examines the emergence of the nation in the British Empire in the process of thinking about empire, economy and biology during the late-Enlightenment and the nineteenth century. A key aspect of this, Knapman argues, was concern over the dialectic of civilization and order as it related to the barbarian and the savage. The notion of the barbarian grounded the European nations in time and therefore constructing a sense of origin and particularism. Equally the savage and the barbarian placed non-European cultures in time. The thesis draws on a range of writers from eighteenth and nineteenth centuries such as Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, David Hume, Thomas Malthus, John Stuart Mill, Charles Darwin, James Cowles Prichard, Robert Knox and many other lesser-known figures. This is related to an examination of the nation in British representations of Southeast Asia, including colonial officials such as Stamford Raffles, John Crawfurd, and James Brooke who produced encyclopaedic accounts of their experiences in Asia. The thesis argues that while the complex grammar of the British Empire divided the world into spheres of civilisation and barbarism, it retained a special place for barbarians within the core and thus allowed for the naturalisation of nations within the context of an empire of civilizing others.
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Anderson, Patrick. "The Algerian conflict (1954-1962) and the Northern Ireland conflict (1968-1974) in the British liberal press : a comparative analysis." Thesis, University of Ulster, 2001. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.365395.
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Palmer, R. William. "Twenty-first century celebrations of the British Armed Forces : the rise of the biopolitical military professional." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2017. https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/twentyfirst-century-celebrations-of-the-british-armed-forces--the-rise-of-the-biopolitical-military-professional(0eae07bc-4aee-40cd-9e2b-86a8889d2365).html.
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Over the past decade, the United Kingdom has witnessed a proliferation of civil-military initiatives that have engendered overt and celebratory displays of support for the British Armed Forces. This thesis interrogates two of these initiatives: the annual public relations event Armed Forces Day and the military charity Help for Heroes. Significantly, these initiatives have emerged against a backdrop of morally and politically contentious military violence, notably in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hence, these initiatives raise important questions about the type of politics which underwrite them. In this thesis, I address these questions by critically engaging with a figure who occupies a key position within this UK civil-military landscape: the professional soldier. Adopting a Foucauldian approach, I place this figure within a broader political, social and historical context and show how, since the end of the Second World War, the professional soldier has continually remerged to rewrite the conditions of possibility for liberal war-fighting. Drawing on this insight, I identify a professional soldier, I label the biopolitical military professional, who greatly informs the contours of this contemporary UK civil-military landscape. The biopolitical military professional is an important figure because they are able to co-opt "civilian" political subjects into the service of liberal-warfighting despite a conflict's political context. This is made possible because the biopolitical military professional is a figure who incorporates their military expertise and professional concerns within a wider set of life-administering knowledges concerned with the health and well-being of the population. Crucially, the most overt expressions of biopolitical military professionalism are produced through these UK civil-military initiatives. I demonstrate this by showing how these initiatives mobilise a whole host of "civilian" proto-professional subjects into the active service of liberal war-fighting through an appeal to both their military "obligations" and their fitness and wellbeing. An effect of this is that participating in one of these initiatives becomes more than an act of military support it also becomes a way of partaking in a healthy and life-enriching activity. For example, a day out at Armed Forces Day is a way to get children to take part in active play and educational activities. Supporting the armed forces through Help for Heroes may involve running a marathon or taking part in a long-distance cycle ride. Consequently, via the presence of the biopolitical military professional these initiatives achieve a certain resonance with a civilian population disinterested in the politics of war but increasingly concerned with their health and wellbeing.
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Smyser, Katherine A. "To Serve the Interests of the Empire? British Experiences with Zionism, 1917-1925." Ohio University / OhioLINK, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1339426202.
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Brown, Ruth Katharine. "The rise of the leisure painter : artistic creativity within the experience of ordinary life in postwar Britain, c. 1945-2000." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:4f9bec84-094e-4ec9-b36a-3b66e9330076.
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Since John Ruskin and William Morris's protestations against mass production in the nineteenth century, critics of mass consumption thought that it not only reduced the necessity, but also the desire, to make things for personal use and enjoyment. The history of leisure painting in art societies and adult education, and of the amateur artist’s consumption of art materials and self-help literature, shows that, on the contrary, affluence both inspired and facilitated a quest for self-actualisation amongst the rank and file. Creative activities such as drawing and painting served this quest at little financial cost to the individual. Following the Second World War, a significant increase in the take-up of leisure painting was encouraged by the state as part of the broader postwar settlement. The pursuit of personal wellbeing through creative activity was regarded as a public good, of benefit not only to individuals but also to the communities of which they were a part. In the last quarter of the twentieth century, state support for recreational pursuits such as leisure painting was pared back: in the shift from collectivist social democracy towards individualist market liberalism, personal enjoyment was recast as a private affair for which the consumer must pay. Painting continued to grow in popularity, supported by expanding consumer markets in self-help literature and affordable art materials. Yet while consumerism sustained the popularity of amateur art-making, the ways in which amateur artists participated in the arts changed. Personal creativity emerges here as an inherently social activity: the private experience of creativity is mediated and structured by society. Consumerism was not bad for personal creativity per se, but the replacement of a communitarian approach with a consumerist model restricted the breadth and reach of creative aspiration nurtured as part of the postwar settlement. By the end of the century, most amateurs were painting alone.
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Ghimire, Bishnu. "Imagining India from the Margins: Liberalism and Hybridity in Late Colonial India." Ohio University / OhioLINK, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1334344362.
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Neima, Charlotte Anna. "Dartington Hall and social reform in interwar Britain." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2019. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/289723.
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In the wake of the First World War, reformers across the Western world questioned laissez-faire liberalism, the self-oriented and market-driven ruling doctrine of the nineteenth century. This philosophy was blamed, variously, for the war, for industrialisation and for urbanisation; for a way of life shorn of any meaning beyond getting and keeping; for the too great faith in materialism and in science; and for the loss of a higher, transcendent meaning that gave a unifying altruistic or spiritual purpose to individual existence and to society as a whole. For many, the cure to these ills lay in reforming the liberal social framework in ways that made it more fulfilling to the whole person and that strengthened ties between individuals. Dartington Hall was an outstanding practical example of this impulse to promote holistic, integrated living. It was a well-financed, internationally-minded social and cultural experiment set up on an estate in South Devon in 1925 by American heiress Dorothy Elmhirst (née Whitney) and her second husband, Leonard, son of a Yorkshire squire-parson. The Elmhirsts' project for redressing the effects of laissez-faire liberalism had two components. Instead of being treated as atomised individuals in the capitalist market, participants at Dartington were to achieve full self-realisation through a 'life in its completeness' that incorporated the arts, education and spirituality. In addition, through their active participation in running the community, they were to demonstrate how integrated democracy could bring about the perfection of individuals and the progress of society as a whole. The Elmhirsts hoped that Dartington would provide a globally applicable model for a better way of life. This thesis is a close study of Dartington's interlinked constellation of experiments in education, the arts, agriculture and social organisation - experiments that can only be understood by tracing them back to their shared roots in the idea of 'life in its completeness'. At the same time, it explores how Dartington's philosophy and trajectory illuminate the wider reform landscape. The Elmhirsts' community echoed and cross-pollinated with other schemes for social improvement in Britain, Europe, America and India, as well as feeding into the broad social democratic project in Britain. Dartington's evolution from an independent, elite-led reform project to one split between state-led and communitarian reform matched the trajectory of other such enterprises begun in interwar Britain, making it a bellwether of changes in reformist thinking across the century.
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Lakin, Matthew. "Cameron's conservatisms and the problem of ideology." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:9c05f047-d134-4009-babb-ce6b986a36c4.
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The central aim of the thesis is to investigate the myriad ideological 'thought-practices' of Cameronism by placing the composition and content of Cameronism in the context of the problem of Thatcherism's legacy. This problem is namely a problem of the gap between intentions and outcomes. The thesis identifies three discreet, but also overlapping, ideological developments that take root in the late 1980s/early 1990s: (1) the steadfast commitment to reducing the size and scope of the central state; (2) the recognition that neo-liberal economics is a necessary but insufficient precondition for the delivery of wider Conservative outcomes; and (3) the rediscovery and commitment to the renewal of civil society as an alternative to state intervention in response to the perceived failures of neo-liberalism. The thesis examines the application of these ideological developments in Cameronism, both in theory and practice. Furthermore, it examines the political-thought practices of Cameronism in the context of the Coalition Government. Finally, the thesis analyses a serious Conservative ideological threat to Cameronite Conservatism, concluding that Cameronism is a distinct, decodable and distinctive Conservatism, which has been quickly eclipsed by other Conservatisms, namely the Conservatism of the New New Right, which is much closer to the Thatcherism that Cameronism was resolutely trying to adjust. British Conservatism has thus come full circle: the market society vision of Thatcherism, which Cameronism was trying to ideologically supplement, has been restored as the best and surest way to achieve the Conservative aim of a limited conception of politics.
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Ahmed, Farah. "Pedagogy as dialogue between cultures : exploring halaqah : an Islamic dialogic pedagogy that acts as a vehicle for developing Muslim children's shakhsiyah (personhood, autonomy, identity) in a pluralist society." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2018. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/278513.
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This thesis presents an argument for the use of dialogic halaqah to develop the personal autonomy of young Muslims in twenty-first century Britain. It begins by developing a theoretical grounding for Islamic conceptualisations of personal autonomy and dialogic pedagogy. In doing so, it aims to generate dialogue between Islamic and ‘western’ educational traditions, and to clarify the theoretical foundation of halaqah, a traditional Islamic oral pedagogy, that has been adapted to meet the educational needs of Muslim children in contemporary Britain. Dialogic halaqah is daily practice in two independent British Muslim faith-schools, providing a safe space for young Muslims to cumulatively explore challenging issues, in order to facilitate the development of selfhood, hybrid identity and personal autonomy, theorised as shakhsiyah Islamiyah. This thesis examines the relationship between thought, language, and the development of personal autonomy in neo-Ghazalian, Vygotskian and Bakhtinian traditions, and suggests the possibility of understanding shakhsiyah Islamiyah as a dialogical Muslim-self. This theoretical work underpins an empirical study of data generated through dialogic halaqah held with groups of schoolchildren and young people. Using established analytic schemes, data from these sessions are subjected to both thematic and dialogue analyses. Emergent themes relating to autonomy and choice, independent and critical thinking, navigating authority, peer pressure, and choosing to be Muslim are explored. Themes related to halaqah as dialogic pedagogy, whether and how it supports the development of agency, resilience and independent thinking, and teacher and learner roles in halaqah, are examined. Moreover, findings from dialogue analysis, which evaluates the quality of educational dialogue generated within halaqah, that is, participants’ capacity to engage in dialogue with each other, as well as with an imagined secular other, are presented. The quality of the dialogic interactions is evaluated, as is evidence of individual participant’s autonomy in their communicative actions.
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Cousson, Anne. "Droits de l'homme au Royaume-Uni entre 1998 et 2010 : entre politique nationale et droit international." Thesis, Sorbonne Paris Cité, 2016. http://www.theses.fr/2016USPCA143/document.
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Les droits de l’homme au Royaume-Uni sont un objet de vif débat, à la frontière entre le domaine juridique et le domaine politique. L’une des toutes premières mesures du gouvernement de Tony Blair a été de faire voter une loi en 1998 incorporant la Convention européenne des droits de l’homme au droit national, transformant ainsi sa protection à l’échelle nationale. Pourtant, les faiblesses de la loi sont rapidement apparues et elle a été remise en cause. En outre, le gouvernement a dû faire des choix politiques pour mettre en œuvre la protection des droits de l’homme. L’évolution de celle-ci a pu être paradoxale : d’un côté le droit à l’égalité a été renforcé et élargi, quand, de l’autre, le développement d’une politique sécuritaire a entraîné de nombreuses limites aux libertés individuelles. Enfin, les cours britanniques ont pu participer à la création de nouveaux droits comme le droit à la vie privée, qui est apparu dans le droit britannique. Tous les changements législatifs ont entraîné un changement dans la distribution des pouvoirs au Royaume-Uni, tant à l’échelle nationale, où le pouvoir exécutif a été renforcé, qu’à l’échelle européenne, où les pouvoirs des cours internationales a été perçu comme une ingérence dans la souveraineté du Parlement britannique. La politique des droits de l’homme des gouvernements de Tony Blair et Gordon Brown a donc été pétrie de contradictions, entre un engagement réel pour la défense de certains droits et les limites apportés à certains autres pour défendre la sécurité, et entre une volonté d’intégration dans l’UE et une réaction à un euroscepticisme croissantIn the United Kingdom, human rights have been strongly debated, both in the legal and political fields. One of the very first measures taken by the government of Tony Blair in 1998 has been to pass the Human Rights Act, a law incorporating the European convention on human rights into national law, therefore transforming the protection of human rights at the national level. However, the flaws of the Human Rights Act have appeared and it was contested soon after its passage. Furthermore, the government had to make political choices to implement in practice the protection of human rights. Their evolution can be considered paradoxical: the right to equality was strengthened and included more varied elements while the development of a strong security policy caused some civil liberties to be severely constrained. The British courts have also been able to participate in the creation of new rights, like the right to privacy which did not have an independent existence in English law until the courts recognised it, under European influence. The legal changes in the protection of human rights have caused a change in the way power is distributed in the United Kingdom, both at a national level, where the executive branch was strengthened, and in the relationship with Europe, where the power of international courts has been seen as infringing on British sovereignty. The human rights policies of the Blair and Brown governments, therefore, has been fraught with contradictions, living somewhere between the stronger protection of some rights and the tighter restraints created to defend security, and between the desire to participate more fully in European integration while still having to deal with growing Euroscepticism
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Bihet, Karine. "De la social-démocratie au social-libéralisme. Les débats au sein de la social-démocratie européenne : 1990-2010." Thesis, Paris 2, 2012. http://www.theses.fr/2012PA020006.
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La thèse vise à appréhender la situation de la social-démocratie européenne et son évolution au cours des deux dernières décennies. Adoptant une approche comparatiste, elle repose sur l’étude du Parti socialiste français, du Parti social-démocrate allemand et du Parti travailliste britannique. En partant du projet de Troisième voie proposé par Tony Blair et les modernisateurs du New Labour, il s’agit de montrer la mutation doctrinale et programmatique de ces partis. Ceux-ci, avec des divergences et des spécificités nationales, ont, dans les programmes adoptés et les politiques gouvernementales menées, convergé vers une même orientation d’ensemble, marquée par un accueil beaucoup plus favorable aux thèses libérales. Cette prise de distance par rapport au modèle traditionnel pour tendre vers un paradigme social-libéral ne signifie pas pour autant l’abandon des valeurs propres à la social-démocratie. Les partis concernés ont essayé de s’adapter au nouveau contexte économique et social tout en préservant les principes et les idéaux sociaux sur lesquels ils se sont construits. Le socle identitaire de cette famille politique demeure ainsi largement préservé. Cette évolution idéologique s’accompagne d’une mutation des organisations partisanes qui l’accomplissent. Celles-ci ont connu à la fois une modification de leur sociologie, électorale et militante(caractérisée par une désaffection des soutiens traditionnels), et une diminution de leur ancrage dans la société liée à la baisse du nombre d’adhérents et à l’éloignement par rapport aux syndicats. Leur place au sein des systèmes partisans nationaux est également remise en cause : dans la recherche du bon positionnement sur l’échiquier politique, la question des alliances avec les autres partis constitue alors un enjeu essentiel. Le mode de fonctionnement de ces organisations a enfin lui aussi connu des modifications significatives. Les réformes internes menées par les dirigeants tendent à valoriser l’adhérent et accroître son rôle ; de nouvelles pratiques militantes, plus individualistes, apparaissent. La fonction et la spécificité de ces partis s’en trouvent diminuéesThe thesis aims to understand the situation of european social democracy and its evolution over the last two decades. Taking a comparative approach, it is based on the study of French Socialist Party, the German Social Democratic Party and the British Labour Party. Beginning from the Third Way project proposed by Tony Blair and New Labour modernizers, the matter is to show the doctrinal and programmatic transformation of these parties. These, with some differences and national characteristics, in the programs and policies undertaken, have converged towards the same overall direction, marked by a much more favorable reception to liberal theories. This distancing from the traditional model to move towards a social-liberal paradigm does not necessary mean the abandonment of values belonging to the Social Democrats. The parties involved have tried to adapt to new economic and social context while preserving the principles and social ideals on which they are built. The base of this political family’s identity remains largely well preserved. The ideological evolution goes with a mutation of partisan organizations who realize it. These have experienced both a change in their sociology, electoral and activist (characterized by a dis like of traditional supporters), and a decrease from their roots in society related to the decline in membership and distance against unions. Their position within the party systems is also questionned : in search of good positioning on the political spectrum, the question of alliances with other parties is then a key issue. The modus operandi of these organizations has finally also experienced significant changes. Internal reforms undertaken by the leaders tend to enhance the member and increase its role and new militant practices, more individualistic, appear. The function and specificity of these parties have diminished
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Panton, James. "Politics, subjectivity and the public/private distinction : the problematisation of the public/private relationship in political thought after World War II." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2010. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:cb636385-aa16-44d1-abf5-2e835e62665c.
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A critical investigation of the public/private distinction as it has been conceived in Anglo-American political thinking in the second half of the 20th century. A broadly held consensus has developed amongst many theorists that public/private does not refer to any single determinate distinction or relationship but rather to an often ambiguous range of related but analytically distinct conceptual oppositions. The argument of this thesis is that if we approach public/private in the search for analytic or conceptual clarity then this consensus is correct. Against this I propose that a number of the most dominant invocations of the distinction can be understood to express public/private as an irreducibly political dialectic that mediates the relationship between the subjective and objective side of social and political life. By locating these conceptually diverse invocations within a broader and more determinate framework of the historical development and contestation of the boundaries which establish the conditions for subjectivity, as the assertion of political agency, on the one hand, and which demarcate, police and defend these particular boundaries, as part of the objectively given character of social life and institutional organisation, on the other hand, then a more determinate character to public/private can be recognized. I then seek to explore the capacity of this model to capture and explain the peculiar post-war problematisation of public/private amongst a number of new left thinkers in Britain and America.
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"The Biopolitics of Liberal Colonialism in India." Thesis, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10388/ETD-2014-12-1874.
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The history of colonialism is generally associated with the authoritarian regimes of the sixteenth century that expanded their reign for the purpose of material aggrandizement. Problems arise, however, when colonial regimes espouse explicit concern for the welfare of the subject population. Through a reading of British colonial discourse on India, as represented by the Economist newspaper, John Stuart Mill, George Campbell, and John William Kaye, I argue that market capitalism was seen as the means by which ‘backward’ Indian subjects would be ‘improved.’ But this ‘civilizing mission’ exposed Indian society to unprecedented violence as the British sought to enforce its conformity to a system of proprietorship and commercial production. To explain the paradox inherent to liberal colonialism I will employ the concept of biopolitics as developed by Michel Foucault. Biopolitics explains how the prioritization of ‘life’ leads, not to peaceful existence, but to efforts to eliminate elements of human activity deemed inimical to the reproduction of the species. In colonial India this took the form of adjudicating subjects’ ability to adapt to, and create, the circumstances for industry to flourish, showing that at its core, British rule in India represented an assault on the indeterminacy of life itself.
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Wolanski, Kari. "Poverty is a lifestyle choice and other neo-Liberal discursive tactics." Thesis, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/1828/1965.
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This thesis examines how neo-liberal discourse asserts its significant influence over welfare policy. It is premised on a Foucauldian understanding of power as a productive force that operates through discourse. Using the example of British Columbia's 2002 welfare reforms, I analyse discursive conflict between two policy `frames,' one emphasizing personal responsibility and the other social responsibility for addressing poverty. I focus on strategies and tactics employed in this conflict such as the depoliticization of poverty through the language of individual choice.
This thesis makes two contributions. First, it presents an argument about how broad public policy discourses shift over time, namely, through a succession of policy conflicts in which policy frames compete in the constantly shifting landscape of public dialogue for discursive influence to shape specific policy outcomes. Second, it offers a framework (discursive conflict analysis) to both analyse and intervene in discursive conflicts, with an emphasis on strategies for resistance to neo-liberalism.
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Reitz, Cheryl Rene. "Evaluation as protection : using curriculam evaluation to promote a just distribution of educational resources in a private post-secondary English-language liberal arts institution in Canada for Japanese students which uses a leveled, modular, skills-based mastery-learning entry programme." Thesis, 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/5977.
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This thesis examines how one might evaluate the justice of educational resource
distribution. It focusses on the criteria of institutional justice formulated by John Rawls:
according to these criteria inequality in the distribution of resources is only allowed if it
can be shown to benefit all groups, including 'the least favoured'. The thesis also
demonstrates how qualitative and quantitative research methods can be combined in
order to reach a more accurate and 'just' evaluation.
The research, which was conducted at a private post-secondary English - language
liberal arts institution in British Columbia for Japanese students, compares annual
student growth in English, both before and after the implementation of a three-to-ten-month
leveled, modular, mastery-learning program for entry-level students.
The research also includes interviews to determine teacher attitudes about the
previous and present programs and their effect on students. In both the qualitative and
quantitative studies, program effects on high-, medium-, and low-entry ability students
are looked at separately (in order to use Rawls' criteria).
The context of the research is clarified with short summaries of issues around
mastery learning, leveling versus tracking, and Japanese versus western education.
The quantitative research finds that, contrary to teacher impressions, the mean
improvement for students in the present program is not significantly different from that in
the previous program. The qualitative research however, points out important justice
implications not revealed by the other study.
The thesis concludes that (1) there are some problems with using Rawls' criteria
in an educational setting; (2) looking at program effects on three separate ability
groupings can reveal trends having justice implications; and (3) assessments of the
justice of educational resource distribution should attempt to triangulate with both
qualitative and quantitative studies which attempt to answer the same question.