Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Political campaigns Great Britain'
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1
Richardson, David William. "Non-party organisations and campaigns on European integration in Britain, 1945-1986 : political and public activism." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2014. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/5266/.
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This thesis is about non-party and non-governmental organisations campaigning for and against European integration in Britain between 1945 and 1986. These groups have been largely overlooked by studies on Britain’s relationship with Europe. The thesis will examine how these groups operated between the spheres of public activism and institutional politics. They targeted the general public directly with the aim of becoming popular mass movements, and focused on emotive and populist themes and adopted a moralistic tone as part of a broad non-party or cross-party appeal. Old-fashioned methods of activism, including pamphleteering and mass meetings, were used to cultivate a groundswell of support. However, these groups were not able to wrest control of the EEC membership issue away from Westminster. In the case of anti-EEC groups, attempts to acquire political influence and attract more parliamentarians to the campaign were at odds with the “anti-establishment” or “anti-political” tone adopted by sections of their support. Divisions over whether to adopt a more “insider” strategy of lobbying and adopting the model of a research-based think-tank or whether to continue seeking mass support stifled the campaign. Disagreement over strategy, and the confused position between public protest and Westminster politics, caused the anti-EEC campaign’s to fail.
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Dekavalla, Marina. "General elections in the post-devolution period : press accounts of the 2001 and 2005 campaigns in Scotland and England." Thesis, University of Stirling, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/2301.
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This thesis examines and compares newspaper coverage of the first two general elections after Scottish devolution, looking at both the Scottish and English/UK press. By considering the coverage of a major political event which affects both countries, it contributes to debates regarding the performance of the Scottish press within an arguably distinct Scottish public sphere as well as that of the press in England within a post-devolution context. The research is based on a content analysis of all the coverage of the 2001 and 2005 elections in seven Scottish and five English and UK daily morning newspapers, a critical discourse analysis of a sample of the coverage of the most mentioned issues in each campaign and a small set of interviews with Scottish political editors. As a framework for its analysis, this thesis focuses on theories of national identity and deliberative democracy in the media. It finds that the coverage of elections in the two countries has a similar issue agenda, however Scottish newspapers appear less interested in the UK aspect of the elections and include debates on Scottish affairs which are discussed in isolation, within an exclusively Scottish mediated space. These issues are constructed as particularly relevant to a Scottish readership through references to the nation, inclusive modes of address to the reader and the inclusion of exclusively Scottish sources, which contrast with the Scottish coverage of “UK” issues. This distinction between “Scottish” and “UK” topics emerges as the key differentiating factor in the discursive construction of election issues in the Scottish press, rather than that between devolved and reserved issues. Newspapers in England on the other hand, report on the two campaigns without taking into consideration the post-devolution political reality. These core questions are contextualized within the thesis by reference to relevant dimensions of Scottish culture and politics, and interpreted in the light of events since 2005.
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Koštel, Jakub. "K proměně politického prostředí ve Velké Británii v důsledku nástupu masových médií (60.-70. léta 20. století)." Master's thesis, Vysoká škola ekonomická v Praze, 2012. http://www.nusl.cz/ntk/nusl-165672.
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The main theme of this thesis is the relationship between media and politics in Great Britain mainly in the twentieth century. The research is based on the fact that dynamic post-war growth in technological and economical areas resulted in the development and mass expansion of new media, especially radio and television broadcasting. The main goal of the thesis is to analyze the transformation of British political environment and to verify the hypothesis arguing that this transformation was primarily caused by the development of new media. Changes in the British politics during the twentieth century are demonstrated especially by the election campaigns and methods of political communication. Another part of this work is also the brief analysis of the development of British mass media (press, radio and television) which provides an important context for achieving the stated objectives. The thesis is methodologically based on the research from fields of media history, political history and sociology which concentrates on political communication.
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Desrumaux, Clément. "Contes de campagne : sociologie comparée des conjonctures électorales législatives en France et en Grande-Bretagne (1997-2007)." Thesis, Lille 2, 2013. http://www.theses.fr/2013LIL20008.
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Qu'est-ce qu'une campagne électorale ? Entendue tantôt comme une période, parfois comme unecompétition ou encore comme un ensemble de techniques de sollicitation des suffrages, la notion de"campagne électorale" est difficile à circonscrire. Cette thèse se propose d’analyser comment semodifient les pratiques des agents, leurs interactions et les structures du jeu politique pour former cequi se présente et s’interprète comme étant une "campagne électorale". Il s'agit alors d'analyser uneconjoncture particulière du politique, coproduite par les agents de champs différents (notammentpolitique et journalistique). Cette conjoncture se décline pratiquement en un ensemble de jeuxélectoraux plus ou moins compétitifs en fonction des propriétés sociales et politiques des candidats etdes représentations qu’ils se font du jeu. Ces jeux déterminent en grande partie les mobilisationsélectorales menées, tant dans l’adaptation du programme électoral défendu, que dans les modesd’action mis en oeuvre. Au final, l'espace politique des conjonctures électorales s'analyse comme unensemble de configurations d'agents plus ou moins liées et imbriquées. Cette approcheconfigurationnelle des conjonctures électorales se fonde sur l'analyse empirique des campagnesélectorales législatives en France et en Grande-Bretagne et se concentre sur les candidats de quatrepartis politiques (Parti socialiste, Union pour un mouvement populaire, Parti travailliste et Particonservateur)What is exactly an electoral campaign? Sometimes understood as a period, occasionally as acompetition or as a set of techniques to get out the vote, the notion of "electoral campaign" is hard toclarify. The core of this work is to analyse changes in the practices of social agents, in theirinteractions and in the structures of the political game that, in the end, form what looks like - and isinterpreted as- an "electoral campaign". Thus, a campaign is conceived as a particular politicalconjuncture constructed jointly by agents, belonging to different fields (notably the political and thejournalistic ones). This conjuncture presents itself as a set of electoral games, which are more or lesscompetitive according to the social and political properties of candidates and the representations theyhave concerning the game. These games largely determine how electoral mobilisations are carriedout, both regarding the adaptation of manifestos and the means of action implemented. Eventually, thepolicy space during electoral conjunctures can be analysed as a set of configurations of agents thatare more or less linked and intertwined together. The configurational approach of electoralconjunctures is based on the empirical analysis of parliamentary campaigns in France and GreatBritain and focuses on the candidates of four political parties (French Socialist Party, French Union fora Popular Movement, British Labour Party and British Conservative Party)
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Bregman, Abigail Sibley. "The view from the classroom : English school-teachers' responses to domestic and international problems of the interwar years 1919-1939." Thesis, McGill University, 1986. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=72832.
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Mackillop, Andrew. "Military recruiting in the Scottish Highlands 1739-1815 the political, social and economic context /." Thesis, Connect to e-thesis, 1995. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/680/.
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Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Glasgow, 1995.PH.D. thesis submitted to the Faculty of Arts, Department of History, University of Glasgow, 1995. Includes bibliographical references. Print version also available.
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Tsang, S. Y. S. "Great Britain and constitutional reform in Hong Kong (1945-1952)." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1985. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.371769.
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Chiarodo, Nicole M. "From Behind Closed Doors to the Campaign Trail: Race and Immigration in British Party Politics, 1945-1965." [Tampa, Fla] : University of South Florida, 2008. http://purl.fcla.edu/usf/dc/et/SFE0002660.
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Thévoz, Seth Alexander. "The political impact of London clubs, 1832-1868." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2014. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/62958/.
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This thesis examines the political role played by the private members' clubs of the St. James's district of London, between the first two Reform Acts. The thesis looks at the institutional history of such establishments and their evolution insofar as it affected their political work. It then analyses the statistical trends in club membership among Members of Parliament, the overwhelming majority of whom belonged to political clubs. The crucial role of clubs in whipping is detailed, including analysis of key divisions. The distinctive political use of space by clubs is then set out, including an overview of the range of meetings and facilities offered to parliamentarians. Finally, the thesis seeks to address the broader impact of clubs on national electoral politics in this period.
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Cordiner, Tom Stuart. "Zionism and aspects of British political culture since 1945." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2013. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.648164.
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Galatas, Steven E. "Political issues and leadership : voting behavior in Canada and Great Britain /." free to MU campus, to others for purchase, 2000. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/mo/fullcit?p9988661.
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Brown, Joseph Andrew. "The sociology of first-time voting in Great Britain, (1964-1987)." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1991. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.316954.
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Young, John Roach. "The Scottish Parliament, 1639-1661 : a political and constitutional analysis." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 1993. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/8391/.
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The Covenanting Movement was essentially composed of radicals and conservatives. Radicals were in a minority among the noble estate, but had a strong base among the gentry and the burgesses. In addition, pragmatic Royalists were Royalists who accepted and subscribed compulsory Covenanting oaths and obligations in order to secure admission to public office, particularly Parliament. The radical wing of the Covenanting Movement dominated parliamentary proceedings from 1639-1646. A radical political and constitutional agenda had been formulated prior to the 1639 Parliament. Such an agenda was enacted in the Scottish Constitutional Settlement of 1640-41. The radicals similarly-orchestrated the calling of the 1643 Convention of Estates and the signing of the Solemn League and Covenant. Whilst there was a rapprochement between radical and conservative nobles in 1645-1646, the cutting edge of the radicals was maintained by the gentry and burgesses and the emergence of a Scottish Commons can be detected. The crisis over the position of the king in 1646-1647 led to the ascendancy of conservatism among the Scottish Estates, 1647-1648. The defeat of the Engagement Army in the summer of 1648 led to a coup d'etat in Scotland and the instillation of a radical regime which held power unchallenged until the defeat at the Battle of Dunbar in September 1650. Thereafter there was a patriotic accommodation between the various political factions in Scotland in light of the growing threat to national independence from Cromwellian military forces. Following military defeat at the hands of Cromwell, Scotland eventually became incorporated within the Commonwealth and Protectorate. In political terms, the continuance of an "Argyll interest" can be observed. The Restoration witnessed the rescinding of Covenanting legislation. although Covenanting procedures were adopted, rather than abandoned. Whilst the Restoration witnessed the reassertion of noble power. a significant political role for the gentry was still maintained. That the gentry and burgesses provided the political backbone of the Covenanting Movement was reflected in the complicated committee structure of Parliament. 1639-1651. In addition. non-parliamentary gentry and burgesses were regularly involved in the proceedings of both parliamentary session and interval committees. Detailed parliamentary procedures and regulations were established in 1640-41 and continued to be modified according to circumstances throughout the 1640s and continued to 1651. The Restoration Parliament of 1661 saw a return to more traditional parliamentary regulation, particularly under the control of the crown and crown royal appointees.
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Coupland, Philip M. "Voices from nowhere : utopianism in British political culture 1929-1945." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2000. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/34757/.
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This thesis employs an analytical concept of 'utopianism' to examine British political culture between the economic crisis of 1929-31 and the 1945 election. In contrast to the commonplace meanings of 'utopia', utopianism is understood in a positive sense and conceptualised as composed of three dialectically interrelated parts. In summary, the starting point of any utopia is an appreciation of life as it is, based on a critical gaze on society specific to the life-world of the onlooker. This gaze is parent to the second part of this concept, the object of desire, the utopia itself. The third aspect of utopianism is the 'praxis of desire', the strategies and tactics by which the good life is sought. This concept is employed to focus on the rhetorical formations and discursive content of the public utterances of the Labour Party, the Communist Party of Great Britain, the British Union of Fascists, the Federation of Progressive Societies and Individuals and the Common Wealth party, known collectively as the 'New Utopians'. The critiques of existing society, ideals of the 'New Man' and blueprints for, and visions of, the 'New Britain' of these parties are drawn out and discussed. As an alternative analytical framework to 'class' models of politics, the concept of utopianism de-familiarises the material, allowing the commonality and promiscuity of political ideas to emerge. Through the notion of the 'praxis of desire', how utopia was sought in a national tradition of democracy, continuity and non-violence is examined, and the dichotomy between 'utopian' and 'practical' politics interrogated. Finally, an alternative narrative of the 'Road to 1945' is constructed. By viewing the aspirations of ordinary people in terms of 'demotic utopianism', the political subject is posited as an active, reflective agent rather than an individual whose 'interests' are prefigured by their 'class'. In this way the diversity and subjectivity of desire is reinserted into the historical narrative.
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Thompson, Stephen John. "Census-taking, political economy and state formation in Britain, c. 1790-1840." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2010. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/265510.
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Since 1801 the British government has counted the population once every ten years. Only the Second World War has interrupted this practice, making the census one of the most enduring administrative institutions of the modern British state. This dissertation is about why legislators and political economists first sought to quantify demographic change in the early nineteenth century. The first chapter explains the administrative organisation of census-taking under John Rickman, who directed the first four censuses. The second chapter examines the legislative origins of census-taking in eighteenth-century Britain. It compares the efforts of two backbenchers, Thomas Potter and Charles Abbot, to establish a national census in 1753 and 1800. The third chapter analyses the pre-census empirical basis of fiscal policy during the 1790s, paying patticular attention to William Pitt the Younger's use of political arithmetic to estimate the yield of Britain's first income tax. The fou1th chapter examines the function and limitations of the population data used by four national accountants - Benjamin Bell, Henry Beeke, J. J. Grellier and Patrick Colquhoun - in their responses to Pitt's new tax. The fifth chapter re-assesses the economic and social thought of Robet1 Southey, whose opposition to T. R. Malthus's Essay on the pr;ndple of populahon, and especially its commitment to poor law abolition, arose from a fundamental disagreement about the state's role in welfare provision. The sixth and seventh chapters consider the relationship between information gathering and state formation. Chapter six quantifies the number and range of printed accounts and papers produced by the House of Commons in the early nineteenth century. It challenges previous analyses which have used public expenditure and statute-making as measures of state formation. The final chapter explores how census data was used to determine the redistribution of parliamentary representation that took place as a result of the 1832 Reform Act. Employing a diverse range of methodologies and sources, this study contributes to histories of economic thought and state formation by revealing the extent to which political arithmetic converged with Smithian political economy during the French revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. This convergence proved sho1t-lived, however, and early nineteenthcentury political arithmetic was consigned to historical oblivion by the world 's first professional economist, John Ramsay McCulloch. Nonetheless, reasoning by 'number, weight, or measure', paiticularly in respect of population, challenged and transformed the conduct of parliamentary business in this period, leading to the legislative dissolution of the existing electoral system in 1832.
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Crewe, Thomas James. "Political leaders, communication, and celebrity in Britain, c1880-c1900." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2016. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.709506.
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Lacey, Anita (Anita Nicole) 1974. "Networks of protest, communities of resistance : autonomous activism in contemporary Britain." Monash University, Centre for European Studies, 2001. http://arrow.monash.edu.au/hdl/1959.1/8628.
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Even, M. "The evolution of political television in Britain and its influence on election campaigns 1950-1970." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1986. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.375887.
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Fox, Stuart. "Apathy, alienation and young people : the political engagement of British millennials." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2015. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/30532/.
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Conventional wisdom holds that today’s young people, often known as ‘the Millennials’, are a politically alienated generation. Their hostility towards political parties, association with protest movements, and low electoral turnout are all said to indicate their alienation from the processes and institutions of Western democracy. This conventional wisdom stands, however, on shaky ground. Previous research has given too little attention to the definition and measurement of political alienation, and has barely explored its causal relationship with political participation. The use of methods capable of exploring the generational distinctiveness of the Millennials has been limited, as have efforts to outline why the Millennials should be conceptualised as a distinct political generation in the first place, and what is gained from doing so. Focussing on the case of Britain, this study explores the extent to which the Millennials are a distinct political generation in terms of political participation, political apathy, and political alienation, and considers how their conceptualisation as a distinct generation improves our understanding of their political characteristics. Furthermore, it tests the theory that their alienation from, rather than their apathy towards, formal politics can explain their distinct political behaviour. Through critiquing and developing conceptualisations of the Millennials as a political generation, and of political apathy, alienation and participation, this thesis challenges the conventional wisdom. The Millennials are a distinct generation in terms of their political participation, apathy and alienation – but they are distinct for their lack of participation, their unusually high levels of apathy towards formal politics, and their unusually low levels ofalienation from it. The Millennials have the potential to be the most politically apathetic, and least politically alienated, generation to have entered the British electorate since World War Two. In addition, this research also shows that while generational differences are significant and often substantial, they make only a limited contribution to explaining variation in political apathy, alienation and participation. This research argues, therefore, that future studies into and policy responses to the political behaviour of young people must recognise their distinct levels of political apathy. At the same time, however, the focus on political generations should not be so intense as to obscure the role of more influential causes of differences in political participation.
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Drummond, Charles Robert. "Military power and political thinking in later Stuart Britain, 1660-1701." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2015. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.709194.
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Squires, Michael. "Change and continuity : an appraisal of railway policy making in Great Britain." Thesis, University of Sheffield, 1999. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.310933.
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Gibbons, Geoffrey. "The political career of Thomas Wriothesley, First Earl of Southampton, 1505-1550." Thesis, University of Warwick, 1999. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/4242/.
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The introduction to the thesis gives an overview of the life and career of Thomas Wriothesley and considers the primary and secondary sources which provide the material upon which the thesis is based. It is followed by a detailed consideration of Wriothesley's sixteen years in the service of Wolsey. and Cromwell, recording his growing competence and authority in the administrative machinery of mid-Tudor government and in his influence in the day to day management of state affairs as Cromwell's secretary. The third section concentrates on Wriothesley's four years as the king's secretary, referring to his work in the financial field in obtaining funds to finance the king's wars. It examines his growing status in the court and privy council, and reviews his work as an ambassador for Henry after 1530. Henry's confidence in him ensured his occasional employment as a special, rather than resident ambassador to the imperial court, and his work in this specialist field is investigated. Wriothesley held the office of lord chancellor for only three years and in that period made a limited impact in a judicial sense, in part due to his restricted professional expertise. His principal function over those years, of finding means to financing the high costs of Henry's military campaigns, and putting in order the chaotic condition of the monetary system, is closely examined. Wriothesley's growing involvement as lord chancellor in the developing factional struggles that encompassed the privy chamber and the council mostly, but not only, in religious matters is also assessed. His role in other aspects of the office of lord chancellor, in parliament, in framing proclamations and as the senior member of the government dealing with foreign ambassadors,is considered in detail. Perhaps the most important feature of the last years of Wriothesley's career was his deep involvement in the political and religious turmoils of the latter years of Henry's reign and the first two years of Edward's. In the period between 1544 and 1550, perhaps for the only occasions in his life, serious misjudgement of events put him in real peril of his life and property, lost him the office of lord chancellor and effectively sidelined him for most of the last two years of his life. In his efforts to ruin Queen Catherine Parr, his harassment of reformers, and in his mistaken view during the last three months of the Protectorate that Warwick was really a Henrician catholic in disguise, Thomas Wriothesley showed a surprising degree of self-deception. His actions suggest that his political instinct failed him at the most crucial points in his career. Substantial rewards, which usually followed a period of valuable royal service or successful military achievement, were in Wriothesley's case gathered in a relatively short lifetime of determined endeavour. We examine in Appendix 1, the many financial benefits and landed property he secured and retained successfully, the offices he gathered and consider the extent of his authority and influence in his home county of Hampshire. In Appendices 2 and 3 we look briefly at Titchfield Place, Wriothesley's home in Hampshire and the detailed provisions of his Will. The thesis concludes with an assessment of the life, administrative and political career of Thomas Wriothesley, in the context of the mid-Tudor period.
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Shaw, Kate Alexander. "Narrating boom and bust : the life-cycle of ideas and narrative in New Labour's political economy, 1997-2010." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2018. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3813/.
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This research contributes to the growing subfield of ideational political economy, by developing a theory of narrative in economic policymaking. Economic policymakers operate under conditions of perpetual uncertainty, but must achieve and project certitude in order to support confidence, and as a basis for policy. This dilemma is principally resolved through the construction of economic narratives: causal stories that mobilise a set of economic ideas in order to define the economy, its relationship to policy, and its expected future trajectory. Such narratives should be understood as social constructions, not as projections of, or diversions from, the material facts. However they are vulnerable to events that fall outside their account of the economy, a vulnerability which tends to increase with time. Constructivist political economy has historically been oriented more to the explanation of change than continuity. The resilience of neoliberal policy frameworks through the crisis of 2008 has therefore posed challenges for a subfield that has tended to treat ideas and discourse as a source of creative political agency, and a counterweight to the conservatism of interests and institutions. The thesis presents a case study of the New Labour government of the UK (1997-2010) in which ideas and narrative are shown to be largely changeresistant, generating political, and to some extent policy, continuity through crisis. The case study disaggregates two properties of economic policy narratives: internal validity, which is concerned with consistency and coherence, and external validity, which relates to the perceived external conditions. By tracing the evolution of the two validities across the lifetime of an economic narrative, we see that rhetorics which begin as the expression of political agency evolve, over time, into structural conditions that impose powerful cognitive and ideological constraints on their narrators. A theory of the life-cycle of economic policy narratives is proposed, comprised of four evolutionary phases: construction, reinforcement, crisis and fragmentation.
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Szpakowicz, Błażej Sebastian. "British trade, political economy and commercial policy towards the United States, 1783-1815." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2012. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.610189.
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Hilton, Adrian. "Free schools : the role of Conservative and Liberal political thought in shaping the policy." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:961415dd-a137-4f0d-b8e7-1b1927835053.
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'The landscape of schooling in England has been transformed over the last five years' (House of Commons Education Committee, 2015:3). More than half of secondary schools in England have become academies, independent of local authorities and funded directly by central government. The programme was begun by New Labour in 2002, and by the time they left office at the 2010 General Election 203 academies had been established. The policy was considerably extended between 2010-2015 by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition, and 'Free Schools' were introduced by Education Secretary Michael Gove: that is, schools 'set up in response to what local people say they want and need in order to improve education for children in their community' (DfE, 2013/2015). By the time of the 2015 general election, there were 4,674 newly-sponsored or converter academies and 252 'Free Schools', representing 64% of secondary school students (47% of all state school students), and 51% of secondary schools (32% of all state schools). This research argues the hypothesis that there is a high degree of philosophical continuity on this policy across the main political parties in England. It also analyses the extent to which the policy-makers invoke historical expressions of conservatism and/or liberalism in their articulation of that convergence. Drawing on past associations with politicians, the principal expositors and key architects of the 'Free Schools' policy were interviewed, and these transcripts have given insight into how the themes of policy are conceptualised and understood. The data suggests that there are convergent philosophical views across the main political parties, and agreement on the course of history of the policy. There are, however, ethical concerns about the pace of reform, the primacy of the 'market', and the extent to which democratic public goods are consistent with schools that are 'free'.
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St, John-Smith Christopher. "The judiciary and the political use and abuse of the law by the Caroline regime, 1625-1640." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2016. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:cf332e84-3b73-4e0b-86e8-b3ea55e41ced.
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In December 1640 the Long Parliament brought accusations against Lord Keeper Finch and six judges of the three main Westminster courts. These asserted the illegality of decisions and opinions given by these judges. This thesis examines those accusations and argues that the government of Charles I engaged in a defensible process of political management of the law and the judges to legitimate its policies particularly after the suspension of parliament in 1629. This policy emerged as a response to the government's difficulties in enforcing the payment of the Forced Loan caused by its dubious legality. The policy took advantage of important features of the contemporary relationship between the law and the government and it had five features. The most senior and able lawyers were recruited as government law officers and counsel. They amassed and used a substantial and well researched body of legal authority to support royal rights. The chief justices were appointed from amongst the government lawyers and were used as political managers of their courts. New incentives were offered as rewards for the most senior judges. Judicial views on aspects of government policy were sought in advance and the Privy Council was used to by-pass the judges if necessary. These features are examined in relation to government revenue policies including distraint of knighthood fines and the forest laws, and religious policies in relation to the application of the writ of prohibition to the economic condition of the Church and High Commission. The application of this analysis to the Ship Money Case is considered. It is concluded that the judges were manipulated rather than coerced and often successfully avoided the pressure by technical stratagems. Most importantly the government showed that it generally had the law on its side. That had serious political implications but went a long way towards exonerating the judges.
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Leslie, Patrick. "Political behaviour in the United Kingdom : an examination of Members of Parliament and voters." Thesis, University of Essex, 2018. http://repository.essex.ac.uk/22109/.
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This thesis builds on quantitative British politics scholarship with four papers unified by a strong emphasis on positivist theory, research design and cutting edge statistical methodology. I examine political behaviour among representatives in the UK's House of Commons and voting behaviour in the 2016 EU Referendum. I show that the UK parliamentary system's reliance on strong party discipline has important adverse consequences for public approval. Firstly, I show how high-salience debates such Prime Minister's Questions bring out the worst behaviours in MPs. As parties' access to the floor (ability to make speeches) is reduced, MP behaviour becomes more aggressive. Secondly, with co-authors, I examine the conditions under which ideologically extreme MPs are more likely to vote against their party. We find that the impact of such behaviour affects party unity more often when in government, meaning that parties are more likely to appear united until they elected, at which point party divides become more apparent once again. Thirdly, I show that career progression in the House of Commons rewards 'insider' behaviour such as increased attendance and participation in House of Commons debate and a focus on national rather than local issues. The power political parties have over the future of political leadership tends to centralise power and reward party politicians to whom the general public feels no strong affinity. In the final paper, we analyse voting behaviour during the 2016 EU Referendum assessing the potential effect of rainfall on the referendum result. We find that if the referendum had occurred on a sunny day, the likely result would have widened the margin of victory for Vote Leave. In the most comprehensive statistical analysis of the referendum to date, we concur with earlier analyses that that the surprise result was driven by strong Brexit support in districts of economic and social deprivation, particularly in rural and suburban locations.
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Cooper, Christopher. "Conservatism, imperialism and appeasement : the political career of Douglas Hogg, first Viscount Hailsham 1922-38." Thesis, University of Liverpool, 2012. http://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/8817/.
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By using the political career of the leading Conservative Douglas Hogg, 1st Viscount Hailsham, as a prism, this thesis explores important aspects of inter-war British politics. Considering that Hailsham held key posts during the 1920s and 1930s, his career has attracted less historical coverage than one would expect. By charting his important role in the policy-making process, this study sheds light upon the major challenges facing Conservative leaders and enhances our understanding of British politics during this turbulent period. Hailsham helped shape the moderate form of Conservatism that asserted itself at this time and became intimately involved in formulating Britain’s imperial, defence and foreign policies. Hailsham’s contribution to the Conservatives’ response to the rise of the Labour Party during Britain’s newfound age of mass democracy emphasises the intricacies of inter-war Conservatism. Notwithstanding the overwhelmingly working class electorate, the Conservatives were the dominant party at the polls and this study demonstrates that Hailsham played no small part in the Conservatives’ highly successful inter-war appeal. By the end of the 1920s, he had assumed such a prominent position that a number of high-ranking Tories regarded him as Stanley Baldwin’s likely successor. During the 1930s, Hailsham confirmed that he was a committed imperialist. He was amongst those who defined Britain’s policy as the Empire was transformed into the Commonwealth. He also made important contributions to the interplay between the National Government’s foreign and defence policies. He was one of only a handful of ministers whose continued presence allowed them to make interventions in Britain’s disarmament, rearmament and appeasement policies during the era of the European dictators and the rise of militaristic Japan. Hailsham’s contribution is even more significant because he has strong claims to being the first cabinet minister to express disquiet over the mounting German menace.
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Royed, Terry J. "Policy promises and policy action in the United States and Great Britain, 1979-1988 /." The Ohio State University, 1992. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1487780865407853.
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McManamon, Anthony. "The House of Lords and the British political tradition." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2012. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/3749/.
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This thesis seeks to develop a conception of the British Political Tradition as an idea of democracy and apply it to explain the constitutional development of the House of Lords. The British Parliament is one of the oldest Parliaments in the world and is characterised both by the stability of its governing institutions and its capacity to absorb change. Academic literature of the British Political Tradition offers a plethora of arguments aimed at explaining which idea(s) have underpinned governing institutions and sustained their longevity in the constitution. The objective of this thesis is to demonstrate how the stability of Britain’s governing institutions and its history of strong authoritative government emanate from a dominant though contested idea of democracy founded upon a limited liberal idea of representation and a conservative idea of responsibility. The House of Lords is examined from the 1688 Glorious Revolution through to the modern day House of Lords Reform process (2012). The aim is to demonstrate through empirical practice how the British Political Tradition has been the dominant idea shaping the development the constitution and defining the powers of the Crown and the Houses of Lords and Commons.
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Fielding, Steven. "The Irish Catholics of Manchester and Salford : aspects of their religious and political history, 1890-1939." Thesis, University of Warwick, 1988. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/34809/.
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The purpose of this thesis was to highlight an aspect of the heterogeneous character of working class culture. To this end, it investigated the Irish Catholic population of Manchester and Salford, two cities not normally associated with sectarianism, in the period 1890-1939, a time when anti-Irish and anti-Catholic sentiment was supposedly on the wane in the face of 'class' feeling. The study concluded that hostilities based on nationality and religion were a recurrent feature of popular culture. The rise of the Labour party failed to transform such deep-rooted sentiments, to some extent it made use of them. The Catholic Church used its extensive influence in order to isolate adherents from non-Catholics, thereby contributing to the prevalent - although often latent - sectarian feelings. Despite changes which helped weaken the strength of mutual mistrust, in 1939 Irish Catholics remained culturally Janus-faced: they were neither fully Irish nor completely Mancunian. Consequently, they held a contingent and variable place within the city's working class. This study utilised numerous source materials, including oral history, the local press, Catholic diocesan and parochial archives, as well as political records.
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Napier, Steven. "Political Development of Subaltern Education in Great Britain, the United States, and India." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1337718264.
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Henderson, Nancy Ann. "British Aristocratic Women and Their Role in Politics, 1760-1860." PDXScholar, 1994. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/4799.
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British aristocratic women exerted political influence and power during the century beginning with the accession of George III. They expressed their political power through the four roles of social patron, patronage distributor, political advisor, and political patron/electioneer. British aristocratic women were able, trained, and expected to play these roles. Politics could not have existed without these women. The source of their political influence was the close interconnection of politics and society. In this small, inter-connected society, women could and did influence politics. Political decisions, especially for the Whigs, were not made in the halls of government with which we are so familiar, but in the halls of the homes of the social/political elite. However, this close interconnection can make women's political influence difficult to assess and understand for our twentieth century experience. Sources for this thesis are readily available. Contemporary, primary sources are abundant. This was the age of letter and diary writing. There is, however, a dearth of modern works concerning the political activities of aristocratic women. Most modern works rarely mention women. Other problems with sources include the inappropriate feminization of the time period and the filtering of this period through modern, not contemporary, points of view. Separate spheres is the most common and most inappropriate feminist issue raised by historians. This doctrine is not valid for aristocratic women of this time. The material I present in this thesis is not new. The sources, both contemporary and modern, have been available to historians for some time. By changing our rigid definition of politics by enlarging it to include the broader areas of political activities such as social patron, patronage distributor, political advisor, and political/electioneer, we can see British aristocratic women in a new light, revealing political power and influence.
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Burgess, Christopher. "From the political pipe to devil eyes : a history of the British election poster from 1910-1997." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2014. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/27689/.
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Despite their use in every British general election of the twentieth and twentieth first century, the political poster remains largely unconsidered by the majority of historians working in the field of British politics. This thesis is the first study dedicated entirely to the posters role in British elections. Through five election case studies, the work contextualises the poster within the broader narratives of election culture. Unusually for studies of political communication, it is the type and content of the communication – namely the poster – that forms the central focus of each chapter. Each of which seeks to locate the production, content and display of posters parties produced for an election, within the broader landscape of that elections particular culture. Understandably given the structure of the thesis, chronologically long, but heavily focused on specific events, the conclusions are at times pertinent to a particular moment. By studying communication in this way, however, by locating posters in one election and understanding them as products of the culture that produced them, the research expands on and questions some of the key totems that define research into British political communication. Moreover, the thesis positions the poster not as an archaic dying form of communication; one replaced by those electronic media that have been of far greater interest to academics, namely television and more latterly online platforms. Rather, as argued here, parties’ use of the poster has constantly been in a state of flux. Ultimately, posters are objects that are constantly being re-imagined for each new age.
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Kroeter, Chloe Melinda. "Art and activism : promoting change through British periodical illustration, 1893-1914." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2013. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.648341.
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Larcinese, Valentino. "Political information, elections and public policy." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2003. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/431/.
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This thesis contributes to the study of the role of information in elections and public policy formation. Its main focus is on information acquisition and voting behaviour. Chapter 1 discusses the motivation of this research and presents a survey of related literature. Chapter 2 focuses on electoral turnout, Chapter 3 on public policy, and Chapter 4 on mass media. Chapter 2 studies the impact of information on electoral turnout. Since incentives to be informed are correlated with other incentives to participate in public life, a model of information acquisition and turnout is introduced to isolate potential instrumental variables and try to establish a causal relation. Results are tested on the 1997 General Election in Britain. It is shown that information, as well as ideology, matters for turnout. It also contributes to explain the systematic correlation of turnout with variables like education and income. Voters' knowledge of candidates and of other political issues is also substantially influenced by mass media. Chapter 3 presents a model that links the distribution of political knowledge with redistributive policies. It argues that voters can have private incentives to be informed about politics and that such incentives are correlated with income. Therefore redistribution will be systematically lower than what the median voter theorem predicts. Moreover, more inequality does not necessarily lead to an increase in redistribution and constitutional restrictions might have unintended consequences. In Chapter 4 it is argued that instrumentally motivated voters should increase their demand for information when elections are close. In supplying news, mass media should take into account information demand, as well as the value of customers to advertisers and the cost of reaching marginal readers. Information supply should therefore be larger in electoral constituencies where the contest is expected to be closer, the population is on average more valuable for advertisers, and the population density is higher. These conclusions are then tested with good results on data from the 1997 General Election in Britain.
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Brown, Anthony Steven. "Defending the faith from France : an underlying motivation of the English Crown's political relationship with the Papacy, 1509-1522." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2011. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/2834/.
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This study argues that Leo X’s naming Henry VIII ‘fidei defensor’ (1521) represented the culmination of a political strategy aimed at protecting the papacy from France since 1509. Based on full reconstruction of the Anglo-papal narrative, this was found to be motivated by a xenophobia rooted in England’s historic rivalry with France and further fuelled by the prospect that French hegemony in Italy would limit papal ‘independence’. While Henry preferred military means to pursue this, limitations of English power and geography sometimes forced him to employ peaceful methods to divert the French from Italy (1517 on). This thesis was tested on several aspects of the Anglo-papal relationship: papal honours, censures, the influencing of conclaves and composition of the cardinalate. In each, Henry acted as the papacy’s ‘loyal’ defender against France, expecting active support from and to be appropriately rewarded by Rome, particularly by the politicised invocation of papal ‘spiritual’ authority. Furthermore, popes cultivated this English self-perception when they sought support against France. In consequent attempts by both parties to assert political leverage over each other, Henry occasionally succeeded in gaining concessions from Rome (a cardinal’s hat here, an honorary award there), but often found it difficult to capitalise on this.
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Malfoy, Jordan I. "Britain Can Take It: Civil Defense and Chemical Warfare in Great Britain, 1915-1945." FIU Digital Commons, 2018. https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/3639.
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This dissertation argues that the origins of civil defense are to be found in pre-World War II Britain and that a driving force of this early civil defense scheme was fear of poison gas. Later iterations of civil defense, such as the Cold War system in America, built on already existing regimes that had proven their worth during WWII. This dissertation demonstrates not only that WWII civil defense served as a blueprint for later civil defense schemes, but also that poison gas anxiety served as a particular tool for the implementation and success of civil defense. The dissertation is organized thematically, exploring the role of civilians and volunteers in the civil defense scheme, as well as demonstrating the vital importance of physical manifestations of civil defense, such as gas masks and air raid shelters, in ensuring the success of the scheme.
By the start of World War II, many civilians had already been training in civil defense procedures for several years, learning how to put out fires, recognize bombs, warn against gas, decontaminate buildings, rescue survivors, and perform first aid. The British government had come to the conclusion, long before the threat became realized, that the civilian population was a likely target for air attacks and that measures were required to protect them. World War I (WWI) saw the first aerial attacks targeted specifically at civilians, suggesting a future where such attacks would occur more frequently and deliberately. Poison gas, used in WWI, seemed a particularly horrifying threat that presented significant problems. Civil defense was born out of this need to protect the civil population from attack by bombs or poison gas. For the next five years of war civil defense worked to maintain British morale and to protect civilian lives. This was the first real scheme of civil defense, instituted by the British government specifically for the protection of its civilian population.
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Gaunt, Sarah K. "English political propaganda, 1377-1485." Thesis, University of Huddersfield, 2018. http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/34644/.
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Previous historiography on propaganda has focused on particular themes or time periods; this thesis provides a comprehensive and inclusive analysis drawing on a multidisciplinary approach to encompass the period c.1377-1485. The main conclusion is that propaganda was more prevalent and involved a larger proportion of the polity than previously thought. A conceptual framework based upon certain criteria used in Jacques Ellul’s, Propaganda the Formation of Men’s Attitudes, has been adopted to help define and identify propaganda. One of the dominant themes is the prerequisite of communication to enable the propagandist to reach his audience and the opportunities available to do so. An examination of the various methods available, from official sources to rebel manifestoes, together with the physical communication network required demonstrates that there existed a nationwide environment where this was possible. The literary media used for propaganda include proclamations, poetry, letters, and bills. The political audience was broad in terms of understanding of literary and visual forms of communication and their ability to use the available mechanisms to convey their opinions. Whether it was a disgruntled magnate, merchant or yeoman farmer, there was a method of communication suited to their circumstances. Visual propaganda was particularly important in politically influencing an audience, particularly for a largely illiterate population. This is an area that is often overlooked in terms of political influence until the Tudor period. The use of the human body will be a particular focus along with the more traditional aspects of art, such as heraldry. The thesis considers the relationship between kings’ personality, policy and propaganda. What emerges is that the personality of the monarch was essentially more influential than the use of propaganda. Finally, incorporating the analysis of the previous chapters, the North, is examined as a regional example of the presence and impact of propaganda. The North was a subject of propaganda itself and there was a two-way flow of communication and propaganda between the North and Westminster revealing the political consciousness of the region and its role as an audience. The overall argument of the thesis is that communication within the late medieval polity was essential and extensive. Propaganda was frequently used through a variety of media that could reach the whole polity, whether literate or not and not only in times of crisis.
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Phelps, Edward. "NO(political) identity, NO(political)information, NO VOTE : the decline of electoral turnout among young voters in Britain." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2010. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/6264/.
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This thesis examines the extent of turnout decline at general elections since 1992. Its first contribution is to reveal that turnout decline amongst the youngest age groups was significantly more pronounced in the period 1992-2001 than for other age groups. The central argument is that there are sufficient grounds for suspecting that life-cycle factors cannot alone account for the unprecedented decline in turnout between 1992 and 2001, and that generational factors may be at work. The second contribution of the thesis is to test a variety of explanatory models of political participation on these youngest groups to ascertain if the results provide any insights of the dynamics of a suspected generational change. The thesis argues that a weakening of the psychological anchors to social and political life have left recent generations exposed and more susceptible than their older counterparts to factors that have been shown to decrease the likelihood of voting such as weakness of electoral competition; little perceived difference between political parties and an environment of negative images of politics and politicians.
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Taylor, Michael W. "The paradise lost of liberalism : individualist political thought in late Victorian Britain." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1992. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:eb92cda2-1e70-464d-8a75-77562ea5a582.
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The thesis argues that the development of the New Liberalism in the late nineteenth century was opposed from the standpoint of a more "traditional" conception of liberalism by a group of political theorists who owed their inspiration to the work of Herbert Spencer. Despite the protestations of these self-styled "Individualists" that they were the true heirs of mid-century liberalism, it is argued that their political theory represented as much a transformation of Benthamite Radicalism as did that of the New Liberals. The Individualists developed raid-century liberalism in a conservative direction, arguing that social change was not to be attained by conscious design and developing an ethical justification for the actual distribution of property and power in late Victorian Britain. The thesis establishes this claim by examining six Individualist arguments derived from Spencer's Synthetic Philosophy: (1) the argument from the biological theory of evolution; (2) the argument from psychological theory; (3) the sociological conception of society as an "organism"; (4) the theory of historical development; (5) the doctrine of utility; and (6) the theory of justice and property rights.
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Worley, Katherine E. "Reason sways them: Masculinity and political authority in the English Civil War." View abstract/electronic edition; access limited to Brown University users, 2008. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3318372.
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Moss, Jonathan Thomas. "Women, workplace militancy and political subjectivity in Britain, 1968-1985." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2015. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/7259/.
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This thesis examines the experiences and political subjectivity of women who engaged in workplace protest in Britain between 1968 and 1985. The study covers a period that has been identified with the ‘zenith’ of trade-union militancy in British labour history. The women’s liberation movement also emerged in this period, which produced a shift in public debates about gender roles and relations in the home and the workplace. Women’s trade union membership increased dramatically and trade unions increasingly committed themselves to supporting ‘women’s issues’. Industrial disputes involving working-class women have frequently been cited as evidence of women’s growing participation in the labour movement. However, the voices and experiences of female workers who engaged in workplace protest remain largely unexplored. This thesis addresses this space through an original analysis of the 1968 sewing-machinists’ strike at Ford, Dagenham; the 1976 equal pay strike at Trico, Brentford; the 1972 Sexton shoe factory occupation in Fakenham, Norfolk; the 1981 Lee Jeans factory occupation in Greenock, Inverclyde and the 1984-1985 sewing-machinists’ strike at Ford Dagenham. Drawing upon a combination of oral history and written sources, this study contributes a fresh understanding of the relationship between feminism, workplace activism and trade unionism during the years 1968-1985. In every dispute considered in this thesis, women’s behaviour was perceived by observers as novel, ‘historic’ or extraordinary. But the women did not think of themselves as extraordinary, and rather understood their behaviour as a legitimate and justified response to their everyday experiences of gender and class antagonism. The industrial disputes analysed in this thesis show that women’s workplace militancy was not simply a direct response to women’s heightened presence in trade unions. The women involved in these disputes were more likely to understand their experiences of workplace activism as an expression of the economic, social and subjective value of their work. Whilst they did not adopt a feminist identity or associate their action with the WLM, they spoke about themselves and their motivations in a manner that emphasised feminist values of equality, autonomy and self-worth.
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Ho, Karl Ka-yiu. "The Subjective Economy and Political Support: The Case of the British Labour Party." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1992. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc500261/.
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During the past two decades, extensive research efforts have focused on the conventional wisdom that the economy has a direct influence on a party's destiny. This hypothesis rests on the implicit assumption that the linkages between macroeconomic variables such as inflation and unemployment and party support are direct and unmediated. As the present study indicates, however, objective economic measures only serve as a proxy for the invisible force that drives voters' party support. Once the relevant variables, namely, the perceptual factors of the electorate, are controlled for, variables that describe the state of the objective economy fail to exert their "magic" on political behavior.
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Flame, Michael John. "'All the common rules of social life' : the reconstruction of social and political identities by the Dorset Gentry, c.1790-c.1834." Thesis, University of Warwick, 1997. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/3982/.
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This case-history explores the governing purposes of the Dorset gentry from the early 1790's until the mid 1830's. It is not a conventional political and administrative history. It seeks rather to reveal the gentry's governing purposes through the processes and contexts of their construction of social and political identities. It takes as its starting point the idea of the materiality of language itself The idea that language does not reflect or refer to a pre-existing anterior reality but creates meaning by distinguishing explicitly or implicitly what something is from what it is not. This case-history explores the gentry's construction of the terms of an overarching discourse I have called the 'common rules of social life'. In particular the evolving narrative terms of patriarchal oeconomy, political economy and paternalism. It does so to answer the question: 'By what means and for what purposes did this form of discourse and its narrative traditions become established by the gentry to prevail at this time in the past? ' The answers are found in the ways and the contexts in which the gentry used this discourse. First, how did the gentry exercise their power so that this discourse might come into being. Here the structures and institutions of the Commission of the Peace are significant. In particular the ways in which power was monopolised and used by a small fraction of active magistrates. This fraction was active in the committees of the Commission of the Peace and at quarter and petty sessions. Their power came to be deployed to reform county government and poor relief to impose 'natural' moral market relations on Dorset society. Second, how was the discourse and its constituent elements exercised by the gentry to constitute identities, and how did they determine how people thought and acted? Here the case-history reveals the gentry's construction of identities for Dorset, the parish and the poor. In particular the construction of an identity of Dorset as an arena of natural economic laws and moral endeavour. These identities were taught to rich and poor alike as part of the gentry's purpose to remoralise Dorset society.
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Carr, Rosalind. "Gender, national identity and political agency in eighteenth-century Scotland." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2008. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/602/.
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This thesis considers the interrelationship between the discourse and performance of gender, national identity and political agency in Scotland during the Union debates of 1706-07 and the mid-to-late eighteenth-century Scottish Enlightenment. These two periods are offered in contrast to each other in order to demonstrate the means by which changing discourses of gender and national identity impacted upon the performance of political agency. The first section of this thesis (Chapters 2 and 3) demonstrates that anti-Union discourse in 1706-07 was founded upon a conception of a masculine Scottish nationhood defined by ‘heroick ancestors’. This is contrasted with women’s political agency at the time, demonstrated most markedly by elite women’s ability to influence parliamentary politics. I argue that despite masculinist discourses of nationhood, during the Union debates status was a more important determinant of political agency than gender. The second section of my thesis (Chapters 4, 5 and 6) considers the centrality of male refinement and ‘civilised’ femininity to discourses of North British nationhood in the context of the Scottish Enlightenment. I examine the construction and performance of male refinement within intellectual societies and convivial clubs and then consider women’s limited inclusion in the urban Enlightenment public sphere, demonstrating that discourses of femininity necessarily precluded women’s full public engagement in this sphere. The final chapter (Chapter 7) considers martial masculinity, particularly the masculine ideal of martial Highland manhood in order to demonstrate the problematic aspect of notions of hegemonic masculinity and in order to bring the story of the Highlands and Empire into the story of Enlightenment Scotland. This thesis will demonstrate the centrality of gender to discourses of national identity and examine the impact of these on the performance of political agency in eighteenth-century Scotland and in doing so offers a contribution to the history of gender and political power.
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Kiss, Csaba Zsolt. "The emotional voter : the impact of electoral campaigns and emotions on electoral behaviour in Britain." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2013. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:3afc98fa-d42a-4240-ad16-af1c2fa0f2c7.
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This thesis examines the role of emotions in mediating the effects electoral campaigns have on political behavior in Britain. I contend that electoral campaigns, aside from direct effects, can also have indirect effects, manifested through the impact of the emotions they induce. I theorize that, through manipulating the tone, framing and targeting of their messages, electoral campaigns induce specific emotions. Emotions are argued to have a direct effect on turnout (intentions) and a moderating effect on the impact partisanship, policy preference and leader evaluations have on vote choice. Extending the Theory of Affective Intelligence, I hypothesize that individuals who are enthusiastic about their preferred party, or experience anxiety or anger in relation to an out-party, are more likely to turn out, and to cast their vote based on their partisanship. Contrarily, anxiety and anger experienced towards the preferred party are expected to decrease the importance of partisanship and increase the relevance of policy preferences and leader evaluations when voting. While anger experienced towards this party is also hypothesized to also decrease turnout, anxiety is not thought to affect it. To test these propositions, I rely on a multi-methodological approach that uses both panel and experimental data. The panel data was collected in two waves prior to the 2010 British General Election. The laboratory experiment, designed to specifically test the emotion-induction capacity of campaigns, was conducted on British participants in the aftermath of the same elections. The results corroborate the theory. First, the analyses confirm that campaigns, not only can, but actually do induce emotions. Second, it is shown that emotions do influence political behavior as expected. Third, it is established that the effect of the campaign on turnout intentions is partly channeled through emotions. Finally, it is shown that campaign exposure indirectly affects vote choice by increasing the magnitude of the impact emotions have on the effect of partisanship on vote choice. Aside from the literature on campaign effects in Britain, the thesis also contributes to the emerging literature pertaining to the role of emotions in politics. Moreover, it contributes to the field of voting behaviour by extending our understanding of the psychological underpinnings of vote choice.
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Scott, James Christian. "Germany, Great Britain and the Rashid Ali al-Kilani Revolt of Spring 1941." PDXScholar, 1995. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/5025.
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There are few events in the history of humankind which have been more compelling than the Second World War (1939-1945). Unfortunately, most of what transpired during this period of history stands obscured by events such as D-Day, Kursk, and Midway, all happenings which popular history has been more than happy to dwell upon. This study' s intent is to, with the use of primary materials, analyze one of the more "obscured" happenings of the Second World War, the Rashid Ali al-Kilani Revolt of April and May 1941. Central to this work is an assessment of the policy responses of both Great Britain and Germany to the Baghdadbased revolt. It also seeks to answer the following question: why did Great Britain approach the coup with great urgency, while Germany, for the most part, paid it very little attention? In the case of Great Britain, its traditional power position in the Middle East, and possession of both the Suez Canal and extensive oil stocks, was challenged by Axis activity in north Africa, the Balkans and Crete. The Iraqi coup simply exacerbated the British problem. London's fears were valid and its successful response reflected as much. For Germany and its leader Adolf Hitler, ideological concerns took precedence over a Middle Eastern campaign. A Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, an event which, by design, would destroy Slavism, Bolshevism, and much of world Jewry, plus gain greater Germany "living space," was primary to Hitler's thinking in the spring of 1941. Furthermore, the Fuehrer's desire for an Anglo-German "understanding" seems to have influenced his attitude in regards to the coup. Conclusions are also drawn that the policy paths chosen by each European player during the coup were met with dissension. In Great Britain's case, Middle Eastern Commander-in-Chief Archibald Wavell felt that aggressive British action in Iraq might antagonize Arab nationalism. For Germany, Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop was a major advocate of an antiBritish strategy and corresponding Nazi activity in Iraq. The Rashid Ali coup represented the last opportunity for Ribbentrop, prior to "Barbarossa," to expose the great vulnerability of the British Empire. From this, proffered is the theory that Ribbentrop, through an exploitation of the Iraq coup, was perhaps attempting to dissuade Hitler from an invasion of the Soviet Union.
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Garland, Ruth. "Between media and politics : can government press officers hold the line in the age of 'political spin'? : the case of the UK after 1997." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2016. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3463/.
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The aim of this study is to use the concept of ‘mediatization’ to inform a critical, grounded and fine-grained empirical analysis of the institutional dynamics that operate at the interface between government and the media in a liberal democracy. This thesis applies a novel theoretical and empirical approach to the familiar narrative of ‘political spin’, challenging the common assumption that government communications is either a neutral professional function, or an inherently unethical form of distorted communication. In May 1997, Labour came into power on a landslide, bringing into government its 24/7 strategic communications operation, determined to neutralise what it saw as the default right-wing bias of the national media. In the process, the rules of engagement between government and the media were transformed, undermining the resilience of government communications and unleashing a wave of resistance and response. Much academic attention to date has focused on party political news management, while the larger but less visible civil service media operation remains relatively un-examined and undertheorised, although some northern European scholars are exploring mediatization from within public bureaucracies. This study takes a qualitative approach to analyzing change between 1997 and 2014, through 16 in-depth interviews with former, largely middle-ranking, departmental government communicators, most of whom had performed media relations roles. This was a group of civil servants that had spent their working lives in close proximity to ministers during a time of rapidly increasing media scrutiny. These witness accounts were augmented by interviews with six journalists and three politically-appointed special advisers, together with a systematic analysis of key contemporary and archival documents. The aim was to provide insights into change over time within a shared policy and representational space that is theorised here as the ‘cross-field’, where media act as a catalyst for the concentration of political power. What can and does government communication in its current form contribute to the democratic ideal of the informed citizen?
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Jones, Thomas Chewning. "French republican exiles in Britain, 1848-1870." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2010. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.609095.
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