POLI20532 Course Outline 1112 - School of Social Sciences

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James Hinton, David Howell Clement Attlee (2006) Ross McKibbin 16 POLI20532: Course Guide 2011-12 ‘1945 and the Apathy School’, History Workshop Journal 43 (1997), pp. 266-73. (Perhaps the sharpest of the critiques of the ‘revisionist’ view put forward in the 1990s.) Parties and People 1914-51 (2010). (Ch. 5: ‘The English road to socialism’.) Kenneth Morgan Labour in Power 1945-1951. K. Paul '"British subjects" and "British stock": Labour's postwar imperialism', Journal of British Studies 35 (1995), pp. 233-76. Henry Pelling The Labour Governments 1945-51. Jim Phillips The Great Alliance: economic recovery and the problems of power 1945-51 (1996). (Strong on government’s relations with the unions.) Ben Pimlott Hugh Dalton (1985), esp. chs 23-8. (Excellent biography of Labour’s first post-war chancellor.) Jonathon Schneer Labour's Conscience. The Labour Left 1945-51. Kevin Theakston Nick Tiratsoo Jim Tomlinson Peter Weiler Ernest Bevin (1993). 3.5 Essay preparation The Labour Party and Whitehall (1992), ch. 2: ‘The Attlee government and the reform of the civil service’. Industrial Efficiency and State Intervention: Labour 1939-51 (1993). Democratic Socialism and Economic Policy. The Attlee years 1945-51 (1997) (chs 1, 5 and 11-13 esp helpful). ‘The 1945 election put democratic-collectivist étatisme into the saddle’ (D. Marquand). Is this a fair assessment of what the 1945-51 Attlee governments stood for? Few British governments have had so clear a programme and acted upon it so promptly as the incoming Attlee government. The explicit rationale for the government’s reforms was the commitment to democratic socialism embodied in successive Labour programmes and encapsulated in Let Us Face the Future. Debate, however, has focused on both the extent and the political character of this commitment to socialism. Much of the literature, like contemporary debate, has focused on international policy: atlanticism, imperial policy, the commitment to a global military presence. This engendered acute conflict within Labour’s Party and manifestly had an impact on domestic issues which needs to be acknowledged. Detailed discussion within the course nevertheless focuses primarily on the government’s social and economic reforms at home. Consider their effectiveness in key areas like welfare, health, economic management and public ownership. What interests, groups or values were meant to benefit from these policies? How far did Labour’s advocacy of such policies employ the language of socialism, and what sort of socialism was this? David Marquand, who has written extensively on the social-democratic consensus, refers to the governments’ democratic-collectivist étatisme in his book Britain Since 1918, ch. 5. Democraticcollectivist suggests possible links with the earlier welfare and political reforms of the pre-1914 Liberal governments. Étatisme suggests that the state was at the centre of its social vision (Chambers Dictionary defines as ‘extreme state control over the individual citizen’). As well as the specific readings indicated here, see the general section on Labour Party texts for discussions of the nature of Labour’s socialism.
POLI20532: Course Guide 2011-12 WEEK 4 Was an age of affluence inevitably an age of Conservatism? Or is it a mark of Conservative success that we think of the 1950s as an age of affluence? 4.1 Questions 1. Was the 1950s really an ‘age of affluence’? And why was affluence such a potent concept politically? 2. Was it affluence that led to Conservatives electoral success; if so why? Was aspirationalism and consumerism more compatible with Conservative values? Or was it Conservative good fortune to be holding office in a period of rising living standards and general material security? Does Conservative success – even after Suez – show that the economy is the key to winning elections? 3. Why was Labour unable to consolidate its record vote of 1951? Were its internal divisions and apparent drift major factors in the Conservatives’ success? Why was Labour so divided? Did affluence itself pose it new challenges; or had the old Labour project run out of steam? How important respectively were personal, ideological and organisational factors? 4. What was Butskellism? Is this an accurate way of characterising the politics of the 1950s? Should this be regarded as the heyday of a social-democratic consensus? 5. How accurate was Labour’s claim of ‘thirteen wasted years’? Did the rise in living standards disguise the fact of relative decline and the continued failure to modernise either the British economy, the British state, or its relations with the world outside it? 4.2 Essential readings (i) Harriet Jones OR (ii) Harriet Jones ‘The Cold War and the Santa Claus syndrome: dilemmas in Conservative social policy-making 1945-57’ in in Francis and Zweiniger-Bargielowska, The Conservatives and British Society 1880-1990, pp. 240-54; ‘New Conservatism’ in Coneckin, Mort and Waters, Moments of Modernity (HD; also on Blackboard). 4.3 General texts and alternative readings Kenneth Morgan Britain since 1945, chs 4-6. David Childs Britain Since 1945, chs 4-6 Kevin Jeffreys, Retreat from New Jerusalem. British politics 1951- 1964 (1997) 17
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POLI20532 Course Outline 1112 - School of Social Sciences

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