Abstract
To what extent are new generations ‘Thatcherite’? Using British Social Attitudes data for 1985–2012 and applying age-period-cohort analysis and generalized additive models, this article investigates whether Thatcher’s Children hold more right-authoritarian political values compared to other political generations. The study further examines the extent to which the generation that came of age under New Labour – Blair’s Babies – shares these values. The findings for generation effects indicate that the later political generation is even more right-authoritarian, including with respect to attitudes to redistribution, welfare and crime. This view is supported by evidence of cohort effects. These results show that the legacy of Thatcherism for left-right and libertarian-authoritarian values is its long-term shaping of public opinion through political socialization.
Highlights
As early as January 1979, Stuart Hall, who coined the term ‘Thatcherism’, wrote: ‘No one seriously concerned with political strategies in the current situation can afford to ignore the “swing to the Right.”’ That year, as was later shown,1 marked the high point of the British electorate’s rightward movement – and the ‘sea change’ in public opinion that was marked by the election of the Thatcher government
Our investigation builds on this traditional question by examining whether the generation that came of age under New Labour, ‘Blair’s Babies’, can be better identified as ‘Thatcher’s Grandchildren’, in reinforcing the rightward shift in social values that had occurred under the previous generation
The question addressed in this article is: To what extent did the generations coming of age in the protracted period of Conservative government come to exhibit more conservative values? What were the differences between the generation that came of age in the first phase relative to the second phase? We theorize that ‘Thatcher’s Children’ may be less Thatcherite than ‘Blair’s Babies’, as Thatcherite values became entrenched across society – as signalled by New Labour’s emergence – after she left office
Summary
Generational theories share the idea that values are formed early on, are influenced by the specific historical and political contexts within which each new cohort of citizens is socialized, and remain stable throughout the life course, so that aggregate value change occurs as older cohorts with certain value sets die and are replaced by younger cohorts with different values. One such type of account is modernization theory. while modernization theory allows for some short-term shifts in values, the theory suggests that social liberalism should become increasingly widespread at the aggregate level, given underlying secular trends. In contrast, political generations theory takes a historicized perspective that emphasizes the importance of political events and experiences taking place during the impressionable ‘formative years’ to different cohorts. According to this line of thinking, it is not so much affluence and security in childhood that shapes the values and political commitments of new cohorts, but rather the political experiences and historical events occurring during one’s young adulthood. Generational theories share the idea that values are formed early on, are influenced by the specific historical and political contexts within which each new cohort of citizens is socialized, and remain stable throughout the life course, so that aggregate value change occurs as older cohorts with certain value sets die and are replaced by younger cohorts with different values.. Tilley and Evans recently showed how the generations coming of age in periods of Conservative ascendancy (the 1930s, 1950s and 1980s) were all more likely to support this party It was not until the late 1990s that aggregate studies of public opinion began to show a Thatcherite shift, supporting the idea of a process of underlying generational replacement at play. HYPOTHESIS 2: The cohort that came of age under New Labour between 1997 and 2010 will be more right wing and more authoritarian than cohorts that came of age before them
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