The new Labour and Conservative-led governments' articulation of immigration control policies in Britain : securitization, governmentality and risk, 1997-2017

© 1998 Helen Jones and Susanne MacGregor, 1998 the contributors. Individual chapters. All rights reserved. With the benefit of hindsight it is possible to argue that education was the major issue of the General Election of 1 May 1997, given that the New Labour government was elected with an overwhelming majority and that Tony Blair, the leader of the Labour Party, had consistently argued throughout the election campaign that ‘Education, education, education’, was the top priority. He targeted in particular the need to improve educational standards ‘for the many, not the few’ and so committed his government to a reduction in the class size of primary schools. Education has been one of the major items on the political agenda over the last two decades but the forms of debate and delivery have changed markedly. This chapter will explore the ways in which education policy had been developed under the Conservative administrations over the previous eighteen years and consider the Labour Party’s counter-proposals, first in opposition and during the general election campaign and second during the first hundred days of Blair’s New Labour government. The education policies adopted by the Liberal Democrats will be addressed briefly.

On 24 November 2007, a new Labor Government with Kevin Rudd as prime minister came into power in Australia. Within 5 months, in April 2008, the new Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Senator Chris Evans, announced the formation of an independent Committee to review the citizenship test implemented by the Howard Government on 1 October 2007. In Chapter 9 of this book, Emily Farrell discusses the debates that surrounded the introduction of this testing regime, arguing that it was chiefly the then Government that determined the form and content of the test introduced, with other voices, such as those of community groups and experts, sidelined. To some degree, those other voices are being brought back into the debate through the Australian Citizenship Test Review Committee’s consultations with the wider community. This chapter outlines the findings and recommendations of the Committee based on the report ‘Moving Forward … Improving Pathways to Citizenship’ (2008, henceforth ‘Report’). It will also discuss the Government’s response to those findings.

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.

This thesis reports on an ethnographic research of primary school teachers’ lived experiences of working and teaching in a school that had recently converted from a LA maintained community school to an academy. The aim of this doctoral study is to explore teachers’ work and capture the changing nature of the teacher professionalism in the new educational setting that is a primary academy. Academies are independent schools that are funded by the state but are managed privately. In England, academies built upon the ideas of the City Technology Colleges project developed by the former Conservative Government. They were also modelled on the international independent-state funded schools: charter schools in the Unites States of America and Swedish free schools. The first academies were opened in 2002 under the New Labour Government. At that time, the purpose of the Academies Programme was to address poor performance by creating different types of secondary schools in disadvantaged areas. Since 2010 when the Coalition Government took office, the academies programme expanded greatly encompassing primary schools. Since then, the rhetoric behind the Academies Programme revolves around greater freedom and autonomy for schools. The expansion of the Academies Programme has led to the growth in the number of teachers working in these settings. Yet, studies investigating the experiences of teachers working in academies, in particular those in primary academies, are limited. Therefore, this ethnographic research set out to address the gap in what is currently known about implications of the Academies Programme for teachers’ work and professionalism. In relation to this, teachers’ professional autonomy constitutes a central theme in the analysis presented in this thesis. The fieldwork was conducted over the period of one school year (September 2014-July 2015) in Bricklane Primary Academy (pseudonym) situated in an inner-city location in the North West of England. The data were generated through the use of participant observations, photographs, documentary analysis, informal conversations and ethnographic interviews and focus groups. The research participants included teaching staff and academy senior leaders who work in Bricklane Primary Academy. Frostenson’s (2015) three levels of teachers’ professional autonomy provides a framework for analysis and presentation of the research findings. Drawing upon labour process theory, the main findings of the research indicated that the work of primary academy teachers is greatly constrained by policies at school and at national levels that limit teachers’ professional autonomy. The findings suggest that the Academies Programme has contributed to diminishing the professional autonomy of teachers and thus contradict the policy rhetoric underpinning academies which promulgates greater freedom and autonomy.

The Political Economy of Healthcare Policy of the Welfare State: National Health Service Reform by the Conservative and New Labour Governments from 1979 to 2010

There is a significant population of Muslims living in Western Europe and also a significant concern that these Muslims are marginalised due to Islamophobia. While the role of sensationalist media and Far Right groups in perpetuating Islamophobia has been widely commented on, not enough attention has been given to the role played by mainstream politicians in fostering Islamophobia. This paper considers how Tony Blair's New Labour government represented Islam and Muslims in speeches given between 2001 and 2007 arguing that the representations were often Islamophobic. Using discourse analysis, the analysis engages with 111 speeches made by these influential ministers. The paper also discusses the discourse surrounding related issues such as multiculturalism, Britishness, integration, and terrorism. It is argued that Islamophobia based on generalisations, assumptions and stereotypes of Islam and Muslims are present in the speeches. Thus, this article calls for an awareness of the way in which mainstream politicians have been involved in stigmatising Islam and Muslims, and perpetuating Islamophobia. This paper contributes to discussions about anti-Muslim prejudice as well as reflecting on the legacy of an important recent political dynasty.

This chapter studies the compulsory measures that have been established in the UK. These include the ‘Gateway’, ‘Jobseekers' Interviews’ and ‘Jobseekers' Agreement’. The discussion is also concerned with the New Labour government (NLG), which puts importance to the private market as an effective mechanism, not only for wealth creation but also for welfare delivery. The government policies of the NLG towards unemployment, the dignity of unemployed persons and meeting the psychological needs of these persons are discussed in the first half of the chapter. The second half of the chapter is focused on the employment needs of various social groups, such as New Deal for Lone Parents and New Deal for 25 Plus.

The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is traditionally understood as a militarised technology utilised in combat and counter-terror scenarios, most notably throughout the Global War on Terror. However, more recently, the UAV has undergone somewhat of a transformation in how its processes and rationalities are conceptualised, being more frequently understood as a technology and technique within humanitarian and assistive contexts. Yet this field, like the technology, is still an emergent one, and understandings of how the ‘humanitarian UAV’ is discursively constituted by a widened range of actors and rationalities is somewhat under- developed. This project seeks to examine and analyse the humanitarian UAV’s wide discursive field, the discursive meaning and logics that constitute the humanitarian UAV, and how the humanitarian UAV, through its attendant rationalities and actors, (re)constitutes and (re)produces distinct understandings of humanitarianism. In focusing on the humanitarian UAV’s wide and variegated discourse, the research draws upon the methodological framework of discourse analysis as pioneered by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, which does not narrowly privilege one form of data but instead de-privileges data as a whole and emphasises the importance in engaging with the broader discourse (here, of the humanitarian UAV) as it is articulated across multiple and dispersed nodal points that convey formations of meaning. This research firstly finds, through an examination of the UAV’s ‘ethical’ discursive constitution, that the UAV is increasingly legitimised as a humanitarian technology by distinct actors and bodies, and, although the meanings that their articulations carry are generally underpinned by different logics, rationalities and motivations, there is an overlap regarding certain neoliberal signifiers. The research also finds, through analysing the widely articulated notion ‘democratisation of technology’, that the humanitarian UAV (and humanitarianism more generally) is increasingly constituted by, and helps to reproduce and naturalise, neoliberal-capitalist rationalities and practices. The research finds that these rationalities also serve to negate certain –‘deepened’– understandings of ‘technological democratisation’ that are antagonistic to the logics of neoliberalism, signalling a partial closure of a number of avenues that seek to renegotiate hegemonic, and other entrenched, humanitarian, formations of power. The research also finds that, through humanitarianism’s discursive association with the biopolitical, the rationalities of neoliberalism are incorporated into a humanitarian-biopolitical nexus, facilitating corporatised forms of humanitarian governance, regulation and control. The ‘humanitarian UAV’ is thus established as that which is increasingly engaged in legitimised –though distinct– forms of ‘humanitarian’ practice via the neutralising and encompassing rationalities of neoliberal-capitalism, which further breaches and affects humanitarian practice and humanitarian populaces through its biopolitical lens. The research highlights that these rationalities, in combination with the application of the humanitarian UAV, co-constitutively sustain and reproduce their own processes and logics, thus incrementally transforming humanitarian space into humanitarian- neoliberal/corporatised-biopolitical (‘corporo-political’) arenas of control and regulation, underpinned by market concerns and the entrenching of dominant power arrangements. Overall, this research highlights how neoliberal and biopolitical rationalities increasingly constitute the humanitarian UAV, humanitarianism and humanitarian space. Furthermore, these rationalities are modified through this technology and its attendant logics and practices by virtue of its extended reach into the spaces constituted by bodies of heightened insecurity, precarity and crisis. It is understood, consequently, that this form of (humanitarian) technologisation highlights the reach, elasticity and imminence of neoliberal and biopolitical rationalities across increasingly diverse environments.

Crises, Hegemony and Change in the International System: A Conceptual Framework

A sociedade brasileira tem vivenciado um intenso embate hegemonico sobre as concepcoes de genero e sexualidade articuladas nas politicas publicas de curriculo e formacao docente. Grupos politicos e religiosos conservadores tem desenvolvido um ataque agressivo ao que denominam “ideologia de genero” na educacao. A partir de uma analise dos processos de formacao dos discursos pela igualdade de genero e diversidade sexual nas politicas educacionais brasileiras ao longo das ultimas decadas e da emergencia de discursos reativos (neo)conservadores no contexto atual, o texto busca discutir as condicoes de (im) possibilidade desse confronto hegemonico. A analise e desenvolvida em dialogo com os debates pos-estruturalistas no campo da educacao e, em especial, com a Teoria Politica do Discurso de Laclau e Mouffe. O trabalho aponta que ambos os polos discursivos engajados no conflito atual sao construcoes historicas contingentes e que o debate no campo da educacao tem sido predominantemente realizado a partir do parâmetro comum das politicas de acomodacao e gestao estrategicas das diferencas. Palavras-chave: curriculo, formacao docente, genero.

Discourses of crisis are always intertwined with aspects of causal investigation, critique and moral accusations. The European and Greek crisis has triggered a debate about debt and guilt in many countries. The creditor/debtor relation between the European North and South resulted in strong tensions within the EU. Particularly, in the most and the least affected countries, Greece and Germany, multiple debates have occurred about who is responsible for the debt crisis. Therefore, rich reflections and diagnoses on debates of crisis and guilt emanate from German and Greek intellectuals which range from internal and external subject constructions, guilt accusations, self-blaming and culturalisms, to a critique of capitalism and its power elites. The chapter uses the Essex School approach of political discourse analysis developed by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe and their students to deconstruct crisis and blame discourses of selected intellectual and public figures from both countries like Yanis Varoufakis, Nikos Dimou, Stelios Ramfos and Wolfgang Streeck.

This thesis analyses the reasons for the persistence of industrial conflict under Queensland Labor governments between 1915 and 1957. In completing this analysis the thesis contrasts the Queensland case with the case of Sweden's Social Democratic governments (1932-1976) where industrial peace was established. The contrasting of these two cases points to this thesis's adoption of a comparative historical sociological approach which is concerned to develop macro-analytical frameworks capable of producing limited historical generalisations. In this case, some limited generalisations about why industrial peace may or may not be established where there is a labour government are proffered. The thesis is founded on a political economy approach which emphasises that where a system of political exchange dominates industrial relations under a labour government strikes will diminish. There are a number of conditions which are considered critical to such an outcome. Firstly, unions must be able and willing to commit themselves to a long-term strategy of political exchange. Political exchange occurs where unions exercise short-term restraint in return for long-term benefits which can be secured from labour governments. Secondly, labour governments must deliver sufficient rewards or benefits to workers and unions if their commitment to a long-term strategy of political exchange is to be secured. Finally, institutional arrangements must be established to encourage the resolution of distributional conflicts through a process of compromise. The thesis contends that three factors (the organisational and political character of the unions, the nature of the institutional arrangements established in response to societal crises n and the nature of the economic strategies pursued by labour governments) determined whether these conditions were met in the Queensland and Swedish cases and, consequently, whether industrial relations was dominated by a political exchange. The Swedish case is introduced as a control case. Therefore it is not subjected to as exhaustive an analysis as that given to the Queensland case. First, the Swedish union movement possessed the requisite organisational and political characteristics which made their commitment to a long-term strategy of exchange possible. The key elements were the development of a strong union federation dominated by unionists who were committed to a reformist strategy. Second, a generous, decommodified and universal welfare system and a societal corporatism were established in response to a societal crisis during the 1930s and 1940s. These arrangements ensured that the Swedish Social Democrats were able to deliver sufficient rewards to the workers and unions. The societal corporatist arrangements also resulted in distributional conflicts being resolved through a process of cooperation and compromise. Finally, the Swedish Social Democrats' pursuit of a reformist economic growth strategy which benefited business as well as the workers was to stabilise the political exchange system. The Swedish Social Democrats did stray from this economic program for a brief period and, as a consequence, the system of political exchange was threatened. However, the capacity of the unions to develop and impose their own economic growth strategy on the Swedish Social Democrats was to stabilise the political exchange system. The Queensland case is subjected to a more detailed analysis. In this case a complex and fractured union structure developed which hindered the union leadership's capacity to secure rank and file support for a political exchange strategy. The significant influence of a revolutionary unionism also hindered the development of union support for an exchange strategy with a labour government. Second, sectoral or industry based corporatist arrangements and a wage earners welfare state were established in response to a societal crisis which occurred in Australia at the beginning of the twentieth century. These institutional arrangements did not allow Queensland Labor to deliver to workers sufficient benefits to secure their commitment to a long-term exchange strategy. The sectoral corporatist arrangements also contributed to the development of an adversarial bargaining system rather than one based on co-operation and compromise. Finally, Queensland Labor initially pursued a redistributive economic strategy which benefited workers at the expense of business. This led business to impose an economic blockade on Queensland Labor. Labor responded by adopting a more conservative economic program which reassured business but failed to deliver sufficient rewards to the workers. Those unionists who were committed to a labour reformist strategy found it difficult to secure the ongoing support of workers and unions to a political exchange with Labor, as many believed it to be a bad bargain. Furthermore, the presence of an influential militant opposition in the unions made the task of those unionists committed to a reformist politics even more difficult. The thesis concludes by utilising this conceptual framework to explain why industrial harmony has been established under the present Federal Labor government (1983-) in Australia. It is maintained that the relevance of the conceptual framework to this case highlights its usefulness for future research into the likely establishment of industrial peace where labour governments are in power.

In this dissertation I look at various ways in which the relation between gamers and games has been discussed in video game culture in recent years. Gamers and games are currently being positioned by many scholars and industry experts as experiencing a series of major changes. From one perspective, gamers are said to be getting more and more access to the means of production of video games. Video games, in turn, are frequently analysed in terms of the effects they can have on their users. I argue that the discourses surrounding these phenomena have the effect of reinforcing the separation between gamers and games, considering both terms as separate and distinct entities. Throughout this dissertation I offer a series of readings of the relationship between the two, of how this relationship is currently being discussed by various actors and of how it could be narrated otherwise. I look at the narratives about the historical origins of both gamers and games, the conflicts between consumers and publishers, the production of independent games and the use of games for doing things. Drawing on deconstruction (Derrida 1976, 1980, 1985, 1988) and cultural and media studies scholarship, I interrogate the mechanisms behind many of the stories surrounding the contaminated and parasitical relations (Serres 1982) between gamers and games, whereby both categories are seen as emerging from the process of boxing consumers and products into discrete entities. I offer a reading of contemporary video game culture through a study that aims to encourage all of us who study and play (with) games to raise ethical questions for our own role in shaping the objects of research and for our involvement in the discourses we produce, as both gamers and scholars. What is ultimately at stake in this project is the possibility of outlining an alternative mode of thinking about the medium of the video game, one that blurs the distinction between studying, playing, making and living with video games through the invention of narratives about the unresolved relations (Laclau and Mouffe 1985) between gamers and games.

L'A. etudie les relations entre le postmarxisme politique de Laclau et Mouffe, et le marxisme economique de Resnick et Wolff. Se referant respectivement a Gramsci et Althusser, l'A. montre que les quatre penseurs partagent le meme terrain epistemologique, celui de la theorie du discours poststructuraliste

Drawing on recent Political Discourse Analysis (PDA) approaches that map text over relevant context as supported by Van Dijk (2006), in this research, it was tried to follow this research route. The main intention was to look at political discourse via the lenses of PDA to see whether ideologies and power relations of interlocutors in the target setting of this study could have possibly been aligned with linguistic elements-here rhetorical devices and to see to what extent such text-context mapping is recognized as relevant to language tools within the selected datasets. Accordingly, the researcher tried to follow a sample of political talk- live 2008 US presidential debates- among two Republic vs. Democratic campaigns. To do so, some political strategies for argumentation including Van Dijk’s model representing 'Authority', 'Topos or burden', 'Future Representations’, ‘Comparison', 'Consensus', 'Counterfactuals', 'populism’, 'generalizations', and 'number Games' were mapped over some linguistic rhetorical devices such as ‘metaphor’, ‘hyperbole’, ‘irony’, ‘euphemism’, etc. The common discoursal moves in Obama’s vs. McCain's speech statements were compared and contrasted among similar strategies to find any emergent rhetorical devices. Findings indicated that 1) the political candidates had made use of rhetorical and political moves in tandem within the same propositional units, 2) some employed discourse devices were paralleled with the majority of political strategies like repetition and metaphor, and 3) some political strategies had been used to excess like 'comparison’, 'populism' and 'future representation’ respectively.