The Re-enchanted Hierarchy, 1970–2004

Abstract

Abstract At the end of the twentieth century there were major reforms to the honours system. These were connected to larger processes of social change following the political and social shifts of the 1980s and 1990s. In 1993 the honours system was revised by John Major and civil servants concerned about its reputation as class-based and automatic for civil servants. The lower ranks of the Order of the British Empire (which make up a majority of total honours given out) were reoriented towards voluntary service and away from professional state service. Honours became a way of paying volunteers to do work once done by the state using social capital rather than money. This chapter also details the relationship between these changes and the role of the monarchy in British society. After 1948, all British recipients of honours at the level of MBE and above were entitled to visit Buckingham Palace and receive their award from a royal personage. Autobiographical writing suggests a set of characteristic experiences and feelings. Many who recorded their experiences not only celebrated their encounter, but also expressed empathy with the monarch, affirming both the normalcy of the royal family and also their special status. John Major’s reforms (and similar ones that followed them in the early 2000s) thus reintegrated two functions of the monarchy—its role as the affirmer of national merit through the honours system and its status as the leader of the voluntary sector in Britain.