British Members Of Parliament Research Articles

Disentangling norms, morality, and principles: the September 2019 Brexit rebellion

Despite morality’s important role in international relations, we still lack a compelling way to study it. Some scholars define norms as moral in nature but fail to define morality or conceptualize it too narrowly. We address this problem by defining morality subjectively, allowing us to differentiate it from norms and study its impact on decisions of international significance. To do so, we adapt the moral convictions concept developed by psychologists to qualitative, elite-focused political research. Actors with moral convictions rely upon their individually held beliefs about fundamental right and wrong, whereas norm-followers look outward to community expectations. Morality requires sincere belief and weakens social influences. The September 2019 Brexit rebellion is an ideal case because it endangered rebels’ careers, rendering material self-interest an unlikely motive. This allows us to investigate the role of norms and moral principles. Based on interviews with British Members of Parliament (MPs) and text analysis, we find that community norms and personal moral principles interact: when existing norms give unclear guidance and identification with their in-group weakens, actors are likely to rely on their own principles to interpret norms. Morality can affect which norms matter but does not negate their influence altogether: pre-existing norms channel and constrain morality and its consequences. Many MPs moralized existing norms related to democratic decision-making, which mitigated some consequences of moralization, such as intolerance toward those with opposing views. This new conceptual and methodological approach thus helps to disentangle ideational factors and understand their influence on decisions of international significance.

Women in the Life of Andrew Jackson by Ludwig M. Deppisch

Reviewed by: Women in the Life of Andrew Jackson by Ludwig M. Deppisch Mark R. Cheathem Women in the Life of Andrew Jackson. By Ludwig M. Deppisch. (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland and Company, Inc., 2021. Pp. x, 237. Paper, $39.95, ISBN 978-1-4766-7991-4.) As recent works by Jeanne E. Abrams, Annette Gordon-Reed, Amy S. Greenberg, Martha Saxton, and Virginia Scharff show, historians are increasingly interested in the lives of women closely associated with former U.S. presidents. Ludwig M. Deppisch, a professor emeritus of pathology and the author of articles on the history of presidential health, attempts to add to this scholarship by exploring the relationship between Andrew Jackson and six women in his life: his mother, Elizabeth Hutchinson Jackson; his wife, Rachel Donelson Jackson; his nieces, Emily Tennessee Donelson and Mary Ann Eastin; his daughter-in-law Sarah Yorke Jackson; and his friend Margaret O'Neale Timberlake Eaton. Deppisch contends that Jackson and these six women experienced "reciprocal relationships" in which the women "influenced [Jackson] and were influenced in turn by his towering figure" (p. 3). Most of the book unsurprisingly centers on Rachel Jackson, Emily Donelson, and Margaret Eaton. Rachel's "presence was the beneficent and secure harbor of both his [Andrew Jackson's] hearth and health," according to [End Page 545] Deppisch (p. 48). Unfortunately, this characterization of Rachel's passivity and lack of agency is common among historians and may be attributable in part to the paucity of her correspondence, much of which burned in a fire in the mid-1830s. The attention Deppisch gives to Emily Donelson derives largely from her role as surrogate First Lady after Rachel's death in 1828 and her feud with Margaret Eaton, whose marriage to Jackson's friend and secretary of war John H. Eaton served as a flashpoint of social and political conflict during Old Hickory's first presidential term. Unfortunately, Deppisch's effort to elucidate these relationships falls short in significant ways. One serious failure is the absence of any discussion of the enslaved women in Jackson's life. The two most obvious examples Deppisch could have included were Hannah and Betty. Jackson purchased Hannah around 1808, and as late as 1894, she was giving interviews about her interactions with and treatment by Old Hickory. As the person in charge of the enslaved laborers working inside the Hermitage, Hannah was present for many significant events on the Tennessee plantation, including the deaths of both Rachel and Andrew Jackson. Less is known about Betty, but one incident involving her reveals a number of different dynamics within the Jackson household. In 1821, while the Jacksons were living in Florida, Jackson ordered Betty to be whipped after Rachel complained about Betty's supposed neglect of household duties. Discussing this episode would have allowed Deppisch to say something not only about Andrew and Rachel's relationship but also about Jackson's treatment of enslaved women. The absence of enslaved women in this book is all the more glaring because Deppisch allots space to other white women whose influence he deems "minimal, and far peripheral" to that of Donelson and Eastin (p. 182). A second deficiency of the book is its use of sources. The standard sources one would expect to find in a book about Andrew Jackson—biographies by James Parton and Robert V. Remini, for example—are cited, but Deppisch makes some questionable choices as well. For example, he inexplicably cites an obscure, cloying 1834 Jackson biography by William Cobbett, a British member of Parliament and journalist, to explain the background of Jackson's family in Ireland. Deppisch also frequently and inexplicably relies on Wikipedia and Geni.com, neither of which are reliable scholarly sources. Deppisch's work ultimately falls short of providing a reliable analysis of Jackson and the women who surrounded him. Instead, it highlights the work that remains to be done to understand the female members of Old Hickory's household. Mark R. Cheathem Cumberland University Copyright © 2022 The Southern Historical Association

How to Get Information Out of Members of Parliament (Without Being Told Off by the Speaker)

Based on experience of over 1000 interviews with British members of parliament, this article explains why members of parliament are difficult to get access to; offers tips to gain access to them, as well as ideas for how to get the most of out of them once they have agreed. It sets out one Golden Rule of dealing with political elites and also discusses the problems of attempting surveys.

From antagonist to protagonist: ‘Democracy’ and ‘people’ in British parliamentary debates, 1775–1885

Abstract ‘Democracy’ is a central word of our current political lexicon, often defined as ‘the power of the people’. However, in 19th century Britain, ‘democracy’ was not characterized by the rule of the ‘people’ but by the power of lower classes, of the ‘populace’ and the ‘mob’. In political discourse, and especially in parliamentary debates, the ‘people’ were an antagonist of ‘democracy’, not its protagonist. To support these statements, this article analyses British parliamentary debates between 1775 and 1885, through both a ‘distant reading’ with the help of corpus linguistics tools and a closer examination of certain key debates and actors. After a brief overview of the methodology, three crucial periods of British political history are analysed. (1) The end of the 18th century, where the impact of the French Revolution on democratic vocabulary is measured. (2) The debates surrounding the 1832 Reform Act, in which the explicit differentiation between the constitutional ‘people’ and the democratic ‘mob’ is drawn out by Whigs and Tories alike. (3) The Second Reform Act (1867), also presented as a ‘popular’ measure, and not a step towards ‘democracy’. In conclusion, the adoption of the democratic vocabulary by British Members of Parliament is traced to the 1880s, notably with the emergence of the idea of ‘Tory democracy’.

Emotional Interest Representation and the Politics of Risk in Child Protection

This article explores the emotional dimensions of political representation by British Members of Parliament (MP) in relation to child protection. The public speech acts and first-hand accounts of three MPs are drawn upon as examples. These highlight different forms of emotional interest representation that arise following the death of a local child from severe abuse or neglect and in response to anxieties in the community about risk. Firstly, I examine the role of the MP in seeking to embody their constituency in the public expression of collective emotional responses and to defend it from feelings of guilt and shame. Personal feelings of guilt and a consciousness of the politician’s role in attributing blame are then considered. Thirdly, I explore the role of the MP as trusted envoy for anxieties about risk to individual children within their constituencies. The article draws on Berezin’s concept of the secure state and Hochschild’s notion of politicians as feeling legislators, and is based on qualitative documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews with MPs. It is argued that the emotional processes outlined are central to understanding the problematic relationship between politics and state social work that fuels the cycle of crisis and reform in children’s services in the UK.

From me to we: Revolutionising Mindfulness in Schools

The practice of mindfulness adapts Buddhist meditation to everyday life. It seems effective at managing depression and anxiety, and is taught in schools to boost resilience and grades. Mostly, this prioritises calm. Students learn to focus on themselves, without Buddhist teachings on ethics or interdependence. This limits the scope for transformation. Whilst it can help to share techniques to cope with stress, it would be more insightful to target its causes not just symptoms. Instead, a fixation on self gets reinforced, which serves the prevailing market system. The onus is on individuals to be more resilient, instead of changing how things work. Widening inequality and a volatile climate are communal expressions of the roots of suffering, identified by Buddhists as greed, hatred and delusion. If mindfulness in schools were to cultivate ‘moral and civic virtues’, as British members of parliament argue it should, it could foster compassionate ‘pro-social’ action.

British MPs on British PMs: Parliamentary Evaluations of Prime Ministerial Success

This article reports the results of a recent survey of British Members of Parliament (N = 158) to explore parliamentary evaluations of post-war British Prime Ministers. The survey was fielded in 2013 as a part of a collaborative research project undertaken by undergraduate students. It finds that MPs in general rated Margaret Thatcher as the most successful post-war Prime Minister, with Clement Attlee a close runner-up. It also finds that MPs prioritised the implementation of party policy above merely winning elections, and that MPs thought successful Prime Ministers need to be decisive, principled and intelligent.

Public Parliamentary Activities and Open Methods of Coordination

This study investigates how members of parliament (MPs) of opposition parties in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands go public with information on the performance of national policies from six open methods of coordination (OMCs), and to what extent country differences in the set-up of parliamentary systems matter in this context. The empirical findings indicate that Dutch MPs use more information from OMC reports to shame the incumbent government than do British MPs. In both parliaments these shaming activities take place primarily in committee meetings and have no link with newspaper coverage on OMCs. Activities of MPs aimed at going public with information from OMC reports established only a weak link between OMCs and the citizens in European Union member states.

Minority-Ethnic MPs and the Substantive Representation of Minority Interests in the House of Commons, 2005-2011

Black, Asian and minority-ethnic (BAME) citizens are under-represented in the House of Commons. Nevertheless, the Chambers ethnic composition has become more reflective of the general population as a result of the 2005 and 2010 parliamentary elections. The article seeks to map and explain variations in the extent to which BAME Members of Parliament (MPs) use the Chamber to articulate issues relevant to minority constituents. We compare the content of all parliamentary questions for written answer asked by BAME MPs between May 2005 and December 2011 to the questions asked by a matching sample of non-minority legislators. We find that BAME MPs ask more questions relating to the problems and rights of ethnic minorities in, and immigration to, the UK. However, we also find that all British MPs are responsive to the interests of minority constituents where these are geographically concentrated. Building on theoretical predictions derived from (1) models focusing on MPs political socialisation and (2) on the electoral incentives they are facing, we discover that the MPs in our sample respond systematically to electoral incentives, especially in the politically salient area of immigration policy. While these findings are in line with an ‘electoral-incentives model, a ‘socialisation model’ is better suited to explain the larger number of questions on the interests of ethnic minorities asked by Labour MPs.

Human rights and intellectual disabilities: an emergent theoretical paradigm?

Human rights and intellectual disabilities: an emergent theoretical paradigm?

Parliamentary Questions as Instruments of Substantive Representation: Visible Minorities in the UK House of Commons, 2005–10

Does the growing descriptive representation of minority-ethnic legislators in the British House of Commons have any implications for the substantive representation of minority-related issues in the UK Parliament? This study is based on a data set of over 16,000 parliamentary questions tabled by 50 British backbench Members of Parliament (MPs) in the 2005–10 Parliament, including the 16 immigrant-origin MPs with a ‘visible-minority’ background. Based on a series of multivariate models, it is found that all British MPs sampled for this study – irrespective of their ethnic status – respond to electoral incentives arising from the socio-demographic composition of their constituencies: minority and non-minority MPs alike ask more questions relating to minority concerns, if they represent constituencies with a high share of non-White residents. Controlling for that general effect, however, MPs with a visible-minority status do tend to ask significantly more questions about ethnic diversity and equality issues.

Visitor Attitudes to Stonehenge: International Icon or National Disgrace?

Stonehenge is the UK's major prehistoric tourism attraction, with almost 1 million annual visitors, one of the top 10 UK visitor attractions since the early 1990s and an international icon used in tourism marketing. However, Stonehenge is controversial; major issues are access, authenticity and interpretation, with the actual visitor experience being criticised and termed ‘a national disgrace’ by British Members of Parliament (MPs). This paper reports on research conducted at Stonehenge in late summer and early autumn 2004. This involved a questionnaire survey that asked about motivations, visitor impacts and satisfaction levels. Results reveal educational factors to be major motivators and that Stonehenge is a World Heritage Site was also an important motivation. The results reveal a variety of views, and a more complex picture than is apparent from much rhetoric concerning Stonehenge as a visitor attraction. Overseas visitors were more positive in their reaction than British visitors, first time visitors more satisfied than repeat visitors and female visitors somewhat more positive in their reaction than men. In terms of their experience, and largely contradicting the UK Government committee claims, the majority of visitors indicated that Stonehenge has good interpretation, a fair entrance charge, provides good value for money and, overall, is an enjoyable experience.

FTAs and Erskine May: Conflicting needs?—Politeness in question time

This article attempts to show how British Members of Parliament (MPs) employ politeness strategies (Brown and Levinson, 1978, 1987) as a device to make their discourse abide by the rules of Erskine May's Treatise on the law, privileges, proceedings and usage of Parliament. Question Time is a highly aggressive genre, and Face Threatening Acts (FTAs) are intrinsic to its essence, but MPs are constrained by the need to produce ‘parliamentary language’. Politeness strategies become the linguistic device that helps the system work. When an MP flouts the rules, s/he is often obliged to reformulate the FTA, with face redress. Brown and Levinson's ‘balance principle’ still holds, although with different postulates: there is consensus to threaten each other's Public Face (Gruber, 1993), but respecting Erskine May's rules. Politeness strategies serve to comply with a sort of ‘institutionalized hypocrisy’.

Cliché‐based metadiscursive argumentation in the Houses of Parliament

This article puts forward a discourse‐analytical and argumentative framework for the interpretation of clichés used in parliamentary debates. The analysis of their argumentative functions is based on their metadiscursive use and institutional evaluation provided by the cliché‐users, namely British Members of Parliament. Metadiscursively introduced clichés undergo a double evaluation by their utterers: evaluation of the status of the cliché as a discursive strategy in general, and of the appropriateness or validity of the cliché as the bearer of a particular topos in a certain context. The argumentative orientation of political clichés is shown to originate in the speaker's implicit and explicit ideological commitments and to involve a marked, but shifting, polarization in terms of positive and negative values. The most frequent argumentative topoi for the parliamentary clichés in this corpus convey cliché status evaluations in scalar terms, such as ‘old’, and cliché appropriateness evaluations in binary terms, such as ‘true’/‘untrue’.

Adapting to climate change

Legislating for the present on the basis of predictions for the future can never be other than a dicey business. The suggestion by a British member of parliament in the nineteenth century that London would be waste-high in horse excrement by the 1950s could have been seen as a call for crippling taxes on Hansom cabs, pushing cabbies out of trade while still leaving us choking on exhaust fumes. So should we now be legislating against those exhaust fumes, in fear that by the end of the next century the world will be a flood- and storm-prone hothouse?

Workload, stress and family life in British Members of Parliament and the psychological impact of reforms to their working hours

Demands on Britain's Members of Parliament (MPs) have grown steadily over the last 15 years, resulting in parliamentary recommendations of working hours reform. This study was the first psychological research on national politicians and comprised two stages. Initially baseline data were gathered via questionnaire on the psychological impact of the job—124 out of 651 MPs (20 percent) responded. Results revealed long working hours, higher mean scores on physical stress and Type A behaviour scales compared to British managers, as well as greatly reduced levels of perceived control. Type A behaviour was linked to the ages of MPs and their children, while perceived control was altered significantly by political party membership and constituency location. At stage two, following a 9-month trial of reforms to MPs' working hours, a follow-up questionnaire was circulated. One hundred and ten out of 200 MPs responded. Results indicated increases approaching significance in both physical and emotional symptoms of stress and in difficulties at the home–work interface. MPs highlighted the stressful role of time pressures, family and constituency problems and job insecurity. Stress levels were significantly affected by the MP's age, their children's ages, constituency distance from Westminster, weekly travel time and extra work roles outside politics. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Unbridled passions? Free votes, issues of conscience and the accountability of British members of parliament

Certain issues in British politics are known as issues of ‘conscience’. It is usual for such issues to be dealt with by a free vote in the House of Commons. Such votes used to occur mainly on private members’ bills, although it is now more common for the Commons to resolve issues of conscience by using legislation brought forward by the government (with private members’ bills being used either in the earlier stages of campaigning or to enact uncontentious pieces of legislation). Because of this change in the way in which conscience legislation is processed, three former criticisms of parliament's treatment of conscience issues are no longer valid: turnout is now high; the clauses or bills are at least as well drafted as most government measures; and it is far from easy to enact such change. The system does, however, raise issues of political accountability, because it allows controversial legislation to be enacted for which in practice no one takes responsibility. The claim that this is because these issues are ‘above party’ is considered and rejected: conscience issues remain, for the most part, party issues.

Appendix II: CHURCH AND MISSION RELATIONSHIP IN NEPAL ‐ FORTY YEARS AHEAD

The executive director of the United Mission to Nepal (UMN) commented on church and mission relationships in Nepal, saying, We are about forty years other countries! My response was, Why not say, 'Forty years ahead?' I believe behind and ahead are two adverbs that can truly describe church and mission relationships in our country. Historical background The present church in Nepal is barely forty-four years old. This is surprising granted the fact that Roman Catholic Capuchin missionaries entered Nepal in 1720 AD. They had educational and medical services in the towns of Kathmandu, Patan and Bhadgaon. In the 1700s these towns were three kingdoms ruled by separate kings. I believe the history of Nepal would have been different had the missionaries been allowed to continue their work. In 1760 AD the Roman Catholic Capuchin priests and the first Nepali Christians were expelled by Prithivi Narayan Shah, a king from Gorkha, west Nepal. Prithivi Narayan Shah unified the petty, warring kingdoms and thus gave shape to the present country of Nepal. However, by expelling the Capuchin priests, he threw out modern education, medicine, and new ideas so vital to progress. Had he allowed the missionaries to remain, perhaps Nepal would not have been the poor, backward country it now is. Roman Catholic missionaries entered the country again only in 1952! For the two hundred plus years after the first missionaries were expelled, the governments of Nepal maintained their suspicion of Christians and Christian missionaries. Even during 1950-1960, when Nepal first experimented with parliamentary democracy, the Civil Code of the country punished a convert with at least a year in prison, and a converter, like a pastor or an evangelist, with six years in jail. When I was baptized in 1972, there was a Nepali pastor and an evangelist in a jail in west Nepal. Later, I heard of a Christian who died under police torture. In 1984, I, along with thirteen others, landed in a prison in Dandeldhura, a town in the extreme western zone of Nepal. When Nepal, in 1990, became a democratic state after about five hundred martyrs had given their lives, a British member of parliament had to come in person to ask the interim Nepalese government to release the sixty Christians still in jails. Last year, eleven Christians were arrested and released from a prison in east Nepal after serving sentences of about six months. Officially, the new constitution allows all religious groups to register with the government. In practice, very few Christian organizations have managed to do so. Nepal Bible Ashram, started in 1981, was shut down by the dictatorial Panchayat government in 1983, ran underground until 1993, returned to its original buildings in 1994, has tried to register itself with the government since 1995, and has not yet succeeded. Although the present democratic government of Nepal is not officially anti-Christian, the society of the only Hindu kingdom of this world is. Christian missionaries working in Nepal since 1952 are tolerated for the expertise they bring in education and modern medicine. Some have even received medals from the king. However, the suspicion against Christians and missionaries, first shown in 1760 AD by the founder-king of modern Nepal, continues. Transition from non-denominational to denominational churches Up until the late 1970s, churches in Nepal could still gather under one roof. The early missions to enter the country after Nepal opened its borders in 1950 were the International Nepal Fellowship (1952), the Jesuits (1952), and the United Mission to Nepal (1954). The Jesuit Roman Catholics ran the best schools in Nepal - St Xavier's and St Mary's. They deliberately followed the laws of the country against proselytism. The Protestant missions interpreted the government's ban on proselytism as conversion by force or financial/material benefits, and did not hesitate to share the gospel when asked in their hospitals, clinics and schools. …

Roles and behaviour of British MPs

The work of Donald Searing provides a snapshot of the motivational roles of British Members of Parliament in the early 1970s. Drawing on Searing's work, this paper considers the emergence of the Policy Advocate, identifying the likely reasons for the decline of more traditional roles, the unexpectedly large number of Policy Advocates in the 1970s, and the presumed increase in the number of Policy Advocates in later parliaments. Cognitive mobilisation has generated a new breed of MP and changes in parliamentary behaviour and structures have consolidated the position of the Policy Advocate. The rise of the Policy Advocate has important implications for the House of Commons and, given increasing demands made of MPs, the number of Policy Advocates is anticipated to increase in the future.

REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article: The Origins of Modem Freedom in the World. Edited by R.W. Davis. Simon de Montfort. By J.R. Maddicott.The British Library Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts: The Yelverton Manuscripts. Documents of the English Reformation. Edited by Gerald Bray. Reports From the Lost Notebooks of Sir James Dyer. Edited by J.H. Baker. Democracy in Britain. A Reader. Edited by Jack Lively and Adam Lively. Parliamentary Taxation in Seventeenth‐Century England: Local Administration and Response. By M.J. Braddick. Woodbridge. Politics and Opinion in Crisis, 1678–81. By Mark Knights. The Politics of the People in Eighteenth‐Century Britain. By H.T. Dickinson. Defining the Common Good. Empire, Religion and Philosophy in Eighteenth‐Century Britain. By Peter N. Miller. The Rise and Fall of the Grenvilles, Dukes of Buckingham and Chandos, 1710 to 1921. By J.V. Beckett. Governing Rural England. Tradition and Transformation in Local Government, 1780–1840. By David Eastwood. The Homer Papers. Selections from the Letters and Miscellaneous Writings of Francis Homer, M.P., 1795–1817. Edited by Kenneth Bourne and William Banks Taylor. British High Politics and a Nationalist Ireland. Criminality, Land and the Law under Forster and Balfour. By Margaret O'Callaghan. Aspects of Political Censorship, 1914–1918. By Tania Rose. Propaganda and the Role of the State in Inter‐War Britain. By Mariel Grant. Reform and Reconstruction. Britain After the War, 1945–51. By Stephen Brooke. Political Recruitment: Gender, Race and Class in the British Parliament. By Pippa Norris and Joni Lovenduski. Back from Westminster: British Members of Parliament and their Constituents. By Philip Norton and David M. Wood.