Conservative Political Parties Research Articles

The Quiet Man of British Politics: the Rise, Fall and Significance of Iain Duncan Smith

This article offers a reappraisal of the performance of Iain Duncan Smith as Conservative Party leader between 2001 and 2003. The rationale for the paper stems from the relative neglect of his leadership by political scientists. The paper argues that to disregard his party leadership tenure is to fail to understand the evolution of Conservative Party politics in the era of New Labour hegemony. Utilising a range of interviews with significant Conservative elites from the era of opposition, Duncan Smiths acquisition of the party leadership and brutal removal from it are reassessed. More significantly, the paper argues that his limitations as a political leader and his poor party management style should not mask the fact that the processes of policy renewal and strategic reorientation initiated under his leadership were important precursors to David Camerons capacity to push forward his modernisation agenda post-2005.

Foreword

Foreword Efrem Fisher, Shane Perkinson, and Sam Abrams Our issue's theme, when first introduced for discussion, was suggested as a look at the global trend towards religiously-influenced conservative political parties. The topic was quickly expanded beyond politics to encompass broader ideas and trends: the seeming rise of religious conservatism globally, the threat to and retreat of economic conservatism as a result of the global financial crisis, and the unsettled impact of increasing interconnectedness on social conservatism. Ultimately, we sought to explore the state of conservatism and its future, whether in jeopardy or thriving, under our broad themes. We never expected to reach a definitive conclusion on the fate of conservatism. The endeavor itself is foolish considering the breadth of the concept, but also because trends are rarely so conveniently linear. Still, the developments of the moment are deeply meaningful and need to be understood and debated. Therefore, we have aimed to include some of the most interesting and important topics, cases, and perspectives across the globe today. Our issue begins with the section, "Perspectives on American Conservatism." In the first piece economist John Williamson identifies the central tenets of conservative economic thought, offering both support and critique of those ideas. Joshua Muravchik, formerly of AEI and currently a fellow at SAIS's Foreign Policy Institute, follows with an explanation, assessment, and defense of neo-conservatism. William Poole, former president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, concludes with a libertarian interpretation of the financial crisis. The next section is "Country and Regional Case Studies." Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, looks at conservative modernization in Russia. Yousra Fazili, Senior Consultant for Booz Allen Hamilton, writes on the political tension in Iran. Professor Jens Rydgren (Stockholm University) analyzes the success of conservatism in Denmark versus its failure in Sweden. Former Japanese diplomat, Professor Kazuhiko Togo (Kyoto Sangyo University), illuminates the assertive conservative right in Japan. Finally, Professor Andrew Chesnut (Virginia Commonwealth University) discusses the rise of charismatic Christianity in Latin America. The final section, "Comparing the United States and Europe," does just that in two theoretical pieces by Professors Peter Lawler (Berry College) and Michael Zoeller (Bayreuth University-Germany). Next, in our "Responses" section, Professor Mahmood Mamdani (Columbia University) responds to a review of his book, Saviors and Survivors by Sean Brooks of the Save Darfur Coalition which appeared in our previous issue. [End Page 1] Four book reviews follow. Former CIA deputy and acting director and current SAIS professor John McLaughlin reviews James Mann's The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A History of the End of the Cold War. Foreign service officer and current fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations Rachel Schneller reviews Thomas Ricks's The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008. SAIS professor Luis Marques reviews John Be Taylor's Getting Off Track: How Government Actions and Interventions Caused, Prolonged, and Worsened the Financial Crisis. SAIS professor John Karaagac reviews William E. Scheuerman's Morgenthau: Realism and Beyond. Our issue concludes with the winning submissions to our biannual SAIS Prize competition: Iwan Davies for his essay on the impact of the economic crisis on developing countries, Andre Castillo for his review of Shahriar Mandanipour's Censoring an Iranian Love Story, and Jared Katz for his photo essay of Nepal. As always, we are deeply indebted to our advisory board, headed by SAIS Dean Jessica Einhorn, for their time and support. In particular, we would like to thank Professor Francis Fukuyama who was instrumental in shaping our thinking on this issue from the beginning. Professor Fukuyama has been a committed member of The SAIS Review advisory board for years and we wish him the very best going forward. [End Page 2] Copyright © 2010 The Johns Hopkins University Press

Reversing the Wave: The Perverse Effects of Economic Liberalism on Human Rights

This article takes the conservative shift in Polish politics under PiS as an example and argues that the failure of the liberal economy could end up reversing the fast-forward wave in human rights. And because Poland is a relatively new member of the EU, the article also develops the argument that such a reversal in the new member countries could make the European Un- ion's (EU) acquis irrelevant for further democratisation. Therefore, the article fi rst explains how the failure of the economic liberalism of the neo-liberal mar- ket economy paves the way for the success of conservative political parties. It then raises the question of why political liberalism, promoted by the EU's human rights acquis, is also a target for the opponents of the market economy. The article concludes with a discussion of current Polish politics in the after- math of the October 2007 elections.

Necessity and the Invention of a Newspaper

Starting a newspaper in the nineteenth century was a risky business, and this was especially true in the Civil War South where invading armies, spiraling inflation, and conscription laws were constant threats to physical facilities, financial success, and manpower. Despite this, North Carolina Governor Zebulon B. Vance and the state's Conservative political party found the money and the will to establish a new daily to support the his re-election bid in 1864. Campaign papers were common in the 1800s, but while most shut down following an election, the Conservative continued to publish after Vance won. Records and archives document how it was financed, equipped, and staffed, providing an unprecedented glimpse into what it took to start a newspaper not only in the nineteenth century but during America's bloodiest war.

Moros y cristianos. De la batalla festiva a la discursiva

Just over a year ago in Spain, the parliament accepted a motion for debate sine die tabled by the Spanish conservative political party, the Partido Popular, concerning the declaration of the “Moros y cristianos” (Moors and Christians) festivals a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible World Heritage. The request should be seen in the context of the process of democratisation and universalization that heritage has undergone, and can be explained by the increasingly more commercial aspect of the process of turning activities into heritage. In the case that concerns us, the presentation of the motion gave rise to an interesting political debate over tradition, freedom, and threat. This article analyses the controversy surrounding these festivals and the proposal that they should be declared Intangible World Heritage.

Status Inconsistency Revisited: An Improved Statistical Model

Gerhard Lenski hypothesized that status inconsistency leads to mental stress, social isolation, and liberal political views. But intensive empirical research has failed to observe these consequences. The statistical methods used in the research controlled for the main effects of relative positions in hierarchies by including the additive terms. But they neglected another confounding source, the interaction effect caused by reasons other than status inconsistency, while there was empirical evidence for its existence. This paper proposes an improved statistical model that controls for this confounding source by including one more term, a multiplicative term, while using the absolute difference between relative positions in different hierarchies to measure the effect of status inconsistency. This model is applied to the GSS data, and the hypothesized consequences are observed. Statistical results show that status inconsistency between education and income undermined self-rated health, satisfaction with leisure life, trust in other individuals in society, social participation in various groups and organizations, confidence in political and economic institutions, and conservative political party identification.

Vigilant Citizens: Statecraft and Exclusion in Dubbo City

Vigilant Citizens: Statecraft and Exclusion in Dubbo City

The private–public mix of healthcare: evidence from a decentralised NHS country

Privatizations of public services are often driven by economic scarcity and changes in political leadership, in particular election victories for conservative or neoliberal political parties. Data from Norwegian counties on numbers of medical specialists in secondary care over a period of 11 years (1991-2001) allow us to analyse effects of economic, socioeconomic, and political factors on supply of both public and private specialists and the private-public mix. We find striking variations between the main explanatory factors related to public and private supply. Supply of public specialists is explained by counties' revenue levels and demographic factors and is not affected by the party composition of councils. The supply of private specialist medical services is negatively related to the proportion of elderly patients. The scarcity hypothesis is confirmed as lower county revenue levels increase both the absolute and relative proportions of private supply. Political composition of councils affects the private proportion of medical specialists as increased representation of conservatives leads to privatization.

Rehabilitation and Repression

For over a century, scholars and practitioners have assumed rehabilitation stands as the progressiveopposite of repression. Elaborating on previous warnings and anomalous findings, a representativesurvey of the Dutch population (N = 1,892) points out that this received view is flawed. Whenmeasured separately, no significant correlation exists between support for rehabilitation and supportfor repression, rehabilitation is equally popular among the constituencies of conservative andprogressive political parties, and no negative relationship exists be tween rehabilita tion and author-itarianism. Decriminalization rather than rehabilitation proves to constitute the progressive converseof repression. By way of conclusion, we discuss the remarkable persistence of the received view reas-sessed in this paper, even in the face of convincing earlier contradictory evidence.

The Catholic Apostolic Church in British Politics

This article looks at a largely neglected aspect of nineteenth- and twentieth-century religio-political activism and public doctrine, the conservative politics of premillennialist Protestantism. It approaches this subject through a case study of the doctrines and activities of the Catholic Apostolic Church, a relatively small premillennialist and Pentecostal faith-community extant from the 1830s through to the mid-twentieth century. The translation of these doctrines into Conservative party politics by Henry Drummond MP and by the seventh and eighth dukes of Northumberland is given especial attention.

A clash of policy approaches: The rise (and fall?) of Dutch harm reduction policies towards ecstasy consumption

This paper describes the origins and evolution of Dutch harm reduction policies towards ecstasy. It is argued that the national government has allowed and supported local stakeholders to experiment with harm reduction measures. In the mid-1990s, the national government officially stated that the harm reduction practices developed on a local level represented the best possible solution to prevent harm. However, recently, harm reduction policy has come under pressure due to a variety of developments. The paper argues that the bottom-up approach of the Dutch government is no longer pursued because international pressure helps law enforcement agencies as well as conservative political parties to restructure ecstasy policy in a top-down and law enforcement direction. This process is underway but it has not yet fully eroded the structures that have instantiated harm reduction policies in the last decade.

Ideology, Social Threat, and the Death Sentence: Capital Sentences across Time and Space

Capital punishment is the most severe criminal penalty, yet we know little about the factors that produce jurisdictional differences in the use of the death sentence. Political explanations emphasize conservative values and the strength of more conservative political parties. Threat accounts suggest that this sentence will be more likely in jurisdictions with larger minority populations. After controlling for many explanations using two-equation count models, the results show that larger numbers of death sentences are probable in states with greater membership in conservative churches and in states with higher violent crime rates. The findings suggest that political conservatism, a stronger Republican party, and racial threat explain whether a state ever used the death sentence, but these hypotheses do not account for the number of death sentences beyond one. By highlighting the explanatory power of public ideologies, these findings support political explanations for the harshest criminal punishment.

Review: The Tories and Ireland 1910–1914: Conservative Party Politics and the Home Rule Crisis

Review: The Tories and Ireland 1910–1914: Conservative Party Politics and the Home Rule Crisis

The Tories and Ireland, 1910-1914: Conservative Party Politics and the Home Rule Crisis

The Tories and Ireland, 1910-1914: Conservative Party Politics and the Home Rule Crisis

Cultivating Class Consciousness in a New Generation: The Labor Guild of Youth in Melbourne 1926-28

This article examines the inspiration and origins of the Labor Guild of Youth, formed as a section of the Australian Labor Party in Victoria in 1926. It also traces the progress of the organisation, analysing its membership, leadership, aims and objectives, educational and social activities and the reasons for its failure to develop a large following. The main purpose of the paper, however, is to investigate the significance of the establishment of a youth organisation that had the specific objective of encouraging class consciousness and identity rather than the conservative patriotic citizenship that predominated in most of the other youth movements that proliferated in early twentieth-century Melbourne. While acknowledging forerunners like the Socialist Sunday School, the paper will argue that the Labor Guild of Youth was indicative of the transition from middle-class paternalist organisations established for adolescents to ones that acknowledged and supported greater independence and a larger degree of self-governance. The difficulties and contradictions involved in this process, as well as the tensions arising from attempts to combine pleasure and leisure with political ambition, and the different objectives of'hand' and 'brain'workers, are themes integral to the analysis and conclusions about the Guild's historical significance and fate. So too are the male-gendered but unspoken assumptions built into the labour movement and its associated organisations, despite the mixed membership of the Guild. The principal sources used are Labor Call, the minutes of the Guild and Labor Youth but the study will be placed in the context of research on the organisation of youth by others in the 1920s, including conservative political parties and pioneers in the field like the YWCA and the YMCA.

Global Media Events in India: Contests over Beauty, Gender and Nation

This monograph focuses on perceptions of televised global beauty pageants among business and media professionals in India who organized, sponsored, and supported the Miss World beauty contest. The 1996 Miss World pageant, which was held in Bangalore, a cosmopolitan city in South India, proved to be highly controversial due to protests expressed against the pageant by religious leaders, conservative women's groups, feminist activists, and political parties. My analysis of discourses on Miss World that circulated among professionals in the Indian culture industry is based on data gathered from ethnographic fieldwork in Mumbai and Bangalore. Informants' statements about the televised Miss World revealed that categories of nation and gender deeply influenced local producers' interpretations of the benefits that accrue to India through the practice of hosting global media events. In selecting a logo for Miss World, organizers and sponsors had to carefully negotiate local religious and gender politics as well as global fashion and beauty standards. Organizers' motives in holding the pageant in India demonstrated the launching of new configurations of global cultural flows that highlight Third World culture industries' desires to manage and control their own projects of globalization. The study shows that the selection of a venue for Miss World was shaped by struggles to challenge regional hierarchies within India. In conclusion, I consider the implications of this qualitative research on local producers' interpretations of Miss World for studies of media globalization, nationalism, and gender.

Bringing the international economy back in: welfare system change in Sweden, Britain and the US, 1975‐85

Evaluates changes in the welfare system in Sweden, the UK and the USA over a decade, basing arguments on the divergence of economic globalization and domestic forces. Presents brief economic snapshots of each country, stating quite categorically that the welfare state is an impediment to capitalist profit‐making, hence all three nations have retrenched welfare systems in the hope of remaining globally economically competitive. Lays the responsibility for retrenchment firmly at the door of conservative political parties. Takes into account public opinion, national institutional structures, multiculturalism and class issues. Explores domestic structures of accumulation (DSA) and refers to changes in the international economy, particularly the Bretton Woods system (Pax Americana), and notes how the economic health of nations mirrors that of the US. Investigates the roles of multinationals and direct foreign investment in the global economy, returning to how economic policy affects the welfare state. Points out the changes made to the welfare state through privatization, decentralization and modification of public sector financing. Concludes that the main result has been an increase in earnings inequality and poverty.

Party Politics and Decolonization: The Conservative Party and British Colonial Policy in Tropical Africa, 1951-1964.

This book explores the relationship between Conservative Party politics and British colonial policy in tropical Africa during the unbroken period of Conservative government from 1951 to 1964. Based particularly on recently released documentary evidence, much of it never before published, Philip Murphy's study traces the development of Conservative attitudes towards Britain's role as a colonial power and describes reactions within the party to the rapid British withdrawal from Africa following the 1959 General Election. Making a clear distinction between the Conservative Party and the machinery of government over which conservative ministers presided, Dr Murphy examines how the party itself exercised a direct influence over the struggle for power between competing interest groups within the African colonies. He assesses the links between the conservatives and the so-called 'multi-racial' parties intended by Britain to play an important feature in political development in Africa and the ties between Conservative politicians and British businessmen active in the continent. Dr Murphy's analysis makes an important contribution to the debate on the process of decolonization, highlighting the variety of ways in which metropolitan party politics could influence the transfer of power.

Bipolarity, Multipolarity, and Domestic Political Systems

Domestic factors have become increasingly important with the erosion of bipolarity in international relations. Together with the transnationalization of the world economy and civil society, this change has weakened the state apparatus: and yet the latter is expected to act more effectively for domestic and global governance. The ensuing dilemma of state action is particularly acute in countries like Italy and Japan, where the alliance relationship with the United States has been propped up by conservative political parties. In socialist countries the bipolar international order was closely associated with the one-party state. The lack of accountability by governments in East and West has not been replaced by a new democracy, but rather by a new political volatility reflected in changing coalitions and populist policies. Political imperatives of the Cold War are about to be replaced by the imperatives of the market place. This in turn requires that peace and war issues be analyzed in a new key.

Conservative Government and Support for the Religious Institution in Singapore: An Uneasy Alliance

During the 1 980s various conservative governments tried to strengthen the public role of religion. This is understandable, given that there are affinities between political conservatism and religion. The argument developed in this paper is that when conservatives act in support of religion unforeseen problems develop that lead the conservatives to withdraw their support. The case of Singapore is considered in detail. In 1982, a conservative government passed a law requiring all secondary students to study a religion; in 1989, the same government effectively terminated the religious studies program. The reasons for this change of heart are analyzed. The article concludes with a discussion of which reasons may be peculiar to Singapore or Chinese societies generally and which reasons are likely to trouble any conservative government. During the 1980s conservative political parties in control of governments sought to strengthen the social role of religion. In the United States, Republican leaders courted the Christian right (Tamney and Johnson, 1987). In England, Thatcher's government passed an educational reform act meant to halt the decline in the prominence of Christianity by requiring, among other things, Christian worship services in most schools (Cox and Cairns, 1989). In Singapore, an avowedly secular government passed a law requiring all secondary students to study a religion. These examples suggest that during the last decade conservative governments welcomed alliances with the religious institution. However, in this article I argue that even conservative governments are not likely to stay with policies that reinforce the public influence of religion. After discussing the nature of political conservatism and its affinities with religion, the