Sir Ernest Barker Research Articles

‘Never Reflective, because So Obviously a Fact’: Institutions and National Identity in English Political Thought

Following the result of the Scottish Referendum in September 2014, Peter Hennessy thought that the English Question would become the weather-maker in contemporary British politics. It is important, however, to avoid overemphasis on the novelty of this matter. There is a compelling argument to bring current debates about Englishness into fruitful dialogue with historical perspectives because this may yield more nuanced understandings of the relationship between political argument and enduring expressions of Englishness. This article considers first a tradition of institutional thinking and how that thinking helped to define English national self-understanding, what Sir Ernest Barker once described as ‘never reflective, because it is so simply and obviously a fact’. The article explores the erosion of that national self-understanding in recent years through a number of ‘ironies of inversion’, in which the previous virtues of English institutionalism can appear as present vices. These ironies of inversion have become factors of popular political grievance, especially since devolution, and have added to an insistent mood that the English Question must be addressed, even if there is no consensus about how it should be addressed.

Bede Jarrett, Sir Ernest Barker and the Political Significance of the Dominican Order

AbstractThis article seeks to reappraise the scholarly work of Bede Jarrett OP by drawing out his debt to Sir Ernest Barker. A shared interest in medieval political and social institutions, and in the constitution of the Dominican Order as a model of voluntary association, infused Jarrett's thinking with the tenets of English political pluralism and enabled him to produce a body of work that paid as much attention to concrete political form as to social ethics. As such his work establishes links with nineteenth and early twentieth-century Christian Socialism, as well as echoing certain current preoccupations within political theology.

Liberal Anti-Fascism in the 1930s: The Case of Sir Ernest Barker

One of the few achievements the communist left in Britain can still plausibly claim is its anti-fascism in the 1930s and beyond. This has recently been most dogmatically reasserted in a series of publications by David Renton, who calls for a distinction to be made between “anti-fascists” and “non-fascists.” The former are characterized by their “correct” understanding of fascism and reliance on organized, active resistance, often in the streets; whereas the latter contributed very little to fascism's defeat. Such a loaded definition of anti-fascism ensures that only the Communist Party and their acolytes fit the bill. But within the historiography even more “neutral”—and seemingly encompassing—definitions have tended, in practice, to look largely to left-wing organizations.This article will question these perspectives and argue for the significance of a “liberal” anti-fascism, which brought together many Liberal, Conservative and Labour politicians and intellectuals in cross-party pressure groups. What characterized the anti-fascism of these men and women was not resistance to theactionsof the BUF, which most regarded as thuggish but insignificant, but resistance to theideologicalchallenge to English parliamentary democracy represented by continental “totalitarian” movements. The article will begin by considering the compromised nature of the British Communist Party's anti-fascist record and why “liberal” historians have, on the whole, tended to underestimate the extent of liberal anti-fascism. It will then suggest that a truly less exclusionary and partisan approach to anti-fascism should readily include the likes of the liberal Sir Ernest Barker and many in his political and social circle. It will also argue that, even accepting Renton's own, restrictive definition, Barker would still qualify as an anti-fascist, rather than a non-fascist, for he combined a coherent analysis of single-party, totalitarian states with a commitment to organized action through bodies such as the New Estates Community Committee and the Association for Education in Citizenship to remove the pre-conditions of antidemocratic beliefs.

Britain's Habsburg Question? Tom Nairn, Sir Ernest Barker and the Multi-national State

It has become fashionable to define Britishness in terms of what it lacks. Norman Davies's influential The Isles: A History has helped to confirm the fashion (without actually being aware that it is an example of that fashion), arguing that Britishness is not the attribute of a nation state, that the British are confused about their identity and lack a clear sense of the state to which they belong (1999), One commentator has remarked that there has developed an 'almost German-style debate about British identity' which has alerted us to the political 'fragility* of the United Kingdom (Garton Ash 2001). Those matters which once appeared alien (or Germanic) in the context of (relative) historical stability - national identity, statehood, political legitimacy - have now moved closer to the centre of public debate. As a consequence, there has emerged a notable mood of fatalism about the survival of the Union and an anxiety about things falling apart. Here one may note a certain irony. As that now rather neglected political thinker, Sir Ernest Barker, once argued, German-style debates are a distinctly un-British thing. The British are not given to an 'indulgence in Weltschmerz' (1947, p. 558). Their solid pragmatic virtues, he believed, did not lend themselves to such soulful self-torment. Barker's reflections on this subject are worth noting because they illuminate not only an ideal of Britishness often neglected in recent commentary but also because they illustrate why that ideal is no longer so persuasive as it once was. Moreover, he helped to define the official character of British politics in that period described by one critic as the 'moment of British

Political Science in Four Presidential Elections

Political Science in Four Presidential Elections

The National Character of Ernest Barker's Political Science

This article considers the writings of Sir Ernest Barker (1874–1960), one of the first professional political scientists in Britain. It examines his background in Literae Humaniores and Modern History at late-Victorian Oxford, disciplines which respectively imparted the idealist and Whig framework of his later thought. It is argued that Barker's fusion of these two rival discourses – together with the concerns of early twentieth-century pluralism – reinforced powerful cultural motifs. As a consequence, the significance of political science seems to have outstretched the academic boundaries in which it increasingly became confined after his death.

The Two Faces of Compromise

important political concepts. The sum total of these prevalent attitudes may be seen as the national character of politics in these systems. One such fundamental concept is compromise. It could be argued that every political system can be classified by students of comparative politics on the basis of its prevalent attitude towards compromise.' In these remarks dealing with what can be called the two faces of compromise, attention will be centered on the widely divergent attitudes toward compromise prevalent in British and German politics. Like all use of ideal types in the social sciences, this discussion aims at clarifying reality rather than merely simplifying it. It is hoped, however, that the contrast of British and German attitudes toward compromise will help to explain and evaluate significant differences in the behavior of these nations in both domestic and international politics. The distinguished British political theorist, Sir Ernest Barker, argued2 that in a compromise all ideas are reconciled. The compromise can be accepted by all because it bears the imprint of all. Discussion has as its purpose compromise, and therefore the achievement of compromise is the justification for discussion in a democracy. If there has been no compromise, discussion has been useless. Barker, furthermore, sees law-making as the process of the grand dialectic of public debate, in which thought clashes with thought until a reconciling compromise is found. If a majority engages in discussion with a minority, and if that discussion is conducted in a spirit of give-and-take the result will be that the ideas of the majority are widened to include some of the ideas of the minority which have established their truth in the give-and-take of debate. Edmund Burke formulated it: All government ... is founded on compromise and barter. We balance inconveniences; we give and take; we remit some rights, that we may enjoy others. It is in this sense that discussion produces, if not unanimity, at any rate something so close to unanimity that we may speak of common consent. This common consent, if it is broad and fundamental enough, becomes consensus about both the form of the decision-making process and the content of the decisions that actually are made. Barker's conception of compromise is typically British, representing a wide variety of political views. Harold Laski, for instance, argued in his classic study of Parliamentary Government in England that successful representative government presupposes a nation fundamentally at one upon all the major objects of governmental activity so fundamentally at one that the thought of violence as an instrument of political change is incapable of entering the minds of more than an insignificant portion of the nation. Along the same lines, Earl Balfour stressed that

The Social Contract in America, 1774-1787: Revolutionary Theory as a Conservative Instrument

I F the theory of the social contract were judged by its fruits, on a pragmatic test of truth, Sir Ernest Barker has written, could bring to the bar of judgment a of rich achievement.' Men have at various times acted upon the principles of the contract despite its deficiencies. Its hopelessly abstract and unhistorical qualities have not deterred them. They have employed the contract most often to justify the overthrow of one government and establishment of another, exercising the right of revolution which the theory permitted when a ruler transgressed natural law or violated the terms of the original contract.2 Primarily it is the number of such successful revolutions that constitutes the record of rich achievement. The American Revolution carried forward this tradition of putting the ideas of the contract theory into practiced Its appeal to the contract as the principal justification for armed resistance is especially familiar. What is less frequently seen is the additional use of contractual principles to explain the process of separation from

Sir Ernest Barker, F.B.A.

Sir Ernest Barker, F.B.A.

Sir Ernest Barker

Sir Ernest Barker

Toynbee's Search for Historical Laws

In writing A Study of Toynbee tells us, it was his purpose try out the approach to human affairs and to test how far it will carry us.' It seems clear enough, from what he says at countless points in his ten-volume comparison of civilizations that he believes it has carried him, at any rate, as far as the discovery of a number of historical laws. It true that, especially in the first six volumes, Toynbee on the whole rather cautious in stating the results of his enquiry. At times, for example, he prefers to speak of patterns, recurrences, or regularities; and when the word law used, it often, although not always, put in parentheses, while the statement to which it refers contains some qualification like is apt to. It true, too, that the publication of final four volumes has made it abundantly clear, if it was not so already, that the search for laws not the only concern of the author of A Study of History. And perhaps it could even be claimed that his interest in this aspect of his enterprise has progressively declined. Yet in a long section of the ninth volume entitled Law and Freedom in History, Toynbee has thought it worth while to attempt both methodological and philosophical justification of his search for laws; and his discussions of the contacts between civilizations in space and time in volumes VII and VIII contain some of the most unequivocal claims to the discovery of laws to be found in the whole work. As for the way he hedges in formulating some of them, it would be natural to regard this as no more than an expre sion of a real or affected modesty. For as he says himself, his Study a pioneering work which his successors will doubtless have to modify in many details. In the two and a half decades since Study began to appear it has received criticism of a number of kinds. The hard core of that criticism, however, has generally been that in one way or another the claim of scientific status for his conclusions bogus, and perhaps irretrievably so. Such criticism has run the gamut from the sad reflection of Sir Ernest Barker that Toynbee's

The Jewel in the Lotus: Recollections of an Indian Political

Journal Article The Jewel in the Lotus: Recollections of an Indian Political Get access The Jewel in the Lotus: Recollections of an Indian Political. By B. J. Gould. Foreword by Sir Ernest Barker. London, Chatto & Windus, 1957. xiv+252 pp. Illus. Maps. Index. 25s. Olaf Caroe Olaf Caroe Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 34, Issue 1, January 1958, Pages 73–74, https://doi.org/10.2307/2605880 Published: 01 January 1958

The moral and Political doctrines of Antiphon the Sophist. A reconsideration

Since the publication in 1915 of the first of the papyrus fragments of Antiphon, the major problem of interpretation has been how to relate the Antiphon of the papyri to the Antiphon of the other fragments. The appeal to Physis as against Nomos in the papyri suggested that Antiphon was rejecting the claims of the community upon the individual while the fragments of the Περὶ Ὁμονοίας with their emphasis upon education and σωφροσύνη seemed to point in a different direction. Some, like Luria, may have felt that the difficulty could be dealt with by invoking the doctrine of the two Antiphons and attributing the papyrus fragments to one and the remaining fragments to the other. Others, like Sir Ernest Barker, have attempted a doctrinal reconciliation by appealing to more general principles from which both sets of doctrine might follow, or by so interpreting the doctrines of the papyrus tliat the conflict largely disappears. All have assumed that the papyrus fragments do give us either Antiphon's own views, or at least some of his views. This is true even of Bignone,Studi sul pensiero antico(Naples, 1938), who recognized that some of the time Antiphon is discussing the views of others. In what follows it will be argued that the papyrus fragments throughout are discussing the views of others and that Antiphon's own views only appear incidentally if at all.

The European Inheritance. Edited by SirErnest Barker, SirGeorge Clark, and ProfessorP. Vaucher. 3 vols, 8½ + 5¼. Pp. 543, 384, 385 + pls. 51 and maps. Oxford: at the Clarendon Press, 1954. £5· 5s.

The European Inheritance. Edited by SirErnest Barker, SirGeorge Clark, and ProfessorP. Vaucher. 3 vols, 8½ + 5¼. Pp. 543, 384, 385 + pls. 51 and maps. Oxford: at the Clarendon Press, 1954. £5· 5s. - Volume 35 Issue 3-4

Reviews

Reviewed in this article:Sir Ernest Barker, Sir George Clark and P. VaucherSir Ernest Barker, Sir George Clark and P. VaucherW. G. Hoskins. Devon.T. C. Barker and J. R. Harris. A Merseyside Town in the Industrial Revolution, St Helens, 1750–1900.Lionel Robbins. The Economist in the Twentieth Century and Other Lectures in Political Economy.

The Open Society and Its Enemies

years ago I read, very hurriedly, the first volume of this book and two or three ehapters of the seeond; and have therefore gained very little from thinking again about svhat I thought before. On the other hand, I have heard the book diseussed several times, and not always eoolly, and therefore eould not begin a eareful reading of it free from preeoneeptions. Having read it, I feel more eertain of the ability of the author than of the quality of his book. The first volume deals with Plato. It expounds and eritieizes the Platonie soeial and politieal philosophy, and it also attaeks Plato. This part of the book has been ealled unorthodox ; and it is, I think, just as well to explain exaetly what is unorthodox about it. Plato's politieal philosophy has been diseussed so long, so thoroughly and by so many able persons, that there is probably very little that is new to be said about it. The unorthodoxy , such as it is, of Professor Popper's treatment of Plato, eertainly does not lie in anything partieularly new he has to tell us about his philosophy; it lies (if anyuhere) rather in the motives he aseribes to Plato, in the comparisons he makes between his theories and some modern ones, and in his aeeount of Plato's relations uZith Soerates. Professor Popper believes that Plato's admirers have been misled by their admiration for him and have often quite misunderstood him. Now, it is eertainly tme that the world has been offered many different aceounts of Plato's politieal philosophy, nearly all of them by his admirers, and that every one of these aecounts has been more or less ineompatible with some of the others; it therefore follors that Plato has been often misunderstood and nearly always by his admirers. But it does not follow that all this admiration has left us with a seriously distorted conception of that philosophy; one admirer has corrected another, and the admiration has been often greatly qualified. Professor Popper is sometimes quite reekless in nrhat he says about Plato's admirers. For instanee, he suggests that Sir Ernest Barker has not notieed 2 that Plato deliberately eonfused egoism and individualism, and then attacked individualism as if it were the same thing as egoism. The impression left on the reader is that Sir Ernest Barker has been so blinded by his admiration

The Fifty-Seventh Annual Meeting

AbstractAbstractAlthough there was mist in the valley, it was a bland day, with bursts of warm sunshine, for the Fifty-Seventh Annual Meeting held in the New Sunday School, Haworth, on Saturday, May 26th, 1951. There was a good rally of members at the business meeting, but the attendance at the public meeting was smaller than in recent years, probably because of Festival counter-attractions in the district.On the platform with Sir Ernest Barker, the chief speaker, were the President (Mr. Donald Hopewell) in the chair, Dr. Phyllis Bentley, Mr. W. L. Andrews, Lord Stamford, Mr. W. T. Vint and the Rector of Haworth (the Rev. W. T. Dixon).

Social Contract. Essays by Locke, Hume and Rousseau.

Contents: Introduction, Sir Ernest Barker; An Essay Concerning the True Original, Extent and End of Civil Government, John Locke; Of the Original Contract, David Hume; The Social Contract, J.J. Rousseau.

Father of the Man. By Sir Ernest Barker. (National Council of Social Service; 5s) - Ploughman’s Wisdom. By Norman Carew. (Faber ; 15s.) - West Country Short Stories. Chosen by Lewis Wilshire. (Faber; 12s. 6d .)

Father of the Man. By Sir Ernest Barker. (National Council of Social Service; 5s) - Ploughman’s Wisdom. By Norman Carew. (Faber ; 15s.) - West Country Short Stories. Chosen by Lewis Wilshire. (Faber; 12s. 6d .)

An Exposition of Empire

An Exposition of Empire Get access An Exposition of Empire. By C. E. Carrington 1947. (London: Cambridge University Press. Current Problems 28. General Editor: Sir Ernest Barker. 7″ × 4¼″. vii + 140 pp. Index. 3s. 6d.) Nicholas Mansergh Nicholas Mansergh Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 24, Issue 2, April 1948, Pages 271–272, https://doi.org/10.2307/3018029 Published: 01 April 1948