Pub Date : 2023-06-16DOI: 10.1177/00323217231178631
L. Chazel, Vincent Dain
This article proposes to explore the interaction between populism and environmentalism in the discourse of populist radical left parties, through a case study of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s parties, Parti de gauche (2008–2016) and La France insoumise (from 2016). While an emerging literature primarily investigated the populist framing of populist radical right parties’ climate (sceptic) discourse, the article analyses how a populist radical left party incorporates environmental issues into its agenda and the extent to which environmentalism and populism concretely interweave. Using mixed-methods, we first show that the logics of party competition and the growing salience of environmental issues led La France insoumise to gradually develop an ambitious green agenda. We then show that there is evidence for a populism/environmentalism nexus that could be defined as ‘green populism’. La France insoumise’s ecosocialist ideology combines to anti-elitism and people-centrism to blame the environmental crisis on the ‘oligarchy’ and to promote a green transition that would protect the people.
本文试图通过让-吕克·梅朗雄的政党、高党（2008-2016）和法国独立党（2016）的案例研究，探讨民粹主义激进左翼政党话语中民粹主义与环保主义的互动。虽然一篇新兴的文献主要调查了民粹主义激进右翼政党气候（怀疑论）话语的民粹主义框架，但文章分析了民粹主义激进左翼政党如何将环境问题纳入其议程，以及环境主义和民粹主义具体交织的程度。使用混合方法，我们首先表明，政党竞争的逻辑和环境问题日益突出，导致法国逐渐制定了雄心勃勃的绿色议程。然后，我们表明，有证据表明民粹主义/环保主义之间的关系可以被定义为“绿色民粹主义”。La France insoumise的生态社会主义意识形态与反精英主义和人民中心主义相结合，将环境危机归咎于“寡头政治”，并促进保护人民的绿色转型。
{"title":"Left-Wing Populism and Environmental Issues: An Analysis of La France Insoumise’s ‘Popular Environmentalism’","authors":"L. Chazel, Vincent Dain","doi":"10.1177/00323217231178631","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00323217231178631","url":null,"abstract":"This article proposes to explore the interaction between populism and environmentalism in the discourse of populist radical left parties, through a case study of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s parties, Parti de gauche (2008–2016) and La France insoumise (from 2016). While an emerging literature primarily investigated the populist framing of populist radical right parties’ climate (sceptic) discourse, the article analyses how a populist radical left party incorporates environmental issues into its agenda and the extent to which environmentalism and populism concretely interweave. Using mixed-methods, we first show that the logics of party competition and the growing salience of environmental issues led La France insoumise to gradually develop an ambitious green agenda. We then show that there is evidence for a populism/environmentalism nexus that could be defined as ‘green populism’. La France insoumise’s ecosocialist ideology combines to anti-elitism and people-centrism to blame the environmental crisis on the ‘oligarchy’ and to promote a green transition that would protect the people.","PeriodicalId":51379,"journal":{"name":"Political Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49606264","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-12DOI: 10.1177/00323217231178994
Sergiu Gherghina, I. Saikkonen
Studies on electoral clientelism are increasingly focusing on the demand side and explaining how voters react to electoral inducements. However, there is limited research about how candidate attributes and partisanship can determine citizens’ reactions to clientelism. This article therefore tests the relative weight that voters place on candidate attributes and partisanship in their reactions to clientelistic targeting in the context of a new democracy. We use evidence from an original conjoint experiment conducted in 2021 in Romania, where electoral clientelism is frequent. Our findings show that citizens react negatively to clientelistic inducements in general, but the effects vary based on the targeting strategy used by politicians. These negative effects are considerably weaker among co-partisans. This observation is especially relevant when testing the effect of partisanship in a political setting where it is low.
{"title":"Partisanship and Tolerance for Clientelism: Evidence from a Conjoint Experiment in Romania","authors":"Sergiu Gherghina, I. Saikkonen","doi":"10.1177/00323217231178994","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00323217231178994","url":null,"abstract":"Studies on electoral clientelism are increasingly focusing on the demand side and explaining how voters react to electoral inducements. However, there is limited research about how candidate attributes and partisanship can determine citizens’ reactions to clientelism. This article therefore tests the relative weight that voters place on candidate attributes and partisanship in their reactions to clientelistic targeting in the context of a new democracy. We use evidence from an original conjoint experiment conducted in 2021 in Romania, where electoral clientelism is frequent. Our findings show that citizens react negatively to clientelistic inducements in general, but the effects vary based on the targeting strategy used by politicians. These negative effects are considerably weaker among co-partisans. This observation is especially relevant when testing the effect of partisanship in a political setting where it is low.","PeriodicalId":51379,"journal":{"name":"Political Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45921701","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-12DOI: 10.1177/00323217231178630
C. Durose, Viviene Lowndes
Street-level bureaucrats shape policy through using discretion in their interactions with citizens and service users in delivering public services. Discretion allows street-level bureaucrats to bridge between public policy and the complex, individual, human situations they encounter. Drawing on insights from feminist institutionalism, this article establishes gender as a relevant analytical category in understanding discretion. We set out three analytical propositions: street-level bureaucrats work in gendered institutional contexts that shape their discretion; street-level bureaucrats are gendered actors, whose discretion is shaped by their individual gendered dispositions; and street-level bureaucrats’ discretion has gendered effects. We investigate these propositions through a case study of the early implementation of the classification of misogyny as a hate crime among police forces in England and Wales. In addressing this analytical intersection between street-level bureaucracy and feminist institutionalism, we bring a gendered perspective to street-level bureaucracy, and a focus on how rules are interpreted to feminist institutionalism, forging new ground in public administration.
{"title":"Gendering Discretion: Why Street-Level Bureaucracy Needs a Gendered Lens","authors":"C. Durose, Viviene Lowndes","doi":"10.1177/00323217231178630","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00323217231178630","url":null,"abstract":"Street-level bureaucrats shape policy through using discretion in their interactions with citizens and service users in delivering public services. Discretion allows street-level bureaucrats to bridge between public policy and the complex, individual, human situations they encounter. Drawing on insights from feminist institutionalism, this article establishes gender as a relevant analytical category in understanding discretion. We set out three analytical propositions: street-level bureaucrats work in gendered institutional contexts that shape their discretion; street-level bureaucrats are gendered actors, whose discretion is shaped by their individual gendered dispositions; and street-level bureaucrats’ discretion has gendered effects. We investigate these propositions through a case study of the early implementation of the classification of misogyny as a hate crime among police forces in England and Wales. In addressing this analytical intersection between street-level bureaucracy and feminist institutionalism, we bring a gendered perspective to street-level bureaucracy, and a focus on how rules are interpreted to feminist institutionalism, forging new ground in public administration.","PeriodicalId":51379,"journal":{"name":"Political Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46255469","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-12DOI: 10.1177/00323217231179010
Troels Bøggild, C. Jensen
Do voters decide on the basis of the election pledges political parties make? Although this is a key assumption in most democratic theories and, seemingly, among parties who issue dozens of pledges during campaigns, the scientific literature does not provide a clear answer to this question. This article develops a theory of pledge-based voting and a research design that allows for studying the electoral effects of pledges in real-time as the campaign unfolds. Based on a novel experimental design embedded in panel surveys administered during and after the 2019 Danish national election campaign (N = 6233), we estimate that the most salient pledges affect vote choice by between 1.1 and 2.1 percentage points averaged across the electorate. While modest, these effects can be decisive in the often highly competitive context of modern elections. The findings have implications for our understanding of political behavior, party politics, and normative theories of democracy.
{"title":"A Theory and Test of Pledge-Based Voting: The Limited but Real Effects of Election Pledges on Citizens’ Vote Choice","authors":"Troels Bøggild, C. Jensen","doi":"10.1177/00323217231179010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00323217231179010","url":null,"abstract":"Do voters decide on the basis of the election pledges political parties make? Although this is a key assumption in most democratic theories and, seemingly, among parties who issue dozens of pledges during campaigns, the scientific literature does not provide a clear answer to this question. This article develops a theory of pledge-based voting and a research design that allows for studying the electoral effects of pledges in real-time as the campaign unfolds. Based on a novel experimental design embedded in panel surveys administered during and after the 2019 Danish national election campaign (N = 6233), we estimate that the most salient pledges affect vote choice by between 1.1 and 2.1 percentage points averaged across the electorate. While modest, these effects can be decisive in the often highly competitive context of modern elections. The findings have implications for our understanding of political behavior, party politics, and normative theories of democracy.","PeriodicalId":51379,"journal":{"name":"Political Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47559387","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-09DOI: 10.1177/00323217231179551
Henrique A Castro
Historical institutionalism has fruitfully moved beyond its initial focus on institutional effects to incorporate change. I argue, however, that the resulting advances have become misaligned with their conceptual bases. “Institutions as rules” was a useful first approximation, but it cannot accommodate changes in institutionalized practices occurring while sources of law remain the same. I propose reconceiving legal rules (material objects) and institutions (behavioral dispositions) as distinct elements that nonetheless remain fundamentally associated through the belief-shaping actions of specific groups. While rules change with the introduction of officially recognized materials, legal institutions change in response to new beliefs regarding what could pass as officially permissible. Far from a mere exercise in conceptual precision, the proposals draw distinctions that matter for description and explanation. In that regard, I show how the current literature mischaracterizes court-led change and how we might advance on the underexplored issue of collective meaning-making amidst unequal legal expertise.
{"title":"Institutions Are Not Rules: Realigning the Ontology Behind Theories of Change","authors":"Henrique A Castro","doi":"10.1177/00323217231179551","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00323217231179551","url":null,"abstract":"Historical institutionalism has fruitfully moved beyond its initial focus on institutional effects to incorporate change. I argue, however, that the resulting advances have become misaligned with their conceptual bases. “Institutions as rules” was a useful first approximation, but it cannot accommodate changes in institutionalized practices occurring while sources of law remain the same. I propose reconceiving legal rules (material objects) and institutions (behavioral dispositions) as distinct elements that nonetheless remain fundamentally associated through the belief-shaping actions of specific groups. While rules change with the introduction of officially recognized materials, legal institutions change in response to new beliefs regarding what could pass as officially permissible. Far from a mere exercise in conceptual precision, the proposals draw distinctions that matter for description and explanation. In that regard, I show how the current literature mischaracterizes court-led change and how we might advance on the underexplored issue of collective meaning-making amidst unequal legal expertise.","PeriodicalId":51379,"journal":{"name":"Political Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45421140","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-09DOI: 10.1177/00323217231179189
Gunther Vanden Eynde, Bart Maddens
This article looks at the equalization/normalization problem through the lens of campaign spending and investigates the effect of expenses for digital tools on the electoral result of individual candidates in an open list proportional representation system. A multilevel analysis of the campaign expenses of 1253 serious contenders in the Belgian 2019 concurrent federal, regional, and European elections shows that the investment in both owned Web 1.0 media and paid Web 2.0 media does not have an effect on electoral performance. Investing in traditional tools, by contrast, does have a significant positive effect. While most candidates use digital tools, they invest only a small part of their budget in these, which may explain the absence of a digital expense effect. These findings put the use of digital campaigning in perspective, showing that the effect of paid online tools should not be overestimated, and that the role of traditional campaigning is still dominant.
{"title":"Does Digital Campaigning Make a Difference for Individual Candidates in an Open List Proportional Representation System? The Case of the 2019 Election in Belgium","authors":"Gunther Vanden Eynde, Bart Maddens","doi":"10.1177/00323217231179189","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00323217231179189","url":null,"abstract":"This article looks at the equalization/normalization problem through the lens of campaign spending and investigates the effect of expenses for digital tools on the electoral result of individual candidates in an open list proportional representation system. A multilevel analysis of the campaign expenses of 1253 serious contenders in the Belgian 2019 concurrent federal, regional, and European elections shows that the investment in both owned Web 1.0 media and paid Web 2.0 media does not have an effect on electoral performance. Investing in traditional tools, by contrast, does have a significant positive effect. While most candidates use digital tools, they invest only a small part of their budget in these, which may explain the absence of a digital expense effect. These findings put the use of digital campaigning in perspective, showing that the effect of paid online tools should not be overestimated, and that the role of traditional campaigning is still dominant.","PeriodicalId":51379,"journal":{"name":"Political Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48856467","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-05DOI: 10.1177/00323217231176677
Seungwoo Han, H. Kwon
Do home ownership and house prices impact the shaping of individual perceptions on inequality and belief in meritocracy? We argue that home ownership and rising asset prices increase the salience of an individual’s own relative economic position, which in turn facilitates belief in meritocracy. We expect that, when house prices increase, homeowners are likely to strengthen their belief in meritocracy and defend their position by rationalizing that income distribution in society is fair and that economic success and failure are primarily determined by individual efforts. Our analysis of both a Korean panel survey and a cross-national survey finds strong and robust evidence of the asset price effect. Our findings suggest that the housing price effect on economic ideology is a general pattern, which implies that there are social and political consequences to the asset price effect.
{"title":"Home Ownership, House Prices, and Belief in Meritocracy: Evidence from South Korea and 34 Countries","authors":"Seungwoo Han, H. Kwon","doi":"10.1177/00323217231176677","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00323217231176677","url":null,"abstract":"Do home ownership and house prices impact the shaping of individual perceptions on inequality and belief in meritocracy? We argue that home ownership and rising asset prices increase the salience of an individual’s own relative economic position, which in turn facilitates belief in meritocracy. We expect that, when house prices increase, homeowners are likely to strengthen their belief in meritocracy and defend their position by rationalizing that income distribution in society is fair and that economic success and failure are primarily determined by individual efforts. Our analysis of both a Korean panel survey and a cross-national survey finds strong and robust evidence of the asset price effect. Our findings suggest that the housing price effect on economic ideology is a general pattern, which implies that there are social and political consequences to the asset price effect.","PeriodicalId":51379,"journal":{"name":"Political Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46455547","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-30DOI: 10.1177/00323217231176475
Jakob Schwörer, Belén Fernández-García
Populist radical right parties are often considered to be the most extreme opponents of climate protection in Western Europe. Others predict a ‘climate nationalism’ among populist radical right parties combining nativism with a pro-climate agenda. Based on a new data set on party positions on climate change, including 485 party manifestos – 76 from populist radical right parties – from the 1990s to 2022 in 10 Western European countries, we find that populist radical right parties are divided but generally less likely to speak out for climate protection than other parties, which rather contradicts the climate nationalism argument. We find that populist radical right parties only became more aware of the issue since 2019 in the face of the mass mobilizations of Fridays for Future and, to a lesser extent, when it became a visible issue within the party system. Thus, we argue that populist radical right parties are forced to talk about the climate when the issue is emphasized by organized actors.
{"title":"Climate Sceptics or Climate Nationalists? Understanding and Explaining Populist Radical Right Parties’ Positions towards Climate Change (1990–2022)","authors":"Jakob Schwörer, Belén Fernández-García","doi":"10.1177/00323217231176475","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00323217231176475","url":null,"abstract":"Populist radical right parties are often considered to be the most extreme opponents of climate protection in Western Europe. Others predict a ‘climate nationalism’ among populist radical right parties combining nativism with a pro-climate agenda. Based on a new data set on party positions on climate change, including 485 party manifestos – 76 from populist radical right parties – from the 1990s to 2022 in 10 Western European countries, we find that populist radical right parties are divided but generally less likely to speak out for climate protection than other parties, which rather contradicts the climate nationalism argument. We find that populist radical right parties only became more aware of the issue since 2019 in the face of the mass mobilizations of Fridays for Future and, to a lesser extent, when it became a visible issue within the party system. Thus, we argue that populist radical right parties are forced to talk about the climate when the issue is emphasized by organized actors.","PeriodicalId":51379,"journal":{"name":"Political Studies","volume":"93 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135642703","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-27DOI: 10.1177/00323217231173505
Jan A. Velimsky, Sebastián Block, M. Gross, Dominic Nyhuis
Candidates with local ties perform better than their rivals without such attachments. We focus on the underlying mechanism of the localness effect and hypothesise that voters prefer local candidates for instrumental reasons, expecting better representation, and for reasons of a shared place identity. To test these expectations, we rely on the unusually detailed ballot for local elections in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Using multi-level regressions of the electoral results of 6503 candidates running in 21 cities in 2014, we confirm the importance of candidate localness for electoral success in low-information elections. Furthermore, we provide insights into the mechanisms behind this relationship. While instrumental motivations are independent of the composition of the electorate, a large share of elderly voters amplifies the identity effect, whereas many young voters, a high residential mobility, and a high population density diminishes this effect.
{"title":"Probing the Effect of Candidate Localness in Low-Information Elections: Evidence from the German Local Level","authors":"Jan A. Velimsky, Sebastián Block, M. Gross, Dominic Nyhuis","doi":"10.1177/00323217231173505","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00323217231173505","url":null,"abstract":"Candidates with local ties perform better than their rivals without such attachments. We focus on the underlying mechanism of the localness effect and hypothesise that voters prefer local candidates for instrumental reasons, expecting better representation, and for reasons of a shared place identity. To test these expectations, we rely on the unusually detailed ballot for local elections in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Using multi-level regressions of the electoral results of 6503 candidates running in 21 cities in 2014, we confirm the importance of candidate localness for electoral success in low-information elections. Furthermore, we provide insights into the mechanisms behind this relationship. While instrumental motivations are independent of the composition of the electorate, a large share of elderly voters amplifies the identity effect, whereas many young voters, a high residential mobility, and a high population density diminishes this effect.","PeriodicalId":51379,"journal":{"name":"Political Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2023-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47194368","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-25DOI: 10.1177/00323217231176474
M. Sandford
This article argues that shifts in the UK’s territorial management practice in the late 2010s and early 2020s, described by various terms, including ‘muscular unionism’, may be more rhetorical and ideational than substantive. The practices associated with these terms are recognisably part of the ‘British political tradition’, and the changes of the early 2020s can be viewed as reasserting traditional governance practices rather than introducing new ones. The article examines the various phenomena described as ‘muscular unionism’ and suggests that many are relatively ad hoc, low-level initiatives, often rhetorical. There is also much evidence that the UK governments of the 2020s see the ‘Millennium Settlement’, introduced in 1999, as continuing to be a core part of UK territorial management. The clearest break from historical practice comes in the overt, explicit quality of ‘muscular unionist’ rhetoric. The article then suggests that, contrary to some scholarly expectations, this muscular unionist turn may come to be an effective territorial management strategy for the UK government, as it aligns with an Anglo-British imaginary within England that continues to conflate England, Britain and the UK in terms of governance and national identity.
{"title":"‘Muscular Unionism’: The British Political Tradition Strikes Back?","authors":"M. Sandford","doi":"10.1177/00323217231176474","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00323217231176474","url":null,"abstract":"This article argues that shifts in the UK’s territorial management practice in the late 2010s and early 2020s, described by various terms, including ‘muscular unionism’, may be more rhetorical and ideational than substantive. The practices associated with these terms are recognisably part of the ‘British political tradition’, and the changes of the early 2020s can be viewed as reasserting traditional governance practices rather than introducing new ones. The article examines the various phenomena described as ‘muscular unionism’ and suggests that many are relatively ad hoc, low-level initiatives, often rhetorical. There is also much evidence that the UK governments of the 2020s see the ‘Millennium Settlement’, introduced in 1999, as continuing to be a core part of UK territorial management. The clearest break from historical practice comes in the overt, explicit quality of ‘muscular unionist’ rhetoric. The article then suggests that, contrary to some scholarly expectations, this muscular unionist turn may come to be an effective territorial management strategy for the UK government, as it aligns with an Anglo-British imaginary within England that continues to conflate England, Britain and the UK in terms of governance and national identity.","PeriodicalId":51379,"journal":{"name":"Political Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2023-05-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43929522","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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