British Politics In The Collectivist Age

In this classical study of British politics by an American authority, Samuel H. Beer describes political parties and interest groups in Great Britain and how they affect public policy. He sketches four different types of politics (corresponding roughly to four different historical periods) Old Tory, Old Whig, Liberal, and Radical. The fifth and contemporary type he calls collectivism. The main part of the book traces the rise of collectivism from the late nineteenth century through the early decades of this century, until it came to dominate British politics in the post war years.

In British Politics in the Global Age, Joel Krieger provides an in-depth study of New Labour's model of government and the political challenges it faces. Krieger analyzes the interaction of global processes and domestic politics from the organization of production to the formation of class, ethnic, and gender-based identities. The book considers how these processes compromise sovereignty, complicate national identities, forge new political agendas, create electoral volatility, and complicate the art of politics. Krieger develops an original framework for analyzing New Labour in comparison to three models of social democracy and places the British case firmly in the context of alternative national models and European debates. Employing an approach with potential applications well beyond the UK, the book reconceptualizes globalization and introduces the concept "modular politics" to explain the context-dependent processes of identity formation that shape--and potentially destabilize--contemporary politics. Thoroughly researched and clearly argued, British Politics in the Global Age is essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand the full ramifications of New Labour for both Europe and the United States.--Publisher description.

Examines the development of contemporary British politics and society and analyzes the threat of collectivism to the stability of its system of government