Economic Policy and the Policy Review

Taylor, Gerald R.

doi:10.1007/978-1-349-25397-5_4

Cited by 2 publications

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“…While the idea for this venture was thought up by IPPR and senior Labour figures, Smith officially asked the IPPR to facilitate a commission to rethink what social justice should mean and what policies should be put in place to rebuild British society. While Smith was taking personal ownership of the commission, de facto its remit gave it ‘a flavour distinctly similar to the Policy Review’ (Taylor 1997, 140), whose failure to exorcise the party of its old habits had contributed to the 1992 election defeat—at least that was the view of many in the Labour leadership. In reality, the commission was thus set up to speed up the modernisation process from outside and top-down.…”

Section: Think Tanks and New Labour: Modernisation From Outsidementioning

confidence: 99%

Think Tanks in the United Kingdom and Germany: Actors in the Modernisation of Social Democracy

Pautz

2010

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations

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This article describes and analyses the role that think tanks in the United Kingdom and Germany played in the modernisation of the British Labour party and the Social Democratic party of Germany between 1992 and 2008. In these years, both parties were de‐traditionalised. Especially, their central objective, that of achieving a socially just society, was redefined under the banner of the ‘Third Way’. Policy experts from outside the political parties played an important role in this process. The article discusses what a think tank is and whether in times of ‘paradigmatic’ crisis actors external to a political party can exert influence on the parties' policy objectives and thus supersede internal policy‐making institutions. It also analyses, in comparative perspective, the conditions in which think tanks in both countries can be most effective.

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Section: Think Tanks and New Labour: Modernisation From Outsidementioning

confidence: 99%

Think Tanks in the United Kingdom and Germany: Actors in the Modernisation of Social Democracy

Pautz

2010

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations

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“…Following the 1987 general election defeat, moreover, the party leadership undertook a concerted effort to downscale policy ambitions with regard to the interventionist and redistributive aims of the party's economic policy. Thus, in launching the policy review process, comprising seven policy review groups, the party leadership (and particularly the leadership office) took a firm hand in steering the party towards embracing much of the neo-liberal critique of ‘traditional’ social democracy, particularly the view that the market was a better allocator of resources than the state (Taylor 1997; Motta and Bailey 2007, 123). For instance, in the 1990 policy review document, Looking to the Future , the party stated: ‘We welcome and endorse the efficiency and realism which markets can provide’ (Labour Party 1990, 6).…”

Section: The Cases Of the British Labour Party And Social Democratic mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Transition to ‘New’ Social Democracy: The Role of Capitalism, Representation and (Hampered) Contestation

Bailey

2009

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations

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This article argues that existing accounts of the transformation from 'traditional' to 'new' social democracy has thus far only identified the contextual changes that have prompted this move. In doing so, they have failed to account for the motives of social democratic party actors in undertaking the transition to 'new' social democracy in response to those changes. The article draws upon a critical realist method, and Marxist and anti-representational theories, to conceptualise 'traditional' social democratic party relations as suffering from tensions between constituents' demands for decommodification, the attempt by party elites to contain (and thereby 'represent') those demands and the (in)compatibility of this process of containment with the need to recommodify social relations in the light of periodic crises in contemporary capitalism. It argues that these tensions explain the attempt by party elites to promote the move towards 'new' social democracy, the (eventual) acquiescence of party constituents to those attempts and the subsequent exit from social democratic constituencies which has resulted. The argument is made with reference to the British Labour Party and Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).

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Economic Policy and the Policy Review

Cited by 2 publications

References 0 publications

Think Tanks in the United Kingdom and Germany: Actors in the Modernisation of Social Democracy

Think Tanks in the United Kingdom and Germany: Actors in the Modernisation of Social Democracy

The Transition to ‘New’ Social Democracy: The Role of Capitalism, Representation and (Hampered) Contestation

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