Crisis and Consensus in British Politics: From Bagehot to Blair

by M. Williams

Overview

Crisis and Consensus in British Politics focuses on the collapse of the post-war consensus in the mid 1970s crisis and the emergence of a new consensus in the 1990s. It follows this process through six key policy areas including civil service reform, privatisation, macro-economic management and relations with Europe. It is designed for students following courses in modern history, politics and public policy as well as general readers with an interest in current affairs.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780333775714
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	09/19/2000
Edition description:	2000
Pages:	231
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

MICHAEL WILLIAMS has lectured in Politics and Public Policy at the University of Hertfordshire and other institutions including De Montfort University since 1995. Before then he spent twenty years as a civil servant in what is now the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. He has published papers on privatisation and the role of management consultants in shaping public policy. Most recently he helped to edit a collection of essays on the political legacy of the 1960s entitled New Left, New Right and Beyond (1999), to which he contributed an essay on Eric Hobsbawm and Robert Skidelsky as historians and political intellectuals.

Table of Contents

Preface Introduction Britain in Decline: Structural Change in British Capitalism since the Industrial Revolution The Impact of Democracy: From Parliamentary Politics to Party Politics Warfare and Welfare: The Road to 1945 and the Making of Postwar Consensus The Great Moving Right Show: The Mid 1970s Crisis and the Rise of Thatcherism Crisis on the Left: From Labourism to New Labour Whitehall's Managerial Revolution: Reconstructing Central Government Rolling Back the State: Privatisation and Deregulation Steering the Economy: Macro-Economic Management from the Gold Standard to EMU Getting and Spending: Public Expenditure and Welfare Twilight of Ukania: Territorial Politics in Britain Missed Chances: Britain and the European Union Towards Managerial Society Index