The Labour Party and Foreign Policy

The Labour Party and Foreign Policy
Author: John Callaghan
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2007-04-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1134540167

This book provides a penetrating new study of the Labour Party’s thinking on international relations, which probes the past, present and future of the party’s approach to the international stage. The foreign policy of the Labour Party is not only neglected in most histories of the party, it is also often considered in isolation from the party’s origins, evolution and major domestic preoccupations. Yet nothing has been more divisive and more controversial in Labour’s history than the party’s foreign and defence policies and their relationship to its domestic programme. Much more has turned on this than the generation of tempestuous conference debates. Labour’s credentials as a credible prospect for Governmental office were thought to depend on a responsible approach to foreign and defence policy. Its exclusion from office was often said to stem from a failure to meet this test, as in the 1950s. The composition of Labour Cabinets was powerfully influenced by foreign and defence considerations, as was the centralization of power and decision-making within Labour Governments. The domestic achievements and failures of these periods in office were inextricably connected to international questions. The Labour Party and Foreign Policy is recommended for undergraduate and postgraduate courses in British politics and European history.

The British Labour Party and the Wider World

The British Labour Party and the Wider World
Author: Paul Corthorn
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2007-10-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 0857711113

The legacy of Blair and the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan continue to loom large for the Labour Party, whether in opposition or in government, giving rise to fierce debates over Labour's attitude and posture towards the wider world. This book considers the idea of Labour's international identity, examining how world events and Labour's response to them have helped to shape ideology, political culture and domestic agendas from the 1920s until the Iraq War. It provides a fascinating and original exploration of Labour both on the world stage and at home - from the influence of the Soviet Union on political thought in the interwar years to the international student revolts of the 1960s, and from media in the 1990s to Kosovo and New Labour Interventionism. This is essential reading for scholars of modern British politics, as well as anyone interested in the motivations and influences behind the Labour Party's actions on the world stage.

International Relations and the Labour Party

International Relations and the Labour Party
Author: Lucian Ashworth
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2007-11-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 0857713612

PLEASE NOTE THIS IS AN NJR AND BLURB SHOULD NOT BE USED IN ITS RAW FORM: From 1918 to 1945 the British Labour Party worked closely with some of the biggest names in international relations (IR) scholarship. Through such structures as the Advisory Committee on International Questions IR scholars were instrumental in the construction of Labour foreign policy, and the experience of working closely with Labour's leadership influenced the approach to IR taken by these scholars. One of the major effects of the collaboration of Labour with IR experts was a wealth of memoranda, reports and pamphlets written by IR scholars for the Party. This material, despite its relevance to the history of the discipline of IR, has received scant attention in modern IR scholarship. This study has three major goals. The first is to add to the literature on the study of Labour foreign policy by examining the crucial role played by IR theorists and writers. The Advisory Committee and its intellectual members did much to shape the foreign policy of the Party, giving it a coherent approach to international problems. The second is to put the international theories of five key writers - Leonard Woolf, H, N. Brailsford, Philip Noel Baker, Norman Angell and David Mitrany - into the context of both the development of Labour's international policy, and the evolution of the international environment between the wars. Although all five writers are acknowledged as key thinkers in this period, the memoranda on foreign affairs that they did for the Labour Party are little known within IR. The final goal is to demonstrate the inadequacy of the current interpretation within IR of the inter-war period. The obsession with the anachronistic division between realism and idealism - terms that had different connotations before the Second World War - masks both the very different debates that were going on at the time, and the changing international landscape of the inter-war period itself.

The Labour Party, Nationalism and Internationalism, 1939-1951

The Labour Party, Nationalism and Internationalism, 1939-1951
Author: R. M. Douglas
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2004
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780714655239

The Second World War was a watershed moment in foreign policy for the Labour Party in Britain. Before the war, British socialists had held that nationalism was becoming obsolete and that humanity was steadily evolving towards the ideal of a single world government. The collapse of the League of Nations destroyed this optimistic vision, compelling Labour to undertake a fundamental review of its entire approach to foreign affairs during a period of unprecedented global crisis. This book traces the controversy that ensued, as the British democratic left set about the task of defining the principles of a radically new international system for the postwar world. The schemes proposed by Labour policymakers during these years encompassed a wide variety of political institutions aiming at the restraint or supersession of the sovereign nation-state. What they shared in common, however, was a reconceptualization of British identity, in which the hyper-patriotism of the wartime period blended with the left's traditional internationalism. This new 'muscular' internationalism was to have a major impact upon the evolution of entities as diverse as the United Nations Organizations, the British Commonwealth and the accelerating campaign in favor of European unity after Labour assumed the reins of government in 1945. Breaking with the traditional accounts that place Cold War tensions at the centre of the Attlee government's activities in the immediate postwar years, R.M. Douglas's book provides an entirely new framework for reassessing British foreign policy and left-wing concepts of national identity during the most turbulent moment of Britain's modern history. This book will be essential reading for all students and researchers of British foreign policy, the Labour Party and international relations.

The Labour Party and the World, Volume 1

The Labour Party and the World, Volume 1
Author: Rhiannon Vickers
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2003
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780719067457

Part of a set tracing the evolution of the Labour Party's foreign policy during the 20th century, this text assesses the development and evolution of Labour's world-view and follows its foreign policy during World War I, the Russian Revolution, the Spanish Civil War, World War II and the Cold War.

The Politics of Marketing the Labour Party

The Politics of Marketing the Labour Party
Author: D. Wring
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2004-11-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0230597610

The Labour Party has been using marketing longer than is commonly realised. Leading figures like Morrison, Snowden, Webb, Gaitskell, Benn and Wilson were among those who recognized the importance of imagery and symbolic communication long before the time of Kinnock, Mandelson and Blair. Politics of Marketing the Labour Party traces how the party's political campaigning has developed since its birth and how the increasing use of marketing contributed to the radical restructuring of both the organization and its policies.

The Foundations of the British Labour Party

The Foundations of the British Labour Party
Author: Matthew Worley
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2009
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780754667315

Senior and up-and-coming scholars present the myriad elements that influenced the early development and political identity of the Labour Party, from the party's connections with powerful unions to the impact of socialism, religion, and other political and social movements on the new party.

Popular Newspapers, the Labour Party and British Politics

Popular Newspapers, the Labour Party and British Politics
Author: James Thomas
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2007-05-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 1135773734

This book traces the relationship between the popular press and the Labour Party from the early twentieth century through the Second World War and up to the current day.

The Labour Party

The Labour Party
Author: B. Brivati
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 537
Release: 2000-05-08
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0230595588

On 27 February 1900, the Labour Representation Committee was formed to campaign for the election of working class representatives to parliament. One hundred years on Labour is in government with an overwhelming majority. This book is a unique opportunity both to celebrate and assess critically the Labour Party's role in shaping events of the twentieth century. It brings together academics from a variety of disciplines to examine the history of the Party's development. Each chapter includes contributions in the form of commentary and analysis from former Labour leaders, cabinet ministers and backbench MPs. Contributors include: Michael Foot, Denis Healey, David Owen, Keith Laybourn, Robert Taylor, Steve Ludlam, Nick Ellison, Clare Short and Austin Mitchell, among others.

The Labour Party in Crisis

The Labour Party in Crisis
Author: Paul Whiteley
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2018-12-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 0429831838

First published in 1983. This study draws upon empirical findings on party activists, members and voters. It examines the origins and nature of Labour’s crisis in the 1980s, showing how the split leading to the formation of the SDP was merely a manifestation of deeply rooted problems which went back many years. It argues that this crisis had three distinct but interrelated aspects: first, the ideological schism within the party, which had grown in intensity over time; second, the electoral crisis, which produced the worst electoral performance at the 1983 general election since 1918; and, third, the membership crisis arising from the fact that the party had been losing more than 11,000 individual members per year on average since 1945. Using elite and mass surveys the book demonstrates the link between these crises and Labour’s policy performance in office set against a background of rapid economic decline.