Exploring Political Legacies (Building a Sustainable Political Economy: SPERI Research & Policy)

The concept of the political legacy, despite its importance for institutionalist and historically-minded political analysts more generally, remains both elusive and undeveloped theoretically. This book seeks to address that oversight by building on existing studies which have approached the notion of a legacy to offer a clear definition and operationalisation of the term which might be used to inform future research. Legacies we view as traces of the past in the present; the claim to the existence of a legacy is both a causal and a counter-factual claim. We propose, in the light of this, a multi-dimensional approach to gauging political legacies, reflecting on some of the theoretical, analytical and methodological concerns which need to be addressed in establishing credible claims to their existence. These we develop and illustrate with respect to the literature on Thatcherism. Stephen Farrall is Research Chair in Criminology in the Department of Criminology in the College of Business, Law and the Social Sciences at the University of Derby, UK. He has held posts at the Universities of Oxford, Keele and Sheffield. Colin Hay is Professor of Political Science (Professeur des Universités) in the Centre d'études européennes and Director of Doctoral School in Political Science at Sciences Po, Paris, France. He is Professor of Political Analysis in the Department of Politics at the University of Sheffield, UK and founding co-Director of the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute (SPERI). Emily Gray is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Derby, UK. She has held research posts at the Universities of Edinburgh, Oxford, Keele and Sheffield.-- Provided by publisher Acknowledgements 6 Contents 7 About the Authors 8 Abbreviations 10 List of Figures 11 List of Tables 12 Chapter 1: Tracing the Past in the Present: Defining and Operationalising the Concept of Political Legacy 13 Introduction 14 What Is ‘a Legacy’? 15 Our Contribution 16 Existing Legacy Studies 17 The ‘Special Case’ of Margaret Thatcher’s Legacy? 21 Developing a Multi-Dimensional Approach to Gauging Political Legacies 27 Conclusion 36 References 37 Chapter 2: Political Generations and the Fear of Crime 40 Introduction 41 Unpacking Political Generations 41 What Do We Know About the Fear of Crime? 43 Incorporating Age, Period and Cohort Effects into Our Thinking 45 Categorising Political Generations 46 Data 50 Results 51 Conclusions 56 References 58 Chapter 3: Housing Law, Household Victimisation and the Spatial Reconfiguration of Property Crime 61 Introduction 62 The Ideological Background to Changes in Housing Provision After 1980 63 The Institutional and Legal Background 65 What Was the Distribution of Council House Sales? 68 Defining and Charting Residualisation and Polarisation 69 Crime and the RTB: Our Contribution 73 Trends in Tenure and Victimisation Over Time 73 Conclusion 76 References 79 Chapter 4: Rising Punitiveness in the English and Welsh Criminal Justice System 82 Introduction 82 Thatcherism and the Criminal Justice System 83 The Criminal Justice Legislative Programme (1982–1998) 83 Operationalising Punitiveness 84 The Criminal Justice Act, 1982 84 The Police and Criminal Evidence Act, 1984 85 The Prosecution of Offences Act, 1985 87 The Drug Trafficking Offences Act, 1986 87 The Criminal Justice Act, 1988 87 The Criminal Justice Act, 1991 88 The Criminal Justice Act, 1993 90 The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, 1994 90 The Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act, 1996 91 The Crime (Sentences) Act, 1997 91 The Crime and Disorder Act, 1998 92 Making Sense of the Thatcherite Legacy for the Criminal Justice System 93 Conclusion: A Slow Burning Legacy 98 References 99 Chapter 5: Conclusion 103 ‘A’ and ‘The’ Legacy of ... 103 Counterfactuals and Inductive and Deductive Strategies 104 Legacies As Rhizomes? 106 Methodological Matters 107 Conclusion 111 References 111 Index 113