Interpreting the Labour Party: Approaches to Labour politics and history

This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. Interpreting the Labour Party consists of twelve essays on the principal thinkers and schools of thought concerned with the political and historical development of the Labour Party and Labour movement. The essays are written by contributors who have devoted many years to the study of the Labour Party, the trade union movement and the various ideologies associated with them. The book begins with an in-depth analysis of how to study the Labour Party, and goes on to examine key periods in the development of the ideologies to which the party has subscribed. Each chapter situates its subject matter in the context of a broader intellectual legacy, including the works of Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Theodore Rothstein, Stuart Hall and Samuel Beer, among others. This book is an attempt to take stock of how some of the British Labour Party's leading interpreters have analysed their subject, deriving as they do from contrasting political, theoretical, disciplinary and methodological backgrounds. It explores their often-hidden assumptions and subjects them to critical evaluation. The book outlines five strategies such as materialist; ideational; electoral; institutional; and synthetic strategies. Materialist, ideational and electoral explanatory strategies account for Labour's ideological trajectory in factors exogenous to the party. The 'new political history' is useful in understanding Labour within a less reductive framework than either the 'high' or 'from below' approaches and in more novel terms than the Left-Right positions adopted within Labour. The book assesses the contribution made to analysis of the Labour Party and labour history by thinkers of the British New Left. New Left critiques of labourism in fact represented and continued a strand of Marxist thinking on the party that can be traced back to its inception. If Ralph Miliband's role in relation to 'Bennism' is considered in comparison to his earlier attitudes, some striking points emerge about the interaction between the analytical and subjective aspects in his interpretive framework. Miliband tried to suggest that the downfall of communism was advantageous for the Left, given the extent to which the Soviet regimes had long embarrassed Western socialists such as himself. The Nairn-Anderson theses represented an ambitious attempt to pioneer a distinctive analysis of British capitalist development, its state, society and class structure.-- Provided by publisher Front matter Contents Series editors’ foreword Acknowledgements Contributors Introduction Understanding Labour’s ideological trajectory ‘What kind of people are you?’ Labour, the people and the ‘new political history’ ‘Labourism’ and the New Left Ralph Miliband and the Labour Party: from Parliamentary Socialism to ‘Bennism’ The continuing relevance of the Milibandian perspective An exceptional comrade? The Nairn–Anderson interpretation Class and politics in the work of Henry Pelling Ross McKibbin: class cultures, the trade unions and the Labour Party The Progressive Dilemma and the social democratic perspective Too much pluralism, not enough socialism: interpreting the unions–party link Lewis Minkin and the party–unions link How to study the Labour Party: contextual, analytical and theoretical issues Guide to further reading Index