• An elite’s response to democracy: how the Conservative Party adapted to extensions of the franchise; and coped with ensuing political repercussions 1867-1914.

      Durham, Martin; Raymond, Graham J. (University of Wolverhampton, 2008)
      This thesis investigates how the Conservative party coped with the far-reaching effects of democratic reform between 1867 and 1914. It analyses the performance of successive party leaders through their exploitation of high politics; and how ideology influenced their policy, and decision making. It also examines how the party’s organization was periodically revised to manage changing political circumstances. The relationships between these three elements, high politics, ideology, and organization are then analysed to explain the Conservative party’s appeal for electoral support during the period of study. The respective contributions made by the three elements to the party’s electoral performance are considered in relation to each other. Using this approach the thesis explains how the Conservative party managed to improve upon its dismal electoral record between 1832 and 1874; how it achieved electoral dominance between 1886 and 1906; and why its electoral fortunes declined so dramatically thereafter. The conclusions reached are threefold. Firstly, the importance attached to high politics by the Peterhouse school of thought may, in some respects, be exaggerated, certainly regarding elections. High politics, by its very nature seeks to exert influence at a level far removed from the mass electorate. Political rhetoric has obvious uses during elections, not least in the field of extra-parliamentary speech-making. But in the absence of any reliable indicators of what the electorate actually felt or desired, the effectiveness of political rhetoric could not be gauged a priori. The results of political manoeuvring at the highest levels may have been apparent to voters, but was of little concern to them. At worst, they were ignorant of it, and at best, ambivalent to it. Secondly, party leaders, whether knowingly or unknowingly, exploited the flexibility of Conservative ideology in their quest for votes. However, the core concepts of that ideology remained inviolable, only contingent values were successfully subjected to re-appraisal and revision to attract the voters. When ideological core values were misunderstood or misinterpreted the party suffered accordingly. Thirdly, the value of the Conservative party’s organization has been underestimated. High politics and ideology may have combined to produce a Conservative message for the voters, but the appeal of that message was unknowable. On the other hand, the party’s organization, when empowered to do so, adroitly and effectively utilized all the tools available to them to manage and maximize all potential Conservative support. Organization may be viewed as a make-weight, but like all make-weights it possessed the power to tip the electoral scales one way or the other.
    • We must stand by our own bairns: ILP men and suffrage militancy, 1905-1914

      Ugolini, Laura (Maney Publishing, 2002)
      The Independent Labour Party (ILP) has long enjoyed a reputation as the pre-First World War political party most sympathetic both to feminism in general, and to the suffrage movement in particular. Indeed, it is only recently that such a reputation has been placed under scrutiny. Ironically, considering the amount of attention devoted to it by Edwardian ILPers, the party's relationship with suffrage militancy is also an area that has as yet received little close attention, and it is on this relationship that the present article focuses. More specifically, this article concentrates on male ILP members, in order to shed light both on their attitudes towards women's role in society and in politics, and on their own identities as socialists and as men, providing an important insight into male ILPer's gendered politics. Suffrage militancy's role in jolting ILP men out of a purely formal advocacy of suffrage, forcing them to question the nature of their socialist beliefs and the place of women's enfranchisement in their practical programme, is explored. Further, the article considers how ideas about women's role in politics had to be re-thought as militancy developed and changed in the decade before the outbreak of the First World War. It questions how far ILP men were able to adapt their ideas of 'political womanhood' to accommodate women who not only made an uncompromising entrance into the political arena, but also undertook both illegal and violent activities. Underlying the whole discussion, finally, is the question of how far the suffrage movement in general and militancy in particular forced ILP men to re-think their own masculine identities, and to make changes to their own personal relationships with women. And perhaps more fundamentally, the article questions how far notions of socialist manliness based on chivalrousness and protectiveness towards women were modified, in the light of militants' growing determination to do without male protection and patronage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] (Ebsco)