In a context in which we have been told for so long that ‘we are all in it together’ to ask for i... more In a context in which we have been told for so long that ‘we are all in it together’ to ask for inclusive growth might not seem to be asking for very much. Who could object, after all, to the idea that any growth dividend arising from our (admittedly) still meagre recovery should be evenly shared? Indeed, isn’t such a commitment logically entailed by the very suggestion that we are all in it together – shared pain; sharing gain? Put like this inclusive growth might seem a very modest and unobjectionable request.[First paragraph of the abstract]
This article adapts and develops the idea of a cynical or 'stealth' understanding of politics to ... more This article adapts and develops the idea of a cynical or 'stealth' understanding of politics to explore how citizens' estrangement from formal politics is processed cognitively through a populist lens. Earlier work has shown the widespread presence of stealth attitudes in the United States and Finland. We show that stealth attitudes are also well established in Britain, demonstrate their populist character and reveal that age, newspaper readership and concerns about governing practices help predict their adoption by individuals. Yet our survey findings also reveal a larger body of positive attitudes towards the practice of democracy suggesting that there is scope for challenging populist cynicism. We explore these so-called 'sunshine' attitudes and connect them to the reform options favoured by British citizens. If we are to challenge populist negativity towards politics, we conclude that improving the operation of representative politics is more important than offering citizens new forms of more deliberative participation.
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Sep 1, 2015
Makes the night morning and the noontide night (Brakenbury, Richard III, Act 1, Scene 4, l. 76 77... more Makes the night morning and the noontide night (Brakenbury, Richard III, Act 1, Scene 4, l. 76 77). A lot can change in a season, especially if that season is winter and one is the Prime Minister of a minority Labour government seeking to extricate the economy from an unprecedented and seemingly intractable condition of stagflation by imposing on the trade unions a ceiling on wage increases at around half the prevailing rate of inflation. So it was as autumn turned to winter in 1978. The story is well known. Indeed, it has long since entered into British folklore and strangely perhaps it seems to have done do even as the events themselves were unfolding. Over three decades later and with historians and political scientists now enjoying the access to the public record afforded by the thirty-year rule, the evidence is in and a more systematic appraisal and reappraisal of the W D is possible. Yet it is perhaps naive to think that a perfect sifting of fact from folklore and fiction is ever possible. And, with such an intensely mythologized and symbolically significant historical episode, that inherent difficulty is compounded by the powerful sense that to understand the Winter of Discontent is, precisely, to understand the role of folklore, fiction, and mythology in the unfolding of historical events.
HM Treasury's estimation of the economic consequences of Brexit-using standard macroeconomic mode... more HM Treasury's estimation of the economic consequences of Brexit-using standard macroeconomic models-during the EU referendum campaign represents a remarkable intervention in a highly politicized public debate. It raises a series of questions about the use of economic expertise. Through a detailed theoretical and empirical critique of the Treasury's methodology-and a reassessment of the likely effects of Brexit in light of this-we cast doubt on the utility of their approach, highlighting methodological issues, unrealistic assumptions, and misrepresentations of established facts. In the process we seek to identify some of the wider implications for the use and potential abuse of economic expertise in highly charged political contexts, such as the EU referendum debate.
There are times in the political life of any nation in which its imagining and reimagining become... more There are times in the political life of any nation in which its imagining and reimagining become more intensely political, more conscious and more consciously intersubjective. Brexit has provided, provides today and will surely continue to provide a series of such moments. In and through a critical appreciation of Benedict Anderson's famous reflections on the nation as an 'imagined community', I consider the (necessarily) imagined character of Brexit and the reimaginings of Britain that its imagining envisaged. I reflect on whether-and if so how and in what ways-'actually existing Brexit' is likely to pose a reality check on imagined Brexit, exploring in the process some of the wider political implications. Keywords Brexit • Imagined community • Nation • Positional issues • Valence issues "The nation … is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow members, meet, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lies the image of their communion … it is imagined as a community, because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship" (Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 1991: 6, 7, emphasis added).
In this short K D Philosophy and Methods in Political Science I reflect on the distinctive treatm... more In this short K D Philosophy and Methods in Political Science I reflect on the distinctive treatment of both realism and explanation in contemporary political science that its author offers, expressing rather more sympathy for the I
A factor that may account for the largely unanticipated victory of Brexit in 2016 is the differen... more A factor that may account for the largely unanticipated victory of Brexit in 2016 is the difference in engagement, mobilization, and, ultimately, turnout between those for whom the question of Brexit was a valence issue (a dry and almost technical question of determining the policies by which uncontroversial shared ends can be achieved) and those for whom it was a positional issue (a question of raw, almost visceral, political preference). The declining appeal of valence politics may reveal a phenomenon that goes beyond Britain: a change in the nature and character of contemporary electoral competition that may help to explain the newly resurgent populism characteristic of Western liberal democracies.
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Mar 4, 2022
HM Treasury's estimation of the economic consequences of Brexit-using standard macroeconomic mode... more HM Treasury's estimation of the economic consequences of Brexit-using standard macroeconomic models-during the EU referendum campaign represents a remarkable intervention in a highly politicized public debate. It raises a series of questions about the use of economic expertise. Through a detailed theoretical and empirical critique of the Treasury's methodology-and a reassessment of the likely effects of Brexit in light of this-we cast doubt on the utility of their approach, highlighting methodological issues, unrealistic assumptions, and misrepresentations of established facts. In the process we seek to identify some of the wider implications for the use and potential abuse of economic expertise in highly charged political contexts, such as the EU referendum debate.
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Jun 1, 2016
The broader picture Britain's role in the world Stephen Whitefield: Colin, it is a great pleasure... more The broader picture Britain's role in the world Stephen Whitefield: Colin, it is a great pleasure to be having this conversation with you. e question of Britain's place in the world is not a new one, but it has particular salience in present British, European and global circumstances. It strikes me that there can seldom have been a moment in the past when answers to this question were as poorly articulated and weakly held by such a broad array of political forces, even in the midst of a referendum campaign. It also strikes me that you are just the person to be asking. Your list of publications is full of appropriate books and articles that come at the issue from many different angles. In 2013, on e Failure of Anglo-Liberal Capitalism (Routledge); in 2015, on e British Growth Crisis (Palgrave Macmillan); in 2014, on e Legacy of atcherism (Oxford University Press). I could go on and on. Let me start by asking you to put yourself in context for our readers. Does the issue of Britain's role in the world matter to you in any kind of visceral personal way? And how would you say your academic and intellectual work to date engages with it? Colin Hay: First, thank you Stephen. It is refreshing as a political scientist to be asked about how the things one writes about matter in a visceral and personal way. Of course they do, however much our professional lives lead us to have to hide that. In fact, I suspect I don't hide it very well! I now live in France and I think of myself as European, British and Scottish. But I would much prefer not to have to place those self-identifications in some kind of hierarchical order-nor, worse still, to have to choose between them. So it concerns me greatly-indeed, viscerally-that British politics seems, with each passing day, to make it more and more difficult to be European, British and Scottish with ease, without compromise and without managing a complex array of growing tensions. I worry greatly about the possibility of Brexit-which, I think, is a very real threat. And I worry about it not because I think that a majority of British citizens wish for it, but because differential turnout levels effectively magnify the influence of those socioeconomic groups that are both most Eurosceptic in their views and most likely to vote. But I also worry about Britain's place in the world in a broader sense-and have done so for longer. As a political economist it strikes me that Britain and the US share, if not an enduring special relationship (that would seem to be over), but a certain special responsibility for the Anglo-liberal character of the
Theorising identity, difference and social divisions
Theorising Modernity, 2014
Bordeaux 2019 by appellation: Pauillac
Pauillac in 2019 is fantastic and for such a large appellation it is remarkably homogenous in qua... more Pauillac in 2019 is fantastic and for such a large appellation it is remarkably homogenous in quality. That qualitative homogeneity does not in any sense mask the considerable range of stylistic diversity – if anything it accentuates it. But what is deeply impressive is that no Pauillac classed growth that I tasted en primeur lacked either appellation or terroir typicity.
Bordeaux 2019 by appellation: Margaux
Overall, 2019 is a relatively homogenous vintage – with no great qualitative difference between l... more Overall, 2019 is a relatively homogenous vintage – with no great qualitative difference between left and right bank nor really between appellations. Yet if there is a left-bank appellation that is more heterogeneous than the others in 2019 it is Margaux.
Bordeaux 2019 by appellation: St Estephe
Much of the early talk about Bordeaux 2019 suggested that, rather like 2014, this was going to tu... more Much of the early talk about Bordeaux 2019 suggested that, rather like 2014, this was going to turn out to be a northern Medoc vintage. Expectations for Saint-Estephe were then particularly high, writes Colin Hay.
Bordeaux 2019 by appellation: St Emilion
Saint-Emilion is a very large and diverse appellation, so it is hardly surprising that in 2019 it... more Saint-Emilion is a very large and diverse appellation, so it is hardly surprising that in 2019 it is among the most heterogeneous – both qualitatively and stylistically, writes Colin Hay.
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