Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique French Journal of British Studies
XXI-1 | 2016 Citizenship in the United Kingdom La Citoyenneté au Royaume-Uni
Nathalie Duclos et Vincent Latour (dir.)
Édition électronique URL : http://journals.openedition.org/rfcb/721 DOI : 10.4000/rfcb.721 ISSN : 2429-4373
Éditeur CRECIB - Centre de recherche et d'études en civilisation britannique
Référence électronique Nathalie Duclos et Vincent Latour (dir.), Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique, XXI-1 | 2016, « Citizenship in the United Kingdom » [En ligne], mis en ligne le 20 juillet 2016, consulté le 25 septembre 2020. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/rfcb/721 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/rfcb. 721
Ce document a été généré automatiquement le 25 septembre 2020.
Revue française de civilisation britannique est mis à disposition selon les termes de la licence Creative Commons Attribution - Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale - Pas de Modifcation 4.0 International. 1
SOMMAIRE
Foreword Nathalie Duclos et Vincent Latour
Historical Development of Conceptions of Citizenship in the United Kingdom
Subject and Citizen: The Ambiguities of the Political Self in Early Modern England Luc Borot
Citizenship and Exile: English Republicanism in a Transnational Context Gaby Mahlberg
“The definition of a virtuous man”: British Radicals’ Views of Citizens and Citizenship in the French Revolutionary Era Rachel Rogers
Britishness… Limited – National identity and citizenship in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Utopia Limited (1893) Joël Richard
Nationality and Citizenship in the Irish Home Rule Debates of 1886 Pauline Collombier-Lakeman
« Citoyens » ou « syndicalistes » ? Conceptions antagonistes de la citoyenneté dans les débats sur la régulation du monde du travail (1968-1997) Marc Lenormand
Citizenship, Social Policy and Political Representation
UK Citizenship in the Early 21st Century: Earning and Losing the Right to Stay Catherine Puzzo
Community and Citizenship in the Age of Security: British Policy Discourse on Diversity and Counter-terrorism since 9/11 Romain Garbaye et Vincent Latour
Citizenship and Social Policy: the Debate on the Citizen’s Income Jean-Paul Révauger
Continuity and Change in Work-family Reconciliation Policy under the Coalition Government (2010-2015) Jan Windebank
Four Nations Going Their Own Ways? Citizenship Education in the United Kingdom Anne Beauvallet
The SNP’s Conception of Scottish Society and Citizenship, 2007-2014 Nathalie Duclos
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Citoyenneté et participation politique en Écosse. La décentralisation : une chance pour les femmes ? Karine Rivière-De Franco
Who is Irish Today? Citizenship and Nationality Issues in 21st Century Ireland Julien Guillaumond
Contemporary Challenges to the Founding Principles of Citizenship Remises en cause contemporaines des principes fondateurs de la citoyenneté
From Marshallian Citizenship to Corporate Citizenship: The Changing Nature of Citizenship in Neoliberal Britain Emma Bell
(In)visible Minorities and the Law in England Gino G. Raymond
Housing and Citizenship in the UK: Towards a Conditional Right? David Fée
David Cameron, Citizenship and the Big Society: a New Social Model? Raphaële Espiet-Kilty
The Contemporary Conversation about the French Connection “Liberté, égalité, fraternité”: Neoliberal Equality and “Non-brothers” Réjane Sénac
Book Reviews
Compte rendu de Philip Cowley et Dennis Kavanagh, The British General Election of 2015, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, 483 p. Agnès Alexandre-Collier
Review of Gilbert Bonifas & Martine Monacelli (eds.), Southern Horrors: Northern Visions of the Mediterranean World, Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013, xxv-215 p. Stéphanie Prévost
Review of Julie V. Gottlieb ‘Guilty Women’, foreign policy, and appeasement in inter- war Britain. Marc Calvini Lefebvre
Compte rendu de Emmanuelle Avril, Pauline Schnapper (eds.), Le Royaume-Uni au XXI siècle : mutations d’un modèle Baudry Rocquin
Review of Karine Tournier-Sol and Chris Gifford (eds), The UK Challenge to Europeanization. The Persistence of British Euroscepticism, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Richard Davis
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Foreword Avant-propos
Nathalie Duclos and Vincent Latour
1 It is the aim of this issue to put the notions of “citizen” and “citizenship” into a theoretical and historical perspective and to determine to what extent the British conception of citizenship has been influenced or indeed shaped by philosophical and political exchanges and transfers, notably cross-Channel ones, while gauging the impact of the political context in all of the periods considered.
2 For centuries, the concept of “citizenship” was far more uncertain and fluctuating in Britain than in France, mostly because people were first and foremost considered as “subjects”. The term, derived from French, first appeared at the time of the Norman Conquest. It was used throughout the Middle Ages, until the pre-modern era. In most cases, it designated city dwellers endowed with certain rights and privileges and was virtually a synonym for “burgess” or “freeman”. However as early as the 14th century, the term came to designate either the inhabitant of a city or of a country as a whole (e.g. John Wyclif, circa 1380, Thomas Starkey, 1538)
3 The 17th century may be viewed as a watershed, as civil wars revealed that the monarchy could no longer be taken for granted. A major turning point came with the Glorious Revolution and the adoption of the Bill of Rights. That era saw the materialisation of political principles that had taken shape in the previous decades: a questioning of the divine right of kings; the extolling of the right to resist a monarch depriving his / her subjects of their liberties and the assertion of the parliament’s sovereignty through the emergence of a so-called constitutional monarchy. Political modernity, notably embodied by Locke, came to be defined by such principles, as well as by “toleration”. Freedom of worship was granted to dissenters in 1689, but they remained deprived of civic rights until 1829: freedom of worship cannot therefore be equated with full-fledged citizenship.
4 In the 18th century, the word “citizen” appeared in the political writings of Hume, who used it extensively in reference to the Republics of Classical Antiquity or to Italian city- states, his reflection acquiring a universal dimension (e.g. “A too great disproportion
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among the citizens weakens any state”; “A continual succession of wars makes every citizen a soldier”, Essays Moral, Political and Literary, 1752). Later on, the American Revolution revived the Republican and Machiavellian tradition of citizen-soldiers. Citizenship and political liberties were intertwined: weapons were the means of defending political rights. The French Revolution also reinvigorated the use of the word “citizen” in Britain. The so-called “British Jacobins” had two chief grievances: the civic emancipation of dissenters and a broad extension of the franchise, i.e. an increase in the number of citizens (a lowering of property qualifications to take part in the electoral process; the abolition of “rotten boroughs”, etc.). Such demands were to be gradually met between 1832 and 1928, with women in particular being gradually enfranchised between the mid-Victorian period and the interwar years, although real male-female political “parity” is still a far cry from what John Stuart Mill, Millicent Fawcett and the Suffragettes might have expected.
5 In the post-war period, decolonisation and (post)colonial immigration to the UK prompted changes in citizenship acquisition. Britain opted for an open, universalist definition of nationality and citizenship for Commonwealth nationals (British Nationality Act, 1948) to be contrasted with France’s much narrower interpretation towards its colonial subjects, notably within the framework of the Union Française and later, of the Communauté Française. This was especially true for Algerians, labelled as Français Musulmans d’Algérie and therefore, as second-rate citizens.
6 Nowadays, the question of “multicultural citizenship” is no longer taken for granted in the UK, where progress achieved through multiculturalism seems to be questioned. Since the Cantle Report (2001), one has witnessed a novel use of “citizenship” as a mode of incorporation or indeed integration of migrants and their descendants in Britain, notably through the setting up of measures initially devised abroad (e.g. citizenship education, citizenship tests, citizenship ceremonies).
7 Moreover new challenges to the State have appeared. They stem notably from the emergence of transnational or post-national forms of citizenship. Diasporic citizenship and the development of transnational allegiances are a case in point. Prevarications over the compatibility of certain religious beliefs with citizenship are not new. The current debates over the compatibility of Islam with liberal democracies sometimes seems to echo, in some extreme cases, the long exclusion of dissenters, Roman Catholics and Jews from civic rights, even long after the passing of the Toleration Act (1689). The State has also been challenged by enhanced European integration and, arguably, the subsequent development of post-national forms of citizenship.
8 In recent years such questions have frequently given rise to unashamed attempts at political exploitation, by extremist and by mainstream political parties, as shown in the often disgraceful 2016 EU referendum campaign.
9 This issue is divided into three main sections.
10 The articles featured in the first section, entitled “Historical Development of Conceptions of Citizenship in the United Kingdom”, offer diachronic illustrations of the various trajectories taken by citizenship across the Channel, whether in the 17th century (Luc Borot’s and Gaby Mahlberg’s papers, respectively on the criteria used for delineating the contours of citizenship in early modern England and on the political role played by republican exiles during the 1660s and 1670s); in the late 19th century (Pauline Collombier-Lakeman’s contribution on the notions of nationality and
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citizenship in the Irish Home Rule debates, Joël Richard’s study of how national identity and citizenship were put into words and music by Gilbert and Sullivan in their 1893 Savoy opera Utopia Limited ); or in the late 20th century (Marc Lenormand’s piece, which uses the concept of citizenship to examine the history of British trade unions from 1968 to 1997, and reciprocally uses the political debates in the British labour movement to clarify the various interpretations of the notion of citizenship).
11 The articles that appear in the second section, entitled “Citizenship, Social Policy and Political Representation”, illustrate how citizenship in the UK has been confronted with (or incorporated into) other fundamental notions, such as nationality and multiculturalism (Catherine Puzzo’s article on the increasingly drastic criteria for earning UK citizenship and ‘the right to stay’; Romain Garbaye and Vincent Latour’s contribution on the paradoxical prevalence of multiculturalism as a mode of incorporation in the UK, despite the terrorist threat and the promotion of “shared values” for the past fifteen years; Julien Gillaumond’s piece on the complicated and sometimes contradictory emergence of Ireland as an immigration country); education (Anne Beauvallet’s article on the various forms taken by the implementation of citizenship education in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland); social rights (Jean-Paul Révauger’s paper on the ideological and political trajectory of the citizenship income, an old idea once cherished by progressive utopians and now seen as a possible companion for austerity policies; Jan Windebank’s analysis of the reasons for the comparative continuity in work-family reconciliation policy under the 2010-2015 coalition government) and recent constitutional developments, notably devolution (Nathalie Duclos’s article on the SNP’s conception of Scottish society and citizenship, based on an analysis of the speeches made by Alex Salmond in the years 2007-2014; Karine Rivière de Franco’s survey of the impact of devolution on the political representation and participation of women in the Scottish Parliament).
12 The third section, “Contemporary Challenges to the Founding Principles of Citizenship”, strikes a different albeit complementary chord by emphasising a departure from traditional definitions of citizenship (such as that of T.H. Marshall), which have tended to stress State-individual relations. Emma Bell thus identifies and explores the emergence of “corporate citizenship”, whereby some citizens are seen to be more equal/deserving than others, citizenship being no longer defined exclusively in relation to the State. David Fée comes to similar conclusions as regards housing which, in his view, has become an increasingly conditional right since the 1970s, or indeed, “a sustained governmental effort to redraw the contours of citizenship”. The retreat of the State is also at the centre of Raphaële Espiet-Kilty’s contribution, which examines the role and the scope of David Cameron’s flagship programme for the 2010 British general election, the Big Society. On a different note, Gino Raymond argues that both the Scarman and the Macpherson Reports may have opened the door to an interpretation of racism which might be seen to challenge the principle of equality underlying the concept of citizenship, as shown in the Rochdale grooming scandal.
13 Finally, Réjane Sénac’s article provides an enlightening insight into the French republican model. As cross-Channel dialogue seems particularly pertinent to the study of citizenship in the UK, we have asked her, as a leading figure in the study of citizenship in France today, to write a contribution that addresses the way in which the uses of parity and diversity question the dilemmas of “republican equality”, along with
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the rise of neoliberalism, the latter being also relevant to the fluctuating nature of citizenship in the UK in recent decades, as will be extensively documented in this issue.
14 Ce numéro a été mis en forme par John Mullen et Shirley Doulière, utilisant le logiciel LODEL.
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Historical Development of Conceptions of Citizenship in the United Kingdom Evolution historique des conceptions de la citoyenneté au Royaume-Uni
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Subject and Citizen: The Ambiguities of the Political Self in Early Modern England Sujet et citoyen : les ambiguïtés du corps politique dans l’Angleterre de la première modernité
Luc Borot
Introduction
1 Of two words in this title, one, ‘citizen’, is anachronistic in the modern, political sense. To refer to a member of the community living in the same kingdom, the term in use in early modern England would have been the other: ‘subject’. ‘Citizen’ would have referred to an inhabitant of a city, who was also a member of the city’s corporation. In some, he would have been called a ‘freeman’, as in the City of London. This anachronistic term is introduced to highlight a tension, which at times may have been close to contradiction, in the social and political minds and practices of early modern English people.
2 By law, all were the monarch’s subjects, men and women alike. But political rights, or rather liberties (in the sense of privilege) would have belonged to males only. Charles I declared in his scaffold speech on 30 January 1649: “a subject and a monarch are clean different things”, and subjects were not intended “for having share in government”.1 Some of his subjects were indeed clearly in the process of ditching, as it were, the very notion of subjection for what they deemed to be the exercise of their freedom, in the idiom of classical republican ideas. Others, certainly more numerous, would rather have retained a monarchy, though with a more mixed constitution than what they had enjoyed or endured before the civil war.
3 The civic concepts of the republican ideology had not come out of the blue between the summer of 1648 and the winter of 1649. Reluctance to deferential prerequisites could be spotted. As David Cressy showed in England on Edge, reluctance to deferential
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expectations could be spotted from the very beginning of the Long Parliament, with a climax of revolutionary potential in 1641.2 But deep-rooted republican beliefs could also be traced back to civic and judicial practices, ideas and institutions already at work for several generations, and described in the Elizabethan age by such semi-official depictions of England as Sir Thomas Smith’s De Republica Anglorum and William Harrison’s Description of England. David Rollason, Paul Rahe and others in the past decade have tracked the beliefs concerning the commonweal(-th?) over 200 years. I have shown elsewhere some years ago, that the roles of courtier, counsellor and magistrate had been patterns of behaviour and career paths for gentlemen ‘of the better sort’ since the early Tudors, but how about the rest of the subjects?3
4 For others indeed, other patterns had come into being in the Elizabethan age, and in the 1640s radically new ones were being shaped, turning “Soldiers into Statesmen”, in Austin Woolrych’s phrase. Among the minority of activists that agitated the soldiery and the officer body of the New Model Army, it quickly became clear that the notion of ‘subject’ would have to be left by the roadside at some stage in the establishment of the government of the Saints, or of the people. Who the ‘Saints’ would be is a topic that will only be brushed past, as it were. Yet, in the pre-revolutionary kingdom or commonweal, several patterns of citizenship were available, that were fully compatible with the perpetuation of the monarchy.
5 To explain how such (to us) incompatible figures as those of the subject and the citizen could coexist, I shall first look at the language of nationality, monarchy and commonweal. I shall then consider, in their own terms, how some early modern English authors described the structure of participation in their society and ‘constitution’. I shall end with a study of the polemical definitions that arose in the last years before the restoration of monarchy.4
Nationality, kingdom and Commonweal
6 As late in the civil war as October 1647, in the debates of the General Council of the Army held in Putney church, Oliver Cromwell and his son-in-law Henry Ireton called England a ‘kingdom’. At that stage, very few political actors, if any, including these two gentlemen, were considering moving over to a republican regime. For just about a year, the Levellers had been developing a theory of legitimacy grounded in the people that can be considered as one of the first formulations of popular sovereignty. But this was not a definition of the people held by the majority of the English at the time.
7 If we look at the formulation of civic participation held by such men as Cromwell and Ireton, they drew a line between the natives of the realm in general, on the one hand, and on the other, those among the natives who held a permanent vested interest in the kingdom. The other natives were to be dealt with as aliens would be, i.e. with the right to the protection of life and limb, and the liberty of moving about. This quotation from one of Ireton’s most famous speeches during the debates of 29 October, 1647, is unduly long, but it will be a constant point of reference throughout this paper. Part of the task in hand in this paper is to reconstruct a part of the mental structure that underpins this sort of statement. I think that no person hath a right to an interest or share in the disposing of the affairs of the kingdom, and in determining or choosing those that shall determine what laws we shall be ruled by here—no person hath a right to this, that hath not a
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permanent fixed interest in this kingdom, and those persons together are properly the represented of this kingdom, and consequently are [also] to make up the representers of this kingdom, who taken together do comprehend whatsoever is of real or permanent interest in the kingdom. And I am sure otherwise I cannot tell what any man can say why a foreigner coming in amongst us—or as many as will coming in amongst us, or by force or otherwise settling themselves here, or at least by our permission having a being here—why they should not as well lay claim to it as any other. We talk of birthright. Truly [by] birthright there is thus much claim. Men may justly have by birthright, by their very being born in England, that we should not seclude them out of England, that we should not refuse to give them air and place and ground, and the freedom of the highways and other things, to live amongst us—not any man that is born here, though by his birth there come nothing at all (that is part of the permanent interest of this kingdom) to him. That I think is due to a man by birth. But that by a man’s being born here he shall have a share in that power that shall dispose of the lands here, and of all things here, I do not think it a sufficient ground.5
8 One century later, William Blackstone, in his Analysis of the Laws of England, called “the absolute rights, or civil liberties”, defined as “the right of personal security, or personal liberty, and of private property”.6 At Putney, that was what Ireton famously allowed in his minimal definition of the birthright of any man “though by his birth there come nothing at all (that is part of the permanent interest of this kingdom) to him”, as just quoted.
9 Blackstone is quoted here, though he was synthesising the principles of English law over a century after the events we are concerned with, because he tried to establish the most fundamental principles on which lawyers, over generations, had created some consensus. This is the way he defined the difference between aliens and natives: 1. The people are either aliens, that is, born out of the dominions, or allegiance, of the Crown of Great Britain, or natives, that is, born within it. 2. Allegiance is the duty of all subjects, being the reciprocal tie of the people to the prince, in return for the protection he affords them, and in natives, this duty of allegiance is natural and perpetual, in aliens is local and temporary only. 3. The rights of natives are also natural and perpetual, those of aliens local and temporary only, unless they be made denizens by the king, or naturalised by Parliament.7
10 To look at other ways of defining the notions discussed, the OED, quoting various sources, defines the word ‘denizen’ as: By restriction: One who lives habitually in a country but is not a native-born citizen; a foreigner admitted to residence and certain rights in a country; in the law of Great Britain, an alien admitted to citizenship by royal letters patent, but incapable of inheriting, or holding any public office.
11 Aliens and natives alike owe allegiance to the sovereign, perpetually if natives, for a time only if aliens. They owe allegiance in return for the protection of their rights, but owe duty to the king. Blackstone does not say anything about civic commitments of the kind vindicated by the soldiers of the New Model Army and the Levellers. He is not a political thinker, but a lawyer, a legal thinker describing the legal system.
12 Both Elizabeth I and James VI & I believed in the patriarchal nature of their kingly office. Patria potestas endowed monarchs with the power of life and death over their subjects, according to principles inherited from Roman civil law. Lands, goods and chattels belonged to them, and lands were owned through them as tenures.8 That such an ideology should have been formulated as late as the 1590s by the then king of
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Scotland, shows that the theory of absolute monarchy was clashing with the real self- representations of the members of the societies of England and Scotland.
13 The extreme formulations repeatedly proffered by James in his capacities as king of Scotland or England can be read as rhetorical hyperboles of some kind: by stating them in treatises or in speeches to Parliament, he could persuade himself of the extent of his office, and by overstating his power to his subjects in Parliament, who were aware that they were not ‘mere subjects’, he hoped to apply some degree of pressure on them to comply with his will. Experience shows that they maintained a high opinion of their privileges and liberties as members of the Parliament of England, in spite of the ideology that the king was trying to convey to them. His predecessor had indeed experienced their constancy in confronting the Crown throughout her reign.
14 There was no such thing as a centralised, effective, efficient royal administration in England at the beginning of the 17th century, nor for quite some time after.9 Under Queen Elizabeth, the established Church had begun to extend its presence to the whole territory, but it was still, and for some time, the only institution to manage a kingdom- wide network with a single-minded purpose to back it. The other, older, national network, but that did not reach out to every parish and hamlet, was the judiciary. The circuits, the circuit judges, the ‘Quorum’ of the county Justices of Peace appointed from the local gentry by the Lord Chancellor, were the closest to a centralised top-down secular administration that one could get.
15 At a lower territorial level, such local judicial institutions as the parish- or manor- courts, with their juries of freeholders, were the first port of call for subjects in need of redress in civil or criminal cases. Being a juror at the manorial court was a duty of the freeholders connected to their very tenure, in the feudal tradition, like mending a bridge or trimming a certain hedge adjacent to their land. Such jurors’ incomes may have been below the 40 s. value required from voters for the selection of the members of the House of Commons.
16 Under the Poor Laws, welfare relief was distributed by parish-elected Overseers of the Poor, and the rates from which they were funded were levied by the same officers. It was required of the Overseers that they should conform to the established religion of the realm, and they apparently did, to a man… or to a woman. Indeed, there were two areas in which there is evidence of female administration: as churchwardens they could take part in the management and discipline of church-life in the community, and as Overseers of the Poor, they could participate in the collection and distribution of alms. 10
17 In those days of slow communication, low literacy rate, and expected social deference, knowing one’s standing in the world was essential (whether in terms of gender, age or degree), but not pretending to an office not befitting one’s standing was no less crucial, in principle at least. This was a tradition-minded and antiquity-ridden culture in many ways, in principle or for the public eye at least. Indeed, in many law-cases, the immemorialness argument was crucial for the judges to pronounce a ruling. But from our modern vantage point, let us not overlook what it meant: “time out of memory’ meant ‘time out of memory of man alive”. In an age of low life-expectancy, in which leases were granted for one life or 33 years, two lives or 66 years, three lives or 99 years, length of local human memory could be short indeed, and span no more than three quarters of a century.11
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18 By way of consequence, this was very much an innovation-fearing society, as the revisionist historians have kept reminding us since the mid-1970s, not without good reason. Yet, the spirit of innovation and invention displayed in England from the mid-1640s onward cannot have sprung out of a vacuum. Can the word and notion of ‘commonwealth’ have emerged from the Rump members’ minds in the aftermath of the king’s trial and execution? In no way indeed!
19 The web of local and national institutions involving people at various levels in the management of the kingdom was one of the things meant by the words ‘commonwealth’ or ‘commonweal’, in the early modern age. Though this distinction is artificial, this nexus of relations will be referred to here by the latter word, ‘commonweal’, to avoid confusion with the republican regime of the ‘godly sort’, but we must remain aware that to contemporaries, there was no such distinction. Polysemy was the rule: lack of a firm definition of the term made it possible to use it in many rhetorical and ideological contexts.12 The idea that the commonweal’s welfare was the object of the gentleman’s dedication is obvious in such treatises as Sir Thomas Elyot’s Book Called the Governor as early as 1531. 13 There was indeed no top-down centralised machinery, but there was a web of local customs and duties, and people who operated such offices. Such a web or network of institutional and personal relationships, binding its operatives together, and binding them ultimately to the Crown above them, and to the other subjects below them, is what they referred to as ‘the commonweal’. It did involve horizontal, as well as vertical, connections between members of ‘society’, as we would probably call it today.
20 As can be understood from Ethan Shagan’s work on popular politics under the early Tudors, the rebels of the Pilgrimage of Grace of 1536 not only rebelled against the changes in the religious society, life and beliefs consequent on the abolition of the chantries and religious orders, but also against what they saw as the new and corrupt way of ruling implemented by Henry VIII’s advisers, which they could see as “the abandonment of good lordship”, in Shagan’s words. He sees the rebels as wanting to “ reconstruct good lordship through the creation of a properly functioning socio-political order within the rebellion itself.”14 With the anachronistic hindsight to which we are tempted by modernity, this traditionalist view might have clashed with Henry’s decision to be supported throughout his reform of the Church by a sitting Parliament. Some social forces were indeed participating in the process of change, but by 1536 they might have been perceived by some of their fellow countrymen as part and parcel of the corrupt body of advisers that were economically benefiting from the sale of Church lands. This crisis illustrates the differing paces of change in social, political and constitutional visions, in different social strata and in different regions of early modern England.
21 Though it was often couched in the language of king-and-subject allegiance, there was a version of English civic culture that permeated the world-view of those involved in somehow managing the country at some level or other. This was what some Tudor authors described in their works as the Respublica Anglorum.
De Republica Anglorum
22 It has by now become useful to address the problem of defining, as far as it is rationally and reasonably possible, the semantic field covered by the translations of respublica in
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English. It is impossible to understand the business of the subject or citizen, unless the framework in which his activity was conducted is first defined.
23 Respublica, literally, is the public interest or wealth. Res means thing, object, capital (financially), or interest. Respublica is the regime of the Roman republic, i.e., the institutions created at the fall of the monarchy. It is both a republican regime, and the State with its institutions, social and political. As publicus comes from populus, it involves the interest of the people, i.e. of the cives, the citizens of the republic. Populus, importantly for my purpose today, must be distinguished from plebs, viz. the inhabitants who are below the level of civis, citizen. This point was not missed by Sir Thomas Elyot, when he rejected the translation of respublica by ‘commonweal’ for, as this would in fact translate res plebeia, the interest of the plebs, of the common people, of the rabble, not of the people (populus), by whom he understood those who have an interest to care for. Hence his suggestion to translate respublica by “weal public”: the good of the people, of those who own something that profits the kingdom.15
24 Henry Ireton, in Putney church, on 29 October 1647, would call such men “those who have a permanent vested interest in the kingdom”. To men who lived as far apart as 1530 and 1647, a citizen, as I propose to define it in an anachronistic thought experiment, was a native subject with an interest in the kingdom, the kind of interest that motivated, legitimated, justified, and to some extent required, that he should be active in the management of things (res) beyond his estate, no matter how small the things and how small the estate. The object of the discussion about franchise at Putney was the definition of the smallest common denominator, the smallest ‘interest’ making such an involvement a ‘liberty’ (i.e. a right by privilege) for an individual.
25 In the early 1580s, the diplomat Sir Thomas Smith had described the realm and commonwealth of England for the benefit of foreigners in his De Republica Anglorum, first published in 1583, subsequently revised and expanded, and repeatedly printed over forty years. In it, staying very close to Aristotle, he defined the ‘common wealth’ as “a society or common doing of a multitude of free men collected together and united by common accord and covenants among themselves, for the conservation of themselves as well in peace as war”.16 Before that, the same author had defined the king as: Where one person bears the rule they define a king, who by succession or election cometh with the good will of the people to that government, and doth administer the common wealth by the laws of the same and equity, and doth seek the profit of the people as much as his own.17
26 It would appear by this definition that the commonweal predates the king: the members’ mutual covenants constitute them as a people. Later, Locke would agree with this presentation, not so Hobbes.
27 In chapter 26, about “the division of the parts and persons of the common wealth”, Smith says that freemen must be defined: as subjects and citizens of the commonwealth, not bondmen who can bear no rule nor jurisdiction over freemen, as they who be taken but as instruments and of the goods and possessions of others.18
28 The following chapters define the nobilitas maior, who sit in the upper House of Parliament, the esquires and gentlemen who are the nobilitas minor (i.e. the gentry), and in chapter 22 the burgesses and citizens, “such as not only be free and received as officers within the cities, but also be of some substance to bear the charges”.19 In counties they are of no power, but they may take part in the law-making process as members of Parliament.
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But the most interesting chapter, and the most relevant to the matter in hand, is chapter 23, on yeomen, which focuses on the freemen as the backbone of the nation, the heirs to the archers and foot soldiers of yore who won the English kings’ battles on French soil. You can expect Ireton to have read this description or others of the same sort. Smith writes: Those whom we call yeomen next unto the nobility, the knights and squires, have the greatest charge and doings in the commonwealth, or rather are more travailed to serve in it than all the rest […]. I call him a yeoman whom our laws call legalem hominem, a word familiar to writs and inquests, which is a freeman born English, who may dispend of his own free land in yearly revenue to the sum of 40 s. sterling by the year. This makes [in 1583 money value] £6 […]. This sort of people confess themselves to be no gentlemen, but give honour to all which be or take upon them to be gentlemen, and yet they have a certain pre-eminence and more estimation than labourers and artificers, and commonly live wealthily, keep good houses, do their business and travail to get riches […].20
29 A hint that social mobility, which was officially frowned upon, was a fact of life in Elizabethan society, and later to be sure. By dint of work, trade, husbandry and investment in their sons’ education, these not so humble yeomen turn their sons into gentlemen: These [yeomen] be (for the most part) farmers to gentlemen, and with grazing, frequenting of markets, and keeping servants, not idle servants as the gentleman doth, but such as get both their own living and part of their masters: by these means do come to such wealth, that they are able and daily do buy the lands of unthrifty gentlemen, and after setting their sons to the schools, to the universities, to the law of the realm, or otherwise leaving them sufficient lands whereon they may live without labour, do make their sons by those means gentlemen.21
30 In the Elizabethan era, parishioners heard from the pulpit the parts of the books of Homilies that preached obedience, deference and social stability as being the will of God. Everie degree of people in their vocation, calling and office, hath appointed to them their duety and order: some are in high degree, some in low, some Kings and Princes, some inferiors and subjects, Priests and lay-men, Maisters and Servaunts, Fathers, and Children, Husbandes and Wives, riche and poore, and every one have neede of other, so that in all things is to bee lauded and praysed the goodlie order of God, without the which, no house, no Citye, no commonwealth can continue and endure or last.22
31 Meanwhile the gentlemen anatomists of the realm and commonweal of England were describing upward and downward social mobility as a matter of fact, as the last quote shows. Likewise, in chapter 20 “Of Gentlemen”, Smith ambiguously describes the way Englishmen could become gentlemen, with an oft-quoted quip: “for as gentlemen, they are made good cheap in England”, but more seriously, he explains that kings only make knights and barons, whereas the commonwealth can acknowledge the gentry status of certain persons, which is made official through the generous (indeed corrupt) agency of the King of Heralds, the court officer entitled to grant new coats of arms. [F]or as gentlemen, they are made good cheap in England. For whosoever studies the laws of the realm, who studies in the universities, who professes liberal sciences, and to be short, who can live idly and without manual labour, and will bear the port, charge and countenance of a gentleman, he shall be called master, for that is the title which men give to esquires and other gentlemen, and shall be taken for a gentleman. […] (and if need be) a king of Heralds shall also give him for money, arms newly made and invented, which the title shall bear that the said
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Herald has perused and seen old registers where his ancestors in times past had born the same.23
32 If David Cressy showed in England on Edge, that all forms of authority were being challenged by men of all ranks between the spring of 1640 and that of 1642, there is ample evidence that the awareness of social mobility, and therefore of the uncertainty of status, was a common concern of social anatomists, as early as the Elizabethan era. The weight of the unspoken or of the socially unspeakable was on everyone, but such awareness is likely to have been present across a wide spectrum of the commonweal, not least among those who had a permanent vested interest in denying it, or in having it publicly denied.
33 From the estate of yeomanry must have come an important section of the soldiery of the New Model Army indeed, whose anxieties are voiced in Putney as in several pamphlets: a freeman who ventured his life and goods in the war for the Parliament- men against the king, and is not worth 40 s. anymore, has lost even the political rights that were his by birth or achievement, hence the Levellers’ insistence on widening the definition of the concept of birthright, and Ireton’s interest in narrowing its relevance to the political challenge he was confronted with.24
34 But Smith also includes in the commonwealth those ‘which do not rule’, in chapter 24: “day labourers, poor husbandmen, yea merchants or retailers which have no free land, copyholders, all artificers, as tailors, shoemakers, carpenters, brickmakers, bricklayers, masons, etc….”. Yet, they are not left without participation in the administration of government in the commonweal: These have no voice nor authority in our common wealth, and no account is made of them but only to be ruled, not to rule other, and yet they be not altogether neglected. For in cities and corporate towns for default of yeomen, they are fain to make their inquests of such manner of people. And in villages they be commonly made churchwardens, aleconners, and many times constables, which office toucheth more the common wealth, and at the first was not employed upon such low and base persons.25
35 Carl Bridenbaugh, in Vexed and Troubled Englishmen, revealed that some petty constables were chosen in spite of their illiteracy, which was a severe problem in the discharge of their duties.26 Indeed, such were the men that Ireton and other Army leaders of the same faith and estate meant to maintain out of the civic body, as not being ‘free men’, in all the senses that we have seen before. Yet, in the struggles of the many-faced and many-headed opposition to the king’s prerogative, a multitude of ‘such low and base persons’ involved themselves and reached considerable influence among their peers in their regiments, as outside the New Model. As Michael Mendle has shown, their real or imagined social and economic sameness was never synonymous with a clear unity of interpretation of who the people (and even the nation) were (or was).27 Smith’s very broad and inclusive definition may have provided reasons for inclusiveness in the minds of some agents of the regiments at Putney, but on the other hand, it also made the social differences explicitly distinctive.
Saint, Militant, or Citizen?
36 I am deliberately using anachronistic descriptors for what I called ‘intervention’ in an earlier piece of work. When no legal, constitutional participation is possible, then you are left with various modes of intervention. In a paper in French political lexicology, I
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once criticised the use of the word ‘citoyen’ as an adjective concealing militant conceptions of activism and citizenship, as different from, or even superior to passive citizens content with casting a ballot every now and then.28 I now tend to use the same epithet-noun for what I am describing: to men who had lost their social status, or who had none in the mental world of Sir Thomas Elyot, Sir Thomas Smith or Henry Ireton, the spectacular utterance of their religious or political views in a dramatic setting must have been a far loftier human duty than merely casting a ballot. As Claire Gheerardt- Graffeuille has shown, this could also apply to women; it should also be pointed out that this applies, whether or not their menfolk —fathers or husbands— belonged to the politically able part of the commonweal.29
37 Pretending to divine inspiration, like the outcast Gerrard Winstanley in his prophetical pamphlets, acting prophetically like the Quakers George Fox or James Naylor, imitating the patterns of behaviour of the Marian Martyrs like the gentleman, soldier and writer John Lilburne, were so many forms of intervention for people who were, of had become, outcasts, or found it worth their while to pose as such.30 The Old Testament prophets were patterns of behaviour, as were the Marian martyrs, and like them they were patterns of disobedience to godless or Anti-Christian tyranny. Being under God’s law removed them from the authority of human laws. For such people, being a subject was irrelevant: the transcendent nature of their message that came from the highest of highest put them beyond the pale, though not beyond the reach, of any sovereign who might pretend to absolute power and expect utter submission. Above the laws of man, beyond the authority of tyrants, they could not be reconciled with the humdrum view of deferential society, but they may also believe that they were beyond the world of the republican vivere civile, hence a further questioning of their political positioning: could they ever be good, quiet, republican citizens? Yet, at the Restoration, before converting to Quakerism and dying in that faith, Winstanley was a conforming Anglican, though for a short while only.31
38 Still, for those who did not experience the prophetic calling, but were merely promoting the rights of their fellow-citizens who neither could nor would look on themselves as subjects, a form of political immanence had performed the office of transcendent inspiration for the others. Promoting the sovereignty of the subjects implied erasing the mystique of political theology. Most of the very godly Levellers who advocated what we now call popular sovereignty must have been persuaded that “there is no power but of God”, in Paul’s famous words in Romans XIII, but they must have understood it as a form of divine-right popular sovereignty. As Harrington depicted a divine-right republic of the Hebrews, as the monarchomachs had theorised a divine right of the intermediate magistrates to lead the sanior sanctiorque pars reipublicae into a tyrannicidal rebellion, it is possible to imagine the blessed remnant of the defeated Leveller soldiers after the repression of the Burford rising in April 1649, pondering the defeat of the chosen people of God. Not the God who predestined men to subjection, but the One who liberated the captive Israelites from Egyptian bondage. This is the mood that Christopher Hill described, in one of his most reflectively perceptive books, as “the experience of defeat”.
39 The sort of active citizenry outlined by the Cromwellian constitutions, the “Instrument of Government” of 1653 and the “Humble Petition and Advice” of 1658 fail to meet the criteria of prophecy and of universal citizenship. The property qualifications they defined were extremely high, and the confessional and ideological criteria that were
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added to them pointed to a narrow wedge of the parliamentary godly sort. Sir Thomas Smith would have been hard pressed to recognise in this bulwark of militant Puritanism the bustling Elizabethan society he had depicted seventy years before. Indeed, the first of these constitutions defined the ideological and confessional criteria first (such as the exclusion of whoever sided with the king and never turned to Parliament’s side since January 1642, Catholics), and only then proceeded to the property qualifications (estates above the value of £200 per annum). The second document provides more details as to the exclusion criteria, adding the people who were involved in conspiracies against the Lord Protector and risings since 1653. A set of exclusions is added, concerning the people unfit to serve in Parliament: blasphemers, offenders against religion, Catholics or their spouses and children, Scripture denyers (which was aimed at the Quakers, among others), people known to profane the Sabbath, or to ‘haunt’ taverns. A committee was to be appointed to examine the morality of the members returned by the voters.32
40 If we are to accept the received estimation that the ‘godly sort’ were never more than 5% to 10% of the English population, if we bear in mind that over the decade of civil wars and revolution many English households had seen their fortunes considerably decline, and that 14 years of godly rule had made a considerable part of the population impatient of their stratocratic and theocratic rulers, how many supporters could the regime still expect to support its fads? Confessional, ideological, and social, not to say financial support had inevitably shrunk over time. By the time of Cromwell’s death, his regime was less popular than the king’s at the peak of hostility by 1641-1642.
41 Aware of such a shortage of enthusiasts for the republican cause at home or abroad, two different schools of republican thought set out to work in the late 1650s. One was already at work before the death of Cromwell in September 1658, with James Harrington (never a supporter of Cromwellian rule) and his political associates; the other was working for the regime, with John Milton as its main penman. The minister Richard Baxter also put pen to paper to uphold the view of a holy commonwealth. To Harrington, all men who were not servants were citizens and formed the army of the commonwealth. It rested on a theory of the balance of property, within which upward and downward mobility made sure that the citizen body was extendable to whoever left servant status to become independent, or moved above or below the £100 mark that ensured membership of the senatorial body. Only atheists, Catholics and Jews were to be excluded from citizenship for religious reasons.33 To Milton, the commonwealth, in the spirit of the Cromwellian cause, could only be protected through the government of a nominated single-house parliament of godly men, preserving the spirit of the regime against the majority of the ungodly: only the godly had a divine right to rule, and the rest a duty to obey.34 To Baxter, the citizen body was to consist exclusively of men whose godliness was a testimony of their election. To him as to Milton, participation and government were the preserve of the Saints. His definition, though, was broader and more strictly religious than Milton’s: to the Latin Secretary, ideological and military considerations came to colour, as it were, the soteriological aspects of divine election.35
42 Of these three authors (but they were by no means isolated), only Harrington has the “expansion” of the commonwealth in view. The others are more concerned, or even obsessed, with the preservation of ideological purity, to the detriment of the support that the commonweal at large (i.e. society) could give to the commonwealth (i.e. the
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republican institutions), in the sense that was given to these terms at the beginning of this paper.
Conclusion
43 The debate on citizenship in early modern England is in many ways a discussion on inclusion and exclusion. It has been a well-established creed among historians of this period that the whole age could be defined as the growth of the nation-state, whose building bricks were the national Church, royal absolutism and the first seeds of parliamentary sovereignty. Looking at the processes at work from another angle, it may also appear as an age of struggle for social control (the godly v. the crown), as a fight between the ‘commonweal’ as society and the ‘commonwealth’ as State. While Smith called England a respublica, Hobbes wanted to define the commonwealth as civitas, whereby he did not mean a city-State of the Florentine or Venetian sort, but the modern, sovereign-centred State. One may consider this development as a step forward in political efficiency, but also as a loss of local control and self-administration. Hobbes’s “civis” in his De Cive is a deliberately, consciously obedient subject whose civic duty consists in following commands to further the common peace and good. His commonwealth is not for citizens in the modern sense.
44 The utopian or normative definitions of citizenship of the later Interregnum look towards a medieval-like ideal of monastic perfection. It is a clear symptom of the cultural discrepancies and mental crises of the age, that the same ‘Good Old Cause’ could be advocated by authors like Milton and Baxter who wanted different kinds of ‘the rule of the Saints’, who coexisted with the classical republican idiom of tyrannicide as exemplified in Edward Sexby’s Killing No Murder, calling for the holy murder of Oliver Cromwell in 1657. The same minds, as Michael Mendle has explained about the Putney debaters, made their own spontaneous syntheses between their political and religious beliefs, their classical and biblical cultures.36 They emerged with absolute statements at a few months’ distance, that seem contradictory to us, but were their means to make sense of the intellectual, social and political shambles of their days, and made sense at a given point in time in front of crises that no commonweal before had been confronted to, over such a brief period of time.
45 Luc Borot, ancien élève de l'ENS Ulm, membre honoraire de l'Institut Universitaire de France, est Professeur de civilisation britannique du XVIIe siècle à l'Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier. Il est membre de l'Institut de Recherche sur la Renaissance, l'Âge Classique et les Lumières (UMR 5186 du CNRS). Son champ de recherche couvre l'histoire culturelle et l'histoire intellectuelle de l'Angleterre moderne, les rapports entre le politique et le religieux, les idées républicaines et proto-démocratiques. Il a dirigé la Maison Française d'Oxford de 2008 à 2012.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ayers, Robert (ed.) & Austin Woolrych (intro.), The Complete Prose Works of John Milton, vol. 7, 1659-1660 (New Haven (CT), Yale UP, 1974).
Blackstone, William, An Analysis of the Laws of England, 5th edition (Dublin, 1766).
Borot, Luc, “Conseiller, courtisan, citoyen: trois figures de la participation politique du sujet dans l’Angleterre moderne”, in Luc Borot (ed.), Civisme et citoyenneté… une longue histoire (Montpellier, Publications de l’Université Paul-Valéry, 1999), pp. 92-141.
Borot, Luc, “L’adjectif ‘citoyen’”, Cités 3 (June 2000), pp. 231-235.
Borot, Luc, “Richard Overton and radicalism: the new intertext of the civic ethos in mid seventeenth-century England”, in Glenn Burgess,and Matthew Festenstein (eds), English Radicalism 1550-1850 (Cambridge, CUP, 2007), pp. 37-61.
Bradstock, Andrew (ed.), Winstanley and the Diggers, 1649-1999 (London & Portland (OR), Franck Cass, 2000).
Bridenbaugh, Carl, Vexed and Troubled Englishmen (New York, OUP, 1976).
Calthrope, Charles, The Relation between a Lord of the Manor and the Copy-Holder his Tenant (1635).
Certaine Sermons Appointed by the Queenes Maiestie, to be declared and read… (London, 1587).
Cressy, David, England on Edge. Crisis and Revolution 1640-1642 (Oxford, OUP, 2006).
Damrosch, Leopold, The Sorrows of the Quaker Jesus. James Nayler and the Puritan Crackdown on the Free Spirit (Cambridge (MA) & London, Harvard UP, 1996).
Early Modern Research Group, “Commonwealth: the Social, Cultural, and Conceptual Context of an Early Modern Keyword”, Historical Journal 54:3 (2011), pp. 659-687.
Elyot, Sir Thomas, The Book Named the Governor, S.E. Lehmberg (ed.), Everyman’s Library n°227 (London, Dent, 1962).
Firth, C.H. (ed.), The Clarke Papers (1891-94) (London, Royal Historical Society, 1992).
Gheerardt-Graffeuille, Claire, La Cuisine et le forum. L'émergence des femmes sur la scène publique pendant la Révolution anglaise (1640-1660) (Paris, L'Harmattan, coll. Des Idées et des femmes, 2005).
Gurney, John, Brave Community. The Digger Movement in the English Revolution (Manchester, Manchester UP, 2007).
Hill, Christopher, The Experience of Defeat. Milton and Some Contemporaries (London, Peregrine Books, 1985).
Kenyon, J.P. (ed.), The Stuart Constitution. Documents and Commentary (Cambridge, CUP, 1966).
Lamont, William (ed.), Richard Baxter, A Holy Commonwealth (1659), Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought (Cambridge, CUP, 1994).
Lockyer, Roger (ed.), The Trial of Charles I (London, the Folio Society, 1959).
Mendle, Michael, “Putney’s pronouns: Identity and indemnity in the Great Debate”, in Michael Mendle (ed.), The Putney Debates of 1647 - The Army, the Levellers and the English State (Cambridge, CUP, 2010), pp. 125-147.
Pocock, J.G.A. (ed.), The Political Works of James Harrington (Cambridge, CUP, 1977).
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Shagan, Ethan, Popular Politics and the English Reformation (Cambridge, CUP, 2003).
Sharpe, Andrew (ed.), The English Levellers, Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought (Cambridge, CUP, 1998).
Smith, Sir Thomas, De Republica Anglorum (Mary Dewar, ed.) (Cambridge, CUP, 1982).
NOTES
1. Roger Lockyer (ed.), The Trial of Charles I (London, the Folio Society, 1959), p. 135. 2. David Cressy, England on Edge. Crisis and Revolution 1640-1642 (Oxford, OUP, 2006), pp. 6-24. 3. Luc Borot, “Conseiller, courtisan, citoyen: trois figures de la participation politique du sujet dans l’Angleterre moderne” in Luc Borot (ed.), Civisme et citoyenneté… une longue histoire (Montpellier, Publications de l’Université Paul-Valéry, 1999), pp. 92-141; “Richard Overton and radicalism: the new intertext of the civic ethos in mid seventeenth-Century England” in Glenn Burgess and Matthew Festenstein (eds), English Radicalism 1550-1850 (Cambridge, CUP, 2007), pp. 37-61. 4. Before going further, I must acknowledge my debt to a collective paper published in 2011 in the Historical Journal: “Commonwealth: the Social, Cultural, and Conceptual Context of an Early Modern Keyword”. I am applying some of the definitions and conclusions of that paper to my inquiry into the members of the commonweal who were also users of the word itself. 5. Henry Ireton, Putney Debates, 29 October 1647, in C.H. Firth (ed.), The Clarke Papers (London, Royal Historical Society, 1992 (1891-94)), p. 302. 6. William Blackstone, An Analysis of the Laws of England, 5th edition (Dublin, 1766), Book I, ch. IV, section 8, p. 7. 7. Ibid., Book I, ch. XII, sections 1-3, p. 21. 8. Elizabeth I, Collected Works, vol. I, Leah Marcus, Janel Mueller, and Mary Beth Rose (eds), speech 23, 30 November 1601, pp. 337-9; James VI & I, The Trew Law of Free Monarchies…, Bernard Bourdin (ed., trans.), Collection Astræa Texts n°2 (Montpellier, Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée, 2008), pp. 30-32, pp. 54-58. 9. Under James I, the notion that specialised administrations ought to be developed emerged, but the first serious attempts to distribute ministerial departments date back to Cromwell and Charles II. It should be no surprise that such Harringtonian Commonwealthsmen as Sir William Petty, John Aubrey or Samuel Pepys should have been involved in this process after the Restoration of the Stuarts. 10. Carl Bridenbaugh, Vexed and Troubled Englishmen (New York, OUP, 1976), p. 248. 11. Charles Calthrope, The Relation between a Lord of the Manor and the Copy-Holder his Tenant, 1635, p. 50. According to Prescription Act 1832, legal memory, unless proof exists from the reign of Richard I, will be deemed to mean 30 or 60 years before the action at law, depending on the matter in hand. 2 and 3 Will 4 (1832) chapter 71, provision 1. 12. “Commonwealth…”, pp. 661-62. 13. Sir Thomas Elyot, The Book Named the Governor, S.E. Lehmberg (ed.), Everyman’s Library 227 (London, Dent, 1962). 14. Ethan Shagan, Popular Politics and the English Reformation (Cambridge, CUP, 2003), p. 95. 15. Elyot, Governor, pp. 1-2; Filmer, quoted in ‘Commonwealth…’, wants to keep ‘commonwealth’ for popular regimes, and ‘commonweal’ for the community, p. 667, n19. 16. Sir Thomas Smith, De Republica Anglorum, Mary Dewar (ed.) (Cambridge, CUP, 1982), ch. 10, p. 57. 17. Ibid., ch. 7, p. 53. 18. Ibid., ch. 16, p. 64.
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19. Ibid., ch. 22, p. 73. 20. Ibid., ch. 23, p. 74. 21. Ibid., ch. 23 p. 74. 22. “An Exhortation concerning Good Order, and Obedience to Rulers and Magistrates”, in Certaine Sermons Appointed by the Queenes Maiestie, to be declared and read… (London, 1587), sig. I3. This is an Elizabethan edition of the 1547 volume appointed by Henry VIII and mostly written by Cranmer. 23. Smith, ch. 20, pp. 71-2. 24. This is clear in the first and third versions of the “Agreement of the People”, in Andrew Sharpe (ed.), The English Levellers, Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought (Cambridge, CUP, 1998), pp. 92-101, 168-178. 25. Smith, ch. 21, pp. 76-77. 26. Bridenbaugh, pp. 250-51. 27. Michael Mendle, “Putney’s pronouns: Identity and indemnity in the Great Debate” in Michael Mendle (ed.), The Putney Debates of 1647 - The Army, the Levellers and the English State (Cambridge, CUP, 2010), p. 134, p. 143, p. 146. 28. Luc Borot, “Conseiller, courtisan, citoyen”; “L’adjectif ‘citoyen’”, Cités 3 (June 2000), pp. 231-235. 29. Claire Gheerardt-Graffeuille, La Cuisine et le forum. L'émergence des femmes sur la scène publique pendant la Révolution anglaise (1640-1660) (Paris, L'Harmattan, coll. Des Idées et des femmes, 2005). 30. Leopold Damrosch, The Sorrows of the Quaker Jesus. James Nayler and the Puritan Crackdown on the Free Spirit (Cambridge (MA) & London, Harvard University Press, 1996). 31. John Gurney, Brave Community. The Digger Movement in the English Revolution (Manchester, Manchester UP, 2007), pp. 218-222; James D. Alsop, “Gerrard Winstanley: What do we know of his life?” in Andrew Bradstock (ed.), Winstanley and the Diggers, 1649-1999 (London & Portland (OR), Franck Cass, 2000), pp. 30-33. 32. J.P. Kenyon (ed.), The Stuart Constitution. Documents and Commentary (Cambridge, CUP, 1966), p. 344, pp. 351-52. 33. James Harrington, The Commonwealth of Oceana (1656), in J.G.A. Pocock (ed.), The Political Works of James Harrington (Cambridge, CUP, 1976). 34. John Milton, The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth (1660), in Robert Ayers (ed.) & Austin Woolrych (intro.), The Complete Prose Works of John Milton (vol. 7, 1659-1660) (New Haven (CT), Yale UP, 1974). 35. Richard Baxter, A Holy Commonwealth (1659), William Lamont (ed.), Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought (Cambridge, CUP, 1994). 36. Mendle, “Putney’s pronouns”, p. 134.
ABSTRACTS
In 17th-century England, the notion of citizenship can only be understood by contradistinction with the definition of the subject. Englishmen of the time were aware that they were both subjects of the monarch and members of the common weal, defined as the web of relationships, privileges and obligations that got society and its institutions working, down to the most local levels of the parish or the manor.
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Thus, some descriptions of English society and institutions in the late 16th century revealed a point that was confirmed by the crises in collective identification that raged in the 1640s. The soldiers of the New Model Army disagreed together, as they also disagreed with their generals, such as Oliver Cromwell and Henry Ireton, on the definition of the people who was to be represented in Parliament. The Putney debates of the Autumn of 1647 reveal such mutual misunderstandings, as well as the underlying fears. From 1653, the constitutions of the Cromwellian regime paint an increasingly detailed portrait of the active citizen, as they exclude some persons from the franchise for motives of personal morality or religious conformity, as well as economic reasons. As it raised the property qualifications and piling up conformity criteria, the regime keeps isolating itself from society. By the end of the 1650s, the struggle of the secular or religious republican theorists focuses on admission to citizenship, and on the size of the citizen body. Though they all agreed on the need for property qualifications, the polemic raged on the relevance of ideological and confessional criteria.
Au XVIIe siècle, on ne peut comprendre la notion de citoyenneté sans la mettre en rapport avec la conception du sujet. Les Anglais du temps avaient conscience d’être à la fois sujets du monarque et membres du common weal, ce réseau de relations, de privilèges et d’obligations qui faisait marcher la société et ses institutions jusqu’au niveau le plus local de la paroisse ou du manoir. Ce que révélaient déjà certaines descriptions de la société et des institutions anglaises à la fin du XVIe siècle se voit confirmé dans les crises d’identification collectives des années 1640. Les soldats de l’Armée Nouveau Modèle de Cromwell s’opposent entre eux, et s’opposent à leurs généraux, comme Oliver Cromwell et Henry Ireton, sur la définition du peuple qui doit être représenté au Parlement. Les débats de Putney, à l’automne 1647, manifestent ces incompréhensions réciproques ainsi que les craintes qui les sous-tendent. Les constitutions du régime cromwellien à partir de 1653 brossent du citoyen actif un portrait économique et religieux de plus en plus précis, excluant de personnes du corps civique pour des raisons de moralité privée ou d’adhésion religieuse, autant que pour des motifs économiques. En élevant le cens électoral et en multipliant les critères de conformité, le régime ne fait que s’isoler de la société. À la fin des années 1650, le combat des théoriciens républicains, religieux ou séculiers, se concentre sur l’admission à la citoyenneté et sur l’étendue souhaitable du corps civique. Si tous s’accordent sur la nécessité d’un cens électoral, c’est sur la pertinence des critères idéologiques et confessionnels que la polémique s’est développée.
INDEX
Mots-clés: Angleterre moderne, républicanisme, commonweal, commonwealth, citoyenneté, histoire sociale Keywords: Early Modern England, republicanism, commonweal, commonwealth, citizenship, Social history
AUTHOR
LUC BOROT Institut de Recherche sur la Renaissance, l’Âge Classique et les Lumières, UMR 5186 (CNRS/ Université Montpellier III-Paul-Valéry)
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Citizenship and Exile: English Republicanism in a Transnational Context Citoyenneté et exil : le républicanisme anglais dans un contexte transnational
Gaby Mahlberg
Introduction
1 Seventeenth-century English republicans had several different yet related political and religious identities. On the one hand, republican thinkers modelled themselves on the western European classical humanist ideal of the citizen going back to Aristotle, stressing the centrality of political participation, which they linked with their more immediate demands for popular sovereignty, the rule of law and full accountability of political rulers in their own country.1 On the other hand, most English republicans were at the same time Reformed Protestants or Puritans, who saw themselves as members of God’s invisible Church around the world.2 Their self-image was therefore at once political and religious, national and transnational.3
2 While civil and religious liberty had at least been partially achieved during the Civil War and Interregnum period of the 1640s and 1650s, the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy in 1660 meant that religious and political dissent was persecuted with renewed zeal, and republicans once again found themselves as the unwilling subjects of a tyrannical king. Consequently, many regicides, republicans and religious dissenters left England in search of physical safety as well as religious and political liberty.
3 This paper will assess the language and actions employed by English republicans, such as Edmund Ludlow and Algernon Sidney in European exile during the 1660s and 1670s, to conceptualise their transnational political and religious identity, their sense of citizenship, and their relationship to their home country. It will be argued that the republican exiles maintained strong links to England while abroad and continued to see themselves as political actors on behalf of their country and their ‘cause’, if not
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necessarily of a specific government. This independent sense of public duty also meant the pursuit of their aims did not prevent them from temporarily serving or submitting to different governments, or indeed considering military action against the government of their own country.
Sidney and public service
4 The 8th May 1660 was a fateful day for many English republicans as the Convention Parliament proclaimed Charles II as the lawful monarch of England. With the consent of the elected representatives of the nation, the Stuarts were back on the English throne and the citizens of the English republic once again became the subjects of a monarchy. Many of those who had been politically active in the Commonwealth meanwhile distrusted the new regime and the provisions of the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion and either decided to leave the country or remain abroad to save their skin.4
5 The two individuals I will focus on in this article, Algernon Sidney and Edmund Ludlow, shared common experiences of flight, persecution and displacement, even though only Ludlow was a regicide. But both had been active in Civil War and Interregnum politics as soldiers and generals, MPs and Councillors of State, while Sidney had also served the Commonwealth as a diplomat.5 Their political identity was based on participation, loyalty to their country and their common ‘cause’ of liberty and republicanism.
6 English republicans defined the role of the citizen with Aristotle as that of an individual who participated “in the administration of justice, and in offices”6, i.e. as that of an active member of the political nation, endowed with political agency by the authorities of the state. While they used the term ‘citizen’ itself primarily with reference to the Greek and Roman city-states, they nevertheless shared its notion of public duty, virtue and merit in their own political context for the members of the English polity.7 All citizens were equal in principle, but special merit and virtue could advance an individual to leadership.8 Citizens could therefore act either in a private or in a public capacity, if they acted in a leading role that elevated them over their fellow citizens.
7 While the change of regime in the spring of 1660 changed their employment and personal situation, it did not change the republicans’ sense of public duty. In fact, their sense of themselves as political actors was to an extent independent of the government they served, which agrees with the observations made by Patrick Collinson, Steve Hindle, Mark Goldie and others on the compatibility of an ethos of citizenship with monarchical structures.9 This is most obvious in the letter Algernon Sidney sent to his father Robert, earl of Leicester from Stockholm on 27 June 1660 after receiving “the Newes of the Kings Entry into London”.10 Sidney had been away negotiating a peace between Sweden and Denmark on behalf of the English Commonwealth to secure trading interests in the Baltic Sound,11 when he heard of the Restoration of the Stuarts, and for a while was seriously considering what to do and whether or not to continue in his current position. I … am absolutely uncertaine what Course I shall take … I would be unwilling to stay in a Place, wheare I have bin long under a Character that rendred me not inconsiderable, now that my Powers are extinguished, and I am left in a private Condition … . On the other Side, I knowe the Advantage it would be to me, to have newe Orders from the King, and am unwilling to put my self out of a Condition of receaving them, unlesse I am theareunto necessitated, or know that none will be sent.12
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8 As we can see, Sidney distinguished clearly between his office and public function on the one hand and his “private” condition – which almost sounds like an illness or a disability under the circumstances – on the other. At this stage, he was not entirely averse to holding office under the new king if it was demanded of him, and, as he revealed in the following letter to his father, he did not think he had the right to withdraw from Sweden “without Order”.13 As he was waiting for a response from England he also considered it a farre greater Respect unto the King, to cease from acting any Thing by Powers not derived from him, and to stay heare, as private Men, attending his Pleasure, then on a Suddaine to throwe of the Businesse, and to be gone as in a Chase.14
9 While aware of the loss of his “Powers” and his newly acquired “private” status, Sidney thus also stayed because he was first and foremost, as he put it, a “Servant to my Country ”, for whom public duty was not necessarily bound to a specific government.15 He also appeared to have sufficient “Respect” for Charles II, who had been welcomed back into England as king, to wait for his instructions. When no instructions from the new regime were forthcoming, Sidney took his father’s advice to move on to Hamburg “and from thence into Holland, or somme Place in Germany, wheare I may lye still a While, and see what is to be expected for me.”16 For the republicans, it seems, it was all ‘wait and see’.
10 A little later, at the end of November and by then safely settled in Rome, Sidney seemed relieved that he had listened to his father and his friends, who had advised him “to keepe out of England for a While”, judging “by the Usage my Companions have already received ”.17 This of course alluded to the fate of the ten regicides who had been exempted from the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion and sentenced to death to be publicly hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn in October.18 These included Thomas Scott, with whom Sidney had worked on the Council of State and in the area of foreign affairs,19 while Sidney’s good friend Sir Henry Vane the younger was likewise exempted from the Indemnity and Oblivion Act to be executed two years later.20
11 In Sidney’s case, it was the monarchy rejecting the republican exile, not the republican exile rejecting the monarchy – at least not yet. The most severe punishment for Sidney was to remain excluded from public office and from participation in the politics of his home country.21 This rejection might have hardened him towards the government of Charles II and contributed to his future plans of a foreign invasion of England with exile support. While Sidney decided to stay abroad for his own personal safety and was travelling via Germany to Italy, the regicide Edmund Ludlow was making his escape to Switzerland to the Calvinist capital of Geneva.22
Ludlow’s providential republicanism
12 Ludlow’s political identity was closely bound up with his religious faith and belief in divine providence, which had carried him to Geneva. In the manuscript of his memoirs, 23 he described himself and his fellow exiles as “sufferers for the Cause of Christ, & the Libertyes of our Country”,24 while his rejection of the Stuart monarchy was primarily based on the King’s usurpation of divine rule, as only God could claim to be a legitimate monarch.25 Unlike Sidney, Ludlow was from the start openly hostile to Charles II, whom he frequently referred to in his draft memoirs as a “tyrant” and as the “present Usurper”. 26 Conversely, the friendly welcome received by the exiles in Switzerland “layd a great
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Obligation on us to bless the Lord, who had raysed up so many to favour us & our righteous Cause in a forreigne & strandge Land.”27
13 When the regicides John Barkstead, Miles Corbet and John Okey were extradited from the Netherlands under Johan de Witt’s government in 1662,28 however, Ludlow feared that he and his fellow exiles John Lisle and William Cawley might soon experience the same fate, unless the Genevan authorities formalised their protection. When Geneva failed to do so, the little group sought help from the notorious Jesuit convert Jean de Labadie and the chief minister of Bern Johann Heinrich Hummel, both of whom had long-standing contacts to the various Interregnum regimes.29 With the support of these illustrious preachers the exiles then moved to the canton of Bern, were assigned religious refugee status, and gathered a small community of exiles around them.30 But even after their removal to Vevey, Ludlow never felt entirely safe from strangers and potential assassins sent across the French border by Charles II’s sister, the Duchess of Anjou.31
Fear of assassins
14 For the same reason, Sidney kept a distance from his countrymen in exile and was alert to any rumours about him. He wrote to his father from Rome that “the Court heare” had ordered the Internuntio in Flanders to make enquiries about his “Birth, Person, and Quality”, and that information had been given that I was ever found to be violent against Monarchy, a Friend unto Roman Catholiques, one that in our last Troubles, meddled little with private Businesse, and that had made my Fortune, by the Warre, with some other Things like unto theis, Part true, and Part false; but none that I can learne which doth me any Prejudice. They weare put upon this Enquiry, by the foolish prating of some Priests, who spoke of me, as the only Enimy the King had left, and that I being taken away, his Majesty might reagne in Quiet.32
15 While Sidney lightly dismissed these rumours,33 he nevertheless seemed relieved to see the strangers leave town after Holy Week, as he “never found any Inconvenience heare, but by theire Company, and Neighbourhood.”34 Or, as he put it in an earlier letter to his father, he felt ‘well enough at Ease’ in Rome “unlesse somme Boddy from the Court of England doth think it worth theire Paines to disturbe me.”35
16 With a permanent threat of persecution and assassination emanating from the English government and its allies, the exiles were at times helpless and bitter towards their own country. While Sidney claimed he was not shaken by the “Misfortunes”, into which he had fallen “by the Destruction of our Party”36 in England, he nevertheless reported at times feeling desperate or “naked, alone, and without Help in the open Sea.”37 In particular he found it shameful to live on a shoestring budget38 and in a Place farre from Home, wheare noe Assistance can possibly be expected, and wheare I am knowne to be of a Quality, which makes all lowed and meane Wayes of Living shamefull and detestable.39
17 Sidney was painfully aware of the mismatch between his “Quality” and station in life and his poor circumstances, that not only forced him to remain abroad, but to live a life well below his aristocratic upbringing. He also felt rather snubbed by the restored monarchy, which deprived him both of his political role and social status.
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18 Meanwhile in England, the situation of political and religious dissenters was worsening day by day, with dissenters filling the prisons and a new set of penal laws established by the so-called Clarendon Code.40 With dissatisfaction growing among the opposition against the Stuarts at home and abroad, Sidney had found the patriotic task he had been waiting for. Over the next couple of years we find him criss-crossing Europe in an attempt to raise an army to invade England from abroad to restore the Long Parliament and republican rule.41 And for this task he was trying to enlist the help of Ludlow.
The Anglo-Dutch War and the Sidney Plot of 1665-6
19 Ludlow was by reputation one of the most feared republicans alive. He was constantly implicated in plots and suspected of leading risings in England throughout the early 1660s, even though he never left Switzerland. But it was assumed that if anyone could head a successful rebellion against the Stuarts, it was him. Leaving Rome in the summer of 1663 and travelling north into Germany and the Netherlands, Sidney visited Ludlow in Vevey to consult with him about the possibility of future action against the Stuarts.
20 While nothing appears to have materialised at this initial meeting, more concrete plans emerged in the spring of 1665, when Sidney was living among the English dissenters in the United Provinces, lodging with the Quaker merchant Benjamin Furly in Rotterdam. 42 Here Sidney was composing his Court Maxims (c1664-65) as a manifesto of rebellion against unjust rulers while also hatching his plan to set an end to Charles II’s government by invading England from abroad with the help of foreign troops. Sidney argued in his Court Maxims, which were never published during his lifetime, that a king who acted against the law obliged his subjects to disobey him and renounce their loyalty, and that obedience was due to “God rather than men”.43 Hence, Charles II had to be resisted, and armed rebellion was the means to this end.
21 The outbreak of the second Anglo-Dutch War over access to trading routes at sea in March 1665 gave the republicans new hope for a restoration of the Commonwealth. English republicans saw the Protestant and republican Dutch as natural allies, as both were enemies of Charles II, while also sharing a religious and political outlook. While many historians – doubtless with a view towards the Glorious Revolution – have exaggerated the friendly disposition of the Grand Pensionary Johan De Witt towards the exile community,44 however, Sidney’s contemporary allies treated the whole situation with more caution.
22 After feeling “the pulse of the Dutch, touching their uniting with the honest party in England against Charles Steward”, Ludlow’s fellow exile in Vevey, William Say, made his way to the United Provinces.45 He met with William Nieuwpoort, the former Dutch ambassador to the Rump, who promised the exiles a fleet of 30,000 men at their disposal and urged them to set up a council of English republicans and Dutch representatives to discuss further moves.46 The plan was to free Major General John Lambert from prison in Guernsey and to put him and Ludlow in charge of the troops.47 Rebels in England and Scotland were allegedly “ready to rise at 5 days warning”, and “a very considerable Body” of them was “ready to draw together in the North, and … West of England”. The exiles were asking for 4,000 foot soldiers to land at Newcastle which would be “delivered to them”.48
23 As their plans developed, Sidney increasingly put pressure on Ludlow to come to their aid, even accusing him of disowning “the publique Cause” if he did not, and of
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jeopardising their plans by his absence.49 But Ludlow had serious reservations about the trustworthiness of the Dutch, who “prefer[red] their Trade before the honour of God & Christ ”.50 His particular bugbear was the extradition of the regicides three years earlier, while he was also unwilling to jeopardise his position in Switzerland, as the authorities of Bern had advised him to stay away from anything that might upset relations between the Swiss and Stuart England.51
24 Despite these concerns Sidney personally travelled to The Hague to negotiate with De Witt. But talks came soon to a halt. Be it because of Ludlow’s unwillingness to lead the military operation or a lack of trust in Sidney’s ability, De Witt seemed neither convinced by the feasibility or even desirability of such a plot.52 After all, during the Commonwealth England had risen to become a genuine competitor at sea, while the Restoration monarchy seemed negligible in comparison. By the end of 1665, the plotters had removed their headquarters to Rotterdam, but, amid divisions between the exiles, not much else had happened.
25 When Louis XIV entered into an anti-English alliance with the States General and in January 1666 also declared war, the plot was revived, and Sidney and Ludlow were invited to Paris for talks. But Ludlow refused to join a conspiracy he considered doomed from the start, despite demands from the exile community to follow “the Lords Call to a glorious worke, wherein the Interest of the Lords people throughout the world was concerned”,53 with Say urging Ludlow that “all there [in Rotterdam]” were ready to join him, but if he refused “not a man would stir”.54
26 Ludlow conceded he might be able to collaborate with the Dutch if they acknowledged fault in the extradition of Barkstead, Corbet and Okey, but there was no way he would ever trust the French. He suspected them behind the hired assassins who had followed the exiles to Switzerland.55 Moreover, France was the home of absolutism, Catholicism and everything the exiles hated and despised. Collaboration with the French made the plot unacceptable both to Ludlow and some of the other exiles. So Sidney travelled to Paris without him.56
27 According to the Memoirs of Louis XIV, Sidney asked for 100,000 écus57 to produce a great uprising in England. Reluctant to risk such an amount “on the word of a fugitive”, however, the King only committed 20,000 and promised more later if he could see results.58 But Sidney had already lost the backing of the majority of the exiles. With support waning on all sides, Sidney finally decided to go it alone. He “volunteered to command the invasion [of England] directly from Paris leading the French troops” himself, thus, as Jonathan Scott put it, committing “political suicide”.59
28 The plot finally failed over the mutual distrust of the different parties in an unlikely and rather unhappy alliance, while the exile community split over the best plan of action. But we certainly cannot blame them for want of trying.
Conclusion
29 As I hope to have shown, the republican exiles who either failed to return to England after the Restoration or had to leave England for fear of their lives never broke with their home country or their public role. Despite the return of the monarchy, Sidney and Ludlow were aware of their position in society and the political realm, even though
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their focus might have shifted from a role of representatives of their nation to that of underground activists.
30 While any concerted action of the exiles failed or never materialised for lack of money, organisation and, most importantly, mutual trust between the parties involved, I would nevertheless caution against seeing this failure as the end of the republican cause.
31 While republicans did not achieve a restoration of the Commonwealth, liberty of conscience for religious dissenters, or popular sovereignty with a fully accountable government, the negotiations among republicans and with their allies at home and abroad kept their issues alive and produced a document trail as well as a number of republican works published by later generations detailing the hopes and fears of contemporary activists and political thinkers, without which we would know little about the evolution of republican ideas over time and the survival of policies into mainstream political culture over the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. With their political writings and transnational activism, the republican exiles in Europe thus contributed to an ongoing political discourse about good government, public duty and citizenship too important to be dismissed.
32 Gaby Mahlberg is a historian and journalist with a particular interest in seventeenth- century intellectual history, republicanism and utopianism. She was a Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at Northumbria University in Newcastle, UK, before leaving in August 2015 to work as an Editor for the German news agency dpa in Berlin. She is the author of Henry Neville and English Republican Culture in the Seventeenth Century (Manchester, MUP, 2009), and has co-edited with Dirk Wiemann, European Contexts for English Republicanism (Farnham, Ashgate, 2013) and Perspectives on English Revolutionary Republicanism (Farnham, Ashgate, 2014). Most recently she co-edited with Cesare Cuttica, Patriarchal Moments (London, Bloomsbury, 2016).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Archival Sources
Bodleian Library, Oxford, “A voyce from the watch tower”, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Eng.hist.c.487
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Collins, Arthur, Letters and memorials of state in the reigns of Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, King James, King Charles the First, part of the reign of King Charles the Second, and Oliver’s usurpation. Written and collected by Sir Henry Sydney ... Sir Philip Sydney and his brother Sir Robert Sydney... Robert, the second Earl of Leicester... Philip, Lord Viscount Lisle ... and of his brother, Colonel Algernon Sydney. Faithfully
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transcribed from the originals at Penshurst Place in Kent, the Seat of the Earls of Leicester, and from His Majesty’s Office of Papers and Records for business of state: together with letters of the other ministers of state, with whom they held a correspondence: whereunto is added genealogical and historical observations: also memoirs of the lives and actions of the Sydneys, and their noble ancestors the Dudleys, Grey, Talbot, Beauchamp, Berkley and Lisle; and a defence of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, wrote by Sir Philip Sydney..., 2 vols, London, printed for T. Osborne, in Gray’s-Inn. MDCCXLVI. [1746].
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Ludlow, Edmund, A voyce from the watch tower: part five: 1660-1662, ed. A.B. Worden, London, 1978.
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---. Discourses concerning government, ed. Thomas G. West, Indianapolis (IN), Liberty Fund, 1996.
The speeches and prayers of some of the late king’s judges, viz. Major General Harison, Octob. 13. … Together with severall occasionall speeches and passages in their Imprisonment till they came to the place of execution. Faithfully and impartially collected for further satisfaction. Heb. 11.4 And by it he being dead, yet speaketh. n.p., Printed Anno Dom. 1660.
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Collinson, Patrick, “The Monarchical Republic of Queen Elizabeth I”, Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 69 (1987), pp. 394-424.
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Firth, C.H., “Ludlow, Edmund (1616/17–1692)”, rev. Blair Worden, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2006 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/ view/article/17161, accessed 25 April 2014].
Goldie, Mark, “The unacknowledged republic: officeholding in early modern England” in Tim Harris (ed.), The Politics of the Excluded, c. 1500-1850 (Basingstoke, Palgrave, 2001), pp. 153-94.
Harris, Tim, Restoration: Charles II and His Kingdoms, 1660-1685 (London, Allen Lane, 2005).
Held, David, “Cosmopolitanism, democracy and the global order” in Maria Roviso and Magdalena Nowicka (eds), The Ashgate Research Companion to Cosmopolitanism (Farnham, Ashgate, 2011), pp. 163-77.
Hindle, Steve, “Hierarchy and Community in the Elizabethan Parish: The Swallowfield Articles of 1596”, Historical Journal 42 (1999), pp. 835-51.
Holmes, Clive, “John Lisle, Lord Commissioner of the Great Seal, and the Last Months of the Cromwellian Protectorate”, English Historical Review 122 (2007), pp. 918-36.
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Hugli, Jean, “Les ‘régicides’ anglais et l’assassinat du chancelier Lisle (1664)”, in Grandes heures de Lausanne (1041-1797): Ouvrage orné de 8 hors-texte et d’une vignette de couverture (Lausanne, 1967), chapter 7.
---, “Un drame à Lausanne en 1664”, Rendez-vouz: Revue du Léman 10 (October, 1948), no pagination.
Hull, William, Benjamin Furly and Quakerism in Rotterdam (Lancaster, Lancaster Press, 1941), pp. 77-82.
Hutton, Sarah (ed.), Benjamin Furly 1646-1714: a Quaker Merchant and his Milieu (Firenze: Olschki, 2007).
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Van Santvoord, G(eorge), Life of Algernon Sidney: with sketches of some of his contemporaries and extracts from his correspondence and political writings, 3rd ed. (New York, Charles Scribner, 1858).
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---. “Providence and Politics in Cromwellian England”, Past and Present 109 (1985), pp. 55-99.
---. “Classical republicanism and the Puritan Revolution” in Hugh Lloyd-Jones, Valery Pearl and Blair Worden (eds), History and Imagination: Essays in Honour of H.R. Trevor-Roper (London, Duckworth, 1981), pp. 182-200.
NOTES
1. * I would like to thank the organisers of the conference « La conception britannique de la citoyenneté: histoire, evolutions, transferts »/ “The British Conception of Citizenship: History, Changes and Transfers” at the Université de Toulouse II – Le Mirail, Nathalie Duclos and Vincent Latour, as well as Myriam-Isabelle Ducrocq for inviting me to present this paper, and the panel
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chair Xavier Cervantes and the audience for their helpful comments. I am also grateful to Delphine Doucet for helping me with the translation of the abstract into French. The key work is Aristotle’s Politics. For a modern edition see Aristotle, The Politics and The Constitution of Athens, ed. Stephen Everson (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996); see also Markku Peltonen, Classical Humanism and Republicanism in English Political Thought, 1570-1640 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004); and Jonathan Scott, Commonwealth Principles: Republican Writing of the English Revolution (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007). 2. John Coffey, “Puritanism and Liberty Revisited: the Case for Toleration in the English Revolution”, Historical Journal 41:4 (1998), pp. 961-985; J.C. Davis, “Religion and the Struggle for Freedom in the English Revolution”, Historical Journal, 35:3 (1992), pp. 507-530; Blair Worden, “Classical republicanism and the Puritan Revolution” in Hugh Lloyd-Jones, Valery Pearl and Blair Worden (eds), History and Imagination: Essays in Honour of H.R. Trevor-Roper (London, Duckworth, 1981), pp. 182-200; the same, “Providence and Politics in Cromwellian England”, Past and Present 109 (1985), pp. 55-99. Sometimes a distinction is drawn between “religious” and “secular”/”constitutional” republicanism, whereas I would argue that elements of both can be found in all seventeenth-century English republicans to varying degrees. 3. I use the buzzword “transnational” as a conscious anachronism for polemical purposes to draw attention to the narrow insularity of much English historiography which says more about the way in which modern historians work than about the nature of early modern political thought and activism. For the early modern period, an era that predates the “nation state”, terms like “transterritorial” or “transcultural” might be more appropriate. However, the use of “transnational” has been established to describe a history that crosses a variety of borders. Cf. Mae M. Ngai, “Promises and Perils of Transnational History”, Perspectives Online 50:9 (December 2012), http://www.historians.org/perspectives/issues/2012/1212/Promises-and-Perils-of- Transnational-History.cfm consulted 7 September 2013. 4. For an excellent recent summary of Restoration politics, see Tim Harris, Restoration: Charles II and His Kingdoms, 1660-1685 (London, Allen Lane, 2005). 5. Jonathan Scott, Algernon Sidney and the English republic 1623-1677 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988), “Part Two: War and Politics”, pp. 75-140 passim, and pp. 124ff; C. H. Firth, “Ludlow, Edmund (1616/17–1692)”, rev. Blair Worden, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004); online edn, May 2006 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/ view/article/17161 consulted 25 April 2014]. 6. Aristotle, Politics, p. 62. 7. E.g. Sidney in the Court Maxims stresses “virtue” and “piety” (p. 2) as key characteristics of good subject-citizens and courtiers. The “seeds of virtue” (p. 3) in a courtier show the quality of his standing, while “virtue” should be “cherished” (p. 7). See Algernon Sidney, Court Maxims, ed. Hans W. Blom, Eco Haitsma Mulier, Ronald Janse (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996). 8. See Algernon Sidney, Discourses concerning government, ed. Thomas G. West (Indianapolis (IN), Liberty Fund, 1996), II:1, pp. 79-80, referring to Aristotle’s Politics. 9. For a compatibility of civic duty with a monarchical framework, see Patrick Collinson, “The monarchical republic of Queen Elizabeth I”, Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 69 (1987), pp. 394-424, and the same, De republica Anglorum: or, history with the politics put back (Cambridge, 1990); Steve Hindle, “Hierarchy and Community in the Elizabethan Parish: The Swallowfield Articles of 1596”, Historical Journal 42 (1999), pp. 835-51; Mark Goldie, “The unacknowledged republic: officeholding in early modern England” in Tim Harris (ed.), The Politics of the Excluded, c. 1500-1850 (Basingstoke, 2001), pp. 153-94. See also Peltonen, Classical Humanism and Republicanism and Luc Borot’s article “Subject and Citizen: The Ambiguity of the Political Self in the Early Modern English Commonwealth” in the present journal issue. 10. Algernon Sidney from Stockholm to Robert earl of Leicester, 27 June 1660, in Arthur Collins, Letters and memorials of state in the reigns of Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, King James, King Charles the
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First, part of the reign of King Charles the Second, and Oliver’s usurpation. Written and collected by Sir Henry Sydney ... Sir Philip Sydney and his brother Sir Robert Sydney... Robert, the second Earl of Leicester... Philip, Lord Viscount Lisle ... and of his brother, Colonel Algernon Sydney. Faithfully transcribed from the originals at Penshurst Place in Kent, the Seat of the Earls of Leicester, and from His Majesty’s Office of Papers and Records for business of state: together with letters of the other ministers of state, with whom they held a correspondence: whereunto is added genealogical and historical observations: also memoirs of the lives and actions of the Sydneys, and their noble ancestors the Dudleys, Grey, Talbot, Beauchamp, Berkley and Lisle; and a defence of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, wrote by Sir Philip Sydney..., 2 vols (London, printed for T. Osborne, in Gray’s-Inn. MDCCXLVI. [1746]), vol. II, pp. 690-1. 11. Scott, Algernon Sidney and the English Republic, p. 125. 12. Ibid., p. 690. 13. Algernon Sidney from Copenhagen to Robert earl of Leicester, 14 July 1660, in Collins, Letters and memorials of state, pp. 691-4, p. 691. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid., p. 694. 16. Ibid., p. 691. 17. Algernon Sidney to Robert earl of Leicester from Rome, 19/29 November 1660, in Collins, Letters and memorials of state, pp. 700-1. 18. See The speeches and prayers of some of the late king’s judges, viz. Major General Harison, Octob. 13. … Together with severall occasionall speeches and passages in their Imprisonment till they came to the place of execution. Faithfully and impartially collected for further satisfaction. Heb. 11.4 And by it he being dead, yet speaketh. n.p. (Printed Anno Dom. 1660). 19. Scott, Algernon Sidney and the English Republic, p. 50, p. 101. 20. Ibid., pp. 94ff. 21. Cf. Paul A. Rahe, ‘Introduction’ to vol. I of Republics ancient and modern (Chapel Hill (NC) and London, University of North Carolina Press, 1994), pp. 22-3 on the Greek practice of ostracism. 22. Edmund Ludlow, A voyce from the watch tower: part five: 1660-1662, ed. A.B. Worden (London, 1978), p. 195. This edition by Worden contains only the first part of Ludlow’s memoirs. I use Worden’s edition for quotations from the 1660-1662 part of the text. Later quotes refer to Ludlow’s manuscript, “A voyce from the watch tower”, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Eng.hist.c. 487 (hereafter “Voyce”). For a history of this text, see the introduction to Worden’s edition and his “Whig History and Puritan Politics: The Memoirs of Edmund Ludlow Revisited”, Historical Research 75 (2002), pp. 209-37. 23. See note 22 above. 24. Ludlow, “Voyce”, p. 966. 25. Some very similar language can also be found in the eighth dialogue of Sidney’s Court Maxims. 26. E.g. Ludlow, “Voyce”, p. 1072 (“tyrant”), and p. 1077, p. 1134 (“present Usurper”). 27. Ludlow, “Voyce”, p. 966. 28. Ralph C.H. Catterall, “Sir George Downing and the Regicides”, American Historical Review 17 (1912), pp. 268-289. 29. See the author’s “Les juges jugez, se justifiants (1663) and Edmund Ludlow’s Protestant Network in Seventeenth-Century Switzerland”, Historical Journal 58:2 (2014), pp.1-28. 30. Ibid., pp. 10-11. For their religious refugee status see Raths-Manual der Stadt Bern, A II 454, vol. 143 (27 January 1662 to 7 June 1662). The original entry (in German) for 16 April, p. 317, reads: “Uff etlicher, von des Glaubens wegen, uß Ihrem Land vertribener Enggelländeren gebürendes Nachwerben, daß Sy sich so lang es Ir g[nädigen] h[erren] gefallen und sich wol verhalten werdend, alhier Inn Ihr g[nädigen] h[erren] Lands uffhalten und Ihre Sicherheit haben Mögind.” 31. Ludlow, Voyce, p. 922. Louis XIV’s younger brother, Philippe I, duke of Orléans (and duke of Anjou) was married to Princess Henrietta of England and Scotland, daughter of Charles I and
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sister of Charles II. The Duchess of Orléans/Anjou played an important role in the persecution of the regicides on the Continent. After several failed attempts on the lives of the exiles, John Lisle was finally assassinated in Lausanne in 1664. See Jean Hugli, “Les ‘régicides’ anglais et l’assassinat du chancelier Lisle (1664)” in Grandes heures de Lausanne (1041-1797): Ouvrage orné de 8 hors-texte et d’une vignette de couverture (Lausanne, 1967), chapter 7; the same, “Un drame à Lausanne en 1664”, Rendez-vouz: Revue du Léman 10 (October 1948), n.p.; and Clive Holmes, “John Lisle, Lord Commissioner of the Great Seal, and the Last Months of the Cromwellian Protectorate”, English Historical Review 122 (2007), pp. 918-36. 32. Algernon Sidney (from Rome?) to Robert earl of Leicester, 8/18 April 1661, in Collins, Letters and memorials of state, vol. ii, pp. 708-10, p. 709. 33. Ibid., p. 710. 34. Ibid., p. 710. 35. Algernon Sidney from Rome to Robert earl of Leicester, 19/29 November 1660, in Collins, Letters and memorials of state, vol. ii, pp. 700-701, p. 700. 36. Algernon Sidney (from Rome) to Robert earl of Leicester, 22 April/2 May 1661, in Collins, Letters and memorials of state, vol. ii, pp. 716-7, p. 717. 37. Algernon Sidney from Frascati to Robert earl of Leicester, 23 June/3 July 1661, in Collins, Letters and memorials of state, vol. ii, pp. 720-1, p. 720. 38. Algernon Sidney (from Rome) to Robert earl of Leicester, 29 January/ 8 February 1660/1, in Collins, Letters and memorials of state, vol. ii, p. 704. 39. Algernon Sidney (from Rome) to Robert earl of Leicester, 22 April/2 May 1661, in Collins, Letters and memorials of state, vol. ii, pp. 716-7, p. 717. 40. This included the Act of Uniformity (1662), the Conventicle Act (1664) and the Five Mile Act (1665). 41. Being a good citizen and patriot can in some cases mean acting against one’s own country David Held, “Cosmopolitanism, democracy and the global order” in Maria Roviso and Magdalena Nowicka (eds), The Ashgate Research Companion to Cosmopolitanism (Farnham, Ashgate, 2011), pp. 163-77, p. 170. 42. On the friendship between Sidney and Furly, see William Hull, Benjamin Furly and Quakerism in Rotterdam (Lancaster, Lancaster Press, 1941), pp. 77-82; and Luisa Simonutti, “English guests at ‘De Lantaarn’. Sidney, Penn, Locke, Toland and Shaftesbury” in Sarah Hutton (ed.), Benjamin Furly 1646-1714: a Quaker Merchant and his Milieu (Firenze, Olschki, 2007), pp. 31-66. Sarah Hutton suggests (drawing on Richard Greaves) that Sidney’s Court Maxims might have been produced at Furly’s house. See her ‘Introduction’ to Hutton (ed.), Benjamin Furly, pp. 1-10, pp. 3, 4-5. 43. Algernon Sidney, Court Maxims, pp. 82-3. The manuscript of the Court Maxims was discovered at Warwick Castle in the 1970s by Blair Worden and subsequently edited for publication 1996. Sidney, Court Maxims, p. vii. Note that Sidney uses religious language similar to that of Ludlow. On Sidney’s religion and politics, see Michael Winship, “Algernon Sidney’s Calvinist Republicanism”, Journal of British Studies 49:4, 2010, pp. 753-773. 44. G(eorge) Van Santvoord, Life of Algernon Sidney: with sketches of some of his contemporaries and extracts from his correspondence and political writings, 3rd ed. (New York, Charles Scribner, 1858), p. 181. 45. Ludlow, “Voyce”, p. 1056. 46. Ibid., p. 1058. 47. Ibid., p. 1059. 48. Ibid., p. 1065. 49. Ibid., p. 1079. 50. Ibid., p. 1057. 51. Ibid., pp. 1056-7. 52. Van Santvoord, Life of Sidney, p. 182.
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53. Ludlow, “Voyce”, p. 1112. 54. Ibid., p. 1113. 55. Ibid., p. 922. 56. Scott, Algernon Sidney and the English Republic, p. 184; Ludlow, “Voyce”, p. 1123. 57. 1 écu was worth 3 livres tournois. In today’s money this might have been (very) roughly 1 million pounds. 58. Louis XIV, Mémoires pour les années 1661 et 1666, ed. J. Lognon (Paris, 1923), p. 213, quoted in Scott, Algernon Sidney and the English Republic, p. 184 (Scott’s translation). 59. Scott, Algernon Sidney and the English Republic, p. 184.
ABSTRACTS
This article assesses the language and actions employed by English republicans in European exile during the 1660s and 1670s to conceptualise their transnational political and religious identity, their sense of citizenship, and their relationship to their home country. It argues that the republican exiles continued to see themselves as political actors on behalf of their country and their ‘cause’, if not necessarily of a specific government.
Cet article analyse le vocabulaire utilisé et les activités poursuivies par les républicains anglais durant les années 1660-1670, période de leur exil européen, pour conceptualiser leur identité politique et religieuse, leur concept de citoyenneté et leurs relations avec leur pays d’origine. La thèse soutenue est que les exilés républicains continuaient à se percevoir comme agents politiques au service de leur pays et de leur « cause », bien que n’étant pas nécessairement au service d’un gouvernement particulier.
INDEX
Mots-clés: Citoyenneté, républicanisme, exil; XVIIe siècle Keywords: citizenship, republicanism, exile, seventeenth century
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“The definition of a virtuous man”: British Radicals’ Views of Citizens and Citizenship in the French Revolutionary Era “La définition d’un homme vertueux” : l’opinion des radicaux britanniques sur les citoyens et la citoyenneté lors de la Révolution française
Rachel Rogers
Introduction
1 At the start of the 1790s, both the American and French Revolutions put the relationship between the state and its citizens at the forefront of international political debate. Both revolutions, while opposed by the governing authorities in Britain, gained some currency among moderate and radical reformers in Britain, many of whom made clear their desire to emulate these models. Yet by the outbreak of the Anglo-French war in February 1793, discussions in reforming circles seem to have shifted away from the relationship between the individual and the state, to the moral advances needed to become a citizen in the first place. Margaret Jacob has suggested that “in the last decades of the century, one theme seemed to dominate the international conversation in sociable circles: the meaning and nature of democratic republics, and after 1789, the kind of personal transformation needed to create the democratic subject.”1 In this article, I would like to put this morality turn into the very specific context of the mid-1790s when a complex set of circumstances, tied up with the French Revolution, guided the terms of debate over citizenship. Radical reformers were ambivalent about the continued relevance of the French model for the British reform movement and this equivocalness came across in discussions taking place on citizenship. Firstly, radicals recognised that the political and diplomatic circumstances no longer allowed for a debate over rights and institutional reform to take place without infringement. They consequently tempered
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the tenor of their calls for an overhaul of Parliament and began to focus more keenly on individual moral regeneration. Radicals were also faced with the widespread transformation in attitudes towards the French Revolution in society at large and the dominance of the loyalist or “Church and King” movements, whose members often brought the moral rectitude of pro-reform activists into question. Radicals were compelled not only to rein in their calls for reform, but also to defend themselves against charges of moral degeneracy. Yet, these pragmatic considerations aside, there may have been some disillusionment, in the wake of the Terror in France and what was widely seen as both the radicalisation and the deterioration of the Revolution, about the capacity of citizens groomed under monarchical rule to live up to the standards of virtue needed in reformed states. Although not all radical reformers renounced the gains of the French Revolution, for a significant number it had shown that civil and political change did not necessarily engender virtuous citizenship. Finally, it is important to recognise that calling for moral regeneration had itself an ambiguous heritage which radicals were aware of. For some, it could still echo the French Revolution, which was, as Michael Rapport has put it, “a moral as well as a political transformation which would affect all humanity,” while for others it harked back to the patriot martyrs of the British republican tradition.2 Moral reform did not have a clear lineage and this ambiguity may well have been understood and actively exploited by radical reformers trying to negotiate their own place in the political landscape of the 1790s.3
2 In the 1789 version of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, drafted in the aftermath of the fall of the Bastille in France, natural and citizenship rights were intertwined, and allegiance to the nation was less important that adherence to natural law. This universal definition of civic engagement inspired many British reformers to see in the French Revolution the establishment of a type of citizenship applicable more widely in the European context which transcended national frontiers. The French National Assembly’s decision to grant citizenship status to such foreigners as Thomas Paine, William Wilberforce and Jeremy Bentham was seen as proof that the Revolution had defined membership of a community according to the dictates of natural right rather than nationality.4 The Assembly declared, “Considering that those men who, through their writings and courage have served the cause of liberty and paved the way for the emancipation of peoples, cannot be considered foreigners by a nation that their knowledge and courage has made free” they were to be made citizens of France.5 British reformer Henry Yorke wrote in 1793: When the rights of human nature are not respected, those of the citizen are gradually disregarded. Yet the love of our country is subordinate to that of humanity […]. Benevolence is of no country, but embraces within the wide circle of her arms, from lake Huron to the wall of China, the brotherhood of the human race. 6
3 “Universal benevolence”, compassion towards one’s fellow men, was seen as one way of engendering public responsibility and virtue. Radicals could refer to themselves as “ citizens of the world” or “international patriots”, both titles hinting at the importance they placed on membership of a community based on values and rights rather than birth place. The discussion following 1789 was largely about recovering or obtaining rights – rights to stand for public office, rights to take part in electing representatives, rights to have a say in approving or disapproving laws. Parliament, seen as corrupt, unrepresentative and dominated by a closed, oligarchic elite, was the chief body in
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need of reform.7 Yet by 1793, there seems to have been, if not an abandonment of calls for political and constitutional change, at least the emergence of a powerful strain of argument which insisted on the individual strides needed to become a citizen in the first place, something which British people needed to be reminded of and educated in. This was profoundly linked to the context of and reactions to the French Revolution.
Citizenship, virtue and community
4 Joseph Gerrald was a British reformer who had been involved in reform societies, finally ending up as a member of the working men’s London Corresponding Society, where he got involved in the organisation of the British Conventions in Edinburgh, in late 1793.8 The Conventions were the culmination of efforts by members of the London Corresponding Society to gather together a democratically-elected body which could advise the country on how to reform Parliament from the outside. The aims – subversive or peaceful, revolutionary or advisory – were debated at length in the trials for sedition which followed the breaking up of the meeting and arrest of its organisers, among whom was Gerrald. Gerrald wrote a manifesto entitled A Convention the Only Means of Saving Us From Ruin in a Letter addressed to the People of England in 1793. One aspect of his work, alluded to in the second part of the title, is his call for greater activism on the part of his fellow countrymen. He chastises the apathetic citizen who had not come out forcefully enough against the war between France and England, and he saw individual lethargy and withdrawal from public engagement as at the root of the problems afflicting the country. He wrote: It is surely our duty, as good men and useful citizens, seriously to consider, what is the object for which we are fighting, and on what principle of justice we can engage in the conflict […] What have I to do with politics? Nothing. From this important question, my countrymen, so weakly and wickedly answered, have arisen all the evils which have afflicted England through a long succession of ages. This is the fountain, from which not only waters of bitterness, but rivers of blood have flowed. – Did you ever doubt what connection you had with morals and virtue? And yet, what are politics, but that wide system of duties which nation owes to nation? Politics are to nations, what morals are to individuals.9
5 The problems blighting the country, rather than being the consequence of an unrepresentative parliament and a flawed or non-existent constitution, stemmed from individual political disengagement. The tract can in itself be seen as a model of useful citizenship, challenging and analysing actions that had been imposed without consultation or consent. The very act of writing and producing a critical text was an example of what Gerrald and others saw as the duties of a citizen. In the tract, Gerrald performs these duties and guides his “fellow citizens” in their thinking on the entry into war with France. He questions his readers, asks them to think and reflect on the actions of their government: “Of what nature, I would ask you, Fellow Citizens, do you think is the government proposed? [...] Now mark, with attention, the contradictions which have taken place.”10 The author is at once a virtuous citizen, actively engaging in public scrutiny of political decisions, and a guide, encouraging his countrymen to adopt behaviour appropriate for an enlightened citizenry.
6 Henry Yorke, fellow reformer and member of the London Corresponding Society, called for greater public activism in his These are the times that try men’s souls! A letter to John Frost a prisoner in Newgate, also written in 1793, just after his return from France. Yorke,
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borrowing from Thomas Paine’s famous turn of phrase in The American Crisis (1776), was addressing his fellow radical, John Frost, who, like Yorke, had recently returned to Britain after a period within the British radical community in Paris, only to be jailed following his indictment for previous charges of seditious libel.11 Although his “letter” is ostensibly directed at his fellow reformer, Yorke also takes the opportunity to chastise his countrymen for failing to challenge and scrutinise their own government: Tame as priests and tyrants have made mankind, they will not be long seduced into a belief that harsh and violent measures are indispensably necessary to the support of a legitimate and honest government […] when the people discover what may be done and reason by what has been done during hard and jealous times under this pretence, they will arouse from the torpid slumber of servility.12
7 For Yorke, the people had accepted the “subversion of their civil liberties” and were held “ in awe” by governments. Yorke rebuked his fellow citizens for failing to challenge the “ humble dependence” in which they were held, which had allowed an oppressive government to remain in place.13 Yorke gave his own definition of the citizen who would be “a virtuous man suffering and struggling with afflictions” who would not “hesitate to sacrifice all personal considerations to the common good”.14 Self-sacrifice and the capacity to relegate personal interests to those of the general good were seen as key qualities of the citizen, virtues which, as I will suggest later, had an ambiguous lineage, invoking a very British tradition of protest but also implicitly echoing the changes underway in the French Revolution.
8 Virtue was also central to citizenship in Charles Pigott’s A Political Dictionary: explaining the true meaning of words, published in 1795. Pigott, a reformer from the gentry, was seen as having abandoned his social class in associating with the LCS and the radical reform movement. He defined the term as follows: “Citizen – the most honorable of titles; the definition of a virtuous man.”15 Virtue and citizenship were therefore inextricably linked, the former being the very epitome of what a citizen should be and characterized by the ability to put the community and the common good before the interests of the self.
9 For radicals, writing in the first years of the war with France, citizenship was about the connections that existed between people. Gerrald, in the dock on a charge of sedition, suggested that “the word citizen is a term of peace, and denotes that relationship in which we stand to each other, as members of the same community, for the performance of our civil duties.”16 Sampson Perry, writing his self-defensive tract Oppression!!! In 1795 from Newgate, also meditated on the notion of community and an individual’s commitment to the public interest, regretting his own exclusion from the body of his fellow citizens through his penalty of outlawry.17 Citizenship was therefore about private virtue, but also about the responsibilities private individuals had in relation to one another, in particular in the carrying out of public functions. This is something that William Godwin touched upon in his Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793). Godwin, despite being skeptical about the radical reform movement and not concerned with the structures of public office, also saw virtue as on a par with selflessness: The system of disinterested benevolence proves to us, that it is possible to be virtuous, and not merely to talk of virtue; that all which has been said by philosophers and moralists respecting impartial justice is not an unmeaning rant; and that, when we call upon mankind to divest themselves of selfish and personal considerations, we call upon them for something which they are able to practise.18
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10 Godwin does not directly engage with the issue of the duties of or definition of citizenship, but his view of virtue includes the requirement of selflessness and self- sacrifice, here in Godwin’s terms an essential facet of life in a community, but also seen as crucial to radical reformers in the exercise of citizenship.
11 John Thelwall, another LCS activist and prominent reformer in the 1790s, lamented the servility of his countrymen in a poem written from Newgate jail, while he was awaiting trial for high treason: AH! Why, forgetful of her ancient fame, Does Britain in lethargic fetters lie? Britons are united in collective subjugation which is chosen, deferential but fatal to the cause of liberty. “To her the pliant soul We bend degenerate!” He continues, “Hence to the base controul Of Tyranny we bow, nor once complain; But hug with servile fear the gilded chain”.19
12 As in the cases cited earlier, it is not entirely clear whether Thelwall was critical of his fellow countrymen for refusing to rise up against their servile station, or whether such lethargy and degeneracy were seen as the result of an unreformed constitutional and political framework, in other words the fault of the regime rather than the individuals who lived under its flawed rules. Yet what is common to these texts, all published between 1793 and 1795, the first, very contested, years of the war with France, is the association of citizenship with virtue, and the ensuing definition of virtue as being less about private conduct, acting in a manner beyond moral reproof, than about brotherhood. To be a citizen was to demonstrate benevolence, to refuse public lethargy and to sacrifice individual interest to the common good.
The citizenship debate in the context of the French revolution
13 Margaret Jacob has argued that “by the 1790s radicals were asking themselves: if the democratic republic had become the ideal, how would men and women conduct themselves in such an imagined place? [...] The language of morality and the language of political reform became inextricably united.”20 What I would like to add to Jacob’s idea is that this readjustment occurred in a very precise and rapidly changing context which had a considerable impact on what was said and how. Repression at home, a strong spirit of loyalism in British society at large, changing reactions to the French Revolution and the increasingly nationally-specific definition of French citizenship all inflected British radical thinking in the mid 1790s.
14 The above-cited texts were penned during a period of state repression against reform activism. Henry Yorke was writing after having been indicted for sedition, Gerrald spoke from the dock, on trial for sedition, Pigott was writing from Newgate jail, behind bars for seditious libel and John Thelwall’s sonnets were written from the Tower of London, where he was awaiting trial for high treason. During these years therefore, radical activists began to draw back from calling for precise political and constitutional reform, as such demands could smack of sympathy with the French Revolution. William Pitt’s government had intensified measures against the reform movement from late 1792, bringing writers, editors, publishers and booksellers to trial for seditious libel. The Royal Proclamation of May 1792 specifically targeted radical activists, famously
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used to bring Thomas Paine and many of his publishers and booksellers to trial. By 1793, calls for constitutional change, parliamentary reform or the establishment of voting rights could lead to an individual’s arrest and, if in Scotland, trial for sedition, punishable by transportation, in England high treason, punishable by death. The use of the term “citizen”, in this context, became increasingly politically loaded. At Joseph Gerrald’s trial for sedition in Edinburgh in March 1794, the prosecution argued that the British Convention had been modelled on the forms of political organisation enacted during the French Revolution. The leaders were accused of attempting to create a government in waiting, which was intent on challenging the legitimate authority of the Crown and Parliament. Proof was to be found in the employment of words such as “Convention”, “Citizen” and “Section” by members of the London Corresponding Society. Spies, working on behalf of the government, testified in court to members’ using the word “citizen” to address each other. Such language was drawn on by the prosecution to confirm the convenors’ treasonable intent.21
15 Government agents identified the same tendency to employ the term “citizen” within parallel radical clubs and networks. Government spy Captain Munro, monitoring a gathering of British radicals exiled in Paris who had formed a pro-revolutionary club, wrote to the British Home Office: “After dinner a variety of toasts were given, and Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and Sir Rob’t Smith propos’d laying down their titles, and are now actually call’d by this sett Citoyen Fitzgerald, and Citoyen Smith.”22 What was at stake was the very stability of the social hierarchy itself, under threat from the socially equalising initiatives of certain reformers. Members of the British radical club in Paris, many of whom had been active members of the Society for Constitutional Information in London before their departure, openly used the title of “citizen” in their private correspondence, provoking the ire of the ruling authorities despite the fact that such labels were not necessarily considered subversive. Radicals may have seen themselves as simply emulating what had become widespread standard procedure in naming practice in France. Lord Edward Fitzgerald signed off a letter to his mother written during his stay in Paris with “Le citoyen Edouard Fitzgerald.”23 The spectre of titled men casting off the markers of social rank and adopting the levelling label of “citizen” was alarming, however, for a British elite whose authority was sustained by a strict division of power between those with and those without property qualifications. Such anxiety emerged in the correspondence of Lord Auckland a government emissary in Paris. Writing to William Pitt in November 1794 Auckland worried that the courage of the French revolutionary armies would encourage the lower and middle classes to join ranks: “Nor will this important change of sentiment be confined to the lower class of the people; it will soon be found that it pervades the middle class.”24 There was concern about the potential of a cross-class convergence in reaction to the increasing place of the people in French political and civil life and the way in which the newly democratised definition of citizenship in France could impact on the nature of the social community in Britain.
16 The repressive context of 1790s Britain therefore shaped what could be said about citizenship and the lengths that British activists were willing to go in demanding calls for citizenship rights. The employment of the term “citizen” by radicals, seen as emulation of the new norms of address across the Channel, or expression of admiration for their revolutionary actions, became synonymous with subversive intent and proof of treason. Reformers, if they wanted to avoid harassment, arrest or worse, had to alter the terms in which they called for reform. This may be one reason why reformers seem
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to have begun to associate citizenship less with individual rights, conferred by governments, than with a certain type of moral conduct and a way of describing social relations between different members of a community. Reformers interested in these issues also had to take into account the prevailing mood of the nation which was, by 1793, as Anna Seward wrote, one of loyalty to the king and the existing constitution. Seward observed: “Never do I remember such an universal glow of loyalty, such a grateful and fervent sense of the blessings of our balanced government, as seem now to pervade all the orders of British society.”25 Though Seward’s consensual vision, attesting to unity across the country, was exaggerated, it was perhaps relatively representative of the mood of the nation at the outbreak of war. Loyalist associations encountered success, burning effigies of Thomas Paine in front of large crowds and recapturing the term “citizen” for their own ends. At a meeting of the Loyal Britons association in Lambeth in December 1793, the term “Brother Citizens” was employed in the minutes to describe the society’s own followers, the vast majority of whom would have vigorously opposed the aims of radical activism.26 Concurrent with this backlash, there was also ridicule. As William Playfair, recounting the events of the French Revolution from a loyalist position, wrote in 1796: “Doctors were now called officers of health; Sir and You were changed for citizen.”27 Playfair went on, “The miserable French slave, who thinks himself a free citizen, does not know who his masters are. He dares not complain, because everyone around him considers that their miseries are the effects of freedom and philosophy.”28 New names had been invented to mislead the ordinary people but also symbolised the irrationality and absurdity of revolutionary innovation.
17 Reformers therefore were bound to adapt their own calls for change, in the light of the very critical and aggressive responses of loyalist groupings to reform agendas, in particular the various branches of the Association for the Preservation of Liberty and Property Against Republicans and Levellers.29 They were also perhaps attempting to revise the widely disseminated portrait of radical reformers as deviants whose moral adequacy had been severely called into question by their admiration for the French Revolution. Caricature artists, pamphleteers and loyalist propagandists depicted radicals in various visual and written media as murderous, degenerate, cowardly and idle, borrowing much of the imagery that had been used to denounce the French revolutionaries themselves in contemporary accounts. Focusing on moral regeneration therefore, highlighting the rectitude and irreproachability of reformers and calling for virtue as a prerequisite for citizenship may have been one way of countering the accusations of debauchery levelled at radicals by critics of the reform movement.30 What is important to stress however, is that radicals did not simply reproduce the imagery of loyalism, with its emphasis on hierarchy, stability and property, but placed much greater emphasis on an alternative moral code, one which brought to the fore virtues of self-sacrifice, community and public activism, virtues much closer to both classical definitions of citizenship but also with significant crossovers with some of the principles at the heart of the French Revolution.
18 It was not only developments in the political landscape in Britain which may have encouraged British radicals to adapt the terms in which they couched their definitions of citizenship. The notion of universal rights whereby all men, whatever their nationality, could claim to be part of the French experiment, had been shaken by the increasingly narrow definition of citizenship in France. On 26th August 1792, a long list of foreigners had been made French citizens by the National Assembly in a cleverly conceived diplomatic gesture timed as war raged with Austria and Prussia and with
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France in desperate need of international sympathy. Yet by mid to late 1793, this wide definition of citizenship had considerably narrowed. The war with Britain and other monarchical states led the revolutionaries to redefine citizenship along national rather than moral lines. The Jacobin constitution, put forward in June 1793, had much greater democratic reach but narrowed the scope for the measure of open citizenship favoured by the Marquis de Condorcet and foreign revolutionaries such as Joel Barlow.31 The Law of Suspects of September 1793 was the crowning legislation which allowed foreign nationals resident in France to be rounded up and put in jail, no matter their allegiance to the tenets of the Revolution. The citizen was henceforth a French national and as William Brubaker has put it: The Revolutionary invention of the nation-state and national citizenship thus engendered the modern figure of the foreigner – not only as a legal category but as a political epithet, invested with a psychopolitical charge it formerly lacked, and condensing around itself pure outsiderhood.32
19 British radicals, resident in Paris at the time of the legislation, wrote of their incarceration and identified the cause as being their nationality, as citizens of countries at war with France. Their experience of captivity however did not automatically lead to their renunciation of the terms on which the Revolution had been carried out in its earlier stages or the future potential of the Revolution to provide an example to other nations. Although Sampson Perry did not deny the excesses that took place during the radical phase of the Revolution, he still considered the events of France as having the potential to create a new source of happiness through the establishment of freedom: For though the sun of freedom at its rising in France should have been obscured by passing clouds, and sometimes veiled with almost impenetrable darkness, yet is it expected henceforward to shine with meridian lustre, and to extend its beaming influence to the happy guidance of every politically bewildered country in the world.33
20 Perry’s dismissal of the Terror as mere “passing clouds” is admittedly one of the rare phlegmatic accounts of the Revolution’s more radical departures from among British commentators, yet the example of Perry is not isolated and many British residents, some eyewitnesses of the Revolution, others distant observers, did continue to harbour admiration for the underlying goals of the Revolution.
21 The diplomatic circumstances of the Anglo-French war, which had broken out on 1st February 1793, meant that calls for political reform, which could be perceived as drawing on and condoning the experiments taking place in France, had to be tempered. Yet there may be reason to suggest that the prevalence of the discourse of “virtue” over political rights may not have been simply a pragmatic reaction to the changing political context. Gerrald and Pigott’s definitions might actually say something about the genuine disillusionment felt by some reformers at the failure of the French Revolution to bring about a fundamental shift in the individual’s relationship to his fellow citizens and the state and the lack of optimism inspired by a view of the state of the British citizenry. Mary Wollstonecraft published her An Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution during the Terror in 1794 in which she denounced the failure of the Revolution to bring about a change in the moral fabric of the country and engender virtuous conduct among both the ordinary people and their political leaders: Down fell the temple of despotism; but – despotism has not been buried in it’s [sic] ruins! – Unhappy country! – when will thy children cease to tear thy bosom? – When will a change of opinion, producing a change of morals, render thee truly free? When will truth give life to real magnanimity, and justice place equality on a
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stable seat? – When will thy sons trust, because they deserve to be trusted; and private virtue become the guarantee of patriotism? Ah! – when will thy government become the most perfect, because thy citizens are the most virtuous! 34
22 For Wollstonecraft, who, though analysing the early Revolution in her account, was writing as an eye-witness observer of the radical phase of the Revolution and the Terror, the failings of the Revolution were due to the haste with which changes had been brought about at a time when social relations were still characterised by slavishness. Rather than concentrating on the gradual moral improvement of the nation, the revolutionaries had tried to bring about change immediately, demanding active and responsible citizenship when the country as a whole was not equipped. Not all radical reformers shared Wollstonecraft’s pessimistic view of the French people, Sampson Perry believed the ordinary citizens to be “conciliating and kind”, the Terror having “purified” the French populace.35 Yet for many British analysts of the French Revolution, moral improvement still needed to be achieved and was a prerequisite for the conferral of rights and any form of political reform.
Citizenship and the ambivalence of “virtue”
23 To sum up therefore, defining citizenship by reference to individual virtue rather than rights conferred by the state may have been one way of adapting to the narrowing scope for reform discussion in the wartime period. It may also have been an acknowledgement that the majority of the British population had rallied to the defence of the king and constitution and were therefore an unsympathetic audience. Calls for reform smacked of revolutionary plotting, sedition and treason. There may also have been some quite genuine disillusionment among reformers as to the capacity of their fellow countrymen to fulfil the duties of citizenship. The French Revolution had, for some, shown that the behavior required of citizens was not automatically acquired with the conferral of rights. Yet there is also something important to say about the ambiguous heritage of the notion of the virtuous citizen. While insisting on “moral improvement” placed the emphasis more on the personal transformation needed to be a citizen rather than the flaws inherent in the British constitutional and representative system, such calls were not necessarily politically-neutral. Not only was the radical definition of virtue, with its emphasis on collective effort, self-sacrifice and the pursuit of the common good, very different from the loyalist one as mentioned above, but by foregrounding virtue, radicals made explicit connections with Britain’s own revolutionary heritage, a heritage that was much more politically acceptable in the climate of 1793-1795. Talk of “patriotism” and “virtue” could invoke a nationally- specific, and much less contested chapter of experience, that of the British patriot- martyrs of the late seventeenth century, national figures who, as the war continued, had much more resonance among reformers (and the audience they were attempting to reach) than the equivocal actors of the French Revolution. Gerrald celebrated the legacy of Algernon Sidney, who he described as the archetype of the self-sacrificing man and Yorke invoked the memory of “the virtuous Russell”. Such allusions were much more acceptable to a British audience who saw in these figures heroes of the Glorious Revolution.36
24 Yet, as both radicals and their opponents were keenly aware of, virtue had ambiguous connections and could conjure up, not only private moral improvement or the British
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republican heritage, but also the more contentious aspects of the French Revolution. In February 1794, Robespierre at the head of the Comité de Salut Public, had delivered his famous “Republic of Virtue” speech in which he articulated the interdependence of terror and virtue, one being unrealisable without the other, essentially justifying the heightened attempts to rid France of its internal and external enemies.37 The insistence on moral renewal also harked back to what the French revolutionaries had accused the British populace of after the entry into war in 1793: “liberticide”, apathy and the inability to rise up against oppressors when the opportunity – in this case a foreign war – arose. The definition of the “citizen” as a term of moral value, representing the thinking, vocal, questioning individual rather than the servile follower was inherited in part from French revolutionaries who had, as Sophie Wahnich has shown, pitted civilized man (the citizen) against uncivilized man (the servile subject) rather than the national against the foreigner, at least in the early stages of the Revolution.38 This idea had found echo at an annual dinner of the Revolution Society on 16th November 1792, when diners toasted the “armed citizen” to the detriment of the “armed slave”.39 Morality, whether acted out through the terrible virtue of Saint Just and Robespierre, the rectitude and courage of the members of the first National Assembly, or the stark justice and humanity of the Parisian people, could have a significantly French tone.
Conclusion
25 Both James Epstein and Mark Philp have shown how ambiguity in the intellectual lineage of words and ideas was used by reformers to test the boundaries of what could and could not be said in an era during which words were heavily policed. In their 2009 article, “Playing at Revolution: British ‘Jacobin’ Performance,” David Karr and Epstein argued that: [O]n one level, adopting the Jacobin label was, as Thelwall indicated, to accept the stigma foisted on radicals by their enemies. But on another level, the restrictions placed on the movement and ideological ambiguities within democratic political culture more generally encouraged radicals to explore, to gesture towards Jacobin allegiance, to ply outside the lines of safe formality.40
26 Reformers therefore were aware of the problematic nature of the term Jacobin and may have appropriated it and employed it to enact their own defiance in the face of ministerial repression. Mark Philp has also argued that the use of the term “citizen” in LCS circles over the course of 1793 and 1794 was a form of active defiance among radicals towards the British government as war broke out with France. It was also testimony to the international character of radical reform in the era and the pervasive influence of France and the Revolution. Yet for Philp, the use of French language and symbolism was more rhetorical than a true gauge of political belief.41 In the same way as the use of words with French connotations, such as “citizen”, “convention” or “section” could be a way of showing defiance in the face of the widespread clampdown on reform activity in Britain, so the wedding of citizenship with “virtue” could have been a way for reformers to hint at their continued admiration for some of the gains of the French Revolution without openly calling for reform based on the French model. Whether the “virtuous citizen” was the one groomed in the moral rigour and transparency of the French Revolution or the self-sacrificing but moderate hero of Britain’s own revolutionary heritage was left open to interpretation.
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27 Rachel Rogers is a lecturer at the University of Toulouse 2-Jean Jaurès. Her research focuses on the British radical movement in the 1790s and in particular the establishment of an English-speaking radical club in revolutionary Paris. Her PhD thesis was entitled “Vectors of Revolution: The British Radical Community in Early Republican Paris, 1792-1794” and she has published a number of articles on related topics including “ ‘Men without a Country’: British radicals as vectors in 1790s Paris”.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Barlow, Joel. A Letter to the National Convention of France: On the Defects in the Constitution of 1791 and the Extent of the Amendments Which Ought to Be Applied (London. Johnson, 1792).
Barrell, John. Imagining the King's Death: Figurative Treason, Fantasies of Regicide, 1793-1796 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000).
Barrell, John. The Spirit of Despotism: Invasions of Privacy in the 1790s (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006).
Blum, Carol. Rousseau and the Republic of Virtue: The Language of Politics in the French Revolution (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1986).
Brubaker. William, “The French Revolution and the Invention of Citizenship”, French Politics and Society 7:3 (1989), pp. 30-49.
Epstein. James, “’Equality and No King’: Sociability and sedition: The case of John Frost”, pp. 43-61 in Gillian Russell & Clara Tuite (eds.), Romantic Sociability: Social Networks and Literary Culture in Britain, 1770-1840 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press), 2002.
Epstein James, & Karr, David. “Playing at Revolution: British “Jacobin” Performance”, The Journal of Modern History 79:3 (2007), pp. 495-530.
Gerrald, Joseph. A Convention the only means of saving us from ruin (London, Eaton, 1793).
Godwin, William. An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, and its influence on general virtue and happiness, vol. 1 (London, G. G. and J. Robinson, 1793).
Jacob, Margaret. “Sociability and the International Republican Conversation”, pp. 24-42 in Gillian Russell & Clara Tuite (eds.), Romantic Sociability: Social Networks and Literary Culture in Britain, 1770-1840 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002).
Mee, Jon. “A Bold and Free-Spoken Man’: The Strange Case of Charles Pigott”, pp. 330-350 in David Womersley, Paddy Bullard & Abigail Williams (eds.), “Cultures of Whiggism”: New Essays on English Literature and Culture in the Long Eighteenth Century (Newark, University of Delaware Press, 2005).
Moore, Thomas. The Life and Death of Lord Edward Fitzgerald (Paris, Baudry’s European Library, 1835).
Perry, Sampson. An Historical Sketch of the French Revolution: Commencing with Its Predisposing Causes, and Carried on to the Acceptation of the Constitution, in 1795, vol. 1 (London, Symonds, 1796).
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Perry, Sampson. Oppression!!!: The Appeal of Captain Perry, Late Editor of the Argus, to the People of England : Containing a Justification of His Principles and Conduct, to which is Added, a Development of Some of the Mysteries of the Spy Trade (London, Lee, 1795).
Pfau, Thomas. “Paranoia historicized: Legal fantasy, social change, and satiric meta-commentary in the 1794 Treason Trials”, pp. 30-64 in Stephen C. Behrendt (ed.), Romanticism, Radicalism, and the Press (Detroit, Wayne State University Press, 1997).
Philp, Mark. “The fragmented ideology of reform”, pp. 50-77 in Mark Philp (ed.), The French Revolution and British Popular Politics (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999).
Pigott, Charles. A Political Dictionary explaining the true meaning of words (London, Eaton, 1795).
Playfair, William. A History of Jacobinism, its crimes, cruelties and perfidies [...] (London, Stockdale, 1796).
Rapport, Michael. Nationality and Citizenship in Revolutionary France: The Treatment of Foreigners 1789-1799 (Oxford, Clarendon, 2000).
Seward Anna, & Constable, Archibald. Letters of Anna Seward: Written between the Years 1784 and 1807, vol 3 (Edinburgh, A. Constable and Co., 1811).
The Trial of Joseph Gerrald, Delegate from the London Corresponding Society to the British Convention Before the High Court of Justiciary at Edinburgh, on the 3rd, 10th, 13th, and 14th March, 1794 for Sedition. Taken in Shorthand by Mr. Ramsay (Edinburgh, Robertson, 1794).
Thelwall, John. Poems Written in Close Confinement in the Tower and Newgate, Under a Charge of High Treason (London, Ridgway, 1795).
Wahnich, Sophie & Belissa, Marc. “Les crimes des Anglais: trahir le droit”, Annales historiques de la Révolution française 300:1, 1995, pp. 233-48.
Wahnich, Sophie. L’impossible citoyen: l’étranger dans le discours de la Révolution francaisȩ (Paris, Albin Michel, 1997).
Wollstonecraft, Mary, Todd, Janet M. & Butler, Marilyn. The Works of Mary Wollstonecraft: An Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution. Letters to Joseph Johnson. Letters Written in Sweden, Norway and Denmark (London, Pickering, 1989).
Yorke, Henry. These are the times that try mens’ souls (London, Ridgeway, 1793).
NOTES
1. Margaret Jacob, “Sociability and the International Republican Conversation”, p. 25 in Gilliam Russell & Clare Tuite (eds.), Romantic Sociability: Social Networks and Literary Culture in Britain, 1770-1840 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002). 2. Michael Rapport, Nationality and Citizenship in Revolutionary France: The Treatment of Foreigners 1789-1799 (Oxford, Clarendon, 2000), pp. 112-13. 3. This argument, on the ambivalence of radical discourse, draws on the work of James Epstein, David Karr and Mark Philp and will be discussed in more detail towards the end of this essay. 4. Those granted honorary citizenship included a number of British, American and European supporters of the Revolution, namely Jeremy Bentham, Joseph Priestley, William Wilberforce, Thomas Paine, James Macintosh, David Williams George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and Anacharsis Cloots. 5. 23rd August 1792, Le Moniteur Universel, vol. 13, pp. 540-41. My translation.
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6. Henry Yorke, These are the times that try men’s souls (London, Ridgeway, 1793), p. 45. 7. Paine criticised the incumbents of parliamentary office in Rights of Man Part Two, which was published in February 1792. 8. Founded in 1792 by a group of tradesmen, including shoemaker Thomas Hardy, the London Corresponding Society campaigned for annual parliaments and universal manhood suffrage in elections to House of Commons. It was particularly active in the first four years of its existence (1792-1796), publishing radical works and coordinating the popular reform movement across Britain. Its leaders were charged with high treason when they suggested a national convention of reformers in 1794, but they were later acquitted. 1795 saw the height of the society’s strength and numbers. However the LCS was severely affected by the Seditious Meetings Act in 1795 (one of the “Two Bills”) and the society was officially proscribed in 1799. 9. Joseph Gerrald, A Convention the only means of saving us from ruin (London, Eaton, 1793), pp. 2-3. 10. Ibid., p. 50. 11. For a detailed appraisal of John Frost’s sedition case, see John Barrell, “Coffee-House Politicians”, pp. 75-102 in The Spirit of Despotism: Invasions of Privacy in the 1790s, (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006) and James Epstein, “’Equality and No King’: Sociability and s edition: The case of John Frost”, pp.43-61 in Gillian Russell & Clare Tuite (eds.), Romantic Sociability: Social Networks and Literary Culture in Britain 1770-1840 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002). 12. Yorke, op.cit.,p. 3. 13. Ibid., p. 33. 14. Ibid., p. 50. 15. Charles Pigott, A Political Dictionary explaining the true meaning of words (London, Eaton, 1795, p. 9). For more on Charles Pigott see Jon Mee, “A Bold and Free-Spoken Man”: The Strange Case of Charles Pigott”, in David Womersely, Paddy Bullard & Abigail Williams (eds.),“Cultures of Whiggism”: New Essays on English Literature and Culture in the Long Eighteenth Century (Newark, University of Delaware Press, 2005), pp. 330-50. 16. The Trial of Joseph Gerrald, Delegate from the London Corresponding Society to the British Convention Before the High Court of Justiciary at Edinburgh, on the 3rd, 10th, 13th, and 14th March, 1794 for Sedition. Taken in Shorthand by Mr. Ramsay (Edinburgh, Robertson, 1794), p. 182. 17. Sampson Perry, Oppression!!!: The Appeal of Captain Perry, Late Editor of the Argus, to the People of England : Containing a Justification of His Principles and Conduct, to which is Added, a Development of Some of the Mysteries of the Spy Trade (London, Lee, 1795). 18. William Godwin, An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, and its influence on general virtue and happiness (London, G. G. and J. Robinson, 1793), p. 359. 19. John Thelwall, Sonnet V: The Source of Slavery (17th July 1794, Tower), Poems Written in Close Confinement in the Tower and Newgate, Under a Charge of High Treason (London, Ridgway, 1795), p. 5. 20. Margaret Jacob, “Sociability and the International Republican Conversation”, pp. 25-7. 21. A brilliant analysis of the meaning and use of the charge of “constructive treason” is contained in John Barrell’s, Imagining the King's Death: Figurative Treason, Fantasies of Regicide, 1793-1796 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000). See also Thomas Pfau, “Paranoia historicized: Legal fantasy, social change, and satiric meta-commentary in the 1794 Treason Trials”, in Stephen C. Behrendt (ed.), Romanticism, Radicalism, and the Press (Detroit, Wayne State University Press, 1997), pp. 30-64. 22. George Monro, 6th December 1792, TNA TS 11/959.
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23. Thomas Moore, The Life and Death of Lord Edward Fitzgerald (Paris, Baudry’s European Library, 1835), pp. 73-74. 24. Lord Auckland to Mr. Pitt, 28th November 1794, Journal and Correspondence of William, Lord Auckland 2: 272. 25. Letter LXII, 17th January 1793, Anna Seward and Archibald Constable, Letters of Anna Seward: Written between the Years 1784 and 1807, vol. 3 (Edinburgh, A. Constable and Co., 1811), p. 209. 26. Minutes of ‘Loyal Britons’ meeting, Lambeth, December 1793, PRO HO 42/27, no. 625. 27. William Playfair, A History of Jacobinism, its crimes, cruelties and perfidies [...] (London, Stockdale, 1796), p. 778. 28. Ibid., p. 174. 29. After the declaration of the French Republic in September, the magistrate John Reeves established the Association for the Preservation of Liberty and Property against Republicans and Levellers, aimed at preventing reform societies from meeting by threatening pub landlords with loss of licence if allowed meetings to go ahead. Known as the ‘Crown and Anchor Society’ because of the tavern they met at on the Strand, members of the society spread alarm about the activities of reformers. The popularity of the Association movement was immense and attracted a large number of followers. Burke is often seen as the figurehead of the anti-Jacobin reaction but men such as John Bowles John Reeves were also influential at a more popular level. The Reeves Association was established without the knowledge of William Pitt, but the Government latched on to the movement, seeing in its establishment a way of securing the stability of the country. 30. I am grateful for the exchange with Edward Vallance on this issue in the 2014 conference on citizenship organised at the University of Toulouse 2-Jean Jaurès which allowed me to refine this part of my argument. 31. Joel Barlow called for citizenship to be extended to foreign patriots in his A Letter to the National Convention of France: On the Defects in the Constitution of 1791 and the Extent of the Amendments Which Ought to Be Applied (London, Johnson, 1792). 32. William Brubaker, “The French Revolution and the Invention of Citizenship”, French Politics and Society 7:3 (1989), p. 44. 33. Sampson Perry, An Historical Sketch of the French Revolution: Commencing with Its Predisposing Causes, and Carried on to the Acceptation of the Constitution, in 1795, vol. 2 (London, Symonds, 1796), pp.Bottom of FormTop of Form iii-iv. 34. Mary Wollstonecraft, Janet M. Todd & Marilyn Butler, The Works of Mary Wollstonecraft: An Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution. Letters to Joseph Johnson. Letters Written in Sweden, Norway and Denmark (London, Pickering, 1989), p. 162. 35. Sampson Perry, Oppression!!!, p. 10. 36. The involvement of figures such as Algernon Sidney in the revolution of 1649 was conveniently erased from collective memory. What was retained was the contribution of such “patriots” to the settlement of 1688-1689. 37. For a comprehensive study of the reliance of the Jacobin leadership on the notion of virtue, see Carol Blum, Rousseau and the Republic of Virtue: The Language of Politics in the French Revolution (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1986).
38. See Sophie Wahnich and Marc Belissa, “Les crimes des Anglais: trahir le droit”, Annales historiques de la Révolution française 300:1 (1995), pp. 233-48, and Sophie
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WAHNICH, L'impossible citoyen: l’étranger dans le discours de la Révolution française (Paris, Albin Michel, 1997). 39. Toast number thirteen was ‘Au gouvernement qui préfère des citoyens armés à des esclaves armés’, Le Moniteur Universel, vol. 14, Friday 23th November 1792. 40. James Epstein & Karr, David, “Playing at Revolution: British ‘Jacobin’ Performance”, The Journal of Modern History 79:3 (2007), p. 530. 41. See Mark Philp, “The fragmented ideology of reform”, p. 69 in Mark Philp (ed.), The French Revolution and British Popular Politics (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999).
ABSTRACTS
This article seeks to explore the impact of the radicalization of the French Revolution on the way in which the debate within the British reform movement shifted from the relationship between the individual and the state to the moral advances needed to become a citizen in the first place. This transition will be placed in the context of the government clampdown on radical expression and the perceived need for reformers to defend themselves against charges of moral degeneracy. It will also be shown that the Terror led British onlookers to question the capacity of citizens groomed under monarchical rule to live up to the standards of virtue needed in reformed states.
Cet article cherche à interroger la façon dont la radicalisation de la Révolution française fit évoluer le débat au sein des sociétés de réforme britannique, c’est-à-dire, en partant d’un débat sur le rapport entre l’individu et l’État, pour aboutir à une discussion sur les avancées morales nécessaires pour devenir citoyen. Cette évolution sera replacée dans le contexte de la réaction du gouvernement britannique face au mouvement pour la réforme parlementaire, et le besoin perçu par les radicaux de se défendre face aux accusations à leur encontre de déchéance morale. Nous chercherons également à démontrer que la Terreur en France a engendré des interrogations au sein de la population britannique quant à la capacité des citoyens ayant vécu sous un régime monarchique à atteindre le niveau de vertu requis dans un État régénéré.
INDEX
Keywords: French revolution, virtue, loyalist movement, citizenship Mots-clés: Révolution française, mouvement radical, mouvement loyaliste, citoyenneté
AUTHOR
RACHEL ROGERS Université Toulouse-Jean Jaurès
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Britishness… Limited – National identity and citizenship in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Utopia Limited (1893) Britishness… Limited. Identité nationale et citoyenneté dans Utopia Limited (1893) de Gilbert et Sullivan
Joël Richard
Introduction
1 When they first presented Utopia Limited on October 7, 1893, before their now regular wealthy middle-class audience at the Savoy Theatre in London, librettist William Schwenck Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan must have known that, only three years later, they would be forced to put an end to their fruitful yet tumultuous twenty- two year-long collaboration – thus ending a unique, and uniquely successful cycle in the history of British music, counting no less than 25 comic operas. The big popular enduring successes – genuine musical hits at the time – of H.M.S. Pinafore, or The Lass That Loved a Sailor (May 28, 1878), Patience, or Bunthorne's Bride (April 23, 1881) and above all The Mikado, or The Town of Titipu (March 14, 1885) had been produced amongst and followed by far less acclaimed works; the financial difficulties caused by the costly running of the Savoy started to endanger the very survival of their musical/ commercial enterprise, and, above all, one may here contend, “the job was done”. Royalty, the judiciary, the navy, the taste for exoticism and the Decadent movement – one by one, the political, ideological and aesthetic pillars of what was regarded as essentially British had been staged, lampooned, satirized and turned into ludicrous topsy-turvy librettos and catchy tunes. Little more could be added to the now famous gallery of mock generals, clergymen, judges and sovereigns in disguise. Likewise, resorting to some form of geographical and cultural uprooting could no longer produce the fresh sense of satirical detachment which had proved so successful with The Mikado and its staged Japanese setting, stock characters and vaguely Asiatic chords. As
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accordingly noted in the first-night review of the Times (on Monday October 9, 1893), “ The introduction of English manners and customs into remote or imaginary countries has furnished forth many a piece of satire, whether on the stage or off”.1
2 Of course, the scope of such imaginary settings on which to transpose British idiosyncrasies was boundless. Having previously staged a mock Cornish Penzance with high-pitched pirates and maids, and an even more imaginary town of Titipu, complete with a Mikado, a Lord High Executioner and a Lord High Everything Else, Gilbert resorted this time to an even more distant fairy land – some vaguely idyllic South Pacific tropical island aptly called Utopia, and clearly a mock reference to Bacon’s Bensalem – on which to project an even stranger topic for a comic opera, that of the legal, corporate concept of limited liability. Gilbert’s short-lived, extremely unsuccessful career at the bar may account for his persistent interest in legal issues and recurring satire on corporations,2 from the very first opera Thespis of 1871 down to Iolanthe (1881) and The Gondoliers (1889) – all of them staging adventurous business promoters, dubious syndicates and incompetent boards of directors. Having worked as a barrister between 1857 and 1866 – for a final total income of £100! – Gilbert had experienced (if not maybe fully understood) the gradual loosening of company law, following the 1825 repeal of the Bubble Act of 1720 and the expanding availability of corporate business forms. Consolidated by the 1862 Companies Act, the 1856 Joint Stock Companies Act was (and is still) regarded as the hallmark of the modern corporation – a legal form of business enterprise which the Victorians proudly regarded as quintessentially British. Not exactly, per se, the most obvious topic for a professedly comic opera. Unless transposed to the far-away kingdom of King Paramount, whose eldest daughter, Princess Zara, is staged as she finally returns from a five-year stay in England, the latter proudly described by the Utopian vice chamberlain himself as “the greatest, the most powerful, the wisest country in the world” – of course a telling instance of mock encomium. Although fictionally and geographically remote, the British Isles are immediately made to sound very close to the audience. Echoing the most recent political debates of the time- debates clearly centered on the issue of citizenship, the mention of “that glorious country called Great Britain, to which some add – but others not – Ireland” is a clear reference to the then ongoing debate on the Second Home Rule Bill, which had just been defeated by the Lords only a month before Utopia limited had its first performance. Therefore visually absent from the stage, Britain is yet immediately to be heard, even before the curtain rises, under the form of a loud, bombastic overture mostly for brass instruments – an “Imperial March” which is a resounding reminder of Handel’s court music and English oratorios, and not exactly the kind of tune evocative of tropical islands.
Utopia Limited, Overture
3 Back from some mock reversed Grand Tour, Princess Zara has not only completed her academic education with a “high degree at Girton”, in Cambridge. Her return opens the thrilling prospect of having the Utopian island being “completely Anglicized” and, to quote one the most fervent Utopian maids, to gain “English institutions, English tastes and oh, English fashions!” Even before the princess sails back from “that glorious country called England”, as praised by the King himself, the latter “has ordered that the Utopian language shall be banished from his court, and that all communications shall henceforward be made in the
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English tongue” – a convenient decree for the Savoy’s London audience, linguistically immune to the kind of vaguely Oceanic gibberish uttered by the Utopian Lord Exploder, “Lalabalele tatala! Callabale lalabalica falahle!”
4 With verbal Anglicization on its way, Utopia’s citizens – or rather subjects – are about to be given a fully new identity once “finished” by Princess Zara and the so-called “ Flowers of Progress” she has brought back from the British isles. In the meantime, before the introduction of the British form of “government by party”, Utopians, having tried “ many unhappy experiments in the direction of an ideal Republic”, presently enjoy their own political version of a constitutional monarchy, a form of “despotism tempered by dynamite ” in which the king of Utopia is constantly followed by Tarara, the Lord Exploder, whose sole responsibility is “to blow up His Majesty with dynamite, on his very first lapse from political or social propriety”. A ludicrous, theatrical situation of course, the occasion for noisy crackers to be pulled on stage, but also one which may have been suggested to Gilbert, given his legal background, by the still active Lord Campbell's Libel Act of 1843, which toughened the penalties in such cases. Except that this Libel Act, often regarded as one of the landmarks of the puritan Victorian age, did not envisage the quite unlikely case of “self libel” yet practiced by King Paramount, who has found here a convenient legal loophole. Mocking the then very popular column in the Times, the King keeps sending numerous “biting, trenchant, sub-acid” letters to the Palace Peeper, under the epistolary guises of Junius Junior, Senex Senior and Mephistopheles Minor, exposing his own “royal goings-on” and “abominable immoralities” with headlines such as “Another Royal Scandal” and “Ribald Royalty”. Easily maneuvered by the two Judges of the Supreme Court, the King has even written a comic opera called King Tuppence, or A Good Deal Less than Half a Sovereign.
5 With the added effect for the audience of a form of dramatic mise en abime, King Tuppence promises to be a burlesque of the king’s appearance and peculiarities, sung by “the celebrated English tenor, Mr. Wilkinson”. Although the very Englishness of the singer is itself revealed to be a cheap trick deliberately played on the audience – “they wouldn’t listen to any tenor who didn’t call himself English” –, the more serious function of this opera within the opera remains political, as it enables King Paramount to be equally feared and mocked by his subjects. As Supreme Court Judge Scaphio notes: During the day thousands tremble at your frown, during the night (from 8 to 11) thousands roar at it. During the day your most arbitrary pronouncements are received by your subjects with abject submission – during the night, they shout with joy at your most terrible decrees. It's not every monarch who enjoys the privilege of undoing by night all the despotic absurdities he's committed during the day.
6 This interesting case of despotic schizophrenia launches King Paramount on a surprisingly gay song, reflecting on life as a farce. Pondering on the infant’s confusing early years, he himself sums up the whole absurdity of it by blurring linguistic barriers and stating that “every symptom tends to show you’re decidedly de trop.” If French is clearly here “de trop”, and Utopia threatens to turn into a modern Babel, to top it all, even the king’s terrible punishments are not truly of his own invention, as he admits to be “in constant communication with the Mikado of Japan, who is the leading authority on such points” – an instance of Gilbert’s witty play on self-references creating for the Savoy’s audience an unexpected community of fake operatic tyrants.
7 With Utopian identity thus questioned, and the subjects ruled by a sovereign whose use of language betrays both a split political personality and a tendency towards
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bilingualism, the king’s younger daughters, who have stayed on the island, embody a first promising step towards the full Anglicization expected with the return home of their older sister. Princesses Nekaya and Kalyba have indeed been “finished by an English Lady”, who goes by the name of Lady Sophy, “of mature years and extreme gravity of demeanour and dress.” As trophies of “maidenly perfection […] from the English standpoint”, they are to be daily exhibited in public. The stage directions specify that they show themselves as “very modest and demure in their appearance, dress and manner, with their hands folded and their eyes cast down.” The rather plain chorus “How fair! how modest! how discreet!”, sung in unison, is nonetheless preceded by an orchestral prelude full of intricate melodic variations and appoggiaturas which betray the fake simplicity and deceitful naturalness forced upon the twin princesses in the name of Britishness. How fair! how modest! how discreet! How bashfully demure! See how they blush, as they've been taught, At this publicity unsought! How English and how pure! How English and how pure!
8 Turned into mere “clockwork toys”, as they proudly yet oddly admit, and exhibited “to loud applause from ten to four without a pause”, the two princesses have become no more than parrot-like puppets and rigid imitations of a supposedly quintessential English modesty – “demurely coy – divinely cold.” Having thus being molded into a fake foreign national identity, they stand as Utopian versions of E.T. Hoffman’s Olimpia. The deathly process of reification is staged by the twins themselves whose mechanical gestures can be arrested at any time and – a miracle of modernity – turned into frozen snapshots, as they state in a duet, directly alluding to George Eastman’s first Kodak camera of 1888 and its then famous motto “You press the button, we do the rest”: Kalyba: Our celebrated "Sir!!" Then all the crowd take down our looks In pocket memorandum books. To diagnose Our modest pose The Kodaks do their best: Nekaya: If evidence you would possess Of what is maiden bashfulness, You only need a button press - Kalyba: And we do all the rest!
9 The following practical “course of maiden courtship, from the start to the triumphant matrimonial finish” is sung by Lady Sophy, complete with frozen tableaux and illustrative gestures by the two princesses where rigid etiquette and artful poses are in accordance with the chorus’s statement: “English girls of well-bred notions, / Shun all unrehearsed emotions, / English girls of highest class / Practice them before the glass.” And the same chorus to conclude, on the happy prospect of a gradual Anglicization of all Utopian maidens: “Bashful girls will soon be plenty!”
10 Yet the true root of the matter remains elsewhere. The king’s plan may have been circumscribed to the family circle only, but his elder daughter has a bigger picture in mind. In fact, she wants to fully eradicate the military, political, legal and economic shortcomings of her native “semi barbarous society” which she fears may be shocking to
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the “puritanical British sensitiveness” of the imported “flowers of progress” she brought back from Great Britain. Having no word too harsh for her own subjects – “South Pacific island viviparians, little better than clothed Barbarians” – she has resolved to turn those Utopian savages into true-blood English citizens, and has therefore landed with “six Representatives of the principal causes that have tended to make England the powerful, happy and blameless country which the consensus of European civilization has declared it to be” – officers of the army and navy, a lord chamberlain, a queen’s counsel and MP, a spokesman for the newly introduced county council system (following the 1888 Local Government Act), and an aptly named Mr Goldbury, a company promoter and the advocate of a radical change in the Utopian monarchy, the latter to be registered as a corporation under the already-mentioned Companies Act of 1862.
11 Yet, before any tangible progress can be achieved under the invigorating influence of those imported “flowers”, Princess Zara’s return triggers an unexpected love quarrel between the two Utopian Supreme Court Judges, both “madly, passionately” in love with the king’s elder daughter. Captain Fitzbattleaxe, of the British First Life Guards, shipped to Utopia to reform the national army, immediately proves the effective superiority of the so-called “English fashion” when it comes to solving delicate amorous affairs – and subsequently ridiculing the Parliament’s much-criticized readiness to enact legislation on any trivial matter. Scaphio and Phantis: The English fashion? What is that? Fitzbattleaxe: It's very simple. In England, when two gentlemen are in love with the same lady, and until it is settled which gentleman is to blow out the brains of the other, it is provided, by the Rival Admirers' Clauses Consolidation Act, that the lady shall be entrusted to an officer of Household Cavalry as stakeholder, who is bound to hand her over to the survivor (on the Tontine principle) in a good condition of substantial and decorative repair. Scaphio: Reasonable wear and tear and damage by fire excepted? Fitzbattleaxe: Exactly. Phantis: Well, that seems very reasonable.
12 This of course is made to sound anything but reasonable, which does not prevent the chorus of the Utopian populace from loudly welcoming the Flowers of British Progress: “All hail, ye types of England’s power / Ye heaven-enlightened band! / We bless the day and bless the hour / That brought you to our land.” The long-expected parade starts with the Queen’s counsel and MP, whose very name, Sir Bailey Bare, is unmistakably an echo of the Old Bailey in London. Introduced as no less than “a great arithmetician who can demonstrate with ease that two and two are three”, “an eminent logician” and “a marvelous philologist who’ll undertake to show that ‘yes’ is but another and neater form of ‘no’”, Sir Bailey prides in stating that “whether you’re an honest man or whether you’re a thief depends on whose solicitor has given me my brief.” The very definition of citizenship being grounded in law, and Sir Bailey Bare having being imported precisely to reform the Utopian legal system, his more than relative view on judicial matters casts a serious doubt on the benefits derived by king Paramount’s kingdom from his expertise.
13 The whole comprehensive reformation of Utopia’s “social and political arrears” also relies on the adoption of “England’s physical and moral cleanliness” by the natives. Lord Dramaleigh, a British Lord Chamberlain, and Mr. Blushington, of the County Council, are both embarked on this cleansing mission, the former to “purify the stage” and the latter to “sanitate dwelling houses”. Once improved along British lines, Utopian towns and the whole island must then be protected by a regenerated navy, under the muscular guidance of Captain Corcoran, who has conveniently left his former ship –
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and opera! (HMS Pinafore, produced in 1878), to propound his subtle vision of naval domination: “I’ll teach you how to rule the sea, / And terrify the simple Gauls.” But the greatest – if not at first clearest – achievement of all is the one heralded by the company promoter Mr Goldbury, whose very name speaks of hidden wealth and concealed fortunes to come. Having himself “freely speculated in ginger-pops and peppermint drops” and “largely advocated stupendous loans to foreign thrones”, he proudly presents a scheme which alters the very foundation of arithmetic, and relies on the fairy-tale like magical figure of seven: “Time was when two were company – but now it must be seven.” Puzzled by the prospect of “companification”, Utopians are then presented with the whole legal process, from the initial declaration of the company limited by “ some seven men, if possible all Peers and Baronets”, to the first business tradings “with all who’ll trust’em / Quite irrespective of their capital”, and finally the liquidation of the bankrupt venture, which is apparently not the worst part of it, as Goldbury states: “You merely fill a Winding-up Petition, / And start another company at once!”, the whole thing being frankly stated as “shady, but sanctified by custom”… As often, Sullivan chose to compose a tune the rhythm of which is either unexpected or even at odds with the words of the libretto – a classic case of comic juxtaposition where the two media convey jarring messages and impressions: here, Goldbury’s apparently serious eulogy of what he himself calls a “money-spinner” is sung to a fast, lively molto vivace tempo, thus audibly debunking any pretence at some form of sound legal and commercial advice: Mr. Golbury: Some seven men form an Association (If possible, all Peers and Baronets), The start off with a public declaration To what extent they mean to pay their debts. That's called their Capital; if they are wary They will not quote it at a sum immense. The figure's immaterial--it may vary From eighteen million down to eighteenpence. I should put it rather low; The good sense of doing so Will be evident at once to any debtor. When it's left to you to say What amount you mean to pay, Why, the lower you can put it at, the better.
14 One may think that Golbury’s careless hints at recent commercial disasters should warn the Utopian King – in particular when the promoter lists the kind of tradings – “none too tremendous” – that one may embark upon with such limited companies : “Bank, Railway, Loan, or Panama Canal”. With the much-debated failure of the City of Glasgow Bank in 1878 and the even more recent and resounding business scandal associated to Ferdinand de Lesseps and his Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interocéanique, Gilbert had a vast number of telling cases of fraud, bribery and false balance sheets to add a humorous touch of verisimilitude to his words. And in an unfortunately fleeting flash of lucidity, King Paramount seems to have an inkling of the possible illegality of this type of trading. Yet, as these Flowers, by virtue of their very name, can only bring progress to his kingdom, the scheme must be regarded as valid: “If it’s good enough for virtuous England – / The first commercial country in the world – / It’s good enough for us”. Even more ridiculous yet compelling is the competition thus triggered between
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England and Utopia, the latter being about to rank ahead of the former, to King Paramount’s boundless satisfaction: King: (enthusiastically): We will be before you! We'll go down in posterity renowned As the First Sovereign in Christendom Who registered his Crown and Country under The Joint Stock Company's Act of Sixty-Two.
15 In a grandiose mock national anthem concluding act one, individual characters and voices join the full chorus and praise at unison the new deity to be hailed – resoundingly echoing the mid-eighteenth-century Westminster Abbey or mid- nineteenth-century Crystal Palace nationalistic musical celebrations: Let's seal this mercantile pact-- The step we ne'er shall rue-- It gives whatever we lacked-- The statement's strictly true. All hail, astonishing Fact! All hail, Invention new-- The Joint Stock Company's Act-- The Act of Sixty-Two!
16 The libretto of act two and the quite chaotic unfolding of the many plots and sub-plots may deservedly be viewed in the light of the harsh criticism published in the Pall Mall Gazette two days after the premiere. The anonymous journalist states that “The quips, whims, jests, the theory of the topsy-turvy, the principle of paradox, the law of the unlikely, seem to have grown old in a single night.”3 Yet, very simply, between curtain fall and curtain rise, time has passed, and the full beneficial effects of Anglicization are then to be felt in Utopia: “She is England – with improvements.” Indeed, these extensive reforms have unexpectedly been so successful that Utopia’s army and navy are feared worldwide, making war depressingly impossible, and Utopians have become law-abiding, healthy, prosperous citizens – thus causing the starvation of doctors and lawyers alike. Society has been purged of its “wicked courses”, slummeries are gone, “indelicate suggestions” are not longer to be represented on stage, and plays “not in blank verse and three hundred years old” are no longer licensed… Thus reformed and forcibly sanitized, Utopia’s citizens have been Anglicized beyond the reasonable – and their island “swamped by dull prosperity” therefore turned into a depressing dystopia.
17 Yet the most striking feature of this eventually nightmarish quest for a new fake identity lies in the legal atomization of society – the very negation of a common sense of citizenship. Goldbury having “companified” Utopia, the following step has been to turn “every man, woman, and child” into “a company limited with liability restricted to the amount of his declared capital.” Princess Zara marvels at this final, ultimate reform – “there is not a christened baby in Utopia who has not already issued his little prospectus!” and Captain Fitzbattleaxe does not grasp the full extent of his own Wildian aphorism: “ Marvelous is the power of a Civilization which can transmute, by a word, a Limited Income into an Income Limited.” More seriously, the princess clearly fails to realize that the Utopians’ sense of civic responsibility, a necessary legal and even moral cement which bonds individuals into a shared sense of belonging, has now become extremely limited, as each citizen is now free to fill a winding-up petition and thus becomes impervious to any legal attack. Thirdly, and most importantly, the Utopian citizens are not turned into any entity – their promised monad-like existence is essentially commercial, as they
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are meant to become independent hence competitive business ventures. Their new identity is now grounded in capital, thus surprisingly echoing, more than a hundred years in advance, our contemporary debates on “corporate citizenship”, “privatized citizenship”, and more largely modern citizenship wrongfully equated with money and consumerism.
18 But Gilbert’s conclusive tour de force is yet to come. As reform, “like some remorseless ogress” has brought Utopia to a fatal standstill, one may expect that the chorus’s outcry “Down with the Flowers of Progress” be followed by a national return to some lost status quo ante and affairs be restored “to their original complexion.” In fact, this would go without counting on Princess Zara’s final remembrance of her stay in Queen Victoria’s kingdom and of “the most essential element of all – government by party!” By reuniting citizens under rival banners and therefore reintroducing factions and divisions, this “bulwark and foundation of England’s greatness” promises to reinstate a necessary fruitful political chaos: Princess Zara: Government by Party! Introduce that great and glorious element – at once the bulwark and foundation of England's greatness – and all will be well! No political measures will endure, because one Party will assuredly undo all that the other Party has done; and while grouse is to be shot, and foxes worried to death, the legislative action of the country will be at a standstill. Then there will be sickness in plenty, endless lawsuits, crowded jails, interminable confusion in the Army and Navy, and, in short, general and unexampled prosperity.
19 This unexpectedly happy prospect is logically hailed by the Utopian chorus in its recovered native language “Ulahlica! Ulahlica!” Linguistic unity having returned, the dreaded syndrome of a dislocating individual companification at the very top - and the ensuing danger of a “Monarchy limited” – is therefore replaced by a system “a great deal better, a limited Monarchy!”
Conclusion
20 Satire, in Utopia Limited, is clearly of the Horatian type – witty, wise and self-effacing. Gilbert and Sullivan did not aim at reforming their late Victorian world. Rather, they held up a gentle mirror at the peculiarities – political, social, aesthetic – of the British society which they chose to gently mock and lampoon, thus comfortably questioning notions like nationalism, identity and citizenship with tongue-in-the-cheek humour. Or maybe not? The question remains open, in the view of the concluding song and chorus, with their lyrical/military accents and Verdian ring – a loud final praise of “a little group of isles beyond the wave” which may – or may not – be taken at face value. Zara: There's a little group of isles beyond the wave – So tiny, you might almost wonder where it is – That nation is the bravest of the brave, And cowards are the rarest of all rarities. The proudest nations kneel at her command; She terrifies all foreign-born rapscallions; And holds the peace of Europe in her hand With half a score invincible battalions! Such, at least, is the tale Which is born on the gale, From the island which dwells in the sea.
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Let us hope, for her sake That she makes no mistake – That she's all she professes to be! King: Oh, may we copy all her maxims wise, And imitate her virtues and her charities; And may we, by degrees, acclimatize Her Parliamentary peculiarities! By doing so, we shall in course of time, Regenerate completely our entire land-- Great Britain is the monarchy sublime, To which some add (others do not) Ireland. Such at least is the tale, etc.
21 The fairy-tale quality of this number is only implicit in Princess Zara’s opening lines. It becomes explicit with the chorus and its potentially radical questioning of the credibility of it all – “Such, at least, is the tale…”. Yet Gilbert’s own political satire eventually becomes, thanks to or maybe because of Sullivan’s score, an allegro maestoso, fortissimo finale, resounding like a classical eulogy of Britain’s manifest destiny. Indeed, these concluding bombastic chords leave little room for the already subdued and hardly critical pinpointing of her “parliamentary peculiarities”. This “monarchy sublime”, aptly praised with Burkian, sublime loudness, finally promises to completely regenerate Utopians who should simply copy Britain’s “maxims wise” and imitate her “ virtues and charities” to become prosperous, brave and above all respected citizens. In 1883, in the midst of Gladstone’s second administration, Gilbert’s own fear of liberal reforms and Sullivan’s enduring taste for a bombastic dénouement finally produced once more what, in In Churchill’s Shadow, (2004), David Cannadine calls, quite rightly I think, “ a paean of praise to national pride and the established order.”4
22 La spécialité de recherche de Joël Richard est l’étude des rapports entre les formes musicales et les contextes culturels, sociaux, politiques, religieux et économiques qui les font émerger, prospérer et parfois disparaître. A ce titre, après une thèse sur les oratorios bibliques de Haendel, interrogeant la question de « the Englishness of English music », il a travaillé sur les opéras de Purcell, les comic operas de Gilbert and Sullivan, mais aussi les rapports entre musique, frontière et traumatisme de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, en étudiant certaines pièces du compositeur américain contemporain Steve Reich, en particulier Different Trains.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Borowitz, Albert. “Gilbert and Sullivan on Corporation Law: Utopia Limited and the Panama Canal Frauds” (Legal Studies Forum, Vol. 29 Issue 2, 2005), p. 941.
Bradley, Ian. “Gilbert & Sullivan and the Victorian Age” (History Today, vol. 31, Issue: 9, 1981) p.17.
Bradley, Ian. “W.S. Gilbert: He was an Englishman” (History Today, vol. 61, Issue: 5, 2011), p. 43.
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David Cannadine, In Churchill's Shadow: Confronting the Past in Modern Britain (Oxford OUP, 2004), 400 p.
Fisher, Alan. “Dialectics of Social Class in Gilbert and Sullivan Collaboration”, Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 (vol. 48, n°4, The Nineteenth Century, Autumn 2008), p. 829.
Oost, Regina B. Gilbert and Sullivan. Class and the Savoy Tradition, 1875-1896 (Farnham, Ashgate, 2009), 168p.
Williams, Carolyn. Gilbert and Sullivan. Gender. Genre. Parody (New York, Columbia University Press, 2001), 454p.
Internet sources:
First Night Review (The Times, Monday, October 9, 1893): http://diamond.boisestate.edu/gas/ utopia/reviews/times93.html (retrieved on 31/05/16)
"Utopia (Limited)" at the Savoy” (Pall Mall Gazette, October 9, 1893) http://diamond.boisestate.edu/gas/utopia/reviews/pmg.html (retrieved on 22/06/14)
“Utopia, Limited. Gems of the New Opera” (Straffordshire Sentinel, October 9, 1893), p. 4: http://diamond.boisestate.edu/gas/utopia/reviews/review.html (retrieved on 31/05/16)
NOTES
1. http://diamond.boisestate.edu/gas/utopia/reviews/times93.html (retrieved on 31/05/16) 2. See Albert Borowitz, “Gilbert and Sullivan on Corporation Law: Utopia Limited and the Panama Canal Frauds”(Legal Studies Forum, Vol. 29 Issue 2, 2005), p. 941. 3. http://diamond.boisestate.edu/gas/utopia/reviews/pmg.html (retrieved on 31/05/16) 4. David Cannadine, In Churchill's Shadow: Confronting the Past in Modern Britain (Oxford, OUP, 2004), p.112.
ABSTRACTS
This paper aims at studying how national identity was put into words and music by Gilbert in Sullivan in Utopia Limited (1893). Whereas the libretto reads like a mild Horatian satire of British institutions – in particular the system of corporate law, music sounds like the classical sublime eulogy of a conquering nation – commercially, politically and militarily. Under the guise of a witty criticism relying on absurd, topsy-turvy situations and characters, Utopia Limited partakes of a vast national enterprise, building up and asserting the national identity of an imperialist kingdom.
Cet article étudie la mise en mots et en musique de la notion d’identité dans l’opéra Utopia Limited de Gilbert et Sullivan (1893). Tandis que le livret semble se livrer à une satire horacienne des institutions britanniques, et en particulier de son système juridique en matière de droit des affaires, la musique laisse entendre les accents sublimes d’un éloge sonore, celui d’une nation commercialement, politiquement et militairement conquérante. Sous couvert d’une critique qui
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cultive les effets d’absurde et de renversement, Utopia Limited participerait d’une plus vaste entreprise de construction et d’affirmation de l’identité d’une nation impérialiste.
INDEX
Mots-clés: Haendel, oratorio, satire, identité nationale Keywords: Handel, oratorio, satire, Britishness
AUTHOR
JOËL RICHARD Université Bordeaux Montaigne
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Nationality and Citizenship in the Irish Home Rule Debates of 1886 Nationalité et citoyenneté dans les débats sur le Home Rule irlandais (1886)
Pauline Collombier-Lakeman
Introduction
1 According to French sociologist Dominique Schnapper, there is a connection between citizenship and nationality, which is notably illustrated by the struggle of colonised peoples against their colonisers and their claim that political independence goes hand in hand with the assertion of citizenship: Dans tous les mouvements d’indépendance en Europe et en Amérique au XVIIIe et XIXe siècles, en Afrique et en Asie au XXe siècle, la revendication à l’indépendance nationale ne se séparait pas de l’affirmation de la citoyenneté. C’est au nom des valeurs de la citoyenneté que les peuples colonisés se sont révoltés contre la domination des colonisateurs européens.1
2 The Act of Union of 1800 turned Ireland into a province of the United Kingdom, establishing a political, economic and religious union between Ireland and Great Britain. This theoretically placed Ireland on an equal footing with the other British nations and historians like Stephen Howe do sustain the idea that, following the repeal of the Penal Laws at the end of the 18th century and the Emancipation of Catholics in 1829, the Irish enjoyed political rights similar to those of their fellow British citizens since they gradually benefited from a wider and wider franchise, as in the rest of the United Kingdom.2 However, such an interpretation of the relationship between Ireland and its neighbour has been contested by a number of academics, who have underlined that, in practice, Ireland was treated by Britain more as a colony than as a province. Peter Gray for instance has underlined that the Irish executive remained headed by a Viceroy or Lord-Lieutenant who was commonly regarded as a sort of colonial governor. 3 Before him, Theodore K. Hoppen had also emphasised inequalities between Ireland and England in his work regarding the successive Irish Reform Acts between 1832 and 1885:
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(...) [I]n 1867 the franchises of the two countries had once again moved apart after the comparative alignment of the years since the Irish Act of 1850. The dramatic growth of the English borough electorate and the smaller but still significant county increase produced by the Second Reform Act had not equivalent in Ireland. There an extremely mouse-like Act in 1868 left the important county franchise quite alone and merely reduced the valuation required for the borough vote from eight pounds to over four pounds. Boundary changes aside this probably increased the Irish borough electorate by less than 10,000. Once again, very much larger percentage of adult males had the vote in England and Scotland than in Ireland.4
3 Gray and Hoppen defended what could be regarded as a reassertion of Ireland’s colonial status under the Union with Britain, which echoes some of the arguments used by Irish nationalists, as Irish nationalism developed in the 19th century to question the link existing between Ireland and Britain. Even Irish moderate nationalists, who formed the dominant movement until 1918 in Ireland, repeatedly denounced what they considered to be an unlawful and unbearable domination of Ireland by Britain while claiming to avoid total political separation from the United Kingdom and the British Crown.
4 The first debates on an Irish Home Rule Bill in the British Parliament (1886) are a good illustration of this tradition in the Irish nationalist discourse and shed light on how both the Irish and British political elites variously associated nationality and citizenship. While the Irish nationalist MPs and their Liberal allies headed by Prime Minister W. E. Gladstone defended the idea that the Irish were civilised enough to obtain their own local parliament and act as responsible citizens in a self-governing entity, Conservatives and Unionists — British Liberal Unionists as well as Irish Unionists — would emphasise that the Irish were either too barbaric/primitive or bigoted to be trusted with any form of legislative autonomy. Whereas Irish nationalist MPs strove to promote the idea of a united nation of Irish citizens transcending religious differences, their anti-Home Rule counterparts agitated the fear that Home Rule meant Rome Rule and that a self-governing Ireland would quickly lead to tyranny and even possibly civil war.
The British discourse split along Home Rule lines
The British political context
5 In Britain the issue of Home Rule for Ireland provoked deep modifications in the British political landscape. A shift in allegiances and a redefinition of political lines took place in 1885-6 following a succession of very important political events.
6 First the Franchise Act of 1884 and the Redistribution Act of 1885 both contributed to greatly increase the size of the electorate in the United Kingdom, including Ireland. This was particularly important as general elections were planned to take place in December 1885.5
7 It was already clear prior to these elections that both British parties had diverging views regarding Home Rule for Ireland. These views were first stated unofficially; in early July 1885, Lord Salisbury told the Irish Lord Lieutenant Lord Carnavon of his “ strong objection to Home Rule”;6 at the same time Gladstone’s opinion on the subject had been evolving and from August 18857 the Liberal leader exchanged letters with the Irish nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnell.8
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At the end of 1885, the election of 86 Irish nationalist MPs against 335 Liberal MPs and 249 Conservative MPs meant that, for the first time, the Irish held the balance of power in the House of Commons. The two British political parties were thus forced to take clear public positions regarding their commitment or not to grant Home Rule to the Irish. When Prime Minister Lord Salisbury announced the implementation of a new scheme of coercion in Ireland on 21 January 1886,9 the Liberals struck an alliance with the Irish nationalists to take down the Conservative government (26 January)to bring the Conservative government down.10 The Liberals then formed a new government (1 February) but this meant that Gladstone had to promise in return to introduce a Home Rule Bill for Ireland (4 February).11
8 The Home Rule Bill was introduced in the Commons on 8 April.12 Prior to that, it had been presented by Gladstone to the other Government members but it had not met the approval of all: the scheme, and its cost, had led to the resignation of two government ministers — Joseph Chamberlain and George Otto Trevelyan.13 These two men, along with a few others, became the figureheads of a new group — the Liberal Unionists who, at a meeting held on 31 May, decided to vote against the Home Rule Bill.14
9 The Home Rule parliamentary debates of April-June 1886 thus opposed two groups: on the one hand, the pro Home-Rule Liberals headed by Gladstone and, on the other hand, the Liberal Unionists allied to the Conservatives, who were all staunchly opposed to the political autonomy of Ireland. The House of Commons was therefore “[polarised] along ideological and regional lines.”15
The Liberal point of view on the Irish as citizens
10 This political split along Home Rule lines is reflected in the way speeches from supporters in each group contradicted one another during the debates and in the very different approach orators had to the link between nationality and citizenship. One of the recurrent arguments used by Gladstone focuses on the failure of coercion in Ireland over the years. According to Gladstone, intimidation had only led to a decrease in “ respect for law, and the respect for contract, and that among a people who, I believe, [were] as capable of attaining to the very highest moral and social standards as any people on the face of the earth.”16 In these circumstances, self-government is the key solution to “restore social order”, peace and loyalty and to avoid crime and violence: [S]omething must be done, something is imperatively demanded from us to restore to Ireland the first conditions of civil life—the free course of law, the liberty of every individual in the exercise of every legal right, the confidence of the people in the law, and their sympathy with the law, apart from which no country can be called, in the full sense of the word, a civilized country, nor can there be given to that country the blessings which it is the object of civilized society to attain.17
11 As the first quote suggests, such a view was based on the conviction that the Irish had the full capacity to govern themselves and be citizens: for Gladstone, they could become members of a self-governing and responsible political community in which they would all participate and have similar duties and rights. Such a belief was to transpire again in Gladstone’s speeches, when he disparaged prejudiced views presenting the Irish as lacking the qualities that would make them eligible to citizenship — in other words, prejudiced views presenting the Irish somehow as second-class citizens: [T]he view which rests upon the basis of despair and of absolute condemnation of Ireland and Irishmen as exceptions to the beneficent provisions which enable men
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in general, and Europeans in particular, and Americans, to be capable of performing civil duties, and which considers an Irishman either as a lusus naturœ or one for whom justice, common sense, moderation, and national prosperity have no meaning, and who can only understand and appreciate perpetual strife and dissension (…) is founded on a monstrous misconception.18
12 Gladstone’s views were, of course, echoed by other Liberals supporting the Home Rule project. Within the government, the Chief Secretary for Ireland John Morley and the Attorney-General Sir Charles Russell both defended Home Rule for Ireland on the grounds that the Irish people had enough knowledge of civic rights and duties to establish a sustainable and reasonable system of self-government. Morley expressed faith in the capacity of the Irish but could not help sounding slightly patronising and paternalistic: Therefore, I am not, Sir, going to admit that in constituting an Irish legislature you are going to have a collection of worthless "ne'er-do-wells." It may be that the Irish Assembly may not have the superfine manners which distinguish this Assembly, and that it may be a little ruder in its ways. I believe that it will be as capable of performing the duties of a Legislature with a spirit of justice and of competency for its purposes as any body of men that can be found (…).19
13 Russell was less ambiguously positive, lavishing praise on Irish skills and minimising or rather finding excuses for Irish discontent: [L]et me assure the House that I will not condescend to argue this question as though the Irish nation were to be treated as a nation of fools or of criminals. I claim, in forecasting their probable course of action, the right of the Irish nation to be regarded as a people having a fair share of natural acuteness, and of such intelligence as will enable them to deal with their own interests and concerns in a practical and business-like manner. I ask the House to approach this question in a spirit of some trust in Irishmen. I ask it not to condemn the Irish people as a criminal nation, because of the faults of many individuals among them, faults which we deplore, but faults and crimes committed in times of great national pressure, almost of national revolution. We believe — I ask the House to believe — that there are in the Irish people solid qualities, solid virtues, which, given fair play, will assert themselves in the world.20
14 Both Morley and Russell are known to have been staunch supporters of the Irish cause. To explain the difference between the two quotes, we can add that Russell was an Irishman from county Down, and prior to his political career in England, had been a correspondent of the Dublin nationalist newspaper The Nation. Considering Morley’s or Russell’s backgrounds and their common position on Home Rule, it is therefore not surprising to find in their speeches expressions of faith in the capacity of the Irish to act as responsible citizens. At the same time, these quotes can be seen as responses to or warnings against possible prejudices and therefore they serve to highlight the persistence of prejudiced views against the Irish in the British Parliament.
The Conservative and Liberal-Unionist point of view on the Irish as citizens
15 Conservatives and Liberal Unionists were opposed to Home Rule for a number of reasons. Not only did they fear for the integrity and supremacy of the British empire but they also had two further concerns: first, Home Rule meant Rome Rule, which highlighted a threat for the Protestant minority and a risk of civil war in Ireland; secondly, some of them also believed that the Irish were not politically astute enough
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to be able to control their own fate. Such was the case for a prominent figure like Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, leader of the Conservatives in the House of Commons: Well, Sir, in my humble opinion, the right hon. Gentleman has taken a most extraordinary means, on his own showing, of restoring social order to Ireland. He has borrowed the policy which was proposed by the Chief Secretary for Ireland before he was a Member of the Government. That right hon. Gentleman then recommended the Government of the day to capture the Leaders of the Irish Revolutionary Party and to give them power in order to make them responsible. This policy is nothing less than giving up the enforcement of the law in despair.21
16 The Marquess of Hartington, soon to be Leader of the Liberal Unionists, even went further since he questioned the political legitimacy acquired by the Irish parliamentary party after its 1885 victory in Ireland through associating it with crime and “lawlessness”: On [respect for law and human life] I think O'Connell was consistent; and I believe he was unimpeachable. Mr. Parnell is somewhat copious in his references to America. He seems to set up America as the true and only friend of Ireland; but in all his references to America he has never found time to utter one word of disapproval or misgiving about what is known as the assassination literature of that country. (…) I see no reason, simply because the Party professing those principles has acquired greater strength and possibly a greater claim to represent a larger number of the people of Ireland — I see no reason why we are to retire from that which has been called by my right hon. Friend a conflict between law on the one side and sheer lawlessness on the other, and why are we to sacrifice, without any further struggle, the principles upon which, in the opinion of my right hon. Friend at that time, the structure and basis of society reposed.22
17 Both Hicks-Beach and Hartington could be regarded as experts on Ireland since both had been Irish Chief Secretaries (Hartington between 1871 & 1874 and Hicks Beach between 1874 & 1878). However, the deep negativity of Hartington’s speech may also be explained by personal bitterness and prejudice for Hartington’s younger brother Lord Frederick Cavendish had been brutally murdered by Irish extremists in Phoenix Park on 6 May 1882, a few weeks only after coming to Ireland as the new Irish Chief Secretary. In 1885, it was clear that Hartington had become uncomfortable with Gladstone’s policy of conciliation towards Ireland and as a result, he had even declined to serve in the Liberal administration formed in February 1886.
18 The views of Hicks-Beach and Hartington were shared by less prominent MPs such as the Conservatives John George Gibson, M. P. for Liverpool-Walton, Ellis Ashmead Bartlett, M. P. for Ecclesall, Lord George Francis Hamilton, M. P. for Middlesex, Ernest William Beckett, M. P. for York, or again the Liberal Unionist George Goshen, M. P. for Edinburgh. Some of Ashmead-Bartlett’s arguments for instance echoed those of Hartington as he linked once more the Irish Parliamentary Party to crime — notably to violence that emerged during the Land War (1879-1881); as a result doubt was again strongly cast upon the legitimacy of the party to act as a democratic and peaceful actor in the future Home Rule Parliament in Ireland: The entire civil administration of Ireland is to be in the hands of the new Irish Parliament; that is, every town and district in Ireland will be administered by the National League—by the lawbreakers, village tyrants, “Boycotters”, and blackmailers who constitute the agents and the power of the League. It is too probable that the darker and more dangerous Irish conspirators across the Atlantic will really control the new Parliament and its policy. Ireland will, therefore, be in a very brief space, organized and guided by those unfriendly, perhaps by those
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bitterly hostile, to Great Britain and to everything British — hostile to our race, creed, laws, and form of government.23
19 In other speeches, the Irish people as a whole were criticised. L. G. Hamilton for example used the argument of illiteracy to minimise the impact of the Nationalist victory in December 1885 and to deny the importance of the popular support the Irish Parliamentary Party could rely on: Are these men who have returned the Friends of the hon. Member for the City of Cork ignorant and illiterate, or are they capable citizens? (…) Having looked through these figures I may say that about one-third of all the Nationalist votes polled in Ireland were given by persons who can neither read nor write. Therefore, not merely are the Loyalists of Ireland one-third of the population; but I say unhesitatingly that if you take any of the criteria by which you judge who are capable citizens—intelligence, thrift, freedom from crime, absence of pauperism, capacity for work, success in industrial occupation, or improved methods of agriculture — if you take any one of these tests you will find more capable citizens among the Unionists than among the Nationalists.24
20 Discourse reflected the values and beliefs of the Victorian age and also highlighted that moral advances needed to be made for the Irish to become citizens and to be regarded as potential democratic subjects: [W]ithout looking upon the Irish people as lost to the common virtues of civilized communities, we may think that they are not such an angelic people as to be likely to be suddenly transformed at one stroke of the pen, and all at once endowed with the faculty of governing themselves. No people with, such antecedents as the Irish could be suddenly trusted with the unexampled powers which he proposes to confer on them.25
21 As was often the case with these stereotyped views of the Irish, speeches could be prone to violence, as is epitomised by the example of E. W. Beckett, whose discourse became pervaded at times with interrogative and negative forms and vehement language (“tyranny”, “crush out”, “barbaric”, “horror”, “vicious”, “Thugs”): Another cry is that Ireland must be governed according to Irish ideas. What are Irish ideas of government? Have they ever been defined? Do they exist at all except as a phrase? Are we sure that government, according to Irish ideas, is not misgovernment according to English ideas? (…) Sir, Ireland is now governed according to Irish ideas; and what do we see? Liberty of speech, liberty of action, liberty of conscience, sore beset and hindered, and almost ceasing to struggle for existence. We see the whole nation, all but the brave North, in the grasp of an iron tyranny that threatens to crush out all healthy life. We have seen that tyranny imposed upon the people by a series of barbaric crimes and brutal outrages that have excited horror and indignation throughout the civilized world. (…) I think I have said enough to show that the Nationalists are in no true sense Representatives of Ireland, or if they are they represent what is worst in Ireland and ought to be suppressed, not what is best and ought to be encouraged. On behalf of the idle and vicious they come here, not on behalf of the industrious and respectable. They have usurped the name of the Irish nation; but the true Ireland has not spoken, and cannot speak, while she is in the hands of Thugs.26
22 This type of portrait of the Irish was not new. It borrowed from a long tradition in the English and British discourse on the Irish, which Andrew Hadfield traces back to the 12th century, and which survived well into the 19th century.27 Hostile views regarding the political capacities of the Irish persisted in Britain and British discourse well after Daniel O’Connell’s campaign for the Repeal of the Union in the 1830s and 1840s, as Lionel Perry Curtis Jr. underlines:
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[M]any cartoons in Punch harped on such negative aspects (…) as gullibility, childishness, Anglophobia, fondness for drink, ignorance, indolence, clericalism, and fanaticism. Because these traits were represented as uniquely Irish and therefore wholly un-English, they were bound to reinforce the widespread conviction in Britain that the Gaelic Irish, in particular, those who supported Fenianism or the Land League, were unfit for self-government. Needless to say, such negative stereotyping had the effect of reducing Irishmen who advocated some form of autonomy to a ‘race’ of degenerate, grunting, shillelagh-wielding, and priest-ridden Yahoos.28
23 All these quotes from Conservative and Liberal Unionist frontbenchers and backbenchers raise the question of what citizenship meant in the 19th century and bring to the fore the paradoxes present in the Conservative and Liberal Unionist discourse at the time. It seems that double standards were employed: while Conservatives and Liberal Unionists were attached to the Union and accepted the presence of Irish representatives in the House of Commons as decided by the Union Act of 1800, they rejected the idea of Irish political autonomy and, as a consequence, questioned the possibility for Irish representatives to sit in a Parliament of their own.
24 By strongly linking citizenship and morality, Conservative and Liberal Unionist MPs also foreshadowed the turn Conservative policies towards Ireland were to take in the late 1880s. Once the Tories were back in government with Lord Salisbury as Prime Minister and Arthur Balfour as Irish Chief Secretary, they opted once more for coercion with the vote of a Criminal Law and Procedure Act or Crimes Act (50 & 51 Vict. c. 20), which allowed the Lord Lieutenant to prohibit or suppress by proclamation “dangerous associations” and resulted in the proclamation of the Irish National League as a “ dangerous association”.29 Unionists of all shades then went further in their campaign to bring down Irish nationalism: a series of articles entitled “Parnellism and Crime” was published in The Times,30 followed by letters supposedly written and signed by Charles Stewart Parnell, expressing his support for illegal activities and the political use of violence and condoning the 1882 Phoenix Park assassinations31. As a result, a Special Commission was put into place to examine the authenticity of these letters and, more generally, to investigate the possible connections between the National League and the more radical and revolutionary nationalist organisations.32 Even though the Times letters were eventually revealed to be forgeries,33 the fact remains that from 1887 onwards, the Conservatives followed a clear political strategy targeting Parnell and his party and aiming at discrediting both by associating them with crime and extreme nationalism. As Margaret Callaghan emphasises: The Special Commission was constructed to render the Irish parliamentary party constitutionally impotent, since it established them as criminals. (…) From 1876 to 1886 Irish nationalism had evolved from a crude agrarian base to a sophisticated political strategy. The achievement of Arthur Balfour’s Irish chief-secretaryship was to negate that development and remould the nature of the Irish challenge to a parody of the confused agrarian conspiracy of 1879-1881.34
25 It is obvious that such a strategy aiming at dismissing the Irish Parliamentary Party’s legitimacy by linking it to violence was already well-employed during the Home Rule debates of 1886.
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The Irish discourse split along sectarian lines?
The political context in Ireland
26 In Ireland, the Home Rule debates modified the political landscape. Prior to the electoral reforms of 1884 & 1885, Irish moderate nationalism had been revived under the leadership of Charles Stewart Parnell with the creation of the Irish National League (17 October 1882)35 and the introduction of strict rules for the future Irish MPs — in particular a solemn pledge “to vote, sit, and act with the Irish Parliamentary Party” (August 1884).36
27 As stated earlier, the Irish Parliamentary Party won 86 seats at the 1885 general elections, including 1 in Great Britain, which resulted in a hung Parliament. For the first time the nationalist party was the strongest party in Ireland, had won elections in Ulster and had enough seats compared to the Liberals and Conservatives to become the third political force in the House of Commons.37
28 At the same time, the electoral victory of the Irish nationalists as well as the conversion of Gladstone and a majority of British Liberals to Irish Home Rule led to a notable development of Irish unionism, especially in Ulster: a small “Ulster Party” or “Ulster Unionist Party” was formed in the House of Commons38 and was backed by diverse associations throughout Ireland — the Irish Loyal and Patriotic union created in May 1885 in Dublin; the Loyal Irish Union established in Belfast in August 188539 and, in 1886, the Ulster Loyalist anti-Repeal Committee (quickly renamed Ulster Loyalist anti- Repeal Union)40 as well as an Ulster Liberal Unionist Committee put into place in June.41
29 Reversing roles and creating the myth of an Irish civic nation: the Irish as potential model citizens
30 In these new circumstances, how did the Irish nationalist MPs led by Parnell respond to both their British and Irish critics? Was the claim of the Irish to self-government based on the assumption that the Irish could be responsible citizens if they were given their own institutions?
31 A couple of strategies can be identified in the Irish nationalist speeches delivered in the Commons between April and June 1886. The first strategy is based on an opposition of words and images and a reversal of roles between Britain and Ireland. While Conservatives and Unionists would emphasise that the Irish were too barbaric or too bigoted to be trusted with political autonomy, the Irish nationalist MPs, just like their Liberal allies, defended the idea that the Irish were civilised and politically astute enough to obtain their own local parliament and act responsibly in a self-governing entity. This strategy was adopted by prominent figures in the Irish Parliamentary Party such as T. D. Sullivan, Mayor of Dublin and MP for Dublin College Green: Lord Salisbury said that the Irish Representatives would not only say anything, but that they would swear anything. He charged them, not only with being liars and perjurers, but with sympathizing with all those criminal and evil doings which had occurred in their unfortunate country. But if they were such a class of men as that, why were they to be retained at Westminster for the protection of Imperial interests? They were charged with being the implacable enemies of the Empire, the irreconcilable enemies of England. If that were so, here it was, with their hands upon the springs of Imperial power, that they could, if such was their desire, on many and important and critical questions, do injury to the interests of this country and of the Empire.42
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32 In Ulster, where the Nationalists had managed to win 17 seats against 16 for the Conservatives, it was even more crucial to emphasise the political capability of the Irish people, especially of the Irish Catholics. That is why Timothy Healy, MP for South Londonderry, also highlighted the political experience acquired by the Irish by referring to some of the most prestigious Irish-born politicians such as Edmund Burke or the Duke of Wellington: I think that, taking them as a whole, we may claim for this Party — a Party coming here at a great distance from their farms, their workshops, counting-houses, and professions — that it represents as much intelligence, and, perhaps, although I should not say so, as much righteousness and conscientiousness as any other Party in this House. (…) I say, do they not show as much worth as the claimants of a monopoly of the intelligence, culture, and wealth of Ireland? We cannot admit North-East Ulster's modest claim to all the talents and all the virtues. When England wanted statesmen, she did not care from what part of Ireland she got them; she did not ask whether Burke was a Cork man or an Ulster man, or whether or not Lord Wolseley was a Northerner; and whenever the question was asked, the Duke of Wellington's capacity was allowed, although he was born near Dublin. Having had these products from Ireland in the past, having had the privilege of giving you Irish Premiers, and the leadership of Irish Generals, I venture to think that the people of Ireland are just as capable of carrying out a moderate and sober system of self-government as any people on the globe.43
33 Another strategy that can be identified in the Irish nationalist discourse in Parliament relies on the construction of new myths and images for the nation. A striking point of Parnell’s speech on 7 June 1886 is a reference he includes to the 18th century Irish Parliament also known as “Grattan’s Parliament.”44 There is no doubt that Parnell did not seriously consider re-establishing Grattan’s Parliament. However, referring to it was not fortuitous: as historian Olivier McDonagh has pointed out, Grattan’s Parliament was used as an “incantation”. In other words, it came to be mentioned by Parnell in the course of the debates because of its symbolic value as a founding event and important precedent in Irish political history. Referring to Grattan’s Parliament was a way for Parnell and his colleagues, through creating a sense of continuity in Irish history, to establish ties of kingship with a Protestant Parliament and to assert Ireland’s capacity to abide by parliamentary rules and become a peaceful self-governing nation. Thus Parnell could be seen here as turning Grattan’s Parliament into what historian Moses Finley has named an “ancestral constitution”, which gave legitimacy to the Irish nationalist claim that the Irish people had acquired plenty of perfectly valid political experience and should therefore be allowed to govern themselves.
34 Re-imagining Ireland was all the more crucial as the Irish nationalist MPs were faced with the necessity of addressing prophecies of civil war between Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants. In order to counteract suggestions by the Unionists of all sides that Catholics would persecute Protestants in a self-governed Ireland, Irish MPs repeatedly emphasised the possibility to reconcile communities into one nation with common memories, as in the case of John Dillon. We pledge ourselves to use our utmost influence and whatever popularity we possess to make the Bill acceptable to the Irish people, and to make it we pledge ourselves that whatever power we have with the Irish people shall be used to get this bill accepted, not alone in its letter, but in its spirit, as a means to unite our people and to govern the country with a view to its future prosperity.45
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35 Once more, history was instrumental in asserting the commitment of the Irish nationalists and Irish Catholics to the ideal of a united nation, as is shown by another Irish Parliamentary Party leader, William O’Brien: We are not afraid of their having the most ample power in our Irish parliament. We are bound by dear and sacred ties to our Protestant fellow -countrymen. In spite of what is said in this house, our country is one country. The race which gave us Grattan and Emmett, and Davitt, and Butt, and Parnell, is not a foreign race.46
Conclusion
36 With such words, the Irish parliamentary nationalists were offering a political alternative to strife and civil war. They were also forging what could be regarded as F0 another myth BE a “myth of union” (mythe de l’unité) to quote Raoul Girardet, or even a “ myth of the civic nation” to use the phrase coined by Bernard Yack.47 To stress the idea of possible harmony and peace in Ireland, Irish nationalist MPs and their leadership undertook to rebuild the nation on new foundations and thus stressed converging interests and cohesion while rejecting division. In other words Irish nationalist MPs defined an Irish nationality, which relied heavily on the notion of a common and shared citizenship transcending particular and individual differences, especially religious differences.
37 In La Communauté des citoyens, Sur l’idée moderne de nation (1994), Dominique Schnapper also evokes the nation as a civic community: La spécificité de la nation moderne consiste à intégrer toutes les populations en une communauté de citoyens (…). La nation se définit par son ambition de transcender par la citoyenneté des appartenances particulières, biologiques, historiques, économiques, sociales, religieuses ou culturelles.48
38 At the same time, like Girardet and Yack, Schnapper recognises the limits of purely abstract or imaginary representations of the civic nation and admits the possibility that the civic nation may turn out to be more a myth than a concrete possibility: Affirmer le principe de la citoyenneté ne suffirait pas en effet par soi seul à constituer une communauté de citoyens. Souveraineté et citoyenneté sont des fictions. On ne mobilise pas les individus sur des idées aussi abstraites. On ne peut les intégrer effectivement qu’au nom d’un certain nombre de réalités concrètes, valeurs et intérêts (…). On ne peut les intégrer que par l’action continue d’institutions communes, au sens large que Durkheim donne à ce terme, formes constituées de pratiques par lesquelles les générations se transmettent les manières d’être et de vivre ensemble caractéristiques d’une collectivité historique particulière.49
39 In the case of Ireland it appears that the Irish parliamentary nationalists dreamed the Irish nation as a civic nation transcending all differences but failed to acknowledge harsher realities such as the rise of Irish unionism and unionist discontent. This resulted in further political defeats about thirty years after 1886: despite being voted by the British Parliament and receiving royal assent in 1914, the third Home Rule Bill for Ireland was suspended; at the general elections of 1918 the Irish Parliamentary Party also lost considerable ground in Ireland to the more extreme and radical groups of Irish nationalists—notably Sinn Féin.
40 Pauline Collombier-Lakeman was awarded her PhD on the topic of Le discours des leaders du nationalisme constitutionnel irlandais sur l’autonomie de l’Irlande : utopies politiques et mythes identitaires from the Université Paris 3-Sorbonne Nouvelle in
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2007. Her current research work is focused on Irish parliamentary nationalism and on the relationship between Ireland and the British Empire. Recent publications include a contribution to G. Doherty (ed.), The Home Rule Crisis 1912-14, Cork: Mercier Press, 2014 & a book co-written with Prof. Peter Gray: La Grande Famine en Irlande, 1845-1851, Paris: Fahrenheit, 2015.
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Walker, Brian M., “The Irish electorate 1868-1915”, Irish Historical Studies XVIII (1973), pp. 359-406.
Walker, Brian M., Parliamentary Results in Ireland, 1801-1922 (Dublin, Royal Irish Academy, 1978).
Yack, B., “The myth of the civic nation” in Beiner, Ronald (ed.), Theorising Nationalism (Albany, State University of New York, 1999), pp. 103-118.
NOTES
1. ‘In all the independence movements in Europe and America in the 18th and 19th centuries, and in Asia and Africa in the 20th century, the claim for home rule was not distinct from the assertion of citizenship. It was in the name of citizenship that the colonised rebelled against the domination of European colonisers.’ D. Schnapper, Qu’est que la citoyenneté (Paris, Folio, 2000), p. 231. 2. S. Howe, Ireland and the Empire. Colonial legacies in Irish History and Culture, (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000). 3. P. Gray, “Ireland’s last fetter struck off”: the lord lieutenancy debate 1800-67”, in Terry McDonough (ed.), Was Ireland a Colony? (Dublin, Irish Academic Press, 2005) pp. 87-101. 4. K. T. Hoppen, “The franchise and electoral politics in England and Ireland, 1832-1885”, History 70 (January 1985), p. 215. See also B. M. Walker, “The Irish electorate 1868-1915”, Irish Historical Studies XVIII (1973), pp. 400-4. 5. Brian M. Walker, Parliamentary Results in Ireland, 1801-1922 (Dublin, Royal Irish Academy, 1978), p. XIII. 6. Lady G. Cecil, Life of Robert, Marquis of Salisbury (London, 1931), vol. III, pp. 125-64, notably p. 154. 7. Some historians have compared Gladstone’s change of heart on the issue of Irish Home Rule as a “conversion”. This is a contested version of the evolution of the Liberal’s leader attitude towards the Irish question. R. Shannon writes notably that “Gladstone’s becoming a Home Ruler
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commenced in November 1884 when Chamberlain having been encouraged by Gladstone since 1882 to keep fences mended with Parnell, concluded that the time was ripe for a big initiative of Irish local Government.” However he does acknowledge what he calls an “epiphanal moment”, “a precise moment (…) when Gladstone realized that he was a Home Ruler” which, according to him, took place “early in March.” (R. Shannon, Gladstone: Heroic Minister, 1865-1898 (London, Penguin, 1999), pp. 352 & 357-8). 8. Gladstone used former Liberal whip Lord Richard Grosvenor as his intermediary while Charles Stewart Parnell used his mistress Katherine O’Shea. During these exchanges Parnell submitted to Gladstone a “Draft Constitution for Ireland” (K. O’Shea, Charles Stewart Parnell: His Love Story and Political Life (New York, George H. Doran Compary, 1914), vol. II, p. 23-6 & J. L. Hammond, Gladstone and the Irish Nation (London, Frank Cass & Co, 1964), pp. 421-5). 9. Hansard, Parl. Deb., 3rd series, vol. 302, cols. 58-69. 10. Ibid., cols. 525-530 11. Ibid., cols. 533-4 & 541-2. 12. Ibid., vol. 304, cols. 1036-85. 13. C.H.D. Howard (ed.), A Political Memoir by Joseph Chamberlain, 1880-92 (London, The Batchwork Press, 1953), pp. 194-8. 14. Ibid., pp. 224-5. Chamberlain indicates that two votes took place. During the first vote (done by show of hands), 35 Liberal Unionists agreed to vote against the Bill and 13 decided in favour of abstention. During the second vote — a more official ballot — 45 Liberal Unionists chose to vote against the Bill. According to C. H. D. Howard, 39 and then 45 people actually opted for voting against the Bill (Ibid., p. 225, notes 1 et 2). 15. W. C. Lubenow, Parliamentary Politics and the Home Rule Crisis (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1988), p. 338. 16. Hansard, Parl. Deb., 3rd series, vol. 304, col. 1039 (8 April 1886). 17. Ibid., cols. 1044-5. 18. Ibid., col. 1083. 19. Ibid., cols. 1275-7 (9 April 1886). 20. Hansard, Parl. Deb, 3rd series, vol. 306, cols. 58 & 67 (25 May 1886). 21. Ibid., vol. 304, col. 1520 (13 April 1886). 22. Ibid., vol. 305, cols. 621-2 (10 May 1886). 23. Hansard, Parl. Deb., 3rd series, vol. 305, col. 644 (E. Ashmead-Bartlett, 10 May 1886). 24. Ibid., cols. 987-8 & 994 (Lord G. F. Hamilton, 13 May 1886). 25. Ibid., vol. 306, cols. 1163-4 (G. Goschen, 7 June 1886). 26. Hansard, Parl. Deb., 3rd series, vol.305, cols. 369 & 372 (28 May 1886). 27. A. Hadfield, Strangers to that Land: British Perceptions of Ireland from the Reformation to the Famine (Gerrards Cross, Colin Smythe, 1994), p. 148. See also Edward E. Lengel, The Irish through British Eyes: Perceptions of Ireland in the Famine Era (Wesport, Praeger, 2002). 28. L. Perry Curtis Jr., Apes and Angels, the Irishman in Victorian Caricature (Washington, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997), p. 146. 29. The Times, 20 August 1887. 30. Ibid., 7, 10 et 14 March 1887; 18, 19, 20 & 21 April 1887 ; 2, 9, 13 & 20 May 1887 et 1er, 7, 13, 23 & 30 June 1887. 31. The first letter dated from 15 May 1882, was published on 18 April 1888. A second letter, dated from 9 January 1882 and addressed to the President of the National Executive Committee of the Irish National League of America Patrick Egan, was published in July 1888. Both texts can be read in P. Bew, Charles Stewart Parnell (Dublin, Gill & Macmillan, 1980), pp. 100 & 105. 32. Parl. Deb., 3rd series, vol. 328, col. 1495 (17 July 1887). The Special Commission worked between September 1888 and November 1889 and published a report in February 1890. (Special Commission Act of 1888, Reprint of the Shorthand Notes of the Speeches, Proceedings, and
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Evidence Taken Before the Commissioners Appointed Under the Above-Named Act, 1890). Charles Stewart Parnell was heard by the Commission between 30 April and 8 May 1888. 33. In February 1889, the Special Commission indicated that the letters had been forged by a man called Richard Pigott. (Freeman’s Journal, 23 & 27 February 1889) 34. M. O’Callaghan, British High Politics and a Nationalist Ireland: Criminality, Land and the Law Under Forster and Balfour (Cork, Cork University Press, 1994), pp. 114 & 118. Callaghan seems to suggest that the Conservatives were successful in undermining Parnell’s efforts and achievements (Ibid., p. 113) — an analysis shared by her colleague Alvin Jackson: “while Parnell was triumphantly vindicated, links between other ostensible constitutionalists and criminality had been firmly established, and a wider relationship between the Home Rule movement and militancy had been posited. The constitutionalist revision of Parnell’s approach, which Gladstone so welcomed, had therefore been decisively checked” (A. Jackson, Home Rule, An Irish History 1800-2000 (London, Wiedenfeld & Nicolson, 2003), p. 74). 35. Freeman’s Journal, 18 octobre 1882. 36. T. Healy, Letters and Leaders of My Day (London, 1928), vol. I, p. 205 & E. Curtis & R. B. McDowell (eds), Irish Historical Documents 1172-1922 (London, Methuen, 1968), p. 281. 37. W.C. Lubenow, Parliamentary Politics and the Home Rule Crisis (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1988) pp. 49-50 & 160. 38. Irish Times, 22 January 1886. As early as December 1885, Edward Saunderson, the new Conservative MP for North Armagh, had contemplated creating a distinct group of loyalist MPs in the Commons. This new party was officially launched at the Carlton Club on 24 January. From 1885 to 1918, this group of Irish unionists never had more than 23 MPs, but never fewer than 19.Despite being small it had a couple of secretaries who also acted as whips as well as a chairman (first Edward Saunderson until his death in 1906, then Walter Long from November 1906 to January 1910, and finally Edward Carson). However this party was never a fourth force in the British Parliament: “the pose of a separate ‘Fourth Party’ was a sham, for the Ulster group could exist only within the broad confines of Conservatism.” (A. Jackson, The Ulster Party, Irish Unionists in the House of Commons, 1884-1911 (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1989), pp. 44-46 & 52) 39. Irish Times, 26 October & 10 August 1885. 40. Belfast Newsletter, 9 January & 1 May 1886. 41. I. Cawood, The Liberal Unionist Party, A History (London, I. B. Tauris, 2012), p. 145. 42. Hansard, Parl. Deb., 3rd series, vol. 305, col. 1348 (18 May 1886). 43. Hansard, Parl. Deb., 3rd series, vol. 306, cols. 115-6 (25 May 1886) 44. Ibid., vol. 306, col. 1172 (7 June 1886). 45. Ibid., vol. 305, col. 997 (13 May 1886) 46. Ibid., col. 631 (10 May 1886). 47. R. Girardet, Mythes et mythologies politiques (Paris, Seuil, 1986), pp. 153-4 & B. Yack, “The myth of the civic nation” in R. Beiner (ed.), Theorising Nationalism (Albany, State University of New York, 1999), pp. 107 & 115. 48. ‘The modern nation has a specificity - it combines all populations into one community of citizens (...). A nation is defined by the ambition to use citizenship in order to transcend particular affiliations, whether they are biological (...), historical, economic, social, religious or cultural.’ D. Schnapper, La Communauté des citoyens, Sur l’idée moderne de nation (Paris, Gallimard, 1994), p. 49. 49. Ibid., p. 50.
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ABSTRACTS
This paper examines the relationship between nationality and citizenship in contexts of political and colonial domination. This relationship is explored through the study of the 1886 House of Commons debates on Irish Home Rule and the analysis of some of the speeches delivered by British and Irish MPs.
Cet article cherche à examiner la relation existant entre nationalité et citoyenneté dans des contextes de domination politique et coloniale. Cette relation est ici étudiée à travers un exemple spécifique: celui des débats parlementaires de 1886 concernant l’autonomie législative de l’Irlande ou Home Rule, au cours desquels députes britanniques et irlandais associèrent diversement les deux notions.
INDEX
Mots-clés: nationalisme irlandais, home rule irlandais, unionisme, parti parlementaire irlandais Keywords: Irish nationalism, Irish Home Rule, unionism, Irish Parliamentary Party
AUTHOR
PAULINE COLLOMBIER-LAKEMAN Université de Strasbourg
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« Citoyens » ou « syndicalistes » ? Conceptions antagonistes de la citoyenneté dans les débats sur la régulation du monde du travail (1968-1997) Citizens or Trade Unionists? Conflicting Conceptions of Citizenship in the Debates Over Work Regulation (1968-1997)
Marc Lenormand
Introduction
1 L’enjeu de cet article est de penser l’histoire du mouvement syndical dans le second XXe siècle à travers la catégorie de « citoyen », une catégorie envisagée par les syndicalistes comme complémentaire ou antagoniste de celle de « syndicaliste », et réciproquement d’éclairer les conceptions britanniques de la citoyenneté à travers leurs usages et leurs applications dans le mouvement syndical et la sphère des relations professionnelles, des champs longtemps marginaux par rapport aux champs politiques et juridiques qui sont les champs premiers de définition de la notion de citoyenneté.
2 Les deux premières sections de cet article reviendront sur les définitions de la citoyenneté par rapport auxquelles les syndicats et syndicalistes britanniques se positionnent, et les définitions qu’il est possible de mobiliser, en tant que chercheur ou chercheuse, pour situer le mouvement syndical dans les champs juridiques et politiques. Les catégories proposées par T.H. Marshall dans son article fondateur seront ainsi infléchies, par l’introduction de la catégorie de citoyenneté formelle et le déplacement du sens de ce que Marshall nomme citoyenneté politique et citoyenneté sociale.
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3 Le déploiement successif de deux logiques antagonistes dans le second XXe siècle britannique sera ensuite examiné : tout d’abord la promotion, dans les années 1970, d’une citoyenneté sociale, ancrée dans la participation syndicale, contre des citoyennetés de type politique et formel ; ensuite l’inversion de cette logique dans les années 1980, lorsque les citoyennetés formelle et politique sont réévaluées face à l’offensive thatchérienne contre la participation syndicale.
Apports et limites du modèle marshallien de la citoyenneté pour une analyse des programmes syndicaux
4 Le texte fondateur des réflexions sur la citoyenneté dans la seconde moitié du XXe siècle a été publié à l’orée de celui-ci, en 1950, par le sociologue britannique T.H. Marshall. Dans un contexte marqué simultanément par les effets de la Guerre et des réformes travaillistes et par la tentative de concilier égalité sociale et libéralisme économique dans le cadre d’une économie mixte, Marshall interroge la tension entre citoyenneté et classe sociale, entre la logique du statut social conférant des droits égaux, et la logique contractuelle du capitalisme libéral qui fonde les inégalités persistantes dans la société britannique.
5 Marshall propose une typologie qui distingue trois composantes au sein de la catégorie de citoyenneté, qu’il comprend de manière générale comme le fait d’être accepté comme un membre à part entière de la communauté1 : la citoyenneté civique, qui a trait aux droits individuels, et dont les institutions centrales sont le contrat et les cours de justice ; la citoyenneté politique, qui désigne la participation à l’exercice du pouvoir politique par les institutions de représentation locales et nationales ; la citoyenneté sociale enfin, qui correspond à l’accès à la sécurité matérielle et à un bien-être relatif, assurés généralement par la jouissance de biens socialisés. Ces trois composantes se sont développées et étendues à l’ensemble de la population successivement, non sans présenter de contradictions entre elles, puisque les décisions prises par les institutions de la citoyenneté politique, comme la collectivisation de certains secteurs d’activité, tout comme les mécanismes de protection sociale, contreviennent aux principes contractuels individualistes de la citoyenneté civique, ou du moins tendent à en limiter le périmètre2.
6 L’émergence au XIXe siècle de revendications collectives des travailleurs et travailleuses portées par des syndicats constitue pour Marshall un lieu privilégié pour observer la concurrence entre ces trois composantes de la citoyenneté, et leur infléchissement. En effet, avant même que l’ensemble des travailleurs et travailleuses n’accèdent à la citoyenneté politique, ce qui n’est le cas qu’à partir de l’entre-deux-guerres, la pression exercée par les syndicats est régulée par la légalisation du principe de la négociation collective, qui infléchit fortement les principes fondamentaux de la citoyenneté civique en établissant une forme de citoyenneté civique collective pour les travailleurs et travailleuses organisés dans des syndicats. C’est donc par le contrat, mais un contrat négocié collectivement, que les syndicats commencent à envisager l’acquisition de droits sociaux.
7 Dans ce que Marshall qualifie de « citoyenneté syndicale » (« industrial citizenship »)3, on perçoit bien les tensions qui se développent au XXe siècle entre la voie parlementaire
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d’amélioration des conditions de vie des travailleurs et travailleuses, et la voie de l’action syndicale autonome. Il apparaît cependant nécessaire d’apporter des inflexions au modèle marshallien de la citoyenneté pour rendre compte des programmes politiques divergents qui se développent au sein du mouvement syndical dans la seconde moitié du XXe siècle. Tout d’abord, si les principes des citoyennetés civique, politique et sociale évoquées sont souvent divergents, voire contradictoires, ces différentes composantes de la citoyenneté sont néanmoins pensées par Marshall dans un cadre théorique pluraliste et gradualiste. Précisément parce qu’il s’agit de composantes de la citoyenneté identifiées de manière analytique, le cadre général de l’État national britannique n’est pas susceptible de remise en cause : l’articulation entre ces différentes composantes de la citoyenneté reflète l’évolution des aspirations des différents acteurs et secteurs de la société, et en permet l’évolution graduelle et pacifique, y compris vers le socialisme que Marshall voit poindre en 1950. Celui-ci envisage de simples ajustements dans le rapport entre ces composantes de la citoyenneté et entre leurs principes individualistes et collectivistes, niant la possibilité d’un conflit irréductible entre des conceptions formelles et individualistes de la citoyenneté, et des conceptions substantielles et collectivistes de celle-ci. S’il envisage la façon dont le développement des composantes de la citoyenneté peut déplacer fortement la structure de classe de la société britannique, il n’envisage pas cette structure de classe comme le produit dynamique de rapports de forces entre groupes aux intérêts divergents, ni les principes antagonistes des composantes de la citoyenneté qu’il a identifiées comme les formes idéologiques de ces rapports de force entre groupes. Par rapport au cadre marshallien d’analyse de la citoyenneté, cet article propose donc ici un déplacement marxiste vers une analyse politique et idéologique des différentes composantes de la citoyenneté, comme autant de conceptions antagonistes de la citoyenneté, comme autant de modèles politiques en conflit.
8 De la même manière, lorsque Marshall évoque une « citoyenneté syndicale », il donne à penser, de manière fonctionnaliste, que les composantes de la citoyenneté sont le simple produit de préférences institutionnelles : les juges privilégieraient une citoyenneté de type civique, les parlementaires une citoyenneté de type politique, les syndicalistes une citoyenneté de type syndical. C’est une observation sociologique indéniable, mais qui de nouveau tend à dépolitiser la question de la citoyenneté, et à ignorer les divergences politiques entre juges sur ce qu’est la citoyenneté civique – irréductiblement individualiste ou compatible avec les revendications d’acteurs collectifs –, entre parlementaires sur les principes de représentation auxquels ils répondent – représentants de la nation britanniques ou des intérêts spécifiques d’une classe –, enfin entre syndicalistes sur les enjeux de la citoyenneté syndicale : moyen efficace de défendre les intérêts économiques d’un groupe de travailleurs et de travailleuses ; outil d’organisation collective de la classe ouvrière en vue d’obtenir une large palette de droits sociaux ; ébauche d’une transformation radicale de la société au profit des dominés. Ici encore, la question des objectifs politiques associés à la promotion d’un type de citoyenneté doit revenir au premier plan.
9 Enfin, la typologie de Marshall ignore une spécificité de la politique ouvrière, et tout particulièrement de la politique ouvrière britannique : le fait qu’en dépit de son orientation libérale et gradualiste, le parti travailliste, organisation politique dominante au sein du mouvement ouvrier, se pense pendant la majeure partie du XXe siècle comme le parti d’une classe, la classe ouvrière. Ceci amène à nuancer l’argument
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de Marshall selon lequel la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle et la première moitié du XXe siècle auraient été marquées par une relative individualisation de la citoyenneté politique, concomitante à une relative collectivisation de la citoyenneté civique, et de nouveau à privilégier une compréhension politique des conceptions divergentes de la citoyenneté, par rapport à une compréhension fonctionnaliste faisant dériver les principes politiques et les idéologies des caractéristiques des institutions auxquelles Marshall rattache les différentes composantes de la citoyenneté.
Trois modèles de citoyenneté ouvrière : formelle, politique et sociale
10 Vis-à-vis de la typologie de Marshall, un déplacement triple peut donc être ici proposé, vers des catégories qui correspondent aux programmes politiques antagonistes mobilisés dans les débats syndicaux, et plus largement dans les débats sur les relations professionnelles, ce qui nécessite de revenir aux conceptions indigènes des acteurs syndicaux et politiques.
11 Tout d’abord, la question de la composante civique de la citoyenneté se pose avec une moindre acuité dans l’histoire du mouvement syndical britannique puisque, comme Marshall le rappelle, la protection légale des libertés individuelles s’applique à l’ensemble de la population à partir du premier tiers du XIXe siècle. En ce qui concerne le primat accordé au contrat dans la logique de la citoyenneté civique, celui-ci peut être rapproché du principe de représentation indirecte et individuelle qui se met en place dans le cadre du déploiement progressif de la citoyenneté que Marshall nomme « politique » : ces différents éléments peuvent dès lors être rassemblés dans une même catégorie, celle de la citoyenneté formelle, idéologiquement individualiste. Les catégories de citoyenneté politique et de citoyenneté sociale proposées ici divergent donc très fortement de leurs définitions dans le modèle marshallien, puisqu’il s’agit ici de décrire les deux modalités complémentaires et concurrentes selon lesquelles est pensée la participation aux décisions affectant la communauté au sein du mouvement ouvrier britannique : d’un côté la voie travailliste de la représentation parlementaire des intérêts des travailleurs et des travailleuses ; de l’autre la voie syndicale de l’action collective par les travailleurs et les travailleuses.
12 Cela revient à adopter la terminologie indigène d’un mouvement ouvrier qui distingue traditionnellement ses ailes sociale et politique. En effet, pendant l’essentiel du XXe siècle, le rapport des travailleurs et des organisations syndicales britanniques à la citoyenneté, définie comme la possibilité formelle ou pratique de participer aux décisions orientant la vie de la communauté, a été guidé par deux logiques principales et clairement distinctes : d’un côté la participation politique à la démocratie parlementaire, qui a pu prendre le simple aspect formel du vote ou l’aspect substantiel et politique de l’engagement travailliste ; de l’autre la participation syndicale à la régulation du monde du travail, sphère pour partie exclue du contrôle des institutions parlementaires entre 1906 et 1982. Une telle typologie des modèles de citoyenneté ouvrière peut s’appuyer sur l’histoire des stratégies syndicales et ouvrières depuis la fin du XIXe siècle.
13 Le suffrage a été progressivement étendu en Grande-Bretagne, entre 1832 et 1928, par une série de textes législatifs. Les lois de réforme de 1867 et 1884 notamment ont
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permis à une fraction importante de la classe ouvrière masculine de voter. De ce point de vue, le critère minimal de la citoyenneté comme droit formel de participer à la vie de la cité, en l’occurrence dans une démocratie parlementaire moderne en votant, a ainsi été validé progressivement.
14 La distinction entre une conception légale et formelle et une conception substantielle et politique de la citoyenneté, à savoir l’idée que le seul vote ne suffisait pas à garantir la représentation efficace au Parlement des intérêts des travailleurs, est apparue avec clarté dans les dernières années du XIXe siècle et a conduit à la constitution du parti travailliste au tournant du XXe siècle, afin de garantir la représentation des intérêts des travailleurs par des travailleurs à la Chambre des communes. On a donc là le fondement de cette forme politique de citoyenneté spécifique à la classe ouvrière britannique : l’intégration des ouvriers aux institutions politiques non seulement par leur seul vote, mais par la présence de leurs représentants au sein des institutions4.
15 Une telle forme de participation n’a cependant pas été sans heurts, puisque les représentants du mouvement ouvrier ont souvent eu tendance à s’autonomiser par rapport à leurs soutiens, conduisant comme en 1931 à des crises démontrant la capacité du système parlementaire à déconnecter les députés travaillistes des intérêts ouvriers qu’ils représentaient, et conduisant le parti à renforcer son contrôle sur sa représentation parlementaire. On voit ici comment la formation du parti travailliste et son émergence comme force électorale majeure, loin de faire primer une citoyenneté politique sur une citoyenneté formelle, a en fait déplacé au sein même du mouvement ouvrier les tensions entre les deux modes de participation et de légitimité propres à ces deux formes de citoyenneté.
16 Cette insatisfaction à l’égard de la représentation parlementaire issue des lois de réforme du XIXe siècle a conduit à un processus à la fois simultané et antagoniste : en même temps que les syndicats cherchaient à obtenir par l’intermédiaire du parti travailliste nouvellement créé des formes directes de participation politique et d’influence sur la législation, ils obtenaient des libéraux, arrivés au pouvoir en 1906 avec le soutien des travaillistes, l’exclusion par la loi de 1906 de la régulation juridique et judiciaire des contentieux entre syndicats et employeurs. Dès lors, dans ce domaine, la participation aux décisions orientant les relations professionnelles n’était plus de l’ordre de la citoyenneté formelle ou de la citoyenneté politique, mais de l’ordre de la citoyenneté sociale, sous la forme d’une participation aux activités syndicales5.
17 Le rapport entre citoyenneté sociale et citoyenneté politique est envisagé comme complémentaire, les syndicats affiliés au TUC, la confédération des syndicats britanniques, l’étant pour la plupart aussi au parti travailliste. Le lien organisationnel entre mouvement syndical et mouvement travailliste est très fort, les deux se recoupant en de multiples points, mais c’est précisément ce redoublement très complet des fonctions des deux ailes du mouvement ouvrier – syndicale et politique – qui suggère qu’ils opèrent dans des champs distincts possédant leurs règles et leurs formes de légitimation spécifiques.
18 Le rapport entre citoyenneté sociale et citoyenneté formelle est en revanche longtemps conçu comme antagoniste, la législation et le droit étant considérés comme l’arme de l’ establishment contre l’organisation collective des travailleurs : c’est le cas tant de la common law sur laquelle les juges s’appuient jusqu’en 1906 pour briser l’action collective, que de la législation que les conservateurs promettent régulièrement de
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rendre plus hostile aux syndicats, ce qui est d’ailleurs le cas entre 1927 et l’après- guerre.
19 On rappellera ainsi qu’à l’opposé du modèle français où les droits qui fondent la citoyenneté sociale sont individuels et positifs ou même constitutionnels, les travailleurs britanniques ne bénéficient pas jusqu’aux années 1970 de tels droits, mais seulement d’une capacité d’action collective spécifiquement protégée de toute régulation juridique ou judiciaire par la loi de 1906. Par-delà l’expérience de l’usage du droit et de la loi comme arme anti-syndicale, on rappellera ici une spécificité constitutionnelle et juridique du Royaume-Uni, à savoir la fusion des différentes formes de droit en raison notamment de l’absence de constitution écrite et unitaire. Acquérir des droits constitue une perspective et une garantie de moindre importance dans un système institutionnel où ces droits ne peuvent jamais accéder au statut de droits fondamentaux, mais demeurent des droits positifs soumis aux revirements des conjonctures politiques.
20 Tous les syndicalistes ne se satisfont pas cependant, dans cette période où la régulation des relations professionnelles est laissée par défaut aux employeurs et aux syndicats, d’un système fondé sur la seule capacité d’action des organisations de travailleurs. Dans des secteurs où le taux de syndicalisation est faible, ou dans lesquels les syndicats ne sont pas en mesure d’obtenir de bonnes conditions de travail et de salaire, comme les services publics ou l’agriculture, des organisations de travailleurs comme la National Union of Public Employees défendent un programme de régulation par la loi des relations professionnelles, et sont favorables au principe d’un salaire minimum inscrit dans la loi. Jusque dans les années 1980, cette position demeure minoritaire, et toute tentative d’orienter les revendications syndicales vers l’acquisition de droits formels est contrée par les syndicats de l’industrie, majoritaires dans les instances de direction du mouvement syndical.
21 C’est donc à l’aune des tensions entre ces formes redéfinies de citoyenneté ouvrière – formelle, politique et sociale – que les débats sur la place du mouvement syndical dans la société britannique entre la fin des années 1960 et la fin des années 1990 peuvent être examinés.
« Industrial democracy » : l’extension du domaine de la citoyenneté sociale (1968-1979)
22 Au cours des quinze années qui séparent 1964 de 1979, les travaillistes sont au pouvoir pendant onze ans. Ces périodes de gouvernement travailliste sont des moments de tension entre la direction parlementaire du parti travailliste et le mouvement syndical. En dépit des efforts du TUC pour maintenir l’unité du mouvement ouvrier au profit du gouvernement, des syndicats affiliés au TUC et souvent au parti travailliste lui-même mènent des grèves dures contre les politiques d’austérité menées par le gouvernement. Le principal exemple en est les vagues de grèves qui, en 1968-1970 et de nouveau en 1977-1979, contestent les politiques de contrôle des revenus menées par les travaillistes au pouvoir.
23 Les deux formes de citoyenneté – politique et syndicale – et leurs deux formes de légitimité correspondantes – parlementaire et syndicale – entrent en collision lors de ces conflits : le gouvernement travailliste en appelle à la défense des intérêts nationaux
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lors de la grève des marins en 1967 et de nouveau lors des conflits chez les pompiers en 1977-1978, ou chez les routiers et les travailleurs et travailleuses des services publics en 1978-1979.
24 Les gouvernements conservateurs font certes de même, aussi bien le gouvernement Heath en 1970-1974 que plus tard les gouvernements Thatcher et Major, mais les parlementaires travaillistes peuvent alors affirmer qu’il s’agit d’une perversion de la légitimité parlementaire et de l’appel à l’intérêt national, et esquisser une réconciliation de la citoyenneté politique et de la citoyenneté sociale lorsqu’ils seront de nouveau au pouvoir.
25 C’est donc bien lorsque les travaillistes se prévalent de la légitimité parlementaire contre la légitimité syndicale que citoyenneté politique et citoyenneté sociale apparaissent clairement dans leur antagonisme. Ce contexte est favorable au développement du programme dit de la « démocratie sociale » (« industrial democracy »), qui se développe dans le mouvement ouvrier pendant le gouvernement Wilson de 1964-1970, dont les promesses de régénération de l’économie britannique grâce à la planification et au progrès technologique font long feu.
26 Le terme de « démocratie sociale » permet de rassembler ce qui est en vérité un ensemble assez hétérogène de programmes syndicaux6. Ce qui unit néanmoins les partisans d’une plus grande consultation des organisations syndicales, celles et ceux qui défendent une participation des travailleurs à la gestion des entreprises, celles et ceux qui ont fait du contrôle ouvrier leur mot d’ordre, et celles et ceux enfin qui appellent à l’autogestion ouvrière, c’est la conviction commune que la sphère des relations professionnelles est le lieu décisif de l’accroissement du pouvoir des travailleurs, par rapport aux promesses déçues du travaillisme parlementaire : la conviction donc que la citoyenneté sociale, c’est-à-dire la participation immédiate des travailleurs à la régulation du monde du travail à travers leur organisation collective dans des syndicats est l’enjeu majeur pour le mouvement ouvrier. Il est cependant utile de préciser la façon dont les différents programmes articulent les catégories de « citoyen » et de « syndicaliste », et les trois formes de citoyenneté identifiées précédemment.
27 Pour les militants autogestionnaires qui se réunissent à partir de 1964 autour des universitaires d’extrême gauche Ken Coates et Michael Barrat Brown, l’organisation collective dans des syndicats et l’accroissement du contrôle exercé par ces derniers sur l’organisation du travail constitue une forme de citoyenneté sociale révolutionnaire, appelée à rendre obsolète la citoyenneté politique promue par le parti travailliste et la citoyenneté formelle des élections parlementaires. Il s’agit de faire du monde du travail le véritable siège de la politique ouvrière, au détriment de la représentation parlementaire7.
28 Le thème de la « démocratie sociale » ne connaît cependant pas que des déclinaisons radicales. Il a d’ailleurs été popularisé par les intellectuels fabiens Sidney et Beatrice Webb dans un ouvrage éponyme8. À mesure que les conférences annuelles organisées par Coates, Barrat Brown et leurs collègues attirent un nombre croissant de syndicalistes dans la seconde moitié des années 1960, la thématique de la démocratie sociale fait aussi son apparition dans les débats annuels du TUC.
29 Dans le programme qui s’impose progressivement à la TUC entre 1968 et 1974, sous l’influence notamment du principal syndicat, la TGWU, ancrée au centre-gauche du mouvement, il n’est plus question de balayer la citoyenneté politique et citoyenneté
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formelle pour faire place à une citoyenneté sociale révolutionnaire. C’est au contraire une convergence des trois qui est proposée, puisque l’ambition est d’obtenir du gouvernement travailliste en place, puis entre 1970 et 1974 du gouvernement travailliste à venir, qu’il légifère pour garantir une participation croissante des travailleurs à la gestion des entreprises publiques et privées, tant par un droit de regard sur les livres de compte des entreprises que par la désignation, par les syndicats, de travailleurs administrateurs dans les conseils d’administration des entreprises9.
30 On le voit, l’écart est grand entre ces deux programmes de démocratie sociale, le contrôle ouvrier prélude à l’autogestion d’une part et la participation à la gestion des entreprises dans le cadre d’une économie mixte de l’autre. Dans ces deux cas cependant, le rapport traditionnel de complémentarité et d’opposition entre « citoyen » et « syndicaliste » est remis en cause, que la catégorie de « citoyen » soit rabattue sur celle de « syndicaliste » comme dans le cas des projets les plus radicaux, ou que les deux catégories fusionnent comme dans les projets de participation.
31 C’est ce qui explique l’hostilité dont ces programmes font l’objet, de la part de plusieurs factions antagonistes. Après une phase de méfiance et d’incertitude quant aux potentialités de ces programmes, le parti communiste et ses relais syndicaux se prononcent dans les années 1970 contre des programmes qui, pensés en terme de participation sociale ou politique ou en terme d’acquisition de droits, sont fondamentalement réformistes et font le jeu de l’ordre capitaliste bourgeois. Mais plus encore que les communistes, la droite syndicale se prononce contre tout programme de « démocratie sociale » dès les premiers débats sur la question au TUC, voyant dans la fusion des sphères sociale et politique un dangereux mélange, là où les syndicalistes de droite se contentent de demander et d’obtenir des concessions salariales de la part du patronat dans le cadre de la division capitaliste du travail. Enfin, les conservateurs sont radicalement hostiles à ces programmes, la démocratie sociale ayant pour contrepartie l’affaiblissement patronal et le renforcement d’un mouvement syndical qui joue un rôle de contrepoids, voire de pôle de résistance au système parlementaire.
32 Dans les faits, les années 1970 ont été une période d’extension réelle, quoique limitée, de la capacité d’action des travailleurs par la voie syndicale, comme de leurs droits formels. Le gouvernement conservateur d’Edward Heath, soucieux de ramener la régulation des relations professionnelles sous le coup de la loi, a accordé via l’Industrial Relations Act de 1971 des droits individuels nouveaux aux travailleurs, en contrepartie de contraintes accrues sur les activités des syndicats. La résistance passive du TUC a eu raison des contraintes imposées aux organisations syndicales, abolies en 1974 lorsque les travaillistes sont revenus au pouvoir, cependant que les droits individuels des travailleurs et leurs droits collectifs syndicaux étaient étendus par la législation travailliste.
33 Ce même gouvernement travailliste a promu dans les entreprises publiques, à la poste notamment, le principe de la participation à la gestion des entreprises sous la forme de travailleurs administrateurs. En revanche, dans les entreprises privées, le gouvernement s’est montré plus circonspect, commandant un rapport, tardif et modéré, qu’il ne trouve pas le temps de mettre en œuvre avant sa chute en mai 197910. La démocratie sociale est d’ailleurs en reflux dans la seconde moitié des années 1970 : tout d’abord, les luttes qui ont opposé le mouvement syndical aux tentatives des gouvernements Wilson et Heath de recourir à la loi pour neutraliser leur activité, en 1969 et en 1971, ont ébranlé les défenseurs de l’extension de la démocratie sociale par
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la loi. Ensuite, la priorité du mouvement syndical à partir de 1974 est clairement d’obtenir une inflexion des politiques économiques du gouvernement travailliste, dans le sens de politiques de relance visant à maintenir l’activité et l’emploi11.
34 Une fois de plus, le travaillisme semble faillir à mettre en œuvre un programme économique favorable aux intérêts des travailleurs et de leurs organisations. Comme lors de précédentes crises suscitées au sein du mouvement ouvrier par les politiques économiques anti-sociales menées par un gouvernement travailliste, la priorité pour les organisations syndicales est donc à la fin des années 1970 de rétablir le lien de représentation qui les unit au parti travailliste pour que celui-ci redevienne un outil de participation politique des organisations de travailleurs.
Le moment thatchérien : briser la représentation politique directe et la démocratie participative syndicale
35 Les politiques menées dans les années 1980 et 1990 par les gouvernements conservateurs conduisent à un renversement profond des logiques syndicales, sociale comme politique, d’extension et de renforcement de la citoyenneté. Pour un parti conservateur qui défend le système parlementaire contre des contrepouvoirs qu’il considère comme subversifs, et pour lequel seule la citoyenneté formelle est légitime, les formes politique et sociale de citoyenneté doivent être abolies, ou sinon brisées.12
36 La politique de neutralisation et de répression du mouvement syndical menée par les conservateurs dès leur arrivée au pouvoir vise ces objectifs : la marginalisation du TUC désormais indésirable dans les ministères, les lois anti-syndicales qui entravent progressivement la capacité d’action des organisations de travailleurs13, enfin la répression policière et judiciaire féroce à l’encontre des syndicalistes qui refusent le nouvel ordre thatchérien, ont pour objet d’anéantir la citoyenneté sociale, de nier la possibilité pour les syndicats d’être un outil d’expression individuelle et collective des travailleurs et de manifestation de leur pouvoir de classe.
37 Un autre moyen de briser la citoyenneté sociale est d’imposer aux syndicats, contre la tradition de démocratie participative des organisations syndicales et contre les logiques d’action collective dont le syndicalisme est porteur, le modèle de la citoyenneté formelle des élections représentatives. La loi anti-syndicale de 1984 est ainsi une loi qui contraint le fonctionnement interne des syndicats en leur imposant un modèle électoral. Enfin, la spécificité du travaillisme comme forme de citoyenneté politique pour les travailleurs et leurs organisations fait également l’objet d’attaques de la part du gouvernement conservateur, lorsqu’à travers cette même loi de 1984 il tente de supprimer le système d’affiliation des organisations syndicales au parti, affiliation en vertu de laquelle le parti travailliste n’obéit pas seulement à la logique de la représentation parlementaire, mais aussi à la logique de la représentation des intérêts de classe des travailleurs.
38 Il ne faudrait pourtant pas penser l’histoire du mouvement syndical dans les années 1980 sous la seule forme du reflux, et du deuil progressif de l’extension de la citoyenneté sociale. Ces mêmes années voient aussi la poursuite et l’aboutissement de processus engagés dans les années 1970. Pour les militants les plus radicaux du mouvement ouvrier, la participation aux syndicats constitue une forme de citoyenneté
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sociale, démocratique, collective et immédiate, appelée à remplacer la citoyenneté formelle et à revigorer la citoyenneté politique travailliste compromise par sa soumission aux règles du parlementarisme. Si le mouvement syndical constitue ainsi l’ébauche de la société socialiste et démocratique à venir, alors les formes de participation qu’ils offrent aux travailleurs et aux travailleuses sont redevables d’un examen critique. Au nom donc de la primauté de la citoyenneté sociale, le fonctionnement des syndicats est donc également critiqué par la gauche radicale, ce qui aboutit dès les années 1970 à des réorganisations visant à encourager la participation des adhérentes et des adhérents, et à partir de la seconde moitié des années 1970 à la mise en œuvre de dispositifs visant à faciliter la participation et la représentation des diverses minorités politiques du mouvement syndical, notamment les femmes et les minorités dites visibles.14
Conclusion : Le recentrage du mouvement syndical et la réévaluation de la citoyenneté formelle
39 Cette orientation a perduré jusqu’aujourd’hui. Après un moment de recul, ou du moins de relégation au second plan dans les priorités syndicales au tournant des années 1990, la vision du syndicalisme comme forme de citoyenneté sociale, comme outil de participation des travailleurs aux décisions qui affectent leurs conditions d’existence, a été remise au premier plan du programme syndical.
40 Les syndicats britanniques ont certes remisé aussi bien leur espoir de participer de manière décisive à la gestion des entreprises – en dépit de promesses de dernière minute faites en ce sens par le gouvernement Brown avant sa chute en 2010 – que leur aspiration à exercer un rétro-contrôle permanent face à des directions d’entreprise en faveur desquelles trois décennies de reprise en main néo-libérale ont fait pencher la balance des relations professionnelles de manière décisive.
41 En revanche, l’idée demeure au sein du TUC que le syndicalisme doit continuer d’être une des manifestations les plus importantes de la force de l’action collective, en arrachant de temps à autre des victoires réelles et symboliques. Les initiatives des quinze à vingt dernières années vont dans ce sens : alliances avec le milieu associatif, campagnes de recrutement dans des secteurs faiblement syndiqués, défense des services publics – le mouvement syndical continue d’être le principal outil d’exercice d’une citoyenneté sociale pour les travailleurs britanniques.15
42 La neutralisation et la répression de l’action collective ont cependant eu un second effet, à savoir une réévaluation profonde de la citoyenneté formelle et du rôle des droits positifs comme supports de l’action syndicale. À mesure que les gouvernements conservateurs déployaient leur programme anti-syndical et que les organisations de travailleurs des services publics acquéraient une place plus centrale au sein du TUC face à des syndicats de l’industrie affaiblis par la désindustrialisation, l’hostilité à toute emprise juridique sur la régulation des relations professionnelles s’est affaiblie, en même temps que se dissipait l’illusion de l’autonomie du monde du travail. À partir de la seconde moitié des années 1980, le TUC a opéré un revirement complet, et dans les années 1990 a soutenu l’instauration d’un salaire minimum comme filet de sécurité pour les travailleurs, ainsi que la ratification par le Royaume-Uni des dispositions sociales du traité de Maastricht, dont le gouvernement Major avait obtenu que son pays
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soit exclu. Ce nouvel ancrage de la citoyenneté sociale dans le droit positif a été accompli par le premier gouvernement Blair, avec plus ou moins de bonheur.
43 L’articulation entre citoyenneté sociale syndicale et citoyenneté politique travailliste est quant à elle demeurée sous tension, en raison de la nature contradictoire du travaillisme, pris dès le début entre expression des intérêts de la classe ouvrière dans une citoyenneté politique et obéissance aux principes de la citoyenneté formelle organisée par la représentation parlementaire de la nation. Après une phase de lutte intense au sein du parti, au début des années 1980, entre les partisans de gauche d’un parti de classe et les partisans de droite d’un parti national, ce sont ces derniers qui l’ont emporté. En modernisant le parti travailliste, c’est-à-dire en le recentrant sur l’échiquier politique et en affaiblissant ses liens organisationnels avec le mouvement syndical, le parti travailliste s’est transformé de plus en plus en un parti opérant seulement dans le cadre du jeu parlementaire et permettant une participation formelle par l’entremise de la représentation parlementaire.
44 Ce processus s’est opéré au détriment du rôle de soutien à la citoyenneté sociale qu’il aurait pu jouer, et qu’il a pu jouer historiquement en élargissant les possibilités d’action des organisations syndicales, et au détriment du principe de citoyenneté politique sur lequel il s’était fondé, c’est-à-dire la représentation directe par des travailleurs des intérêts des travailleurs pour contrer la médiatisation de ces intérêts par la représentation parlementaire.
45 Marc Lenormand est maître de conférences en études anglophones (civilisation britannique) à l’Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3, équipe EMMA EA741. Auteur d’une thèse proposant « Une histoire critique de l’‘hiver du mécontentement’ de 1978-1979 : Le mouvement syndical britannique face à la crise du travaillisme, l’extension de la conflictualité sociale et la montée de la nouvelle droite thatchérienne », il a consacré de nombreux articles à l’histoire du mouvement ouvrier britannique, aux transformations organisationnelles du mouvement syndical, au rapport entre les syndicats et le parti travailliste, enfin aux discours et dispositifs anti-syndicaux.
BIBLIOGRAPHIE
Bernas, Colette, « Le socialisme de sa majesté », in Jean-Claude Poulain & al., La social-démocratie au présent (Paris, Éditions sociales, 1979), p. 54-72.
Coates, Ken (ed.), Can the Workers Run Industry? (Nottingham, Spokesman, 1972).
Howell, Chris, Trade Unions and the State: The Construction of Industrial Relations Institutions in Britain, 1890-2000 (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2005).
Ludlam, Steve, « Labourism and the disintegration of the postwar consensus: disunited trade union economic policy responses to public expenditure cuts, 1974-1979 », PhD thesis, University of Sheffield, 1990.
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Marshall, T.H., Citizenship and Social Class and Other Essays (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1950).
Panitch, Leo, Social Democracy & Industrial Militancy. The Labour Party, the Trade Unions and Incomes Policy, 1945-1947 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1976).
Révauger, Jean-Paul, « Le pouvoir aboli : l’idée d’autogestion en Grande-Bretagne, 1900-1983 », thèse de doctorat, Université Grenoble III, 1986.
Simms, M. & Holgate, J., « TUC Organising Academy Ten Years On: What Has Been the Impact? », Work Employment and Society Conference (Aberdeen, 2007).
Topham, Tony & Coates, K. The Law versus the Unions (Nottingham, Spokesman, 1969).
Trades Union Congress, Report of 100th Annual Trades Union Congress (Londres, TUC, 1968).
—. Report of 106th Annual Trades Union Congress (Londres, TUC, 1974).
—. Report of 110th Annual Trades Union Congress (Londres, TUC, 1978).
—. Report of 111th Annual Trades Union Congress (Londres, TUC, 1979).
—. Report of 112thAnnual Trades Union Congress (Londres, TUC, 1980).
Waddington, J. & Hoffman, R. (eds), Trade Unions in Europe: Facing Challenges and Searching for Solutions (Bruxelles, European Trade Union Institute, 2000).
Webb, S. & Webb, B., Industrial Democracy (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003 [1897]).
Wills, J. & Simms, M., « Building Reciprocal Community Unionism in the UK », Capital and Class 82 (2004), pp. 59-84.
NOTES
1. « We can go on to say that the claim of all to enjoy these conditions is a claim to be admitted to a share in the social heritage, which in turn means a claim to be accepted as full members of the society, that is, as citizens. » T.H. Marshall, Citizenship and Social Class and Other Essays (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1950), p. 8. 2. Ibid., pp. 10-11, 42. 3. Ibid., pp. 44, 68-69. 4. De ce point de vue, le parti travailliste a pu être analysé, notamment par des critiques marxistes, comme un puissant outil de nationalisation de la classe ouvrière britannique, un outil de désarmement de son potentiel subversif par son intégration à un système représentatif qui neutralise son pouvoir de classe en le médiatisant. Voir Colette Bernas, « Le socialisme de sa majesté », in Jean-Claude Poulain & al., La social-démocratie au présent (Paris, Éditions sociales, 1979), pp. 54-72 ; Leo Panitch, Social Democracy & Industrial Militancy. The Labour Party, the Trade Unions and Incomes Policy, 1945-1947 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1976). 5. Ce qui est nommé ici « citoyenneté sociale » ressortit donc davantage de ce qui, chez Marshall, était plutôt une « citoyenneté syndicale » (« industrial democracy »). Il apparaît cependant davantage conforme aux usages linguistiques de parler de « citoyenneté sociale », la notion britannique « industrial democracy » ayant pour équivalent et traduction française la « démocratie sociale ». 6. Ces programmes syndicaux ont été analysés en détail par Jean-Paul Révauger dans sa thèse. Jean-Paul Révauger, « Le pouvoir aboli : l’idée d’autogestion en Grande-Bretagne, 1900-1983 », Thèse de doctorat, Université Grenoble III, 1986.
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7. T. Topham & Ken Coates, The Law versus the Unions (Nottingham, Spokesman, 1969); Ken Coates (ed.), Can the Workers Run Industry? (Nottingham, Spokesman, 1972). 8. S. Webb & B. Webb, Industrial Democracy (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003 [1897]). 9. Trades Union Congress, Report of 100th Annual Trades Union Congress (Londres, TUC, 196), pp. 533-537 ; Trades Union Congress, Report of 106th Annual Trades Union Congress (Londres, TUC, 1974), p. 312. 10. Trades Union Congress, Report of 110th Annual Trades Union Congress (Londres, TUC, 1978); Trades Union Congress, Report of 111th Annual Trades Union Congress (Londres, TUC, 1979); Trades Union Congress, Report of 112th Annual Trades Union Congress (Londres, TUC, 1980). 11. Steve Ludlam, « Labourism and the disintegration of the postwar consensus: disunited trade union economic policy responses to public expenditure cuts, 1974-1979 », PhD thesis, University of Sheffield, 1990. 12. Chris Howell, Trade Unions and the State: The Construction of Industrial Relations Institutions in Britain, 1890-2000 (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2005). 13. Entre 1980 et 1993, pas moins de neuf lois promues par le gouvernement conservateur et votées par le parlement britannique affectent l’activité syndicale. L’Employment Act de 1980 apporte des restrictions à l’action des piquets de grève (picketing), à la possibilité de mettre en place un monopole d’embauche syndical (closed shop) ainsi qu’aux droits individuels accordés aux travailleurs et aux travailleuses par les lois que le gouvernement travailliste avait fait voter au milieu des années 1970. En 1982, un nouvel Employment Act accroît encore ces dispositions restrictives et ouvre la possibilité aux employeurs de poursuivre les syndicats en justice, rompant avec l’immunité offerte aux syndicats pour la première fois en 1906. Le Trade Union Act de 1984 réforme les procédures de décision internes aux organisations syndicales. Le Public Order Act de 1986 rend les syndicalistes passibles de procédures pénales pour les actions menées dans le cadre de piquets de grève. En 1988 1989 et 1990, trois nouveaux Employment Acts réduisent plus encore les possibilités d’action des organisations syndicalistes et les possibilités de recours juridique des employés à l’égard des employeurs, renforcent le contrôle exercé sur leur fonctionnement interne et facilitent la contestation par les adhérents des décisions prises par leur organisation, même démocratiquement. À cet ensemble de textes unifiés en 1992 par le Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act, vient s’ajouter en 1993 un Trade Union Reform and Employment Rights Act, qui ajoute des contraintes procédurales à l’égard des syndicats souhaitant mettre en place toute forme d’action collective. 14. J. Waddington & R. Hoffmann (eds), Trade Unions in Europe: Facing Challenges and Searching for Solutions (Bruxelles, European Trade Union Institute, 2000). 15. M. Simms & J. Holgate, « TUC Organising Academy Ten Years On: What Has Been the Impact? », Work Employment and Society Conference (Aberdeen, 2007); J. Wills & M. Simms, « Building Reciprocal Community Unionism in the UK », Capital and Class 82 (2004), pp. 59-84.
RÉSUMÉS
Cet article examine l’histoire du mouvement syndical dans le second XXe siècle à travers la catégorie de « citoyen », et, réciproquement, ambitionne d’éclairer les conceptions britanniques de la citoyenneté à travers leurs usages et leurs applications dans le mouvement syndical et la sphère des relations professionnelles. La typologie fonctionnaliste proposée par T.H. Marshall
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dans son texte fondateur sur Citizenship and Social Class, qui distingue les composantes civique, politique et sociale de la citoyenneté, est soumise à un examen critique et déplacée au profit d’une typologie des conceptions politiques antagonistes de la citoyenneté qui s’affrontent dans les débats sur les relations professionnelles entre les années 1960 et 1990 : à la citoyenneté formelle et individualiste s’opposent une citoyenneté politique fondée dans la représentation travailliste, ainsi qu’une citoyenneté sociale reposant sur la participation et l’action syndicale.
This article uses the concept of citizenship to examine the history of British trade unions in the second half of the 20th century, and reciprocally uses the political debates in the British labour movement to clarify the various notions of citizenship offered in British politics. The starting point is a critical examination of T.H. Marshall’s 1950 seminal text, Citizenship and Social Class, which suggested that there were three parts of citizenship: civil citizenship, political citizenship and social citizenship. An examination of the history of British trade unions and industrial relations from the 1960s to the 1990s suggests that this functionalist model should be complemented by a more political typology highlighting three antagonistic models of citizenship: formal, individualistic citizenship; the specific Labourite form of political citizenship; and an industrial form of citizenship based on union membership and participation.
INDEX
Keywords : citizenship, trade unions, Labour Party, industrial democracy Mots-clés : citoyenneté, syndicats, parti travailliste, démocratie sociale
AUTEUR
MARC LENORMAND EMMA, Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3
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Citizenship, Social Policy and Political Representation Citoyenneté, politiques sociales et représentation politique
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UK Citizenship in the Early 21st Century: Earning and Losing the Right to Stay Citoyenneté britannique et droit de résidence au début du XXIème siècle
Catherine Puzzo
Introduction
1 From the mid-1990s Britain has been a popular destination for migrants and the country has experienced rising trends of people migrating to the UK for different reasons. Today Britain’s foreign-born population includes economic migrants from and outside the European Economic Area (EEA), asylum seekers, students, visitors and irregulars. Their numbers have risen swiftly and steadily so that immigration has been exceeding emigration by more than 100,000 in every year since the turn of the century. 1 Although the UK has been a multi-national and multicultural society for quite a long time now, over the last fifteen years intense debates on immigration and citizenship have led to several policy reviews and significant reforms of British citizenship. The policy developments presented below span the 1997-2014 period during which modifications to the processes of settlement but also of acquiring and losing UK citizenship were implemented. Governmental instruments of migration policy narrowed down the number of “acceptable migrants” by way of stricter border controls to detect irregulars and measures to fight human trafficking, the implementation of the points based system to replace work permits, the introduction of a net cap on migrant workers, the delivery of fewer student visas, the rapid processing of asylum requests and a greater use of deportation orders to expel failed asylum seekers and irregulars from the country.
2 The purpose of this paper is to explore UK citizenship in its political and institutional dimensions and more specifically, to analyse the type of relationship or ‘point of connection’ that successive governments sought to define between aspirant citizens
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and the British state. Naturalisation in the UK brings with it not only the right to live permanently but also the impossibility for the British state to deport somebody. As such holding UK citizenship remains crucial for many migrants and their families wishing to remove the possible threat of the revocation of the settled status and the possible deportation order that may follow. In the period under study the legal requirements to acquire British citizenship were modified on several occasions so that today, the concept of British citizenship appears as a multi-layered one. Formally citizenship has been conceived as a positive demonstration of applicants’ identification with Britain: taking of language and UK Life tests and participation in the citizenship ceremonies. It is clear that since the mid-1990s the renewed emphasis on citizenship has testified to a perceived lack of integration of some communities and policy changes have been driven by the desire to change foreign individuals’ relation to the British state. Governments also showed their clear intention to shape the contours of an ideal ‘foreign’ population, able and willing to integrate into British society and discourage and potentially reject those deemed to constitute a threat (be it economic, social or terrorist) to Britain’s interests. In that respect denaturalization, that is the stripping of British citizenship by British authorities, reminds us that conferring or removing UK citizenship remains a state power and that acquiring British citizenship is not a right but a privilege in the hands of the executive.
Citizenship as a right or a privilege? Political discourses and legal requirements
3 Questions of nationality are related to immigration law which regulates the legal rights and responsibilities of different categories of migrants, so that the right to acquire British citizenship is highly dependent upon one’s legal immigration status. Although it would be beyond the scope of this paper to dwell on the many reforms in the field of immigration policy, some of the objectives and implications of citizenship policy are tightly connected to the immigration agenda. In 2014, just 125,800 foreign residents became British citizens through naturalisation, a significant decrease compared to the average of 195,800 per year over the 2009-2013 period.2 Amid concerns about integration and social cohesion, the Labour governments and the Coalition developed a citizenship agenda centred on a reconceptualization of British identity that would-be citizens can “attain by ‘internalising’ a set of core values”.3 Accordingly governments modified the legal procedure and practice through several pieces of legislation: Immigration, Nationality and Asylum Act of 2002, Asylum and Immigration Act of 2004, Immigration, Nationality and Asylum Act of 2006, Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act of 2009 and Immigration Act of 2014.
4 When coming into office New Labour adopted a distinctive approach to modernize Britain which included an updating of citizenship in their political project and a first attempt to define ideal British citizens. As John Clarke argued “New Labour’s ideal citizens are moralized, choice-making, self-directing subjects”.4 Following the Crick report (1998), citizenship education was introduced in English secondary schools and the Advisory Board on Naturalisation and Integration (ABNII) was set up to work on the creation of language and citizenship courses and tests for would-be citizens. The disturbances of the summer 2001 and the Cantle report commissioned to make recommendations on social cohesion showed the government’s main concern to promote common
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citizenship between different ethnic communities. It “emphasised the importance of promoting a ‘meaningful concept of citizenship’”.5 As Home Secretary Blunkett asserted: “ We need to educate new migrants in citizenship and help them to develop an understanding of our language, democracy and culture”.6 The 2002 White Paper “Safe Haven, Secure Borders” (Home Office 2002) that followed proposed an inclusive version of the concept of citizenship based on a common identity with essential attributes to which people should identify. The text insisted on the rights and duties attached to UK citizenship defined in terms of belonging to the ‘nation’ and focused primarily on the nature and extent of citizen behaviours.7 The Home Office recommended to abandon the “low-key and bureaucratic approach which the UK has adopted to the acquisition of British citizenship”. The Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 made citizenship ceremonies mandatory, thereby creating a new legal condition in the acquisition of British citizenship (see infra).
5 Five years later, in July 2007 in its Green Paper The Governance of Britain, the fourth Labour government reassessed the nature of the links between its citizens and the state. The concept of citizenship was further explored within the process of naturalisation to move beyond the primary definition of citizenship as simply a formal legal status so as to include a prescriptive dimension where ‘formal citizenship’ would be reconciled to ‘substantive citizenship’. Such reflexion was born after the London bombings of July 2005, the re-emergence of the terrorist threat in the summer of 2006 (with the thwarting of planned bomb attacks on several transatlantic flights) and also the Islamic veil controversy triggered off by Labour leader Jack Straw. Queries were raised in the political, social but also academic spheres on the scope of British multiculturalism but also on its perceived failures. In the governmental view there was a growing feeling that more had to be done in the fields of the politics of belonging and the management of national boundaries.8 Although the governmental rhetoric acknowledged the diversity of the different communities living in the UK, it also insisted on a supreme identity deriving from a “multicultural construction of British identity”9: Each of us possesses multiple identities because we define ourselves in different ways depending on the factors that matter most to us. Factors such as gender, race, ethnicity, age, disability, class and faith are shared with some and different from others. But in addition to these there is a national identity that we can all hold in common: the overarching factor – British citizenship – that brings the nation together.10
6 Yet such conception is prescriptive and entailed the revision of British citizenship to adapt it to ‘the rights and responsibilities’ already foreshadowed in the 2002 text. To the government it was time to devise clearer criteria on citizenship acquisition and to have them implemented through detailed injunctions and formal rules. They pointed out that the concept had been overstretched in some occasions so as to include “ everything and nothing at the same time”11: The Government believes that a clearer definition of citizenship would give people a better sense of their British identity in a globalised world. British citizenship – and the rights and responsibilities that accompany it – needs to be valued and meaningful.12
7 The next step was the publication of a governmental report in February 2008, entitled The Path to Citizenship: next steps in reforming the immigration system, followed by the passing of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009. The new act replaced
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citizenship acquisition within the broader framework of migration policies which led to a strengthening of border controls (in particular with new powers for customs officials and immigration officers) and extended the time it takes to gain citizenship. More significantly the text broke the link between length of residence, right to settlement and naturalisation.13 It amended the rules on naturalisation to reduce the number of immigrants allowed to remain permanently: “A bill...to ensure that newcomers to the United Kingdom earn the right to stay” (emphasis mine). UK citizenship was conceived as the final step in the journey made by migrants who had decided to come to Britain. Newcomers were first granted a temporary residence status (for a period up to 5 years), then allowed to progress to probationary citizenship (for a minimum of 12 months) to finally reach permanent residence, i.e. British citizenship. Conditions were attached to probationary citizenship, in particular provisions stipulated that migrants were enjoined to “make the right contribution to the country”. Critics pointed out that the new conditions were going to lead many to lose their entitlement to remain in the UK.14 The limits of the 2009 act were clear making it longer and harder for migrants to become settled and gain British citizenship. The introduction of the ‘probationary period’ in the route to citizenship was meant to prevent migrants from having full access to a range of benefits available to permanently settled foreign nationals. The notion of ‘active participation/contribution’ to British society was particularly ambiguous. Applicants were required to prove they were of good character and that they were good taxpayers. It was also about demonstrating some sort of positive interaction with the local community.15 As Anderson points out “the community of value is populated not simply by citizens but by Good citizens, imagined law-abiding and hard-working members of stable and respectable families”.16 Since then, the moralistic connotations attached to the acquisition of British citizenship have had a ‘utilitarian’ dimension praising the economic worthiness of certain categories of migrants.
8 The coalition government sought to simplify the system they inherited; the probationary stage, deemed too complex and bureaucratic was abandoned in July 2011 and so was the concept of ‘active citizenship’ which was meant to entice migrants doing volunteering in their community.17 This abandon may seem incoherent with the Big Society agenda which encouraged the civil society and local communities in particular to engage and be part of policy change. The Big Society concept was aimed at motivating participation through various forms but the Home Office’s decision to drop the ‘active citizenship’ requirement implicitly excluded parts of the foreign population from the Big Society agenda.
9 The latest reform on the conditions to acquire British citizenship has not modified the overwhelming spirit of the definition, citizenship under the coalition and now the Conservative government remains prescriptive and utilitarian: the right to stay must still be ‘earned’ by prospective citizens. The moral and economic worthiness of some would-be citizens remains a crucial requirement to become part of the national community. Quite significantly in December 2012 the Cameron-Clegg administration sought to reinforce the weight of ‘the good character’ requirement when assessing applications for UK citizenship. The requirement was stipulated in the British Nationality Act of 1981 but was never properly defined, nor was any statutory guidance issued as to how this should be interpreted or applied in practice. In December 2007 in a Home Office announcement the criterion was related to the question of criminal convictions and since then it has been used more often than not by case workers when
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rejecting applications for naturalisation. Refusals of naturalisation applications based on the failure to meet ‘the good character requirement’ accounted for 34% of all refusals in 2014, a steady increase since 2010 (29% of all refusals).18
10 More recently in an effort to introduce transparency in its practice the Home Office published a series of instructions to its citizenship officers on how to interpret ‘the good character’ requirement when assessing citizenship applications.19 In particular instructions have been given to check: (i) the criminal record of the applicants, whether laws have not been respected or are not going to be respected (!), (ii) taxes have not been paid, (iii) activities in the community have not been adequate, (iv) deception has been used in the dealings with the UK government, (v) the applicant has been involved in notorious activities.
11 The renewed emphasis on citizenship in UK politics was meant to strengthen “a sense of common citizenship as a way of building social cohesion”.20 Such concern was born in the context of a very fast changing societal landscape and led to debates on the pertinence of the multicultural model and on the ways to ensure that would-be citizens would abide by the democratic values of the country.
Earning the right to stay: commitment and identification with Britain’s values
12 The significance of becoming a British citizen has been underpinned by the idea that “ citizenship is more esteemed and valued when it is earned, not given”.21 In line with the ‘earned citizenship’ framework and the ideal of a ‘committed’ British citizen, future citizens have been invited to take part in a dynamic political process and not simply be the mere recipient/subject of a bureaucratic procedure.22 The acquisition of citizenship has been more arduous, not anymore an automatic right conferred after a few years of residence in the UK as it was the case a decade before. Governments have intended to make it more onerous and longer for migrants to secure rights in the name of security concerns in particular. The acquisition of UK citizenship is conditional upon progressing successfully through various stages and it is a demanding process which requires, until the final stage with the participation in the citizenship ceremony, the individual’s full commitment to the naturalisation procedure (see below). However the system does not offer many alternatives to those who do not apply for citizenship, those who do not meet the criteria (and will never do) or fail to satisfy the tests. In the governmental perspective the naturalisation procedure remains a privilege and not a right; it has an exclusionary dimension, which in the end threatens the permanence of several categories of migrants who do not fit in the normative requisites: failed asylum seekers, students, irregulars, overstayers, those with a criminal conviction. The rules contribute to perpetuate the old dichotomy between deserving and undeserving migrants: “‘Good migrants’ are seen as worthy of British citizenship, whereas ‘bad migrants’ are seen as unworthy”.23 Eligibility to naturalize is closely correlated to the legislation on entry, as exemplified by the case of students and those with temporary visas who cannot accumulate sufficient time toward fulfilling residency requirements. Anderson uses the term ‘failed citizens’ “to allude to those individuals and groups who are imagined as incapable of achieving, or failing to live up to, national ideals”.24 While she alludes to other categories of migrants than students, irregulars and failed asylum seekers, it could be argued that there has been a deliberate attempt to create categories of ‘failed would-be
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citizens’ in the name of economic and social worthiness. This is epitomized by Kiwan who stress that “a ‘moral’ conception of citizenship is invoked in the notion of ‘good’ citizen predicated on primarily economic ground”.25 Her postulate is related to her analysis of the implications for citizenship of the highly skilled ‘guest-workers’ programme when implemented in 2010, but it was still valid four years later to depict the Coalition citizenship agenda. In that respect the governmental rhetoric of acquiring citizenship drew on the notion of a deal, a contract concluded between newcomers/aspirant- citizens and the State, one which should put on a par the aspirant citizen and the State: [T]here is a deal for citizenship. This is a country of liberty and tolerance, opportunity and diversity-and these values are reinforced by the expectation that all who live here should learn our language, play by the rules, obey the law and contribute to the community.26
13 Formally the deal has had a twofold dimension: the testing of immigrants’ mastery of the national language and their compliance with a set of distinctive ‘national’ values.
14 The knowledge of English has been for candidates a longstanding criterion in their application for naturalisation. It had been stipulated in the British Nationality Act 1981 but it was a condition among others like the absence of any criminal conviction and was not rigorously enforced up to the Labour years. In the wake of the 2001 summer riots, the terrorist attacks of September 2001 and following the recommendations made by different commissions (2003 Advisory Group’s report, Crick Report 2002/03) the second Blair government laid stress on the necessity for future citizens to have a good command of the English language. Quite explicitly the linguistic requirement in the 2002 Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act had an immediate short-term economic objective: to fill the needs of the domestic labour market, at a time when skilled migrants and professionals were more than welcome to contribute to the economic development of the country. Linguistic assimilation was also deemed essential to strengthen cohesiveness and since then the linguistic competence has been an absolute precondition for acceptance.27 There has been broad ministerial acceptance across the political spectrum that ‘shared values’ and a good command of the English language are perfect indicators of ‘integration’ in the UK: The requirement to have an adequate understanding of English needs to mean something, and needs to be supplemented by a level of knowledge of what it means to be a citizen of modern, democratic Britain. (…) We are developing new types of courses especially suited to the needs of migrants: English language courses which use teaching materials based on the concept of citizenship; courses specifically about citizenship for people who already have an adequate English but need to know more about what it means to live in this country and contribute to this community.28 There is now agreement with the proposition I made some time ago that for new citizens, learning English should be a requirement. New citizens should have an understanding of our history and our culture.29 Real integration takes time. That's why, when there have been significant numbers of new people arriving in neighbourhoods perhaps not able to speak the same language as those living there, on occasions not really wanting or even willing to integrate, that has created a kind of discomfort and disjointedness in some neighbourhoods.30
15 Since 2005 the linguistic proficiency of future citizens has been certified by the ESOL Test Entry Three (English for Speakers of Other Languages). This minimum level of English means that candidates must be able to hold a conversation on whatever subject in an acceptable English, even if it is not perfect.31 The advantages of the British official
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ESOL is that it has a clearly defined linguistic level and is implemented coherently and consistently across the UK. Dina Kiwan makes a positive appraisal of the system, arguing that: [T]he English language requirements is not intended to be a hurdle to the acquisition of citizenship; rather it is the first step to communicating and participating with one’s fellow citizens, learning and integrating into a new culture. 32
16 This may be contrasted with some harsher criticisms expressed by other commentators, in particular associations defending immigrants’ rights (see Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, Immigration Law Practitioners Association) who stress that the test is apprehended as a mixed blessing by migrants. Criticisms have pointed out that these tests are particularly demanding for some categories of foreigners, namely illiterate candidates and those with a poor educational background and particularly women who in some parts of the world may not have had access to any elementary education. The financial aspect should not be undervalued for the fees to pay for the tests and the cost of the language training may be considered as deterring elements in the path to integration. Furthermore since September 2011 the effects of the budgetary cuts in funding ESOL courses have proven another disincentive to plan acquiring citizenship. Under the current scheme free places are only allocated to those on jobseeker’s allowance or employment support allowance (that is, benefits paid to those actively seeking work).
17 By the end of 2005 the requirement to ‘share values’ had become salient in the wake of the London bombings (July) and the Lozells riots (October). Deep concerns over a perceived lack of integration was prominent in public discourse. The government’s response to the 2007 report of the Commission on Integration and Cohesion (2008) was clear in that respect: The Border and Immigration Agency is reviewing how the process of becoming a citizen can enhance the integration of individual migrants into UK society. This includes consideration of issues such as what are the values that newcomers should be committed to.33
18 The UK Life test modified on several occasions requires candidates to answer a series of questions based on a Home Office handbook: Life in the United Kingdom: A Journey to Citizenship (2004, 2005, 2007, 2013 editions). The terms ‘comprehension, knowledge of a foreign language’ are to be understood in their etymological and socio-cultural dimensions. The concept of ‘life in the UK’ is used in a broad meaning to cover, in a condensed version, events pertaining to the history of the UK but also elements of geography, politics and literature. As of March 2013 the latest version of the UK Life Test has laid the emphasis on applicants’ mastery of British culture and recent historical developments (in relation to devolution for example) rather than on their knowledge of British daily life as it was the case in the former versions: It is a move away from the old one – stuff on rights, practical information that has little to do with British culture – to one that is clear about responsibilities and requires people to have a grounding in our history.34
19 Experts have accused the new test of many flaws: “impractical, irrelevant, trivial, gender imbalanced, outdated and ineffective”.35 Clearly it is aimed at an educated (if not highly educated) migrant population, those who, in the view of the government, are most welcome to remain in the UK. The relatively high level of the tests is in line with the wider framework on immigration control that successive governments have been
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implementing: strict selection to accept in the UK only those highly skilled migrants who can bring specific benefits to the United Kingdom. Both tests have put the onus on the applicants to demonstrate their sufficient knowledge and their ability to integrate. They remain closely connected to the wider agenda on immigration control.
20 Until a decade ago, there was not any public ceremony celebrating the incorporation and the belonging of the new British citizens to their new country, contrary to what exists in the US and Canada for example. Together with the language and UK Life Test, the ceremonies were born in the aftermath of the 2001 civil disturbances and terror threats when the Labour governments sought to reinforce their national models of integration linking their citizenship regulations to “the politics of belonging and the management of national boundaries”.36 Within the larger context of globalisation and increased, faster rates of immigration the creation of these ceremonies was also underpinned by the intention of the British state to assert its sovereignty over newcomers.
21 Britain’s case is not isolated as testified by the development of citizenship ceremonies in other European countries like France, the Netherlands or Denmark during the same decade. The political roots of the development of these ceremonies lie in part in the recommendations made by the European Commission which encouraged European states to celebrate officially the naturalisation of their new citizens according to the motto “United within diversity”.37 The European Ministerial Conference on Integration in November 2008 endorsed the proposal and recommended: [T]o establish ambitious integration policies, to stress respect for the identities of the Member States and the European Union and for their fundamental values, such as human rights, freedom of opinion, democracy, tolerance, equality between men and women, and the compulsory schooling of children.38
22 In Britain when the first ceremonies were created, they were presented as a way to (i) disentangle a purely administrative procedure of registering citizenship from its bureaucratic characteristics and (ii) as an occasion given to migrants to publicly proclaim the choice they had made, embodying the concept of a voluntarist integration.39
23 The first citizens to participate in a citizenship ceremony were reminded of this two- fold dimension in the opening discourse made by Home Secretary David Blunkett in 2004: Becoming a British citizen is a significant life event. The Government intends to make gaining British citizenship meaningful and celebratory rather than simply a bureaucratic process. New citizenship ceremonies will help people mark this important event. We want British citizenship to embrace positively the diversity of background, culture and faiths that living in modern Britain involves.40
24 Following the American and Canadian models the British have made the choice to include the ceremony in the process of naturalisation, hence giving the pledge sworn by applicants its full legal significance. Any candidate, above 18, who has received their invitation to participate in such a ceremony must swear an oath/affirmation of allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen and a pledge of loyalty to the UK. These declarations are made aloud simultaneously by all the candidates-citizens.41 Their significance was recalled by the Home Secretary in the Commons: We may all have a slightly different interpretation of what they might be (i.e. the values we all attach to British citizenship), but I am confident that Members of this
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House would agree that this is encapsulated by the oath that naturalized citizens take when they attend their citizenship ceremonies.42
25 The unfolding of these ceremonies features a combination of legal characteristics (the swearing of a pledge/oath of allegiance) and strong symbolic elements such as the display of national and European flags and the playing of the national anthems. Quite early, the Home Office advised local authorities on the text of the welcoming speeches, suggesting what should be read to participants: On behalf of the Government of Her Majesty Queen Elisabeth the Second and (local authority) I would like to welcome you all here today to (venue) for this citizenship ceremony. This for (many of you) is the final step in the process of becoming a British citizen, which will welcome you to this nation and community. The citizenship ceremony is a rite of passage that formally welcomes those who wish to join us into full membership of the British family, and into citizenship of the United Kingdom, a state built on a union of nations, beliefs and common civic values. We are here today to extend this welcome to you and to confer the honour of citizenship upon you.43
26 Except for the first ceremonies that hosted governmental members, nowadays all of these opening discourses are made by local citizenship officers whose discursive strategies and rhetorical devices converge. There may be local variations as to the contents to adapt to the regional context and to the origins of the participants.44 Standardized speeches and texts are meant to ease and simplify the procedure even though the overuse of symbolic terms testify to the solemnity that the state intends to give to these ceremonies. The rituals should embody the enriching links between the new citizens and the state: I think the new ceremonies across the country will be the answer to those who fear difference, who fear the diversity which comes with migration of people coming across the world to live in our community and sends a very clear message that those who choose to be part of the family are committing themselves.45 Becoming a British citizen is a milestone event in an individual’s life – we have recognised the importance of the event by introducing citizenship ceremonies which celebrate the act of becoming a British citizen. An understanding of the British language and our way of life is vital.46
27 Ten years after the celebration of the first citizenship ceremony there has certainly been a gradual cooling of enthusiasm for these rituals. Local authorities organise them on a regular basis but they have become an administrative process, “albeit an important and celebratory one”.47
Losing the right to stay: denaturalisation and the state power to deprive
28 Holding citizenship means having a protected legal status under international law and the right to a nationality is guaranteed by article 15 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.48 Yet, the UK has long retained the power to deprive somebody of his/her citizenship, a topic explored by Gibney in his article on the historical development of denaturalisation.49 As was argued in the first part, holding citizenship has been construed as a privilege, not a right, which is why “denaturalisation affirms citizenship as a privilege, one that is conditional on a certain standard of behaviour”.50 In recent years Home Secretaries have been exercising more and more their power to strip people of their British citizenship and withdraw passport facilities for those individuals suspected of
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having been involved in terrorist activities (especially overseas) or considered to be a threat to national security (see table below). This discretionary power has been expanded in the 2014 Immigration Act (clause 60). The text of the new clause on deprivation aroused animated debates in the Commons and the Lords during the winter of 2013-2014 and led to the government’s defeat at report stage in the House of Lords.51 The clause was inserted in the wake of a landmark case lost by the British government in 2013, Secr. Of State for the Home Department v. Al-Jedda52 the first case on deprivation of citizenship to reach the Supreme Court. The judgement based on section 40 of the British Nationality Act of 1981 which prohibits the Home Secretary to deprive somebody of their British citizenship if that would render the person stateless, irritated the executive profoundly and led Teresa May to introduce at a late stage an amendment on denaturalisation in the 2014 immigration bill. The government’s main argument to back up their proposal was that British citizenship is not a right but a privilege. Mark Harper, then immigration minister stated rather clearly that [T]hose who threaten this country’s security put us all at risk. This government will take all necessary steps to protect the public. Citizenship is a privilege, not a right. These proposals will strengthen the Home Secretary’s powers to ensure that very dangerous individuals can be excluded if it is in the public interest to do so.53
29 Such defence echoes Hillary Clinton’s words on the privilege to hold US citizenship.54 The government, defeated in the Lords, substituted the Lords’ amendments with two of their own which now form the basis of clause 60.
30 The new clause on deprivation of UK citizenship modifies section 40 of the British Nationality Act 1981 and stipulates the conditions under which an order can be made by the Home Secretary to deprive a person of their British citizenship. The clause provides that (i) a British person can be deprived of his/her citizenship if it was acquired by naturalisation, and that (ii) the deprivation is conducive to public good and that (iii) “the secretary of state has reasonable grounds for believing that the person is able to become a national of another country”. The power can only be used against persons who naturalised and not those who are citizens by birth or registration. The intention of the government is to exercise this power while the person is outside the UK so as to prevent his/her return to the UK, which may leave the person stranded in exile abroad without any valid passport to travel with. There are far reaching implications behind a deprivation order as stipulated by the new act. The power which is to be exercised when the person is abroad will prevent the person from entering the UK again and from lodging any appeal in Britain. It may also be, as the ILPA stress that the right to appeal against the deprivation order may not be exercised in time since the individual stripped of his/her citizenship may be unaware of the decision and of his right of appeal. In addition, although the government has been arguing that a person may acquire another citizenship when deprived of his/her British citizenship, in practice as documentary evidence gathered by the ILPA demonstrates, it may prove very difficult to do so in countries known for their strong executive and widespread discretionary power (Ethiopia, Swaziland, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, or the Dominican Republic).55
Number of Period Legal texts in force deprivations*
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BNA 1948 provided that registered citizens could lose their citizenship if it had been acquired by fraud or misrepresentation
1973-2002 BNA 1981 (section 40) stipulates that the Home Secretary can issue 1 an order of deprivation if he/she is satisfied that deprivation is ‘conducive to public good’ but it prohibits the deprivation order if ‘he/she is satisfied that the order would make a person stateless’.
Immigration, Nationality and Asylum Act 2002 Deprivation provisions are extended to all types of citizens (native-born citizens, registered and naturalised). Grounds for deprivation: if a person has done anything seriously prejudicial to 2002-2006 the vital interests of the UK except if that would make the person 1 stateless. Granted a right of appeal against the deprivation order. Asylum and Immigration Act 2004: Denaturalization could be immediate even before the appeal against the deprivation order had been heard.
Immigration, Nationality and Asylum Act 2006 (S.4, S.56)
2006-2012 Lower standards for deprivation: “that the Secr. of state can show 21 that an individual’s holding citizenship was not conducive to the public good”
2013 Immigration, Nationality and Asylum Act 2006 (S.4, S.56) 20
Immigration Act 2014 (into force July 2014) A British person can be deprived of his/her citizenship if it was Coalition acquired by naturalisation, and (ii) the deprivation is conducive 48 as at 3 June government to public good and that (iii) ‘the secretary of state has reasonable 2014 grounds for believing that the person is able to become a national of another country’.
31 Sources: www.ilpa.org.uk, House of Commons 2014, 2015.
Conclusion
Citizenship is traditionally understood as a form of relation, most often as a relation between the citizen and the state, but also as a relation of membership (of a society or political community). But citizenship acts as a point of connection – indeed a point of mobilisation – for many individuals and groups who identify themselves as citizens when they act, name themselves as people who would be citizens in demanding citizenship or demand that citizenship be enlarged, enhanced or transformed to engage with other issues, identities and desires.56
32 The concept of citizenship is multidimensional: it confers a legal status, gives social, civil and political rights and is meant to embody the social and cultural identity of the host country. It has been defined by statutory texts, secondary rules and institutional practices which have evolved over the past decade. Since 2010 the attribution of citizenship has been underpinned by considerations which have not varied much from the Labour period. First, citizenship is to be attributed to selected migrants, legal immigrants who have gone through the various stages. Statutory or regulatory
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provisions do not cater for other categories like students, failed asylum seekers, overstayers or illegal migrants who, nowadays often constitute large groups of those residing in Britain. Second, citizenship is to be attributed after a long journey, there is no easy path. British governments have multiplied the obstacles these migrants have to confront and overcome before being in a position to apply for citizenship and then be granted it. The active, solemn, moral and economic commitments expected from migrants are demanded at a very early stage; such expectation reinforces the heavy- handed approach of the British State which intends to keep an ever increasing control over the migrant populations it wants to keep in. Symbolically the ceremonies continue to maintain new citizens in a dependent position and they epitomise the unbalanced relationship between the nation-state and its migrants. Acquiring citizenship has not been conceived as a right but rather as a privilege, based on the eligibility of candidates. Likewise denaturalisation, as recently reformed by the 2014 text, allows for much power to be concentrated in the Home Secretary’s hands. In the name of national security, a recurrent argument in governmental rhetoric, successive Home Secretaries have broadened the scope of immigration controls and restricted eligibility to British citizenship with every new law.
33 Biographie: Catherine Puzzo est maître de conférences en civilisation britannique et appartient au laboratoire de recherche Cultures Anglo-Saxonnes (EA 801) à l’université Toulouse II Jean Jaurès. Elle participe actuellement à un projet de recherche international (Paris III – Rutgers, State University of New Jersey) intitulé SOMI (Securitization of Migrant Integration), une comparaison Grande-Bretagne/Etats Unis de la typologie des mobilisations collectives de communautés immigrées dans le contexte sécuritaire accru de l’après 11 septembre.
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Anderson, B., “Citizenship: What is it and why does it Matter?”, Policy Primer, The Migration Observatory (29 March 2011).
Anderson, B., “Exclusion, Failure and the Politics of Citizenship”, RCIS Working Papers, No. 2014/1 (Ryerson University, January 2014).
Andreouli, E. and Dashtipour P., “British citizenship and the ‘Other’: an Analysis of the Earned Citizenship Discourse”, Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology 24 (2014), pp. 100-110.
Advisory Board on Naturalisation and Integration (ABNI), “Progress towards Integration (November 2004-April 2006)”, First annual report of the ABNI 2005-2006.
Blair, T., “International Community needs to unite around shared values”, Speech on terrorism, Washington DC, 27/05/06. [http://www.labour.org.uk]
Blair, T., “Time for a proper debate on law and order”, First lecture in a series of speeches by the Prime Minister, “Our Nation’s Future”, 23/6/06. [http://www.number-10.gov.uk]
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Blair, T., “Multicultural Britain ‘to be celebrated’”, Fifth lecture in a series of speeches by the Prime Minister, “Our Nation’s Future”, 8/12/06. [http://www.number-10.gov.uk]
Blinder, S., “Naturalisation as a British Citizen: Concepts and Trends”, Migration Observatory Briefing, COMPAS (University of Oxford, August 2013).
Bosniak, L., The Citizen and the Alien: Dilemmas of Contemporary Membership (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2006).
Byrne, B., “A Local Welcome? Narrations of Citizenship and Nation in UK Citizenship Cremonies”, Citizenship Studies 16:3/4 (2012), Special Issue: “Citizenship in the New States of South Eastern Europe”, pp. 531-544.
Clarke, J., “New Labour’s Citizens: Activated, Empowered, Responsibilized, Abandoned?”, Critical Social Policy 25:4 (2005), pp. 447-443.
Clarke, J., Coll, K., Dagnino E. and Neveu, C., Disputing Citizenship (Bristol, Policy Press, 2014).
Commission for Racial Equality, Citizenship and Belonging: What is Britishness? (London, CRE, 2005).
Condor S., Gibson S. and Abell J., “English Identity and Ethnic Diversity in the Context of UK Constitutional Change”, Ethnicities 6:2 (2006), pp.123-158.
Costa-Lascoux, J., « L’intégration ‘à la française’: une philosophie à l’épreuve des réalités », Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales 22 (2006), pp. 105-126.
Furedi, F., “Who can pass the spelling test?”, Anthology (Commission for Racial Equality, 2006). [http://www.cre.gov.uk/anthology_15.html]
Gibney, M.J., “‘A Very Transcendental Power’: Denaturalisation and the Liberalisation of Citizenship in the United Kingdom”, Political Studies 61 (2013), pp. 637-655.
Goldsmith, P., Citizenship: our Common Bond, report commissioned by the Prime Minister (March 2008).
Gray, D. and Griffin, C., “A Journey to Citizenship: Constructions of Citizenship and Identity in the British Citizenship Test”, British Journal of Social Psychology 53 (2014), pp. 299-314.
Hansen, R. “Measures of Integration”, Connections (summer 2003), pp. 1-5.
Home Office, Secure Borders, Safe Haven. Integration with Diversity in Modern Britain (London, Stationery Office, February 2002).
Home Office, Citizenship Ceremonies. Consultation Document (London, Stationery Office, 2003).
Home Office, Confident Communities in a Secure Britain. The Home Office Strategic Plan, 2004-2008 (London, Stationery Office, July 2004).
Home Office, Life in the United Kingdom. A Journey to Citizenship (London, Stationery Office, 2006, 2013 (4th edition)).
Home Office, The Path to Citizenship: Next Steps in Reforming the Immigration System (London, Stationery Office, February 2008).
Home Office, GUIDE AN. Naturalisation as a British Citizen. A Guide for Applicants (London, Stationery Office, October 2013).
Hope Cheong, P., Edwards, E., Goulbourne, H. and Solomos J., “Immigration, Social Cohesion and Social Capital: a Critical Review”, Critical Social Policy, 27: 1 (2007), pp. 24-49.
House of Commons, Immigration Bill: Deprivation of British Citizenship (House of Commons Library, SN/HA/6820, 8 May 2014).
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Kiwan, D., “A Journey to Citizenship in the United Kingdom”, International Journal on Multicultural Societies 10:1, Special issue “Citizenship Tests in a Post-National Era” (2008), pp. 60-76.
Kiwan, D., “Highly-Skilled ‘Guest-Workers’ in the UK: Implications for ‘Citizenship’ in Naturalisation Policy and Integration Policy”, Policy and Society 29 (2010), pp. 333-343.
Kundnani, A., “Integrationism: the Politics of Anti-Muslim Racism”, Race & Class 48:4 (2007), pp. 24-44.
Kymlicka, W., “Multicultural Citizenship within Multination States”, Ethnicities 11:3 (2011), pp. 281-302.
Löwenheim, O. and Gazit, O., “Power and Examination: a Critique of Citizenship Tests”, Security Dialogue 40:2 (April 2009), pp. 145-167.
Ministry for Justice, The Governance of Britain, Presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor by Command of Her Majesty (London, July 2007).
Rimmer, M., The Future of Citizenship Ceremonies (Ministry of Justice, 2007).
Sénat, Etude de législation comparée n.150. La formation des étrangers à la langue du pays d’accueil (Sénat, service des études juridiques, septembre 2005).
Spire, A., Accueillir ou reconduire. Enquête sur les guichets de l’immigration (Paris, Editions Raisons d’Agir, 2008).
Stepnisky, J., “Global Memory and the Rhythm of Life”, American Behavioral Scientist 48:10 (June 2005), pp. 1383-1402.
Worley, C., “‘It’s not about Race. It’s about the Community’: New Labour and ‘Community Cohesion’”, Critical Social Policy 25:4 (2005), pp. 483-496.
Wright, C., “Citizenship Tests in Europe”, International Journal on Multicultural Societies 10:1, Special issue “Citizenship Tests in a Post-National Era” (2008), pp. 1-10.
NOTES
1. House of Commons’ Library, Migration Statistics, Standard Note (SN/SG/6077), 17 June 2014. 2. S. Blinder, “Naturalisation as a British Citizen: Concepts and Trends”, Migration Observatory Briefing, COMPAS (University of Oxford, March 2015). 3. D. Gray and C. Griffin, “A Journey to Citizenship: Constructions of Citizenship and Identity in the British Citizenship Test”, British Journal of Social Psychology 53 (2014), p. 310. 4. J. Clarke, “New Labour’s Citizens: Activated, Empowered, Responsibilized, Abandoned?’, Critical Social Policy 25:4 (2005), p. 441. 5. B. Anderson, “Citizenship: What is it and why does it Matter?’ Policy Primer, The Migration Observatory (29 March 2011), p. 3. 6. David Blunkett, quoted in “Citizenship classes for immigrants”, The Guardian, 26 October 2001. 7. Home Office, Secure Borders, Safe Haven. Integration with Diversity in Modern Britain (London, Stationery Office, February 2002), chapter 2, p. 35. 8. E. Andreouli and P. Dashtipour, “British Citizenship and the ‘Other’: an Analysis of the Earned Citizenship Discourse”, Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology 24 (2014), pp. 100-110. 9. S. Condor, S. Gibson and J. Abell, “English Identity and Ethnic Diversity in the Context of UK Constitutional Change”, Ethnicities 6:2 (2006), p. 126. 10. Ministry for Justice, The Governance of Britain, Presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor by Command of Her Majesty (London, July 2007), §53.
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11. Bosniak, L., The citizen and the Alien: Dilemmas of contemporary membership. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2006. 12. Green Paper 2007, chapter IV. 13. B. Anderson, “Citizenship: What is it and why does it Matter?”, Policy Primer, The Migration Observatory (29 March 2011). 14. See the analysis made by the ILPA (Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association), http:// www.ilpa.org.uk. Consulted in July 2014. 15. The duration of the different stages – temporary residence and probationary citizenship − varied from one individual to the other according to their behaviour (e.g. carrying out voluntary work or contributing to the community was meant to speed up the process to proceed from probationary citizenship to full citizenship). 16. B. Anderson, “Citizenship: What is it and why does it Matter?”, Policy Primer, The Migration Observatory (29 March 2011), p. 3. 17. “We will not implement Labour's policy of earned citizenship, which was too complicated, bureaucratic and, in the end, ineffective”. Home Secretary Theresa May, http://www.workpermit.com/news/ 2010-11-08/uk/government-will-not-implement-earned-citizenship.htm. Consulted July 2014. 18. In 2014 the good character requirement came first in the list of reasons for refusals, followed by refusals based on the motive that the residency requirement had not been met (33%). Other reasons included: incomplete applications (10%), parent not a British citizen (8%), delay in replying to the UK Border Agency (6%) and insufficient knowledge of English (1%). Source: Home Office, Immigration Statistics July – September 2014, Table cz.09 provided by The Migration Observatory, http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/briefings/naturalisation-british-citizen- concepts-and-trends. Consulted February 2016. 19. Home Office, Nationality Policy Guidance and Casework Instruction. Chapter 18, Annex D: The Good Character Requirement. Version 4.0 (9 December 2013). 20. W. Kymlicka, “Multicultural Citizenship within Multination States”, Ethnicities 11:3 (2011), p. 281. 21. Home Office, Citizenship Ceremonies. Consultation Document (London, Stationery Office, 2003), p. 4. 22. B. Anderson, “Citizenship: What is it and why does it Matter?”, Policy Primer, The Migration Observatory (29 March 2011). 23. E. Andreouli and P. Dashtipour, “British Citizenship and the ‘Other’: an Analysis of the Earned Citizenship Discourse”, Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology 24 (2014), p. 102. 24. B. Anderson, “Exclusion, Failure and the Politics of Citizenship”, RCIS Working Papers, No. 2014/1 (Ryerson University, January 2014), p. 4. 25. D. Kiwan, “Highly-Skilled ‘Guest-Workers’ in the UK: Implications for ‘Citizenship’ in Naturalisation Policy and Integration Policy”, Policy and Society 29 (2010), p. 334. 26. Home Office, The Path to Citizenship: Next Steps in Reforming the Immigration System (London, Stationery Office, February 2008). 27. C. Wright, “Citizenship Tests in Europe”, International Journal on Multicultural Societies 10:1, Special issue “Citizenship Tests in a Post-National Era” (2008), pp. 1-10. 28. C. Clarke in the 2004 edition of Life in the UK. Home Office, Life in the United Kingdom. A Journey to Citizenship (London, Stationery Office, 2004, 2006, 2013 (4th edition)). 29. Speech at a seminar on Britishness delivered by G. Brown on 7 February 2007. http:// www.britishpoliticalspeech.org/speech-archive.htm?speech=317. Consulted February 2016. 30. Speech to Conservative party members by D. Cameron on 14 April 2011. http:// www.theguardian.com/politics/2011/apr/14/david-cameron-immigration-speech-full-text. Consulted February 2016.
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31. This test is equivalent to the B1 level, the level of an independent user of English (Cf. the Common European Framework of Reference, or CEFR, with its different levels, from A1 with a very basic knowledge to C2 with a very good command of a foreign language). 32. D. Kiwan, “A Journey to Citizenship in the United Kingdom”, International Journal on Multicultural Societies 10:1, Special issue “Citizenship Tests in a Post-National Era” (2008), p. 65. 33. Department for Communities and Local Government, The Government’s Response to the Commission on Integration and Cohesion (Department for Communities and Local government, February 2008), §3, p. 11. 34. Home Office’s spokesman, quoted in The Guardian, 1 July 2012. http://www.theguardian.com/ uk/2012/jul/01/uk-migrants-patriotic-citizenship-test. Consulted February 2016. 35. See the following articles: T. Brooks, “Failing the Test: Major Review Discovers Serious Problems with Citizenship Test”, https://www.dur.ac.uk/news/newsitem/?itemno=18072 consulted Jumy 2014; B. Porter, “The ‘Britishness syllabus includes a distorted rendering of British history”, The Guardian, 2 February 2013; R. Booth, “From Kipling to Python via Thatcher, the pub quiz to get you a passport”, The Guardian, 28 January 2013. 36. E. Andreouli, and P. Dashtipour, “British Citizenship and the ‘Other’: an Analysis of the Earned Citizenship Discourse”, Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology 24 (2014), pp. 100-110. 37. J. Costa-Lascoux, « L’intégration ‘à la française’: une philosophie à l’épreuve des réalités », Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales 22 (2006), pp. 105-126. 38. Source: http://www.eu2008.fr/webdav/site/PFUE/shared/import/ 1103_Ministerielle_Integration/conference_integration_041108_Final_declaration_EN.pdf. Consulted April 2009. 39. Prior to 2004 the application process for acquiring citizenship was exclusively conducted by post. 40. David Blunkett, Home Secretary, first citizenship ceremony, Brent Town Hall, 26/02/04. 41. Oath of Allegiance: “I (name) swear by almighty God that on becoming a British citizen I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to her majesty Queen Elisabeth II, her heirs and successors according to law”. Affirmation of Allegiance: “I (name) do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm that on becoming a British citizen I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to her majesty Queen Elisabeth II, her heirs and successors according to law”. Pledge of Loyalty: “I (name) will give my loyalty to the United Kingdom and respect its rights and freedoms. I will uphold its democratic values. I will observe its laws faithfully and fulfil my duties and obligations as a British citizen”. The affirmation of allegiance is specifically designated for those candidates who are either non-Christian or atheist. 42. Teresa May, House of Commons, 30 January 2014. 43. Home Office, Citizenship Ceremonies. Consultation Document (London, Stationery Office, 2003). 44. In July 2014 a Black Country wide-joint citizenship ceremony was organised by the Walsall, Wolverhampton, Sandwell and Dudley Councils. It was accompanied by the Black Country Anthem “I wow to thee Black Country”. Source: Express and Star, 13 July 2014. 45. D. Blunkett, first citizenship ceremony, Brent Hall Town Hall, 26/02/04. 46. Tom McNulty, Immigration minister, 31 October 2005, quoted in: http:// www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/introducing-the-governments-britishness-test-only- foreigners-need-pass-natives-can-bask-in-ignorance-5348746.html. Consulted February 2016. 47. M. Rimmer, The Future of Citizenship Ceremonies (Ministry of Justice, 2007), p. 4. 48. Other texts include: the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness 1961 (art.8(1)), the European Convention on Nationality 1997 (art.7(1)) [not yet signed by the UK], and the Guidelines on Statelessness No1 issued by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (20 February 2012). 49. M.J. Gibney, “‘A Very Transcendental Power’: Denaturalisation and the Liberalisation of Citizenship in the United Kingdom”, Political Studies 61 (2013), pp. 637-655.
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50. Ibid., p. 638. 51. Peers rejected the initial government proposal whereby a Home Secretary’s deprivation order might lead to statelessness putting the UK in breach of its international obligations. For the full version of the ‘ping pong’ debates between the Lords and the Commons see House of Commons, Immigration Bill: Deprivation of British Citizenship (House of Commons’ Library, SN/HA/ 6820, 8 May 2014). See also ILPA briefing, 12 May 2014,. http://www.ilpa.org.uk/resources.php/ 26335/immigration-bill-ilpa-briefing-for-ping-pong-in-the-house-of-lords-12-may-2014 consulted February 2016. 52. United Kingdom Supreme Court 62, 9 October 2013. 53. Immigration Bill 2014, Fact Sheet: deprivation of citizenship (clause 60), https://www.gov.uk/ government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/277578/ Factsheet_15_Deprivation.pdf. Consulted February 2016. 54. M. Gibney quotes Hillary Clinton’s words in Congress to support legislation to denaturalize US citizens when convicted of terrorist acts. M.J. Gibney, “‘A Very Transcendental Power’: Denaturalisation and the Liberalisation of Citizenship in the United Kingdom”, Political Studies 61 (2013), p. 638. 55. ILPA, Immigration Bill House of Commons’ Consideration of Lords’ Amendments 7 May 2014: further briefing from the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association, www.ilpa.org.uk. 56. J. Clarke, K. Coll, E. Dagnino and C. Neveu, Disputing Citizenship (Bristol, Policy Press, 2014), p. 1.
ABSTRACTS
In February 2009 Gordon Brown’s government promoted the concept of ‘earned citizenship’ which is based on the principle that British citizenship is a privilege that must be earned, that applying for UK citizenship is a long journey and that migrants have to undergo a series of tests before being eligible to get naturalized. Successive governments have further reinforced the criteria to meet with the introduction of a renewed version of the UK Life Test, the reinforcement of the probationary citizenship period and the requirement to have better language skills than before. Ten years after their creation, citizenship ceremonies conceived as the best way for newly registered citizens to show that they have a shared understanding of what it means to be British are still apprehended as a means to give a political and ideological significance to the attribution of citizenship through the development of a national statement of values. Simultaneously the power to deprive somebody of his citizenship has been extended in a context of increased securitization of migration. Home Secretaries have been exercising more and more their power to strip people of their British citizenship and withdraw passport facilities for those individuals suspected of having been involved in terrorist activities or considered to be a threat to national security.
En février 2009 le gouvernement de Gordon Brown promut le concept de ‘citoyenneté acquise’ basée sur le principe que la nationalité britannique est un privilège à conquérir, que le processus de naturalisation est long (introduction de diverses phases préparatoires) et que les futurs citoyens doivent réussir plusieurs sortes de tests (UK life test, test de langue). En outre, dix ans après leur introduction, les cérémonies de naturalisation sont plus que jamais un moyen de donner une valeur politique et idéologique à l’attribution de la nationalité par le biais de valeurs
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nationales communes. Enfin et parallèlement au renforcement des conditions d’accès à la nationalité les gouvernements britanniques ont étendu les critères permettant la déchéance de nationalité et ce, dans un contexte sécuritaire renforcé.
INDEX
Mots-clés: nationalité, naturalisation, déchéance de nationalité, cérémonies de naturalisation Keywords: citizenship, naturalization, denaturalization, citizenship ceremonies
AUTHOR
CATHERINE PUZZO CAS (EA 801), Université Toulouse-Jean Jaurès
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Community and Citizenship in the Age of Security: British Policy Discourse on Diversity and Counter- terrorism since 9/11 Communauté et citoyenneté dans l’ère de la sécurité : le discours britannique sur les politiques publiques en lien avec la diversité et le contre-terrorisme depuis le 11 septembre
Romain Garbaye and Vincent Latour
This article is based on research conducted as part of the SoMI project (Securitisation of Migrant Integration, Lessons from the US and the UK, AAP 2012 Idex Sorbonne Paris Cité).
Introduction
1 According to an influential definition of “securitisation” by the Copenhagen school, we can talk of securitisation when the security imperative is used in political discourse and decision-making to justify an expansion of state powers, often at the expense of human rights.1 “Security” itself is a contested notion, originally meant to designate the security of the state in an international relations perspective. It has been gradually broadened in scope to encompass other dimensions. “Societal security” designates the security of a society, understood as physical security against threats of violent attacks, but also as social cohesion and collective well-being.2 Human Security is generally meant to highlight the potential conflict between state or societal security and the well-being of individuals, in the context of mounting concerns over the extensive use of security by a variety of political actors as a justification for a growing list of policies with often dubious implications.3
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2 The security-integration nexus is apparent in the ways in which the ability of the state to control migration flows – border control, asylum restrictions, deportation orders, criteria for citizenship acquisition – are conceptualised and justified with reference to both state and societal security. While issues related to immigration already prompted concerns in the last decades of the 20th century, after 9/11 these concerns intensified and turned into fears.4 This development is the prolongation of a long-term shift from comparatively liberal immigration regimes in the post-war decades to the construction of immigration as a problem and a risk, as suggested by Christopher Rudolph.5
3 Dominant approaches to migrant “integration” – understood as state strategies to facilitate the settlement of migrants and their descendants in their host societies – have undergone a parallel trajectory, from a differentialist, multiculturalist phase in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, to a “neo-assimilationist” phase since the late 1990s. In this phase of “backlash” against multiculturalism or “retreat” from it, European political discourses suggest that too much has been done to allow ethnic minorities to express their cultural singularities, and not enough to ask them to adjust to the values of their host society, as underlined by Vertovec and Wessendorf as well as by Joppke.6 Their incapacity or unwillingness to abide by shared national values, usually defined with reference to the rule of law, democracy, tolerance, human rights, is now presented as a threat to social cohesion and as the source of an identity malaise in Western national communities. This often results in the “illiberal” tightening of criteria for inclusion in the national community, for example through restrictive reforms of settlement and naturalisation.7
4 The parallel between the securitisation of migration and border control, on the one hand, and migrant integration, on the other, can be captured by analogy with the notion of a “continuum of threats”, an expression coined by Didier Bigo to designate the expansion of the remit of police cooperation in Europe to terrorism, drugs, organised crime, mafias, human trafficking, and asylum seekers, presented as closely related problems.8 It draws attention to the social and political construction of “threats”, the product of professional strategies of police organisations that have had an interest in seizing new issues and incorporating them in their policy remit. So, while there is no denying the reality of threats like terrorism or various types of criminality, the ways in which they are defined, analysed, and which types of solutions are proposed and at what level of policy-making these solutions should be implemented, take different shapes according to the interests of a variety of actors. They may be international organisations, governments, political parties, as well as experts, academics, consultative panels or representatives of professional organisations.
5 In the policy areas touching on “integration” – State-church relations, local community partnerships, naturalisation, citizenship – the shift to increasingly securitised understandings of ethnic diversity has been driven by the desire to maintain the legitimacy of governments in the context of economic globalisation, continuing migration flows, and welfare cuts. In the UK, this is vividly illustrated for example by the white paper Secure Borders, Safe Haven (2002), which spelled out the rationale for the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act adopted the same year. The white paper sought explicitly to balance the inevitability of future migration to the UK (and in fact the deliberate strategy of opening UK borders to specific types of migrations, as underlined by Somerville9 and Lassalle 10), with the anti-immigration sentiments of large sections of the press and of the Conservative party. Hence the bill contained the
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proposal, which was groundbreaking at the time in the UK, of a citizenship ceremony including an oath of allegiance for naturalisation applicants.11
6 The shift is also justified and theorised by a variety of sub-political actors, such as civil servants, academics and experts, who can be viewed as intermediary actors (neither frontline deliverers of public services nor political actors) or as agents of “institutional reflexivity”.12 They contribute powerfully to shaping dominant discourse and approaches, both reflecting and reinforcing government strategies. This is particularly the case in the United Kingdom where the last decade has seen a flurry of new concepts, vocabulary and approaches launched into the public debates by ministerial reports. It is this type of discourse that this paper analyses, focusing on two policy areas: (a) the discourse on social cohesion and community, which has become the official guideline for a wide range of policy areas touching on immigrant integration since 2001, (b) and the preventive dimension of the CONTEST counter-terrorism strategy, the PREVENT programme.
7 In both domains, the shift to securitisation was prompted or accelerated after tragic events with a strong impact on the news cycle and triggered changes in major policy areas.
8 The first was the spate of urban rioting of the spring and summer of 2001, just before 9/11, in the north of England, involving predominantly young males of “South Asian” origin (Pakistanis, largely). After these events “multiculturalism” and “multicultural policies” were denounced, and Asian minorities accused of “self-segregating” and of not doing enough to foster the acceptance of “shared” British values within their communities. A new official discourse appeared, centred on “community cohesion”, integration and shared values. The second is the London bombings of 2005, which heralded the rise of PREVENT as the main arena for interaction between local authorities and Muslim communities on the basis of common efforts to counter extremist discourse in local Muslims communities. Paradoxically, the critical review that we undertake below reveals an unintended effect of these policies, which is the ethnicisation of the populations targeted. While these approaches have turned away from the attempts to give recognition to ethnic diversity, and to redress inequalities related to cultural difference and discrimination, which justified the multiculturalist dimension of previous policies, they still result in the construction of culture, ethnicity or religion as a problem and a “threat”. However some aspects of the Coalition’s intention to revise the PREVENT strategy seemed to correspond to a partial desecuritisation of Muslim communities, largely, it seems, in response to widespread criticisms of the programme among practitioners, community leaders and academics. This seems to suggest that securitisation is not ineluctable because it can be at least to some extent countered through participation in public debates by the targeted communities and their allies.
Securitised communities: “citizenship”, “shared values” and “community”
9 Both the Labour governments of the 1997-2010 period and the Liberal Democrat- Conservative coalition that replaced them sought to move away from the multiculturalist approach by emphasising citizenship, organised around shared values and social cohesion. Although the specific language and some of the policies differ, the
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central tenets of the integration policies for both regimes are predicated on the same ideological premises. At the core lies the idea of community. This was evident when the term was used by Tony Blair and his allies to coin new concepts such as “community cohesion”. The assumption of the communautarian vision of society is also discernible in the various pro-religion strands of the Big Society and localism, which both inspired the coalition’s approach. The contradictory impulses of community – the inclusion of individuals into a group, and the simultaneous exclusion of others through the very process of delineating the contours of the group – therefore lie at the heart of much British policy-making in fields pertaining to immigrant integration. This can be traced back to the common roots of both New Labour and coalition approaches: New Right ideas and the “New Public Management”. Their influence has been a constant in British politics since the 1970s and has been closely correlated to the transition to a managerial state.13 The idea of reimagining local government as a coordinator and participant in partnerships with local communities originated in New Right thinking about “a minimalist role for local government which would create the conditions for others to engage in service provision”.14 As they either re-organise or directly dismantle the welfare state, governments are compelled to provide new narratives to paint a coherent picture of early 21st century society at a time of challenge for one of its traditional backbones, state redistribution. Discourses on community and cohesion justify the transition of state-society relations from a model of hierarchical and direct linkage between policies and citizens to a model of triangular relation between policies, individuals, and “ communities”, which are both recipients of and participants in the implementation of the policies in the context of “partnerships” between government organisations and “the third sector” or “civil society”. Some authors have written about government through communities as a technology of citizenship which, applied to community empowerment programmes, encourages active citizenship in the provision of social services in order to reduce the public’s dependence on services once these are rolled back.15
10 Here we retrace the history of the various policies in which the logic of community has been evident since 1997 in policy areas related to immigrant integration, as shown in the writings of Anthony Giddens who argued in 1998 that though “entirely laudable” multiculturalist policies and their aim (“to counter the exploitation of oppressed groups”) could not be fruitful without “the support of the broad national community” and had to “ stretch beyond the claims and grievances of any specific group”.16 Likewise, the identification of “institutional racism” following the MacPherson inquiry (1999) has sometimes been interpreted as having signalled the end of “identity politics”17 that is, favouring the recognition of ethnic minority cultures over binding national community ties, at a time when Lord Parekh still positively defined Britain as “a community of communities”.18
11 From 2001 onward, new forms of unrest in inner-city areas in the North and the Midlands and Islamist terrorism (across the Atlantic first, then in Spain and the UK) led to the sudden and dramatic rhetorical discarding of multiculturalism and, simultaneously, to the framing of “cohesion” policies (although arguably such changes had been underlying since 1997, or indeed since the Major years). The riots (in Bradford or Oldham, e.g.) therefore shook the multicultural settlement to its very roots, just like the ensuing reports, both local19 and national20 and the frontal criticisms expressed for the first time by Labour figureheads (e.g. David Blunkett, Jack Straw). In Bradford, the Ouseley report emphasised residential and school segregation and an overall sense of “
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separateness” resulting both from the flight of middle class people (whites, Hindus and Sikhs) out of certain areas and from a neat tendency towards self-segregation amongst certain Muslim communities.
12 Although the “community cohesion” concept was to be presented for the first time in the Cantle report five months later, certain values praised by the Ouseley commission were already consistent with it, as shown in the following passage: “What is now desperately needed is a powerful unifying vision […] social harmony, rejection of racial hatred, civic pride, a single common identity.”21 The Cantle review team, commissioned by the Home Office after the disturbances of summer 2001, gave no ready made definition of community cohesion, although what it had meant in Canada since 1996 under the name of “social cohesion” was made clear.22 The report insisted on “common values and a civic culture”, “ common aims and objectives”, “common moral principles and codes of behaviour”, “inter-group co-operation” etc. Although community cohesion could apply to economic considerations (e.g. “Social solidarity and reductions in wealth disparities”), it especially meant encouraging commonality, shared values and interaction, which, it was implied, had been overlooked by “multi-cultural” (sic) policies.
13 Among the report’s seventy recommendations, citizenship occupied a central position. In particular, the idea of citizenship ceremonies, inspired by those in existence in Australia or Canada under the same name, came to the fore. Another key recommendation was citizenship education, which was introduced in the national curriculum as early as 2002 so as “to stress integration rather than separation”, as underlined by Tony Blair in December 2006. Community cohesion, though loosely- defined, quickly became a buzz word. That sudden promotion, which perplexed many Britons, should be contrasted with the timid or indeed, non-existent promotion of “ multiculturalism” in its prescriptive acceptation in the 1980s and 1990s, although it had become Britain’s de facto policy since the inner-city riots of the early and mid-1980s. The rejection of multiculturalism was reinvigorated by the materialisation of the terrorist threat in Britain (“7/7” attacks in London) and was articulated by the Conservative opposition as well as by the Labour majority. More surprising still, were the criticisms formulated by members of the ethnic minority intelligentsia.23
14 With the change of government in 2010, and the replacement of Gordon Brown’s Labour government by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition led by David Cameron and Nick Clegg, the concept of “community cohesion” lost currency and some changes were introduced. Significantly, it was replaced by “Integration and Race Equality ”, when Liberal-Democrat Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State Andrew Stunnel left the government in 2012. But the central tenets of shared values and citizenship were not challenged, and actually were reinforced, to such an extent that the accusations of unreconstructed assimilationism by stealth have become increasingly convincing. Some aspects of the new policies proposed, at least at the level of stated intentions, have also propelled the Church of England to the centre-stage of local partnerships with community organisations, reinventing an older pattern of religious management of British inter-racial relations (one example being the National Committee for Commonwealth Immigrants, headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury in the mid-1960s). The trend towards deepening neo-assimilationism has also been evident in the moves by Theresa May, the Conservative Home Secretary of the coalition and of the current Conservative government, to harden the requirements for the acquisition of citizenship, building on or indeed extending David Blunkett’s 2002 initiative. The “Life
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in the UK” test, which, after much debating in the early years of the millennium, had remained pointedly devoid of any material on British culture and history, now contains a whole section on key aspects of British history. Generally, the term integration has been given an increased prominence. In 2012, the coalition published a document entitled Creating the Conditions for Integration, which has pushed further the move away from multiculturalism that had been started by Labour, at least at the level of discourse.24 The overall objective was to enhance five factors contributing to integration: tackling extremism and intolerance; social mobility; participation; responsibility and “common ground”. In its preamble, the document denied any social or racial dimension to the 2011 riots, blaming instead “criminality” and “lack of social responsibility”. It criticised past government interventionism along racial or faith lines, adding that other factors such as location or socio-economic status also shape local societies. It criticised anti-discrimination policy, which so far had remained unchallenged by the critics of multiculturalism: In the past, integration challenges have been met in part with legal rights and obligations around equalities, discrimination and hate crime. This has not solved the problem and, where it has encouraged a focus on single issues and specific groups, may in some cases have exacerbated it.25
15 It then went on: “Today, integration requires changes to society, not to the law”, reinforcing a trend already perceptible under New Labour. Accordingly, the governmental action programme that is proposed in the rest of the document is strikingly unambitious and consists of a ramshackle list of minor projects to fund youth programmes. It also cites the Localism Act of 2011 as a means of empowering local communities.
16 Elements of continuity with New Labour can also be found in this idea of “localism” and in the Big Society agenda that inspired Cameron’s approach to local government and community partnerships in the first years of his government. The Big Society – meaning the encouragement of civic engagement by all citizens in the delivery of public services and community activities – is often derided for its conceptual shallowness, but it does refer to some of the most fundamental tenets of British policy- making in the last twenty years. First, it is obvious that it serves to justify the disengagement of the state from local public services and the drastic reduction of the remit of local government action. In this respect, it is distinct from New Labour, which had deeply reconceptualised and reorganised the modalities of state interventionism, including by introducing Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs), but had not sought to shrink its perimeter. However, the proposal to replace public services with the voluntary work of civic-minded residents builds on the ever-present notion of community, which as shown above was already a central plank of New Labour’s thinking. In his landmark speech on the Big Society delivered at Milton Keynes on 23 May 2011, Cameron declared: Tradition, community, family, faith, the space between the market and the state – this is the ground where our philosophy is planted. The things I’ve spoken about today – modernising public services, rebuilding responsibility, strengthening family and community, all this represents a massive cultural change.26
17 In another speech delivered later the same year, on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, he asserted the willingness of the coalition to place Christianism back at the heart of government policy, declaring that “the values we draw from the Bible go to the heart of what it means to belong in this country”27. In concrete terms, this translated for instance into the “Near Neighbours” programme which made local
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Anglican parishes key actors in the funding of local partnerships with community organisations, including ethnic minority ones. Typically this meant that local groups and projects, whether Christian, secular, or of other faiths, were now required to obtain the counter-signature of the local vicar to benefit from this programme.28 Paradoxically enough, this has not prevented leading Church of England figures from accusing the UK government of fostering “aggressive secularism” over certain issues, such as same sex marriage.29
18 This policy displays elements of continuity with Labour, which, despite Alastair Campbell’s famous assertion (“We don’t do God”), had displayed a clear pro-religion bias in many aspects of its integration policies. In the area of local community partnerships, New Labour had already emphasised the role of the Church after the 2005 London bombings. The novelty after 2010 was that the coalition promoted the role of the Church of England only, thus dispensing with the pluralism that was evident in New Labour’s attitude to religion: dialogue with a broad array of Muslim organisations, legislation against incitement to religious hatred (a long-standing claim of Muslim organisations), or extension of public funding to minority schools in 1998. The relationship between community and citizenship is ambiguous. On one level, communities are presented as inclusive. They respond to a security imperative: “ Community offers people what neither society nor the state can offer, namely a sense of belonging in an insecure world”.30 Thus, the community is both an antidote to the destabilising forces of the globalised economy that threaten the social compact and an ideal goal of policies. It refers to an elusive golden age, which is usually the first half of the twentieth century, when the working class was supposed to be organised harmoniously around trade unions and networks of solidarity at the local level.31 As a remedy to destabilisation, communities are meant to replace the bureaucratic welfare state by new patterns of neighbourhood organisations, based on reconstructed understandings of British values –however defined.
19 The convergence with governmental approaches to international migration is clear. The globalising forces that shape today’s world have been relocated beyond national borders, which threatens the state’s legitimacy and seems to make social decay uncontrollable, threatening traditional forms of social cohesion. In Britain, this has been explicitly put forward as the backbone of the ideological refoundation of the Labour party by Lord Glassman as part of the Blue Labour agenda supported by Ed Milliband in 2010-2011. Blue Labour was meant to encapsulate both a nostalgia for the golden age of the working class and an anti-immigration stance in the name of the stability of communities. Yet at the same time, the notion of community is often used to designate “troubled” populations.32 The reasons why traditional forms of organisation longed after by the nostalgics of trade unions, Parish Churches and working-class political parties is that they have given way to the individualisation of society, which in turn brings personalised anxiety and scapegoating.33 Hence, the relation between the onslaught against the welfare state and the rise of backlash against women, racial and sexual minorities, as well as migrants.
20 Crucially, this was evident in the community cohesion discourse that evolved out of the 2001 reports on the Bradford and Oldham riots, which as shown above tended to construe South Asian communities as self-segregating and closed to the values of the wider national community. In this aspect of the community discourse, there are two types of communities pitted against each other: the minority community, deemed
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divisive and antagonistic to British values, and the majority, national community, which promotes inclusive values of human rights, tolerance and democracy. In this way, and although this is denied by the architects of this discourse34 the 2001 reports constructed minority communities of migrant origins as part of the “continuum of threats”.
21 The essential pathology of the community discourse is that a society based on community cannot escape the question of the boundary of the community, and that this leads to increasing polarisation between the “ins” and the “outs”.35 As Bauman points out, we miss community because we miss security.36 The solution proposed, the creations of new communities such as reconstructed Britishness or the local communities of the Big Society, is flawed, because the criteria for inclusion or exclusion into these communities create new insecurities for outsiders.
Securitised Muslims: the PREVENT programme
22 The attitude of New Labour governments to Muslims certainly was ambivalent. Muslims clearly became a closely-watched group after the inner city riots of 2001 and of course even more so, after 9/11 and 7/7. That suspicion was however accompanied by the will to mediate with them through representative mainstream councils, such as the Muslim Council of Britain, but also through more radical groups.
23 The reliance on the mediation of Muslim groups also formed the basis of the Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) programme, also known as PREVENT (launched in April 2007), whose key approaches were “promoting shared values, supporting local solutions, building civic capacity and leadership, and strengthening the role of faith institutions and leaders.” By 2008, the central Government created two public service agreements based on the recommendations of the CIC, PSA21 and PSA26. The former was perfectly consistent with the core ideas behind cohesion, i.e. “to build cohesive, empowered and active communities.” Three national indicators were to assess the efficiency of PSA21, notably by evaluating the relationship of different groups living in a given community (NI1), the sense of belonging of people living in a local community (NI2) and residents’ perception of whether they can influence decisions in their locality (NI3).
24 As for the objective of PSA26, it was to reduce risks related to international terrorism in the UK and in UK overseas interests, three national indicators measuring the efficiency of the Public Service Agreement: • NI35-building resilience to violent extremism • NI36-protection against terrorist attack (crowded places) • NI37- public awareness of civil contingency measures
25 Muslims advocating non-participation in UK elections, calling for the creation of a caliphate, promoting Sharia or rejecting homosexuality would be considered “extremist”. Muslim community organisations willing to co-operate, on the other hand, would receive subsidies. Many Muslim groups, notably in the North, refused to co- operate, and many of those that did co-operate did it undercover. Another major bone of contention stemmed from the fact that the impact of British foreign policy options in Iraq and Afghanistan on the radicalisation of certain British Muslims was ignored by the programme. Given widespread opposition to PVE, both within and without the “ Muslim community”, the scheme was reviewed by the Coalition in 2011 but both its name and concept were actually upheld.
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26 PREVENT is therefore a key area of immigrant integration policy, in which the tensions and contradictions of government approaches have played out spectacularly. The programme has been subjected to an intense barrage of grassroots and academic criticisms. Their main thrust was that through PREVENT the government had explicitly constructed Islamic culture and religion as a major security threat, building on and amplifying a climate of prejudice against Muslims. This debate created a context in which successive governments, but particularly the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition after 2010, sought to re-evaluate and reformulate the programme to make it less inflammatory. This suggests that mobilisation by both Muslim and non-Muslim critics of the programme have resulted in its partial desecuritisation.
27 Actors of the public debate engaged in the criticism of PREVENT are varied and represent a broad cross-section of the British intellectual and professional world concerned with anti-Muslim discrimination, inter-cultural relations in policy-making, policing, and foreign policy, as well as grassroots Muslim organisations. Some of the local authorities required to implement the policy also disapproved of it to the extent that they refused to do so or did it under different names.37 In one of the first sources of funding available as part of PREVENT, some local Muslim community organisations who could have been expected to apply decided to boycott the programme (although they later changed their mind).38 Even though they represent a wide array of political standpoints, these criticisms and initial refusals to participate in PREVENT are strikingly convergent around a few central points.
28 As noted earlier, the programme was first mooted in the early part of the 2000s, at a time when the new language of community cohesion was omnipresent in government thinking on ethnic minorities, and its initial ambition was to apply the community cohesion approach to the prevention of terrorism. However, this is a contradiction in terms, as Charles Husband and Yunis Alam have shown.39 Attempts to use a concept designed to promote inter-cultural or inter-religious dialogue and encourage interactions between people of different backgrounds became problematic when it appeared that such attempts were essentially directed at just one community, namely Muslims. In 2008, the funding for most of the programme was allocated authoritatively by central government to local authorities on the basis of the percentage of Muslims in their total population. The correlation between the amount of funding and Muslims was tight and showed that this was by far the predominant factor in the allocation of funds.40 This is all the more problematic as the focalisation on Muslims springs from a cultural and religious reading of the determinants of extremism which seems to proceed from culturalist prejudices against that particular religious minority. Many attacks against PREVENT have related it to the wider context of anti-Muslim prejudice that pervaded public discourse on Islam and Muslims in the post-9/11 context, which PREVENT has built on and reinforced. In so doing, the programme has triggered a series of negative feedback effects. Muslim community organisers or activists refuse the funds for fear of participating in a stigmatising system and losing credibility and respect within their community.41 PREVENT has also been accused of using social work and local partnerships with community projects and organisations to enhance police surveillance of these communities, with the negative, unintended effect of reinforcing the suspicion of local communities towards social workers or local organisers who are viewed as potential police collaborators. Arun Kundnani’s report Spooked!, one of the first full-fledged works on PREVENT, insisted on that particular point. The
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contradiction in terms between cohesion and anti-terrorism is again apparent here, because the trust between the social worker and the community, which forms the basis of social work, is eroded by the suspicion among the community that he or she is in fact participating in the collection of sensitive information for the police.42 The focalisation on Muslims also has lent credence to the suspicion among other communities that Muslims end up being somehow privileged as recipients of public funds. This is particularly problematic in the context of the “white backlash”43 and the politics of resentment of the white working-class in the face of perceived preferential treatment of minorities by the British state.44 In its extreme form, this line of reasoning produces the resentful belief that it is useful to be a problematic, dangerous community in order to attract public support.45 The broader assumptions that inform PREVENT have also come under heavy criticism. Behind the focalisation on Muslims lies the idea in particular that cultural/religious alienation is a key factor in leading would-be terrorists down a pathway of radicalisation. This culturalist or theological approach to radicalisation makes light of its political dimension, assuming Islamic terrorism to be largely driven by purely religious motivations. Yet much evidence in the UK suggests that there is considerable anger directed at British foreign policy (invasion of Iraq, conflicts in the Middle-East) among Muslims and that this constitutes a favourable context for the violent radicalisation of some individuals. The refusal to address this point, which has been a mainstay of British government policy, has weakened the relevance of PREVENT and has only served to further reinforce the sense of estrangement of disaffected Muslims from the democratic process.46 Finally, radicalisation is a rather loose concept that obscures the variety of factors that may contribute to driving an individual to violence, and the complexity of the process that leads to terrorism. It obscures the fact that these processes are largely individual – explaining why some members of one given Islamic network may gravitate towards violence, while others will not.47 This is related to the fact that radicalisation is used to designate the trajectory towards both “extremism” and “violent extremism”. The distinction between the two justified the allocation of PREVENT funds to organisations viewed as “extreme” but that do not advocate violence. The dialogue between mainstream society and these organisations that PREVENT sought to organise was meant to bring them into the fold of mainstream society, thereby undercutting and isolating violent Islamism. But this has exposed PREVENT to accusations of religious engineering, with the British state attempting to create authoritatively its own acceptable version of Islam instead of engaging in a political dialogue over issues such as foreign policy.
Towards a partial desecuritisation of Muslims?
29 When the coalition government was formed in 2010, it was determined to continue PREVENT but was also keen to differentiate itself from its Labour predecessor. The first indications of the government’s intentions on PREVENT came in David Cameron’s February 2011 speech at the Munich security conference. This speech was an unambiguous attack on multiculturalism and was once again couched in terms reminiscent of New Labour’s denunciations of segregation, ghettoisation and refusal of Western values supposedly encouraged by multiculturalist ideology and policies. This time, however, the denunciation was more radical, and New Labour’s policies of partnerships with a wide array of Muslim groups was deemed excessive. The distinction
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between violent and non-violent extremism was likewise rejected, and groups which did not advocate violence, but whose ideology was antagonistic to “British values”, were now to be excluded from PREVENT.
30 Arguably, this represents a greater “securitisation” of Muslim groups, which then became viewed with greater suspicion. The government was widely criticised for wasting an opportunity to improve the programme by taking into account the liberal criticisms outlined above. The decision to exclude from the programme some Islamist and Salafist groups, such as the STREET project in Brixton that had previously been used as a means of reaching disaffected Muslim youths exposed to violent Islamist ideology, was viewed by some practitioners of Prevent as particularly counter- productive and as a direct result of neo-conservative bias.48 Others pointed out its contradictory and unclear logic.49 However, some aspects of the New Prevent strategy that was unveiled later in 2011 displayed a willingness to hear at least some of the earlier criticisms outlined above.50 As noted by O’Toole et al., two points stand out. The first one was the proposal to distance the prevention of terrorism from the community cohesion agenda, and, more broadly, from the issue of immigrant integration. As a result the New PREVENT was less directly associated, at least in its official framing, with Muslim communities as a whole. The funds were now targeted to areas defined not essentially in terms of the size of their Muslim populations, but according to more precise information on the potential for violent extremism.
31 In relation to this, there was also a new willingness to counter extremism as such, including from far right groups which have also emerged as a possible vector of radicalisation in British society. Interestingly, one of the most visible such groups in British media and politics is the English Defence League (EDL), which has defined itself largely as an anti-Muslim organisation determined to combat the “islamisation” of the United Kingdom. In 2011, David Cameron’s Munich Speech was deemed insensitive by vast swathes of the Liberal Democrats, including by the then Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, as the speech, which mostly dealt with the question of Islamism, was delivered simultaneously with an EDL march in Luton.51
32 As pointed out by O’Toole et al., the motivations for these changes were not just to accept the arguments of a mostly left-of-centre milieu of academics, social workers and local community leaders and activists, but also and perhaps most importantly to suit the Conservatives’ programme of budget cuts and traditional hostility to social work.52 In particular, the idea of “community cohesion”, so dear to New Labour governments, was dropped. It is also this context that may explain the new dissociation between counter- terrorism and social work. Yet the lively policy debate around PREVENT in the UK has led to at least a partial attempt to tone down some of its most controversial aspects.
Conclusion
33 In the United Kingdom, the changing policy discourse on immigrant integration has been driven by a securitised vision of populations of immigrant origin, which has bred changing forms of ethnicisation. This paper has illustrated this trend in relation both to the development of the “community cohesion” and “shared values” guidelines that followed the urban riots of 2001 and to PREVENT, the counter-terrorism programme put in place after 7/7. While the older equal opportunities and multiculturalist agenda was still given a nod in the post-riot reports of 2001, it was now deemed to have
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encouraged segregation or indeed “self-segregation”. The ethnic leadership in particular (mainly Muslim leaders in cities like Bradford) were accused of using the support of local authorities to impose traditional, illiberal values within their communities. Community cohesion became an omnipresent guideline in a wide array of policies, from education to housing, youth work, social care, and all types of community partnerships. Essentially, this meant a new emphasis on a “common vision” for all communities and the “strong and positive relationships” between “people from different backgrounds”. It implied the rejection of ethnic minority cultures as potentially separatist and self- segregating, unable or unwilling to share the values of the majority. After 7/7, the mood hardened towards Muslims, with Blair and his key ministers delivering a series of speeches enjoining Muslims to embrace British values and to accept their “duty to integrate”, as one of the then Prime Minister’s speeches was entitled. In that context, the main goal of the PREVENT programme, inspired by the community cohesion agenda, was to channel funding towards local communities which may harbour potential terrorists in order to promote community cohesion, challenge extremist ideas and prevent the “radicalisation” of individuals. The programme came under heavy criticism from diverse sections of the academic world and from the targeted communities themselves. Despite its avowed objective of promoting community cohesion, it was widely criticised for stigmatising at the outset Muslim communities by authoritatively allocating funds to local authorities on the basis of the percentage of Muslims in their total population. It was derided for mixing uneasily social work and police work and was suspected of facilitating the surveillance of communities under the cover of innocuous activities for young people or women. Its intellectual premises – that there was a process (or “pathway”) of radicalisation, and that cultural or religious factors were crucial in this process – were also criticised for reflecting prejudices against Muslims, and for ignoring other, obvious factors of anger and extremism among Muslim communities, such as British foreign policy. In both the community cohesion discourse after the 2001 riots, and in the PREVENT programme after the London bombings, a stated will to engage in dialogue with ethnic minority communities on the basis of common values resulted in the paradoxical reinforcement of ethnic stereotypes. This is because in both cases the ideological building block of the new policies has been the notion of “community”– explicitly in the case of “community cohesion”, and through the construction of radical Islamism (however defined) as a central factor in the radicalisation process. The omnipresence of the paradigm of community, culture or religion in British approaches to diversity suggests at least some level of continuity with the previously dominant multiculturalist approach. In the British context, the extension of the “continuum of threats” to populations of migrant origins has resulted in a situation in which the attempts to recognise diversity as a positive value, or to redress disadvantages linked to origins or language, that originally motivated the multiculturalist project, have been de-emphasised. Only the essentialising and exclusionary dimension of ethnicised policy-making remains.
34 A silver lining may have been discernible, however, in the coalition’s attempts to take into account the chorus of criticisms that has rained down on PREVENT. In its revised version of 2011, PREVENT was aimed at extremism in general and moved away from the confusion between social work and counter-terrorism. Likewise, it is noteworthy that certain religious or cultural demands accommodated in the later part of the Blair/ Brown years, notably in state schools (e.g. single-sex prayer rooms for Muslims in certain state schools) have not been questioned ever since. Whether this can ultimately
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lead to a complete change of policy that would finally stop associating the terrorist threat with Muslim populations remains to be assessed in the longer term, although recent developments and their consequences, notably in France and Belgium, indicate that it is still far from being the case.
35 Romain Garbaye est Professeur des Universités en civilisation britannique à l’Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3 et directeur de CREW (EA 4399) ; Vincent Latour est Professeur des Universités en civilisation britannique à l’Université Toulouse-Jean Jaurès.
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Tsoukala, Anastassia, « La presse écrite britannique et française face au terrorisme », dans Bigo, Didier, Bonelli, Laurent et Deltombe, Thomas, Au Nom du 11 septembre… Les démocraties à l’épreuve de l’antiterrorisme (Paris, La Découverte, 2008), pp. 283-291.
Vertovec, Steve, and Wessendorf, Susanne, The Multiculturalism Backlash, Europe discourses, policies and practices (Abingdon & Oxon, Routledge, 2010).
NOTES
1. Barry Buzan, Ole Weaver and Jaap de Wilde, Security, A New Framework for Analysis, (Lynne Riener and Boulder, London, 1998). 2. Ibid. 3. U.N.O., (2003). 4. Ariane Chebel d’Appollonia, Frontiers of Fear, Immigration and Insecurity in the United States and Europe, (Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 2012) p. 15.
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5. Christopher Rudolph, “Security and the Integration of Immigrants in Europe and the United States”, in Ariane Chebel d’Appollonia and Simon Reich (eds), Managing Ethnic Diversity After 9/11, Integration, Security, and Civil Liberties in Transatlantic Perspective, (Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, 2010), pp. 40-58. 6. Steve Vertovec and Susanne Wessendorf, The Multiculturalism Backlash, Europe discourses, policies and practices, (Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon, 2010); Christian Joppke, “The Retreat of Multiculturalism in the Liberal State, Theory and Policy”, The British Journal of Sociology 55:2 (2004) pp 237-57. 7. Ibid. 8. Didier Bigo, « L’Europe de la sécurité intérieure, penser autrement la sécurité », in Anne-Marie Le Gloannec (ed.), Entre Unions et Nations, L’Etat en Europe, (Paris, Presses de Sciences-Po, 2006), p.80. 9. Will Somerville, Immigration Under New Labour, (Bristol, The Policy Press, 2007). 10. Didier Lassalle, « Le Post-multiculturalisme de David Cameron », (Paris, Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique 17:2 (2012), pp. 189-211. 11. Home Office, Secure Borders, Safe Haven, Integration with Diversity in Modern Britain, (HMSO, 2002). 12. See Bigo, op.cit. and Derek Mc Ghee, Intolerant Britain? Hate, Citizenship and Difference, (Maidenhead, Open University Press, 2005). 13. John Clarke and Janet Newman, The Managerial State. Power, Politics and Ideology in the Remaking of Social Welfare (London, The Open University, 1997), pp. 131-136. 14. Clarke and Newman, op.cit., p.133. 15. Maggie O’Neil, Asylum, Migration and Community, (Bristol, The Policy Press, 2010), p 84. 16. Anthony Giddens, The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy, (London, Polity Press, 1998), p 133. 17. Arun Kundnani, “The death of multiculturalism”, (London, Institute of Race Relations, April 2002). URL: http://www.irr.org.uk/news/the-death-of- multiculturalism/ (retrieved on 3 May 2016). 18. Bhikhu Parekh, The Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain: Report of the Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain, (London, Profile Books, 2000). 19. Sir Herman Ouseley, Community Pride not Prejudice – Making Diversity Work in Bradford, The Ouseley Report, (Bradford, Bradford Vision, July 2001). 20. Ted Cantle (Independent Review Team), Community Cohesion, A Report of the Independent Review Team, (London, Home Office, 2001). 21. Sir Herman Ouseley, Community Pride not Prejudice – Making Diversity Work in Bradford, op.cit., p. 1. 22. Ted Cantle (Independent Review Team), Community Cohesion, A Report of the Independent Review Team, op.cit., p.69. 23. See for example Arun Kundnani, The Death of Multiculturalism, (London, Institute of Race Relations, April 2002). URL: http://www.irr.org.uk/news/the-death-of- multiculturalism/ (retrieved on 17 May 2016). 24. Communities and Local Government, Creating the Conditions for Integration, (London, Crown copyright, 2012). URL : https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/ attachment_data/file/7504/2092103.pdf (retrieved on 10 May 2016). 25. Ibid.
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26. David Cameron, Prime Minister’s speech at Munich security conference, (Munich, 5 February 2011). 27. David Cameron, Speech on the King James Bible, (Oxford, 11 December 2011). 28. Therese O’Toole, Faith and the Coalition: a New Confidence to ‘Do God’? Muslim Participation in Contemporary Governance, Working Paper N°3, (Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship, University of Bristol, 2012). 29. Lewis Smith, “Former archbishop Lord Carey attacks David Cameron for aggressive secularism in the Government's approach to same-sex marriage” The Independent, Saturday 30 March 2013, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/former- archbishop-lord-carey-attacks-david-cameron-for-aggressive-secularism-in-the- governments-8554864.html (retrieved on 18 May 2016). 30. Gerard Delanty, Community, (London, Routledge, 2003), p.192. 31. Mary Hickman, Nicola Mai and Helen Crowley, Migration and Social Cohesion in the UK, (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 41-43. 32. Maggie O’Neil, Asylum, Migration and Community, (Bristol, The Policy Press, 2010). 33. Ibid. 34. See in particular Cantle, op. cit (2008). 35. Zygmunt Bauman, Community, Seeking Safety in an Insecure World, (Cambridge, Polity, 2001). 36. Ibid. 37. Therese O’Toole, Stephen H. Jones and Daniel Nilsson DeHanas, The New Prevent, Can It Work? Will It Work?, Muslim Participation in Contemporary Governance Working Paper N°2, (Bristol, Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship, University of Bristol, December 2011), p. 3. 38. Charles Husband and Yunis Alam, Social Cohesion and Counter-terrorism, a Policy Contradiction? (Bristol, The Policy Press, 2011), pp. 146 and 155; see also Arun Kundnani Spooked! How Not to Prevent Violent Extremism, (London, Institute of Race Relations, 2009). 39. Husband and Alam, Social Cohesion and Counter-terrorism, a Policy Contradiction?, op.cit. 40. Arun Kundnani, The end of tolerance, racism in 21st century Britain, (London, Pluto Press, 2007), pp. 12 and 14. 41. Husband and Alam, op.cit., p.170. 42. Ibid, pp. 145-151. 43. Roger Hewitt, White Backlash and the Politics of Multiculturalism, (Cambridge University Press, 2005). 44. Steve Fenton, Ethnicity, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2003; Sveinsson, Kjartan Pal, Who Cares About the White Working Class?, (London, Runnymede Trust, 2009). 45. Charles Husband and Yunis Alam, Social Cohesion and Counter-terrorism, a Policy Contradiction? op.cit., p. 180. 46. Arun Kundnani, Spooked! How Not to Prevent Violent Extremism, op. cit. 47. Jonathan Githens-Mazer and Robert Lambert, “Why Conventional Wisdom radical fails: the persistence of a failed discourse”, International Affairs 86:4 (2010), pp. 889-901. 48. Robert Lambert, “Neo- Conservative Ideology Trumps Academic Research and Practitioner experience”, on the Muslim Council of Britain’s ‘Policy matters for Muslims in Britain’, (Muslim Council of Britain, “Soundings”).
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49. Derek McGhee, “New Prevent: Different is not necessarily better”, (Muslim Council of Britain, “Soundings”), June 15, 2011. 50. Home Office, The New Prevent Strategy (TSO, 2011); Lord Carlisle, Report to the Home Secretary of Independent Oversight of Prevent Review and Strategy, (HM Government, 2011). 51. Vincent Latour, “Muscular liberalism, surviving multiculturalism? A historical and political contextualisation of David Cameron’s Munich Speech”, Observatoire de la société britannique N°12, « La nouvelle donne politique en Grande-Bretagne (2010-2012) » sous la direction de Jean-Philippe Fons et Gilles Leydier, (Toulon, Université du Sud Toulon Var, 2012). URL: https://osb.revues.org/1355 (retrieved on 15 May 2016). 52. Therese O’Toole, Stephen H. Jones and Daniel Nilsson DeHanas, The New Prevent, Can It Work? Will It Work?, op. cit., pp. 5-6.
ABSTRACTS
Since 2001, successive British governments have rolled back the multiculturalist policies of the previous decades, at least in theory, at the level of policy discourse. In the context of the 9/11 terror attacks, followed by the London bombings of 7 July 2005, and of the riots of the north of England of 2001, the discourse on the incorporation of migrants and minorities, both from the government and the media, has become securitised. Multiculturalism has been criticised for encouraging ethnic communities to foster illiberal values, leading to segregation, and for encouraging separatism or even violent extremism among some individuals. New policy discourses have emphasised common values, a reconstructed British national identity, and intercultural dialogue. Yet within this universalistic turn it is possible to discern the persistence of an understanding of migrant incorporation, which is still framed in terms of cultural or ethnic community. This can be observed in the concepts of “community cohesion” or “Britishness”, which more or less explicitly require migrants and minorities to accept dominant values, thereby implicitly ethnicising them. The same logic is at work in the assumptions underlying the PREVENT programme, which aims at preventing violent extremism in Muslim communities.
Depuis le 11 septembre 2001, les gouvernements britanniques sont revenus sur les politiques multiculturalistes des décennies précédentes, au niveau du discours politique, du moins. Dans un contexte marqué par des attentats aux Etats-Unis puis à Londres, ainsi que par les graves émeutes du nord de l’Angleterre en 2001, on a assisté à ce que l’on peut appeler la « sécuritisation » des discours sur l’intégration des migrants et des minorités. Le multiculturalisme a été critiqué pour avoir concouru à l’expression de valeurs incompatibles avec la démocratie et le respect des droits de l’Homme, et, in fine, d’avoir mené à la ségrégation, au séparatisme, voire à l’extrémisme violent chez certains individus. De nouvelles approches de politique publique ont mis l’accent sur les valeurs communes, une identité nationale reconstruite et le dialogue interculturel. Cependant, il est possible de discerner dans ce tournant universaliste la persistance d’une approche de l’incorporation des migrants se fondant sur les communautés ethniques ou culturelles. C’est le cas dans les discours sur la « britannicité » (Britishness) ou sur la community cohesion, qui demandent aux migrants et minorités d’accepter les valeurs communes, les ethnicisant ainsi plus ou moins explicitement. C’est aussi le cas dans les présupposés du
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programme PREVENT, qui vise à prévenir l’extrémisme violent au sein des communautés musulmanes.
INDEX
Keywords: citizenship, security, ethnicisation, muslims Mots-clés: citoyenneté, sécurité, ethnicisation, musulmans
AUTHORS
ROMAIN GARBAYE Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3 (EA 4399 - CREW)
VINCENT LATOUR Université Toulouse-Jean Jaurès (EA 801 - CAS)
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Citizenship and Social Policy: the Debate on the Citizen’s Income Citoyenneté et politique sociale : le débat sur le revenu de citoyenneté
Jean-Paul Révauger
Introduction
1 The current social situation, all over Europe, is dominated by the prevalence of mass unemployment and declining living standards for the wage earning classes, whether they work for the public or the private sector. Short term variations in the unemployment rate enable governments to gloat over the success of their economic policy, as has been the case in the UK since the beginning of 2014, or encourage the opposition to attack governments. In spite of national variations in the unemployment rate across Europe, the long term picture is bleak. The combination of the shift to a post-industrial society, and of neo-liberal social and economic policies, had, by the early years of the 21th century, led to a social model dominated by flexibility, precarious employment and a race towards information technologies. Popular capitalism, owner occupancy, the activation of labour markets made the model attractive at least for a section of the population. The bursting of the Internet financial bubble in March 2000 was the beginning of a long decline, whose rhythm accelerated when the real economy, then transport and tourism were hit. The subprime crisis in 2008 was eventually quelled by governments, at the cost of a huge public deficit, since banks had to be bailed out and saved from bankruptcy. European policies, with the exception of a brief attempt at a Keynesian reflation in the UK under Gordon Brown, remained dominated by the monetarist principles which have been applied since the mid 1970s. The influence of the wage earning classes over society has never been so weak since the 1920s. The social cost of austerity programs all over the EU has been staggering and no solution is in view.
2 In such a context, it is no wonder the search for alternative solutions has been given a fresh impetus. This includes the work of serious economists, like neo-Keynesian and
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Nobel prize winner Paul Krugman, who seems to exert a much greater influence in the US than in the EU.1 This quest for fresh ideas also includes some minority currents, some of them probably cranky, although it is hard to tell who will be taken seriously in the future. Hayek and Friedman were for decades seen as dangerous extremists before they became the inspirers of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Among those strange minority currents, this paper is devoted to the study of the movement in favour of a basic universal income, known in the UK as the citizen’s income. The contemporary campaign will be briefly analysed, but most of the paper is devoted to a study of the historical sources of the movement in the UK, since the 1920’s. The key point made in this chapter is the following: the basic income is not a progressive policy designed to improve the fate of the poor. It is a “safety net” type of benefit, akin to the “Speenhamland system” of the 18th century, the supplementary benefit/income support of the British system and the RMI/RSA in France. Ironically, it is presented as a revolutionary measure intended to free individuals from the burden of “work”. Its philosophy is funded on the idea that work, and in particular waged work, will no longer be the key component of social identity, and will never again be available for all. Social structures will be based on …other, unspecified factors which are never explicitly defined. The vulgum pecus will be kept at bay, but offered a sufficient pittance to keep it away from mischief, just as the Old Poor Laws became exceptionally generous in the UK during the French Revolution, so as to avoid contagion. Even the French government contemplates a basic income for the under 25, contrary to the RMI/RSA. The basic income is now part of the conservative deal for Europe, the only real question being the amount of the “income”, in the context of a budgetary diet. Two alternative policies are on offer: austerity, a “creative life on the dole”, and a basic income, or investment in infrastructures, economic stimulation, and a return to growth and job creation.
The movement today
3 In January 2014, a petition launched under the European Citizen Initiative designed to put a “Citizen’s income”, known as the “Universal Basic Income” on the agenda of the European Commission was rounded up without meeting its target. The magic number, one million signatures was not met by a long way.2 Only 285,000 signatures were collected in favour of the basic income within the lifespan of the initiative, 12 months. In Britain, the petition was not very successful, with only 10,111 signatures, against 40,542 in Germany and 37,415 in France.3 The basic income is intended to provide each citizen of a given country with a fixed amount, throughout his/her life, irrespective of age, qualification, work, marital condition, number of children, earned or unearned income, or readiness to work.
4 Its philosophy and aim are rather difficult to grasp. Ostensibly, the citizen’s income is straightforward and the rhetoric supporting it surprisingly low key, commonsensical, and apolitical. This is probably one of the reasons for its failure. The citizen’s income would be financed through the tax system, and since the amount is uniform, it would be fairly easy to manage. Where supporters diverge is the amount made available to citizens. This is not a technical detail, but affects the whole philosophy of the scheme since a modest amount would merely subsidise low pay, and encourage employers to pay low wages, when a significant amount, in the region of 800 euros per month, would
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enable people used to a frugal lifestyle to survive without obtaining a regular job. Any money earned on top of the basic income remains in the individual’s pocket, and this does not affect the amount of the citizen’s income. British blue prints for the project quote £71 per week as a feasible objective, whereas even the French Right is closer to 800 euros per month, roughly twice the British amount.
5 The campaign is led in the UK by two different bodies, the Citizen’s Income Trust4 on the one hand and the local representatives of the European network known as BIEN (Basic Income European Network), launched in 1986.5 The CIT is a lobby, led by Malcolm Torry, the vicar of Holy Trinity Church, Greenwich, a Church of England progressive priest, with an intellectual and academic record at the London School of Economics. It promotes the idea in intellectual and political circles, although it has not met with a lot of success in politics. Not one British MEP signed the European appeal in favour of the citizen’s income, a failure which is probably related to the political weakness of the Green party in the UK. Most of the MEPs who did sign were ecologists, such as Eva Joly, José Bové and Yves Cochet in France. Neither Labour nor the Conservatives were involved. The British Greens only have two MEPs, who do not even seem to have signed the petition, which suggests the British campaign is probably different from the continental one, in ideological and political terms.6 Reverent Torry, on the LSE web site, writes that “every mainstream political ideology generates arguments for a Citizen’s income”, and spells them out: The New Right values the fact that a citizen’s income does not disincentivise (sic) enterprise in the way that means-tested benefits do. One Nation conservatives valued the combination of social cohesion and more efficient labour market offered by a Citizen’s Income. Liberals value the freedom that a Citizen’s Income would give to people to make choices about their employment patterns and relationships. Social democracy values the combination of economic efficiency and redistribution (…) and the Third Way could value a Citizen’s Income as a means of reducing poverty in a globalizing economy.7
6 Indeed, the British campaign purports to be ideologically agnostic, or neutral, which is not very convincing. Economic policy is predicated on social and political choices, and not a purely technical issue. Indeed, the arguments deployed in favour of the scheme display a curious similarity with neo-liberal or social liberal discourses. Just because such ideas are commonplace today, it does not mean they can be taken as unchallenged truths. “The best way to ensure the widespread availability of well-paid employment is to make the labour market as free and as flexible as possible”; “A citizen’s Income would help reduce the rigidities of the labour market”: thus spoke the Citizen’s Income Trust in 2013.8 This philosophy is closer to that of Margaret Thatcher or Boris Johnson than to the European TUC or progressive Keynesian economists like Paul Krugman. Submitting uncritically to the economic zeitgeist and the dominant or fashionable discourse in Europe is not “apolitical” or “neutral”, but sheer conservatism or conformism.
7 Among the frequently asked questions, one finds “would people still work?”, an issue clearly liked to the conservative rational choice theory, according to which people always take the best advantage of situations, and only do what is in their best, usually short-term interest. The answer is also quite typical: yes, people would indeed work, since a universal income would remove the poverty trap and other disincentives.
8 One of the most potent arguments seems to be the reduction in the number of civil servants necessary to administer today’s social assistance schemes. There is no denying
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the Department of Work and Pensions and other social administrations are vast cumbersome bureaucracies, and that the monitoring and surveillance of claimants is expensive and time consuming. However, focusing on the absolute need to reduce public spending is again more in tune with neo-liberal discourse than with progressive stances.9
Outside Britain
9 The ideological slant of the contemporary British movement seems therefore to be somewhat at variance with the French one, which is extremely eclectic and covers a wide span, going from the supporters of Christine Boutin or Dominique de Villepin to the anti-globalisation movement and readers of Le Monde Diplomatique10 of the most impeccably radical credentials. The movement is indeed not only pan-European, but international, and experiments carried out in India, Namibia and South America, as part of anti-poverty campaigns, are often quoted in the literature. The scale of the Indian and Namibian experiences seems to be very small, since they are limited to one or a small number of villages. South America is a seething cauldron, where radical movements and experiments sometimes reach national proportions. New forms of democratic representation are indeed tried, and the fascination of old European radicals with developments in Latin America is, up to a point, understandable. However, international comparisons require first and foremost an analysis of contexts, without which no understanding can be reached. It is quite surprising to find references to Alaska alongside comments on India. Indeed, the Republican authorities in Alaska, under Governor Jay Hammond, have since 1976 put aside 25% of the oil revenue, invested it in the Alaska Permanent Fund, in shares, bonds and real estate, and have paid out an equal sum to all Alaskan citizens. Before the crisis the amount for one year was in excess of $2,000; last year in the region of $900. It seems the total amount in the fund is in the region of $40 Billion. The irony of a situation where Tea Party supporter Sarah Palin doled out money to citizens without any counterpart has been highlighted by many blog users in the US, and Mrs Palin has even been called “a socialist”, which is quite unexpected and probably unfair.11 Be that as it may, comparing the shrewd use of oil revenues by a no-nonsense capitalist and pro-business administration in the richest country in the world with anti-poverty policies in Namibia or India is a tall order, economically, politically, ideologically, in a word, in historical terms.
10 It is quite clear the global reach of the movement, its “transnational nature” is one of its strengths, since participants feel they are part of a universalist dynamic, but in practice, the national situations vary considerably. This is probably the reason why Europe was chosen as a more realistic target.
The historical roots of the movement in the UK
11 In historical terms, the references of the campaign are even more eclectic and misleading. Several texts are available in English, and are used internationally. Even though the movement in Britain is obviously very marginal today, a large proportion of references are British. France is historically the other major contributor. Among the official references the movement wants to promote and stress, some are largely
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symbolic and rhetorical. Some prestigious authors who made a passing reference to some form or another of basic income are singled out and mentioned systematically, obscure authors are sometimes given prominence when a number of fairly significant movements or individuals are mentioned very briefly. Again, as in geography and contemporary references, authors are not presented or classified according to their political leanings. Early supporters of the idea that the state has a specific responsibility towards the poor are dragooned into the basic income brigade, just as the souls of 19th century peasants from the South West of France are claimed by Mormons and registered in their database. Yet, not all social schemes can be considered as forerunners of the “Citizen’s income”. So references to Vives, and to the old Poor Laws are probably exaggerated. Many references are made to Tom Paine in Basic income literature, but they seem somewhat over-enthusiastic and far-fetched. Paine, in a pamphlet written in 1797, “Agrarian Justice”, advocated a redistribution of income derived from land ownership to the whole population, through the form of a pension for old people, or a lump sum at adulthood. This amounted to a land tax. He did not advocate a permanent universal income for all citizens.
The Inter war years: Russell, Douglas, Cole
12 The period between the two world wars is probably the most significant one as far as the basic income is concerned. Again, Britain is the focal point. There are probably two reasons why original or innovative plans were conceived and promoted, sometimes with some success, during these otherwise sad decades. The first reason is that the government embarked in 1917 in a rhetorical exercise known as “reconstruction”. The point was to keep the British population going in spite of the stress of war and war time work, by promising bold reforms. Intellectuals were encouraged to draught blue prints of the “new Britain” that was supposed to be built after the war. The government promises are symbolised by Lloyd George’s statement that the authorities would build “homes fit for heroes”. Only a handful were built. One of the best minds of the realm, Bertrand Russell, mathematician, philosopher, aristocrat, political and cultural radical produced a well-known book entitled “Principles of social reconstruction”.12 This was very bold and successful, well beyond the radical circles that, before the war, were attracted by imaginative schemes such as those of the Guild Socialists.13 Russell, who had been victimised during the war for his pacifism, became fairly famous. His criticism encompassed the economy, the exploitation of wage labour, but also education, which he found classical and authoritarian, and marriage, which held women in subjection. Russell was extremely sympathetic to the cause of women, whom he loved dearly, and for whom he had a very keen interest. He was also an avowed atheist, which, at the time, was fairly bold. In a word, Russell was a modern thinker who foresaw the importance of issues which only reached the agenda decades later. He was also one of the earliest critics of the USSR.14 He took part in the first visit of left wing intellectuals to Russia, met Lenin, and wrote a devastating book on his return, when so many Fabians, like the Webbs, were sheepishly praising the regime.15
13 It is no wonder, with such intellectual and political credentials, that Russell should be found in the pantheon of many innovative currents, and that his name should be associated to such endeavours. There is indeed some evidence that Russell made some reference to a basic income, to be granted to all individuals regardless of their efforts
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or merits in a book entitled ‘Roads to Freedom: Anarchism and Socialism”.16 But Russell was no economist, he was not a practitioner of the “dismal science” and he only mentioned the need for some sort of universal benefit briefly. The other reason why the interwar years were favourable to social innovation is directly linked to objective developments and not to government policy. British industry underwent very rapid changes, whose social impact was tremendous. Whole sectors, such as mining, engineering, textile, declined dramatically, leaving millions out of a job until their last day, while, in other regions, the Fordist system was in full swing. Chemicals, electricity, automobile and aircraft production provided not only employment but reasonable wages, especially compared to pre-1914 levels. Macro-economic management, in particular orthodox monetary policies, geared towards the re-establishment of the gold standard, were severely criticised by Keynes. The similarity between the interwar years and the situation prevailing in Europe since the beginning of the crisis is striking. In both cases, the work process has been revolutionised by technological change, leading to a blurring of traditional social categories, and macro-economic policies obviously led to massive unemployment levels. In other words, the wage earning classes pay the cost of technological change, and most authorities follow the same classical line, sentencing millions to the dole. One had to wait until the mid-1930s for Keynesian policies to be adopted, openly in the US, and de facto in Britain. The combination of a disastrous social situation and counterproductive economic policies encouraged fresh thinking in the 1920s as it does today. The idea was taken up by one of the most fertile brains of the labour movement, GDH Cole. Cole had been fairly experimental before the war, and was one of the intellectual leaders behind the Guild Socialist movement, a grouping of artists and intellectuals, owing partly its origins to the work of William Morris, providing a political, literary and artistic coverage to the Industrial syndicalist movement. Cole was an extremely prolific writer, and published about a hundred books.17 He was clearly on the left of the labour movement, and a supporter of the rather radical New Fabian Research Bureau. Like Russell, he was openly supportive of the “social dividend”, but he also supported many other options and causes. The idea of a basic income was not the alpha and the omega of his thinking.
14 This was not the case of the most influential movement related to the notion, known as the social credit movement.18 Even though the economic credentials of the movement were criticised, it was both a typical product of its time, and a minor player on the ideological field. It did have a direct impact on politics in one country, Canada. The views developed by Major Douglas, its chief proponent, were stigmatised and clearly presented as cranky, although not by Keynes, who disagreed on the technical demonstration but shared some of the premises.19 James Meade, another Nobel prize winner, wrote in his autobiographical note: My interest in economics had the following roots. Like many of my generation I considered the heavy unemployment in the United Kingdom in the inter-war period as both stupid and wicked. Moreover, I knew the cure for this evil, because I had become a disciple of the monetary crank, Major C.H. Douglas, to whose works I had been introduced by a much loved but somewhat eccentric maiden aunt. But my shift to the serious study of economics gradually weakened my belief in Major Douglas.20
15 The notion of social credit was based on the idea that every person should receive an unconditional allowance and be given access to consumption. According to Major Douglas the problem affecting the British economy was under-consumption. He shared
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this analysis with Keynes, even though his economic reasoning was found lacking. Douglas’s proposal was therefore to encourage individual consumption. His perspective was not based on state policy, and in this respect he diverged from Keynes, who was concerned with influencing policies and public spending, as well as from the New Deal policies which were adopted ten years later in the United States. The state was not to the chief agent of policy, a feature Social Credit has in common with the contemporary supporters of the citizen’s income. Douglas shared the defiance of the romantic radical socialists such as the Guild Socialists towards the state. His first article was indeed published by the New Age, a literary journal produced by a distinguished intellectual, Orage, who had actively supported the Guild Socialists before the war. It is no wonder Sidney Webb, the pope of British collectivism, was harshly critical of Social Credit. Politically, Douglas shared the Keynesian criticism of the Bank of England, of conservative policies, and of the governor of the Bank, Montague Norman, who was largely responsible for the Conservatives’ strategies of the BoE, and whose effigy was burned publicly. However, he was not clearly aligned with the left. The Labour party was miles away from the prospect of social experiments, and spent much time recovering from the defeat of 1924, the crushing of the General Strike in 1926, MacDonald’s defection in 1931 … at the hands of the Bank of England. The unions kept aloof from the perspective of Social Credit, and concentrated on their primary function, incomes and working conditions. The hardening of the Means Test after 1931 was seen as evidence of Mac Donald’s alignment on the Conservatives. In the long run, this issue remained crucial, but was not embraced by Social Credit at the time. The social creditors refused to be considered as socialists, or as part of the labour movement, which was quite typical of the period.
16 Douglas’s followers in the UK included a lunatic fringe, the “Kibbo craft”, a weird outgrowth of the boy-scout movement, which advocated a rural and primitivist philosophy based on the notion of a simple life and devotion to duty.21 The group donned a green uniform and marched in several cities, until the banning of private uniforms in 1937. Green bricks were occasionally thrown at 11 Downing Street. It created a Social Credit Party in 1935 but disappeared in 1939. A group seceded from the slightly worrying “Kibbos” and created the Woodcraft Folk, the quite respectable youth organisation of the cooperative movement, which still exists today and has provided outdoor sports and entertainment to the sons and daughters of thousands of left leaning families.22
17 The social credit movement was, understandably, suspected of fascist leanings at the time, and a lot of individuals and movements hesitated between several options. Indeed, the Social Credit Party’s love of uniforms and martial antics did have some similarities with fascist organisations. The French rural movement “Chemises vertes”, under Roland Dorgères, which ended up supporting Maréchal Pétain during the war, shared the SCP aesthetics, if not their policies.23 Political and ideological uncertainty was a feature of the 30’s as well as of the early 21st century. In Canada, the SC party was extremely successful in Alberta. In 1935, it was elected at the head of the province, for a number of years. The lack of a social and ideological culture within the movement explains the crisis which followed this success. The governor insisted on pursuing an orthodox financial policy and refusing to let the public deficit increase – a conservative policy in keeping with his Christian fundamentalist outlook, but which was in clear contradiction with the origins of the movement. Again, this lack of a political culture is
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a feature the Social Credit movement has in common with the contemporary citizen’s income movement. Anti-globalisation activists as well as Social Christians and neo- liberals are to be found among its supporters. Douglas adopted a fairly radical questioning of capitalism and took up again Marx’s view on the wage relationship, described as “wage slavery”, again, like at least the French supporters of the basic income. He also criticised traditional politics and believed that the role of political institutions should be much simplified and reduced to the execution of decisions taken by citizens on an ad hoc basis, through a process of direct representation. Such ideas and criticisms of parliamentary democracy were directly borrowed from the pre-1914 syndicalist movement, and from the Guild Socialists, its intellectual counterpart. Politics as such would become irrelevant, and the secret ballot abolished. Such stances could easily lead the movement towards fascism as well as anarchism. Luckily, the movement disappeared during the war, at least in the UK, although it still has a handful of admirers.
An alternative to the welfare state?
18 The Second World War, from a social point of view, is dominated by the overbearing figure of William Beveridge. The struggle against the five giants would indeed be based on universal principles, since everyone would contribute according to their means, and have equal access to services. However, one of the chief characteristics of the welfare state was precisely to supply services directly, and not to enable the population to purchase private services. Education, health, public housing, and, later, transport and energy would be provided by state operated institutions. This was an extremely advanced form of “mixed economy”, in which commodification, as we call it today, or “market principles” were shunned. Britain was much more advanced than France in this respect, especially in the field of health, since, in France, provision was and had remained private, with the exception of teaching hospitals.
19 A number of reformers disagreed strongly with Beveridge, in particular a Liberal peer, Juliet Rhys Williams, who proposed a “social contract” based on a benefit conditional upon the person’s willingness to work, and enabling the recipient to purchase private services.24 The conditionality of the scheme should not be overplayed, since, in 1943, military or industrial conscription was the rule for the whole population, including women under 50. However, from a political point of view, it is significant to note the evolution of Juliet Rhys Williams, who became an active member of the extremely conservative Monday Club. Her son, Sir Brandon Meredith Rhys Williams, 2nd Baronet, was the Conservative MP for the working class constituency of South Kensington until 1988. He put the case for a basic income in the House of Commons, an argument which bore some similarities with one of the key buzz-words of the neo-liberal current, Milton Friedman’s negative income tax.
20 However, Margaret Thatcher was not prepared to commit herself to a new universal benefit, especially in a decade when social spending actually increased because of the rise of unemployment and the cost of maintaining 12 million people under the poverty line.
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Conclusion
21 The ancestors of the citizen’s income cover a surprisingly wide ideological span, from former guild socialists to self-taught economists, cranky middle-aged boy-scouts, academically correct experts, liberal peers and Thatcherite MPs. Its appeal cannot be related to a particular ideological tradition, but, in Britain, to specific issues. The notion of citizenship was grafted recently on that of a more or less unconditional basic income. This probably reflects the interest of British social thinkers for continental ideas.
22 In any case, four favourite themes of the citizen’s income chime to the ears of British specialists, and are identified as real problems.
23 The first one, is the question of stigma. From the 19th century onward, poverty has been stigmatised as evidence of a moral fault, and conditional benefits are still based on the distinction between the deserving poor and the undeserving. The means test is one of the key notions of British social policy. It has stigmatised millions of claimants since the days of the Charity Organisation Society and is particularly humiliating. As a public policy, it is central, but it is also hated by the people concerned, and has been combatted by the most advanced and humane social reformers. A universal basic income implies the abolition of the means test, and the removal of stigma.
24 The second argument is more technical. The basis income would remove the poverty trap, a well-known feature of contemporary social policies. In the current system, whenever unemployed claimants find some work, the income they earn is deducted from their benefit, and they end up with the same amount of money in their pockets. This is a strong disincentive for work. This problem is well known, and many governments, including Britain and France, have started allowing the combination of a full benefit and a small wage, so as to encourage the unemployed to find some work. Clearly an unconditional benefit solves the problem, since it can be combined with any kind of earned income.
25 The third argument reflects the weight of neo-liberal discourse in Britain: the citizen’s income would be easy to administer and would allow cuts in the number of people employed by the government to run the existing benefits, and monitor their good use. Reducing the size of government stands out prominently in the communication of the supporters of the citizen’s income.
26 The fourth and last argument is less identifiable ideologically, since it is promoted both by the anti-capitalist left and by neo-liberals. The promotion of individual freedom is the cardinal value cherished in Britain by everyone, to the exclusion of any other. The citizen’s income would remove the obligation to work, and devote our lives to boring tasks, thus creating opportunities for many other worthy activities. Whether or not watching television ranks among the alternatives to work is open to question. For neo- liberals, doing away with the systematic provision of social services by the state, and enabling citizens to purchase the private services of their choice would open fantastic opportunities, and open widely the avenues of individual freedom.
27 It is hard to tell whether the idea of a citizen’s income has a future. Minority currents and innovative ideas, such as the Tobin tax, have recently resurfaced, sometimes in surprising quarters.25 The petition failed in 2014, but the problems related to social
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policy seem to be intractable, especially in the context of social and economic policies leading to a decline in living standards. The future is very open.
28 Jean Paul Révauger, professeur de civilisation britannique à Grenoble, Aix-en- Provence, Schoelcher (Martinique) et Bordeaux est un spécialiste de l’histoire des idées et de l’histoire la gauche britannique. Il a publié de nombreux articles comparatifs sur la Grande-Bretagne et la France.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Chollet, Mona, « Une utopie à portée de la main : Imaginer un revenu garanti pour tous. » Le Monde Diplomatique (mai 2013).
Cole, G.D.H., Self Government in Industry (London, Bell, 1917).
Cole, G.D.H., The Next Ten Years in British Social and Economic Policy (London, Macmillan, 1930).
Douglas, Clifford Hugh (aka Major Douglas), Economic Democracy (London, Social Credit Association, 1920).
Family Allowances and Social Security (London, 1944).
Hutchinson, Frances and Burkitt, Brian, The Political Economy of Social Credit and Guild Socialism (London, Routledge, 1997).
Krugman, Paul, End this Depression! (New York, Melrose Road, 2013).
Krugman, Paul, The Conscience of a Liberal (New York, Norton, 2007).
Krugman, Paul, The Return of Depression Economics (New York, Norton, 2009).
Paxton, Robert, Le temps des chemises vertes. Révoltes paysannes et fascisme rural (Paris, Seuil, 1996).
Révauger, J.P., Le pouvoir aboli, l’autogestion en Grande-Bretagne, 1900-1983. Université de Grenoble III, Thèse d’Etat (1986).
Russell, Bertrand, Principles of Social Reconstruction (London, George Allen & Unwin, 1917).
Russell, Bertrand, Proposed Roads to Freedom: Anarchism, Socialism, Syndicalism (London, George Allen & Unwin, 1918).
Russell, Bertrand, The Practice and Theory of Bolchevism (London, George Allen & Unwin, 1920).
Social Credit (London, 1924).
Webb, Sidney and Webb Beatrice, Soviet Communism, a New Civilisation? (London, Special Edition for Subscribing Members of Trade Unions, 1935).
Williams Rhys, Juliet, Something to Look Forward to (London, 1943).
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NOTES
1. Paul Krugman, The Conscience of a Liberal (New York, Norton, 2007). Paul Krugman, The Return of Depression Economics (New York, Norton, 2009). Paul Krugman, End this Depression! (New York, Melrose Road, 2013). 2. This stands in stark contrast against success of the anti choice lobby, which gathered over 1.8 signatures against “embryo research”, under the name of “One of us” campaign. 3. The most enthusiastic supporters were in Bulgaria (32,000), Slovenia (9,255) and Croatia (12,195). This is probably related to the low wages available in central and Eastern Europe, even though the citizen’s income would be determined in each country, and would reflect the national conditions. The citizen’s income project remains rather modest and does not consider an equalisation of social conditions within the UE. 4. URL: http://www.citizensincome.org/ (retrieved on 24 May 2016). 5. The web site of the Bien network features a historical presentation of the movement. http:// www.basicincome.org/basic-income/ (retrieved on 24 May 2016). 6. For an analysis by green, anti-growth supporters of the basic wage, see: http:// makewealthhistory.org/2012/07/18/the-citizens-income/ (retrieved on 24 May 2016). 7. URL: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/archives/34269 (link no longer active). 8. Ibid. 9. One also finds a trace of this debate in Labour ranks, for instance in Scottish Labour: see http://www.labourhame.com/archives/835 (link no longer active). 10. Mona Chollet, « Une utopie à portée de la main : Imaginer un revenu garanti pour tous », Le Monde Diplomatique (May 2013). 11. See the web site of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation, managed by trustees, and owned by the state. URL: http://www.apfc.org/home/Content/home/index.cfm (link no longer active). See also « Socialist Sarah Palin? »URL: http://teamsternation.blogspot.fr/2012/09/sarah-palin- secret-socialist.html (retrieved on 24 May 2016). 12. Bertrand Russell, Principles of Social Reconstruction (London, George Allen & Unwin, 1917). 13. On this movement, see GDH Cole’s books, such as Self Government in Industry, London, Bell, 1917, as well as J.P. Révauger’s doctoral thesis: Le pouvoir aboli, l’autogestion en GB, 1900-1983 (1986). 14. Bertrand Russell, The Practice and Theory of Bolchevism (London, George Allen & Unwin, 1920). 15. Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Soviet Communism, a New Civilisation? (London, Special Edition for Subscribing Members of Trade Unions, 1935). 16. Bertrand Russell, Proposed Roads to Freedom: Anarchism, Socialism, Syndicalism (London, George Allen& Unwin, 1918). 17. G.D.H. Cole, The Next Ten Years in British Social and Economic Policy (London, Macmillan, 1930). 18. Clifford Hugh Douglas (aka Major Douglas). Economic Democracy (London, Social Credit Association, 1920); Social Credit. (London, 1924.) 19. The views of the social credit movement are still promoted by a tiny band of sympathisers today: http://www.douglassocialcredit.com/ (retrieved on 24 May 2016). 20. URL: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/1977/meade- bio.html (retrieved on 24 May 2016). 21. For The adventures of John Hargraves, “White Fox” see: http://www.kibbokift.org/ kkkhist.html (retrieved on 24 May 2016). 22. URL: http://woodcraft.org.uk/ http://woodcraft.org.uk/ (retrieved on 24 May 2016). 23. Robert O. Paxton, Le temps des chemises vertes. Révoltes paysannes et fascisme rural (Paris, Seuil, 1996). 24. Juliet Rhys Williams, Something to Look Forward to (London, 1943); Family Allowances and Social Security (London, 1944).
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25. « Taxe Tobin : Sarkozy dénonce l’hypocrisie. » Le Figaro, 19 January 2012. http:// www.lefigaro.fr/flash-eco/2012/01/19/97002-20120119FILWWW00526-taxe-tobin-sarkozy- denonce-l-hypocrisie.php (retrieved on 24 May 2016)
ABSTRACTS
The citizenship income, or « basic income » is an old idea, dating back to the 1920’s. Launched by progressive utopians, it was taken up in the 1930’s by the Social Credit movement, which hovered between quackery and social experimentation. It was peddled as an alternative to the Beveridgian Welfare State by ultra-liberals, from the 1940’s onward, but is also popular among ecologists and anarchists who welcome the end of waged work and of the definition of social identity through work. Today, as an elegant companion for austerity and for the crisis, is it in tune with conservative policies.
Le revenu de citoyenneté, appelé aussi Basic Income, est une vieille idée remontant aux années 1920. Inventée par des utopistes progressistes, elle a été dans les années 1930 reprise à son compte par le mouvement du Social Credit, hésitant entre charlatanisme et expérimentation. Présentée comme une alternative au Welfare State par les ultra libéraux à partir des années 1940, elle est aussi populaire dans le mouvement écolo-libertaire qui souhaite faire son deuil de la société salariale et du rapport au travail. Il s’agit aujourd’hui d’une stratégie d’accompagnement de la crise et de l’austérité, parfaitement compatible avec les politiques publiques conservatrices.
INDEX
Mots-clés: revenu de citoyenneté, revenu de base, Social Credit, néolibéralisme, utopies, écologie. Keywords: basic income, citizenship income, Social Credit, neo-liberalism, utopias, ecology
AUTHOR
JEAN-PAUL RÉVAUGER Université Bordeaux-Montaigne
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Continuity and Change in Work- family Reconciliation Policy under the Coalition Government (2010-2015) Continuités et ruptures dans la politique de conciliation de la vie professionnelle et de la vie de famille sous le gouvernement de coalition (2010-2015)
Jan Windebank
Introduction
1 According to Marshall, three types of rights may derive from citizenship: civil rights, political rights and social rights with social rights entailing “the right to a modicum of economic welfare and security” and “the right to share to the full in the social heritage and to live the life of a civilized being according to the standards prevailing in society”.1 The present article addresses the question of gender and social rights in the United Kingdom and focuses on one particular aspect of this question, namely the development of work- family reconciliation policy and parents’ rights and responsibilities as regards employment and child rearing. Work-family reconciliation policy is defined here as policy relating to the provision, subsidy or regulation of childcare by the state, provisions for parental leave and parental-leave benefits and rights for parents to request flexibility in their working arrangements to help with childcare. Given the centrality of employment in contemporary society, providing financial independence and security, social ties and meaning and identity, it could be argued that work-family reconciliation policy is in fact one of the principal ways in which the state may enable women if they become mothers to participate as full citizens in society.
2 In the post-war period both social and family policy across Europe supported the male breadwinner/female caregiver family model in which mothers had the responsibility of looking after home and children whilst fathers had the responsibility of earning money
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for the family on the labour market. Social rights at this time therefore conformed to this model: in the majority of Western European countries men had rights to a replacement income for themselves and their dependents when not able to work whilst women derived direct social rights in their capacity as mothers and other indirect social rights through their spouse. Given this preferred family model, in the 1950s and 1960s nowhere in Europe was it thought to be the responsibility of the state to assist mothers of young children to combine child rearing and employment, least of all in the UK.2
3 This situation began to change in the 1970s and 1980s with some European countries (for example, the Scandinavian countries and indeed France) rolling out work-family reconciliation policies. From the beginning of the 1990s, reconciliation policy began to spread more widely across Europe within the framing of ‘activation’, that is, driving up the employment rate by ‘activating’ previously economically inactive groups such as mothers of young children as a response to the New Social Risks (increasing dependency ratio of the elderly to the working population; lone parenthood; employment instability; childhood poverty) and in order to develop early years’ education as a form of social investment.3 However, no such policies developed in the UK until the end of the 1990s. The Conservative governments of the 1980s and early 1990s had viewed parental employment as a matter to be managed within the family, this being an ideological opposition to extending the reach of the state in the private sphere.4 It was only with the election of the New Labour government in 1997 which had very different normative assumptions about the respective work-care responsibilities of citizens and the state that the responsibility of the state to assist parents in this regard was recognised and policy in this field developed.
4 The UK can therefore be characterised as a ‘latecomer’ to work-family reconciliation policy in the European context. This ‘latecomer’ status has meant that the policy area was still in its infancy at the end of the first decade of the new millennium when it was dealt a double blow and fears for its future development were voiced: first, the budgetary crisis of 2008 put all government spending into question. And second, in 2010 the Conservative-led Coalition government came to power with the stated aim of rapidly cutting public expenditure and the welfare bill and of redefining the contours of the welfare state. The aim of this article is therefore to assess whether such fears have been warranted by seeking to describe and explain the degree of continuity and change in work-family reconciliation policy in the UK during the period of office of the Coalition government, that is, between 2010 and 2015. In order to undertake this analysis, the article will first outline the conceptual frameworks to be used; second, the article will trace the trajectories of the development of work-family policy in the UK and the accompanying policy discourses which have sought to frame and justify it from the 1980s onwards before moving on to assess the degree of continuity and change in these policy trajectories and discourses since 2010. Third, the article will review the possible drivers underlying the policy continuity and change between 2010 and 2015 so identified.
Frameworks for analysis
5 The first aim of this article is to describe the degree and nature of the continuities and changes which have taken place in work-family reconciliation policy under the
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Coalition government between 2010 and 2015. In order to do this, it will employ Hall’s framework5 which differentiates between three levels of policy change: first-order change sees modifications in policy instrument settings only; second-order change sees the policy instruments themselves transformed; and lastly, third-order change entails the recasting of the goals and objectives of policy. The second aim of the article is to seek to assess the policy drivers of any changes identified and the reasons for any continuities. In order to do this, the article will make reference to a broad range of explanations based on socio-economic, political, institutional and cultural factors drawing on Mätzke and Ostner’s analysis.6 This operates on two levels: the first of these distinguishes between the relative influence of material as opposed to ideational factors influencing policy whilst the second addresses the question of policy actors, distinguishing between societal actors (public opinion, the electorate) and political actors (parties, interest groups, policy elites). In their account, material factors may combine to produce new social challenges and to provide a window of opportunity for societal actors and political actors to turn these policy opportunities into policy change to promote or undermine work-family reconciliation policy. These political and societal actors look in turn to overarching legitimating ideas (for example, the social investment approach to welfare or the gender-equality agenda) for justification of their approach.
Overview of work-family reconciliation policy in the UK prior to 2010
6 In order to understand the continuities and changes in work-family reconciliation policy between 2010 and 2015 it is necessary to look at its history in the longer term. As O’Brien states, governments develop their work-family reconciliation policies in the context of historical pathway legacies and welfare state models regulating the relationship between the market, state and family.7 Prior to 1997 the UK lagged behind other European countries in making work-family reconciliation provisions for its population8 one of the reasons being that the UK has traditionally been a liberal welfare regime in which there is a reluctance on the part of the state to intervene in the private lives of citizens, particularly in the family; there is a reliance on the market to provide welfare solutions in conjunction with the state; and benefits and assistance are means- tested and targeted at those most in need in the population. Furthermore, during the 1960s and 1970s, there was a strong belief in the importance of maternal care for pre- school children shared by all the political parties and strongly defended by the civil service. Although a window of opportunity for the development of work-family reconciliation policy opened up in Europe in the late-1960s to mid-1970s brought about by the economic need for mothers to enter employment in response to labour demand and by ideological changes regarding gender equality having surfaced with the second- wave feminist movement, policy change did not occur in the UK as it did for example in France due to this political consensus against the employment of mothers of young children.9 For the remainder of the 1970s, despite this political stance, mothers’ employment started to increase and childcare solutions began to grow in the voluntary and private sectors.10
7 The New Right Conservative governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major from 1979 to 1997 did not actively support the traditional family ‘male breadwinner’ model
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through family policy as was the case in some conservative European states at the time, but did nothing to undermine it, justifying this lack of intervention by the idea that if both parents decided to go out to work, this was a lifestyle choice and therefore not within the remit of the state.11 Since the family was considered to be an exclusively private matter, policy intervention was restricted to targeting support for children in need.12 During this period there were no subsidies for childcare, no public nursery or childcare provision for the under 4s or statutory parental leave, paid or unpaid. For example, the 1980 Education Act stipulated that local authorities had no duty to provide early years education13 whilst in the late 1980s, the Health Department clearly stated that as far as childcare was concerned the role of central government was purely to regulate the quality of independent childcare services.14 This inaction as far as family and reconciliation policy were concerned helped the Conservatives to circumvent an ambivalence and tension within the party about (married) mothers of young children going out to work.15 On the one hand, the economic liberals, advocating a free market and individual liberty, opposed the state provision of childcare, but not mothers’ employment per se. In their view, if mothers found employment, this was the result of the function of the market. On the other hand, traditional conservatives placed more emphasis on a strong and authoritarian state to enforce law and social order and were of the opinion that the role of mothers lay in the home.16
8 Despite this lack of state support, mothers’ employment continued to increase rapidly over this period: between 1984 and 1994, the percentage of mothers with children under five who were economically active rose from 37 to 52 per cent.17 The lack of state support for reconciliation issues meant therefore that mothers’ employment had to be managed within the financial resources of the household. This often resulted in recourse to market-driven flexibility in the shape of part-time work which was well developed but largely unregulated and as far as childcare was concerned reliance on informal networks of family, friends and neighbours, the voluntary provision of pre- school education and private market childcare, principally nurseries and child-minders which were growing rapidly at the time.18 Indeed, successive Conservative governments sought actively to promote pre-school education and childcare provision by the voluntary and private sectors in response to demand from working mothers.19 Pump- priming funds were given to voluntary-organization childcare initiatives20 and also by the beginning of the 1990s the government was making efforts to encourage employers to provide childcare by offering them tax incentives.21 Although under no central- government obligation to do so, local authorities did provide some part-time nursery education for pre-school children during this period with the number of four-year-olds in primary school reception classes continuing to grow.
9 By the mid-1990s John Major’s government was facing increasing pressure to change its opposition to a central government strategy for early-years education and care: the increasing number of mothers in employment was changing the material conditions of the policy environment and presenting a new social need – for work-family reconciliation – which called for a government response. The government responded timidly by introducing a voucher system for part-time nursery care in 1994, the first time that such a demand-side form of funding had been used in public services. Vouchers were seen as a means of securing parental choice and more diverse provision but were not intended to expand public provision of nursery care. It should be noted,
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however, that at the same time as nursery vouchers were being introduced, John Major was blocking EU directives on parental leave.22
10 By the end of the 1990s, therefore, it is clear that new social challenges in the shape of mothers’ employment were building up pressure for change but the Conservatives were only giving ground on this matter very slowly due to their ideological opposition to state intervention in the family. In consequence, the UK had to wait for the election of the New Labour government in 1997 for the change in the ideological landscape necessary for the development of policy in this area. Work-family reconciliation policy was part of New Labour’s social democratic project on two levels. First, it was part of its gender-equality agenda to increase significantly the participation of women in the workforce, considered a cornerstone of women’s emancipation.23 Second, work-family reconciliation policy was an integral part of New Labour’s ‘active social policy’ according to which labour market participation should be a social responsibility for an increasing proportion of the population, including mothers of young children, in order to address a number of the challenges facing western welfare states: the increasing dependency ratio of old to young people; changing family forms which means that there is more often only one work-age adult in a household; child poverty which is seen to be ameliorated by dual-earning amongst parents; and children’s development particularly in disadvantaged households which can be enhanced through early-years childcare. As Morgan notes, in the UK debates over work-family policy were bound up with concern about child poverty, welfare dependency, and the working poor as much as with gender issues since this was the way in which reform ideas could “better accommodate political actors’ requests, and hence, succeed in being selected and institutionalized.”24 Furthermore, it has been noted that ‘late developers’ of reconciliation policy, such as is the case for the UK, tend to deploy justificatory frameworks of protection against the new social risks and social investment from the point of view of children and as a means of economic growth rather than of gender equality.25 New Labour was no exception in this regard.
11 Thus, a raft of new work-family policies was introduced from 1997 onwards. In terms of the provision and subsidy of childcare, New Labour made it a statutory requirement for Local Education Authorities (LEA) to provide a free part-time place for 12 hours per week for four-year-olds, this being extended to three-year-olds in 2004. Many of these places, although funded by the LEA, were provided by the private sector showing a continuity with previous practice of encouraging private and voluntary sector provision. Furthermore, schemes such as Sure Start provided collective childcare in targeted disadvantaged areas. Financial subsidies for childcare were also provided for low and middle income families through a system of means-tested tax credits introduced in 1999 covering initially 70% of childcare costs up to a ceiling per child which rose to 80% in 2003. For families not entitled to tax credits, a tax efficient childcare voucher system was introduced in 2005 whereby employers could provide tax and National Insurance-free vouchers for childcare. As regards leave arrangements, maternity leave was extended incrementally up to nine months’ paid and three months’ unpaid leave by 2006; in 2002 two week’s paid paternity leave was introduced and in 1999 a gender-neutral entitlement of 13 weeks of unpaid parental leave was put in place. Lastly, in 2003 an employee ‘right to request’ reduced or flexible hours to accommodate childcare and other responsibilities was introduced even though take-up was limited by its subordination to business needs.26
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12 There is no doubt that these reforms represented a radical departure from past non- interventionist policy which began to bring the UK more in line with its European neighbours27 even though the reforms were more modest in nature than in many other countries.28 For example, Lewis and Campbell argue that paradigmatic change in the goals of policy took place in that the responsibility of central government for work- family reconciliation was accepted and therefore childcare was no longer seen to be a solely private, family matter.29
13 Conversely, Rubery & Rafferty30 and Daly31 have argued that it is clear to see the path dependency of New Labour’s approach to work-family reconciliation of combining neoliberalism with responses to emerging social needs: reliance on the market to provide childcare; maintenance of cash benefits at a low residual level; and targeting help to lower income families through means-testing. Furthermore, although great strides had been made in work-family reconciliation in the UK by 2010, a number of significant problems remained: first there was a shortfall of formal childcare provision for the under-threes; second, there existed no paid parental leave for men with the exception of the two weeks’ paternity leave. And lastly, the cost of provision for pre- schoolers was very high, childcare costs having risen much faster than wages or inflation in the UK since 2001. Indeed, by 2012, the UK was second only to Switzerland amongst OECD countries as regards the cost of childcare as percentage of average earnings. The impacts of these problems were highlighted in a 2013 survey of 1,600 parents in which 70% of those currently without a job said that they would like to work and 47% of these cited the cost of childcare as one of their main barriers to entry to the job market.32 Norman & Fagan note that according to the 2012 European Quality of Life Survey the cost of childcare is the main problem for 59% of parents on average in Europe who would like take up employment but cannot, whereas in the UK this is the case for 73%.33 The Institute for Public Policy Research suggest that the UK should aim to reach childcare prices that are around 10% of net family income (they are currently 26.6%) in order to support maternal employment.34
Work-family reconciliation in conditions of austerity under the Coalition government
14 Over the course of the 2000s, there had been a paradigmatic shift in attitudes amongst the political parties regarding work-family reconciliation. A consensus had emerged around the responsibility of the state to help parents to reconcile employment and family life, even if the exact nature and justificatory frames of such policies differed between the parties. All the main parties, including the Conservatives, featured pledges to develop work-family reconciliation policy in their manifestos in 2010. However, the election of the Coalition government, led by the Conservatives, made many suspect that at best work-family reconciliation policy would make no strides forward to bring about a greater degree of convergence with the UK’s more progressive European neighbours and address some of the outstanding problems discussed above. At worst, it was feared that work-family reconciliation policy was in danger of suffering retrenchment as a result of the proposed cuts to public expenditure.
15 What, therefore, was the bilan of the Coalition government as far as work-family reconciliation is concerned? On the positive side, it must be said that the Coalition government repeatedly stated its commitment to work-family reconciliation measures
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within the justificatory framework of ‘activating’ parents in order to reduce poverty and increase living standards through making childcare accessible and affordable. In one of its last statements entitled ‘Making Childcare Affordable’, the Coalition promised to “increase childcare support to improve work incentives to ensure that it is worthwhile for parents to work up to full-time hours”, remarking that “work is the most sustainable route out of poverty”.35 We saw the enactment of a number of measures to this end. First, policy instrument settings as regards nursery education were changed in order to facilitate parental employment and also to target help more towards lower income families: in 2010 there was an increase in the hours of free nursery education from 12.5 to 15 hours per week with parents being given more flexibility in how to spread this across the week to fit with employment hours. This nursery provision was extended to 20% of the poorest two-year-olds in 2013 and then to the poorest 40% in 2014. Second, in 2012 a reform to the policy instrument which subsidies childcare for those not eligible for childcare tax credits was announced. The Childcare Payments Act 2014 replaces the employer voucher system with childcare tax subsidies, one of the main stated objectives of which is to reduce childcare costs to working parents. There is a limit on payment of £2000 per child but no limit on the number of children under 12 who can be claimed for. Neither parent can have an annual income of more than £150,000 to be eligible for this tax break. Third, for those receiving childcare tax credits, the government announced its intention to increase payments to improve work incentives to make it worthwhile to work up to full-time hours for low and middle income parents. Fourth, there was a change to enable the transfer of unused maternity leave to fathers.36 The previous Labour government had outlined the Additional Paternity Leave (APL) Regulations and Additional Statutory Paternity Pay which the Coalition implemented for parents of infants due on or after April 2011. This allows fathers to take up to six months’ APL during the child’s first year if the mother returns to work before the end of her maternity leave. Furthermore, in November 2013, it was announced that increased flexibility would be given to mothers and fathers in how to share this leave with mothers only having to take two weeks of the leave. Lastly, the Children and Families’ Act 2014 extended the right to request flexible working to all employees with 6 months service under the same conditions as rights previously available to parents of children under 6 (or disabled children under 18).
16 Critics would point out that these policies have not really driven work-family reconciliation policy forward or represent any kind of significant convergence with the more progressive European states. Free nursery education remains on a short-hours part-time basis, far short of sufficient hours to allow for significant employment on the part of both parents. In the 2015 general elections, only the Labour Party promised to increase this to 25 hours per week. In the European Union, in general, childcare systems that support high levels of maternal employment provide at least 30 hours a week of subsidised childcare. Extensions of nursery education for two-year-olds are being means-tested, within the liberal welfare tradition. As far as the introduction of the childcare tax subsidy is concerned, there is scant evidence as yet as to who will be the winners and losers in this change of policy instrument. Although the introduction of paid parental leave to include fathers is a positive step, no provision has been made in this for a ‘daddy month’ as is the case in many European countries now (most recently in France) in which parents are obliged to share the leave if they do not want to lose entitlement to a proportion of it. Recent figures suggest that only around 1% of eligible fathers have taken up this opportunity since its introduction in 2011.
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17 Not only has scant progress been made in terms of UK work-family policy ‘catching up’ with that of some of its more progressive neighbours, there have also been some policy changes which represent a withdrawal of state support and encouragement for working mothers. First, for families on benefits, the introduction of Universal Credit, whilst strengthening the incentive for lone parents, and those in couples without a partner in paid work, to undertake employment, only provides for one allowed earnings disregard thereby weakening the incentive for both members of a couple to take a job.37 Bennett and Sung, reviewing the gender implications of Universal Credit, argue that the Coalition government has given such prominence to the problem of getting one person in each household into employment that it has ignored the problem that the new system will create for ‘second earners’ who will face higher losses from each additional pound of wages than they do under the current system.38 This is very problematic if we consider that previous research has demonstrated that ‘second earners’ are in general more influenced by disincentives to move out of, or reduce their employment than primary earners. However, in an attempt to offset to some extent this clear disincentive to employment amongst poorer families which contradicts the aim of the government to activate as large a proportion of the workforce as possible as an anti-poverty strategy, an extra £200 million has been promised to support lower- income families from April 2016 with the childcare element of Universal Credit being raised to 85% of costs for families where both parents earn enough to reach the tax threshold. Second, the employer-supported childcare voucher scheme, being phased out after 2015, has been restricted for higher-earner tax payers, part of a liberal welfare strategy to target state support more tightly. Third, in April 2011 there was a reduction in the percentage of costs covered by child tax credits from 80% to 70%. However, following opinion polls showing that this decision was particularly unpopular with low- to middle- income women voters, the Coalition unveiled plans to extend access to childcare tax credits to parents working less than 16 hours who had not previously been able to access these tax credits at a cost of £300 million.39 Fourth, failure to ring- fence expenditure on nurseries, after-school or holiday clubs by local authorities has had a deleterious effect on provision. A study released in June 2013 by the 4 Children and Daycare Trust shows that cuts to the Sure Start programme have led to a loss of 250 community nurseries.40 Furthermore, a parliamentary answer from then Childcare minister Liz Truss in 2013 conceded that the number of children’s centres providing full day care fell from 800 in 2010 to 550 in 2011.41
18 In sum, there was much continuity of work-family reconciliation policy during the Coalition government at the level of policy objectives. As Daniel notes, the Labour governments “moved the goalposts in relation to a range of issues including tackling child poverty, the provision of early-years services and family-friendly employment” leading to a cementing of work-family reconciliation policy within the UK policy landscape which has been able to withstand both the budgetary crisis and the change of government.42 However, there was a degree of change in policy settings and policy instruments, the reductions in provision having affected in particular low- and middle income groups and unemployed mothers adversely. Where change in policy instruments or instrument settings has occurred it has often been in the direction of strengthening the liberal welfare model: for example, extending the targeting and means-testing of provision (extending free nursery to only the poorest two-year-olds); the undermining of direct state provision of childcare services (e.g. Sure Start nurseries and Local Authority
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childcare centres); and the reluctance to intervene too strongly in family matters by not introducing measures to encourage fathers to take up parental leave.
Discussion: Policy drivers
19 How, therefore, do we explain this continuity of policy goals and the continuities and changes to policy instruments and settings that we have identified with reference to Matzke and Ostner’s framework?43 First and foremost it must be emphasised that the material conditions – that is, the rise in mothers’ employment and the demands of the new social risks against the background of which New Labour introduced a raft of work-family reconciliation policies – did not change after 2010 and thus still confronted the Coalition government. Indeed it could be argued that these new social risks – particularly the dependency ratio and child poverty – became more acute in this period, demanding enhanced policy responses. Furthermore, the fact that New Labour’s work-family reconciliation reforms were rooted very much in the country’s liberal welfare tradition, adding new reconciliation policy instruments to address the new post-industrial social risks, meant that, in ideational terms, it was not too difficult for the Coalition to continue with many of these policies and support their overall objectives albeit in the role of policy “consenters”, rather than “protagonists”.44 That said, there is one material factor that did change and which might have been expected to lead to more retrenchment of work-family reconciliation policy: namely, the budgetary crisis brought about by the banking collapse of 2008. As Farnsworth and Irving suggest, the impact of economic crisis on particular aspects of social policy depends on ideological dimensions which concern the ways in which the crisis should be defined, understood and responded to.45 Responding to the budgetary crisis, the Coalition decided to pursue a series of public spending cuts, rather than increasing taxation, this decision being portrayed as an “urgent truth”, designed to lead to a more textbook model of a liberal market economy with a residual welfare state.46 The cuts to direct provision of childcare by local authorities and to the Sure Start programme as well as the changes to Universal Credit which discourage second earners can be viewed as collateral damage within this strategy. But how, then, did other aspects of work-family reconciliation policy avoid more stringent reductions and indeed in some cases, were actually enhanced. The answer to this question is complex and is based in part on ideational changes within the Conservative Party as regards work-family reconciliation which must be understood in relation to the influences of societal actors – namely the electorate and public opinion – and policy actors (namely the business community).
20 Although the Conservatives were still holding out against work-family reconciliation policy in their 2001 election manifesto, by the 2005 general election in the UK all three parties were scrambling to show their commitment to working parents, the Conservatives having undergone a policy U-turn in the meantime.47 The idea of using work-family reconciliation policy as an activation measure fitted with Conservative thinking on reducing welfare dependency – work-family reconciliation policy helps in particular hard-working low- to middle-income families – and on breaking the cycle of deprivation with social investment in early years education. For example, on becoming leader of the Conservatives David Cameron argued vigorously that increasing the numbers of working-class women in employment would increase the number of children receiving ‘professional’ nursery care rather than home care, a situation which
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he viewed as socially and educationally beneficial.48 What political pressures had led, therefore, to the Conservatives’ acceptance of the need for work-family reconciliation policy? A key actor in this regard is the business community which has a privileged position in the policy-making process under governments of all political persuasions but particularly for right-wing governments.49 Much of the power-resources approach to social policy has assumed that business organisations are antagonists or at most consenters with regards to the introduction and expansion of social policies.50 However, Fleckenstein and Seeleib-Kaiser show that the business community in the UK has for some time been a protagonist for some aspects of work-family reconciliation policies, particularly the state provision of and subsidy for childcare. For example, in the early 1990s, the group Employers for Childcare called for a national strategy aimed at the provision of accessible, available, affordable and quality childcare whilst the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) also called for a coordinating role for central government at this time in the face of labour shortages.51 Similarly in more recent times, the CBI has been an advocate of an expansion of affordable childcare with calls for childcare being explicitly linked to anticipated labour shortages associated with demographic change which is considered to undermine the competitiveness of British businesses.52 This is first and foremost because British women are likely to be employed in low-skill occupations and be prepared to work flexibly. Thus business is keen for the state to provide childcare to liberate their labour power. However, the CBI has strongly opposed the extension of the duration and the splitting of leave between mothers and fathers as well as the entitlement to flexible working hours proposed by the government.
21 Furthermore, electoral influences have also been at work on all parties, including the Conservatives. Morgan suggests that the development of work-family reconciliation policy must be viewed within the context of shifting voter alliances and intensified electoral competition which in recent years resulted in competition between parties over the issue of helping working families. She argues that in the UK, growing female labour-force participation and changing social attitudes contributed to a reversal of the gender gap in voting and rising partisan competition over female voters. As a result, political parties began to promote women in political office and adopt new programmatic agendas in the area of work and family, culminating in important shifts in social policies.53 It is interesting in this regard to consider the latest British Social Attitudes Survey which shows quite dramatic changes in public opinion surrounding mothers’ employment since 1989. Whereas in 1989, 26% of respondents thought that a woman’s job was to look after home and family, this had fallen to 13% by 2012. Similarly the percentage of those thinking that women should stay at home when a child is under school age fell from 64% in 1989 to 33% in 2012.54 Lastly whereas 11% of respondents thought that women should remain at home when the youngest child was above school age in 1989, this had dropped to just 2% in 2012. Bonoli asserts that work- family reconciliation policy is not only a vote-winner amongst women but is generally popular amongst the electorate since it has all the features necessary for “credit claiming” for parties in power at a relatively limited cost for the public purse: these policies have both a relatively broad constituency – parents – based on a common interest and furthermore they have a presumed win-win quality in that they provide help to the population and at the same time they promise to produce income and reduce benefit claims for the taxpayer.55 There is therefore reduced room for manoeuvre as regards cutting back spending on work-family reconciliation policy in
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the UK since the onset of the crisis because even in tough times of budgetary consolidation governments must pay attention to public opinion. An example here is the fact that the government needed to offset the unpopularity of the reduction in the percentage of costs covered by child tax credits from 80% to 70% by extending access to childcare tax credits to parents working less than 16 hours at a cost of £300 million.
Conclusion
22 In conclusion, therefore, we can say that the continuities of work-family reconciliation policy, even under recession and the Coalition government, is on closer inspection not that surprising. From whichever theoretical angle we consider the question – the material conditions of high maternal employment, the demands of the new social risks and for social investment in early education that a structuralist-functionalist approach would favour or explanations based more on a power-resources approach which gives prominence to the nexus of interests supporting work-family reconciliation from the business community and the electorate and that have influenced all political parties in the UK including the Conservatives – all routes lead to the acceptance for a role for central government in managing work-family reconciliation. The explanations for the retrenchment and reductions in support for working parents which have been identified as well as the lack of progress in developing work-family reconciliation policies further are twofold. The first is that the policy areas which have seen retrenchment – direct provision of childcare services by government and benefits for poorer families – do not fit with the new more residual welfare-state model constructed by the Coalition. The second factor to be taken into account is that the justificatory framework of gender equality for work-family reconciliation has been increasingly obscured within policy discourse in the UK. This began with New Labour for whom in their initial phase of policy development gender equality was very important but increasingly ceded ground to the activation and anti-poverty agendas over the course of the 2000s.56 This means that policy developments such as the introduction of a ‘daddy quota’ in parental leave which is missing from UK policy will be difficult to implement within current justificatory framings which leave open the door for policy changes that undermine women’s employment opportunities.
23 Jan Windebank is Professor of French and European Societies and member of the Centre for European Gender Studies at the University of Sheffield. She has written widely on questions of gender divisions of domestic and care work, work-family reconciliation, the outsourcing of household services and undeclared employment in European comparative perspective.
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Lewis, Jane, “Continuity and Change in English Childcare Policy 1960-2000”, Social Politics 20:3 (2013), pp. 358-386.
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Macleavy, Julie, “A New Politics of Austerity, Workfare and Gender? The UK Coalition Government’s Welfare Reform Proposal”, Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 4 (2011), pp. 355-367.
Marshall, Thomas Humphrey, Citizenship and Social Class and Other Essays (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1950).
Matzke, Margitta and Ostner, Ilona, “Postscript: Ideas and Agents of Change in Time”, Journal of European Social Policy 20:5 (2010), pp. 468-476.
Milner, Susan, “‘Choice’ and ‘Flexibility’ in Reconciling Work and Family: Towards a Convergence in Policy Discourse on Work and Family in France and the UK?”, Policy and Politics 38:1 (2010), pp. 3-21.
Morgan, Kimberley, “Path Shifting of the Welfare State: Electoral Competition and the Expansion of Work-Family Policies in Western Europe”, World Politics 65:1 (2013), pp. 73-115.
O’Brien, Margaret, “Fitting Fathers into Work-Family Policies: International Challenges in Turbulent Times”, International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 33:9/10 (2013), pp. 542-564.
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NOTES
1. T.H. Marshall, Citizenship and Social Class and Other Essays (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1950), p. 84. 2. J. Lewis, “Continuity and Change in English Childcare Policy 1960-2000”, Social Politics 20:3 (2013), p. 359. 3. G. Bonoli, Origins of Active Social Policy: Labour Market and Childcare Policies (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 11. 4. Lewis, op. cit., p. 359. 5. P. Hall, “Policy Paradigm, Social Learning and the State: the Case of Economic Policy Making in Britain”, Comparative Politics 25:3 (1993), p. 276. 6. M. Matzke & I. Ostner, “Postscript: Ideas and Agents of Change in Time”, Journal of European Social Policy 20:5 (2010), p. 469. 7. M. O’Brien, “Fitting Fathers into Work-Family Policies: International Challenges in Turbulent Times”, International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 33:9/10 (2013), p. 542.
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8. T. Fleckenstein & M. Seeleib-Kaiser, “Business Skills and the Welfare State: the Political Economy of Employment-Oriented Family Policy in Britain and Germany”, Journal of European Social Policy 21:2 (2011), p. 137. 9. Lewis, op. cit., p. 360. 10. G. Bonoli, “Time Matters: Postindustrialisation, New Social Risks and Welfare State Adaptation in Advanced Industrial Democracies”, Comparative Political Studies 40:5 (2007), p. 510. 11. Fleckenstein & Seeleib-Kaiser, op. cit., p. 138. 12. S. Milner, “‘Choice’ and ‘Flexibility’ in Reconciling Work and Family: Towards a Convergence in Policy Discourse on Work and Family in France and the UK?”, Policy and Politics 38:1 (2010), p. 5. 13. Lewis, op. cit., p. 370. 14. Ibid., p. 370. 15. Ibid., p. 386. 16. P. Daniel, “Conservative policy and the family” in H. Bochel (ed.), The Conservative Party and Social Policy (Bristol, The Policy Press, 2011), p. 214. 17. F. Sly, “Mothers in the Labour Market”, Employment Gazette (November 1994), p. 408. 18. K. Morgan, “Path Shifting of the Welfare State: Electoral Competition and the Expansion of Work-Family Policies in Western Europe”, World Politics 65:1 (2013), p. 84. 19. Lewis, op. cit., p. 368. 20. W. Van Der Eyken, The DHSS Under-Fives Initiative 1983-1987, Final Report (London, Department of Health and Social Security, 1987). 21. Lewis, op. cit., p. 368. 22. Ibid. 23. Milner, op. cit., p.14 24. Morgan, op. cit., p. 86. 25. Lewis, op. cit., p. 359. 26. M. Daly, “Shifts in Family Policy in the UK under New Labour”, Journal of European Social Policy 20:5 (2010), p. 439. 27. T. Haux, “Balancing Work and Family Life – the Next Big Challenge for Policy-Makers”, Journal of European Social Policy 21:3 (2011), p. 275. 28. Fleckenstein & Seeleib-Kaiser, op. cit., p. 139. 29. J. Lewis & M. Campbell, “Work/Family Balance Policies in the UK since 1997: a New Departure?”, Journal of Social Policy 36:3 (2007), p. 75. 30. J. Rubery & A. Rafferty, “Women and Recession Revisited”, Work, Employment and Society 27:3 (2013), p. 420. 31. Daly, op. cit., p. 440. 32. H. Waldegrave, Quality Childcare: Improving Early Years Childcare (London, Policy Exchange, 2013), www.policyexchange.org.uk. Accessed 14th February 2014. 33. C. Fagan & H. Norman, UK Childcare in the European Context, Policy Briefing (University of Manchester, March 2014), www.manchester.ac.uk/policy. Accessed 1st May 2014. 34. Ibid. 35. Department for Education, “More Affordable Childcare”, July 3013 https://www.gov.uk/ government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/212671/ More_Affordable_Childcare.pdf. Accessed 31st January 2014. 36. O’Brien, op. cit., p. 453. 37. J. Browne, The Impact of Austerity Measures in Households with Children, report of the Family and Parenting Institute, January 2012, http://www.familyandparenting.org/Resources/FPI/ Documents/FPI_IFS_Austerity_Jan_2012.pdf. Accessed 5th February 2014. 38. F. Bennett & S. Sung, “Gender Implications of UK Welfare Reform and Government Equality Duties: Evidence from Qualitative Studies”, Oñati Socio-Legal Studies 3:7 (2013), p. 1218. 39. Bonoli, Origins of Active social policy, op. cit., p. 12.
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40. J. Ritter & K. Stocker, “Childcare Costs Survey 2014”, Family and Childcare Trust, (2014), http://www.familyandchildcaretrust.org/annual-childcare-costs-surveys. Accessed 20 th May 2014. 41. “Thousands of childcare places lost as Labour says poorest families hardest hit”, The Observer, 2 June 2013, http://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/jun/02/childcare-places-labour. Accessed 3rd February 2014. 42. Daniel, op. cit., p. 210. 43. Matzke & Ostner, op. cit. 44. J. Macleavy, “A New Politics of Austerity, Workfare and Gender? The UK Coalition Government’s Welfare Reform Proposal”, Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society 4 (2011), p. 361. 45. K. Farnsworth & Z. Irving (eds), Social Policy in Challenging Times: Economic Crisis and Welfare Systems (Bristol, Policy Press, 2011), p. 11. 46. D. Grimshaw & J. Rubery, “The End of the UK’s Liberal Collectivist Social Model? The Implications of the Coalition Government’s Policy during the Austerity Crisis”, Cambridge Journal of Economics 36:1 (2012), p. 108. 47. Morgan, op. cit., p. 96. 48. Macleavy, op. cit., p. 362. 49. Fleckenstein & Seeleib-Kaiser, op. cit. 50. W. Korpi, “Power Resources and Employer-Centred Approaches in Explanations of Welfare States and Varieties of Capitalism: Protagonists, Consenters and Antagonists”, World Politics 58:2 (2004), p.168. 51. Lewis, op. cit., p. 372. 52. Fleckenstein & Seeleib-Kaiser, op. cit. 53. Morgan, p. 102. 54. J. Scott and E. Clery, “Gender roles”, British Social Attitudes Survey 30, http:// www.bsa.natcen.ac.uk/latest-report/british-social-attitudes-30/gender-roles/public-attitudes- to-parental-leave.aspx, Accessed 4th May 2014. 55. Bonoli, Origins of Active Social Policy, op. cit. 56. Daly, op. cit.
ABSTRACTS
The aim of this article is to explain the degree of continuity and change in work-family reconciliation policy under the UK Coalition government (2010 to 2015). The article first traces the development of work-family policy in the UK and its accompanying policy discourses from the 1980s onwards before moving on to assess the degree of continuity and change in this policy area since 2010. The article then reviews the policy drivers underlying this policy continuity and change so identified. It concludes that in general, work-family reconciliation policy has been resistant to the degree of austerity cuts suffered in other areas. This resistance is explained by the material conditions which demand investment in work-family reconciliation (continuing high maternal employment, the demands of the new social risks and the need for social investment in early education) coupled with a political environment which supports the policy
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(from the business community and the electorate, influencing in particular Conservative party policy). The areas which have seen retrenchment – namely, the direct provision of childcare services by government and benefits for poorer families – are those which do not fit with the new more residual welfare-state model constructed by the Coalition.
Cet article propose d’expliquer l’évolution de la politique de conciliation de la vie professionnelle et familiale sous la ‘Coalition’ (2010-2015) au Royaume-Uni. L’article trace le développement de la politique de conciliation de la vie active et familiale dès les années 1980 avant d’évaluer les continuités et les changements dans cette politique qui se sont produits depuis 2010. Ensuite, les facteurs qui expliquent ces continuités et changements sont analysés. L’article conclut qu’en général la politique de conciliation a bien résisté à la politique de rigueur qui a affecté toute une gamme d’autres domaines. Cette résistance s’explique par les conditions matérielles qui persistent à demander de l’investissement dans la politique de conciliation (niveaux élevés d’emploi des mères de famille ; exigences des ‘nouveaux risques sociaux’ et besoin d’investissements dans l’éducation précoce) associées à un environnement politique qui favorise la politique de conciliation (pression de la part des associations d’employeurs et d’entrepreneurs et de l’électorat, ce qui exerce de l’influence, en particulier, sur les conservateurs). Les aspects de la politique qui ont subi un repli – à savoir les modes de garde offerts par les municipalités et les allocations pour les familles défavorisées – sont ceux qui ne correspondent pas au modèle de l’état-providence ‘résiduel’ construit par la ‘Coalition’.
INDEX
Mots-clés: politique de conciliation famille-emploi, gouvernement de coalition, austérité Keywords: work-family reconciliation, Coalition government, austerity
AUTHOR
JAN WINDEBANK Centre for European Gender Studies, University of Sheffield
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Four Nations Going Their Own Ways? Citizenship Education in the United Kingdom Quatre nations suivant leur propre trajectoire ? La citizenship education au Royaume-Uni
Anne Beauvallet
Introduction
1 In his study on Citizenship in Britain, Derek Heater analyses the works of Thomas Starkey and highlights the key role to be played by schools for future citizens1. Bearing this in mind, we have chosen to focus on citizenship education (CE) in the UK at secondary school level, that is at about Key Stages 3 and 4 (see diagram below), ages 11 or 12 to 16. Our objective is to study the development of CE which started in the 1990s, that is nearly at the same moment as devolution. Devolution has ensured that the four nations which make up the UK are fully in charge of their own education systems and each has included CE in its curriculum. What are the differences and common characteristics of this subject across the UK? Can it constitute a common ground for all British school children? This article falls into three parts. First, we will tackle the status of CE, that is its place in the secondary school curriculum. The second part deals with the approaches to CE, namely the ways in which the four nations have defined it, its underlying values and the educational strategies thus adopted. The third part explores the implications of CE for the UK and the case of Scotland with the 2014 independence referendum. The names given to CE vary across the UK: Citizenship Education in England (CE); Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship in Wales (ESDGC); Local and Global Citizenship in Northern Ireland (LGC); global citizenship in Scotland. Citizenship Education in Secondary Education in the UK
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Key Stages School Years Ages
England KS3 and KS4 7-9 and 10-1 11 to 14 and 14 to 16
Wales KS3 and KS4 7-9 and 10-1 11 to 14 and 14 to 16
Northern Ireland KS3 and KS4 8-10 and 11-2 11 to 14 and 14 to 16
Scotland S1 to S5 7-11 11-2 to 16
Status of Citizenship Education
2 To deal with the status of citizenship education, several questions need to be raised: is CE on a statutory basis? Is it a subject in its own right or is it a cross-curricular theme? England and Northern Ireland have put CE on a statutory basis and treat it as a subject. Wales considers it as a subject which is not statutory. In Scotland, CE is not a statutory subject but a cross-curricular theme.
3 In England, thanks to strong commitment from New Labour politicians, David Blunkett in particular, the Advisory Group on Citizenship chaired by Bernard Crick issued its final report in 1998.2 The New Labour Government followed the report's main recommendations and in 2002 CE became a foundation subject for pupils aged 11 to 16, thus making it statutory.3 The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition Government seriously considered downgrading CE to the basic curriculum and this was opposed by the Association for Citizenship Teaching and an umbrella organisation called Democratic Life. The latter's founding members include Amnesty and the Hansard Society and it is supported by the Law Society. In February 2013, Education Secretary Michael Gove announced CE would remain a National Curriculum foundation subject in secondary schools.4
4 In Northern Ireland, the 1998 Good Friday agreement referred to the necessary “ promotion of a culture of tolerance at every level of society”5. This is why in 1999 the Northern Ireland Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) introduced the Social Civic and Political Education Project (SCPE). The Project was gradually extended to include all schools at Key Stages 3 and 4 in 2002. This ensured the development of Local and Global Citizenship (LGC) as a strand of Learning for Life and Work (LLW) and LGC was put on a statutory basis with the Education (Curriculum Minimum Content) Order (Northern Ireland) 2007. In a 2007 document, the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) lists three “curriculum objectives”: The Northern Ireland Curriculum should provide learning opportunities for each young person to develop as: 1. an individual; 2. a contributor to society; and 3. a contributor to the economy and the environment.6
5 This is why LGC can also be considered by teachers as a cross-curricular theme: Teachers can assist the development of young people’s concept of citizenship by providing frequent opportunities, within and across the curriculum, for young people to think about and experience what it means to act democratically.7
6 In Wales, Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship (ESDGC) as a subject is part of Personal and Social Education (PSE). The latter became statutory in the 2004 curriculum, unlike ESDGC itself. ESDGC is also cross-curricular as pointed out by the Department for Children, Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills in 2008: “
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Although ESDGC is highlighted as one of the themes for PSE, it is important to remember that it runs through all the other themes.”8
7 In Scotland, Global Citizenship (GC) is not a statutory subject but a crucial cross- curricular theme. In 2004, the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) identified “four capacities ”: “Our aspiration for all children and for every young person is that they should be successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors to society and at work.”9 That is why, in the words of Michael Russell MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, “global citizenship is not an add-on to Curriculum for Excellence – it is central to it.”10 The Scottish Government has even initiated a Scottish Education Award for Global Citizenship, which was awarded to Mearns Primary in East Renfrewshire in 201111 and to Biggar Primary School in South Lanarkshire in 2014, for example.
8 CE qualifications are only available in England and they do not exist per se as they are part of a wider subject in the other regions. In England, General Certificates of Secondary Education (GCSEs) for Citizenship Studies were launched in 2008 and have been overseen by the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual). In Northern Ireland, there is a GCSE in Learning for Life and Work and it includes aspects of citizenship, personal development and employability. In Wales, there are the Personal and Social Education GCSE and the Personal and Social Education Welsh Baccalaureate Qualification. Global Citizenship in Scotland features in the National qualifications in Geography and Modern Studies introduced in 2014.
Approaches to CE
9 British approaches to CE are to be analysed through three key elements: the way CE is defined and its key themes; the role values play in it; and the teaching and learning strategies that the different approaches entail. Although the four nations use comparable underlying themes, they express them in specific ways. In England, here is the definition provided by the 1998 Crick Report: “in essence it has three strands: social and moral responsibility, community involvement and political literacy.”12 In 2007, the Diversity and Citizenship Curriculum Review chaired by Sir Keith Ajegbo recommended that “issues of identity and diversity are addressed explicitly.”13 This is why in September 2008 a new strand was added, Living together in the UK. The latter is currently tackled at Key Stage 4.14 According to the Northern Ireland Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA): Local and Global Citizenship is important because it helps young people learn how to participate positively in society, to influence democratic processes and to make informed and responsible decisions as local and global citizens throughout their lives.15 It is underpinned by “themes” such as “Human Rights and Social Responsibility; Diversity and Inclusion; Equality and Social Justice; Democracy and Active Participation.”16
10 The Welsh Department for Children, Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills has since 2008 defined Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship in the following way: ESDGC is about the things that we do every day. It is about the big issues in the world - such as climate change, trade, resource and environmental depletion,
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human rights, conflict and democracy, - and about how they relate to each other and to us.17 Its underlying concepts are “Commitment and Leadership; Learning and Teaching; Organisational Management; Partnerships and Community; and Research and Monitoring.”18
11 In 2010, Learning and Teaching Scotland, a non-departmental public body in charge of the curriculum, considered global citizenship as part and parcel of the Curriculum for Excellence: Developing global citizenship within Curriculum for Excellence is about recognising our responsibilities towards each other and the wider world. The outcome will be our children and young people as global citizens, able to take up their place in the world, contribute to it confidently, successfully and effectively, understanding the rights and responsibilities of living and working in a globalised world.19 It is based on the following themes: “education for citizenship, international education and sustainable development education.”20
CE and values
12 This is the second issue related to approaches to CE in the UK and two perspectives are to be found. In Wales and in England, values are not absent, as the following excerpt from the 1998 Crick Report shows: “Citizenship education […] is not an end in itself, even if it will involve learning a body of knowledge, as well as the development of skills and values.”21 The same attitude can be found in this excerpt from the 2008 Personal and Social Education Framework for 7 to 19-year-olds in Wales: “Learners acquire the skills, values and knowledge that equip them to participate in decision-making within their communities, locally, nationally and globally.”22
13 Values are thus considered as peripheral to CE in England and Wales. In contrast, in Northern Ireland and Scotland, values are central to it. They are listed by the Northern Ireland Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA): “Local and Global Citizenship is fully supportive of the following concepts: diversity, inclusion, equity, respect, human rights and participation.”23 According to Learning and Teaching Scotland “ education to develop global citizenship is values-driven.”24 These values are “wisdom, justice, compassion, integrity.”25
Educational approaches to CE
14 Educational approaches are “holistic” in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland as they involve whole schools, specific teaching methods and student participation. Let us deal with each of these approaches. The Welsh Department for Children, Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills has advocated “a broad, balanced holistic approach to Personal and Social Education which […] includes all the planned learning experiences and other opportunities which are features of the ethos and community life of the school.”26 In a 2010 article, Sheila Bennell and David Norcliffe point out there has been “an emphasis on skills and pupil- centred learning”.27 This has also entailed growing student participation in school organisation. The 2005 School Councils Regulations made school councils mandatory and since 2010 pupil participation in school decisions has been a statutory requirement.
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15 Learning and Teaching Scotland has taken one step further by defining global citizenship as “a holistic approach.”28 T eaching has been based on “democratic and participative methodologies to learning and teaching” which “recognise children and young people as citizens now, not in waiting.”29 This is why “planning and decision-making processes are inclusive and participative, involving learners and the wider school community”30, although it must be noted that numerous as pupil councils may be in Scotland they are not yet mandatory.
16 In Northern Ireland, Local and Global Citizenship “should be linked to and supported by: the school ethos, other subjects, whole school events, community links, experiences and events and extra curricular activities”.31 Teaching methods are also child-centred and the Northern Ireland Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) describes them as “enquiry based”, “collaborative” and “creative.” 32 As in Scotland, “the precept of the pupil as a citizen… not a citizen in waiting”33 has been prevalent but opportunities for students to engage in decision-making are limited: Local and Global Citizenship can: encourage pupils to participate positively in school and community life; […] encourage pupils to take greater individual and group responsibility for their learning; […] support a positive and inclusive classroom and school ethos.34
17 The English approach, in contrast, is not holistic but subject-based. The whole-school approach is referred to in the 1998 Crick Report but the recommendations of the Advisory Group on Citizenship are rather low-key: “We unanimously recommend that: schools consider the relation of citizenship education to whole school issues including school ethos, organisation and structures.”35 The same can be said about the 2007 Ajegbo Report: Our conclusion is that in order to develop the recommended approaches in our report, and to encourage all schools to be involved, there needs to be a focus on whole-school exploration of identities, diversity and citizenship.36
18 The 1998 Crick Report called for “active, participatory activities and experiences where the emphasis is on learning through action”37 but the current strategy can be called didactic. Released in September 2013, the National Curriculum in England Framework Document first details the skills to be acquired, before adding the list of items that “[p]upils should be taught about”38. Education Secretary Michael Gove might have played a role in this as he has repeatedly favoured traditional teaching methods39. The Crick Report did not make radical recommendations on involving students in school organisation40 and neither did the 2007 Ajegbo report.41 In March 2007, MPs called for schools’ “statutory duty to establish a student council”42 but this call has gone unheeded as student councils are not yet compulsory in England, thus precluding any progress in the participation of students in school organisation across the country.
CE and the UK
19 After defining the status and the educational strategies that the four nations have adopted regarding CE, we will analyse its implications for the UK, first through its political background and impact and second through its significance for the UK as an entity.
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Political background and impact
20 The rise of CE in England, Wales and Scotland was set in a similar background in that it was characterised by concerns over low participation and a lack of trust in politicians and politics among young people. This is why the London, Cardiff and Edinburgh executives considered that CE could help tackle these issues. The political background in Northern Ireland has been completely different and this is why we will deal with it separately.
21 In England, the 1998 Crick report highlighted “worrying levels of apathy, ignorance and cynicism about public life.”43 In Scotland according to a MORI poll, in the 2001 general elections, “39% of 18 – 24 year olds voted.”44 In the 2003 Welsh Assembly elections, “around 80 per cent of registered voters aged 18-34 did not use their vote” as head of the Assembly’s Local Government and Public Services Committee Ann Jones pointed out in the foreword to the 2006 'Electoral Arrangements in Wales' Scrutiny Project.45
22 The impact of CE in England was explored at length with the Citizenship Education Longitudinal Study launched in 2001. In 2010, its Eighth and Final Report presented a “ mixed picture”: On the one hand, there has been a marked and steady increase in young people’s civic and political participation and indications that these young people will continue to participate as adult citizens. In contrast, there has been a hardening of attitudes toward equality and society, a weakening of attachment to communities and fluctuating levels of engagement, efficacy and trust in the political arena.46
23 To this day, one survey on the impact of CE in England, Scotland and Wales can be traced: it was released by the National Foundation on Educational Research (NFER) in 2012. This online study of people aged 18-25 (of whom 1,055 respondents went to school in England, 426 in Scotland and 391 in Wales) “found that the Scottish respondents may have a better recall of citizenship even though they do not always describe it as citizenship.”47 It also: […] uncovered evidence of a ‘legacy’ of citizenship teaching – ‘particularly in terms of the topics that (young people) remember being taught about and the perceived depth of that teaching’; again, Scots were found to be the most likely to have benefited.48 Another consequence of CE was the “’massive number’ of fundraising schemes in Scottish schools”.49 The issue of political literacy has been raised in the three countries. Ben Kisby and James Sloam identify it as a problem primarily for Scotland and Wales since CE is not statutory there: “In Scotland and Wales, in contrast, commitment to political literacy is patchier.”50 In the latest edition of Scottish Education, Gert Biesta highlights the risks CE in Scotland has entailed: The Scottish approach has a tendency to focus on the individual rather than the collective; on the social more than on the political dimensions of citizenship; on social activity more than on political action; and on a community of sameness more than a community of difference.51
24 This is why Biesta argues that students could find themselves limited in their “concerns and responsibilities” and CE in Scotland could be “depoliticised”.52 Yet, political literacy is also considered as inadequate in England since it was included in the recommendations of the 2010 Eighth and Final Report from the Citizenship Education Longitudinal Study: “It is also suggested that consideration is given to providing citizenship education through to age 18
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and providing support and training for the ‘political literacy’ strand and for embedding citizenship learning in schools.”53 Ben Kisby and James Sloam consider that the English political system acts as a direct hindrance: The centralized system in England, for example, shows how political institutions can act as a barrier to participation – all the good work done through citizenship education can be undermined by a political system that reduces incentives for participation through a lack of access (to political influence) and rewards (positive impacts from engagement). In this respect, the devolved parliament in Scotland and the devolved assemblies in Wales and Northern Ireland are at least closer to the people, i.e. they are smaller units of government that, at least in principle, offer more promising avenues for citizens to influence the political process.”54
25 CE in Northern Ireland cannot focus on the same issues of political apathy among young people considering its past violence and sectarian divisions. It cannot therefore rest on the same foundations as in the rest of the UK as Alan Smith points out: Since there is no consensus on nationality in Northern Ireland, or indeed the legitimacy of the state itself, this means that the concept of citizenship must be regarded as problematic and contested from the outset.55
26 Relatively few studies have been undertaken on the impact of CE in Northern Ireland. The latest is a 2008 survey led by Una O’Connor, K. Beattie and Ulrike Niens for the UNESCO Centre at the University of Ulster: [It] found that LGC has had significant positive impacts on pupils, noting that their interest in local and international politics and expectations of democracy in schools increased. Interestingly, their trust in political institutions declined and even where school councils existed, pupils often regarded them with a degree of scepticism. Perceptions of community relations were more positive but identity continued to be defined by religious and political factors.56 The major stumbling block for CE in Northern Ireland is the fact that education is still characterized by segregation: “More than 90% of pupils attend schools which are predominantly Protestant or predominantly Catholic”.57
CE as a common ground for the UK?
27 In the introduction we asked ourselves if CE could constitute a common ground for all British school children. Northern Ireland, because of its specificity, cannot be included in this line of thought. We studied the contents of CE as a subject in England and Wales and as a cross-curricular theme in Scotland and found very little about the other regions and their links. In England for instance, the ‘four nations” are only part of the Key Stage 4 curriculum: Pupils should be taught about: […] the different electoral systems used in and beyond the United Kingdom; […] the diverse national, regional, religious and ethnic identities in the United Kingdom and the need for mutual respect and understanding.58
28 Regarding CE in Wales, no specific reference to the rest of the UK, or to the UK as a common entity, could be traced. In fact since the early 1990s the Welsh curriculum has been influenced by Welshness and by two documents in particular. In 1991, the first, entitled Community Understanding, was published. It is based on “a set of guidelines advocating a clear focus on a definition of a community”.59 Released in 1993, the second document, entitled Developing a Curriculum Cymreig,
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placed an emphasis upon the need for schools to use opportunities throughout the curriculum to develop distinctively Welsh elements of culture, whilst acknowledging the need to celebrate diversity.60
29 The two perspectives cannot be equated: These traditions differ in context and outcome; in south Wales there were suspicions of the growth of an elitist cultural nationalism […]; while Welsh speakers in the rural north and mid Wales felt excluded by a political structure that favoured the more industrial and English-speaking majority in the south.61
30 Each perspective has thus framed the approach to CE in Wales, making it distinct from CE as taught in the rest of the UK.
31 In the Scottish approach to CE, no reference to the rest of the UK or to the UK as a common entity could be found. In its Corporate Plan 2013-2016, Education Scotland, a Scottish Government executive agency, presents Scots as members of the wider world rather than of the UK: The purpose of the curriculum [is] to enable all young people to become […] responsible citizens […] able to develop knowledge and understanding of the world and Scotland’s place in it.62
32 In the same document, Education Scotland lists its “strategic objectives”. Here is one of them: “We take pride in a strong, fair and inclusive national identity”.63 This is why the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence is interesting. For the first time, people aged 16 and 17 were allowed to vote and CE may have had some influence on their participation and their choice. It is also interesting because it raises serious political questions about the UK. In January 2014, Sheila Riddell, director of the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Research in Education Inclusion and Diversity, warned: “teachers may shy away from covering the referendum on Scottish independence in class because they are wary of appearing politically biased”.64 This is why the Centre for Research in Education Inclusion and Diversity issued materials to help teachers who are “keen to access resources which […] do not emanate from the Better Together or YES campaigns”.65 In August 2014, 27 of Scotland's 32 councils restricted access to the two sides66 and this was criticised by people such as Susan Quinn, a teacher, union activist and yes campaigner: “This is an educational opportunity that could be missed. The young people want to engage in this important decision for their future.”67 Such a decision by most Scottish councils in August 2014 however did not prevent students' involvement in debates. As pointed out in the Autumn-Winter 2014-15 issue of Stride, the Global Citizenship magazine for schools, by Kim McCauley: Unsurprisingly, our young people took the baton and ran with it. In the run up to the referendum, we had the thrilling political spectacle of 16 and 17 year old first- time voters, filling the Hydro in Glasgow and grilling campaigners from both sides on the issues that mattered to them.68
33 This was borne out by the December 2014 Electoral Commission report: “109,593 16 and 17 year olds were included on the registers by the registration deadline and 75% of those we spoke to claimed to have voted”69. Such a figure is lower than the average turnout (85%) but it is higher than among 18-to-24 year-olds (54%70). It must be noted that the SNP has adopted no particular stance on global citizenship before or since the 2014 referendum. The time of the successive SNP Education Secretaries, Michael Russel and Angela Constance, has mostly been spent on the implementation of Curriculum for Excellence and the National Improvement Framework and this implementation has not been without its problems.
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Conclusion
34 CE and Local and Global Citizenship (LGC) are statutory subjects in respectively England and Northern Ireland, Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship (ESDGC) is a non-statutory subject in Wales and global citizenship is a cross-curricular theme in Scotland. A didactic subject-based perspective has been adopted in England as opposed to a whole-school strategy and experiential learning in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. When it comes to the political background to CE, Northern Ireland stands apart since it stems from the need to establish a stable basis for peace. England, Wales and Scotland have promoted CE as a possible solution to the low participation of young people in politics but it cannot be considered as a common ground across Great Britain since Wales and Scotland have logically used CE to further their distinctive identities. Through numberless school debates and a relatively high turnout among 16- and 17-year-olds, global citizenship seems to have played a positive part in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. It could also affect the young voters who will cast their ballots for the first time for the Scottish Parliament elections in May 2016.
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NOTES
1. Derek, Heater, Citizenshp in Britain, A History, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2006, pp. 17-9. 2. Education for Citizenship and the Teaching of Democracy in Schools, Final Report of the Advisory Group on Citizenship. London, QCA, 1998. 3. This was praised in the 2001 Cantle Report (Community Cohesion: A Report of the Independent Review Team Chaired by Ted Cantle, London, Home Office, 2001, p.74). 4. Peter, Walker, “Gove's schools vision: back-to-basics with 'a thorough grounding for life'”, The Guardian, 7 February 2013. 5. Northern Ireland Peace Agreement, http://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/ IE%20GB_980410_Northern%20Ireland%20Agreement.pdf, retrieved on 14 February 2016, p.20. 6. Northern Ireland Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment, Statutory Curriculum at Key Stage 3, Rationale and Detail, Belfast, Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment, 2007, p.3. 7. Northern Ireland Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment, Statutory Curriculum at Key Stage 3, Rationale and Detail, Belfast, Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment, 2007, p.7. 8. Department for Children, Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills, Personal and Social Education Framework for 7- to 19-year-olds in Wales, Cardiff, Welsh Assembly Government, July 2008, p.12. 9. The Curriculum Review Group, A Curriculum for Excellence, Edinburgh, Scottish Executive, 2004, p.12. 10. Learning and Teaching Scotland, Developing Global Citizens within Curriculum for Excellence, Glasgow, Learning and Teaching Scotland, 2011, p.5.
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11. Chris, Small, “Beyond tick-box citizenship”, Times Education Supplement Scotland, 12 August 2011. 12. Advisory Group on Citizenship, Education for Citizenship and the Teaching of Democracy in Schools, Final Report of the Advisory Group on Citizenship. London, QCA, 1998, p.8. 13. Diversity and Citizenship Curriculum Review Group, Diversity and Citizenship, London, DfES, 2007, p.8. 14. DfE, Citizenship Programmes of Study: Key Stages 3 and 4, 2013, p.3. 15. Learning for Life and Work, Guidance, Key Stage 3, Belfast, Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment, 2007, p.21. 16. Northern Ireland Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment, Learning for Life and Work, Guidance, Key Stage 3, Belfast, Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment, 2007, p.5. 17. Lifelong Learning and Skills, Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship, Information for Teacher Trainees and New Teachers in Wales, Cardiff, Welsh Assembly Government, July 2008, p.4. 18. Welsh Government, “Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship (ESDGC)”, updated on 4 May 2012, http://wales.gov.uk/topics/educationandskills/ allsectorpolicies/europeanandinternational/sustainabledevelop/?lang=en, retrieved on 25 January 2016. 19. Developing Global Citizens within Curriculum for Excellence, Glasgow, Learning and Teaching Scotland, 2011, p.10. In 2011, Learning and Teaching Scotland merged with Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education to become Education Scotland, a Scottish Government executive agency. 20. Learning and Teaching Scotland, Developing Global Citizens within Curriculum for Excellence, Glasgow, Learning and Teaching Scotland, 2011, p.11. 21. Advisory Group on Citizenship, Education for Citizenship and the Teaching of Democracy in Schools, Final Report of the Advisory Group on Citizenship. London, QCA, 1998, p.8. 22. Department for Children, Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills, Personal and Social Education Framework for 7 to 19-year-olds in Wales, Cardiff, Welsh Assembly Government, July 2008, p.10. 23. Local and Global Citizenship Guidance for Key Stage 4, http://www.nicurriculum.org.uk/docs/ key_stage_4/areas_of_learning/learning_for_life_and_work/ks4_citizenship_guidance.pdf, p.8, retrieved on 10 February 2016. 24. Developing Global Citizens within Curriculum for Excellence, Glasgow, Learning and Teaching Scotland, 2011, p.12. 25. Ibid. 26. Personal and Social Education Framework for 7 to 19-year-olds in Wales, Cardiff, Welsh Assembly Government, July 2008, p.6. 27. “Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship: a case study in policy formation”, Citizenship Education in Wales, School of Education and Lifelong Learning, 2011, p.16. 28. Developing Global Citizens within Curriculum for Excellence, Glasgow, Learning and Teaching Scotland, 2011, p.12. 29. Learning and Teaching Scotland, Developing Global Citizens within Curriculum for Excellence, Glasgow, Learning and Teaching Scotland, 2011, p.13. 30. Learning and Teaching Scotland, Developing Global Citizens within Curriculum for Excellence, Glasgow, Learning and Teaching Scotland, 2011, p.18. 31. Northern Ireland Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment, Local and Global Citizenship Guidance for Key Stage 4, http://www.nicurriculum.org.uk/docs/key_stage_4/ areas_of_learning/learning_for_life_and_work/ks4_citizenship_guidance.pdf, p.7, retrieved on 12 February 2014.
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32. Local and Global Citizenship Guidance for Key Stage 4, http://www.nicurriculum.org.uk/docs/ key_stage_4/areas_of_learning/learning_for_life_and_work/ks4_citizenship_guidance.pdf, retrieved on 12 February 2014, p.18. 33. Northern Ireland Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment, Local and Global Citizenship Guidance for Key Stage 4, http://www.nicurriculum.org.uk/docs/key_stage_4/ areas_of_learning/learning_for_life_and_work/ks4_citizenship_guidance.pdf, retrieved on 12 February 2014, p.11. 34. Northern Ireland Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment, Local and Global Citizenship Guidance for Key Stage 4, < http://www.nicurriculum.org.uk/docs/key_stage_4/ areas_of_learning/learning_for_life_and_work/ks4_citizenship_guidance.pdf>, retrieved on 12 February 2014, p.8. 35. Education for Citizenship and the Teaching of Democracy in Schools, Final Report of the Advisory Group on Citizenship. London, QCA, 1998, p.23. 36. Diversity and Citizenship Curriculum Review Group, Diversity and Citizenship, London, DfES, 2007, p.13. 37. Education for Citizenship and the Teaching of Democracy in Schools, Final Report of the Advisory Group on Citizenship. London, QCA, 1998, p.37. 38. DfE, National Curriculum in England Framework Document, London, DfE, September 2013, p.202. 39. Katherine, Faulkner, “Children will learn poetry and monarchs of England by heart under Tory plans”, Daily Mail, 6 March 2010. 40. Education for Citizenship and the Teaching of Democracy in Schools, Final Report of the Advisory Group on Citizenship. London, QCA, 1998, p.55. 41. Diversity and Citizenship Curriculum Review Group, Diversity and Citizenship, London, DfES, 2007, p.10. 42. Debbie, Andalo, “MPs call for improved citizenship classes”, The Guardian, 8 March 2007. 43. Education for Citizenship and the Teaching of Democracy in Schools, Final Report of the Advisory Group on Citizenship. London, QCA, 1998, p.8. 44. Quoted by John W. Robertson, Neil Blain and Paula Cowan, “Naming the First Minister: Scottish Adolescents' Knowledge and Perceptions of Political Decision Processes”, Scottish Affairs, n° 49, Autumn 2004. 45. Local Government and Public Services Committee, 'Electoral Arrangements in Wales' Scrutiny Project, Cardiff, Welsh Assembly, 2006, p.2. 46. Keating, Avril, David Kerr, Thomas Benton, Ellie Mundy and Joana Lopes, Citizenship Education in England 2001-2010: Young People’s Practices and Prospects for the Future: The Eighth and Final Report from the Citizenship Education Longitudinal Study, London, DfE, 2010, p.iii. 47. Henry, Hepburn, “United they stand”, Times Education Supplement Scotland, 15 June 2012. 48. Ibid. 49. Ibid. 50. “Citizenship, Democracy and Education in the UK: Towards a Common Framework for Citizenship Lessons in the Four Home Nations”, Parliamentary Affairs, 65(1), 2012, p.80. 51. Gert, Biesta, Chapter 30 “Citizenship Education” in Scottish Education, Referendum, edited by T. G. K. Bryce, W. M. Humes, D. Gillies and A. Kennedy, 4th edition, Edinburgh, University of Edinburgh Press, 2013, p.328. 52. Ibid., p.331. 53. Avril Keating, David Kerr, Thomas Benton, Ellie Mundy and Joana Lopes, Citizenship Education in England 2001-2010: Young People’s Practices and Prospects for the Future: The Eighth and Final Report from the Citizenship Education Longitudinal Study, London, DfE, 2010, p.iv. 54. “Citizenship, Democracy and Education in the UK: Towards a Common Framework for Citizenship Lessons in the Four Home Nations”, Parliamentary Affairs, 65(1), 2012, p.83.
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55. “Citizenship Education in Northern Ireland: beyond national identity?”, Cambridge Journal of Education, 33 (1), 2003, p.25. 56. An Evaluation of the Introduction of Local and Global Citizenship to the Northern Ireland Curriculum, quoted by Michael, Arlow, Chapter 6 “Education for local and global citizenship: the Northern Ireland experience” in Education Above All, Conference in Doha, Qatar, July 2012, p.96. 57. Michael, Arlow, Chapter 6 “Education for local and global citizenship: the Northern Ireland experience” in Education Above All, Conference in Doha, Qatar, July 2012, p.90. 58. Department for Education, National Curriculum in England Framework Document, London, DfE, September 2013, p.202. 59. Garratt and Heather, “Citizenship Education in England and Wales: Theoretical Critique and Practical Considerations”, Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice 14 (5–6), October–December 2008, p.484. 60. Ibid. 61. Ibid. 62. Education Scotland, Corporate Plan 2013-2016, Transforming Lives through Learning, Livingston, Education Scotland, 2013, p.60. 63. Ibid., p.58. 64. Julia, Belgutay, “Is independence debate too hot to handle in class?” Times Education Supplement Scotland, 17 January 2014. 65. Ibid. 66. Mark, Ellison, BBC News Online, “Scottish independence: Councils bar 'Yes' and 'No' campaigns from schools”, 22 August 2014. 67. Quoted by Jackie, Kemp, “Scottish referendum: is it yes or no to politics in class?”, The Guardian, 9 September 2014. 68. Kim, McCauley, “Shaping Scotland’s future”, Stride, Autumn-Winter 2014-15. 69. Foreword by John McCormick, Electoral Commission, Scottish Independence Referendum, December 2014, p.1. 70. Electoral Commission, Scottish Independence Referendum, London, Electoral Commission, December 2014, pp.80, 64.
ABSTRACTS
Citizenship education at secondary school level across the UK is taught in different ways: as a statutory subject in England and Northern Ireland; as a non-statutory subject in Wales; as a cross-curricular theme in Scotland. The educational approach is didactic and subject-based in England whereas whole-school strategies and experiential learning have prevailed elsewhere. Citizenship education in Northern Ireland has stemmed from the need to establish a stable basis for peace. England, Wales and Scotland have considered it as a possible solution to the low participation of young people in politics but Wales and Scotland have also used CE to further their identities.
Au Royaume-Uni, dans l’enseignement secondaire, la citizenship education (comparable à certains égards à l’éducation civique française) constitue soit une matière obligatoire (en Angleterre et en Irlande du Nord), soit une matière optionnelle (au Pays de Galles), soit un thème transversal (en Écosse). L’enseignement est traditionnel en Angleterre tandis que des méthodes impliquant la
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participation des élèves en cours et dans l’organisation de l’école ont été préférées ailleurs. Si, en Irlande du Nord, cette matière est fondée sur le besoin d’établir une paix durable, dans le reste du Royaume-Uni elle a été mise en avant pour pallier le désengagement de la jeunesse du monde politique. L’Écosse et le Pays de Galles l’ont également utilisée pour promouvoir leur identité propre.
INDEX
Keywords: citizenship education, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales Mots-clés: éducation civique, Angleterre, Irlande du Nord, Écosse, Pays de Galles
AUTHOR
ANNE BEAUVALLET CAS (EA801), Université Toulouse-Jean Jaurès
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The SNP’s Conception of Scottish Society and Citizenship, 2007-2014 La Conception de la société et de la citoyenneté écossaises par le Scottish National Party : 2007-2014
Nathalie Duclos
Introduction
In a context where the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) has become the dominant party in Scotland following its victories in the last two Scottish Parliament elections (2007 and 2011) as well as the latest Westminster election (2015), and where a significant proportion of Scots (possibly around a third1) are hoping for a swift Scottish independence referendum repeat, this article seeks to explore one aspect of the SNP’s ideology, namely its conception of Scottish society and citizenship. It is mainly based on an analysis of the speeches made by former SNP leader Alex Salmond in the years when he was both party leader and Scottish First Minister (or head of the Scottish government), i.e. 2007-2014. This period was chosen because it was a turning point in the history of the party in several respects. First of all, it saw the SNP become a party of government for the first and second time, as well as the first party to ever win a total majority of seats in the Scottish Parliament. Secondly, the end of the period (2011-2014) was shaped by the campaign for the first ever Scottish independence referendum, a campaign which gave the SNP the starring role within the pro-independence camp and which led to a huge rise in party membership, to the point that it is now the third biggest party in the UK. The aims of the article are to establish, first, how the SNP named and labelled Scottish society in those pivotal years; second, what these naming strategies revealed about its conception of Scottish citizenship, nationalism and national identity; and third, how this conception was made integral to its general political strategy and campaign for independence. The analysis shows that Scottish society and the Scottish people were portrayed in three, complementary ways. First of all, while the phrases “the Scottish
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people” and “the people of Scotland” used to be interchangeable for the party, the latter phrase is now always preferred. It is argued that this is in keeping with the SNP’s perception of Scottish citizenship as one that is based on residence, rather than origins or ancestry, as well as with its claims to support a “civic” form of nationalism. Secondly, the Scottish people were also frequently referred to as “the sovereign people of Scotland” or as “the community of the realm of Scotland”. This bears testimony to the SNP’s belief in, and exploitation of, two powerful Scottish political myths: on the one hand, the idea that Scotland has had a tradition of popular sovereignty, as opposed to the English/British tradition of parliamentary sovereignty imposed on Scotland through the union of 1707, and on the other hand, the idea that Scotland defines itself through egalitarianism and community values. Thirdly, and most recently, in the years of the British coalition government (from 2010), Salmond frequently contrasted British Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron’s “Big Society” and his own vision of a “Fair Society” with a “shared sense of the common weal”. These visions of society and citizenship were used by the SNP in order to make its case for an independent social democratic Scottish State and to promote universalist policies at odds with both Labour and the Conservatives’ policy choices.
“The people of Scotland”: the SNP's vision of citizenship and nationalism
From the formation of the SNP until recently, the phrases “the Scottish people” and “the people of Scotland” were used indiscriminately in the party literature and in leaders’ speeches. For instance, an SNP leaflet describing the aim of the party and issued just after World War II stated both that “the land of Scotland is the rightful inheritance of the Scottish people [my emphasis]” and that “Housing, industry, and agriculture must be planned on a Scottish basis, so that the people of Scotland [my emphasis] may enjoy the prosperity to which the natural wealth of their country entitles them ”.2 By contrast, in the years 2007-2014, one can note a marked prevalence of the phrase “the people of Scotland” in Alex Salmond’s speeches and in SNP literature as a whole. For instance, in a speech made on Burns Day 2012 (Robert Burns being Scotland's “national bard”) at the launch by the SNP government of a consultation paper on a Scottish independence referendum, Alex Salmond used the phrase “the people of Scotland ” eleven times and the phrase “the Scottish people” only once.3 This particular speech was made in a context where Scottish independence had become a concrete possibility due to the SNP’s 2011 electoral victory, which had just led the British government to concede an independence referendum, with British Prime Minister David Cameron having spoken of the referendum on television for the first time in early January 2012.4 The preference given to the phrase “the people of Scotland” in this specific speech could thus be interpreted as a sign that the SNP had wanted to clarify how it perceived Scottish society and citizenship in the context of the upcoming referendum. More generally, however, it is here argued that the SNP has recently opted for this phrase, with its stress on the territory of Scotland (“the people of Scotland”) as opposed to any intrinsic quality that the people might have (“the Scottish people”), because it reflects the SNP’s conception of Scottish citizenship as one based on residence rather than origins. This interpretation is confirmed by the fact that in the aforementioned speech, the “people of Scotland” were defined as the “people who live, work and bring up their
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families in Scotland” – in other words, as people associated with a specific territory, one which they chose to make their own, rather than people with a certain ancestry. This is in keeping with the way that the SNP has always defined citizenship. To establish how the SNP would envisage Scottish citizenship in an independent Scotland, one can compare the different “model Constitutions” (or Constitutional blueprints) that it has produced in the previous decades. Its model Constitution of 1995 stated that: [C]itizenship of Scotland will be the right of everyone whose principal place of residence is in Scotland at the date on which the Constitution comes into force. (...) Citizenship will also be open to those whose place of birth was in Scotland.5 The two main citizenship requirements would therefore be place of residence and place of birth. In its model Constitution of 2002, the SNP defended what it termed “an inclusive definition of citizenship, and voting rights based on residence not ethnicity”.6 Once again, citizenship was to be based on residence or place of birth, but not on blood and origins. Most recently and most comprehensively, the SNP government published an “interim Constitution for Scotland” in June 2014, a few months before the independence referendum; this was to be used during a transitional period in the event of a vote for independence. The interim Constitution included the following article on Scottish citizenship: (1) The following people automatically hold Scottish citizenship, namely— (a) all those who, immediately before Independence Day, hold British citizenship and either— (i) are habitually resident in Scotland at that time, or (ii) are not habitually resident in Scotland at that time but were born in Scotland, (b) any person born in Scotland on or after Independence Day if either of the person’s parents, at the time of the person’s birth— (i) holds Scottish citizenship, or (ii) has indefinite leave to remain in Scotland, and (c) any person born outside Scotland on or after Independence Day if— (i) either of the person’s parents, at the time of the person’s birth, holds Scottish citizenship, and (ii) the person’s birth is registered in Scotland. (2) The following people are entitled to claim Scottish citizenship according to the prescribed procedures, namely— (a) any person born in Scotland on or after Independence Day if either of the person’s parents meets the prescribed requirements, (b) any person with— (i) a prescribed connection by descent with a person holding Scottish citizenship, or (ii) any other prescribed connection with Scotland. (3) A person holding Scottish citizenship may also hold other nationalities or citizenships at the same time. (4) Further provision about entitlement to Scottish citizenship is to be made by Act of the Scottish Parliament, and “prescribed” means prescribed by or under such an Act. (5) Such an Act may, in particular, include provision supplementing, qualifying or modifying the provision in this section.7 This article gave form to the principles announced in the 2013 independence White Paper, which had already established that Scottish citizenship would be automatic for “ British citizens ‘habitually resident’ in Scotland” at the moment of independence, as well as for “Scottish-born British citizens currently living outside of Scotland”,8 and that it would be open to (though not automatically given to) “those who have a parent or grandparent who qualifies for Scottish citizenship”, and even “[t]hose who have a demonstrable connection to
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Scotland and have spent at least ten years living here at some stage”.9 Moreover, the “interim Constitution” of 2014 specified that Scottish citizenship would be compatible with holding one or several other citizenships, without however singling out British citizenship. The 2013 independence White Paper, on the other hand, had specifically alluded to the potentially thorny issue of Scottish-British dual citizenship in an independent Scotland; it had thereby acknowledged that having to give up their British citizenship at the point of independence was a source of worry for some Scots who valued their British nationality (or identity). The White Paper had clearly stated that “ the Scottish Government [would] allow dual citizenship” and that even though it was “for the rest of the UK to decide whether it allow[ed] dual UK/Scottish citizenship”, the Scottish Government would “expect the normal rules to extend to Scottish citizens” – one of the normal rules being that “[t]he UK allows dual or multiple citizenship for British citizens”.10 What the SNP has repeatedly described as an “inclusive” model of citizenship11 is consistent with its promotion of a “civic” form of nationalism. Theoreticians of nationalism have traditionally opposed so-called “civic” and “ethnic” versions of nationalism, the former being more inclusive, primarily territorial and based on a community of laws and institutions, and the latter being more restrictive and exclusive, and based on common ancestry and kinship ties between the people, as well as shared characteristics such as religion, race or language. One can choose to join a civic nation, whereas one is born into an ethnic nation. Today, it is widely agreed upon that this theoretical distinction faces a number of limitations, not least because “nationalist actors within the same nationalist movement may deploy ethnic and civic conceptions of the nation”.12 Yet, however relevant this distinction may be, the SNP has consistently stressed its belief in civic nationalism, with its emphasis on the idea of choosing what nation you wish to belong to. For example, in a document describing the aims of the party and dating back to 1974, one could read that the “Scottish community” was composed of “ people who were born here” as well as “people who came here by choice”,13 and an SNP campaign leaflet issued in the same year answered the question “Who is a Scot?” with the words “A Scot is someone who chooses to live in Scotland, and values the best things in Scottish life. English, Italian, Canadian, or any other, you can be welcome and rightful citizens of Scotland”, before adding: “Demonstrate your citizenship by voting SNP”.14 More recently, in the acceptance speech that he made in the Scottish Parliament after being voted in as Scottish First Minister for the second time, in 2011, Alex Salmond dwelt on Scotland as a land which “belongs to all who choose to call it home” and is “open to all, whether they hail from England, Ireland, Pakistan or Poland”.15
“The sovereign people of Scotland” and the “community of the realm of Scotland”: the SNP's exploitation of two Scottish myths
In his speeches, Salmond often associates his preferred phrase “the people of Scotland” with the words “sovereign” or “sovereignty”. This was repeatedly the case in the years of the so-called “National Conversation” on Scotland’s future, an initiative which was launched in 2007 by the Scottish Government a few months after the SNP was first elected to power, and ran until late 2009. It started with the publication of a White Paper entitled Choosing Scotland’s Future in August 2007 and ended with a public consultation on a second White Paper, Your Scotland, Your Voice, published in November
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2009.16 In a speech which Alex Salmond made in front of civil society representatives on 26 March 2008 in the context of this “National Conversation”, the people of Scotland were once again defined as the people “living and working in Scotland”. They were also presented as a sovereign people, one with “the sovereign right to determine the form of government best suited to their needs”: On taking office, the [Scottish] Government was conscious of the responsibility of this Government, of any Government, to the people of Scotland. And we are aware - as we always will be – of the sovereignty of the Scottish people. The decisions on Scotland's future lie ultimately with those living and working in Scotland – and no-one else. We should remember that (…) before the Constitutional Convention in the late 1980s there was a foundation document (…) called the Claim of Right. (…) What is was was an assertion of the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of government best suited to our needs. One of the signatories to that Claim of Right was Gordon Brown. I have to believe that today, as Prime Minister, he remains just as committed to the sovereignty of the people of Scotland as he was when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister. That sovereignty, that assertion of the right of self-determination, was encapsulated in the Scottish Parliament's establishment by a referendum. (…) The people of Scotland are sovereign. The Scottish Parliament is their Parliament. The right to choose a future for this country is their right, the people of Scotland’s right.17 Similarly, the two “National Conversation” White Papers included numerous references to “the sovereign people of Scotland” and “the sovereignty of the people of Scotland”.18 By naming the Scottish people as a “sovereign people”, the SNP tapped into the commonly-held belief that Scotland is a nation where the principle of popular sovereignty applied until the parliamentary union with England imposed on it the principle of parliamentary sovereignty (which, since then, has been considered as the most crucial constitutional principle in the UK). It also reinforced its case both for an independence referendum, and for independence itself. In the aforementioned speech of 2008, the belief that the Scottish people are sovereign was used to justify the organisation of an independence referendum – a policy that the SNP had not always supported. Until early 2000, in the wake of the birth of the Scottish Parliament, the SNP had argued that getting a majority of seats in Scotland (by which was meant a majority of Scottish seats in a British general election) would be mandate enough to demand independence from London and enter into negotiations with the British government. After the creation of the Scottish Parliament, the SNP had adopted the policy of the dual mandate: the SNP would be legitimate in demanding independence if it obtained a majority of seats, now in the Scottish Parliament rather than at Westminster, but also a majority of Yes votes in an independence referendum. At the time when Alex Salmond made the aforementioned speech, the SNP had just obtained a majority of seats in the Scottish Parliament for the first time; it now needed to make a principled case in favour of an independence referendum. What could better reflect a belief in popular sovereignty than the recourse to referendums? The idea that “the people, rather than politicians or state institutions, are the sovereign authority in Scotland”19 was also presented as a key argument in support of independence itself. The 2013 independence White Paper stated that the (written) Constitution of an independent Scotland would “replace the central principle of the UK constitution – the absolute sovereignty of the Westminster Parliament – with the sovereignty of the people of Scotland, which has been the central principle in the Scottish constitutional tradition”.20
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The belief that parliamentary sovereignty is a principle which is English and alien to Scotland found its first legal expression in a Scottish lawsuit of 1953, when Lord Cooper, the Lord Justice General (the head of the judiciary in Scotland), gave his opinion that “[t]he principle of unlimited sovereignty of Parliament is a distinctively English principle which has no counterpart in Scottish constitutional law”.21 This idea has since then been accepted by all political parties in Scotland apart from the Conservative Party. It was famously formulated in the Claim of Right for Scotland, which as Salmond reminds us, was the “foundation document” of the Scottish Constitutional Convention in 1989. This claim, which stated “We (…) do hereby acknowledge the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of government best suited to their needs”, was signed by all Scottish Labour MPs except one (Tam Dalyell), as well as by all Scottish Liberal Democrat MPs – but not by the SNP or the Tories, who refused to take part in the Constitutional Convention. However, the SNP included the principle that Scotland is a land of popular sovereignty in the introduction to its model Constitution of 1995, which stated: Sovereignty in Scotland rests with the people, not Parliament. That clear legal situation must be reflected in the constitution and in the operation of government. The people will be Scottish citizens, not British subjects.22 Even more clearly, the SNP government got the Scottish Parliament to vote on the 1989 “Claim of Right” on 26 January 2012: it was then endorsed by all Members of the Scottish Parliament, apart from the 14 Conservative MSPs. Another Scottish myth which Salmond regularly taps into, and which is often linked with the first, is the belief in Scottish egalitarianism and support for community values. In his Burns Day speech of 2012, the phrase “the people of Scotland” was at one point replaced by the phrase “the community of the realm of Scotland”. This had also been the case in two speeches which Salmond had made in front of the Queen. On the tenth anniversary of the Scottish Parliament, in 2009, Salmond had thanked the Queen for her presence “on behalf of the people – the community of the realm of this ancient nation”.23 Similarly, at the official opening of the third session of the Scottish Parliament, on 30 July 2007, Salmond had started by thanking the Queen for her presence “on behalf of the people of Scotland”, before reminding his audience that the Scottish Parliament had always met “on behalf of the community of the realm” of Scotland.24 The phrase “community of the realm” is famous in Scotland for having been used in the so-called “Declaration of Arbroath” of 1320,25 a medieval document which has been interpreted as “Europe’s first statement of a contractual relationship between government and citizens”,26 and it is often used to demonstrate Scotland’s long tradition of popular sovereignty. For instance, the Scottish Constitutional Commission, a Scottish think tank, claims that one of the three axioms on which its work is based is “that legitimate sovereignty in Scotland resides in the ‘whole community of the realm’, and not in the Queen-in- Parliament at Westminster.”27 However, the phrase “community of the realm” is also used to invoke Scotland’s support for community values, as is made obvious in a speech which Alex Salmond made in October 2011: [O]ur politics are not just constitutional but also people based. I tried to reflect this on election night when these self-same people, the community of the realm of Scotland presented to us the greatest ever mandate of the devolution era – an absolute majority in a PR system (…) It is a good phrase ‘the community of the realm’. It was developed in mediaeval Scotland to describe a concept of community identity which was beyond sectional interest. The best Scots term
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for it would be the common weal. It does not ignore the fact that sometimes as a Government we have to take sides within Scotland, as well as taking Scotland’s side. Particularly when times are tough we have to ask the rich to help the poor, the strong to help the weak, the powerful to help the powerless. But we do so in pursuit of the common weal, the community of the realm.28 Here, the phrase “community of the realm”, which has traditionally referred to a community of power and the idea of collective authority in the government of a kingdom, and the phrase “common weal”, which refers to the public good or welfare, are taken to mean one and the same thing. As labels of Scottish society, these phrases were used by Salmond to signify Scotland’s intrinsic belief in community values and the Welfare State. This article will now show how such labels are ways for the SNP to attack the policy choices made by either the British government or the Labour Party and to promote its project of an independent, social democratic, Scottish State.
The “common weal” and the “Fair Society” versus the “Big Society”
In his Christmas message of 2008, Alex Salmond claimed that “that fine Scottish tradition of protecting the ‘common weal’ and looking out for one another is something that marks us out as a nation”.29 In a speech made in late 2006, Salmond had similarly declared that the “common weal” was “the very essence of Scottishness”.30 What precise policies did Alex Salmond associate with the protection of the “common weal”, which to him was the “essence of Scottishness”? In his address to the SNP National Conference of October 2012, Salmond described the Scottish Parliament's distinctive policies on personal care, transport and education as a reflection of the common weal of Scotland. We see that through the idea of a Scottish “common weal”, Scottish society was presented as one that was by essence supportive of social democratic values in general, and of universal services and benefits in particular. Defining Scottishness and Scottish society in this way was part of the SNP’s strategy aiming at showcasing it as the party best suited to represent Scotland. By defending the welfarist policies mentioned earlier, the SNP under Salmond’s second leadership distinguished itself not only from the British coalition government (and thereby from both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats), but also from the Scottish Labour Party, which was its main opponent in Scotland. Indeed, in 2012, Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont made the headlines for claiming that Scotland was now a “something for nothing” country and that the many people in Scotland who were “attracted by policies like free prescriptions, free tuition fees and the council-tax freeze” (some of which had been introduced under Labour-led Scottish governments) should “look at how they are paying for those free things”.31 Thereafter, the SNP became the only big party in Scotland still standing for the defence of universal services and benefits.32 This policy change on the part of Labour in Scotland explains why in his aforementioned address to the SNP Conference of 2012, Alex Salmond made the following declaration: Let us tell the Labour leadership about the reality about our fellow Scots. They don’t want something for nothing. They just want the right to live in a country which understands the importance of society. A country that knows the value and not just the price of the services we hold dear. These are the fruits not just of this party or this government, but the fruits of a Scottish Parliament that chose to reflect our nation in these ways. It is the social contract between our Parliament and our
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people. Some call it universality, and say its time has passed. I call it human decency and its time is now.33 Here, the defence of “universality” is shown to be integral to the Scottish nation, the implication being that only a party supporting this principle can adequately represent Scotland. This is an instance of what has been termed ‘welfare nationalism’, which is when welfare policies are used as tools for nation-building, either at State or at sub- State level. This is especially the case in Scotland where the first years of devolution produced, as has already been hinted at, some “prominent examples of policy divergence in the area of welfare development” such as the abolition of up-front tuition fees and the introduction of free personal care for the elderly, “both of which have become emblematic of Scotland’s political autonomy.”34 As Scottish academic Nicola McEwen has convincingly argued, even before the introduction of devolution, Scottish national identity came to be defined in social democratic terms and the defence of social democracy came to be couched in national terms. In the 1980s and 1990s, the defence of social democracy became associated with the creation of an autonomous Scottish Parliament and, conversely, attacks on social democracy were interpreted as attacks on Scotland’s distinctive national identity. In summary, “[n]ational identity, social democracy and the demand for constitutional change thus represented mutually reinforcing factors that combined to emphasise a sense that ‘Scotland is different’.”35 The post-devolution SNP has inherited this perception of Scottish national identity and made it an integral part of its strategy to promote independence. Just as home rule (or devolution) was presented by its supporters as the only way for Scotland to protect itself against Thatcherism and defend public services in the 1980s and early 1990s, independence was presented by the post-devolution SNP as the only way for Scotland to protect itself from austerity measures imposed by the Unionist parties (both Labour and the Conservatives), in power either in Scotland or throughout the UK. One year after the aforementioned speech, Alex Salmond again made the point that Scotland was essentially a social democratic country, this time by making Scottish Labour leader’s “something for nothing ” soundbite into a byword for both Labour and the Conservatives’ ideology: Friends, where we have the power we have chosen a different path. A path that reflects Scotland’s social democratic consensus, our shared progressive values - our priorities as a society. Now Labour and Tory dismiss these gains as the luxuries of a something for nothing country – really? Personal care for older people, free tuition for young people, to be cast aside as something for nothing? This is not a something for nothing country but a something for something society and this party shall defend that social progress made by our parliament.36 We have seen how Salmond took advantage of an ideological U-turn on the part of Scottish Labour to present both Scottish society as a social democratic “common weal”, and the SNP as the party best suited to represent it. Let us now consider how the SNP positioned itself with regard to the British Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government’s policy choices and ideology. In another address made by Salmond at an SNP National Conference, this time in October 2010, when David Cameron was promoting his concept of a “Big Society”, several of the SNP tropes that have been discussed so far were brought together: [O]ur objective is to spread the vision of a fair society, built with the tools of an independent nation. (…) [To David Cameron:] Do not sacrifice the public services to appease your ideological gods. Do not let the people suffer for attitudes forged on the playing fields of Eton. (…) Our first duty is to protect the people of Scotland. (…) Much has been said about the Big Society. I am more concerned by the Fair
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Society. (…) We are not helpless agents of globalization, but free citizens of a wealthy land. We are not slaves to the banking system or vassals to the lords of high finance. (…) And when we look to our neighbours, we can all see the family who can’t quite make ends meet, the child who needs some extra help, the grandmother alone who needs a hand, the mother struggling with hands full, the man at the end of his tether – for we are all the people who choose to live on this land, and by our shared values, we are the welfare of everyone in our community.37 In this speech, Salmond opposed Cameron’s “Big Society” and his own vision of a “fair society” defined by what he called a “social democratic ethos” and an egalitarianism alien to Eton-educated British political leaders, while at the same time reminding the “people of Scotland” that they are the people who “choose to live on this land” and who thereby form a commonwealth. Here is another instance of welfare nationalism: only independence can allow Scotland to be true to its ethos and nature as a “common weal”. This idea was at the heart of many of Salmond’s speeches, as can be seen in the following two extracts, taken from two different addresses he made in 2011: If we are to become a crucible of the new society, then we need the power of independence – we must have these powers. (…) Our sense of the common weal is strong and should not be denied by the rich elites of elsewhere. (…) [T]he definition of a nation is a community of people with a shared commitment to their culture and to their children. By having a strong sense of ourselves. (…) And that sense of self is built on community. On the shared value of helping each other out, lending a hand. On a sense that society should try to be as equal as it can be. That is what we value and what we think is the purpose of government.38 [G]ive Scotland the tools, put the people in charge and see our nation flourish as never before. Let us build a nation that reflects the values of our people. With a social contract – and a social conscience – at the very heart of our success. The society, the country that Scotland desires, that Scotland believes in – it is not a country or a future on offer from the Tory government down south. Even that one institution which really made Britain great, the National Health Service, is being dismantled in England. The Tories call it a Big Society. I call it no society at all.39
Conclusion
One of the SNP's key strategies in its campaign for independence is to label Scottish society as well as define Scottish citizenship and Scottishness (or national identity) in certain ways that form a cohesive whole. Scotland is presented, first, as a civic nation in which citizenship is dependent on a shared territory and a willingness to live together, rather than on common origins; secondly, as a land where the people are sovereign and hold their destinies in their own hands, and in their hands only; and thirdly, as a commonwealth (or “common weal”) where people hold dear welfarist values and policies. The speeches that Alex Salmond made as SNP leader in the years 2007-2014 are classic instances of nation-building, in the sense that Salmond sought to construct or maintain certain collective meanings of Scottish nationhood, of who Scottish people are, while emphasising what made Scotland different. The Scottish people were taken to be a compassionate and egalitarian people whose sense of identity was related to social democratic values and to a belief in the “common weal”. Such nation-building served three main aims for the party. The first was to present independence as the best way for Scotland to be true to its nature in a context where all of the UK’s parties of government, Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, had given up or were giving up on universalism. The second was to
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showcase the SNP as both the national and the natural party of Scotland: as the only big party that still defended the community values which were core Scottish values, and the only one that upheld the sovereignty of the Scottish people. The third and final aim was to reassure voters that the SNP’s brand of nationalism was perfectly civic, unlike the nationalism of right-wing parties such as UKIP: in an independent Scotland, the primary criterion for citizenship would be residence. Even though the SNP has never been a single-issue party, it has clearly supported and campaigned for the independence of Scotland since its early years. As a consequence, its main frame of reference has logically been Scotland and Scottish society, rather than the UK and British society. The party is more concerned with framing Scottish identity in a way that suits its political purposes, and with defining Scottish citizenship (that is, the conditions of citizenship in an independent Scottish State), than it is engaging with current debates on Britishness and on British citizenship. However, in its 2013 independence White Paper, the SNP government noted that it intended for “the rights and responsibilities which accompany Scottish citizenship” to be “broadly in line with those currently aligned with British citizenship.”40 Moreover, the SNP does not pitch Scottishness against Britishness. On the contrary, its leaders have in the past few years repeatedly put forward the belief that a common sense of Britishness would survive after Scottish independence.41 It is here argued that rather than disparage Britishness, the SNP has generally preferred to bypass the UK frame of reference altogether, in favour of a wider frame of reference which has always included the whole of the British Isles, and which, until the end of the Empire, encompassed the whole British Commonwealth of Nations. In that respect, the rhetoric of the SNP has little evolved since its early days, and in the years 2007-2014, Alex Salmond merely tapped into a rich SNP tradition of using a wider frame of reference than the British one, as a comparison between the following extracts, taken respectively from the 1950s and from the 2010s, reveals: There is no desire to isolate Scotland from the other nations of the British Isles and Commonwealth. The Scottish people and the people of these nations have the strongest ties of kinship, history and interest which would not be weakened but immeasurably strengthened by the fuller, more direct and more satisfying relationship which self-government would make possible.42 If Scotland becomes independent, it will continue to share close ties with its neighbouring countries. (…) The British Irish Council already provides a model of how all the people of these islands can work together on issues of shared interest. (…) [I]n addition to these institutional, cultural, economic and practical links, Scotland shares ties of family and friendship with its neighbours on these islands which never can be obsolete, and which I expect will continue and flourish after Scottish independence.43 I’m going to emphasise two points. The first is that the ties that bind the nations of these islands will continue and flourish after Scotland becomes independent. You will remain Scotland’s closest friends, as well as our closest neighbours. And the second point I want to make is that Scottish independence wouldn’t just be good for Scotland; it would be good for all of the nations of these islands – and it would create opportunities for co-operation and partnership.44 Nathalie Duclos, agrégée d'anglais et ancienne élève de l'ENS de Cachan, est maître de conférences HDR en civilisation britannique à l'Université Toulouse- Jean Jaurès et membre du laboratoire CAS (EA801). Sa recherche porte sur la politique écossaise contemporaine, et notamment sur le SNP, le nationalisme et l'indépendantisme en Écosse. Elle a écrit deux livres sur l'Écosse: La dévolution des
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pouvoirs à l’Écosse et au pays de Galles, 1966-1999 (Nantes : Éditions du Temps, 2007) et L’Écosse en quête d’indépendance ? Le référendum de 2014 (Paris : Presses de l’université Paris-Sorbonne, 2014). Elle a aussi dirigé un des numéros précédents de la Revue française de civilisation britannique (XX-2, 2015, « Le référendum sur l’indépendance écossaise du 18 septembre 2014 »).
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NOTES
1. See for instance Daniel Sanderson, “Sturgeon urged to rule out independence vote as poll shows 36 per cent want referendum repeat”, Herald, 15 February 2016. 2. SNP, leaflet describing the aim of the party (c.1946-47) (archives of the National Library of Scotland). 3. Alex Salmond, speech to the Scottish Parliament on the occasion of the launch of the Scottish Government’s consultation paper Your Scotland, Your Referendum, in Scottish Parliament, Official Report, 25 January 2012, http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/report.aspx? r=7163 consulted March 2016. 4. BBC One, “Andrew Marr Show”, 8 January 2012. In the event, the Scottish independence referendum took place on 18 September 2014. A majority of 55% voted against independence. 5. SNP, Citizens not Subjects. The Parliament and Constitution of an Independent Scotland (SNP, 1995). 6. SNP, A Constitution for a Free Scotland (SNP, 2002). 7. Scottish Government, Scottish Independence Bill: A Consultation on an Interim Constitution for Scotland, June 2014, article 18, pp. 14-15, http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2014/06/8135 consulted 4 March 2016. 8. Scottish Government, Scotland’s Future. Your Guide to an Independent Scotland (Scottish Government, November 2013), pp. 16-17. 9. Ibid., pp. 271-272. 10. Scottish Government, Scotland’s Future, op. cit., pp. 272. 11. Ibid., pp. 254, 271, 497. 12. N. McEwen, Nationalism and the State. Welfare and Identity in Scotland and Quebec (Brussels, Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes – Peter Lang, 2006), p. 28. 13. SNP, The Scotland We Seek. The Aims of the Scottish National Party (SNP, 1974). 14. SNP, campaign leaflet for Robert Shirley, candidate for Edinburgh South (SNP, 1974). 15. Alex Salmond, acceptance speech to the Scottish Parliament, in Scottish Parliament, Official Report, 18 May 2011, http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/report.aspx? r=6452 consulted March 2016. 16. Scottish Government, Choosing Scotland's Future. A National Conversation. Independence and Responsibility in the Modern World (Scottish Government, August 2007), http://www.gov.scot/ Publications/2007/08/13103747/0 consulted March 2016; Scottish Government, Your Scotland,
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Your Voice. A National Conversation (Scottish Government, November 2009), http://www.gov.scot/ Publications/2013/11/9348/14 consulted March 2016. 17. Alex Salmond, speech at the launch of the second phase of the “National Conversation” (with representatives of Scottish civil society) at the University of Edinburgh, 26 March 2008, transcript of the online video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3saBb3ir2Lk consulted March 2016. 18. Scottish Government, Choosing Scotland's Future, op. cit. , pp. v (twice), 19 ; Scottish Government, Your Scotland, Your Voice, op. cit., pp. 3, 11, 130 (twice), 133, 135, 152. 19. Scottish Government, Scotland’s Future, op. cit., p. 351. 20. Ibid., pp. 334-335. 21. MacCormick v. Lord Advocate (1953 SC 396). Quoted in Iain McLean and Alistair McMillan, State of the Union (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 247. 22. SNP, Citizens not Subjects. The Parliament and Constitution of an Independent Scotland (SNP, 1995). 23. Alex Salmond, First Minister’s address in the Scottish Parliament on its tenth anniversary, 1 July 2009. 24. Alex Salmond, First Minister's address at the opening of the third session of the Scottish Parliament, 30 June 2007. 25. Letter of the Barons of Scotland to Pope John XXII, 6 April 1320. See for instance Gordon Donaldson, Scottish Historical Documents (Glasgow, Neil Wilson Publishing, 1999), pp. 55-58. 26. To quote Alex Salmond himself, in a speech made to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland on 25 May 2009. 27. See the Scottish Constitutional Commission’s website: http:// www.constitutionalcommission.org/about.php consulted April 2016. 28. Alex Salmond, speech to the SNP National Conference, 22 October 2011. 29. Alex Salmond, Christmas message, 24 December 2008. See for instance BBC News, “Festive warnings from politicians”, 24 December 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/ 7798848.stm consulted March 2016. 30. Alex Salmond, speech to the SNP National Conference, 13 October 2006, http:// www.scotsindependent.scot/features/alex_%20salmond_perth_06.htm consulted April 2013. 31. See for instance the following news bulletin: http://news.stv.tv/politics/191807-labour- leader-johann-lamont-demands-end-to-something-for-nothing-culture/. 32. The SNP’s commitment to universalism was confirmed more recently in a motion voted in the Scottish Parliament. The motion opposed the “damaging impact the UK Government’s approach to public spending [was] having” and renewed the SNP’s commitment to “the universal benefits and services of free personal care, free prescriptions, concessionary travel free eye tests and free tuition”. Apart from the SNP, the motion was only supported by the Scottish Greens. See motion S4M-06225, lodged by the SNP and taken in the Scottish Parliament on 16 April 2014. 33. Alex Salmond, speech to the SNP National Conference, 20 October 2012, http:// www.heraldscotland.com/news/13077771.In_full__Alex_Salmond_s_speech_to_SNP_conference/ consulted March 2016. 34. McEwen, op. cit., p. 173. 35. McEwen, op. cit., p. 139. 36. Alex Salmond, speech to the SNP National Conference, 19 October 2013, http:// www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/10/alex-salmonds-speech-2013-snp-conference-full-text consulted March 2016. 37. Alex Salmond, speech to the SNP National Conference, 17 October 2010, http:// www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/uk-scotland-11560698 consulted March 2016. 38. Alex Salmond, speech to the SNP Spring Conference, 12 March 2011, http:// etheostominae.rssing.com/chan-1315342/all_p8.html consulted March 2016.
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39. Alex Salmond, speech on Scotland’s future, 22 October 2011. See for instance http:// www.ukpol.co.uk/2015/12/01/alex-salmond-2011-speech-on-scotlands-future/ consulted March 2016. 40. Scottish Government, Scotland’s Future, op. cit., p. 495. 41. See for instance Alex Salmond’s interview by BBC journalist James Naughtie on 16 January 2012, which can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9RgEPC9_Zk. 42. SNP, Policy of the Scottish National Party (SNP, undated [195-?]). 43. Alex Salmond, Hugo Young lecture, London, 24 January 2012, http://www.theguardian.com/ politics/2012/jan/25/alex-salmond-hugo-young-lecture consulted March 2016. 44. Alex Salmond, St George’s Day speech in Carlisle, 23 April 2014, http:// www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/04/alex-salmonds-st-georges-day-speech-full-text consulted April 2016.
ABSTRACTS
In a context where the Scottish National Party (SNP) has become the dominant party in Scotland, this article explores one aspect of the party’s ideology, namely its conception of Scottish society and citizenship, based on an analysis of the speeches made by Alex Salmond in the years 2007-2014, when he was both party leader and Scottish First Minister. The language of politics provides the focus for this article. Its purpose is threefold: first, to present the way in which the SNP named and labelled Scottish society in those pivotal years; second, to establish what these naming strategies revealed about the party’s conception of Scottish citizenship, nationalism and national identity; and third, to explain how this conception was made integral to its general political strategy and campaign for independence. The analysis shows that Scottish society and the Scottish people were portrayed in three, complementary ways: as the people who reside on the territory of Scotland, which is in keeping with the SNP’s “civic” nationalism and with its perception of Scottish citizenship as one that is based on residency rather than ancestry; as a “sovereign people” and as “the community of the realm of Scotland”, which bears testimony to the SNP’s exploitation of two powerful Scottish political myths; and as a social democratic society with a “shared sense of the common weal” which translates into support for universalist policies at odds with both Labour and the Conservatives’ policy choices. These visions of society and citizenship were all included in the SNP’s case for an independent social democratic Scottish State.
Dans un contexte où le Scottish National Party (SNP) est désormais le parti dominant en Écosse, cet article explore un aspect de son idéologie, à savoir sa conception de la société et de la citoyenneté écossaises, à partir d’une analyse des discours faits par Alex Salmond dans les années 2007-2014, lorsqu’il était à la fois chef du parti et chef du gouvernement écossais. Il vise à établir la manière dont le SNP a désigné la société écossaise pendant ces années, ce que cela révèle de sa conception de la citoyenneté, du nationalisme et de l’identité nationale, et enfin la façon dont cette conception a été intégrée à sa stratégie politique générale et à sa campagne pour l’indépendance. L’analyse démontre que la société et le peuple écossais furent définis de trois façons complémentaires : premièrement, en tant que peuple fait des personnes résidant sur le territoire écossais, conformément au nationalisme « civique » du SNP et à sa vision de la citoyenneté comme étant fondée sur la résidence plus que sur les origines ; deuxièmement, en tant que
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« peuple souverain » et que « communauté du royaume d’Écosse », ce qui permet au SNP d’exploiter deux grands mythes politiques écossais ; et troisièmement, en tant que société social- démocrate ayant le sens du « bien commun », ce qui se traduit par un soutien à des politiques universalistes contraires aux orientations du parti travailliste comme du parti conservateur. Ces visions de la société et de la citoyenneté furent mises en avant afin de promouvoir l’indépendance de l’Écosse et la mise en place d’un État social-démocrate écossais.
INDEX
Mots-clés: Scottish National Party, Alex Salmond, citoyenneté, nationalisme, identité écossaise, souveraineté Keywords: Scottish National Party, Alex Salmond, citizenship, nationalism, society, Scottishness, sovereignty, common weal
AUTHOR
NATHALIE DUCLOS CAS (EA 801), Université de Toulouse Jean-Jaurès
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Citoyenneté et participation politique en Écosse. La décentralisation : une chance pour les femmes ? Citizenship and Political Participation in Scotland: Is Devolution an Opportunity for Women?
Karine Rivière-De Franco
Introduction
1 Alors que les Écossaises, comme les Anglaises, durent attendre 1918 pour disposer du droit de voter et de siéger au Parlement de Westminster, établi depuis des siècles1, elles font partie intégrante du Parlement écossais depuis son (r)établissement en 19992, à la fois comme électrices et comme représentantes. En théorie, la législation fait des femmes écossaises des citoyennes à part entière. En effet, l’une des trois formes de citoyenneté identifiées par le sociologue britannique Thomas Humphrey Marshall, la citoyenneté politique, relève du « droit de participer à l’exercice du pouvoir, comme membre d’une institution investie d’autorité politique ou comme électeur des membres de cette institution »3. De même, la sociologue et politologue française Dominique Schnapper fonde la citoyenneté politique sur la participation politique, qui comprend le droit de vote, le droit d’éligibilité et le droit d’accéder à certaines fonctions publiques4. Qu’en est-il, concrètement, de l’exercice de cette citoyenneté et de la participation effective des femmes à la vie politique écossaise ? Dans quelle mesure le processus de dévolution a-t-il modifié les pratiques par rapport aux usages en cours à Westminster ?
2 Cet article se propose d’étudier la notion de citoyenneté au prisme du processus de dévolution et de son impact sur la représentation et la participation politiques des femmes au Parlement écossais. Après avoir analysé les facteurs qui constituèrent un climat propice à une plus grande représentativité politique et leur impact sur la
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représentation descriptive de la population féminine lors des premières élections, l’action législative des femmes députées est examinée, au niveau de l’investissement quantitatif dans les activités parlementaires comme de l’intérêt témoigné pour les questions traditionnellement qualifiées d’« enjeux féminins ». Le corpus d’analyse permet de mettre en parallèle le comportement des élues au Parlement écossais avec celui de leurs consœurs à Westminster ; au sein de la chambre des Communes, les représentantes des circonscriptions écossaises sont considérées à part, afin d'apprécier le comportement législatif des Écossaises en fonction du lieu où elles siègent, Londres ou Édimbourg. Cette approche comparatiste vise à identifier d’éventuelles spécificités du Parlement écossais. La période d’étude choisie couvre les dix-huit premiers mois des législatures en place : de mai 2011 à décembre 2012 pour Édimbourg (Parlement dominé par le Scottish National Party) et de mai 2010 à décembre 2011 pour Westminster (Parlement dominé par la Coalition conservatrice-libérale démocrate).
La représentation parlementaire des femmes écossaises
Un contexte propice à une meilleure représentativité
3 À l’aube du premier scrutin pour le Parlement écossais de 1999, plusieurs facteurs semblaient contribuer à créer un climat favorable à une meilleure représentativité politique par rapport à la Chambre des communes de Westminster. Tout d’abord, la nouveauté même de l’institution pouvait laisser espérer de futurs élus qui refléteraient davantage la population en termes de caractéristiques sexuées. Comme le souligne l’universitaire britannique Carmel Roulston : [L]a plupart des constitutions ont été établies par des hommes et sont le reflet d’une vision masculine du pouvoir, de la politique et de la citoyenneté ; exclus du processus de réflexion autour de ces constitutions, les intérêts des femmes ont fréquemment été négligés5.
4 Dans le cas de la décentralisation politique en Écosse, les femmes ont participé activement aux débats sur la création du nouveau Parlement et ont été en mesure d’influencer son fonctionnement, ainsi que le mode de scrutin ou de sélection des candidats. Comme en atteste Mike Watson – qui fut député à Westminster et à Holyrood – la Chambre des communes de Londres constituait un contre-modèle, l’exemple même des pratiques qu’il convenait de ne pas reproduire6. Il s’agissait, au contraire, d’engager un renouveau démocratique, de créer une institution à l’atmosphère plus consensuelle, plus informelle, avec des horaires davantage compatibles avec une vie de famille et un équilibre politique différent, au sein duquel les questions d’égalité occuperaient une position centrale. C’est ainsi que, parmi les quatre recommandations du Constitutional Steering Group7, qui furent ensuite adoptées par le Parlement, figure l’égalité des chances. De même, un comité parlementaire permanent travaille sur ce thème, un groupe en charge de la promotion de l’égalité a été créé au sein du pouvoir exécutif, et une femme doit occuper le poste de président ou de vice-président du Parlement. Par ailleurs, le débat sur la dévolution a coïncidé avec une évolution au sein des mouvements féministes ; à partir des années 1980, leur action s’est institutionnalisée et les femmes se sont mises à militer pour le changement de l’intérieur en investissant syndicats, groupes de pression, partis et institutions politiques8. Comme l’explique Nathalie Duclos dans son ouvrage Femmes, Pouvoir et Nation en Écosse, « les autonomistes et
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les féministes des années 1980 et 1990 purent se rejoindre dans le rejet du modèle politique traditionnel »9. Si les nationalistes ont fondé une partie de leur argumentation sur le concept du « déficit démocratique » dont souffrait l’Écosse, les femmes s’en saisirent pour démontrer qu’elles étaient victimes d’un « double déficit démocratique ». Dès lors, « voter ‘oui’ [lors du référendum de 1997 sur la création d’un Parlement écossais] n’était pas seulement un choix nationaliste mais également un choix féministe et le référendum une occasion à ne pas manquer »10, et les organisations féministes parvinrent à organiser une mobilisation importante. Le mode de scrutin adopté, qui introduisait une dose de proportionnelle, à la différence du système pratiqué pour Westminster, était également, en principe, favorable à une plus grande diversité. Le mode de scrutin mixte (Additional Member System, AMS) prévoyait que chaque électeur disposât de deux votes : un pour élire le candidat de sa circonscription (Member of the Scottish Parliament, MSP) à travers un système majoritaire (First-Past-The-Post, comme pour Westminster) et un second pour choisir des membres régionaux à partir d’un scrutin de liste. Ce second vote avait pour objectif de corriger les excès du système majoritaire dans les circonscriptions et d’introduire une dose de proportionnalité. Or, une forte corrélation a pu être observée entre la représentation proportionnelle et un nombre plus élevé de femmes élues11. Enfin, la représentation des femmes a également été facilitée par l’absence de députés en place (incumbents). Pour reprendre la typologie, établie par Pippa Norris et Joni Lovenduski, qui décrit les quatre types de facteurs qui influencent la participation politique des femmes – les facteurs systémiques, les facteurs internes aux partis, les facteurs individuels et les élections elles-mêmes – un certain nombre des obstacles à la représentation féminine semblaient levés en Écosse12. En termes de représentation numérique, également qualifiée de représentation descriptive, représentation miroir ou représentation de groupe, les élections écossaises se sont- elles effectivement révélées significatives pour la population féminine écossaise, comme les circonstances pouvaient le laisser penser ?
Une représentation descriptive substantielle
5 À l’issue du premier scrutin en 1999, les femmes constituaient près de 40 % des membres du Parlement écossais (37 %), un chiffre qui démontre clairement les bénéfices de la dévolution en termes de représentation numérique. En effet, à la même période, les élues à Westminster étaient deux fois moins nombreuses (18,2 %, après le scrutin de 1997 au terme duquel la représentation féminine doubla quasiment par rapport à 1992). Conformément aux espoirs placés dans le nouveau Parlement, cette première élection constitua un réel succès pour les femmes écossaises. Toutefois, l’évolution lors des consultations électorales suivantes s’est avérée décevante, puisque, à l’exception de la deuxième élection, les chiffres sont restés inférieurs à ceux de 1999 (39,5 % en 2003, 33 % en 2007, 35 % en 2011). Comme le souligne le groupe Engender – qui milite pour améliorer la condition des femmes en Écosse – depuis sa création, le Parlement écossais est passé de la 4e à la 13e place dans le classement international de la représentation parlementaire des femmes13. Par ailleurs, contrairement aux attentes engendrées par l’introduction d’une dose de proportionnelle dans le mode de scrutin, l’analyse affinée des résultats électoraux révèle que la majorité des candidates n’a pas été élue grâce aux listes régionales, mais dans les circonscriptions (avec le système majoritaire utilisé pour Westminster) : elles représentaient 41 % des députés dans les circonscriptions, contre 32 % des représentants régionaux14. Les bons résultats en
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termes de représentation féminine n’étaient donc pas dus au système électoral, mais aux mesures adoptées par certains partis politiques lors de leur procédure de sélection des candidats. Le parti travailliste avait adopté le principe du jumelage de circonscriptions limitrophes dans lesquelles un homme et une femme étaient nominés (twinning), d’où un groupe parlementaire composé à 50 % de femmes, tandis que le Scottish National Party avait, lui, choisi de placer les candidates en tête sur ses listes régionales, avec comme résultat 42,8 % de femmes au Parlement15. Le manque d’engagement en la matière des conservateurs et des libéraux-démocrates s’était reflété dans le nombre peu élevé de leurs représentantes (16,7 et 11,8 % de leur groupe parlementaire respectif). En Écosse, comme à Westminster, les partis agissent comme des « gatekeepers »16, et seules « les mesures qui garantissent l’égalité » s’avèrent efficaces, la rhétorique d’égalité (les déclarations de bonnes intentions) et la promotion de l’égalité (l’accompagnement des candidates) se révèlent insuffisantes17.
6 Sur la période d’étude choisie – mai 2011 à décembre 2012 pour Édimbourg et mai 2010 à décembre 2011 pour Westminster – les femmes représentaient plus d’un tiers des députés à Édimbourg (35 %), contre moins d’un quart à Westminster (22 %). Quant aux élues de Westminster représentant des circonscriptions écossaises, elles constituaient 22,3 % de l’ensemble des parlementaires des Communes. Par ailleurs, en Écosse, le parti travailliste disposait du plus grand nombre d’élues (46 %), suivi par les conservateurs (40 %), le SNP (24,6 %) et les libéraux-démocrates (20 %). Enfin, sur la période, l’Écosse a connu plusieurs femmes à la tête de partis politiques – Johann Lamont, leader des travaillistes et Ruth Davidson, chef des conservateurs – une situation qui contraste avec celle des partis basés à Londres18. Le poids respectif des députées au sein de leur Parlement a-t-il un impact sur l’investissement de ces élues, tant sur le plan quantitatif – leur degré de participation à la vie parlementaire – que qualitatif – le type d’enjeux pour lesquels elles se mobilisent ?
L’action législative des députées écossaises
La contribution globale des députées écossaises au travail législatif
7 La grille d’activités parlementaires qui a été établie offre à la fois une vision globale – à travers l’ensemble des contributions écrites et orales – ainsi qu’une perspective plus détaillée – séances de questions au Premier ministre, projets de loi, motions ou votes. Considérant l’activité globale des députées, c’est-à-dire l’ensemble de leurs interventions orales et écrites au sein du Parlement écossais19, les femmes sont à l’origine de près de la moitié (45,2 %) des contributions (5 385 contre 6 532 pour les hommes), une sur-participation de 10 points par rapport à leur représentation parlementaire (voir le tableau n° 1). À Westminster, les femmes députés n’y contribuent qu’à hauteur de 19,4 % (32 131 interventions contre 133 533 pour les hommes), soit une légère sous-participation (-2,6 points). Les parlementaires en Écosse se montrent beaucoup plus actives que leurs collègues de Westminster ; quant au comportement législatif des élues qui représentent des circonscriptions écossaises à la Chambre des communes, il se situe entre celui des deux groupes à 25.6 % (2 352 interventions contre 9 172 pour les hommes), avec une légère sur-participation (+3,3 points).
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Tableau n° 1 : La contribution globale des femmes députés au travail législatif
8 (Holyrood mai 2011-décembre 2012, Westminster, mai 2010-décembre 2011, % / points)
Holyrood 45,2 (+10,2)
Westminster 19,4 (-2,6)
Circonscriptions écossaises, Westminster 25,6 (+3,3)
Source : l’auteur, calculé d’après Official Report (Parlement écossais), Hansard Parliamentary Archives (Parlement de Westminster).
La contribution des députées écossaises aux activités parlementaires spécifiques
9 Les Parlements de Holyrood et de Westminster présentent des activités comparables qui permettent d’évaluer l’activité de leurs membres par rapport à leur représentation descriptive respective. Ainsi, tous deux disposent de séances de questions au Premier ministre. À la Chambre des communes de Londres, le président, John Bercow, a adressé une lettre aux leaders des trois principaux partis au mois de février 2014 dans l’optique de réformer cette demi-heure hebdomadaire, qu’il juge « sexiste, snob et dévoyée » 20. En Écosse, contrairement à ce qui avait été préconisé lors des discussions préparatoires, cette pratique a été adoptée sous une forme quasi similaire21. Sur l’ensemble de la période d’étude, les questions posées par des femmes lors des séances de questions au Premier ministre écossais représentent près de la moitié de l’ensemble des questions (47,6 %, 571 interventions contre 629 pour leurs homologues masculins) (voir le tableau n° 2). Ce pourcentage s’avère supérieur à leur représentation numérique de plus de 12 points. Les chiffres équivalents pour Westminster montrent, eux, un investissement dans cette activité pratiquement à la hauteur de la représentation descriptive des députées (21,8 %, -0,2 points). Quant aux interventions des femmes qui représentent des circonscriptions écossaises, elles se révèlent légèrement supérieures à leur représentation (26,8 %, +4,5 points). De grandes différences apparaissent donc selon le groupe considéré, avec, d’une part, une plus grande activité des élues au Parlement écossais et, d’autre part, au sein de Westminster, des contributions plus nombreuses de la part de celles qui représentent des circonscriptions écossaises.
10 Les deux législatures offrent la possibilité de déposer des motions ; ces dernières permettent aux députés d’exprimer leur point de vue sur un sujet particulier ou d’initier un débat et d’obtenir le soutien de leurs collègues, qui peuvent y apposer leur signature, comme pour une pétition. En Écosse, près d’un tiers de ces motions a été rédigé par des femmes (30,2 %, 1 624 contre 69 pour les hommes), ce qui représente une sous-participation comparée à leur présence parlementaire (-4,8 points). À Westminster, les motions dont les femmes sont à l’origine constituent 16 % du nombre total (410 pour les femmes, 2 152 pour les hommes, -6 points). Sans être totalement négligées, au sein des deux Parlements, les motions ne représentent pas une activité dans laquelle les femmes s’investissent de manière importante. Il est vrai que les motions n’apportent pas de résultat concret immédiat, ce qui explique que l’ancien
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Premier ministre John Major les ait qualifiées d’« équivalent parlementaire du graffiti »22. En revanche, les députées écossaises à Westminster adoptent une attitude très différente : il s’agit pour elles d’une activité très prisée (44,2 %, +21,9 points), qui est d’ailleurs moins soumise à la stricte discipline de parti que d’autres travaux.
11 Le Parlement écossais – dont les pouvoirs ont été définis par le Scotland Act de 1998 puis étendus par le Scotland Act de 2012 – peut légiférer dans les domaines qui relèvent de la décentralisation, comme l’agriculture, l’éducation, l’environnement, les services de santé et les services sociaux, le logement, le gouvernement local, les sports et les arts, le tourisme ou les transports23. En matière de dépôt de projets de loi, les élues adoptent un comportement similaire à Holyrood et à Westminster. Elles y participent légèrement moins que ce que leur influence numérique pourrait laisser penser : une sous- participation de 4,2 points est observée en Écosse (30,8 %) et de 2,5 points aux Communes (19,5 %). Les représentantes des circonscriptions écossaises à Westminster se distinguent, elles, par l’absence totale de dépôt de projet de loi (-22,3 points).
Tableau n° 2 : Les activités parlementaires des femmes députés
12 (Holyrood mai 2011-décembre 2012, Westminster, mai 2010-décembre 2011, % / points)
Circonscriptions écossaises, Holyrood Westminster Westminster
Questions au Premier 47,6 (+ 21,8 (- 0,2) 26,8 (+ 4,5) ministre 12,6)
Projets de loi 30,8 (- 4,2) 19,5 (- 2,5) 0 (- 22,3)
Motions 30,2 (- 4,8) 16 (- 6) 44,2 (+ 21,9)
Source : l’auteur, calculé d’après Official Report (Parlement écossais), Hansard Parliamentary Archives (Parlement de Westminster).
13 Le comportement de vote représente un autre indicateur de l’activité législative, qui comporte deux éléments : la fréquence de vote et le respect ou non de la ligne de parti, qui peut être estimé à partir du nombre de votes dits de « rébellion ». À Holyrood, les taux de participation au vote des femmes et des hommes s’avèrent très proches (94,1 %, contre 94,3 %) (tableau n° 3), à l’instar de ce qui est observé à Westminster (72,5 % contre 72,3 %). En revanche, au sein des députés qui représentent des circonscriptions écossaises, l’écart s’avère plus notable, les femmes votant plus fréquemment que leurs collègues masculins (69,5 % contre 63,4 %, +6,1 points). Au niveau du respect ou de la défiance par rapport à la discipline de vote, les taux de rébellion restent très faibles, toutefois les conduites diffèrent nettement : alors que le taux de rébellion pour les femmes MSPs est supérieur à celui de leurs collègues masculins (0,3 % contre 0,2 %), le phénomène inverse se produit à Westminster (0,5 % contre 1,3 %). En Écosse, les élues affirment davantage leur liberté d’action et font preuve d’une plus grande indépendance qu’à Westminster, où la discipline de vote prévaut, que ce soit par loyauté ou par crainte d’être stigmatisées. Le taux de rébellion des députées qui représentent des circonscriptions écossaises est également inférieur à celui des
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hommes (0,2 % contre 0,7 %), ces femmes se conformant au modèle de comportement majoritaire à Westminster.
Tableau n° 3 : Le vote des femmes au Parlement, participation et « rébellion »
14 (Holyrood mai 2011-décembre 2012, Westminster, mai 2010-décembre 2011, % / points)
Participation Rébellion
Femmes 94,1 0,3
Holyrood Hommes 94,3 0,2
Ecart F / H -0,2 0,1
Femmes 72,5 0,5
Westminster Hommes 72,3 1,3
Ecart F / H 0,2 -0,8
Femmes 69,5 0,2
Circonscriptions écossaises, Westminster Hommes 63,4 0,7
Ecart F / H 6,1 -0,5
Source : l’auteur, calculé à partir des chiffres relevés par The Public Whip.
15 En Écosse, dans le cadre d’une représentation descriptive supérieure, les élues s’investissent davantage dans le travail législatif ; leur sur-participation globale, ainsi que leurs nombreuses interventions lors des questions au Premier ministre, tranchent avec la sous-participation des députées de Westminster. Le nombre de représentantes, l’atmosphère de travail, et les attentes créées par cette nouvelle institution en matière d’égalité, s’avèrent propices à la participation parlementaire des femmes. Pour ce qui est des représentantes de circonscriptions écossaises à Westminster, elles contribuent globalement davantage aux travaux de la Chambre que les autres députées de Westminster ; en revanche, leur activité est inférieure à celle des députées du Parlement écossais. Quel que soit leur degré d’investissement, l’action des députées s’avère-t-elle bénéfique pour l’ensemble de la population féminine ?
L’engagement des députées écossaises pour les « enjeux féminins »
16 Dès sa création, Holyrood a assuré un meilleur équilibre que Westminster entre les représentants des deux sexes. La représentation numérique s’avère d’autant plus importante qu’une corrélation existerait entre la représentation descriptive et la représentation substantive : les intérêts spécifiques de la population féminine seraient ainsi mieux pris en compte par les femmes politiques que par les hommes. Une telle
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hypothèse repose, en partie, sur la notion de « masse critique », le principe selon lequel lorsque les femmes atteignent un certain seuil numérique – entre 15 et 40 % de l’ensemble des parlementaires – elles sont alors en mesure d’influencer la culture et le discours politiques dominants ainsi que l’agenda politique24. Dans le cadre de la décentralisation britannique, une représentation parlementaire numérique supérieure garantit-elle, effectivement, aux femmes écossaises une meilleure prise en compte des « enjeux féminins » ? Les études menées jusqu’à présent ont porté, pour la plupart, sur les députées travaillistes des années 1990 à Westminster, avec les travaux de Pippa Norris, Joni Lovenduski, Sarah Childs, Karen Bird ou Rosie Campbell25. Elles ont permis d’identifier de légères variations au niveau des valeurs, des comportements et de l’implication dans les politiques sociales, mais ont conclu que le meilleur indicateur du comportement parlementaire reste l’affiliation politique. Dans les années 1970, Michael J. Keating, a, lui, montré que les députés qui représentaient des circonscriptions écossaises à Westminster concentraient leur action sur des enjeux spécifiquement écossais26. Les recherches effectuées sur les premières années du Parlement écossais, conduites par Paul Chaney et Sylvia Shaw, ont révélé l’influence des femmes sur la « politique post-dévolution » ; ils ont ainsi établi que les élues participaient à tous les types de débats et qu’elles avaient davantage soulevé la question de la violence faite aux femmes que les hommes27. Qu’en est-il sur notre période d’étude ?
La part des « enjeux féminins » dans l’action législative des députées écossaises
17 Pour l’étude, les « enjeux féminins » ont été identifiés grâce aux définitions établies par Joni Lovenduski et Azza Karam d’une part, Linda Trimble et Jane Arscott, d’autre part. Pour les premières, il s’agit de questions qui concernent en premier lieu les femmes, que ce soit pour des raisons biologiques (dépistage du cancer du sein ou contraception) ou pour des motifs sociaux (parité ou garde d’enfants) ; les secondes font référence aux politiques dont les répercussions directes et immédiates touchent davantage les femmes que les hommes28. Les députées au Parlement écossais se distinguent-elles par un engagement particulier pour ce type de sujets ?
18 L’analyse du contenu des interventions des élues révèle que les « enjeux féminins » se situent davantage au cœur des préoccupations des femmes aux Communes qu’à Holyrood. Ainsi, les députées écossaises posent quatre fois moins de questions sur ces thématiques à leur Premier ministre Alex Salmond (sur la santé des femmes, la journée internationale des femmes, la violence conjugale ou l’accueil des jeunes enfants) que leurs consœurs de Westminster à David Cameron (sur l’égalité au travail, les allocations, les retraites, la santé et la violence conjugale) (2,1 % contre 8 %) (tableau n° 5). Parmi les motions déposées par les femmes parlementaires, le même phénomène apparaît, avec une implication moindre des élues écossaises : 4,9 % des motions dont elles sont à l’origine portent sur des « enjeux féminins » contre 6,1 % à Westminster. Ces motions soulèvent des problématiques liées à la violence conjugale, à l’emploi, à la pauvreté, aux services de maternité, à l’avortement, à l’égalité salariale ou à la retraite. En revanche, en Écosse, l’un des quatre projets de loi proposés par des femmes concerne directement la population féminine : il vise à lutter contre la prostitution (Proposed criminalisation of the purchase of sex (Scotland) bill). À Westminster, l’unique projet qui relève des « enjeux féminins » propose de garantir l’anonymat aux personnes
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accusées de viol (Anonymity (Arrested Persons) Bill) ; il représente 2,4 % de l’ensemble des projets de loi déposés par les députées. En matière de votes de rébellion, moins de 5 % sont motivés par des « enjeux féminins », à Édimbourg (4,9 %) comme à Westminster (4,3 %). Les femmes décident de se démarquer de la ligne officielle prônée par leur parti sur d’autres types de problématiques, ce qui s’avère d’autant plus étonnant en Écosse où le taux de rébellion des femmes est plus élevé.
19 Ces résultats peuvent paraître surprenants et ils ne semblent pas, à première vue, renforcer la thèse de la corrélation entre les deux types de représentation. Alors que les élues écossaises bénéficient d’une représentation numérique supérieure et qu’elles contribuent davantage au travail législatif, les thèmes sur lesquels elles choisissent de travailler affectent moins directement la population féminine que l’action législative des élues, pourtant moins nombreuses, de Westminster. Par ailleurs, quel que soit le Parlement, les « enjeux féminins » ne constituent qu’une minorité de l’action parlementaire des députées, qui ne peuvent donc pas être considérées comme des porte-parole de la population féminine. L’activité politique des députées en Écosse peut être considérée comme décevante par les militants pour l’égalité et les défenseurs de la théorie liant représentations descriptive et substantive. Il convient toutefois de relativiser cet apparent manque d’implication, qui ne signifie pas forcément que les intérêts des femmes écossaises sont ignorés par la classe politique. En effet, de par ses origines, le Parlement écossais s’avère sensible aux questions d’égalité et ces thématiques ont été intégrées à la manière de gouverner et de légiférer. L’ensemble des parlementaires et du pouvoir exécutif doit donc en tenir compte. Ainsi, la question de la violence conjugale a, par exemple, été au cœur du premier Parlement écossais ; le gouvernement a fait adopter son projet de loi sur les agressions sexuelles (Sexual Offences Bill) et une commission a déposé un autre projet, également voté par le Parlement, sur la protection contre la violence (Protection from Abuse Bill)29. À Westminster, le positionnement des femmes qui représentent les circonscriptions écossaises diffère grandement selon l’activité considérée. Alors que pour les questions au Premier ministre et les motions, ces élues affichent un intérêt certain pour les « enjeux féminins », posant par exemple sept fois plus de questions au Premier ministre sur ces sujets que les députées en Écosse et deux fois plus que le reste des députées de Westminster, aucun de leurs votes de rébellion ne porte sur ces problématiques. Malgré ce relatif désintérêt pour les « enjeux féminins », qui sont les députées qui choisissent de s’en préoccuper ?
Tableau n° 5 : La part des « enjeux féminins » dans l’activité législative des députées
20 (Holyrood mai 2011-décembre 2012, Westminster, mai 2010-décembre 2011, %)
Questions au Premier Projets de Votes de Motions ministre loi rébellion
Holyrood 2,1 4,9 25 4,9
Westminster 8 6,1 2,4 4,3
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Circonscriptions écossaises, 15,8 8,7 0 0 Westminster
Source : l’auteur, calculé d’après Official Report (Parlement écossais), Hansard Parliamentary Archives (Parlement de Westminster).
L’engagement individuel des députées écossaises pour les « enjeux féminins »
21 Au-delà des effets théoriques de la représentation numérique, certaines études – comme celles de Paul Chaney ou Suzanne Dovi30 – ont souligné le rôle crucial joué par des députées activistes et militantes, qualifiées d’« equality champions », des personnes qui font preuve d’un engagement fort en matière d’égalité. Il convient d’analyser le travail des femmes parlementaires dans le détail, afin d’identifier l’existence ou non de ces députées, ce qui permet par là même d’évaluer l’engagement respectif des différents partis politiques en matière d’égalité. Les chiffres révélant un relatif désintérêt global pour les enjeux féminins reflètent-ils une tendance uniforme chez les députées ou cachent-ils d’importantes différences de comportement ?
22 Au Parlement écossais, plus de 70 % de l’ensemble des questions orales et écrites qui portent sur des « enjeux féminins » ont été posées par seulement cinq femmes, dont 30 % par Jackie Baillie et 12 % par Helen Eadie, deux membres du parti travailliste. D’ailleurs, près de 80 % de l’ensemble de ces questions émanent de représentantes travaillistes (Elaine Smith, Jackie Baillie, Helen Eadie, Jenny Marra, Kezia Dugdale, Margaret McDougall, Patricia Ferguson, Sarah Boyack, Anne McTaggart). De même, plus d’un tiers des motions sont le fait de seulement cinq députées : Jackie Baillie, Elaine Smith, Mary Fee, Christina McKelvie et Alison Johnston, les trois premières appartenant au Parti travailliste. En outre, la moitié des questions au Premier ministre a été posée par Johann Lamont, élue travailliste, et, au total, 75 % des questions proviennent du parti travailliste (Elaine Smith, Jenny Mara, Jackie Baillie). Enfin, le projet de loi sur la prostitution a été déposé par une autre députée travailliste, Rhoda Grant. Au sein du Parlement écossais, toutes les élues sont donc loin de s’engager pour les « enjeux féminins », qui sont portés par un nombre relativement limité de députées – en particulier Jackie Baillie, Johann Lamont et Elaine Smith –, essentiellement issues du parti travailliste.
23 Cette importance disproportionnée d’un petit groupe de parlementaires en Écosse se retrouve-t-elle à Westminster ou s’avère-t-elle spécifique à l’institution décentralisée ? Aux Communes, plus de 70 % des motions ont été déposées par des femmes différentes, dont la moitié par des députées travaillistes (Theresa Pearce, Katy Clark, Harriet Harman, Glenda Jackson, Alison McGovern, Valerie Vaz), même si des députées libérales-démocrates y ont également participé (Burt Lorely, Jo Swinson). Quasiment toutes les questions au Premier ministre (15 sur 16) émanent de femmes différentes, majoritairement issues du parti travailliste (Valerie Vaz, Sarah Hodgson, Jessica Morden, Rachel Reeves, Jenny Chapman, Gloria De Piero, Pamela Nash, Fiona O'Donnell pour le parti travailliste, Helen Grant, Anna Soubry, Mary Macleod et Harriett Baldwin pour le parti conservateur, Jo Swinson et Annette Brooke pour les libérales- démocrates). Enfin, le projet de loi a été déposé par une députée conservatrice, Anna Soubry. Contrairement au Parlement écossais, l’analyse détaillée de l’activité des
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parlementaires de Westminster en matière d’ « enjeux féminins » ne fait pas émerger d’ « equality champions » ; le Parlement de Westminster ne dispose pas d’un noyau dur de femmes qui interviennent fréquemment sur ces sujets. Pour reprendre les termes de Paul Chaney, il existe bien, au sein de l’institution écossaise, des « individus clés qui interviennent de manière répétée pour faire avancer les questions féministes et d’égalité des sexes »31. Par ailleurs, le parti travailliste ressort nettement comme le plus engagé sur ces thématiques, même si la tendance est moins marquée à Westminster. Concernant les représentantes des circonscriptions écossaises à Westminster, les trois motions qui portent sur des « enjeux féminins » ont été rédigées par deux femmes : Katy Clark (travailliste) et Jo Swinson (libérale-démocrate), tandis que Pamela Nash, Fiona O'Donnell (travaillistes) et Jo Swinson (libérale-démocrate) ont chacune interpellé le Premier ministre à une reprise. Au sein de ce groupe d’élues, peu se montrent intéressées par les « enjeux féminins », et celles qui les abordent ne le font que de manière très ponctuelle, la libérale-démocrate Jo Swinson apparaissant comme la plus active, avec trois interventions en 18 mois.
Conclusion
24 Plusieurs remarques s’imposent quant à l’usage que font les femmes parlementaires de la citoyenneté politique dans le contexte de la décentralisation en Écosse. L’analyse a révélé que l’hypothétique corrélation entre représentation numérique, investissement quantitatif et défense des « enjeux féminins » s’avère en réalité beaucoup plus complexe. Le Parlement écossais présente la spécificité de bénéficier du travail d’un petit nombre de députées fortement mobilisées sur les « enjeux féminins », et, comme à Westminster, les élues travaillistes apparaissent comme les plus engagées sur ces questions. En revanche, si un nombre plus élevé de femmes députées entraîne, dans le cas de l’Écosse, un investissement plus important en termes quantitatifs, il ne signifie pas automatiquement un intérêt plus marqué pour les questions susceptibles de toucher les femmes32. Toutefois, l’action des premiers gouvernements écossais atteste d’une réelle préoccupation pour ces questions. Depuis 1999, le Parlement a ainsi légiféré – parfois à plusieurs reprises – sur les questions d’agressions sexuelles et de viol, de violences conjugales, d’allaitement, de prostitution ou de mariages forcés33. Il semble donc que les femmes politiques, comme les activistes au sein des associations, aient réussi à influencer la création de cette nouvelle institution, qui se montre plus soucieuse des questions d’égalité que le Parlement de Westminster, ce qui constitue un véritable progrès. Même si l’action des femmes députées, la définition des « enjeux féminins » et le concept de démocratie représentative peuvent être influencés par les théories sur l’intersectionnalité, il n’en demeure pas moins, qu’en se fondant sur les principes d’équité et de justice34, la décentralisation politique s’est avérée positive pour les femmes écossaises. La grande hétérogénéité des positions des partis politiques en matière de parité et d’égalité reflète, quant à elle, l’absence de contraintes légales qui s’appliqueraient à tous, d’où la conclusion de Joyce McMillan et Ruth Fox dans leur rapport sur la dévolution rédigé pour la Hansard Society : la nécessité à l’avenir d’aller au-delà des mesures adoptées de manière volontaire par certains partis35.
25 Karine Rivière-De Franco est maître de conférences en civilisation britannique à l’Université d’Orléans et membre du CEPOC ( Centre d’Études Politiques Contemporaines), composante de POLEN (EA 4710). Elle travaille sur la
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communication politique, les médias et les femmes politiques en Grande- Bretagne. Elle est l'auteur de La communication électorale en Grande-Bretagne. De M. Thatcher à T. Blair (L’Harmattan, 2008), ainsi que de nombreux articles ; elle a co- dirigé deux ouvrages sur l'image, la communication et les stratégies électorales et a dirigé un numéro de La Revue LISA sur l'égalité des droits.
BIBLIOGRAPHIE
Auer, Christian, Dubois-Nayt, Armel & Duclos, Nathalie, Femmes, Pouvoir et Nation en Écosse du XVIe siècle à aujourd’hui (Villeneuve d’Ascq, Presses du Septentrion, 2012).
Bennie, Lucie, Denver, David, Mitchell, James & Bradbury, Jonathan, “Harbingers of New Politics? The Characteristics and Attitudes of Candidates in the Scottish Parliamentary Election 1999”, British Elections and Parties 11 (2001), pp. 23-45.
Breitenbach, Esther & Mackay, Fiona, Women and Contemporary Scottish Politics. An Anthology (Édimbourg, Polygon at Edinburgh, 2001).
Bromley, Catherine, Curtice, John, McCrone, David & Park, Alison (eds), Has Devolution Delivered? (Édimbourg, Edinburgh University Press, 2006).
Brown, Alice, “Designing the Scottish Parliament”, Parliamentary Affairs 53:3 (July 2007), pp. 542-556.
Brown, Alice, “Representing Women in Scotland”, Parliamentary Affairs 51:3 (July 1998), pp. 435-444.
Cavanagh, M., Shapard, M. & McGarvey, N, “New Scottish Parliament, New Scottish Parliamentarians?”, Journal of Legislative Studies (September 2000), pp. 79-104.
Chaney, Paul, Mackay, Fiona & McAllister, Laura, Women, Politics and Constitutional Change (Cardiff, University of Wales Press, 2007).
Childs, Sarah, Women and British Party Politics: Descriptive, Substantive and Symbolic Representation (Londres, Taylor and Francis, 2008).
Childs, Sarah, Lovenduski, Joni & Campbell, Rosie, Women at the Top 2005. Changing Numbers, Changing Politics? (Londres, Hansard Society, 2005).
Dovi, Suzanne, The Good Representative (Oxford, Blackwell, 2007).
Hassan, Gerry & Warhurst, Christ (eds), The New Scottish Politics. The First Year of the Scottish Parliament and Beyond (Londres, Stationary Office, 2000).
Hough, Dan & Jeffery, Charlie (eds), Devolution and Electoral Politics (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2006).
Karam, Azza, Women in Parliament: Beyond Numbers (Stockholm, IDEA, 1998).
Keating, Michael, A Test of Integration: the Scottish Members of Parliament (Glasgow, Centre for the Study of Public Policy, University of Strathclyde, 1977).
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Lovenduski, Joni, Feminizing Politics (Cambridge, Polity Press, 2005).
Lovenduski, Joni (ed.), State Feminism and Political Representation (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005).
McFadden, Jean & Lazarowitz, Mark, The Scottish Parliament. An Introduction (Haywards Heath, Bloomsbury Professional, 2010).
Molinari, Véronique, « La campagne dans la campagne : pour la parité au sein des nouvelles assemblées autonomes », Revue française de civilisation britannique 14:1 (« La dévolution des pouvoirs à l’Écosse et au Pays de Galles ») (2006), pp. 165-176.
Norris, P., Vallance, E. & Lovenduski, J., “Do Candidates Make a Difference? Gender, Race, Ideology and Incumbency”, Parliamentary Affairs 45:4 (octobre 1992), pp. 496-517.
Patterson, Lindsay & Brown, Alice (eds), New Scotland, New Politics? (Édimbourg, Polygon at Edinburgh, 2001).
Watson, Mike, Year Zero. An Inside View of the Scottish Parliament (Édimbourg, Polygon at Edinburgh, 2001).
Wilson, John & Stapleton, Karyn (eds), Devolution and Identity (Aldershot, Ashgate, 2006).
NOTES
1. The Representation of the People Act, 1918. The Eligibility of Women Act, 1918. La première utilisation officielle du terme « Parlement » remonte à 1236 et le Parlement de Simon de Montfort en 1265 est considéré comme l’ancêtre du Parlement moderne,
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10. Véronique Molinari, « La campagne dans la campagne : pour la parité au sein des nouvelles assemblées autonomes », Revue française de civilisation britannique 14:1 (« La dévolution des pouvoirs à l’Écosse et au Pays de Galles ») (2006), p. 168. 11. Sarah Childs, Women and British Party Politics: Descriptive, Substantive and Symbolic Representation (Londres, Taylor and Francis, 2008), p. 76. Les femmes sont près de deux fois plus nombreuses dans les pays qui utilisent un scrutin proportionnel que dans ceux avec un scrutin majoritaire (15,4 % contre 8,5 %), Joni Lovenduski, Feminizing Politics (Cambridge, Polity Press, 2005), p. 98. 12. Sarah Childs, Joni Lovenduski & Rosie Campbell, Women at the Top 2005. Changing Numbers, Changing Politics? (Londres, Hansard Society, 2005), pp. 20-25. 13.
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Suffragettes (Londres, Politicos, 2005). Karen Bird, “Gendering Parliamentary Questions”, British Journal of Politics and International Relations 7:3 (2005). Sarah Childs & Julie Withey, “Women Representatives Acting for Women: Sex and the Signing of Early Day Motions in the 1997 Parliament”, Political Studies 52:3 (2004). Sarah Childs, “Competing Conceptions of Representation and the Passage of the Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Bill”, Journal of Legislative Studies 8:3 (2002). Rosie Campbell, Joni Lovenduski & Sarah Childs, “Do Women Need Women MPs? A Comparison of Mass and Elite Attitudes”, British Journal of Political Science 40:1 (2010). 26. Michael J. Keating, A Test of Integration: the Scottish Members of Parliament (Glasgow, Centre for the Study of Public Policy, University of Strathclyde, 1977), p. 16, p. 31. 27. Paul Chaney, “Critical Mass, Deliberation and the Substantive Representation of Women: Evidence from the UK’s Devolution Programme”, 2006, p. 35. Paul Chaney dans Esther Breitenbach & Fiona Mackay, op. cit., pp. 189-208. Fiona Mackay, “The Impact of Devolution on Women’s Citizenship in Scotland”, 2006, paper presented at the 20th Congress of the International Political Science Association, Fukuoka, Japan, 2006, p. 67. Sylvia Shaw, “Gender and Politics in the Devolved Assemblies”, Soundings 55,
RÉSUMÉS
Cet article se propose d’étudier la notion de citoyenneté au prisme du processus de dévolution et de son impact sur la représentation et la participation politiques des femmes au Parlement écossais, qui a, dès sa création, assuré un meilleur équilibre que le Parlement de Westminster entre les représentants des deux sexes. L’article a pour objectif d’évaluer l’action législative des femmes députées, tant au niveau de l’investissement quantitatif dans les activités parlementaires, que de l’intérêt témoigné pour les questions traditionnellement qualifiées
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d’« enjeux féminins ». L’approche comparatiste adoptée permet de mettre en parallèle le comportement des élues au Parlement écossais avec celui de leurs consœurs à Westminster, et, au sein de ce dernier groupe, avec celui des représentantes des circonscriptions écossaises, afin d’identifier d’éventuelles spécificités du Parlement écossais et de conclure à l’existence, ou non, d’une corrélation entre la représentation descriptive et la représentation substantive des femmes écossaises lors des dix-huit premiers mois des législatures en place.
This paper intends to analyse the notion of citizenship through the devolution process and its impact on the political representation and participation of women in the Scottish Parliament, which has from the beginning ensured a better representation of women politicians. The paper studies the legislative action of women representatives, focusing on their quantitative involvement in various legislative activities as well as on their commitment to “women’s issues”. The comparative approach – women MSP, women MPs and women MPs representing Scottish constituencies – enables to identify the specificities of the Scottish Parliament and to conclude on the potential correlation between the descriptive and the substantive representation of women in Scotland over the first eighteen months of the current legislatures.
INDEX
Mots-clés : Écosse, décentralisation, représentation politique, femmes politiques Keywords : Scotland, devolution, political representation, women politicians
AUTEUR
KARINE RIVIÈRE-DE FRANCO CEPOC (Centre d’Études Politiques Contemporaines), composante de POLEN (EA 4710), Université d’Orléans
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Who is Irish Today? Citizenship and Nationality Issues in 21st Century Ireland Qui est irlandais aujourd’hui ? Questions de citoyenneté et de nationalité dans l’Irlande du XXIème siècle
Julien Guillaumond
Introduction
1 Over the last two decades, international migrations have driven many European States to alter their immigration policies. As globalization compels them to open up their economies to the free flow of capital and labour, EU States are rather more reluctant, in general, to consider immigration positively when it comes to its physical manifestation and its corresponding economic and social consequences. The late financial crisis, along with rising unemployment rates, has put further strains on those European economies, and in a context of tightening financial resources, the debate around immigration issues has tended to rest, ultimately, on who is or who is not part of the national community.
2 Citizenship and nationality questions have thus resurfaced with a vengeance as they can be used interchangeably1 to determine which persons do or do not belong to the State and therefore can or cannot enjoy the contingent benefits of membership.2 Citizenship will be considered here as “the legal institution that designates full membership in a state and the associated rights and duties”.3 It refers to “the particular legal bond between an individual and his or her State”4 and represents the ultimate level of inclusion into the political community of citizens,5 entitling recognized individuals to the protection of the State.
3 Each State has a relatively unrestricted right to regulate the composition of its citizenry6 and the criteria used to define or grant access to citizenship may vary through time. However, the manner with which the State shapes its citizenship policies
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has an influence on its immigration policies and, consequently, on its labour market and welfare programmes,7 and ultimately on demographic trends which affect the State in return. How has Ireland, long considered as an emigrant nation without any real experience in dealing with immigration, reacted to a complete and utter reversal of its population trends in less than two decades in a context of huge economic and social changes?
4 The purpose of this chapter is to look at the two notions of citizenship and nationality in Ireland8 through a two-facet perspective set against the economic and demographic changes of the last two decades. Following the presentation of these changes, a second section will consider the transformation of Irish citizenship laws over the last two decades with a particular interest on the inclusion or not of outsiders into the political community of citizens. The next section will consider how the Irish State sees and perceives its national community to be, and consequently its citizenry, through some questions taken from the latest censuses and their results. In terms of statistics, how does the Irish State conceive its citizenry? Does it match the citizenship policies implemented? It is the author’s contention that the Irish State has tried to restrict both strands of citizenship in order to emphasize an unchanging vision of Irishness, the traditional image of an Irish person. In the Irish case, both elements seem to stress the idea of an unchanging Irish citizenship and identity while negating the diversity of Ireland itself.
Economic and demographic changes
5 On 15 May 1997, the Economist acknowledged on its front page Ireland’s new status as the “Shining light” of Europe. A few years later, in October 2004, the same magazine praised the Irish economic miracle as Ireland had become the model of economic development in Europe. In less than a decade, Ireland had achieved a remarkable upturn as it went from being on the fringe of bankruptcy in the late 1980s to a Celtic Tiger, with high rates of growth in the second half of the 1990s with an annual average rate of 7.5 per cent, surpassing in some years 10 per cent growth and, by the early 2000s, becoming one of the most open economies in the world.9 European States looked with true envy at the Irish model, eager to be lectured on the keys to success by Irish economists and politicians alike,10 wondering how all had come about. Economic success caused much satisfaction as the Republic of Ireland was “economically more advanced than the UK”11 and other EU states. Slowly but markedly, it became “fashionable ” to be Irish. Irish traditional music and culture with musical performances such as Riverdance were widely acclaimed, and Dublin was turning into a thriving cosmopolitan city.12 If the economy in Ireland was one element of national pride, demographic changes were another.
6 From the mid-1840s onwards to the mid-20th century, a declining population following the Great Famine was one key feature of Irish demography, natural increase being completely offset by the sheer extent of emigration. With some notable exceptions in the 1960s, and in the 1970s as net migration was positive as many former Irish emigrants returned to their home country, emigration remained a noticeable factor well until the 1990s,13 closely associated with the state of the Irish economy (figure 1).
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Figure : Components of population change in intercensal periods in Ireland, 1926-1991 (000s)14
7 Experiencing high rates of growth in the 1990s, Ireland saw its population increase at a much faster rate than in the past. The Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) noticed that trend of economic and corresponding population growth in several of its reports when it stressed the link between “changes in migration flows and relative changes in economic conditions in Ireland”,15 this time though with a rather positive perspective in the context of the Celtic Tiger. Previously known as an Emigrant Nursery,16 Ireland gradually became an immigration country. In that respect, 1996 appears to have been a turning point as it marked the first year of net in- migration, Ireland being the last country in the EU to display such a trend.17 In 1996, an extra 8,000 people entered the country, more than the number who left it, and from that year on, net migration has made a positive contribution to Ireland’s population growth (figure 2).
Figure : Components of population change in Ireland, 1991-2013 (000s)18
8 The Irish population increased by 18.2 per cent between 1999 and 2008, the highest rate among the EU-27 States,19 reaching in 2006 its highest level since 1871 at 4.04 million.20 As emigration decreased strongly, immigration increased significantly as rapid economic growth created an unprecedented demand for labour in the construction and finance sectors, but also in information technology and health care.21 In 2001 for instance, while some 26,000 people left the country, more than twice that number entered Ireland, a trend that continued in the following years.22
9 However, while the first influx of population in the 1990s was mainly returning Irish, the profile of immigration to Ireland changed in the later part of the decade and the early part of the 2000s with the increase in immigration from non-Irish people. Between 1995 and 2000, approximately a quarter of a million people immigrated to Ireland, about half of whom were returning Irish.23 The number of returning migrants was gradually offset by the number of immigrants from other countries. While 2002 was a peak year, the share of Irish immigrants fell from about 65 per cent in the late
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1980s to 44 per cent from 2000 to 2002. Between 2003 and 2005, their share fell again to 27 per cent, and from 2006 to 2008, it fell to 18 per cent, even though their number remained steady.24
10 As the share of returning Irish immigrants fell, non-EU immigrants came to dominate the flows between 2001 and 2004, when they represented more than half of all non- Irish immigrants compared to one third from 1992 to 1995.25 In 2006, the ratio of foreign-born to Irish-born population in Ireland was deemed high compared with other industrialized countries, especially when considering immigration as a recent phenomenon in Ireland.26 Since the accession of 10 new EU Member States in 2004, EU nationals have not only dominated migratory inflows, they have helped push flows to new heights. Between 2005 and 2008, an average 44 per cent of the immigration flow and 54 per cent of the non-Irish immigration flow were from the 10 EU states that acceded in 2004, together with Romania and Bulgaria, which acceded in 2007.27
Citizenship and nationality issues in Ireland
11 When considering citizenship policies, one cannot but agree with Dug Cubie and Fergus Ryan who remind us that: [L]aws, conventions and judicial pronouncements […] do not exist in a vacuum. They reflect, as do all laws, the priorities and concerns of the people who make them, and of those whom such lawmakers represent.28
12 They are also strongly shaped by past events, particularly in the light of criteria used in determining who can become part of the political community of citizens, and thus be granted its corresponding rights. In Ireland, citizenship and nationality are two closely intertwined notions.29 They even seem to be synonymous in comparison with other European countries30 while they traditionally call for different dimensions as “ citizenship” refers to a State while “nationality” refers to membership of a nation.31
13 In their non-legal dimensions, both terms are linked to the historical, political, social and ethnic background of the State they seek to determine.32 As Brian Doolan has written, the Irish Constitution has opted for a definition of the nation referring to a “ community of persons not constituting a state but bound by common descent, language, religion and history”,33 meaning that the nation spreads beyond the borders of the State. In Ireland, the Constitution refers to the individual member of the State as a citizen but the status is referred to as “nationality and citizenship”,34 while the legislation refers almost exclusively to citizens as can be seen in the 1956 Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act.35
14 Since the foundation of the State, citizenship laws in Ireland have always possessed a dual dimension. They have, for several decades, favoured the use of two principles of citizenship: an unconditional right to citizenship for all people born in Ireland (jus soli principle),36 and a right to citizenship for people living abroad from Irish descent (jus sanguinis principle). 37 That position was reflected in Bunreacht Na hÉireann, the 1937 Constitution, which broadly defined citizenship in accordance with the State’s desire of uniting Ireland, but also with the desire of including former generations of Irish stock who were either living on the other part of the island or abroad, having previously left the State. As a consequence, all people born on the island of Ireland and those born of Irish parents had automatic citizenship. The main text of reference, the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act (1956) enshrined the jus soli principle38 to all those born on the island
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of Ireland while former generations could acquire Irish citizenship on demand39 if either parent was an Irish national.
15 Mary Daly has shown that, from the very foundation of the State, the preoccupation of Irish authorities has been to design a notion of citizenship inclusive of all people living on the island of Ireland as well as people living overseas,40 while at the same time trying to reach an agreement with the UK to assert the State’s own “legal independence and its historical and political difference”.41 As Iseult Honohan has written, alongside a conception inclusive of the resident population, the children of emigrants were granted citizenship on a medium term basis, thus mainly echoing the US connection, and immigrants could in principle naturalize relatively easily.42 The diaspora dimension has remained central to Irish citizenship laws since then, and was later reasserted when newly elected President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, talked about the 70 million people who claimed Irish descent in her inaugural address in 1990. If the experience of emigration has had a strong influence on the construction of Irish nationality law,43 the simultaneous inexperience of being a large-scale immigration country compared to its European counterparts, and without much real experience in dealing with it and its impacts on the social fabric, has also played a very strong influence.
16 Facing its new status as an immigrant nation, debates about immigration policies, formerly quite inexistent, were soon followed by a corresponding restriction of citizenship laws. Such a change has to be set against a context of remarkable stability over the previous decades. Hon. Mrs Justice Catherine McGuinness has thus observed that: [For] over 60 years from the foundation of the State the regulation of immigration and citizenship under statute law was limited to the Aliens Act 1935 and the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 1956. Case law arising from the provisions of these Acts was remarkably rare.44
17 In terms of legal decisions and law, there seems to have been an acceleration in the last decade, particularly between 1996 and 2004, with a “virtual explosion of case law” as Hon. Mrs Justice C. McGuinness observed.45
18 In that respect, the Good Friday Agreement signed in 1998 appears as a turning point.46 It led to an Amendment to the Constitution approved by a majority of 94 per cent in a referendum in May declaring that: It is the entitlement and birthright of every person born on the island of Ireland, which includes its islands and seas, to be part of the Irish nation. That is also the entitlement of all persons otherwise qualified in accordance with law to be citizens of Ireland. Furthermore, the Irish nation cherishes its special affinity with people of Irish ancestry living abroad who share its cultural identity and heritage (Constitution of Ireland).
19 The amendment had two consequences. First, it made it clear that any person born on the island of Ireland, North or South, had the right of citizenship.47 Citizenship by birth had thus become a constitutional right. Secondly, it also reasserted the diaspora dimension of Irish nationality. In the political context of the time, this change aimed at making it easier for the Irish of Northern Ireland to acquire citizenship in the Republic. 48
20 However, with the Republic of Ireland becoming a country of immigration, the new provisions conferred entitlements on children born on the island of Ireland of non- Irish parents.49 This was further reinforced by the interpretation of the family clause, the Supreme Court stipulating that non-national parents had the right of residency
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because their children had been born in Ireland. In the light of Ireland’s new economic situation, the country was seen as a new Eldorado for people seeking to make a new life. Moreover, was the country offering not only a good labour market eager for workers,50 but also a sound social welfare system and an opportunity to enter the United Kingdom.51 In the space of a few years however, between 2003 and 2005, Ireland’s citizenship laws were fundamentally changed. From the early 2000s, the law on citizenship was criticized as it was argued that the Constitution offered a form of “carte blanche” to stay in the country for non-national parents who had children in Ireland.52 And, as early as 2001, the Irish government considered the possibility of a constitutional amendment to close that “loophole” and remove unconditional jus soli.53
21 Immigrants were viewed as an issue since they were responsible for social problems. At the same time, a distinction was made between nationals and non-nationals as a strategy for protecting the social and economic fabric of the country. In order to convince voters of the soundness of the government’s proposal, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Michael McDowell accused all opponents of the proposal of being racists.54 The only good migrant was the one serving the Irish economy, who stayed as long as the economy needed him/her. There is also no denying that the 2004 citizenship referendum also came at a time when the Irish economy had started to slow down as debates were more focused on a possible extinction of the Celtic Tiger and the existence of economic and social inequalities.
22 In June 2004, the Irish electorate voted by a margin of four to one for a change in the definition of Irish citizenship.55 As a result, a person born on the island of Ireland no longer had a constitutional right to be an Irish citizen by being solely born in Ireland.56 In other words, an Irish-born child’s automatic right to citizenship was cancelled when the parents were not Irish nationals. As a result, ius soli citizenship is limited to those who have, at the time of birth, at least one parent who is an Irish citizen or is entitled to be an Irish citizen.57 If the abandonment of unconditional ius soli can be seen as a significant development in Ireland,58 it is not unusual in a comparative perspective,59 in line with an increase of immigration in other European states. However, while citizenship by birth has been fundamentally changed (citizenship is no longer unconditional for children born in Ireland, as the country has changed from being a country of emigration to one of immigration), citizenship by descent, initially influenced by emigration, has remained essentially unaltered.60
23 At the same time, naturalization as another mode of citizenship acquisition,61 given by means of a certificate granted by the Minister for Justice and Equality, has not been strongly promoted by Irish authorities, whether through a full informative website or through information about the benefits that one would acquire by becoming an Irish citizen.62 Moreover, the fee for an application added to a second fee when the application has been successfully received are “deterrent[s] for certain applicants”.63 Finally, the process of providing documents for application can be strenuous; and in the end, all applications remain at the discretion of the Minister for Justice and Equality. In that sense, the message seems clear: “Others” need not apply for citizenship.64
24 This section has tried to show that citizenship policies in Ireland have become more restrictive in less than two decades as the country has become more open to the world. However, one cannot but note that this happened in a very short time and, in some
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ways, contrary to an Irish past when the country saw its people seek a better life abroad.
Statistics or the determination of the contours of Irish citizenry
25 With substantial immigration flows, Ireland has become a very diverse society. In one of its latest publications, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) prided itself in that “ remarkable diversity”, boasting 199 different nations being represented in Ireland.65 When considering the notions of citizenship and nationality, the Census and the manner with which the State sees its citizenry, and the diversity of its citizens, is worth studying. Census authorities, in the United Kingdom as in the Republic of Ireland, generally argue that Census questions help the State target more effectively its social and economic policies,66 and better allocate its resources. However, such questions, to borrow from Kertzer and Arel’s description, also aim to “create a legible people”.67 In that sense, they offer some elements to frame the contours of Otherness, make a distinction in the Irish case between residents and non-residents, and thus define who has or has not the right to avail of the benefits of community membership.
26 In the reference text of citizenship legislation in Ireland, the Nationality and Citizenship Act, 1956, a distinction operates between “aliens”, meaning “a person who is not an Irish citizen”, and “Irish citizen”, meaning “a citizen of Ireland”, a national of the national territory while “Ireland” here refers to “the national territory as defined in Article 2 of the Constitution”.68
27 That distinction is to be found in the Irish Census, not in the same terms (the opposition is between “nationals” and “non-nationals” among Ireland’s “resident population”) although they seem to cover the same meaning in their respective uses, all the more so as they have been given true precedence since the 2004 Citizenship Referendum.69
28 Since 2002, the Irish Census of Population has included a question asking respondents to self-record their nationality. Though the data collected has to be considered with caution,70 the findings emphasized the growth of the “non-national” population. In 2002, 5.8 per cent of the total population resident in Ireland had non-Irish nationality. That share increased to 10.1 per cent in 2006, and was 12 per cent in 2011 (table 1). Over the whole period, between 2002 and 2011, the number of non-nationals has increased by 320,096, representing 143 per cent in 9 years, those two figures being highlighted in the CSO publication.71 What remains unclear when one reads this publication is whether such figures are only presented there for statistical reasons or to stress the new status of Ireland as a country with a far more diverse population than in the past with a huge number of foreign people.
Table : Persons usually resident and present in Ireland by nationality, 2002, 2006 and 2011 (and their respective share in the total population)72
2002 2006 2011
(%) (%) (%)
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Irish 3,584,975 92.9 3,706,683 88.8 3,927,143 86.8
UK 103,476 2.7 112,548 2.7 112,259 2.5
EU15 (minus Irish and UK) 29,960 0.8 42,693 1.0 48,280 1.1
EU15 to EU25 states -- -- 120,534 2.9 226,225 5.0
Total EU 133,436 3.5 275,775 6.6 386,764 8.5
Other European 23,105 0.6 24,425 0.6 16,307 0.4
United States 11,384 0.3 12,475 0.3 11,015 0.2
Africa 20,981 0.5 35,326 0.8 41,642 0.9
Asia 21,779 0.6 46,952 1.1 65,579 1.4
Other nationalities 11,236 0.3 22,422 0.5 22,210 0.5
Multi/no nationality 3,187 0.1 3,676 0.1 2,327 0.1
Not stated 48,412 1.3 44,279 1.1 52,294 1.2
Total non-Irish 224,261 5.8 419,733 10.1 544,357 12.0
Total 3,858,495 100 4,172,013 100 4,525,281 100
29 The second element to be considered, according to the CSO, is the point on incoming migrants. There again, the State makes a distinction between Irish and non-Irish people, or returning Irish and incoming non-Irish. In 2011, 892,370 residents in Ireland had lived outside of Ireland for one year or more. Out of those, nearly two thirds (60.1 per cent) were Irish nationals, while 39.4 per cent were non-Irish nationals. The publication concluded on the following two figures: 199,206 being the number of non- Irish nationals in Ireland in 2011 who had arrived in Ireland since 2004, 112,766, the number of Irish nationals in Ireland in 2011 who had arrived since 2004.73
30 Since 2006, the Census in Ireland has also included a question on ethnic and cultural background. The format for the ethnicity question is influenced by the British Census where it was first introduced in 1991 (and was followed by a question on religion in 2001), the CSO’s engagement with European statistics agencies, and debates in Ireland over whether Irish Travellers were an ethnic group.74 The decision to include the question was made because of an increasingly ethnically diverse population, an increased awareness of equality legislation and anti-discrimination measures, and pressure from Irish Traveller representatives.75 Results from the 2011 census revealed that 94.3 per cent of the population in Ireland identified as white, a slight decline from 2006 where they had been 94.8 per cent (table 2). The other two main ethnic categories saw an increase in their numbers, while the last two categories, “Other background” and “not stated” declined (from 1.1 per cent to 0.9 per cent and 1.7 to 1.6 per cent).
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Table : Persons usually resident in the Republic of Ireland by ethnic or cultural background, 2006 and 201176
2006 2011
(000s) (%) (000s) (%)
White
Irish 3,645.2 87.4 3,822 84.5
Irish Traveller 22,4 0.5 29,5 0.7
Any other White background 289 6.9 413 9.1
Black or black Irish
African 40,5 1 58,7 1.3
Any other Black background 3,8 0.1 6,4 0.1
Asian or Asian Irish
Chinese 16,5 0.4 17,8 0.4
Any other Asian background 35,8 0.9 66,9 1.5
Other including mixed background 46,4 1.1 40,7 0.9
Not stated 72,3 1.7 70,3 1.6
Total 4,172 100 4,525.3 100
31 While such a question offers a State representation of the Irish population, it also manifests the Irish State’s attempt at showing that Irish identity has not changed despite recent migratory trends. The impression is that Irish identity is stable and that diversity has not significantly increased. With the race/ethnicity question, the State defines race. In that sense, the “ethnic and cultural” question follows the trend which uses “ethnicity” to describe “race”, leading to some confusion between the concepts. Though some consultation took place prior to the 2006 census for the use of an ethnicity question – within the State and within non-government and inter- government agencies – there was little or no consultation with groups representing racial groups nor with organizations representing immigrants.77
32 The census erases the distinction between nationalities, thus bringing people of Eastern European origins closer to an Irish conception of citizenry and excluding other “non- white” people. In the census, one is either white, or black/black Irish, or Asian. Benedict Anderson wrote that the “fiction of the census is that everyone is in it, and that everyone has one – and only one – extremely clear place”.78 This is a case of “forced choice”, as every respondent has to tick one race category imposed by the State. In that sense, the State has a strong hand in determining the racial status of its population.
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33 The ‘white’ category seems to reinforce the traditional image of Ireland, putting people from all origins into the same white group as the different categories are de facto mutually exclusive. Figures say over 94 per cent of the Irish population is white thus providing a majority representation of the Irish population and emphasizing the mono- cultural conception of Irish identity. Such a position, therefore, augments the white category, bringing it closer to the traditional image of Ireland as a mono-cultural country. People of English, Polish or Russian origin are very likely to be found in the “other White” subgroup, thus leading to a homogenization of the Irish population79 and a false impression of immutability.80 Moreover, the use of other categories such as “Black African”, bringing together people from various countries of the African continent that would not normally be together in terms of ethnicity81 is misleading, thus reinforcing the seemingly mono-cultural identity of the country and makes people less visible when they come from a minority ethnic group. It eventually indicates that no new identity can be acknowledged. The ethnicity question implies that ethnicity is something one has, something inherited.82 One is either Irish or of Irish descent, or one is in the Other category. That position is further strengthened by the ‘background’ element, which further implies that what matters is the place where one or one’s ancestors were born, therefore leaving no space for other generation immigrants for instance to assert another identity. From the study of these Census questions, one can see that the Irish State has tried to restrict the notion of Irishness to a particular element of its population, thus offering a near close denial of the diversity it proclaimed in its official statistics.
Conclusion
34 Studying citizenship and nationality laws for any given State allows one to question the degree of openness of a given society, of this State’s position to the ‘Other’, and correspondingly, whether State and society are secure in their own national identities. In the case of Ireland, this chapter on citizenship laws and on the latest surveys on the Irish population has pointed to a restriction of citizenship, both in its legal perspective and its representative dimension, particularly for those who are not of Irish stock, thus painting the picture of an unchanging Irishness. One cannot but wonder whether such a position vis-à-vis outsiders, very much in contradiction with Ireland’s being the land of the thousand welcomes (céad míle fáilte), cannot be explained by the fact of an “ethnic majority experiencing a crisis of identity”,83 going hand in hand with a late recognition of diversity and an understanding of the majority as implicitly white. In that respect, the years to come will represent a test to find out to what extent, like some European States such as the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland adopts citizenship tests offering a State’s conception of its national identity, and follows the trend of adopting more formally or not the “deserving citizenship concept” in its policies.
35 Julien Guillaumond est Maître de Conférences en anglais à l’UFR LACC (Langues Appliquées, Commerce et Communication) et membre du laboratoire Communication et Sociétés à l’Université Blaise Pascal, Clermont-Ferrand. Il enseigne l’anglais économique et la civilisation. Ses recherches portent sur les questions d’identité et de citoyenneté dans l’espace public en Irlande et dans le reste des Îles britanniques.
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NOTES
1. According to the EUDO@ Observatory on Citizenship, the distinction between the two terms remains difficult to define: “There is much terminological confusion in the study of citizenship statuses and laws. While public international law uses the term nationality to refer to the legal bond between an individual and a sovereign state, several domestic laws use the term citizenship or its equivalent.” EUDO Observatory on Citizenship, http://eudo-citizenship.eu/, last accessed 13 March 2014. 2. Siofra O’Leary’s comment in this respect is worth noting when she refers to the “exclusionary aspect” of both nationality and citizenship. S. O’Leary, “Irish Nationality Law”, in Bruno Nascimbene (ed.), Nationality Laws in the European Union (Milan, Butterworths et Giuffrè Editore, 1996), pp. 423-464, p. 424. 3. G. Bertocchi and C. Strozzi, “The Evolution of Citizenship: Economic and Institutional Determinants”, IZA Discussion Paper no. 2510 (2006), p. 2. 4. E. Vasileva, “Population and Social Conditions”, Eurostat Statistics in focus, 34 (2011), p. 7, http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_OFFPUB/KS-SF-11-034/EN/KS- SF-11-034-EN.PDF accessed March 2013. 5. P. Cole, “Introduction: ‘Border crossings’ – The dimensions of membership”, in G. Calder, P. Cole and J. Seglow (eds), Citizenship Acquisition and National Belonging: Migration, Membership and the Liberal Democratic State (New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), pp. 1-23, p. 1. 6. B. Ó Caoindealbháin, “Citizenship and Borders: Irish Nationality Law and Northern Ireland”, Institute for British-Irish Studies, Working Paper 68 (2006), p. 1. 7. G. Bertocchi and C. Strozzi, op. cit., p. 2. 8. Ireland refers to the Republic of Ireland or Éire in the Irish language. In the following pages, the two terms will be used interchangeably.
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9. K. Yester, “Globalization’s Last Hurrah?”, Foreign Policy Review (1 January 2002). 10. P. Sweeney, The Celtic Tiger: Ireland’s Economic Miracle Explained (Dublin, Oak Tree Press, 1998); F. Barry (ed.), Understanding Ireland’s Economic Growth (Basingstoke and London, MacMillan Press Ltd, 1999). 11. C. Coulter, “The end of Irish history? An introduction to the book”, in C. Coulter and S. Coleman (eds), The End of Irish History? Critical Reflections on the Celtic Tiger, (Manchester & New York, Manchester University Press, 2003), pp. 1-33, p. 2. 12. Ibid. 13. In the late 1980s for instance, emigration was still a solution for many Irish men and women: 70,000 left in 1989, a number equal approximately to 2 per cent of the country’s population. See T. Fahey, “Population”, in S. O’Sullivan (ed.), Contemporary Ireland: a Sociological Map (Dublin, University College Dublin Press, 2007), pp. 13-29, p. 27. 14. By net migration is meant the difference between emigration and immigration. Positive migration, then, is the case where i > e. Where I = immigration and e = emigration. Figures are based on various data compiled by the Central Statistics Office. 15. Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, Trends in International Migration. Continuous Reporting System on Migration (Paris, OECD, 1997), p. 116; OECD, Trends in International Migration. Continuous Reporting System on Migration (Paris, OECD, 1999), p. 155. 16. J. Mac Laughlin, Ireland: The Emigrant Nursery and the World Economy (Cork, Cork University Press, 1994). 17. M. Ruhs and E. Quinn, “Ireland: from Rapid Immigration to Recession”, in Migration Information Source, Country Profiles (2009), http://www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/ display.cfm?ID=740 accessed February 2013. 18. Figures based on Central Statistics Office (CSO) reports. 19. CSO, Measuring Ireland’s Progress (Dublin, Stationery Office, 2008). 20. National Economic and Social Council, Managing Migration in Ireland: A Social and Economic Analysis (Dublin, NESDO, 2006), p. 12. 21. M. Ruhs and E. Quinn, “Ireland: from Rapid Immigration to Recession”, op. cit. 22. Please note that the situation has been reversed lately as net migration plummeted in 2008, and in 2010, the levels of migration were at their lowest since 1994. See M. Gilmartin, “The Changing landscape of Irish migration, 2000-2012”, NISRA working paper series, no. 69 (2012), p. 2. 23. P. Mac Éinrí, “Immigration policy in Ireland”, in F. Farrel and P. Watt (eds), Responding to Racism in Ireland (Dublin, Veritas, 2001), pp. 46-87, p. 53. 24. M. Ruhs and E. Quinn, op. cit. 25. Ibid. 26. NESC, Managing Migration in Ireland, op. cit., p. 21. 27. M. Ruhs and E. Quinn, op. cit. 28. D. Cubie and F. Ryan, Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Law in Ireland. Cases and Materials (Dublin, Thomson Round Hall, 2004), p. ix. 29. They remain all the more difficult to define as Ireland has allowed non-nationals to enjoy some traditional citizenship rights in the context of European legislation, most notably the right to vote in some local elections. S. O’Leary, op. cit., p. 425. See also B. Ó Caoindealbháin, op. cit.
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30. S. O’Leary, op. cit., p. 425; C. Symmons, « Le droit de la nationalité en Irlande », in P. Weil and R. Hansen (eds), Citoyenneté et nationalité en Europe (Paris, La Découverte, 1999), p. 307. 31. Legally, the two terms relate to different facets of the relationship between the individual and the State: nationality relates to the external (international) dimension, citizenship to the internal (domestic) dimension. See J. Handoll, “Ireland”, EUDO Observatory on Citizenship, Citizenship or Nationality, http://eudo-citizenship.eu/, last accessed March 2014. 32. S. O’Leary, op. cit., p. 423. 33. B. Doolan, Constitutional Law and Constitutional Rights in Ireland (Dublin, Gill & Macmillan, 1984), p. 7. 34. J. Handoll, op. cit. 35. S. O’Leary, op. cit., p. 425. 36. Catherine Piola has stressed the uniqueness of the Irish State among European States for granting citizenship unconditionally in Europe for over 80 years. C. Piola, “The Reform of Irish Citizenship”, Nordic Irish Studies 5 (2006), pp. 41-58, p. 46. 37. Such a conception of citizenship largely differs from Britain for whom the territorial expanse of the Empire has led to several transformations of British nationality laws in the 20th century. 38. S. Loyal, Understanding Immigration in Ireland. State, Capital and Labour in a Global Age (Manchester and New York, Manchester University Press, 2011), p. 143. 39. C. Symmons, op. cit., p. 309. 40. That dimension has remained at the core of the Irish State’s priorities. One example in the 1940s could be Taoiseach John A. Costello’s mention that “[the] Irish at home are only one section of a great race which has spread itself throughout the world, particularly in the great countries of North America and the Pacific”. Dáil Debates, cxiii, 393, 24 November 1948. In the 1950s, the wish to extend Irish citizenship as widely as possible corresponded to a desire to encourage emigrants and their descendants to come back to Ireland. It was also a way to fight the psychological trauma caused by the continued depopulation of the island. On these points, see Mary E. Daly, “Irish Nationality and Citizenship since 1922”, Irish Historical Studies 32:127 (2001), pp. 377-407. 41. S. O’Leary, op. cit., p. 426. 42. I. Honohan, “Citizenship Attribution in a New Country of Immigration: Ireland”, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 36:5 (2010), pp. 811-827. 43. S. O’Leary, op. cit., p. 449. 44. D. Cubie and F. Ryan, op. cit., p. xi. 45. Ibid. 46. For a full assessment of Irish nationality and citizenship laws, see C. Piola, op. cit.; M. E. Daly, op. cit.; S. O’Leary, op. cit.; J. Handoll, op. cit.; U. Crowley, M. Gilmartin and R. Kitchin, “Vote yes for common sense citizenship”: Immigration and the paradoxes at the heart of Ireland’s ‘Céad Míle Fáilte’”, NIRSA Working Paper 30 (2006). 47. J. Handol, op. cit., p. 8. 48. C. Piola, op. cit., p. 43. 49. J. Handol, op. cit., p. 8. 50. Ireland had been one of the few first countries, together with Sweden and the UK, to open up its labour market to citizens from the ten new EU countries in 2004. 51. C. Piola, op. cit., p. 44. 52. J. Handol, op. cit., p. 8. 53. B. Ryan, “The Celtic Cubs: the Controversy over Birthright Citizenship in Ireland”, Kent Academic Repository (2004), http://kar.kent.ac.uk/1677, p. 15. For a full discussion on the 2004 Citizenship referendum, see also J. King, “Porous nation: from
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Ireland’s ‘haemorrhage’ to ‘immigrant inundation”, in R. Lentin (ed.), The Expanding Nation: Towards a Multi-Ethnic Ireland (Dublin, Dept. of Sociology, Trinity College, 1998), pp. 49-54; B. Ní Chiosáin, “Passports for the New Irish? The 2004 Citizenship Referendum”, Études Irlandaises 32:2 (2007), pp. 31-47; C. Smyth and D. O’Connell, “The Irish Citizenship Referendum 2004: A Solution in search of a problem?”, in Shah, P. & Menski , W.F. (eds), Migration, Diasporas and Legal Systems (London and New York, Routledge Cavendish, 2006), pp. 127-143. 54. S. Brandi, “Unveiling the Ideological Construction of the 2004 Irish Citizenship Referendum: a Critical Discourse Analytical Approach”, Translocations 2:1 (2007), pp. 26-47, pp. 35-36. 55. For the results, see http://electionsireland.org/results/referendum/refresult.cfm?ref=2004R consulted March 2016. 56. H. Becker and C. Cosgrave, Naturalization Procedures for Immigrants Ireland. EUDO Citizenship Observatory, Italy (2013), p. 1, http://eudo-citizenship.eu accessed March 2014. 57. J. Handol, op. cit., p. 11. 58. B. Ryan, op. cit., p. 20. 59. Handoll, for instance, has argued that the 2004 attempt aimed at removing a constitutional problem created by previous constitutional reforms (J. Handoll, op. cit., p. 22). That element has to be put in some context. Dug Cubie and Fergus Ryan are not off the mark when they argue that a situation of net immigration “caught the [Irish] State on the hop. A government more used to outward than inward migration clearly struggled to cope with what could hardly have been predicted 20 years ago” (D. Cubie and F. Ryan, op. cit., p. viii). 60. C. Piola, op. cit., p. 54. In that respect, Iseult Honohan’s comment is worth noting when she argues that “[p]erhaps, the most striking feature of Irish citizenship laws has been the lengthy dominance, late constitutionalisation, and subsequent retreat of pure ius soli” (I. Honohan, op. cit., p. 5). 61. Conferral of nationality as a special honour is another way to acquire Irish citizenship. 62. H. Becker and C. Cosgrave, op. cit., p. 2. 63. Ibid., p. 3. 64. J. Guillaumond, “Is a new definition of Irish identity emerging in the Republic of Ireland in the 21st century?”, in A. Milne and R. Verdugo (eds), European Identities (Charlotte / NC, Information Age Publishers, to be published). 65. This report looks at diversity in the form of non-Irish nationals living in Ireland, along with foreign languages spoken and ability to speak English. Central Statistics Office, Census 2011 - Profile 6 – Migration and Diversity (Dublin, Stationery Office, 2012), p. 8. 66. The 2011 Irish Census is presented as such: “The census will give a comprehensive picture of the social and living conditions of our people in 2011. Only a census can provide such complete detail. The census is not, however, an end in itself! Rather the results are essential tools for effective policy, planning and decision making purposes.” See Census 2011 website, http://www.census.ie/The-Census-and- You/Your-Questions.90.1.aspx accessed January 2014. 67. D. Kertzer and D. Arel (eds), Census and Identity. The Politics of Race, Ethnicity, and Language in National Censuses (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002). 68. In Ireland, the links on dual citizenship with Britain had been severed earlier in the mid-1930s. Comparing with Britain, one could say that there was at the time a more inclusive British subjecthood as defined by the British Nationality Act 1948 which said that though each Commonwealth state could have its own immigration laws, each also had to recognise nationals of other member states as “British subjects” and not as aliens. 69. S. Brandi, op. cit., p. 35.
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70. C. Piola, “La Politique d’immigration en Irlande”, in C. Maignant, Le Tigre celtique en question (Caen, Presses Universitaires de Caen, 2007), pp. 147-172, p. 148. 71. CSO, Census 2011, Profile 6, Migration and Diversity, 2012. 72. CSO, Statistical Yearbook of Ireland (Dublin, Stationery Office, various years). 73. CSO, Census 2011, op. cit., p. 26. 74. R. C. King-O’Riain, “Counting on the ‘Celtic Tiger’. Adding Ethnic Census Categories in the Republic of Ireland”, Ethnicities 7:4 (2007), pp. 516‑542. 75. M. Cadogan, “Fixity and Whiteness in the Ethnicity Question of Irish Census 2006”, Translocations 3:1 (2008), pp. 50-68, p. 52. 76. Figures from Statistical Yearbook of Ireland, op. cit., 2011 and 2013. 77. R. C. King O’Riain, “Re-Racialising the Irish State through the Census, Citizenship and Language”, Race and State (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2006), p. 282, http:// eprints.nuim.ie/506/ accessed December 2013. 78. B. Anderson, Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London, Verso, 2006), p. 166. 79. M. Cadogan, op. cit., p. 58. 80. G. O’Keeffe-Vigneron, “Les Irlandais en Angleterre et les Polonais en Irlande : chemins convergents ou parcours divergents ? ”, in L. Germain et al. (eds), Identités et cultures minoritaires dans l'aire anglophone, Entre « visibilité » et « invisibilité » (Paris, L’Harmattan, 2010), pp. 169-185. 81. M. Cadogan, op. cit., p. 60. 82. Ibid., p. 55. 83. S. Fenton and R. Mann, “Introducing the majority to ethnicity: Do they like what they see”, in G. Calder, P. Cole and J. Seglow (eds), Citizenship Acquisition and National Belonging. Migration, Membership and the Liberal Democratic State (London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), pp. 141-155, p. 142.
ABSTRACTS
Over the last two decades, many European States have altered their immigration policies in a context of intense economic, social and demographic changes. As a consequence, immigration issues have turned into more political issues, forcefully questioning the notion of belonging to the “community of citizens”. Long considered as an emigrant nation without any real experience in dealing with immigration issues, how has Ireland dealt with an outstanding reversal of its population trends in less than two decades in a context of huge economic and social changes? The purpose of this chapter is to look at the two notions of citizenship and nationality in the Republic of Ireland through a two-facet perspective set against the economic and demographic changes of the last two decades. In the Irish case, both elements seem to stress the idea of an unchanging Irish citizenship and identity while negating the diversity of Ireland itself.
Au cours des deux dernières décennies, de nombreux États européens ont modifié leurs politiques d’immigration pour faire face à des transformations économiques, sociales et démographiques importantes. Par conséquent, les questions d’immigration sont devenues
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davantage politiques, interrogeant avec force la conception même d’appartenance à la « communauté des citoyens ». Dans ces conditions, comment l’Irlande, longtemps perçue comme une nation d’émigrants, relativement peu au fait des problématiques liées à l’immigration, a-t-elle réagi face à l’inversion notable de ses grandes caractéristiques démographiques en moins de vingt ans dans un contexte de profondes transformations économiques et sociales ? Ce chapitre se propose d’étudier les deux notions de citoyenneté et de nationalité en République d’Irlande à travers une double focale comportant en arrière-plan les changements économiques et sociaux des deux dernières décennies. Dans le cas irlandais, les deux éléments semblent souligner l’idée d’une citoyenneté et d’une nationalité irlandaises immuables, niant de facto la diversité de l’Irlande actuelle.
INDEX
Keywords: Ireland, ethnicity, citizenship, nationality, immigration Mots-clés: Irlande, ethnicité, citoyenneté, nationalité, immigration
AUTHOR
JULIEN GUILLAUMOND Laboratoire Communication et Sociétés, Université Blaise Pascal, Clermont-Ferrand
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Contemporary Challenges to the Founding Principles of Citizenship Remises en cause contemporaines des principes fondateurs de la citoyenneté
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From Marshallian Citizenship to Corporate Citizenship: The Changing Nature of Citizenship in Neoliberal Britain De la citoyenneté marshallienne à la citoyenneté d’entreprise : la nature fluctuante de la citoyenneté dans le Royaume-Uni néo-libéral
Emma Bell
Introduction
1 Over the past couple of decades, the term ‘citizen’ has increasingly been appropriated by private companies. A whole range of corporate literature is now dedicated to the issue: Corporate Responsibility Magazine draws up an annual “100 Best Corporate Citizens List ”,1 whilst companies from Microsoft to Citigroup now publish regular corporate citizenship reports to evaluate their performance in this area. Bob Diamond, former CEO of Barclays, publicly declared his determination to ensure “that Barclays plays its role as a full corporate citizen, acting properly and fairly always, and contributing positively to society in everything that we do”.2
2 Yet, the use of the term ‘citizenship’ with regard to corporations is inherently problematic. If we accept the traditional Marshallian definition of citizenship, the concept ought to relate to citizens’ equal rights vis-à-vis the state: civil rights guaranteeing individual freedom, protected by law; political rights of participation in the civil polity, as protected by Parliament; and social rights to economic welfare and security, protected by a welfare state.3 But the most common use of corporate citizenship seems to relate more to the responsibilities that companies are thought to owe civil society. Indeed, the terms ‘corporate citizenship’ and ‘corporate social responsibility’ are often conflated, suggesting that, as ‘corporate citizens’, businesses are expected to exercise certain responsibilities vis-à-vis civil society. Private citizens
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too are encouraged to be ‘active’, to participate in their local communities, working in the best interests of society as a whole. Yet, in return, they expect the State to defend their rights. If ‘corporate citizens’ are to also be granted certain rights, this challenges the very notion of Marshallian citizenship based on status equality which he regarded as being ‘at war’ with the capitalist system, based as it is on inequality. Furthermore, when acting as ‘corporate citizens’, businesses tend to take on roles that go far beyond those of individual citizens, even assuming some functions that were traditionally reserved to the State.
3 The aim of this paper is to examine the impact of the rise of the notion of corporate citizenship on the relationship between the British government and its citizens and on the very notion of citizenship itself. But first, it attempts to define the concept of corporate citizenship and the rights and duties of corporate citizens.
Corporate citizenship in theory and practice
The responsibilities of corporate citizenship
4 Both academics and corporations tend to define corporate citizenship as corporate responsibility to wider society, both at home and further afield. For Barclays, for example, the notion of corporate citizenship is articulated around three pillars: contributing to growth, by operating a profitable business and encouraging job creation; doing business in a way that furthers their clients’ interests and manages the social and environmental aspects of economic activity; and supporting communities via community investment programmes.4 This definition is very similar to that provided by one academic expert on the subject, Archie Carroll, who conflates the terms corporate social responsibility and corporate citizenship.5 For him, there are four faces to corporate citizenship/responsibility: “an economic face, a legal face, an ethical face, and a philanthropic face”.6 In short, this means that corporations should be profitable, obey the law, engage in ethical behaviour and philanthropic endeavours. Being profitable means that ‘corporate citizens’ contribute to economic growth, pay their bills and reward investors.7 Obeying the law entails complying with legal obligations with regard to consumers, employees, the community and the environment.8 Being ethical means being concerned with what should be considered to be good business practice, taking the moral highground and rejecting behaviour which, though common, is certainly unethical.9 Finally, being philanthropic may entail donating money to charity or providing equipment or technology that may significantly improve the lives of ordinary citizens.10
5 In practice, of course, many businesses fail to live up to this corporate ideal. Barclays is a notable example. The bank’s involvement in fixing the London inter-bank lending rate (LIBOR) and the foreign exchange market (FOREX) rate negatively affected savers and investors, causing them to lose huge amounts of money and further undermining trust in banking. In doing so, it failed to live up to its responsibility to ‘be profitable’ for its clients. The same scandal revealed that it also failed to show its ethical face, leaving unethical behaviour unchallenged.
6 Nonetheless, it is such scandals that have perhaps made it even more imperative for businesses to prove themselves to be good corporate citizens, as Bob Diamond earnestly declared following the LIBOR scandal. Indeed, companies recognise that doing so is not
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just good for society but also for their own ‘bottom line’. Most multinationals now recognise that it is not sufficient to be regarded as good ‘corporate citizens’ in their countries of origin but that they must also prove themselves to be good ‘global corporate citizens’. Consequently, most of the world’s largest companies have now signed up to the United Nations Global Compact which involves them committing themselves to respecting the Compact’s ten principles related to human rights, working conditions, the environment and anti-corruption.11
Corporations as stakeholders
7 Yet these definitions of corporate citizenship which focus primarily on responsibility have come under criticism. Klaus Schwab, for example, founder of the World Economic Forum, suggests that a broader definition needs to be adopted to show that companies are not only “engaged with their stakeholders but are themselves stakeholders alongside government and civil society”.12 Schwab highlights the need to move beyond notions of corporate citizenship which focus on the responsibilities companies owe to their stakeholders and society more broadly. This entails going further than corporate governance, corporate philanthropy and corporate social responsibility. One way of doing so is to incorporate a fourth element into corporate citizenship, namely corporate social entrepreneurship, defined as “the transformation of socially responsible principles and ideas into commercial value”.13 The idea is to be proactive, addressing “the specific social and environmental needs” of communities, not just ensuring that the company does not cause environmental damage or fail to respect basic social rights.14 One example given is that of Deutsche Bank’s microfinance schemes offered to developing countries. Here, the company is engaged in providing a vital service to local people whilst also improving its own corporate image and profit margins. It is a much more active form of corporate citizenship.
Corporations as facilitators of rights
8 This notion of corporate citizenship fits closely with what Matten et al. put forward as an “extended view of corporate citizenship”.15 In this view, corporations do not simply act as citizens but actually step in to assume some of the functions of government “with regard to the protection, facilitation and enabling of citizen’s rights”.16 Refining this idea a little, Moon et al. put forward two main ways in which corporations share in governing: firstly by partnering up with governmental and non-governmental organisations to deliver programmes in areas such as economic development or in education; secondly, by taking over from the state in the administration of the citizenship rights of their employees, notably with regard to pay and working conditions but also with regard to the provision of basic services such as education and health.17 Similarly, Schwab notes that today, “companies get involved in the health of workers, the education of employees and their children, and the pensions that sustain them in retirement”.18
9 Of course, there are historical examples of employers taking on responsibility for the welfare of their workers at a time when the state failed to do so – we might cite the example of Robert Owen’s model factory in early nineteenth century New Lanark. But such socially-committed employers remained the exception. Today, companies are getting involved in the provision of an ever-wider range of services previously provided by the state. Company welfare schemes are perhaps better developed in the
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United States where the state welfare safety net has always been weak, but they are also developing slowly in the UK as neoliberal welfare reform limits the state’s provision of the social rights of citizenship. For instance, it is estimated that approximately 3 million people in the UK benefit from company-paid private healthcare schemes.19 Companies are also investing in education in both a charitable and a profit-making capacity. Since the establishment of academies by the New Labour government, they have been encouraged to invest in schools. The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government also encourages private investment in new ‘free schools’ which may be set up by parents, teachers, charities, religious and voluntary groups. Whilst academies and free schools are directly funded by the government, they are run by charitable trusts which may either invite private investment or outsource the running of the schools to for-profit providers, as happened at Breckland Middle School in Suffolk in 2012.20 The potential for private-sector involvement has increased significantly as the number of academies in England has also increased since the coalition government came to power in May 2010 – from 203 to more than 3,000.21 In addition, there are now 174 free schools and 116 more are due to open soon.22 Companies such as Barclays are wholly committed to the government’s education programme: as part of its citizenship initiative, Barclays has pledged financial and logistical support to free schools and academies, offering free banking and consultancy services, and even educational materials.23
10 It was over ten years ago Matten et al. that suggested that corporate citizenship “is far more than a new brand of corporate social responsibility, or a fad in describing business and society relations – it is taking the roles and responsibilities of business into a whole new area”.24 This statement is even more pertinent today. The new role of the private sector as a stakeholder, steeping in to guarantee citizenship rights where the government has retreated is fully supported by the current Prime Minister who has declared: Business is not just about making money, as vital as that is…it’s also the most powerful force for social progress the world has ever known. It can help us to smash poverty, raise horizons, drive the innovations, products, services that make our lives better, longer and happier. [...] We need to say that now, more than ever, we need the creative talents of business, not just for economic innovation but social innovation too.25
11 Such discourse is particularly attractive in the context of Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ project in which individuals, the voluntary sector and private companies are expected to work side-by-side for the good of the community.
The rights of corporate citizenship
12 As increasingly important stakeholders in society, corporations can expect that they will be accorded certain rights in return for the duties they perform. Indeed, it may be argued that they are accorded the traditional Marshallian rights of citizenship; namely civil, political and social rights.
13 Corporations may be seen to exercise civil rights as legal entities, entitled to the protection of the law. Indeed, the State and its legal apparatus guarantee that contracts are upheld and property is protected, ensuring that economic activity runs smoothly. At times, this may even involve curtailing ordinary citizens’ rights, such as those of the protesters from the anti-corporate Occupy or UK Uncut movements who found themselves arrested (though not prosecuted) for public order offences.
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14 Corporations also increasingly exercise political rights, participating in the political process as members of powerful lobby groups26 and as partners in governance, providing many services that were previously the sole responsibility of the state. Here again, their rights may even exceed those of ordinary citizens whose participation in the political process is often limited to voting in elections.
15 Furthermore, whilst corporations now help to determine the contours of social rights, they also benefit from multifarious forms of state welfare, such as favourable tax regimes. Businesses operating in the UK are subject to very low rates of taxation. Indeed, the corporation tax rate is due to fall to 20% by 2015, the lowest rate in the G20. 27 Under the new Controlled Foreign Company Regime, profits earned by overseas subsidiaries of British companies are exempt from UK taxation. Furthermore, the ‘Patent Box system’ enables companies to apply a rate of just 10% corporation tax to profits earned from its patented inventions. The UK Treasury estimates that the first two tax changes alone will cost £5.6 billion in lost revenue between the fiscal years 2011-2012 and 2014-2015.28 Combined with massive public spending cuts, these changes make offloading social service provision to private companies even more fiscally attractive.
The special status of the corporate citizen
16 Although the corporate citizen may appear to be very similar to the individual citizen in terms of the rights it may claim to be entitled to, in practice it seems that the corporate citizen is accorded a very special citizenship status. Firstly, as outlined above, the corporation is not only a citizen but also a stakeholder conferring citizenship rights as a partner in governance. It does not only provide certain welfare services, such as health and education, but it may also determine who may have access to certain services. For example, ATOS, the international IT services company, has been entrusted with carrying out ‘work capability assessments’ to determine whether or not welfare claimants should continue to receive benefits or whether they are ‘fit for work’. This points to a second key difference between the corporate and the individual citizen: whereas the latter can be subject to severe sanctions, such as the stopping of their benefit payments, should they fail to live up to their duties as citizens, notably the duty to find work, the former faces no such sanctions. This is largely due to the fact that citizenship is an optional status for corporations – they “enter the arena of citizenship on a discretionary basis” only.29 There is no social contract between the corporation and a national government as there is between the individual citizen and her government. Unlike the individual who finds it increasingly difficult to be internationally mobile due to complex immigration legislation, the corporation can move between one country and another, thus easily renouncing the responsibilities it once professed to hold towards one particular nation state. Indeed, the notion of the ‘global corporate citizen’ further weakens this bond between the nation state and the corporation. What exactly are the consequences of this special citizenship status on the state and on civil society?
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Corporate citizenship and the changing contours of citizenship in the UK
Corporate citizenship and government
17 It is often suggested that the corporation has taken over from government itself as a key actor granting citizenship rights. As Schwab notes, this new status of corporations must be placed in the context of the decline of the nation sate: “As state power has shrunk, the sphere of influence of business has widened”.30 Yet, whilst it is undeniable that corporate power has increased, it does not necessarily follow that State power has diminished. Indeed, the State continues to play a key role in moulding the contours of citizenship, arguably even more so now that the corporation has assumed such power. Rather than guaranteeing the usual social rights of citizenship, the State works in close partnership with the corporate sector to facilitate market solutions to social problems and to open new spaces for commercialisation. Citizens are thus increasingly expected to conform to the expectations of the neoliberal marketplace. Yet, often they need to be encouraged, or even coerced, into doing so. Only the State can provide the necessary legal and political framework to make this possible. Over the past thirty years and more in Britain, it is the State that has enacted legislation to force people off benefits and into the workplace via various different welfare-to-work schemes. It is the State that has developed a new political discourse of responsibilisation, emphasising the moral duty of the individual citizen to assume responsibility for his own future, rather than depending on the State. Citizenship is no longer simply a status granted by virtue of becoming a passport holder – it is something that can only be earned by adopting the appropriate behaviour.31
Corporate citizenship and civil society
18 Consequently, citizenship is no longer regarded as a way of protecting citizens against the market, but rather as a way of integrating citizens into the market.32 For Marshall, the social rights of citizenship were a means of protecting individuals against the inequalities inherent in the marketplace, although he did regard both welfare and employment as social rights.33 Today, citizenship is increasingly defined in corporate terms as the corporation has become involved in redefining citizenship rights. It is the market that is now considered to be the key means of integration into the body politic. This has been described as “privatised citizenship” whereby citizenship “morph[s] from that of public participation into that of obligatory customership in the ever-expanding world of consumer and financial markets”.34 It may also be described as ‘commercialised citizenship’ as citizenship is reduced to individuals’ capacity to buy public goods on the market that were previously available as of right.35
19 This trend is profoundly regressive. It entails paring the Marshallian concept of citizenship back to one defined solely by civil rights, such as the right to own property and to make free choices, notably with regard to consumerism and participation in the labour market.36 It is about negative rather than positive rights, restoring ‘freedom’ to citizens by liberating them from state dependency. For Somers, this marks a return to the original minimalist Lockean conception of citizenship, defined as individual freedom from state interference.37 Yet, in reality, citizens today have very little
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freedom, particularly those who find themselves unemployed. The unemployed must accept the jobs offered to them or face sanctions. This means that they lose both “ market choice... and citizenship, as they are now in a world where benefit withdrawal may be threatened, not one where security is a right”.38
20 Even for those in employment, security is no longer a right. Labour market deregulation has meant that what Marshall referred to as “industrial citizenship”39 has now been severely limited. Workers may still have rights to union representation and to decent working conditions but it has become increasingly difficult to exercise these rights in a world of precarious employment.
21 Whilst the rise of corporate citizenship has clearly limited social rights, it has also led to an erosion of political and civil rights. Indeed, as corporations have come to gain political rights as partners in governance, the political rights of individual citizens have been correspondingly eroded. Their voice is increasingly crowded out by that of the private sector whose lobbying power is arguably much more influential that the electoral power of citizens. These trends are only accentuated by the decline in formal political participation.40 This reflects the increasing importance of what Crouch has described as “negative citizenship” over “positive citizenship”. Whilst the latter is concerned with collective participation in politics and the formulation of political alternatives, the former is more concerned with “blame and complaint, holding politicians to account and protecting individual liberties vis-à-vis the state”.41
22 This would suggest that whilst political citizenship is on the decline, civil citizenship is on the rise. However, even the civil rights of citizenship are threatened. As corporations become involved in according citizenship rights, citizenship is no longer defined exclusively vis-à-vis the state but primarily, as suggested above, vis-à-vis the market. This leads to serious problems of accountability, the mechanism via which citizens are meant to be able to protect their basic civil rights. The absence of any kind of social, political or institutional contract between the citizenry and private companies means that citizens have little means of redress. The potential for the abuse of power on the part of corporations is great, severely limiting citizens’ civil rights.
Conclusion
23 The Marshallian concept of citizenship has thus been profoundly altered, at least with regard to individual citizens. The ‘corporate citizen’ now appears to benefit from those rights previously reserved to the individual: civil rights to trade freely without excessive state intervention; political rights as a stakeholder in governance; and social rights as a beneficiary of generous fiscal regimes. As a stakeholder, providing certain social rights to citizens in partnership with government, the ‘corporate citizen’ has played a significant role in redefining the rights of citizenship in line with the demands of the market. Consequently, citizenship has become conditional on participation in the marketplace, undermining the basic principle of universality which once underpinned citizenship, at least in theory. Rather than the notion of citizenship constantly progressing and broadening, it is now regressing, being pared down to the bare minimum. Citizenship has not been reconciled with the capitalist system, as Marshall once believed possible. It has instead been captured by the system and fundamentally redefined by it.
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24 The consequences of this transformation for individual citizens are profound. Whilst the power of the corporation and the State have constantly increased, that of individuals has been seriously limited as the rights of citizenship have been eroded. Even their most basic civil rights to challenge the power of the State and to make it fully accountable have been weakened. There is a possibility that citizens may seek to reclaim these rights as it becomes ever clearer that the truce between citizenship and the capitalist system has broken down. If they do, however, they will need to adopt a positive form of active citizenship, reaffirming Marshallian rights but also seeking to affirm new rights. This will be a formidable challenge and will mean confronting not just the power of the state but also that of the corporation.
25 Emma Bell is Senior Lecturer in British Studies at the Université de Savoie Mont- Blanc, France. She is the author of “Criminal Justice and Neoliberalism” (2011) and “Soft Power and Freedom under the Coalition: State-Corporate Power and the Threat to Democracy” (2015), both published by Palgrave Macmillan.
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Carroll, Archie B., ‘The Four Faces of Corporate Citizenship’, Business and Society Review 100:1 (1998), pp. 1-7.
Citigroup, Global Citizenship Report (2012), http://citizenship.citigroup.com/citi /about/ citizenshipreport.htm consulted 4 March 2014.
Commons Public Administration Select Committee, Lobbying: Access and Influence in Whitehall (London, The Stationery Office, 2009).
Competition Commission, ‘Private Healthcare Market Investigation’ (2012), http:// www.competition-commission.org.uk/assets/competitioncommission/docs/2012/private- healthcare-market-investigation/ais_appendix_f_employers_pmi_schemes.pdf consulted 4 March 2014.
CRM, ‘100 Best Corporate Citizens List’ (2014), http://www.thecro.com/content/cr-magazine- corporate-citizenship-lists-methodology consulted 4 March 2014.
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Crouch, Colin, Post-Democracy (Cambridge, Polity Press, 2012).
Diamond, Robert, ‘Text: Bob Diamond letter to Andrew Tyrie’, The Economist, 28 June 2012, http:// www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/1734757a-c157-11e1-8179-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2sFo8IFxl consulted 4 March 2014.
Gove, Michael, Hansard, 6 Jan 2014, Column 3, http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ cm201314/cmhansrd/cm140106/debtext/140106-0001.htm consulted 4 March 2014.
Gove, Michael, Hansard, 6 Jan 2014, Column 70W, http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ cm201314/cmhansrd/cm140106/text/140106w0003.htm consulted 4 March 2014.
HM Government, A Guide to UK Taxation (2013), https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/ system/uploads/attachment_data/file/183408/A_guide_to_UK_taxation.pdf consulted 4 March 2014.
HM Treasury, Budget 2011 (2012), https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/budget-2011 consulted 4 March 2014.
Marshall, T.H. Citizenship and Social Class (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1950).
Matten, Dirk and Crane, Andrew, ‘Corporate Citizenship: Toward an Extended Theoretical Conceptualization’, The Academy of Management Review 30:1 (2005), pp. 166-179.
Matten, Dirk, Crane, Andrew and Chapple, Wendy, ‘Behind the Mask: Revealing the True Face of Corporate Citizenship’, Journal of Business Ethics 45:1/2 (2003), pp. 109-120.
Merrick, Jane, ‘Secret memo shows Michael Gove's plan for privatisation of academies’, The Independent, 10 February 2013.
Microsoft, Citizenship Report (2013), http://download.microsoft.com/download/ 2/5/9/2597728D-72EE-4FDC-BD93-814AD436ABDA/FY13%20Report%20FINAL%20Oct%2013.pdf consulted 4 March 2014.
Moon, Jeremy, Crane, Andrew and Matten, Dirk, ‘Can corporations be citizens? Corporate citizenship as a metaphor for business participation in society’ (2nd Edition), n°13 ICCSR Research Paper Series (2003), http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/business/ICCSR/research.php? action=download&id=22 consulted 4 March 2014.
Schinkel, Willem and Van Houdt, Friso, ‘The Double Helix of Cultural Assimilationism and Neo- liberalism: Citizenship in Contemporary Governmentality’, The British Journal of Sociology 61(4) (2010).
Schwab, Klaus, ‘Global Corporate Citizenship: Working with Governments and Civil Society’, Foreign Affairs 87(1) (2008), pp. 107-118, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/63051/klaus- schwab/global-corporate-citizenship consulted 4 March 2014.
Shepherd, Jessica, ‘Barclays puts up £1.25m for parents starting free schools’, The Guardian, 18 January 2012.
Somers, Margaret, ‘Romancing the market, reviling the State: historicizing liberalism, privatisation and the competing claims to civil society’ in Colin Crouch, Klau Eder, Damian Tambini (eds) Citizenship, Markets, and the State (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004).
UN, ‘Global Compact’ (2014), http://www.unglobalcompact.org/HowToParticipate/index.html consulted 4 March 2014.
Turner, Bryan S., ‘The Erosion of Citizenship’, British Journal of Sociology 52(2) (2001), pp. 189–209.
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Wagner, Antonin, ‘Redefining Citizenship for the 21st Century: from the National Welfare State to the UN Global Compact’ International Journal of Social Welfare 13 (2004), pp. 278–286.
NOTES
1. CRM, ‘100 Best Corporate Citizens List’ (2014). Available at: http://www.thecro.com/ content/cr-magazine-corporate-citizenship-lists-methodology consulted 4 March 2014. 2. Robert Diamond, ‘Text: Bob Diamond letter to Andrew Tyrie’, The Economist, 28 June 2012, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/1734757a-c157-11e1-8179-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2sFo8IFxl consulted 4 March 2014. 3. T.H. Marshall, Citizenship and Social Class (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1950). 4. Barclays, Citizenship Plan 2015 (2012), p. 3. Available at: http://group.barclays.com/ about-barclays/citizenship/2015-citizenship-plan consulted 4 March 2014. 5. Archie B. Carroll, ‘The Four Faces of Corporate Citizenship’, Business and Society Review 100:1 (1998), pp. 1-7. 6. Ibid., p. 1. 7. Ibid., pp.1-2. 8. Ibid., pp. 2-3. 9. Ibid., pp. 4-5. 10. Ibid., pp. 5-6. 11. UN, ‘Global Compact’ (2014). Available at: http://www.unglobalcompact.org/ HowToParticipate/index.html consulted 4 March 2014. 12. Klaus Schwab, ‘Global Corporate Citizenship: Working with Governments and Civil Society’, Foreign Affairs 87:1 (2008), p. 108. Available at: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/ articles/63051/klaus-schwab/global-corporate-citizenship consulted 4 March 2014. 13. Ibid., pp. 110-114. 14. Ibid., p. 114. 15. Dirk Matten, Andrew Crane and Wendy Chapple, ‘Behind the Mask: Revealing the True Face of Corporate Citizenship’, Journal of Business Ethics 45:1/2 (2003), pp. 113-17. 16. Ibid., p. 116. 17. Jeremy Moon, Andrew Crane and Dirk Matten, ‘Can corporations be citizens? Corporate citizenship as a metaphor for business participation in society’ (2nd Edition), n°13 ICCSR Research Paper Series (2003), pp. 12-13. Available at: http:// www.nottingham.ac.uk/business/ICCSR/research.php?action=download&id=22 consulted 4 March 2014. 18. Schwab, op. cit., p. 109. 19. Competition Commission, ‘Private Healthcare Market Investigation’ (2012). Available at: http://www.competition-commission.org.uk/assets/ competitioncommission/docs/2012/private-healthcare-market-investigation/ ais_appendix_f_employers_pmi_schemes.pdf consulted 4 March 2014. 20. Breckland could become the model for future education reform as a leaked memo suggested that the Minister for Education, Michael Gove, is considering outright privatisation of academies and free schools. See Daniel Boffey, ‘State schools hover on the brink of huge private sector revolution’, The Observer, 28 January 2012 and Jane
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Merrick, ‘Secret memo shows Michael Gove's plan for privatisation of academies’, The Independent, 10 February 2013. 21. Michael Gove, Hansard, 6 Jan 2014, Column 3, http:// www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmhansrd/cm140106/debtext/ 140106-0001.htm consulted 4 March 2014. 22. Ibid., Column 70W, http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/ cmhansrd/cm140106/text/140106w0003.htm consulted 4 March 2014. 23. Shepherd, Jessica, ‘Barclays puts up £1.25m for parents starting free schools’, The Guardian, 18 January 2012. Barclays, ‘Bespoke Banking Packages’ (2014), http:// www.barclays.co.uk/Ourbespokebankingpackages/ Helpingyouwithleadershipandbusinessskills/P1242599897687 consulted 4 March 2014. 24. Matten et al., op. cit. (2003), p. 118. 25. David Cameron, ‘David Cameron pro-business speech in full’, 23 February, 2012, http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2012/02/23/david-cameron-business-in- the-community-speech-in-full consulted 4 March 2014. 26. Commons Public Administration Select Committee, Lobbying: Access and Influence in Whitehall (London, The Stationery Office, 2009). 27. HM Government, A Guide to UK Taxation (2013), https://www.gov.uk/government/ uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/183408/A_guide_to_UK_taxation.pdf consulted 4 March 2014. 28. HM Treasury, Budget 2011 (2012), p. 42, https://www.gov.uk/government/ publications/budget-2011 consulted 4 March 2014. 29. Dirk Matten and Andrew Crane, ‘Corporate Citizenship: Toward an Extended Theoretical Conceptualization’, The Academy of Management Review 30:1 (2005), p. 175. 30. Schwab, op. cit., p. 109. 31. Willem Schinkel and Friso Van Houdt, ‘The Double Helix of Cultural Assimilationism and Neo- liberalism: Citizenship in Contemporary Governmentality’, The British Journal of Sociology 61:4 (2010). 32. Bryan S. Turner, ‘The Erosion of Citizenship’, British Journal of Sociology 52:2 (2001), pp. 189-209. 33. Marshall, op. cit. 34. Margaret Somers, ‘Romancing the market, reviling the State: historicizing liberalism, privatisation and the competing claims to civil society’ in Colin Crouch, Klau Eder, Damian Tambini (eds) Citizenship, Markets, and the State (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 25. 35. Colin Crouch, Post-Democracy (Cambridge, Polity Press, 2012), pp. 78-83. 36. Antonin Wagner, ‘Redefining Citizenship for the 21st Century: from the National Welfare State to the UN Global Compact’, International Journal of Social Welfare 13 (2004), p. 281. 37. Somers, op. cit., pp. 30-32. 38. Crouch, op. cit., p. 90. 39. Marshall, op. cit. 40. Voter turnout stood at just 65.1% of the total electorate in the UK general election of May 2010. In 2010, just 1% of the electorate belonged to one of the three main political parties (see McGuinness, 2012).
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41. Crouch, op. cit., p. 13.
ABSTRACTS
Whilst traditional definitions of citizenship, such as that of T.H. Marshall, have tended to emphasise the relationship between individuals and the State, over the past twenty years or so a new definition of citizenship has become popular which has instead highlighted the relationship between corporations and civil society. The notion of ‘corporate citizenship’ seems to have replaced that of ‘corporate social responsibility’ to outline the key duties that corporations owe to society, namely being profitable, obeying the law, engaging in ethical behaviour and philanthropic endeavours. Yet, this paper seeks to argue that, in adopting the term ‘citizenship’, with all its connotations of reciprocity, corporations also seek to lay claim to certain rights from the state. The corporate citizen may thus appear to be very similar to the individual citizen in terms of the rights it may claim from the state in return for exercising duties to civil society. But in practice the corporate citizen is accorded a special citizenship status, acting in partnership with government to deliver certain rights and to determine who may have access to citizenship. As a result, the very concept of social citizenship as defined by Marshall is altered: citizenship is no longer seen as primarily rights-based, as more emphasis is placed on duties; citizenship is no longer universal as some citizens are seen to be more equal/deserving than others; most importantly, citizenship is no longer defined exclusively vis-à-vis the state, leading to serious problems of accountability.
Alors que les définitions classiques de la citoyenneté, telles que celle de T.H. Marshall, soulignent les relations entre les individus et l’État, depuis une vingtaine d’années une nouvelle définition de la citoyenneté est devenue courante. Celle-ci met l’accent sur les relations entre les entreprises et la société civile. L’idée de « citoyenneté d’entreprise » aurait remplacé celle de la « responsabilité sociale des entreprises » pour faire référence aux devoirs des entreprises vis-à- vis de la société, notamment l’obligation de faire du profit, de respecter la loi, d’adopter un comportement éthique et de s’engager dans des activités philanthropes. Or, cet article avance qu’en appropriant l’étiquette de « citoyen », avec tout ce que cela implique en termes de réciprocité, les entreprises exigent que l’État leur accorde certains droits. L’entreprise citoyenne peut à première vue paraître semblable aux citoyens individuels mais en pratique, elle a un statut très particulier en tant que partenaire de l’État, accordant des droits de citoyenneté et déterminant qui a accès à ces droits. Par conséquent, la notion même de citoyenneté sociale, telle que Marshall l’a défini, est modifiée : la citoyenneté n’est pas principalement fondée sur les droits car on souligne davantage les devoirs ; la citoyenneté n’est plus universelle car certains citoyens sont considérés comme étant plus méritants que d’autres ; et surtout, la citoyenneté n’est plus définie vis-à-vis de l’État, ce qui crée des problèmes graves de responsabilité politique.
INDEX
Mots-clés: citoyenneté d'entreprise, responsabilité sociale des entreprises, Big Society Keywords: corporate citizenship, corporate social responsibility, accountability, Big Society
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AUTHOR
EMMA BELL Laboratoire LLSETI, université de Savoie Mont-Blanc
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(In)visible Minorities and the Law in England Les Minorités (in)visibles et le droit en Angleterre
Gino G. Raymond
Introduction
1 This article was occasioned by a number of major police investigations culminating in a series of high-profile prosecutions, involving groups of men, almost entirely from the Muslim Asian community. The way these prosecutions were portrayed, by the authorities and the media, shone a light on the broader issue of the way sensitivities are managed in the relationship between minorities and the law, and the paradoxes this engenders. The brackets around the first syllable of the first word in the title underscores an initial paradox: non-white minorities are manifestly visible in English society, yet as we shall see, in the official discourse of law enforcement officers and the authorities, in the context of the prosecutions mentioned above, there was a consistent attempt to occlude any significance that might be attached to ethnic or religious specificity. As the title also indicates, the focus of the article is England, given the independence of the Scottish legal system with regard to the rest of the United Kingdom and the different dynamics in community relations there.
An ethos under scrutiny
2 One of the assumptions embedded in the multicultural ethos in England is that if one is to succeed in building a cohesive national community out of a society characterised by ever-growing diversity, then it is vital to recognise ethnic and cultural specificity. There is one context, however, where that recognition has become problematized, due to the fear of stigmatising entire communities. One of the recurrent leading stories in the media since the beginning of the decade has been child sexual abuse, and in particular the grooming of teenage girls under the age of consent for sexual
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exploitation by gangs of men. A series of such rings was uncovered by the police, spreading down from the deprived cities of the north such as Bradford and Rotherham, down through Derby and Telford, and even reaching the affluent south in the city of Oxford. In May 2012, the highly mediatised guilty verdicts returned against 9 men for running a child sexual exploitation ring in Rochdale, highlighted the common thread linking the cases in the other town mentioned above: the rings were all led by, and almost entirely comprised of, Asian Muslim men. Mindful of the potential for this fact to be seized on and exploited by groups hostile to community cohesion, Greater Manchester police were at pains to elide any ethnic or cultural factors in terms of the motivation for this crime. There was, their spokesperson asserted: ‘no racial element to the case […] the main issue was older men exploiting vulnerable young girls’.1 The reaction of the Labour MP for Rochdale, Simon Danczuk, quoted in the same BBC report, was to retort that it would be ‘daft not to believe that race plays a part’ in the grooming. But the dangers of singling out individual communities had been amply demonstrated during the course of the previous year and may have been a factor influencing the discretion of the police and the prosecuting authorities.
3 After the discovery of a ring of Asian men in 2011 who had been grooming under-age girls for sex in Lancashire, the former Labour Home Secretary, Jack Straw, voiced his opinion to the media that some men of Pakistani origin saw white girls as ‘easy meat’. The reaction was swift and came from within Straw’s own party, implicitly at first, and then explicitly portraying Straw’s remarks as the unfair stigmatisation of a minority community. Straw’s fellow Labour MP, Keith Vaz, himself of Asian origin, rushed to the defence of the Pakistanis in his community and denied that the rings of abusers were symptomatic of a ‘cultural’ problem. While one of the Labour councillors for Burnley, Shah Hussain, condemned Straw unequivocally for homing in on men of Pakistani heritage and therefore ‘victimising that community’.2 An unwritten and largely unspoken consensus seemed to have formed to the effect that if there were to be an attitudinal problem in certain minority communities, that was for those communities to address, and not for those from the wider host community. Furthermore, if such a dialogue were to be engaged, it would have to remain internal, and could not be shared with those outside of the communities affected. Those members who shared their concerns more broadly and more openly, ran the risk of being sanctioned by their own communities, according to the research of the women’s rights campaigner Julie Bindel. In an interview with Mohammed Shafiq, the director of the Ramadhan Foundation, the latter confided that when he warned of the dangers of not confronting the sexual abuse of young girls by men in his community, some of its members sent him death threats.3
4 There was, however, one voice during the Labour years of government and opposition that expressed a consistent interest in the matter of the sexual exploitation of young girls, and that was Anne Cryer, the Labour MP for Ilkley in West Yorkshire, for almost 20 years. Partly because she was never bound by the constraints of ministerial office, and partly because members of her constituency were directly affected by this type of abuse, Mrs Cryer was a voice in the political wilderness, until the intense spotlight shone by the media on the issue made her an unavoidable point of reference. In January 2013 she appeared before the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee to answer questions as to why she thought child sexual grooming had gone on for so long without an effective remedy being applied by the agencies that should have been concerned. In her reply, Mrs Cryer pointed to the crucial lack of coordination between agencies such
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as the police, social services and health professionals, which allowed victims and perpetrators to slip through the net. But she also identified what she believed to be an underlying anxiety that held back the agencies in question because of the communities from which many of the perpetrators had emerged: the fear of being perceived as racist. And this fear, she argued, had grown in a major way after the Stephen Lawrence affair.4
5 Stephen Lawrence was a black teenager who was stabbed to death on 22 April 1993 in an unprovoked attack by a gang of white youths while he was waiting at a bus stop in Eltham, south-east London, with his friend Duwayne Brooks. Those suspected of the murder were identified in an anonymous letter to the police on April 24 and on May 7 a group of young men were arrested, of whom two were charged on June 23. On July 29, however, the police dropped the charges, claiming that the evidence given by Duwayne Brooks identifying the suspects was unreliable, prompting what would become the most high-profile and politicised campaign for justice in post-war British history. Dismayed by the inaction of the authorities, in 1994 the Lawrence family launched a private prosecution against the suspects released by the police, but this failed in 1996. On 14 February 1997, the deeply conservative Daily Mail newspaper threw its weight behind the Lawrence family’s campaign for justice and carried on its front page the names of the five individuals it accused of Stephen’s murder, and invited them to sue the newspaper. In the following month, at the behest of the Police Complaints Authority, the Kent Constabulary carried out an investigation into the widely- perceived mishandling of the Stephen Lawrence case by the Metropolitan Police. Finally, in July 1997, the Labour Home Secretary, Jack Straw, announced a public enquiry into the conduct of the Metropolitan Police investigation into Stephen’s murder, to be chaired by the retired High Court Judge, William Macpherson, with the aim of drawing the lessons that the police needed to learn in dealing with racially- motivated crimes.
From Scarman to Macpherson
6 The Macpherson report appeared in 1999 and could be viewed as the culmination of a process that started with Lord Scarman, almost two decades earlier. While both emerged from very different circumstances, the issues of central concern in both reports related to a failure of policing in some sense or another.5 Simmering tension between the black community in Brixton, South London, and the police erupted in April 1981 after ‘Operation Swamp’ was implemented by the Metropolitan Police with the aim of cutting street crime in the area. The infamous ‘Sus’ law, which gave the police the freedom to stop and search anybody they suspected of planning to commit a crime, had long been felt by the black community to be a measure that was used to victimise them. During the course of six days in early April, the ‘Sus’ law was used to stop over 1000 people in Brixton. On April 10, rumours circulated of police brutality against a black man, and when this was followed by a police arrest, the frustration in sections of the community exploded into three days of rioting as predominantly young black men fought the police, attacked buildings and set fire to cars. By the time the inquiry into those events had reported, led by the Appeal Court judge, Lord Leslie Scarman, similar violence had erupted in other English towns, notably Liverpool and Manchester.
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7 The Scarman report was ground-breaking in its time in that it was the first formal acknowledgement that there was racial prejudice in the Metropolitan Police, and that it had to be eliminated. As Scarman saw it: ‘Racial prejudice does manifest itself occasionally in the behaviour of a few officers on the street […]. The damage done by even the occasional display of racial prejudice is incalculable […]. It is therefore essential that every possible step be taken to prevent and root out racially prejudiced attitudes in the police service’.6 But as the use of adjectives such as ‘few’ and ‘occasional’ suggest, Scarman would go on to maintain that racism was not systematic or part of the fabric of the police service. Subsequent events would prove Scarman’s certainty to be misplaced. Riots would erupt in Brixton again, on 28 September 1985, after a police operation to arrest a man suspected of robbery went tragically wrong. The suspect was not at home but during the course of the dawn raid his mother, Cherry Groce, was accidently shot while still in bed by a firearms officer, and subsequently left crippled. So by the time Macpherson came to report his findings, and after years of media coverage regarding police failures in the investigation of Stephen Lawrence’s murder, the identification of a systemic failure in the police’s relationship with the black community was not unexpected.
8 The report’s 70 key recommendations were robust and unequivocal.7 Number 11 aimed to make it impossible for racism to be passed off as the attitude of just a few rogue elements by not only making officers directly responsible for their failures in this regard, but their commanding officers indirectly responsible also: The full force of race relations legislation should apply to all police officers, and chief officers of police should be made vicariously responsible for the acts and omissions of their officers relevant to that legislation.
9 Recommendation 30 was determined to make communities that were victims of racially-motivated crime take centre-stage, and prevent members of those communities being ignored in the way Stephen Lawrence’s family had been: Police services and victim support services should ensure that their systems provide for the pro-active use of local contacts with minority ethnic communities.
10 Furthermore, in recommendation 48 the report underlined the principle of policing by consent, that good policing could not occur without good community relations and that in a culturally diverse society, the value of diversity had to be reflected in every aspect of police training: There should be a consistent strategy to deliver appropriate training within all police services, based on the value of cultured diversity; training courses should be designed and delivered in order to develop the full understanding that good community relations are essential to good policing.
11 The long-standing grievance by the black community that, by the very nature of its operation, the Metropolitan Police was racist, was accepted by Macpherson and his commitment to combatting what would later be simply described as ‘institutional’ racism was reflected in one of the report’s simplest, and arguably most radical recommendations. Recommendation 12 asserted: “A racist incident is any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person.”
12 The virtue of Macpherson’s blanket definition of a ‘racist’ incident was that the police, and the authorities in general, would have no room for excuses if they failed to investigate a racially motivated crime, as they had so often failed to do in the past. The unintended consequence, according to Anne Cryer’s testimony to the Home Affairs
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committee, was that it would prompt a general retreat by the police and other para- legal agencies vis-à-vis minority communities, even in situations that demanded an active engagement. There was an unwillingness to stretch a net that would catch victims, actual and prospective, and their abusers, for fear that individuals inside or outside those communities would interpret that action as racist. According to Macpherson, the mere perception of an action as racist simply made it so. In terms of everyday police practice, their effective sphere of operation appeared to have shrunk, ceding the space for greater autonomy to minority communities and in broader terms, appearing to concede the possibility of de facto parallel jurisdictions in English society.
A space for parallel jurisdictions?
13 Muslim academics and commentators like Tariq Ramadan noted the sense of anxiety in secular liberal democratic societies that hosted Muslim minorities, generated by the feeling that somehow they saw themselves as subject to a different legal code, and one that was not compatible with the progressive values of the host society. During the same period that stories of the sexual grooming of young girls by gangs of Muslim men became a recurrent feature of newspaper front pages, the media began to take a sustained interest in the growth of Sharia courts in the U.K. The Independent, for example, ran an article that attempted to address a number of key questions concerning the growth of Sharia courts, their operation and their standing vis-à-vis the English legal system. In an attempt at striking a balance in its investigation, the piece quoted Ramadan, who characterised the archetypal Western liberal reaction in the following way: ‘In the West, the idea of Sharia calls up the darkest images of Islam […] Many Muslim intellectuals do not dare even to refer to the concept for fear of frightening people or arousing suspicion of all their work by the mere mention of the word’.8 The 85 courts mentioned by The Independent, as Ramadan and others pointed out, did not refer to themselves as ‘courts’ but usually as ‘councils’, and much of their work was focused on providing information, much like Citizens’ Advice Bureaux, but in their case to Muslim communities facing linguistic and other obstacles to their adaptation to their host community.
14 Other figures with a public platform, however, identified what they believed was the growing remit of Sharia councils with regard to family and divorce proceedings. The Conservative peer, Baroness Cox, attempted, unsuccessfully, to pilot a private members bill through Parliament aimed at regulating the work of Sharia councils in this field, and which had its first reading in the House of Lords on 7 June 2011.9 Her fear was that women who had been married only under Sharia law and therefore had no marriage document that would be recognized under English law, felt that their only hope of redress in the face of marital difficulties was to take their case to a Sharia council. For their part, according to Baroness Cox, many of those councils were misrepresenting themselves to the women in question as being able to pass legally binding decisions. Consequently, many women with a genuine grievance against their husbands felt obliged to accept the judgement of the councils even though they were often biased in favour of the husband.
15 The debate on Sharia law had gained considerable traction after a study, under the aegis of the think tank Civitas, had been widely trailed in the media and prompted widespread debate. In the study, the author, Denis MacEoin, staked out his position
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unequivocally and saw, in the rise of Sharia law, the prospect emerging of communities arrogating the right to live outside the law that applied to everybody else: The introduction of sharia law into this country is a recipe for a dichotomous legal system that holds Muslims and non-Muslims to different standards. This is not a matter of eating halal meat or seeking God’s blessing on one’s marriage. It is a challenge to what we believe to be the rights and freedoms of the individual, to our concept of a legal system based on what parliament enacts, and to the right of us all to live in a society as free as possible from ethnic-religious division or communal claims to superiority and a special status that puts them in some respects above the law to which we are all bound.10
16 Nonetheless, the misgivings expressed by Baroness Cox and Denis MacEoin seemed to carry little weight with those tasked with overseeing the operation of the English legal system, especially the family division. To certain commentators, a landmark ruling was reached in the High Court in early 2013 that set a precedent allowing religious courts a legitimacy they had not enjoyed before vis-à-vis English courts. The ruling referred to the case of a Jewish couple living in London and facing a bitter marital breakdown. When the wife began to deprive the husband of access to his children, the husband initiated proceedings under the Hague Convention on child abduction. But before the case came to court in London, the couple decided to refer their dispute to a senior rabbi in the New York Beth Din and asked the English judge, Mr Justice Baker, if he would agree. Justice Baker examined the principles employed by the Beth Din and, finding them compatible with the laws of England and Wales, ultimately concurred with the key provisions of the arbitration conducted by the New York Beth Din and allowed them to inform the judgement finally released by the High Court in London. While Justice Baker made it clear in his ruling that the arbitration of the Beth Din alone could not be binding, as it could not supplant the jurisdiction of the High Court, for some observers it marked a major departure from English legal practice: it was the first time a family court had effectively delegated some of its authority to a religious court for arbitration. For a spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, the outcome for the Jewish couple opened the door to a change that could have profound repercussions for Muslim couples also: ‘If it leads to the eventual acceptance of Sharia court divorces, then Muslims will be very encouraged’.11
Self-legislating communities?
17 The sub-text that was developing in the pages of the conservative Daily Telegraph was that the law was increasingly turning a blind eye to the way certain minority communities operated according to their own customs and beliefs, even if those customs and beliefs were at variance with the laws of their host society. During the weeks preceding the judgement pronounced by Justice Baker, the Telegraph covered an incident and the ensuing consequences that appeared to justify the narrative it was developing. During the festive period leading up to early January 2013, Muslim vigilante groups appeared on the streets of Tower Hamlets, Whitechapel and Shoreditch, boroughs with large concentrations of members from the Asian Muslim community. The vigilante groups took as their mission the task of curbing the consumption of alcohol on the streets and advising women on how to dress modestly. Footage posted on You Tube purportedly showed a group calling itself Muslim Patrol verbally abusing non-Muslim revellers who had strayed too close to the front of a
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mosque and telling them that they had no right to be there.12 While it was impossible to verify the source of the footage, notably whether it was genuinely the work of Muslim vigilantes or white racist provocateurs, the story gained currency and the communities and parties concerned felt obliged to react. Outrage in some quarters at what was alleged to be the homophobic actions of the vigilantes forced the Metropolitan Police to respond, but the London police followed in the footsteps of the Greater Manchester Police over the sexual grooming scandal, and refused to situate the alleged abuses in any kind of cultural context. Homophobia was homophobia and would be prosecuted like any other act that fell in the category of ‘hate crime’, irrespective of its provenance. It was incumbent on the local community itself to determine whether the cultural conditioning within its ranks was in any way responsible or culpable. Shaikh Shams, imam of the East London Mosque, situated in one of the boroughs where the vigilantes were alleged to have been operating, felt an obligation to point his finger at what he considered a fundamental misunderstanding of Islam among some members of his community: When things like this happen Muslims tend to privately voice their opposition. But nobody wants to address this perspective from an Islamic or Sharia point of view to simply articulate that this is actually wrong Islamically. […] Islam was celebrated for allowing non-Muslim people who lived in an Islamic state to live according to their principles, their religion, their Sharia. This is in Muslim lands in the time of the Caliphate. And we see this video where, in the streets of Tower Hamlets, in the streets of England. Enough said, right?13
18 The intervention in the debate on how to deal with the conflict between community and national values, coming from a leader of the Muslim community in East London, was perceived as a positive one. But it did nonetheless raise fundamental questions. The first one was whether the condemnation of the alleged actions of the vigilantes as ‘wrong islamically’ was an adequate one. It appeared to remain a community-based and self-referential criterion that did not accommodate the legal principles and the values they represented of wider English society. Secondly, the question arose as to whether the defence against possible sectarian violence should depend on the intervention of a religious leader from the community concerned. The lessons of Brixton and subsequent confrontations between the police and minority communities in England’s urban centres had led the police to develop a justifiably pragmatic, piece-meal and community-based approach to their task. Notwithstanding the obvious benefits of policing by cooperation and consent, the nagging doubt about Macpherson expressed by Anne Cryer MP continued to grow. Had Macpherson’s catch-all definition of racism unintentionally led to a situation where the fear of being perceived as discriminating against black and minority ethnic communities by law enforcement agencies, left some of the most vulnerable members of society beyond the protection of the law? Moreover, had this well-intentioned reluctance to intervene in communities with a strong and separate sense of identity inadvertently encouraged some members of those communities to believe that they possessed some kind of exemption from the laws governing everybody else?
19 In a surprisingly candid interview to The Times, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary for England and Wales reflected on those communities who he believed had developed a presumption that the law and its enforcement was something for them to decide:
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There are some communities born under other skies who will not involve the police at all […]. There are cities in the Midlands where the police never go because they are never called. They never hear of any trouble because the community deals with that on its own […]. They just have their own form of community justice […] it could be anything from low-level crime to murder […] honour killings are the most extreme example.14
20 Winsor’s comments were in the context of a wide-ranging report commissioned by the Home Secretary, Theresa May, into the effectiveness of policing in England and Wales. The most hostile reactions to his comments came, in fact, from the police, who refuted what they saw as an accusation of passivity when faced with the challenge of investigating possible crimes in tight-knit ethnic communities. Another underlying implication that was not overlooked, however, was that community-based notions of what was legally acceptable had led to significant numbers of invisible victims of acts perpetrated by individuals who had become less visible in the eyes of law enforcement agencies. While newspapers like The Telegraph pursued their traditional focus on public order, during the course of 2013 The Guardian had begun to investigate the fate of minorities within minorities, and to explore the imperative of intervention in community affairs when faced with an issue as difficult and compelling as female genital mutilation (FGM).
FGM: community autonomy and legal intervention
21 The investigative approach taken by The Guardian was to respond to the voices of women from within the communities affected by FGM, and to give them the opportunity to express themselves, which was being denied to them, sometimes violently, within their own communities. As Efua Dorkenoo, a director of the Equality Now group campaigning against FGM explained: Any woman or girl who speaks out against FGM is in very serious danger from extended members of their family, their neighbours and from their community, especially from so-called gatekeepers of their community who control and harass them if they raise their voices […] You can’t speak out against it without risking your life.15
22 Other voices and groups, speaking notably for British-Somali young women, such as the Daughters of Eve and Integrate Bristol, were given a platform, and the fact that these were voices from within the communities criticising community practices and attitudes circumvented anxieties that the exposure given to the issue of FGM might be tainted by liberal condescension vis-à-vis minority communities.
23 FGM had been made a criminal act in England and Wales in 1985, but it took almost two decades for the government to realise that the provisions of the legislation banning it were not sufficiently robust. In 2003 therefore the existing legislation was superseded by the Female Genital Mutilation Act, which closed an important loophole allowed by the 1985 Act. Under the new Act, it would no longer be possible to take a female settled in Britain to a foreign destination for FGM to be performed. This change, plus harder sanctions against anyone aiding and abetting in the act of FGM, still did not, however, result in any prosecutions. As Keir Starmer, an erstwhile head of the Crown Prosecution Service admitted to the BBC in 2013, the authorities had been too passive: I think we stood back and we waited for a victim to walk through the door of a police station. That was never going to happen […] We need a proactive strategy […]
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because young girls are very unlikely to come forward with evidence against their own family and risk going into care.16
24 In the view of many health and social care professionals who had to deal with the consequences of FGM, the law had to be brought centre stage in society if it was to succeed in protecting girls and young women from this practise.17 If, for obvious reasons, victims could not or would not testify against their families or communities with regard to the crime of FGM, the authorities could adopt precedents already established in the prosecution of other crimes. Victims can, for example, be allowed not to give evidence or participate directly in trials for crimes against pre-verbal children, people with dementia, learning difficulties, in certain cases of domestic violence and also sexual abuse.
25 In contrast to the professionals discreetly pressing for a more proactive legal response to the challenge posed by FGM, the media, and especially The Guardian, found a remarkable standard bearer in its campaign against FGM. Fahma Mohamed, a secondary school student in Bristol, rose to local notoriety as a leading figure in the charity, Integrate Bristol, which campaigns for more education about FGM in schools. By mid-February 2014 she had shot to national prominence as a figurehead for the ‘End FGM’ campaign backed by The Guardian, which promoted a petition on a campaigning website that attracted over 100,000 signatures in the space of 24 hours. The broader media coverage given to Fahma Mohamed, on television and in the press, catapulted her into the category of global celebrity and secured the backing of the United Nations general secretary, Ban Ki-Moon, for her campaign, as well as that of the Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, who had won world-wide admiration for her stand against the Taliban and in favour of education for girls. The pressure on the Education Minister, Michael Gove, to promote awareness in schools of the battle against FGM was proving irresistible.18 The visibility given to the anti-FGM campaign by Fahma Mohamed leading a delegation to the Department of Education in Whitehall in order to deliver the Guardian-backed petition, underscored what was perceived by many as the timidity of the legal establishment regarding prosecutions for the crime of FGM. Within weeks the Crown Prosecution Service announced the first ever case to be brought to trail, but there was to be an unexpected twist in this prosecution. The accused were a consultant obstetrician, Dr Dhanuson Dharmasena, and the colleague who had assisted him in delivering care to a mother giving birth, and who had already been a victim of FGM. The dismay in the medical profession that the terms of the 2003 anti-FGM legislation were being interpreted in such a way led to a mobilisation of Dr Dharmesena’s colleagues. In an open letter published in The Guardian, Dr Dharmasena’s colleagues underlined their conviction that the government and legal authorities were still refusing to look in the direction of the communities and cultures where FGM was really happening: There is a world of difference between FGM and repairing cuts that are necessary to allow a baby’s delivery. Prosecuting professionals for so-called FGM under these circumstances distracts us from the real issues – namely, ensuring that girls are not sent abroad for FGM, that such operations are not performed in the UK, and that we help people in countries where this is endemic to change cultural attitudes.19
26 The indictment by the doctors of the timidity of the government and its law officers regarding the effective prosecution of FGM was powerfully vindicated by the report of the parliamentary Home Affairs Committee in July 2014, which contained a blanket condemnation of the authorities and the caring professions for failing the victims of
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FGM, actual and potential.20 The cost in human suffering was summed up in the following terms in paragraph 19 of the report: The failure to respond adequately to the growing prevalence of FGM over recent years has likely resulted in the preventable mutilation of thousands of girls to whom the state owed a duty of care. This is a national scandal for which successive governments, politicians, the police, health, education and social care sectors all share responsibility.
27 Paragraph 47 identified the hindrance posed by well-intentioned but ultimately misguided concerns about cultural sensitivities that led to FGM not being prosecuted with as much vigour as other forms of child abuse: Misplaced concern for cultural sensitivities over the rights of the child is one of the main reasons why the UK has failed to tackle FGM to date. A key objective for a national action plan on FGM must be to overcome practitioners’ own reluctance to address FGM so that they respond to it in the same way as other forms of child abuse.
28 Interestingly, for the purposes of this article, paragraph 28 contained distinct echoes of the Home Affairs Committee report on the sexual grooming of children that had appeared a few years earlier. More specifically, the anxiety expressed by Anne Cryer that after the Macpherson report and its catch-all definition of racism, too many professionals are afraid of intervening: “Even when they are aware, professionals may be reluctant to intervene because of cultural sensitivity and a fear of being seen as racist […].”
Conclusion
29 Using the media as a means of tracking the perception of social issues is not without potential risks. A notable one is the fact that the way the media engages with social issues is often configured through the depiction of crisis, actual or imminent.21 Headlines, written or spoken, are more attention-grabbing when they evoke community failures or shortcomings in governance. After the headlines generated by the actions of Fahma Mohamed and the report of the parliamentary Home Affairs Committee on FGM, the media rapidly switched its attention to the apparent crisis gripping the moral character of the governing elite in Britain, with stories that started to swirl concerning a deceased Liberal MP, Cyril Smith, who was alleged to have been allowed to indulge his passion for young boys through the willingness of parliamentary friends and colleagues to turn a blind eye. Nonetheless, the responses from different sections of the media to the issues surrounding minorities and the law have assumed a complexity that translates the influence of diversity over recent decades and provide spaces in which identities can be challenged and changed.22 The reactive nature of local and central government, the responses of law enforcement agencies, and the way these have been depicted in the media, convey a long and ongoing process of evolution which reflects what might be called the ‘re-coding of race’ in English society.23 As this article endeavours to illustrate, the consequences for the British conception of citizenship are numerous and challenging.
30 Biographie : Gino G. Raymond est Professeur de French studies au département de français de l’Université de Bristol. Ses travaux, souvent comparatistes, portent sur la société française contemporaine, notamment sur la V° République. Parmi ses publications les plus marquantes, on notera The French Communist Party During the Fifth Republic (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) ; The Construction of Minority
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Indentities in France and Britain (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, co-editeur avec Tariq Modood) ou encore The Sarkozy Presidency: Breaking the Mould? (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, éditeur). Il est par ailleurs un des principaux traducteurs de Pierre Bourdieu en langue anglaise.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Baroness Cox, Sponsor, Private Members’ Bill, Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill [HL] 2010-12. [http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2010-11/arbitrationandmed]
Bindel, J., An Unpunished Crime: The Lack of Prosecutions for Female Genital Mutilation in the UK (London, New Culture Forum, 2014).
Bindel, J, ‘Gangs, girls and grooming, Standpoint Magazine, December 2010.
[http://standpointmag.co.uk/print/3576]
Bowling, B., Violent Racism: Victimisation, Policing and Social Context (Oxford, OUP, 1998).
“Consultant obstetricians and gynaecologists, in defence of Dr Dhanuson Dharmasena, ‘FGM charge obscures the real issues’”, The Guardian, 27/03/14.
Cottle S. (ed.), Ethnic Minorities and the Media (Buckingham, Open University Press, 2000).
Cryer, Anne MP, Uncorrected Transcript of Oral Evidence, HC-182-xi, House of Commons, Oral Evidence Taken Before the Home Affairs Committee on Localised Child Grooming, Tuesday 29 January 2013, Evidence Heard in Public Questions 799-816. [http:// www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/…/uc182-xi/uc18201.pdf].
Franklin, B. (ed.), Social Policy, the Media and Misrepresentation (London, Routledge, 1999).
Hill, A., “Female genital mutilation campaigners face death threats and intimidation”, The Guardian, 8 May 2013. [http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/may/08/female-genital- mutilation-death-intimidation]
Home Affairs Committee, Female Genital Mutilation: The Case for a National Action Plan, HC201 (London, The Stationery Office Limited, 2014).
Lord Scarman, The Scarman Report. The Brixton Disorders 10-12 April 1981 (London, Penguin, 1982).
Maceoin, D., Sharia Law or “One Law for All”? (London, Civitas, 2009).
Macpherson, William, The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry (London, HMSO, 1999).
McLaughlin, E. & Murji, K. “After the Stephen Lawrence Report”, Critical Social Policy 19: 3 (2000).
Parveen, N, “Jack Straw sex grooming comments: the reaction”, Lancashire Telegraph, 10 January 2011.
“Muslims condemn behaviour of Islamic vigilantes”, The Daily Telegraph. [http:// www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9831115/Muslims-condemn-behaviour-of-Islamic- vigilantes.html]
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“‘Muslim Patrol’ Sharia vigilantes take to streets in East London – Truthloader. [http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=nw2w7ACogaY]
“Gangs, girls and grooming”, Standpoint Magazine, December 2010.[http://standpointmag.co.uk/ print/3576]
“Rochdale Abuse: Social services missed opportunities” (BBC News Manchester, 27 September 2012).
[http:www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-19739073]
Smith, A. “The Big Question: How do Britain’s Sharia courts work, and are they a good thing?” (The Independent, 30 June 2009). [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-big- question-how-do-britains-sharia-courts-work-and-are-they-a-good-thing-1724486.html]
Topping, A., “FGM campaigner Fahma Mohamed urges Gove to help end cycle of abuse”, (The Guardian, 25 February 2014). [http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/25/fgm-fahma- mohamed-michael-gove-schools-female-genital-mutilation]
Winsor, T., interview (The Times, 17 January 2014).
NOTES
1. “Rochdale Abuse: Social services missed opportunities” (BBC News Manchester, 27 September 2012). [http:www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-19739073] (Accessed 17 March 2016). 2. N. Parveen, “Jack Straw sex grooming comments: the reaction”, (Lancashire Telegraph, 10 January 2011). 3. J. Bindel, “Gangs, girls and grooming”, (Standpoint Magazine, December 2010). [http://standpointmag.co.uk/print/3576] (Accessed 14 February 2016). 4. Anne Cryer MP, Uncorrected Transcript of Oral Evidence, HC-182-xi, House of Commons, Oral Evidence Taken Before the Home Affairs Committee on Localised Child Grooming, Tuesday 29 January 2013, Evidence Heard in Public Questions 799-816. [http:// www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/…/uc182-xi/uc18201.pdf] (Accessed 14 February 2016). 5. B. Bowling, Violent Racism: Victimisation, Policing and Social Context (Oxford, OUP, 1998), p. xiv. 6. Lord Scarman, The Scarman Report. The Brixton Disorders 10-12 April 1981 (London, Penguin, 1982), pp. 105-106. 7. William Macpherson, The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry (London, HMSO, 1999). 8. In A. Smith, “The Big Question: How do Britain’s Sharia courts work, and are they a good thing?”, The Independent, 30 June 2009. [http://independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-big- question-how-do-britains-…] (Accessed 14 February 2016). 9. Baroness Cox, Sponsor, Private Members’ Bill, Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill [HL] 2010-12. [http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2010-11/arbitrationandmed] (Accessed 14 February 2016). 10. D. Maceoin, Sharia Law or “One Law for All”? (London, Civitas, 2009), p. 73. 11. R. Alleyne, “Sharia divorces could be allowed after legal ruling” ( The Daily Telegraph, 1 February 2013). [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9841370/Sharia-divorces-could-be- allowed-…] (Accessed 14 February 2016). 12. “Muslim Patrol Sharia vigilantes take to streets in East London”, Truthloader [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nw2w7ACogaY] (Accessed 14 February 2016).
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13. The Daily Telegraph, “Muslims condemn behaviour of Islamic vigilantes” [http:// www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9831115/Muslims-condemn-behaviour-of-Islamic- vigilantes.html] (Accessed 14 February 2016). 14. T. Winsor, interview (The Times, 17 January 2014). 15. In A. Hill, “Female genital mutilation campaigners face death threats and intimidation” (The Guardian, 8 May 2013). [http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/may/08/female-genital-mutilation-death- intimidation] (Accessed 21 April 2014). 16. In J. Bindel, An Unpunished Crime: The Lack of Prosecutions for Female Genital Mutilation in the UK (London, New Culture Forum, 2014), p.22. 17. Ibid., p.23. 18. A. Topping, “FGM campaigner Fahma Mohamed urges Gove to help end cycle of abuse” (The Guardian, 25 February 2014). [http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/25/fgm-fahma-mohamed-michael-gove- schools-female-genital-mutilation] (Accessed 14 February 2016). 19. Consultant obstetricians and gynaecologists, in defence of Dr Dhanuson Dharmasena, “FGM charge obscures the real issues” (The Guardian, 27 March 2014). 20. Home Affairs Committee, Female Genital Mutilation: The Case for a National Action Plan, HC201 (London, The Stationery Office Limited, 2014). 21. B. Franklin (ed.), Social Policy, the Media and Misrepresentation (London, Routledge, 1999), p. 2. 22. S. Cottle (ed.), Ethnic Minorities and the Media (Buckingham, Open University Press, 2000), p.2. 23. E. McLaughlin & K. Murji, “After the Stephen Lawrence Report”, Critical Social Policy, 19: 3, (2000), pp.371-385, p. 377.
ABSTRACTS
This article evokes the contradictions of the English judicial system and the political class with regard to the rights of citizens from minority communities, notably Muslim ones. Whether it is violence aimed at women, the interpretation of marriage rights or the defence of a sectarian notion of community, English courts are sometimes inclined to tolerate citizens behaving in a way that is characterised by particularism and inequality. The report by Lord Scarman after the Brixton riots, followed by Lord Macpherson’s on the death of the teenager Stephen Lawrence, would appear to have opened the door to an interpretation of racism which hinders the willingness of the authorities to intervene in certain communities, and which might be seen to challenge the principle of equality underlying the concept of citizenship.
Cet article évoque les contradictions du système judiciaire anglais et de la classe politique concernant les droits des citoyens issus des communautés minoritaires, notamment musulmanes. Qu’il s’agisse des violences faites aux femmes, l’interprétation des droits matrimoniaux ou la défense d’un communautarisme sectaire, les tribunaux anglais se montrent parfois disposés à tolérer un comportement citoyen caractérisé par le particularisme et l’inégalité. Le rapport de Lord Scarman après les émeutes de Brixton, suivi par celui de Lord Macpherson sur la mort de l’adolescent Stephen Lawrence, auraient ouvert la porte à une interprétation du racisme qui freine la volonté d’intervenir au sein de certaines minorités de la part des autorités, et constitueraient un défi au principe égalitaire qui sous-tend la conception de la citoyenneté.
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INDEX
Mots-clés: abus sexuels sur mineurs, racism, Rapport Scarman, Rapport Macpherson Keywords: child sexual grooming, racism, Scarman Report, Macpherson Report
AUTHOR
GINO G. RAYMOND University of Bristol
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Housing and Citizenship in the UK: Towards a Conditional Right? Logement et citoyenneté au Royaume-Uni : vers un droit conditionnel?
David Fée
Introduction
1 Unlike other policy areas, such as immigration or education, there was little overt or national debate about housing and citizenship until the 2000s,1 probably because housing had slipped down the political agenda. As a result, at the time of writing, the connection between the two terms may still not seem obvious. However, it is my contention that housing can throw light on the new social contract between the state and the citizen as well as the changing contours of citizenship in Britain as I shall endeavour to explain in the following article.
2 By citizenship we must understand “a status bestowed on those who are full members of a community” as T. H. Marshall defined it in his 1950 essay Citizenship and Social Class.2 According to Marshall's well-known narrative, citizenship is the result of a gradual evolution that culminated in the post-war social democratic welfare state when social rights were institutionalised and added to existing political and civil rights. As a result of this evolution, by the 1950s, full citizenship had been granted to all members of the British community according to Marshall.
3 Housing has never fitted, except briefly, Marshall's definition of citizenship. Whereas it used to partake of a broad definition of citizenship based on community membership after the war, it became associated with an active definition of citizenship in the 1980s and 1990s and in recent years with a narrower definition that is increasingly synonymous with British nationality. More generally, since the late 1990s, far from being an automatic entitlement that comes with citizenship, (social) housing has become a conditional right. The housing reforms introduced by both the Conservatives and Labour since the 1980s have sought to turn social housing into a tool used to craft a socially acceptable form of behaviour by making it a conditional right. In sum, be it in a
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positive or negative way, in an explicit or residuary way, housing has never ceased to be a contested feature of citizenship in Britain.
4 In order to explore the changing relationship between housing and citizenship, I shall draw on the grid devised by Ruth Levitas to analyse discourses on social exclusion.3 In a nutshell, Levitas argues that, since 1945, three discourses have focused successively in time on poverty, then on morals and behaviour and finally on social inclusion through work. These are defined as RED (a ‘redistributionist discourse’), MUD (‘a moral underclass discourse’), and SID (a ‘social integrationist discourse’). Although this analytical grid does not fit housing policies perfectly, it can be useful in analysing the links between citizenship and housing policy since 1945. Indeed, these three discourses, or variations of them, have informed housing policies at different points in time since that date and can throw light on the objectives of successive policy makers.
5 The dominant post-war redistributive housing discourse which included housing among the fundamental social rights that came with British citizenship has given way to new discourses. First, to a responsibility and independence discourse that has painted home ownership as the natural tenure since the 1970s; second, to a moral discourse that has defined social housing as a conditional right since the late 1990s; third, to an integrationist discourse that has made work and residence a condition for accessing social housing since the 2010s.
Housing as a social right? The problem of allocation
6 On the face of it, housing fits T. H. Marshall's account of the development of citizenship in Britain, as the decades from the 1920s to the 1970s were marked by the emergence, then recognition and finally expansion of a new social right in the form of a right to a decent home. During those decades, housing gradually earned its place alongside the British social services that enabled an individual “to live the life of a civilized being according to the standards prevailing in the society” in the words of T. H. Marshall.4
7 However, compared to other social entitlements defining the contours of citizenship, housing appeared fairly late on the scene. The sacrosanct nature of private property and the belief that state housing would open the door to a flow of further demands from the working classes combined to prevent any state housing programme until the second decade of the 20th century. It took a war for the authorities to step into the housing field: fearing a revolution after the soldiers were demobilized and returned to their unhealthy living conditions, the coalition government passed the Housing Act, 1919. The Act made it compulsory for local authorities to build council homes for the working classes when there was a local proven need. State intervention was justified by the need to reward heroes (hence the expression ‘homes fit for heroes’). However, it was not underpinned by a discourse focusing on social rights but on sanitation.
8 The short lived nature of the state funded housing programme showed that the principle of a housing right had not been established yet. In 1921, the coalition government passed another Housing Act that reduced state subsidies, effectively bringing the housing programme to a halt for the time being. Furthermore, the adequacy of a state housing programme was the object of a constant tussle between the Conservatives and Labour when they alternated in office, which goes to demonstrate that there was no consensus about housing being an entitlement conferred by citizenship. State subsidised housing for the working classes was definitely put paid to
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by the Housing Act, 1933. However, the coalition government of Ramsay MacDonald came close to establishing a minimal housing right in 1935 when it passed a Housing Act which included an official definition of overcrowding and made it compulsory for local authorities to re-house families living in overcrowded and unfit conditions.
9 Housing only became a social right after WWII, albeit distinct from other social rights in its scope and nature. It was one of the main planks of the egalitarian agenda promoted by the Attlee government that was designed to extend the inter-war social rights to the whole of the British population on a universal basis. The housing measures introduced by the Attlee government were embedded in a redistributionist discourse that focused on poverty and regarded housing policy as a means of combating it and delivering full citizenship. The 1945 Labour Manifesto made this clear, pledging: “it [the government] will proceed with a housing programme with the maximum practical speed until every family in this island has a good standard of accommodation”.
10 The Housing Act, 19495 turned this commitment into a reality. It introduced a universal housing right by widening the scope of the housing programme from special needs (slum living) to general needs (for all), removing the pre-war working class qualification to access council housing and allowing any British citizen to put his/her name on the local authority waiting list and apply for a council home. Mass housing became an essential component of the post-war grand design of achieving full citizenship in Britain.
11 Although housing remained a major plank of the post-war settlements6 until the late 1970s, it stood apart from other social services. Contrary to Marshall's theory, it was never really construed and accepted as a universal social right by both main political parties. Whereas until the mid-1960s, to Labour, subsidised council housing remained a means of making British society more egalitarian, to the Conservative party, it was only a necessary temporary measure, justified by the post-war housing shortage. Those differences of conception became apparent when the Conservatives returned to power in 1951. Their 1951 manifesto underlined their selective and utilitarian conception of social housing7 and the measures introduced after 1954 led to the decline of council building and the revival of the private sector.8 If there was to be redistribution, it was to be through the expansion of home ownership, according to the Conservatives.9
12 Furthermore, the scope and the nature of this social right were different from other social rights. Housing was a potential or virtual right, not an actual one, since access was dependent on the success of the housebuilding programme. Besides, one's place on the council's waiting list depended on the discretion exercised by housing officers in ranking applicants on the basis of fairly subjective criteria and a variety of points schemes used to prioritize applications.10 This is why to some specialists “rather than the notion of rights, it is the notion of control of access which has been in the forefront throughout most of the history of social housing”.11 In addition, housing was not a free service at the point of delivery, unlike health or education, since to enjoy this service a British citizen needed to pay a rent.
13 Finally, housing exemplified the potential gap between citizenship and rights, as not all citizens were entitled to social housing. As such, it illustrates the distinction made by William Brubaker between substantive and formal citizenship.12 Indeed, ethnic minorities from the Commonwealth, although they were granted British citizenship by the British Nationality Act 1948, were often denied access to the council housing stock and were not able to exercise much locational choice. Before the Race Relations Act,
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1965, they were not only the victims of open discriminatory practices in the rented private sector but of structural racism in the public housing sector, too.13 Indeed, because of a severe post-war housing shortage, many local authorities set a five-year residency test to restrict eligibility. Conversely, the redefinition and restriction of British nationality in 1981 and in 2002 led, until 2011, to access to social housing being opened to categories of legal residents (new Commonwealth immigrants) that were no longer British nationals, thus redefining the concept of citizenship in a broader way (along national community membership lines). Legal migrants (mostly from the new Commonwealth) became entitled to social housing although they no longer had British nationality.
14 Thus, although housing was gradually and formally included after 1919 in the number of social rights that came with the status of British citizen, its full inclusion was always in doubt. Whereas Labour's housing policies were clearly underpinned by an egalitarian and redistributive discourse, this was only briefly so, as far as the Conservative party was concerned. Furthermore, the problem of allocation raised by social housing shows how uneasily it fits Marshall's conception of citizenship.
Housing for responsible citizens
15 By the late 1970s, the perception of social housing as a natural component of citizenship had given way to a very different one. Social housing became construed as “ a tenure of last resort”.14 Conversely, a shift took place in Conservative government rhetoric and policies as they sought to widen access to home ownership and re-brand it as a badge of full citizenship, thus defining implicitly two types of citizens.
16 This shift in attitude and thinking can be traced to various Conservative housing documents. As early as the 1953 Housing White Paper, the Churchill government expressed its conviction that: “Her Majesty’s Government believe that the people of this country prefer, in housing as in other matters, to help themselves as much as they can rather than rely wholly or mainly upon the efforts of the Government”.15 The document established a clear link between home ownership and responsibility. By 1970, the promotion of home ownership had taken on a more assertive tone and Conservative publications implied “ the superiority of home ownership over other tenures”.16 The 1971 White Paper stressed not just the “deep natural desire” that prompted people to become home owners but the control over one’s life as well as the economic independence it provided.17 This policy shift was made easier after the Labour party came out in favour of home ownership in its 1965 White Paper.18 In 1977, the Labour party made its position even clearer in the Housing Green Paper: We must make it easier for people to obtain the tenure they want. More and more people would like to become home owners [...] for most people owning one’s own home is a basic and natural desire which for most people is becoming attainable.19
17 The adoption by the Labour Party of their opponents' belief signalled the start of what is called the residualisation process, the concentration of poor households in the public rented sector. As a result of the support given to prospective home owners by the two main political parties when in office, of the Conservatives' determination to increase council rents, as well as of rising standards of living, the council housing sector ceased to appeal to a wide section of the British population. The second-class dimension of social housing was compounded by two decisions made by the Callaghan government in
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1977. That year Labour passed the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act that defined certain categories of the population as being in priority need if homeless and that were to be rehoused by councils. At the same time, the Housing Green Paper announced the government's intention to resort increasingly to the council stock to house economically inactive categories of the population as well as low income households.20
18 The decline in the status of social housing became more marked during the Thatcher years. As early as 1980, Michael Heseltine, the new Conservative Secretary of the Environment emphasised the need to foster the desire for home ownership for the reasons mentioned above to which he added a crucial new one: “it stimulates the attitudes of independence and self-reliance that are the bedrock of a free society”.21 The 'responsible and independence' discourse that sought to justify Conservative housing policies remained the dominant one until the party lost power in 1997. It was used to justify the sale of close to 2 million council homes to their tenants at a huge cost for the country since they were sold at a discount. All the 1980s Conservative manifestos were laced with arguments upholding the promotion of home ownership for the above mentioned arguments: in the 1983 Conservative manifesto, for instance, housing proposals came under the heading of Responsibility and the Family and so explicitly linked individual responsibility and home ownership. The manifesto read: Freedom and responsibility go together. The Conservative Party believes in encouraging people to take responsibility for their own decisions. We shall continue to return more choice to individuals and their families. That is the way to increase personal freedom. It is also the way to improve standards in the state services. […] Under this Government, the property-owning democracy is growing fast. And the basic foundation of it is the family home.22
19 The 1987 Conservative manifesto went beyond the usual arguments of responsibility and independence provided by home ownership and added a new theme, that of stake- holding, implicitly linking home ownership and social stability. It stated: “It gives people a stake in society-something to conserve. It is the foundation stone of a capital-owning democracy”.23
20 However, the path to becoming a responsible citizen was not restricted to becoming a home owner. More generally, it entailed exercising choice and being an active customer in the housing field as in other social services. This is why the 1988 Housing Act, in line with commitments in the 1987 Conservative Manifesto, provided all council tenants with a “right to choose”: they were given the right to transfer to a new landlord, to ask another landlord to take over their home, or to form a cooperative to run their homes. These provisions were included in the housing sections of John Major's Citizen's Charter in July 1991. Thus tenants, and not just home owners, were turned into consumers making choices between different providers, in accordance with the new institutional economic principles implemented after 1988 by the Conservatives in order to reform public services.24 This conception of citizens as consumers was exemplified by section 167 of the Local Government and Housing Act, 1989. This made it compulsory for local authorities to provide information to their tenants in the form of an annual report containing 150 items of information grouped around 28 indicators.25 The purpose was to prompt tenants to compare local authorities and to use either the voice or the exit option as defined by A. O. Hirschman, namely to complain or use their right of transfer to another public service provider if they were not satisfied with their own. 26 This new constraint placed on local authorities was also designed to encourage them to improve their services for fear they would lose their tenants and so their income.
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21 This drive to turn social tenants into active citizens (namely consumers) was carried on by the Labour governments between 1997 and 2010. They even went one step further with the introduction of Choice Based Lettings in 2000. This allocation system modelled on a Dutch scheme and designed to bring about “a more customer-centred approach”27 has replaced the post-war allocation system. It gives applicants the possibility to bid for a social home, and if selected, the option to turn down an offer rather than being allocated a home by the council. In the social housing sector, just as in the market sector, the possibility to choose one's home has become a key component of citizenship, a prerequisite for responsible citizens.
Civil rights of contract?
22 After 1996, the boundaries of citizenship were redrawn in the field of housing once more. Social housing has become embedded in a new discourse that has run parallel with the responsibility discourse ever since. This new discourse has laid emphasis on moral obligations even more clearly than before and has made social housing a conditional right for law-abiding sitting tenants. As such, it illustrates what F. Twine calls “civil rights of contracts”.28 In the field of housing, government attention has shifted from fostering active and responsible citizens to controlling the behaviour of tenants. Whereas citizenship was always in theory “a set of rights and obligations for those who are included in the list of members”,29 it appears that we have moved in the housing field from a universal (formal) right to a conditional one and that the stress has shifted from rights to obligations. Social housing policies have given a new lease of life to the distinction between deserving and undeserving citizens.
23 The intrusion of this moral discourse into the housing field was first visible in the Housing Act, 1996 which raised the question of antisocial behaviour in social housing. Section 124 of the Act gave local authorities the power to operate introductory tenancies for new tenants during a trial period for the first time. It also extended the grounds for repossession beyond the usual grounds of non-payment of rent and having made a false statement –found in the 1988 Housing Act– to include nuisance and annoyance to neighbours, using the dwelling for immoral or illegal purposes, being a convicted criminal or perpetrator of domestic violence (sections 144-145). It also explicitly used the term 'antisocial behaviour' in the context of social housing30 and granted courts the power to issue an injunction at the request of a social landlord. Access to and enjoyment of social housing became dependent on tenants' displaying respectful and neighbourly behaviour.
24 The growing criminalization of certain social tenants and the reduction of their rights as citizens in the field of housing in the last year of Conservative government must be read against the background of the expansion of a moral underclass discourse (MUD) in the 1990s. As highlighted by Ruth Levitas,31 the term ‘underclass’ had been used as early as 1979 but without any moral connotation by Peter Townsend when referring to different categories of poor in British society. However, with the publication of The Emerging British Underclass by Charles Murray in 1990 in which he argued that the welfare state had led to the emergence of deviant communities characterized by “ illegitimacy, crime and drop-out from the labour work”,32 it took on moral overtones. The Conservative governments found in the book a justification for reducing social rights or making them conditional on moral obligations, as in the Housing Act, 1996.
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25 After returning to power in 1997, the Labour party shifted the focus of government policies and discourse onto social exclusion while at the same time making access to social housing more conditional. Part 2 of the Antisocial Behaviour Act, 2003 was entirely devoted to housing and confirmed the government's determination to crack down on antisocial behaviour in the field of housing as announced in the 2000 Green Paper.33 The Act tilted the balance of power further in favour of local authorities (in England and Wales): sections 14 and 15 gave social landlords a new right, the right to apply for a demotion order ending a secure or an assured tenancy in the case of anti- social behaviour. As a result of the order, the tenancy could then be replaced by a less secure form of tenancy (a demoted tenancy). This provision was meant to provide a clear linkage between the enjoyment of the benefits of social housing and ‘responsible behaviour’ and was seen as a first warning. Furthermore, section 16 of the 2003 Act enabled a social landlord when satisfied that a tenant had behaved in an anti-social way to seek possession of the tenant’s home.
26 The hardening of government measures vis-à-vis social tenants can be accounted for by the Labour government's conviction that anti-social behaviour was a key factor behind social exclusion.34 Anti-social behaviour had become a government priority following the report of the Social Exclusion Unit's Policy Action Team 8 on anti-social behaviour which had fed into the National Strategy Action Plan.35 It was seen as an obstacle to the government's promise to build strong and sustainable communities36 and a “nation where no-one is seriously disadvantaged by where they live”.37 It was also construed as one of the main causes fuelling the phenomenon of low demand areas in some British cities. As highlighted by a number of reports published after 1981,38 those areas were shunned by both buyers and tenants and had become caught in a demographic and economic downward spiral. For the government, it was urgent to reinforce community cohesion and social capital – in line with Robert Putnam's theories39 – and so fight anti-social behaviour in order to turn these areas around and regenerate them.
27 Putnam's theories linking social capital and thriving communities can account for the New Labour government's decision to strengthen the powers of social landlords (in England and Wales) over tenants in Part 6 of the Housing Act, 2004. The Act, in particular, enabled local authorities to extend an introductory tenancy by a further six months if there were doubts about the behaviour of tenants. It also made it possible to suspend certain rights enjoyed by social tenants as a result of anti-social behaviour: thus, under sections 191 and 192, a social landlord can decide to withhold the right of a secure tenant to buy his or her house or refuse to allow a tenant to exchange home with another tenant.
28 The moral obligations of social tenants were further underlined in the final years of New Labour after the launch of the Respect Action Plan in early 2006. Following a speech by Tony Blair at the 2005 Labour party conference40 in which he argued in favour of stronger sanctions against problem families, cross-departmental measures were announced. One of the most controversial decisions was to consult on temporary evictions of the so-called ‘neighbours from hell’ who had come to dominate the news, whether social or private tenants or home-owners. In 2006-2007, 53 Family Intervention Projects were set up to try and help problem families evicted from social housing or on the verge of eviction in order to improve their behaviour. One year later, the Housing and Regeneration Act, 2008 gave social landlords (in England and Wales) the power to offer a Family Intervention Tenancy to problem families, either evicted or
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the verge of eviction. The tenancy is part of the Behavioural Support Agreement those families are expected to enter into; its contract nature is underlined by the fact that its duration depends on the family's improved behaviour and their acceptance of the support scheme.41
29 The Coalition government formed in 2010 has not moved away from this punitive line of action, despite its criticisms of New Labour's enforcement approach and its emphasis on prevention.42 Social housing has remained a conditional right whose enjoyment is dependent on the behaviour of tenants as underlined by the provisions of the Localism Act, 2011. The Act has further eroded the housing rights of English citizens as section 160ZA of the Act makes it possible for English local authorities to determine who qualifies for access to their social housing stock. In conjunction with Communities and Local Government guidance43 that advises local authorities to refuse to house people with a history of anti-social behaviour, the legislation bars those applicants from accessing the social housing stock. Tellingly, the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act, 2014 has added a new discretionary ground for eviction. Section 99 makes it possible for any English landlord to seek possession of property where the tenant has been convicted of an offence committed at the scene of a riot in the UK. This measure flows from the Conservatives' perception of Britain as a ‘Broken Society’, as set out by the party before the 2010 election, and as a country where responsibility needs to be upheld.44
30 As a result of these measures, it appears that housing has ceased to be a categorical social right as defined by T. H. Marshall and has become a conditional one, especially in England following devolution to Scotland and Wales. Citizenship and housing have become dissociated to various degrees depending on which of the four nations of the UK tenants live in; full citizenship in the field of housing is offered to those law-abiding citizens or community members that comply with a number of social rules and fulfil their social obligations to their neighbours, communities and landlords.
Earned Citizenship
31 Since 2010 and the coming to power of the Coalition government, this moral discourse has been compounded by a fourth and last discourse that lays stress on work and integration in the community. As a result, new restrictions have been placed on access to social housing. Citizenship now needs to be earned. In the field of housing, this requires that an individual be an active, well-integrated member of the local community. It is also becoming increasingly synonymous with British nationality.
32 The motivations behind this shift are twofold but interconnected: first, the potential for social housing to fuel the rise of far-right parties has caused alarm among mainstream parties. Indeed, there has been growing concern among the British population that immigration, in particular from Eastern EU countries, has had a negative impact on public services and various polls have revealed the determination of many British people to vote for the BNP or UKIP on housing grounds in particular.45 Media portrayal of new immigration to the UK has played a major role in changing popular attitudes46 and generating the misconception that social housing was disproportionately allocated to migrants.47 The electoral dimension of the issue led to Labour Minister Margaret Hodge calling in a 2007 Observer article for a rethink of social housing allocation policy, in order to substitute the criteria of citizenship and length of
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residence in place of need. Two years later, the Brown government, before losing power, considered restricting immigrants’ access to social housing.48 The polemic did not go away after the 2010 election and the Coalition government decided to respond to public opinion. As the date for lifting restrictions on the circulation of people from Bulgaria and Romania drew closer, David Cameron gave a speech in March 2013 in which he declared “new migrants should not expect to be given a home on arrival and yet at present almost one in ten new social lettings go to foreign nationals”.49 He went on to announce changes to allocation rules (see below). More recently, in the run-up to the 2015 general election, the Conservative party pledged to reform welfare rules for European citizens and introduce a four-year residence requirement before they could be considered for social housing.50 This pledge was designed to strengthen the hand of a future Conservative government during negotiations with European partners in order to obtain special rules for Britain and diffuse the risk of Brexit.
33 Second, the Coalition government gradually took the full measure of the housing crisis51 and became aware that it was worsening despite its attempts to simplify the planning legislation in order to ease supply. Home ownership is fast becoming beyond the means of new households and as a result social landlords’ waiting lists are lengthening and rents in the private sector rising, “potentially creating financial instability”.52 Ironically, this realisation prompted the Conservative Party to make a U- turn about home-ownership and Chancellor George Osborne in January 2014 to declare: “Aspiration is not just about wanting your own home, it is also wanting to have your own home as a social tenant”.53 The housing crisis seems to have put paid to the Thatcherite dogma of home ownership as the be-all and end-all of citizenship.
34 The changing electoral context and the deepening housing crisis account for the Coalition government's decision to change the legislation on social housing allocation and to link access to it to nationality more closely. Changes to access to social housing have been made possible by the Localism Act, 2011 as section 160ZA (6 and 7) of the Act enables English local authorities to take over the management of their waiting lists. As explained before, the Act gives them the right to determine who qualifies for social housing in their area and to decide who must be protected by the statutory reasonable preference criteria introduced in 1994. As a result, since June 2012, they have been able to drop the previous national allocation scheme that hinged on open waiting lists, namely the right for anyone to register on a council's waiting list. Citizenship, in the field of housing, has become variable and highly dependent on local contingencies and can no longer be defined at a national level.
35 The decision to give greater leeway to local authorities in allocations procedures amounts to a break with access policies as they were defined after 1977 and a return to the immediate post-war situation. Indeed, from 1977 to 2011, the main criterion used by local authorities to prioritise applicants was need, and all allocation decisions had to be made in accordance with a local allocation (points or banding) scheme that had to be open and transparent (see part VI of the Housing Act, 1996). Under the 2011 Act, the categories of the population formerly given priority and defined in the 1977 and 2002 Housing Acts are the only ones given a reasonable preference (but not necessarily absolute priority).54 Not only do English local councils today have the scope to include in their allocation schemes other criteria than need to prioritise applicants, but they can keep some people off their waiting list. The purpose is “to tackle the widespread
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perception that the way social housing is allocated is unfair and to address concerns that the system favours households who have little connection to the local area over local people”.55
36 Following David Cameron’s speech on immigration in March 2013, the provisions included in the 2011 Act were reinforced by a new statutory housing allocations guidance in December 2013. The guidance explicitly encourages English councils to use their new freedom and “increase opportunities for hard-working households”.56 Councils are requested to review their existing allocation policies and revise them in line with the guidance which advises them to introduce a residence requirement of two years, something Labour had contemplated in the face of another immigration polemic in June 2009 (see above). In Scotland, however, the Housing (Scotland) Act, 2001 forbids social landords to take into account the length of residence in the area. The guidance makes it clear that social housing should go to “deserving” people57 and enables councils to fast track two categories of applicants, those seeking to move into the area to take up a job or be closer to work and former members of the armed forces. Communities Secretary Eric Pickles justified the measure by saying: “it’s time to back those who work hard and do the right thing and prioritise social housing for those people who deserve it the most ”.58
37 The encouragement given to council to review their procedures has led councils to prioritise access to their social housing stock in different ways. Among local authorities, Bournemouth was one of the first to include, in 2012, the need to demonstrate a positive contribution to the local community as part of its qualification criteria: this can mean being in training, education or employment.59 Hammersmith and Fulham council has also altered its allocation rules so as to include a five year residence requirement. More generally, the idea behind the new scheme is, according to the council, to prioritise “hard working local residents” who “make a significant contribution to the community”.60 The council went one step further than the national guidance by preventing households above a certain income level (£40,200) from accessing the housing register. On top of the above mentioned criteria, Slough has added that of being a 'good citizen'. In the words of its assistant director for housing and environment, Neil Aves, this refers to those local residents who “have volunteered locally or contributed to community projects”.61
38 As a result of these new provisions, it can be argued that the link between nationality and citizenship has been tightened in social housing since British people are far more likely to meet the requirements set by councils (residence, involvement and work) than (recent) migrants. The decision in December 2013 by the Coalition government to reform access to benefits62 – including Job Seekers Allowance and housing benefit- for EEA (European Economic Area) migrants has further reduced their housing rights and extended this link to the private rented sector. Since January 2014, EEA nationals have no longer been able to apply for housing benefit unless they have been in the UK for three months and when unemployed, they have had to prove that “they have a genuine prospect of finding work”.63 Furthermore, since April 2014, EEA nationals whose only right to reside is as jobseekers have been barred from Housing Benefit. Finally, more recently, in February 2016, following tense discussions with his European partners in Brussels at a special European Council meeting, David Cameron obtained the right to suspend in-work benefits for EEA migrants for a period of seven years. In order to claim these benefits, migrants will have to have worked in the UK for four years. As a consequence, being a member of the national community no longer automatically
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entitles (legal) migrants to housing. Increasingly, they are having to demonstrate long- term integration (through work and residence) in the community before they can get on the social housing waiting list or claim state help with private rented housing. Thus, housing rights have been redefined on the basis of different types of statuses that reflect various immigration situations and above all British nationality.
Conclusion
39 To conclude, the official discourse underpinning housing policies has greatly varied over time. We have gone from a post-war egalitarian discourse that briefly included housing among the fundamental social rights offered to British citizens to one that explicitly promoted home-ownership at the expense of social housing, on to a moral one that links housing to acceptable behaviour to end today with a social integrationist discourse that makes social housing a reward for hard-working citizens, most of whom are British nationals. Paradoxically, during all those decades, despite housing not being at the top of the political agenda, it turns out it has been at the centre of government efforts to redefine citizenship in Britain and it has become one of the most effective tools of social control (especially in England after devolution was introduced in Scotland and Wales in 1997). At a time of housing shortage, it has become easier to enforce state-defined acceptable behaviour in return for a social home.
40 The new rights given to local authorities (mostly English) in the field of housing since the late 1990s have enabled them to grade UK residents on the basis of a number of criteria and so to restrict access to what was briefly after the war an unconditional (albeit formal) social right. It has led to different degrees of citizenship being established in different parts of the country. However, it is difficult to see how councils will be able to reconcile their duties to house statutory categories of the population with greater local discretion, at a time of acute social housing shortage, when it is tempting to cut waiting lists. The new guidelines offer fertile ground for court cases against a background of domestic and EU anti-discrimination legislation as many lawyers have warned.
41 David Fée est professeur de civilisation britannique à l’université de Sorbonne-Nouvelle Paris 3. Ses travaux portent sur l’Etat-providence britannique et plus précisément sur les politiques de logement en Grande-Bretagne ainsi que sur les politiques de la ville. Il est l’auteur de La crise du logement en Angleterre : Quatre décennies de politiques du logement et de la ville, 1977-2013 (Michel Houdiard). Il a co-dirigé plusieurs livres sur le thème de la crise du logement, de la ville ainsi que de la corruption en Grande-Bretagne. Ses recherches en cours sont consacrées aux inégalités en Grande-Bretagne.
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NOTES
1. One notable exception being Alex Marsh and David Mullins, Housing and Public Policy: Citizenship, Choice and Control (Buckingham, Open University Press, 1998). 2. T. H. Marshall, Citizenship and Social Class and other essays (Cambridge, University Press, 1950), p. 28. 3. Ruth Levitas, The Inclusive Society: Social Exclusion and New Labour (London, Palgrave Macmillan, 1998). 4. T. H. Marshall, Citizenship and Social Class and other essays, op. cit., p. 11. 5. Housing Act, 1949, Part 1, § 1. 6. A social settlement, an organisational one and a political-economic one, as defined by J. Clarke and J. Newman, The Managerial State (London, Sage, 1997), pp. 1-18. 7. The Conservative Party, Conservative Party General Election Manifesto, 1951, p. 15: “Housing is the first of the social services. It is also one of the keys to increased productivity. Work, family life, health and education are all undermined by overcrowded homes”. Conservative Central Office, Fair Share on Housing, 1954, p. 15: “Help for those who need it, but not for those who don't […] that is why subsidies for new houses are to be cut”. 8. The Housing Repairs and Rent Act, 1954, started to remove rent control in the private sector and instructed local authorities to deal with slum areas; the 1956 Housing Subsidies Act enabled local authorities to operate differentiated rent schemes and reduced general needs subsidies. 9. Hansard, volume 494, col. 2251, H. Macmillan, 4 December 1951, “We wish to see the widest possible distribution of property. We think that of all forms of property suitable for such distribution, house property is one of the best”. 10. See David Mullins and Pat Niner, “A Prize of citizenship? Changing access to social housing”, pp. 175-199 in Alex Marsh and David Mullins (ed.), op. cit. 11. Ibid. 12. William Rogers Brubaker, “Citizenship and Naturalization: Policies and Politics”, pp. 99-129 in William Rogers Brubaker (ed.), Immigration and the Politics of Citizenship in Europe and North America (London, University Press of America, 1989). 13. Valérie Sala Pala, Discriminations ethniques : les politiques du logement social en France et au Royaume-Uni (Rennes, PUR, 2013). 14. Ray Forrest and Alan Murie, Selling the Welfare State, The Privatisation of Public Housing (Routledge, London, 1988), pp. 65-85. 15. Ministry of Housing and Local Government, Housing: The Next Steps, Cmnd 8896 (London, HMSO, 1953), p. 3. 16. Alan Murie, “Secure and contented citizens? Home ownership in Britain”, pp. 79-99, in A. Marsh and D. Mullins (eds), op. cit., p. 88. 17. Department of the Environment, Fair Deal for Housing (London: HMSO, 1971), p. 4, in A. Marsh and D. Mullins (eds), op. cit., p. 88. 18. Ministry of Housing and Local Government, The Housing Programme: 1965 to 1970, Cmnd 2838 (London, HMSO, 1965), p. 9. 19. Ibid., p. 7. 20. “We must secure a reasonable degree of priority in access to public rented sector housing […] for people in housing need who in the past have found themselves at the end of the queue”, p. 7, DOE, Housing Policy : a consultative document, Cmnd. 6851 (London, HMSO, 1977). 21. Michael Heseltine, Hansard, 1980, in A. Murie, op. cit., p. 88. 22. Conservative Party, The 1983 Manifesto, Foreword: the Challenge of our Times, 1983, p. 25. 23. Conservative Party, The 1987 Manifesto, The Next Moves Forward, 1987, p. 20.
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24. They revolve around introducing incentive structures into public services, see R. A. W. Rhodes, Understanding Governance, Policy Networks, Governance, Reflexivity and Accountability (Maidenhead, The Open University, 1997), p. 49. 25. Pat Niner, “Charters in housing: Enhancing citizenship, promoting choice or reinforcing control?”, in A. Marsh and D. Mullins (eds), op. cit., p. 201. 26. A. O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms (Cambridge, Harvard University, 1970). 27. DETR, Quality and Choice, a Decent Home for All: The Housing Green Paper (London, HMSO, 2000), §9.2. 28. Fred Twine, Citizenship and Social Rights: The Interdependence of Self and Society (London, Sage, 1994), p. 42. 29. Ralf Darhendorf, “Citizenship and Social Class”, in Martin Bulmer and Anthony Rees, Citizenship Today: the Contemporary Relevance of T.H. Marshall (London, UCL Press, 1996), p. 32. 30. Section 125 of the 1996 Act defined it as “engaging in or threatening to engage in conduct causing or likely to cause a nuisance or annoyance to a person residing, visiting or otherwise engaging in a lawful activity in the locality, using or threatening to use the premises for immoral or illegal purposes”. 31. Ruth Levitas, op. cit., pp. 14-21. 32. Charles Murray, The Emerging British Underclass (London, IEA, 1990), p. 4, in R. Levitas, op. cit., p. 17. 33. DETR, Quality and Choice: A Decent Home for All, op. cit., p. 10. 34. Ibid., p. 23: “Anti-social behaviour […] where it is not tackled quickly or effectively can also contribute to feelings of social exclusion and the decline of whole neighbourhoods”. 35. Social Exclusion Unit, A New Commitment to Neighbourhood Renewal, National Strategy Action Plan (London, Social Exclusion Unit, 2001), p. 36. 36. ODPM, Sustainable Communities, Building for the Future (London, ODPM, 2003). 37. Social Exclusion Unit, op. cit., p. 5. 38. Anne Power and Katherine Mumford, The Slow Death of Great Cities: Urban Abandonment and Urban Renaissance (York, JRF, 1999) and Glen Bramley, Low Demand Housing and Unpopular Housing (London, HMSO, 2000). 39. Namely the social connections and the shared norms that enable a community to seek to achieve common objectives, see Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: the Collapse and Revival of American Community (NY, Simon and Schuster, 2000). 40. “[…] end the farce of half a dozen agencies all spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on problem families. Identify these families early, have them handled by one lead agency and give it whatever powers it needs to affect change or impose sanctions”, Tony Blair, Labour Party Conference, 2005. 41. Communities and Local Government, Guidance on the Use of Family Intervention Tenancies (London, DCLG, 2009). 42. John Flint and Ryan Powell, “Anti-social behaviour and 'civilizing' regulation in the British city: comparing Victorian and contemporary Eras”, pp. 42-53 in S. Pickard (ed.), Anti-social Behaviour in Britain: Victorian and Contemporary Perspectives (London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). 43. DCLG, Allocation of Accommodation: Guidance for Local Housing Authorities in England (London, DCLG, 2012), § 3.21. 44. David Cameron, Built to last, The Aims and the Values of the Conservatives (London, the Conservative Party, 2006), p. 1; The Social Justice Policy Group, Breakdown Britain, Interim Report on the State of the Nation (London, The Social Justice Policy Group, 2006), p. 38. 45. “Supply issues push more support for BNP”, Inside Housing, 21 April 2006. 46. Rob Berkeley et al., What's New about New Immigrants in 21st Century Britain? (York, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2006), p. 29.
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47. Indeed, recent migrants are more likely to be accommodated in the private rented sector, see the Migration Observatory, Migrants and Housing in the UK (Oxford, The University of Oxford, 2013), p. 2. 48. “Supply issues push more support for BNP”, Inside Housing, 21 April 2006; “Brown: prioritise homes for local people”, Inside Housing, 13 November 2009. 49. “Local Priority”, Inside Housing, 25 March 2013. 50. The Conservative Party, General Election Manifesto: Strong Leadership, a Clear Economic Plan, a Brighter, more Secure Future (London, The Conservative Party, 2015), p. 30 51. “George Osborne: Housing Shortage to Continue for at least 10 years”, Inside Housing, 5 February 2014. 52. “We need to double number of new homes to 300,000 a year: Vince Cable”, The Guardian, 20 May 2014. 53. “While you were away”, Inside Housing, 4 March 2014. 54. 52 Homeless families, those occupying insanitary or overcrowded homes, those who need to move on medical or welfare grounds and those who will experience hardship if they do not move to another locality. 55. Department for Communities and Local Government, Providing Social Housing for Local People, Statutory Guidance on Social Housing Allocations for Local Authorities in England (London, DCLG, 2013), p. 5. 56. DCLG, Providing Social Housing for Local People, op. cit., p. 6. 57. Ibid., p. 4. 58. Department for Communities and Local Government, “Pickles pushes local people to the front of the queue for council homes”, Press release, 31/12/2013, www.gov.uk/government/news/ Pickles pushes local people to the front of the queue for council homes, accessed 04/03/2014. 59. “Bournemouth Council plans allocation change”, Inside Housing, 23 May 2012. 60. “Council rolls out fixed-term tenancies”, Inside Housing, 6 March 2013. 61. “Anti-social residents kept off council waiting lists”, Inside Housing, 18 June 2013. 62. A new “habitual residence test” (introduced in 1994) was rolled out across the UK after December 2013, see House of Commons Library, EEA Migrants: Access to Social Housing (England), Briefing Paper 04737 (London, House of Commons, 26 May 2015), p. 10. 63. House of Commons Library, People from Abroad: What Benefits can they Claim? Briefing Paper no 06847 (London, House of Commons, 17 June 2015), p. 14.
ABSTRACTS
According to T.H. Marshall's model, citizenship in Britain includes three categories of rights that were achieved in stages between the 18th and the 20th centuries. In Marshall's opinion, the latest category, namely social rights, was institutionalized by the Welfare State after 1945. First, we shall see how uneasily one of these rights, namely access to social housing in the absence of a decent home, fits his definition of citizenship. Then we shall examine the discursive shift that has taken place since the 1970s and that has led to a redefinition of the rights and duties of British citizens in the field of housing. As a result, citizenship in Britain is no longer synonymous with the possibility to enjoy a social dwelling but rather with the duty to be self-sufficient and a homeowner. Besides, in a housing crisis context, access to social housing increasingly depends on
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meeting a number of conditions aiming at controlling the behaviour of English tenants and ensuring they are professionally and socially well-integrated. In sum, housing has been part of a sustained governmental effort to redraw the contours of citizenship since the 1970s.
Dans le modèle de T. H. Marshall, la citoyenneté britannique inclut trois catégories de droits, conquis par étapes du XVIIIe siècle au XXe. Selon celui-ci, le dernier volet de cette citoyenneté pleine et entière, à savoir les droits sociaux, a été institutionnalisé par l’Etat-providence après 1945. Nous verrons cependant dans un premier temps combien l'un de ces droits, l’accès à un logement social en l’absence d’un logement décent, s'articule difficilement avec ce modèle. Puis nous examinerons le glissement discursif qui s’est opéré depuis les années 1970 et qui a conduit à redéfinir les droits et les devoirs des citoyens britanniques en matière de logement. Ainsi, la citoyenneté britannique équivaut désormais moins à la possibilité de jouir d’un logement social subventionné qu’au devoir d’être autonome et propriétaire autant que possible. Par ailleurs, dans un contexte de crise du logement, la résidence dans le secteur social est de plus en plus souvent assujettie au respect d’un certain nombre de conditions visant à contrôler le comportement des locataires anglais et à s'assurer de leur intégration sociale et professionnelle. Le logement participe donc depuis les années 1970 d'une entreprise gouvernementale de redéfinition des contours de la citoyenneté.
INDEX
Mots-clés: Citoyenneté, logement, HLM, services publics, contrôle social. Keywords: Citizenship, housing, rights, public services, social control.
AUTHOR
DAVID FÉE CREW EA 4399, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3
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David Cameron, Citizenship and the Big Society: a New Social Model? David Cameron, citoyenneté et le programme Big Society : un nouveau modèle social ?
Raphaële Espiet-Kilty
Introduction
1 In 1994, Robert Harmel and Kenneth Janda defined party change as “alteration or modification in how parties are organised, what human and material resources they can draw upon, what they stand for and what they do.”1 They further argue that change must be driven by something for parties do not easily change just for the sake of it.2 Because it is difficult to study all the variables that are at play in driving change, scholars generally focus on just three drivers which Harmel and Janda define as: (i) external shock (electoral defeat being one such), (ii) a change of leader and (iii) change in the dominant faction that runs the party.3 After losing first the 1997 general election and then the following two elections (first driver), the Conservative Party, in spite of renewing its leadership three times (second driver) remained unable to convince the public that it was fit to lead the country. David Cameron’s election to the head of the party in December 2005 (second driver again) signalled the victory of a new faction (third driver) that undertook the task of convincing the British electorate that the Conservative Party was no longer the “nasty party,” i.e. a party that wanted to privatise health and education and that did not have a sympathetic understanding of the difficulties of those at the bottom of society. It therefore seems a plausible hypothesis to suggest that after so many shocks and changes, the party that took the lead of the country after the 2010 general election had changed or was perceived by voters as having changed enough to be trusted again. The only possible way in which it could have done so was by breaking away from Thatcherism in general and in particular from the Thatcherite social model that was supposedly condemned by voters for being “ nasty.”4 This was reflected in David Cameron’s announcement in August 2008:
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2 [I am going to be] as radical a social reformer as Mrs Thatcher was an economic reformer and radical social reform is what the country needs right now […] to mend the broken society.5
3 Such “radical social reforms,” if introduced, would necessarily have an impact on British society and on the citizens that form it. The concept of citizenship is one that is difficult to grasp all the more so as it is not definable in an official way.6 From a theoretical point of view, it has very different definitions depending on the geographical area where it is formulated which might explain why Van Gunsten and Leca, for example, judge it “questionable.”7 As a general rule, however, citizenship is defined by the relationship between the individual and the State, although this relationship may be more or less close. Stewart, for example, speaks of a “democratic citizenship” which he defines as: “shared membership of a political community and requires non-identification of such political communities and states.”8 In this particular case, the relationship between the citizen and the State is quite loose. He/she evolves in civil society, at the junction between the State and the private sphere. More important than rights, he/she has obligations that range from adopting a civic behaviour to helping members of the community by giving time or money to charities. It is this citizen who was at play in the case of Thatcher’s active citizen9 as well as in Cameron’s Big Society. And in both cases, it is set in sharp opposition to Marshall’s social citizen who, rather than obligations, has rights. In his seminal work,10 T.H. Marshall defined citizenship as “a status bestowed on those who are full members of a community.”11 This status confers rights to every citizen. These rights have evolved over time and now have three facets to them. The third and most contemporary facet of citizenship, the social element, presents the citizen as able to insist on the right to live in decent or “civilized”12 conditions, which are judged necessary to the full and complete exercise of the other two forms of citizenship. The State’s role is to provide these conditions in the name of social justice. This social citizenship is precisely that which Margaret Thatcher was rejecting when she said: “There is no such thing as society” and which is therefore linked to the social project of David Cameron’s Big Society, his response to Thatcher’s “no society.”
4 For Margaret Thatcher, civil society did not exist any more than society for there were only self-reliant and responsible individuals whose moral, and therefore private, duty it was to look after themselves and their families first and then after their neighbours. However, her praise of the Victorian Age as the “charitable age” reveals that, even for her brand of Conservatism, there existed a privileged medium through which individuals could reach to others. In many ways therefore, this absence of civil society shares common features with David Cameron’s very real one which is also formed of citizens who are characterised by their obligations to others and who are supported in their actions by civil society. The difference however, is that its role should be enhanced to make it more efficient in delivering social services. This is where the Big Society programme comes in play. In Big Society rhetoric, civil society becomes the third sector formed of a modernised and more competitive voluntary sector – one that has a more market-based approach to delivering services – associated with the newly created social enterprises, which are private companies whose business is to deliver a social service. The brunt of David Cameron’s social programme was born of this dedication to creating a “more efficient” third sector.
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5 It is noticeable that there is apparently very little difference between Thatcher’s active citizen and Cameron’s citizen of the Big Society in that in both cases citizenship is based on the idea that an individual has obligations rather than rights and that the vessel for the exercise of these obligations is civil society rather than the state or welfare state. This would therefore tend to disqualify the hypothesis that there was a change. Yet, both Prime Ministers belonged to two different Conservative trends. Margaret Thatcher was a neo-liberal Conservative whereas David Cameron is, arguably, a One-Nation Conservative.13 This is reflected in their contrasting vision of society and of the role of the state in this respect. However, both Prime Ministers equally condemned the welfare state for being responsible for having destroyed civil society and therefore citizenship. Where Margaret Thatcher simply proposed to reduce the role of the state, David Cameron went further down the same road proposing however to create an alternative to the welfare state, one that would not merely be individuals but a Big Society of active citizens. However, David Cameron’s flagship project is now said to be moribund.
6 This paper will first demonstrate that the differences between Margaret Thatcher and David Cameron’s social visions were the result of their belonging to two distinct Conservative trends. However, in the case of Cameron, his social vision was not commensurate with his economic one. In addition to being prioritised, the 2010-2015 Coalition Government’s economic policies clashed with David Cameron’s social agenda thus giving the impression that the Big Society Programme was only a smokescreen to hide drastic public sector cuts.14 This impression, though, is not wholly accurate and it will be demonstrated, in the second part, that Cameron’s failure to carry through his social agenda was as much because of a lack of theoretical or intellectual drive on his part as because of the pressure that was exerted on him to tone it down. That pressure came both from within his government and from the citizens themselves. Finally, the Big Society programme seemed doomed from the outset not only because most citizens did not adhere to it but also because the voluntary sector was not perceived as the most appropriate medium to relieve poverty especially at times of austerity.
Margaret Thatcher and David Cameron: Two different visions of inequality?
7 Margaret Thatcher’s middle-class ethos set her in opposition to what she claimed was the bourgeois-guilt driven ethos of the One-Nation Conservatives of the 1950s and 1960s. It was that guilt, she argued, that had led them to lending so much moral and economic support to the welfare state during the thirty years of consensus that preceded her election in May 1979. Her first two terms in office were therefore almost solely dedicated to breaking with this consensus that rested on a commitment to full employment and tax-and-spend policies that caused what she described in the many speeches she delivered and later in her memoirs as an ever increasing spiral of public spending and state interventionism. Once she believed her governments had succeeded in restoring the economy and in setting Britain on the path of growth, she turned her attention to the lower echelons of the state aiming to impress upon them and the citizens the culture of responsibility and accountability that she believed was the key to social revival. Her main tool was to be the community charge. It was supposed to turn every individual into a citizen, i.e. to turn the “underclass”15 into responsible taxpayers.
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By making everyone pay, she was hoping to convince a majority of the necessity to curb public spending at the local level, one more attack on the edifice of the welfare state, which was underpinned, in her own terminology, by local Socialism. The period of the introduction of the community charge from 1988 to 1990 was when Margaret Thatcher publicly used the term citizen for the first time. It was also then that she made her interview to a women’s magazine during which she famously said: “There is no such thing as society.”16 Active citizenship was her Government’s attempt at spinning their way out of the negative reactions to this declaration. It was not a new notion however. In fact it was rather an old one for the Conservative Party that had a long tradition of supporting the work of charities and of volunteers, Burkes “little platoons” that formed the main part of civil society. Unlike Matthew Hilton and James McKay17 who argue that civil society had remained as active during the age of welfare as it had been in the Victorian Age, Margaret Thatcher asserted that the Welfare State had destroyed the civic spirit of the Victorian Age and created, instead of active and responsible citizens, a cohort of assisted and helpless scroungers who lived off state benefits. The Conservative neo- liberals believed that the Welfare State had created a culture of dependency and that it was essential to break this culture by forcing a sense of responsibility onto those who had fallen in its trap. The state, i.e. society had to stop providing for those who should really provide for themselves and active citizens had to play their part in restoring the civic spirit that, according to Margaret Thatcher, was needed to rebuild a caring community spirit: “most Christians would regard it as their personal Christian duty to help their fellow men and women.”18 In this, she built on the work of Friedrich von Hayek and the Chicago School.
8 In his seminal work, Friedrich von Hayek asserts that social justice is a mirage, a concept he debars as nonsensical. Social justice, he says, “does not belong to the category of error but to that of nonsense, like the term ‘a moral stone.’”19 Social justice does not exist because inequality is a natural fact of life. To try and address the problem is necessarily wrong and is necessarily disruptive. In the same vein, in 1983, Margaret Thatcher said:
9 The nations that have gone for equality, like Communism, have neither freedom nor justice nor equality, they’ve the greatest inequalities of all, the privileges of the politicians are far greater compared with the ordinary folk than in any other country.20
10 Social justice, as a concept, is based on the assumption that individuals should be allowed to realise their full potential – or exercise their full citizenship rights (Marshall) – in the society where they live and this can only be made possible if all individuals are equally provided with minimum standards determined on the basis of what is “decent” or “civilised” relative to what the majority has. The role of the state should be to guarantee these standards by ensuring that every individual has equal access to education, health care, social security etc., a belief shared, to a certain extent, by the One-Nation Conservatives because it safeguarded social harmony (noticeably not social justice), as illustrated in Disraeli’s phrase: “The palace is not safe, when the cottage is not happy.”21 This was the belief that presided over their supporting of the Welfare State and the belief that, given its name, should have been behind the creation by Iain Duncan Smith and Tim Montgomerie of the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) in 2004. Of course, both the CSJ’s “Broken Society”22 and David Cameron’s “Big Society” are plays on words to distance a Conservative Party in the making, from Thatcher’s “there is no society.” But none is fundamentally about social justice. The Conservative Party’s social
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programme was quickly patched together to win the votes of a changing electorate by distancing Cameron’s Conservative Party from the burdensome legacy of Thatcherism.
11 David Cameron needed to address the issue that traditionally divided his party, i.e. inequality, all the more so as, so it seems, an increasing number of British voters were concerned by the widening gap between the super-rich and the rest.23 The November 2009 Big Society speech was to be the instrument of this revival. The vocabulary used borrows from a lexicon that is diametrically opposed to that which Margaret Thatcher used. David Cameron introduces such terms as poverty, solidarity, inequalities, injustice, social progress. The use of such rhetoric enables him to depict himself as heir to Benjamin Disraeli. And indeed, in many ways, this lexicon borrows from that of compassionate conservatism.24 However, whilst Disraeli introduced legislation aiming to improve the living conditions of the poor in the areas of housing, health and education, and also to improve their working conditions, the spending cuts implemented at the behest of both Minister for Work and Pensions Iain Duncan Smith and Chancellor George Osborne – cuts in council tax benefits, disabled living allowance, abolition of EMA, a cap on benefits for the unemployed after one year and many others (universal credit etc.) – have affected the poorer members of society disproportionally. 25 This foretold the end to what Cameron called, in his Big Society speech, the Big Government approach.26 If David Cameron made use of the language of compassionate Conservatism when speaking of poverty and inequality, the solutions that he envisaged remained fundamentally neo-liberal.
Conflicting trends within the Coalition Government
12 David Cameron’s compassionate Conservatism can be perceived as an instrument that enabled the leader of the Conservative Party to rid himself of the image of heir to Thatcher. To do so, the Big Society borrowed from both New Labour (the Third Way) and David Blunkett’s 2003 Civil Renewal Programme, and from Philip Blond’s Red Tory. However, it did not match the New Labour Government’s financial support of its social programme, nor did it borrow the solutions Blond prescribes to remedy the problem. There are three possible reasons why David Cameron failed to carry through his social agenda.
13 The first, as contended by many commentators and scholars, is that the Big Society was really only a smokescreen to hide massive public spending cuts especially in the area of welfare. This proposition has been extensively debated.27 It is unconvincing, however, for in addition to having been presented before the crisis started biting, the Big Society Programme was a truly Conservative one. It did match a certain Conservative vision of the moral duty of Civil Society in providing for its weaker members. Whether David Cameron really shared this vision or used it as a tool to distance himself from Margaret Thatcher’s brand of Conservatism is another issue.
14 The second is that David Cameron was isolated in a party that fundamentally remained Thatcherite in the image of both its Chancellor of the Exchequer and its Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. In addition, one could add that Cameron’s social approach was not coherent. The Big Society programme was flawed from the outset, being a mere patchwork of ideas rather than the result of a consistent vision, ideas that conflicted with the Government’s economic policies. This would tend to reinforce the notion that David Cameron’s compassionate Conservatism was hesitant at best.
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15 The third is that the electorate, in spite of being apparently critical of the Thatcher legacy, had absorbed most of its precepts and remained too individualistic to form a Big Society.
16 In his speech in January 2014 at the CSJ, Iain Duncan Smith explained that his party “ would have wanted to reform the welfare state, even if we had no deficit” because “[as] Conservatives, we should hate the idea of people with unfulfilled potential languishing on welfare” adding that the aim of welfare reform was to cut “the cost of social failure” and to help people out of the dependency trap. That is not compassionate Conservatism. The theory of the dependency culture associated with that of the poverty turned dependency trap was one of Margaret Thatcher’s recurring themes during the debate over the community charge. It consisted in blaming those on welfare benefits for their plight, in depicting them as undeserving or as Duncan Smith put it, as the actors of their own “worklessness” and of their own downfall into crime: “gangs, debt and drugs,” a description that is reminiscent of Keith Joseph’s cycle of criminality or of Margaret Thatcher’s “deviant behaviour.” These are the kinds of prejudices that underpin such shows as the Channel 4 programme Benefits Street, or that are betrayed by such newspaper headlines as: “Vile Product of Welfare UK: Man who bred 17 babies by 5 women to milk benefits system is guilty of killing 6 of them.”28 The two Coalition Government members in charge of social reform and the budget were29 convinced neo-liberals. Their political agenda was always going to undermine what the Big Society programme was proposing to build, a warning made by Philip Blond:
17 If he is not careful, Cameron risks presiding over the incoherence of a recapitulated free-market economics awkwardly allied with a compassionate and impotent version of socially concerned conservatism. One need only look at the rampant levels of inequality produced by George Bush’s American variant of the same procrustean marriage.30
18 Heedless or complicit, Cameron allowed his Government’s economic agenda to take precedence over his social agenda and the Big Society now seems to be moribund. Philip Blond again commented in the Guardian “David Cameron has lost his chance to redefine the Tories.”31 Philip Blond is mistaken, however, in suggesting that the sole reason for this change of tack is that Cameron was “careless” or that he “surrendered to No 11.” Ultimately politicians respond to what they think their voters want.
19 Most surveys point to a British32 society that is growing increasingly individualistic rather than the opposite, in spite of a double-dip recession affecting employment and drastic public spending cuts. Academics working on the public’s response to government policies contend that people tend to respond like a thermostat.33 For example, if a government spends a lot of money to support welfare reforms, the public will tend to react against such increases and advocate either moderation or cuts. This is a consideration that needs to be taken into account when analysing the results of the BSA survey of 2010 that revealed that a majority of respondents were opposed to the New Labour tax-and-spend policies. Following the same pattern, one might expect that after years of Conservative/Liberal Democrat rule characterized by drastic public sector cuts, especially in Welfare, and a double dip recession, the British society’s attitude might have changed again. However, according to the 30th British Social Attitudes Survey published in September 201334, this was not so. People’s attitude especially towards benefits recipients remained almost the same as it was in 2010: from 55% who said that “if welfare benefits weren’t so generous people would learn to stand on their own two feet” to 53% in 2012. In some cases, people’s attitude hardened, as is the case
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towards the recipients of unemployment benefits. In 2011, 61% supported the view that unemployment benefits were “too high and discouraged work” (51% in 2010). There exist differences that tend to show that the gap between different social groups is widening but that also demonstrate that irrespective of party affiliation or occupational class, a fair number of respondents still judge unemployment benefits recipients negatively. In 2011, 77% of respondents affiliated to the Conservative Party and 65% belonging to the “professional class” agreed that unemployment benefits were “too high and discouraged work,” respectively a 21 and 25 percentage point increase on 2003. 55% of respondents affiliated to the Labour Party and the same percentage of Liberal Democrats agreed with this proposition. 66% of the middle class (intermediate) and 58% of the working class (routine) also did. In all these cases, the percentage had increased from 2003.
20 According to the Community Life Survey: England, 2013-2014,35 29% of people reported that they volunteered formally36 at least once a month in 2005, 25% in 2010-11 and 27% in 2013-14.37 Many factors come into play when determining whether an individual will or will not volunteer but time, money and social capital are those most commonly invoked by both specialists, such as the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) for example, and respondents. The 29th BSA published in 2012 reveals that 22% of respondents, men and women, had had to take a pay cut in the years between 2009 and 2011. An increasing number of respondents complained of working “un-social hours ” (nights, weekends, etc.), the percentage being more important amongst women than men. Finally 89% were “too tired after work to enjoy things at home,” a 16 percentage point increase on 2004. In addition, a report from NCVO published in September 201138 highlighted that participation, whether civic or through voluntary work, depended mostly upon socio-economic factors, social capital being a determining factor in this respect. Most citizens involved in charity work were skilled, educated, belonged to the majority ethnic group and were women: “The typical formal volunteer is more likely to be female, of a higher social grade, in a managerial position, degree educated, and middle aged.”39 The typical formal volunteer was thus an individual who had the sort of background or “felt resources”40 most likely to give her/him what NCVO describes as the necessary confidence to engage with others.41 It is easy to imagine what sort of consequences this might have. Volunteering is, by definition, the act of engaging in one’s community and indeed, the principle behind the Big Society is that members of a community know better than the central government what is best for them.42 The Community Life Survey revealed that in 2013-14, a significantly lower percentage of people (60%) agreed that people in their neighbourhood pulled together to improve it than in 2007-08 (68%).43 In addition to decreasing, this percentage was significantly smaller in deprived neighbourhoods. The first audit of the Big Society released on 7th May 201244 showed that only 51% of respondents living in “the most deprived areas” believed their “ neighbourhood pulls together to improve it” compared to 78% in more affluent areas. This confirms that the communities that most need the Big Society are those that are least likely to have the social capital to form a Big Society. As was the case in the 19th century, active citizenship in the form of volunteering is still a class activity. This, in turn, explains why, in the most deprived areas, voluntary action is largely dependent on statutory funding by local authorities. However, those authorities with the highest level of deprivation in Britain are also those that suffered the deepest cuts in spending in 2011-12.45
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Conclusion
21 For the last thirty years, citizens have been told by politicians and media alike that they had to look after themselves rather than after the recipients of welfare benefits (through tax and spend policies). Marshall’s social citizenship has thus been under attack since Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Party formed a government in May 1979, a trend that was not fundamentally reversed under New Labour. The result is that a majority now hold negative views of benefits recipients and this attitude does not seem to have been affected by the recession and the Coalition Government’s drastic public spending cuts. However, at the same time as implementing these cuts, David Cameron consistently tried to exhort “families, individuals, charities and communities” to “ come together to solve problems”,46 heedless of the contradiction between conflicting messages: on the one hand arguing that for the state to give help is counterproductive and has the adverse effect of rendering the beneficiaries helpless, and on the other hand exhorting citizens to give their time and/or money to the volunteer sector for them to provide for the weaker in society, ultimately the very same people. Obviously, David Cameron’s aim in proposing an alternative to Marshall’s social citizen and to Margaret Thatcher’s “no society”, i.e. the citizen of his Big Society, was to ask civil society to do what the state would no longer do.
22 However, the combined effect of British society’s negative attitude to the poorer part of society and the economic crisis, which has contributed to deteriorated working conditions and loss of income, has adversely affected the third sector. The worst hit regions are those in which unemployment and poverty were the highest – unsurprisingly so, for volunteering is still a class activity.
23 On 13th June 2014, there were 5,112 listed charities in the North East of England compared to 29,238 in the South East.47 In other words, there were 1,966 charities per million residents in the North East compared to 3,400 in the South East, i.e. almost twice as many for the affluent South East. If the Big Society was meant to replace the Big Government, by June 2014 this had only happened in the most affluent parts of Britain and a more in-depth analysis of the type of charities most present would certainly reveal that their work had little to do with the recipients of state welfare.
24 The impression is that the transplant from Marshall’s liberal citizen to the neo-liberal active citizen has taken. However, what has occurred, as a result, is not a revival of civil society with active citizens taking over the role of the welfare state but a privatization of citizenship for some and exclusion for others.
25 Raphaële Espiet-Kilty is a lecturer in British Studies in the English department at the Université Blaise Pascal Clermont II. She is a specialist in Contemporary Political History. Her research is on the place of citizens in the social policy of Conservative governments since 1979. She edited the 17th issue of L’Observatoire de la société britannique, « The Thatcher Legacy », published in November 2015.
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NOTES
1. Robert Harmel and Kenneth Janda, “An Integrated theory of Party Goals and Party Change”, Journal of Theoretical Politics 63:3 (1994), pp. 259-287 quoted in Tim Bale, The Conservatives since 1945. The Drivers of Party Change (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 3. 2. Ibid, p. 4. 3. Ibid, p. 5. I will not elaborate further on this analysis of party change for it is not my subject proper. However, I do not wish to give an over simplistic view of Tim Bale’s book. Obviously, the drivers which were chosen here are only the most commonly used ones. They are not, in any way, the only ones. 4. The term “nasty party” to describe the Conservative Party was first given public airing by Teresa May, the then Chairman, in October 2002: “There’s a lot to do in this party of ours. Our base is too narrow so, occasionally, are our sympathies. You know what some people call us – the Nasty Party”. The expression was then taken up by the then leader of the Conservative Party, Iain Duncan Smith, who repeatedly insisted that the party needed to rid itself of its image of “nasty party”. David Cameron also endeavoured to convince voters that his Conservative Party was no longer the nasty party, i.e. a party that did not have sympathy for those at the bottom of society, for the less privileged, for the minorities, the party that also wanted to bring free market economics into health and education.
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5. D. Cameron and D. Jones, Cameron on Cameron: Conversation with Dylan Jones (London, HarperCollins, 7 January 2010). 6. Officially, the status British Citizen first appeared in 1981 (British Nationality Act) when it replaced that of British Subject. Since then, citizenship and nationality have become closely linked, to the point that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish them. I do not agree that citizenship and nationality are one and the same thing but to discuss this particular issue is not the object of this article. 7. Van Gunsten (1978) and Leca (1991) are quoted in A. Stewart, “Two Conceptions of Citizenship”, British Journal of Sociology 46:1 (March 1995), pp. 63-78. 8. Ibid, p. 65. 9. The term was first coined by Douglas Hurd at the Conservative Party Conference of 1988. I would argue that it was the party’s attempt to spin Margaret Thatcher’s “There is no such thing as society” that had made considerable stir. It also preceded the introduction of the community charge. For a discussion on the possible reasons why the term made a return, see Raphaële Espiet-Kilty, “David Cameron and the Big Society: a New Deal for the New Citizen”, Observatoire de la Société Britannique 12 (October 2012), “La nouvelle donne politique en Grande-Bretagne (2010-12)”, pp. 50-51. 10. T.H. Marshall and T. Bottomore, Citizenship and Social Class (London, Pluto Press, 1992). 11. Ibid, p. 2. 12. Ibid. 13. Agnès Alexandre-Collier, Les Habits neufs de David Cameron : Les conservateurs britanniques (1990-2010) (Paris, Les Presses de Sc. Po, 2010). 14. Stuart Hall, “The March of the neoliberals”, The Guardian, 12 September 2011; Richard Grayson, “Clegg and Cameron’s illiberal ‘Big Liberal Society’”, The Guardian, 20 July 2010; H. Tam, “The Big Conservative Reframing the State/Society Debate”, Public Policy Research 18:1 (January- March 2011), pp. 30-40; P. Taylor-Gooby and G. Stoker, “The Coalition Programme: A New Vision for Britain or Politics as Usual?”, The Political Quarterly 82:1 (January-March 2011), pp. 4-15. 15. This term was first coined by the Libertarian political scientist Charles Murray in Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980 published in 1984. It was commonly used by Margaret Thatcher during the debate over the community charge and was used again in her memoirs, for example in The Path to Power (London, Harper Collins Publishers, 1995), pp. 544, 561 and 599, and in The Downing Street Years (London, Harper Collins Publishers, 1995), pp. 627, 661. 16. Interview on 23 September 1987 for Women’s Own, a woman’s magazine. A transcript of the interview is presented by the Thatcher Foundation,
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26. David Cameron, speech on the Big Society, November 2009,
ABSTRACTS
David Cameron’s Big Society Programme was his flagship programme for the 2010 general election. Its main objective was to help the Conservative Party distance itself from Thatcherism, notably by bringing about change for Britain’s society. The government was to help society regenerate itself by giving British citizens the means to look after their communities. Was the Big Society the sign that the Conservative Party had managed to break away from Thatcherism? Was
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it the programme of a whole party or just the Prime Minister’s “toy”? Did the programme find an echo amongst British citizens?
Le Big Society Programme du candidat David Cameron pour les élections du printemps 2010 avait pour objectif principal de renouveler l’image du Parti conservateur dans son rapport à la société. Il s’agissait de redynamiser la société civile en aidant les citoyens à prendre une place prépondérante, notamment sur le terrain du social. Trois questions se posent : ce projet était-il le signe d’un retour du conservatisme compassionnel, par définition différent du conservatisme néolibéral de Margaret Thatcher ? Le programme de Big Society était-il porté par tous les membres du gouvernement de coalition de 2010-15 ou était-il le « jouet » du seul Premier Ministre ? A-t-il trouvé une résonnance auprès des citoyens britanniques ?
INDEX
Keywords: citizenship, Thatcherism, Big Society, civil society, volunteering Mots-clés: citoyenneté, thatchérisme, Big Society, société civile, bénévolat.
AUTHOR
RAPHAËLE ESPIET-KILTY Université Blaise Pascal-Clermont II, EHIC
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The Contemporary Conversation about the French Connection “ Liberté, égalité, fraternité”: Neoliberal Equality and “Non-brothers”1 La Conversation politique contemporaine sur la French connection Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité : une égalité néolibérale performant les différences des non- frères »
Réjane Sénac
Introduction
1 As the global crisis that began in 2008 takes the shape of a lost decade, Western neo- liberal democracies appear, more than ever, to be reproducing social and economic inequalities2. The promotion of parity and diversity in France must be scrutinised in this context. More specifically, this article aims to grasp what contemporary uses of parity and diversity say about the principle of equality in 21st Century French society. From this perspective, the resilience of gender, race and social inequalities, will not be seen as a mere imperfection in implementing the French principles of “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité” in a “non-ideal theory”3, but as an illustration of the ambivalence inherent to these very principles. The promotion of parity and diversity will thus be analysed as a case study to understand the dilemmas affecting French republican thinking about equality4 and the challenge of ensuring that singular individuals become de jure and de facto equal citizens. The principles of justification for parity and diversity will then be analysed in order to shed light on the dilemma faced by a republican equality which excluded those who were not considered as brothers5 in the name of a gender and racially based hierarchy. France embodies the dilemma of a principle of equality that promotes Human Rights, the exclusion of women from active citizenship and colonization.
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2 Since the Paris terrorists attacks perpetrated in January and November 2015, these dilemmas have become crucial to the French republican order, as they determine to what extent this order can accommodate differences without breaching equality, and (re)generate the inclusion of all categories of citizens.
3 The purpose of this article is to show why equality has remained out of reach in contemporary France6. The analysis of the contemporary conversation about the French connection “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité”7 will draw on the study of the discursive politics of parity and diversity in France from the mid-2000s to the early 2010s. From a discursive perspective, diversity is often conceptualized as a fundamentally depoliticizing discourse8 which avoids the contentious juridical repertoire of anti- discrimination9 and the processes of racialization 10. The main research question guiding this research can be framed as follows: how do the justifications of equality policies for “non-brothers” challenge a French republican equality that is entrenched in a universalistic tradition?
4 My hypothesis is that the aim of French parity and diversity is to shape a new social contract which shows former Republican meritocracy to be a matter of social effectiveness and economic performance11. Similarly to parity12, diversity framed as a driver of policy innovation, is not a French exception, but rather a discursive strategy to be understood in the light of at least two phenomena: the challenges posed to European societies by the growing recognition of differences, and policy transfers from the EU-level designed to address multiple types of discrimination (gender, age, race, sexual orientation, disability, etc.) using the same policy and legal paradigm for all of them.
5 From this perspective, the promotion of parity and diversity contributes to institutionalizing some sort of ‘conditional equality’, subject to the ‘performance’ of differences for “non-brothers”. Performance is meant here both as a mise en scene and a market value. In that sense, the politics of diversity and parity can be read as the meeting point of a sexist and racist legacy and a neoliberal rationale. Indeed, these politics legitimate the inclusion of women and “non-whites” for the same reason they were previously excluded: the fact that they were classed as different from the then norm (white men) led to a decrease in their value whereas this difference is now seen as an added value. However, this means that although they are positively distinguished and included in the name of their difference, they are still not recognised as equals.
6 Where gender-based and racial differences were once factors for exclusion, and subsequently discrimination13, they have now become factors for inclusion14, and even for resources15. The promotion of parity and diversity has become part of the institutionalization of an equality based on difference16 which is expressed as the political rationality17 of "neoliberal government "18.
7 This hypothesis was tested by cross-referencing analysis of policy documents with two qualitative surveys carried out at a time when parity and diversity were showing incipient signs of institutionalization. For analysis of the ‘ideological tinkering’19 around the implementation of parity laws, interviews were carried out in 2005-2006 with 83 political and NGO leaders. For analysis of contemporary French use of diversity20, 163 personal interviews were carried out in 2008-2009 with political, institutional, economic, trade union, religious and NGO leaders, and academics.
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8 This article will firstly present the specific features of French-style diversity as compared to the European and American versions. Secondly, it will explore the shift from parity to diversity politics, both in discursive and policy terms. Thirdly, it will briefly focus on the main arguments surrounding the rise of equality conditional to performance, analysing whether the accumulation of discrimination criteria could both constitute an asset for political, social and economic inclusion, and an obstacle to being fully recognized as a ‘peer’21. In other terms, French diversity is interpreted as an ‘ambivalent positive intersectionality’22 which embodies the end of politics at the meeting point between a sexist and racist legacy, and a neoliberal rationale.
Specificities of French-style diversity as compared to the European and American versions
Diversity as a European and National Issue
9 The notion of diversity has gained increasing relevance at EU level23, with the shift from an inclusive and vague meaning addressing European diversity in general terms - including language and culture in the first place24, to a principle of justification for the application of EU provisions on concrete discrimination grounds such as those mentioned in Article 13 of the Amsterdam treaty (which became article 19 of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009). As underlined by Lanquetin25, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has developed a comprehensive understanding of the notion of discrimination (including indirect discrimination), which has paved the way for binding and concrete implementation of the principle of non-discrimination.
10 In France, EU anti-discrimination directives have been transposed relatively quickly and quite comprehensively. Types of discrimination listed in EU treaties were thus complemented by discrimination as a result of civil status, surname, as well as party and trade union membership in the Anti-discrimination acts adopted in 2001 and 2008. Moreover, in order to comply with the 2002/73 directive, an institutional body, the HALDE (Anti-discrimination and Equality High Authority) was established in 2004 to address claims made on the basis of one or several of the 18 (later 20) discrimination grounds listed in domestic legislation. Specific acts were also adopted in 2005 to tackle age and disability-based discrimination. The considerable attention paid to ethnicity and discrimination based on national origin in the aftermath of the (sub)urban riots in 2005, led to a reinforcement of the HALDE. Between 2006 and 2012 when it merged with the newly established Ombudsman’s office (Défenseur des droits), the HALDE was empowered to request information from organizations accused of discrimination, and granted a limited capacity to sanction offenders. Comparative analysis on the implementation of anti-discrimination policy in the French legal context shows that while some concepts, such as systemic discrimination pose problems for French judges, others, such as indirect discrimination, are increasingly drawn on by judges in their decision-making26.
11 As far as the legal framework is concerned, in the context of developing the EU’s anti- discriminatory laws, France promotes equality through both hard and soft law (charter, label). Analysis of the French promotion of diversity and gender equality reveals tensions between managerial norms and legal-political norms27. The normative promotion of gender equality and diversity through soft law, stripped of any binding
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dimension, “is also inevitably a fuzzy law. Formulated in terms of targets or recommendations, the law loses precision: not only do vague terms tend to multiply, such as ‘charter’ or ‘partnership’, but formulations such as ‘principles’ or ‘standards’ create an area of uncertainty and indeterminacy” 28.
The players and norms involved in French diversity politics
12 According to a number of authors29, the development of policies aimed at promoting diversity illustrates the adhesion of large French companies to a managerial model already strongly present in several countries. Alternatively, such development has been described as resulting from the efforts made by public authorities to increase diversity among the so-called ‘republican elites’30. This concern can be traced back to the early 1980s, when some changes were made to the competitive entrance procedure to the most prestigious French grande école that produces senior French civil servants (Ecole Nationale d’Administration, known under its acronym ENA) in order to increase diversity and tackle the problem of social reproduction. Focusing on these two alternatives, I have examined how this notion was mainstreamed in the French public sphere (including political parties and the media) and how it was translated in the business sector.
13 References to the notion of diversity can be found prior to the 2000s: the promotion of (ethnic) diversity was given some relevance after the centre right party, Union pour un Mouvement Populaire - UMP defeated the socialist Lionel Jospin, who was the champion of parity acts, to win the 2002 legislative election. Diversity showed its first signs of institutionalization with a Charter for Diversity initiated in the realm of private Human Resources Management in 2004 and was subsequently further endorsed by public institutions. However, it did not fully emerge on the agenda until the 2005 suburban riots31. From then to the end of the decade, the creation of a public-owned label for organizations promoting diversity in 2008, various institutional reports commissioned to academics and politicians32 and the establishing of a High Commissioner for diversity reporting to the Prime Minister (2008) helped to bring diversity issues to public attention. This, however, did not entail that the notion itself had been fully and validly defined.
14 Instead, ‘the word diversity itself is relatively grey and does not belong to a conceptual lexicon’33. It is used to bring together two contentious issues: the recognition of cultural, religious or national identities in the public arena and of discrimination against members of the groups defined according to these identity criteria.
15 In that sense, French usages of the notion of diversity have some similarities with the notion as it first emerged in the United States of America34. Initially limited to the management of academic and teaching communities35, this notion was subsequently established as an underlying principle for affirmative action, and has been implemented since the mid-1960s. Affirmative action primarily targeted Afro- Americans and was progressively extended to other racial communities and to women during the 1970s. The Regents of the University of California v. Bakke case (1978) established the limits of its application. It also equipped affirmative action with a rationale potentially applicable to grounds of discrimination other than race or ethnicity, assuming that diversity is both an objective and a desirable feature of any human community36.
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French-style diversity: critical assessment of a formal equality model
16 However, unlike in the UK and the US37, emerging debate around diversity in France was not triggered by criticism of the multiculturalist model which is still unanimously rejected in France. It was due to the critical assessment of a formal equality model, which is considered to have failed to ensure both social and national cohesion. The notion of diversity was thus conceived both as a means to put all grounds for discrimination on the political agenda and to answer the challenge of ethno-cultural pluralism from a republican perspective38. It stands for the promotion of individuals belonging to groups at greater risk of discrimination due to their gender, age, origin or disability. These potential grounds for discrimination, together with the positive character of diversity for human communities, are presented as a justification for the greater social, economic and political inclusion of discriminated groups or individuals. While diversity politics discursively covers all grounds of discrimination contained in French and EU Law - including gender, disability and sexual orientation, its French implementation still primarily targets discrimination on the basis of country of origin and ethnicity and more specifically, addresses the situation of post-colonial migration.
From parity to diversity politics
17 If diversity could so easily and so quickly impose its mark on the discursive framing of French anti-discrimination policies, this is not only due to the convergence of a contingent context (the aftermath of the 2005 suburban riots), and the intervention of external variables in the field of anti-discrimination, but also to the domestic legacy left by parity politics39.
The legacy of parity politics
18 The new pathway for constitutional and political culture through the adoption of Parity Acts in 2000 followed a long and contentious process that started and ended with the Constitutional Council40 and raised a great deal of criticism 41. Many critics have been prompt to denounce the risk of opening a Pandora’s Box by recognising differences between citizens. The next decade somewhat confirmed their apprehension, as parity debates have clearly been considered a starting point for the reframing of equality and anti-discrimination policies.
19 Parity is positioned politically and theoretically as an exceptional way to deal with specific disparities that does not call the republican model of equality into question. However, as Ann Phillips points out, a policy transfer from parity politics to diversity politics has occurred42.
20 This policy transfer is endorsed by advocates from other discriminated groups. The president of the National Council of Black associations (CRAN) thus considers that parity acts have paved the way for other claims and struggles against discrimination, in particular on the grounds of ethnicity. The 2008-2009 diversity survey show that the emergence of policies aimed at promoting diversity was made possible by the new discursive pathway opened by parity politics. Both parity and diversity policy have
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contributed to unravelling the complexity of links between equality and identity policy, universalism, liberalism and essentialism43.
Orderly pluralism44: the intertwining of actors and norms
21 This process is strongly connected to the mainstreaming of diversity jointly implemented by private organizations – in particular in the area of human resources management, and among public actors. This is evidenced by the genuine promotion of diversity as part of a more general discourse on private and public management, initiated in 2004-2006, when the Secretary of State for Equal Opportunities, Azouz Begag, travelled the country to promote the Charter for Diversity. The Charter was launched as the result of a private initiative following the publication of a report entitled “Les oubliés de l’égalité des chances” (“Those left out of the equal opportunity equation”) by the Montaigne Institute think tank. Policy actors again endorsed private initiatives in the field of diversity in 2008-2009, when the ‘diversity label’, designed by the National Association of Human Resources Managers (ANDRH), was launched by the public certification body (AFNOR), under the patronage of the Ministry of Integration, National Identity and Solidarity. From those two situations, it can be inferred that the legitimization and dissemination by public authorities of a model for the management of diversity originally negotiated among private businesses, social partners and policy actors, have contributed to shaping the promotion of diversity as the underlying norm of equal opportunity and anti-discrimination policies45.
22 In the 2005-2006 survey on parity, left-wing political and NGO representatives rejected this approach which they see as the subordination of the republican model to neo- liberal norms. From their point of view, this process shows how policy and social actors are engaged in a re-framing of French republican universalism. Therefore, for the sociologist El Yamine Soum, the promotion of diversity does nothing other than assign identities in a ‘them vs. us’ model46. The president of the French Human Rights League, Jean-Pierre Dubois, qualifies French-style diversity as a euphemism which ‘covers our colonial racism with a secular hat’.
23 This re-framing which emerged in a context marked by a desire to restore the republican order after the 2005 riots, was thus fueled by economic arguments in a context created by the 2008 financial crisis, such as the need to draw upon the “full pool of talents”. From that perspective, diversity politics embodies a shift from a legal to a management approach to discrimination, also characterized by a blurred reference to ethnicity and origin.
Promoting diversity without fighting against discrimination?
24 In the 2005-2006 parity survey, policy stakeholders tended to establish a link between the promotion of diversity and the fight against discrimination, assuming the superiority – both in theory and practice - of social and territorial criteria. In an interview after she had become State Secretary for urban policy, Fadela Amara, former president of the NGO ‘Ni putes ni soumises’, (Neither Whores Nor Doormats) stated that she considered the promotion of diversity to consist in “making the republic just as inclusive for Mohamed as it is for Benoît”. An explicit political objective was therefore ascribed to diversity politics: producing social and national cohesion.
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25 Quoting himself as an example, Eric Besson, a former socialist who was born in Morocco and who served as Minister for Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Fair Development from 2007 to 2010 during Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidency, underlined that although ‘the French republic is not about uniformity, France is a melting-pot’, it is ‘more than just the mere sum of multiple identities’. Following a similar pattern, after mentioning her Italian origins, Nadine Morano, then State Secretary for Family Policies, explained that in France, characterized as it is today by multiple waves of immigration, ‘diversity is part and parcel of the republican dynamic’. This French framing of the notion of diversity is better illustrated by Henri Guaino, former special adviser to President Sarkozy, who qualified diversity as ‘ethnic secularism’ (laïcité ethnique) which helps to guarantee national cohesion through ‘a new social contract that recognizes individual talents and merits’.
26 While diversity was being mainstreamed by the centre right governments in office from 2001 to 2012, NGO representatives and left-wing parties frequently rejected it as a “cache-sexe” (“fig leaf”)’47, in other words, a euphemism which hides structural inequalities through tokenism. Sandrine Mazetier, the Socialist Party’s National Secretary for Immigration, denounced it as introducing a division between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ migrants48, primary and secondary discrimination. Houria Bouteldja, founding president of an NGO called ‘Les Indigènes de la République’ (Natives of the Republic), defined the promotion of diversity as ‘a condom for the Republic’ (using the term as a metaphor, in that diversity protects from the risk of social unrest, keeping outside post-colonial elements from entering the inner circles of French republican elites). In her view, French-style diversity is merely a safe means to address the frustrations and anger of those who feel discriminated against, without truly challenging inequality. From this perspective, for Yvette Roudy, first Minister for Women’s Rights ever appointed in France (1981-83), diversity is thus similar to a process of substitution: ‘when you erase the word equality, you also erase the notion itself, diversity is not the same as equality’.
Equality conditional to performance for “non- brothers”:
27 “Diversity is good for business”, “Diversity provides added value”, “More immigrants improve growth”. These arguments are more and more frequently used by politicians, international organizations and NGOs both at the international and national levels. The survival of the Welfare State and equality policies is based on a reversal of creed: it is equality and not inequality49 which is “better for all” to quote from the title of a book by the British authors Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson50. Numerous reports legitimize equality policies as an investment that costs less than it yields if economic and social “performance” is taken into account. By way of example, the OECD report51 justifies policies of redistribution and gender equality as a lever to increase economic growth, in particular because it argues that education is an attractive investment for all and not only for those from the highest socio-economic background. The link between the international aims of development policies and investment in women is also defended by the World Bank in particular 52 and the International Monetary Fund53. The 2014 campaign run by the non-governmental organization ‘Women Deliver’ entitled “Invest in Girls: Everybody Wins” can also be cited here54.
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28 Analysis of the French case provides evidence of the link between the promotion of parity and diversity and the rampant institutionalization of a principle of equality subordinated to how difference performs, both in terms of profitability and representation (standing for/acting for)55.
29 If simultaneously framed as a value, an objective and a right, how can the republican and politically liberal notion of equality56 still be distinguished from this neo-liberal approach in terms of social investment57?
30 From the mid-1990s onwards, social investment policies became an inherent part of social policy both in Europe and in certain Latin American countries58. Social investment theories demonstrate that offering the best possible future to the underprivileged and to their children ensures that the human capital opportunities they represent will not be lost.
31 In Investir dans le social, published in 2009, Jacques Delors and Michel Dollé dedicate a chapter to a "more active family policy" which concentrates on the employment of women and ensuring that a work-family balance is respected. Latin America also offers an example of conditional monetary transfers, the privileged means of action in a majority of countries, which consists in providing financial support to underprivileged mothers conditioning them to expect that their children will get the medical care they need and attend school.
The new spirit of capitalism: subverting the principle of equality into a neo-liberal framing
32 In a European context marked simultaneously by supranational anti-discrimination policies and the crisis of multiculturalism, the use of diversity in contemporary France was designed by members of centre right governments as a neo-republican answer to the crisis of the integration model and by economic stakeholders as a sort of ‘virtuous liberalism’ in answer to the economic crisis. In response to the growing fragmentation of French society the political function of diversity was thus intended to preserve social and national cohesion by framing difference as an asset. The 2005-2006 parity survey underlines that French-style diversity combines community-based calls for recognition and the virtues of the self-made individual. It can be analysed through the challenges it poses to the coherence of the social and national contract, showing that ‘Marianne (France) needs to see a psychoanalyst to figure out who she is’ as the businessman and founding president of Business Angels of the Cities Aziz Senni said when interviewed.
33 Left-wing political and NGO leaders have frequently linked the appointment of female ministers, Fadela Amara, Rachida Dati and Rama Yade, to a post-colonial Sabine’s rapt syndrome. For former minister Azzouz Begag, this embodies ‘the colonial idea according to which "we shall vanquish them by taking their women”’. As the historian Pap Ndiaye59 specifies: ‘the conjunction of gender-based and racial criteria is in keeping with the political aim to decrease the visibility of ethnic minorities and women in the public sphere’. Similarly, sociologist Nacira Guénif argues that ‘indigenous women’ who are appointed to positions of power in fact find themselves in a weakened position given that they are chosen precisely because of their gender and race. This creates a subordinate relationship with them in a context where the norm is the following: “non- white women being co-opted by white men”. The empirical data used to support this analysis show that the promotion of parity and diversity can be understood as an
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‘ambivalent positive intersectionality’ as it brings a neo-liberal conception of republican merit and the reactivation of the post-colonial framework together.
34 From this perspective, left-wing political and NGO leaders and academics denounce the discursive shift from republican equality to a ‘new capitalist spirit’ as fundamentally political60.
A new brotherhood or Dial M for Murder: killing equality in the name of equality?
35 What Fraternity, Parity and Diversity have in common is that they concretely address the issue of creating a citizen-based and national community. All three provide an essential pathway to implement the fundamental principles of equality and freedom. It is indeed necessary that citizens be recognized as brothers in the sense of Arendt’s concept of being seen as similar 61 and therefore being treated as equal and free.
36 However, the relations between diversity and fraternity are ambivalent. Indeed, although promoters of diversity claim a connection with social justice in the name of successful inclusion, they distance themselves from a Christian conception of fraternity as charity. Can diversity be considered as the implementation of a secular and inclusive fraternity?
37 For Malek Boutih, former president of SOS Racism (1999-2003), and in charge of the societal issues portfolio there at the date of the interview, parity and diversity are part of the “cunning of history” 62 towards equality. According to him, “society moves forward as a result of its contradictions, and the role played by ideology accelerates the process. In the case of parity, the assertion that women create peace is false in the short term, but true in the long term because parity opens the door to diversity.” However, he underlines the contradiction between the fight against structural discrimination and the fact that advocates of diversity adhere to the ultraliberal discourse of individual responsibility. He specifies that “we cannot go from the end of discrimination to nothing, discrimination will persist as long as it is not replaced by a new order”. When interviewed in the 2009 diversity survey (see above), Pap Ndiaye, Professor of History at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) echoed this warning by focusing on the long term and underlining that “it is a political moment, not in the sense of Hegelian deployment, but as the expression of the shifting balance of power in politics”. Along with Pap Ndiaye, Sihem Habchi, then president of the NGO “Ni putes ni soumises” and member of the HALDE, begins her interview by qualifying diversity as a “portmanteau word, a junk word”. She goes on to discuss the tensions between the virtues and problems it poses. Thus, she prefers “to understand it as the echo of a racially mixed French Republic (République métissée)”. In her view, “the issue of diversity should not blur the notion of equality, but on the contrary should build up the pragmatic foreground to go beyond multiculturalism towards a universalism which leads to racial blending (mixité) and serves the general interest”. For her, diversity is part of “a dynamics of construction which integrates the complexity of feelings of belonging for those who were born over there and whose fruits grow over here”.
38 Far from being neutral, French-style diversity reveals diverging ideological positions depending on how the French republican model is defined. The point is not to denounce differential (affirmative) treatment but to underline the centrality of how
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these policies are justified. It is essential to differentiate between the human capital idea which is applied to all and the idea that differences or even ‘female capital’, increase value, which revives the narrative of sexual and racial complementarity. The differential (affirmative) treatment of individuals is thus justified both in the name of recognizing individual merits and talents, and of the substantive representation of discriminated groups. My analysis underlines that the exclusion and inclusion of those who are potentially discriminated against resonates from a neo-liberal perspective by which public policies in general, and equality policies in particular, can only be legitimated as a social investment aimed to create both social and economic added value.
39 Analysis of the French case underlines the impossible cohabitation of the republican and neoliberal approaches. Indeed, legitimation through economic profitability leads to the subordination and conditional value of the principle of equality. The issue is to question to what extent, the principle of equality is still being upheld when the inclusion of discriminated groups is justified in the name of profitability, not only in economic terms but also in social and political terms. The challenge is to shed light on the political meaning of the alliance between adjustment to new economic environments and the possibility of social progress. The "Do Well Do Good" and the “Win Win” narratives are analysed as a neoliberal framing of the issue, where the very principle of equality is conditional to a demonstration of profitability. The horizon of such politics is not equality but a modernized form of complementarity for “non- brothers” – women and “non-whites”.
Conclusion: the cherry dilemma: the dangers of a consequentialist approach
40 The above analysis highlights the shift from a collective responsibility to fight against inequality to an individual responsibility to ensure that grounds for discrimination become assets for success.
41 Dressing up "in the colors of ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’"63, neoliberalism depoliticizes the heart of the republican political order, i.e. the principle of equality. In a resignification of the instruments of government, equality is thus promoted by soft law which itself is based on promoting the wealth created by diversity, and in particular gender-based and racial diversity. "64
42 Contemporary uses of parity and diversity are thus fundamentally political because they question the position of equality as the first principle in ‘the lexicon of the republican order’65 from a neoliberal perspective. By calling for differentiated treatment in the name of equality, parity and diversity become part of a ‘paradoxical citizenship’66 that reactivates the ‘Wollstonecraft dilemma’67.
43 To use a deontological rather than a consequentialist approach, the end does not justify the means, because the means conditions the end. In other words, there is a cherry dilemma here: we cannot merely say that diversity-based profitability is the cherry on the equality cake because the risk is that the cherry will devour the cake.
44 In order to eliminate this risk, equality must be conceived of and implemented without conditions by freeing68 it from notions of the brotherhood and the market. Such liberation has a twofold dimension: liberation from the universalist republican
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inheritance in its critical re-foundation and from the neoliberal re-appropriation of an equality conditional to the performance of the “non-brothers”.
45 Réjane Sénac is a CNRS tenured researcher at the Centre for Political Research at Sciences Po (CEVIPOF). She is a member of the steering committee for the research and lecture program on gender studies at Sciences Po, known as PRESAGE. Her publications include L’égalité sous conditions. Genre, parité, diversité (Presses de Sciences Po, 2015) and L’invention de la diversité (PUF, 2012).
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NOTES
1. The author would like to express her warmest thanks to Chantal Barry (CEVIPOF) for helping her revise the final English draft of this article. 2. Thomas Piketty, Le capital au 21ème siècle, (Paris, Seuil, 2013). 3. Elizabeth S. Anderson, The imperative of Integration, (Princeton and Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2010), p. 3 : « Knowledge of the better does not require knowledge of the best ». ; cf. Charles Mills, « « Ideal Theory » as Ideology », Hypathia, 20/3, 2005, pp. 165-184 and A. John Simmons, « Ideal and Non-ideal Theory », Philosophy and Public Affairs, 38/1, (2010), pp. 5-36. 4. Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma : The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy, (New York, Harper & Row, 2009) (1944). 5. . Françoise Gaspard, « Du patriarcat au fratriarcat. La parité comme nouvel horizon du féminisme », (Cahiers du genre, hors série, 2011), p. 135-155 ; Carole Pateman, The Sexual Contract, (Stanford Calif., Stanford University Press, 1988.) 6. Eléonore Lépinard, L’égalité introuvable – La parité, les féministes et la République, (Paris, Presses de Sciences Po, 2007). 7. Philip Pettit, Républicanisme. Une théorie de la liberté et du gouvernement, (Paris, Gallimard, 2004). 8. Laure Bereni, Alexandre Jaunait (eds.), Raisons politiques, «Usages de la diversité », n°35, 2009.
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9. Annie Junter, Réjane Sénac-Slawinski, « La diversite´: sans droit ni obligation », (Revue de l’OFCE, no. 114, 2010), pp. 167–196. 10. Walter Benn Michaels, The Trouble with Diversity. : How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality, (New York, Metropolitan, 2006). 11. Réjane Sénac, L’égalité sous conditions. Genre, parité, diversité, (Paris, Presses de Sciences Po, 2015). 12. The French laws on parité (1999 constitutional reform and laws drafted in 2000) were the first in the world to stipulate that by law in an election, all candidate lists must achieve gender balance, with fifty percent of candidates being male and fifty per cent female. 13. Geneviève Fraisse, Entretien, « De l’exclusion à la discrimination – Une généalogie historique, philosophique et politique », dans Françoise MilewskI, Hélène Perivier (dir.), Les discriminations entre les femmes et les hommes, (Paris, Presses de Sciences Po, 2011), pp. 39-56. 14. On the uses of the term inclusion in the public and private spheres concerning education, integration and professional equality: cf. in particular Lia Epperson, « Legislating inclusion », Harvard Law & Policy Review, vol. 6, n°1, 2012, pp. 91-114 ; UNESCO, Policy Guidelines on Inclusion, 2009 ; Thierry Tuot, La grande nation pour une société inclusive, Rapport au Premier Ministre sur la refondation des politiques d’intégration, (1er février 2013). 15. Delphine Dulong, Sandrine Lévêque, « Une ressource contingente, les conditions de reconversion du genre en ressource politique », Politix, (15), 60, (2002), pp. 81-111. 16. Armelle Le Bras-Chopard, De l’égalité dans la différence : le socialisme de Pierre Leroux, Paris, Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1986. 17. Lawrence D. Kritzman (dir.), Michel Foucault: Politics, Philosophy, Culture. Interviews and Other Writings, 1977-84, (New York, Routledge, 1988). 18. Cf. Geoffroy de Lagasnerie, La dernière leçon de Michel Foucault. Sur le néolibéralisme, la théorie et la politique, (Paris, Fayard, 2012). 19. Réjane Sénac-Slawinski, “Justifying Parity in France after the Passage of the so- called Parity Laws and the Electoral Application of them: the ‘Ideological Tinkering’ of Political Party Officials (UMP and PS) and Women’s NGOs”, French Politics, 6 (3), 2008, p. 234-256. 20. Réjane Sénac, L’invention de la diversité, (Paris, PUF, 2012). 21. Nancy Fraser, « Identity, Exclusion and Critique - A Response to Four Critics », European Journal of Political Theory, n°6, 2007, pp. 305-338. 22. Andrea Kriszan, Hege Skjeie, Judith Squires (eds.), Institutionalizing Intersectionality. The Changing Nature of European Equality Regimes. (Basingtoke, Palgrave-MacMillan, 2012). 23. “Unity in Diversity” has been the motto of the European Union since 2000. 24. Virginie Guiraudon, « La diversité en Europe: une évidence? », in Laure Bereni & Alexandre Jaunait (eds.), Raisons politiques, «Usages de la diversité », n° 35, (2009), pp. 67–86. 25. Marie-Thérèse Lanquetin, « Egalité, diversité et… Discriminations multiples ». Travail, genre et sociétés, « Egalité et diversité » n° 2, (2009), pp. 91–106. 26. Lucie Cluzel-Métayer, Marie Mercat-Bruns, Discriminations dans l’emploi. Analyse comparative de la jurisprudence du Conseil d’Etat et de la Cour de Cassation, (Paris, La Documentation française, Etudes & Recherches, 2011) ; Marie Mercat-Bruns, Discrimination at Work: Comparing European, French, and American Law, (California, University of California Press), 2016. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/luminos.11 Mathias Möschel, Carole Nivard, « Discriminations indirectes et statistiques : entre
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potentialités et résistance », in REGINE, Ce que le genre fait au droit, (Paris, Dalloz, 2013), p. 77-91. 27. Annie Junter & Réjane Sénac-Slawinski, « La diversite´: sans droit ni obligation », Revue de l’OFCE, no. 114, (2010), pp. 167–196. 28. Mireille Delmas-Marty, Le flou du droit, Paris : PUF, « Les Voies du droit », 1986 (rééd. PUF-Quadrige, 2004), pp. 143-144. 29. Sophie Landrieux-Kartochian, « La contribution des femmes à la performance des entreprises: une revue de la littérature », Document d’études de la Direction de l’Animation de la Recherche, des Etudes et des Statistiques (DARES), n°83, (2008) ; Laure Bereni, « Faire de la diversité une richesse pour l’entreprise : La transformation d’une contrainte juridique en catégorie managériale », in Laure Bereni, Alexandre Jaunait (eds.), Raisons politiques, «Usages de la diversité », n°35, (2009), pp. 87–106. 30. Dominique Versini, Rapport sur la diversité dans la fonction publique, (Paris, Documentation Française, 2004) ; Gwénaële Calvès, « Refléter la diversité de la population française : naissance et développement d’un objectif flou ». Revue internationale des sciences sociales, no 183, (2005), pp. 177-186. 31. Jacqueline Laufer, « L’égalité professionnelle entre les hommes et les femmes est- elle soluble dans la diversité? ». Travail, genre et sociétés, ‘Egalité et diversité’, n° 21, (2009), p. 29. 32. Simone Veil (dir), Rapport du Comité de réflexion sur le Préambule de la Constitution présidé par Simone Veil, Redécouvrir le Préambule de la Constitution, remis au président de la République en décembre 2008, (Paris, La Documentation française, 2009); Michel Wieviorka, La diversité – Rapport à la Ministre de l’enseignement supérieur et de la recherche, (Paris, Ed. Robert Laffont, 2008). 33. Michel Wieviorka, op. cit., p. 19. 34. Daniel Sabbagh, « La transparence comme obstacle : les déterminants de l’euphémisation de la “discrimination positive” en France et aux États-Unis ». In Paugam, S. (dir.) Repenser la solidarité : l’apport des sciences sociales, (Paris, PUF, 2007), pp. 585-598 ; Franck Dobbin, Inventing Equal Opportunity. (Princeton, Princeton University Press), 2009. 35. Michel S. Moses, Chang Mitchel J., “Toward a Deeper Understanding of the Diversity Rationale”, Educationale Research, vol. 35, n°1, (2006), pp. 6-11. 36. Daniel Sabbagh, « Itinéraire contemporain de la « diversité » aux Etats-Unis », in Laure Bereni & Alexandre Jaunait (eds.), Raisons politiques, «Usages de la diversité », n°35, (2009), pp. 31–48. 37. Emmanuelle Le Texier, Olivier Esteves, Denis Lacorne (dir.), Les politiques de la diversité – Expériences anglaise et américaine, (Paris, Presses de Sciences Po, 2010). 38. Cécile Laborde, « The Culture(s) of the Republic: Nationalism and Multiculturalism in French Republican Thought”, Political Theory, vol. 29, n°5, october 2001, pp. 716-735; Cécile Laborde, John Maynor (ed.), Republicanism and Political Theory, (Oxford, Blackwell Publishing, 2008); Justine Lacroix, « Communautarisme et pluralisme dans le débat français. Essai d’élucidation », Ethique publique, vol. 9, n°1, (2007), pp. 50-56. 39. Réjane Sénac-Slawinski, « De la parité à la diversité : entre deuxième sexe et discrimination seconde », Modern & Contemporary France, vol. 18, no4, (2010), pp. 431-444.
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40. In 1982, the Constitutional council dismissed a first attempt to include quota provisions in electoral law. In 1999, it opened the way to a revision of the Constitution of the Vth Republic, in order to allow the adoption of the so-called “parity laws” in 2000. 41. Micheline Amar (coord.), Le piège de la parité. Arguments pour un débat, (Paris, Hachette Littératures), 1999. 42. Anne Phillips, Multiculturalism without culture, (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2007), p. 167. 43. Magali Bessone, « Beyond liberal multicultural toleration: A critical approach to groups’ essentialism », European Journal of Political Theory, n°12, (2013), pp. 271-287. 44. Mireille Delmas-Marty, Orderly pluralism. A Conceptual Framework for Understanding the Transnational Legal World, (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2009). 45. Lauren B. Edelman, Sally Riggs Fuller, Iona Mara-Drita, « Diversity Rhteroric and the Managerialization of Law », The American Journal of Sociology, vol. 106, n°6, (2001), pp. 1589-1641. 46. Vincent Geisser, El Yamine Soum, Discriminer pour mieux régner. Enquête sur la diversité dans les partis politiques, (Paris, Éd. de l’Atelier, 2008). 47. Literally, a conceptual device hiding something that cannot be named. 48. Myraim Hachimi Alaoui, « L’intégration sous condition : valeurs non négociables et égalité des sexes », Femmes et droit / Canadian Journal of Women and the Law, (24) 1, (2012), pp. 114-134. 49. Simon Kuznet, “Economic Growth and Income Inequality”, American Economic Review, vol. XLV, n°1, (March 1955), p. 1-28. 50. Richard Wilkinson, Kate Pickett, The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better, (Paris, Alan Lane, 2009). 51. OECD, In It Together: Why Less Inequality Benefits All, report (2015). 52. World Banks, World Development Report 2012: Gender Equality and Development. 53. International Monetary Fund, Causes and Consequences of Income Inequality: A Global Perspective, (June 2015). 54. .WomenDeliver.org. 55. Hanna Fenichel Pitkin, The concept of representation, (Berkeley, Calif., University of California Press, 1967). 56. Cécile Fabre, Justice in a Changing World, (Cambridge, Polity, 2007). 57. Gosta Esping-Andersen, The incompletude revolution: adapting to women’s new roles, (Cambridge, Polity, 2009); Nathalie Morel, Bruno Palier, Joakim Palme (eds), Towards a Social Investment Welfare State? Ideas, Politicies and Challenges, ‘Bristol-Chicago Ill., Polity Press, 2012). 58. Jane Jenson, Denis Saint-Martin, « Building blocks for a new social architecture: the LEGOTM paradigm of an active society”, Policy and Politics, vol. 34, n°3, (2006), p. 429-451. 59. Cf. Pap Ndiaye, La condition noire: essai sur une minorité française, (Paris, Gallimard, 2008). 60. Luc Boltanski, Eve Chiapello, The New Spirit of Capitalism. (London-New York,Verso, 2005) (French original 1999). 61. Myriam Revault d’Allonnes, « À l’épreuve des camps : l’imagination du semblable », Fragile humanité, (Paris, Aubier, 2002), p. 145-168. 62. Nancy Fraser, “Capitalism and the Cunning of History Do feminism and neoliberalism share a secret affinity?”, New Left Review, n°56, (2009), pp. 97-117. 63. Wendy Brown, « Le cauchemar américain : le néoconservatisme, le néolibéralisme et la dé- démocratisation des Etats-Unis », Raisons politiques, n°28, (novembre 2007), p. 80.
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64. Mireille Delmas-Marty, Le flou du droit, (Paris, PUF, « Les Voies du droit », 1986) (rééd. PUF-Quadrige, 2004), pp. 143-144. 65. John, Rawls Theory of justice, (Harvard, Harvard University Press, 1971) (1987 for the french translation). 66. Joan Wallach Scott, La citoyenne paradoxale : les féministes françaises et les droits de l’homme, (Paris, Albin Michel, 1998). 67. Carole Pateman, The Disorder of Women. Democracy, Feminism and Political Theory. (Cambridge, Polity Press, 1989). 68. Philip Pettit, Républicanisme. Une théorie de la liberté et du gouvernement, (Paris, Gallimard, 2004).
ABSTRACTS
Today’s uses of parity and diversity say much about the principle of equality in 21st-century French society. This article analyses the role they play in the contemporary conversation about the French republican motto ‘Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité’. To that end, it addresses the way in which the uses of parity and diversity question the dilemmas of “republican equality”, along with the political dimension of the advent of neoliberalism.
Que disent les usages contemporains de la parité et de la diversité du principe d’égalité dans la société française du XXIe siècle ? Nous analyserons la façon dont ces usages participent de la conversation contemporaine sur la devise républicaine « Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité ». Nous aborderons pour cela plus précisément la manière dont ils interrogent les dilemmes de la pensée républicaine de l’égalité, et la dimension politique du tournant néolibéral.
INDEX
Mots-clés: discrimination, diversité, parité, valeurs républicaines Keywords: discrimination, diversity, parity, Republican values
AUTHOR
RÉJANE SÉNAC CNRS Tenured Research Fellow at the Centre for Political Research of Sciences Po - CEVIPOF
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Book Reviews Comptes rendus
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Compte rendu de Philip Cowley et Dennis Kavanagh, The British General Election of 2015, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, 483 p.
Agnès Alexandre-Collier
RÉFÉRENCE
Philip Cowley et Dennis Kavanagh, The British General Election of 2015, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, 483 p
1 Quel angliciste n'a pas eu entre les mains, au cours de sa formation, l'un des ouvrages de la série publiée par Butler et Kavanagh sur les élections britanniques ? Pour célébrer sa 19ème édition et son 70ème anniversaire, cet ouvrage sur les dernières élections de 2015 n'a rien perdu des qualités qui font de cette série une véritable institution. Alliant une enquête fouillée dans les coulisses de la campagne qui fourmille de détails et d'anecdotes parfois croustillantes et racontées avec humour, et une analyse rigoureuse et pertinente dans la lignée des meilleures études électorales - ou de ce l'on appelle la pséphologie, terme d'ailleurs conçu par David Butler lui-même - l'ouvrage prouve qu'il est, une fois de plus, une somme incontournable qui regorge de données jamais diffusées au grand public. Dennis Kavanagh, le grand spécialiste de la vie politique britannique et l'un des deux premiers auteurs et fondateurs de cette série, fait appel, depuis quelques années, à celui qui semble correspondre le mieux aux objectifs de l'ouvrage. Philip Cowley est en effet un universitaire bien connu des spécialistes pour ses travaux sur les rébellions parlementaires et aussi l'un des meilleurs experts de l'envers du décor politique britannique, de ce qui se joue au sein des machines électorales que sont les partis, bref de ce qui échappe même au lecteur le plus averti. Soucieux de ne jamais céder à l'ennui, l'ouvrage plonge le lecteur au cœur de la campagne électorale de 2015 comme s'il en était lui même l'un des principaux acteurs,
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voire plusieurs en même temps : un électeur sondé au téléphone ou de visu, un militant voyageant dans l'un des bus affrétés pour l'occasion, un membre de l'équipe de campagne, ou encore un proche du dirigeant vivant, dans l'intimité, les affres de l'attente à l'approche des résultats.
2 L’ouvrage est structuré autour de 14 chapitres consacrés au bilan de la législature actuelle (chapitre 1), aux principaux partis politiques - conservateurs, travaillistes, libéraux démocrates et autres (chapitres 2 à 4), ainsi qu'au SNP (Scottish National Party) auquel les auteurs ont choisi, à raison, de consacrer un chapitre entier (chapitre 5), au déroulement détaillé de la campagne à la fois nationale (chapitre 7) et sur le terrain (chapitre 10), à la nuit précédant l'annonce des résultats (chapitre 8), à l'échec des sondages (chapitre 9), au rôle des médias (chapitres 11 et 12), au profil des candidats et nouveaux élus (chapitre 13) et à une analyse des résultats proposée par les meilleurs spécialistes de la question, notamment John Curtice (chapitre 14).
3 L'originalité de l'ouvrage repose sur une alliance, unique en son genre, de ressources didactiques (comme les chronologies détaillées des chapitres 1, 6 et 7), de données scientifiques regroupées en tableaux variés (sur par exemple les indicateurs économiques du gouvernement de coalition précédent, les principaux journaux, les statistiques électorales nationales et régionales ou encore le profil socio- démographique des candidats et des nouveaux élus) mais aussi de caricatures (notamment celles des dessinateurs connus comme Steve Bell ou Matt) ou d’anecdotes cinglantes nourries par des centaines d'entretiens. Ainsi les auteurs critiquent-ils le mode de gouvernance interne de David Cameron soucieux d'organiser de vastes consultations de députés mais finalement peu intéressé par ce qu'ils ont à dire. Ils s'amusent à révéler la vanité du leader travailliste, qui en voulant égaler son homologue conservateur et prononcer son discours sans notes, en a oublié le paragraphe le plus important, celui-là même qui faisait tout l'intérêt du discours. Ils évoquent l'incompétence avérée de la dirigeante du Green Party, Natalie Bennett, y compris aux yeux de ses propres militants, et son incapacité à donner le moindre chiffre en réponse aux questions des journalistes. Ils se moquent aussi gentiment du spécialiste du UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party), Matthew Goodwin, annonçant sans hésitation à deux mois du scrutin qu'il y avait déjà quatre sièges "dans la poche" ("in the bag") pour ce parti.
4 Les résultats des élections de 2015 ont échappé à la plupart des prédictions des sondages et des universitaires, lesquelles ont essentiellement convergé vers deux scénarios : la formation d'un nouvelle coalition et l'obtention par le UKIP d'une poignée de sièges. Or personne n'avait anticipé ni n'était préparé à ce qui allait suivre : une majorité absolue de sièges pour les conservateurs (330), une défaite cinglante pour les travaillistes (232), un échec total pour les libéraux démocrates (8 sièges), la quasi disparition du UKIP (1 siège) et la victoire massive et inédite du SNP (Scottish National Party) en Écosse dans les bastions traditionnellement travaillistes (56 sièges). Partant de ce constat en forme d'auto-critique partagée, l'ouvrage s’efforce à la fois d'expliquer ces résultats et l'échec des prédictions. Ce faisant, il ne perd jamais de vue ses principaux arguments au milieu de la multitude de données et de détails fournis. Les auteurs démontrent ainsi avec vigueur que la victoire des conservateurs a été finalement modeste par rapport aux moyens et ressources mobilisés par le parti. Ils décrivent ainsi, par le menu, une campagne exceptionnelle orchestrée au niveau national par Lynton Crosby et Grant Shapps, vice-président, secondé par Stephen
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Gilbert en charge des opérations sur le terrain, associant une multitude de stratégies sophistiquées comme la création du réseau de supporters Team 2015 pour renforcer les contingents de militants dans les sections locales, le recours aux emails directs et ciblés, la stratégie 40/40 (40 circonscriptions marginales à cibler et 40 sièges à conquérir) qui deviendra 50/50 au fil des jours, la compilation des types d'électeurs ciblés (classés de 1 à 10 en fonction de la probabilité de leur vote), l'électeur classé 9 ou 10 recevant 8 messages personnalisés en un laps de temps réduit. Ils expliquent que parallèlement, c'est le manque de ressources financières et non le choix d'une mobilisation plus traditionnelle des militants - incités à réaliser quelque quatre millions de "conversations" que le parti a souhaité mettre en place avec les électeurs - qui ont projeté l'image d'une campagne travailliste démodée par rapport à l'offensive numérique des conservateurs. Des "conversations" de surcroît difficiles à vivre pour des militants peu convaincus par le message confus de leur leader, Ed Miliband. S'ajoute à ces explications la certitude qu'ils conserveraient leurs sièges, considérés comme sûrs, en Ecosse. Concernant le SNP, l'augmentation de leurs adhérents après le référendum sur l'indépendance de l'Ecosse de septembre 2014 - ce qu'on a pu appeler l'"effet référendum" -, leur formidable campagne de terrain et surtout les grandes qualités de leadership de Nicola Sturgeon révélées par les débats télévisés, sont autant de facteurs qui expliquent la percée spectaculaire du parti nationaliste écossais. Cowley et Kavanagh expliquent et dénigrent les failles des instituts de sondages auxquels les acteurs politiques ont continué à se fier de plus belle, dès le lendemain des résultats, pour tester l'opinion publique sur l'hypothèse d'une sortie du pays de l'Union européenne (ou "Brexit"). Malgré l’échec avéré des prédictions entièrement tendues vers l'idée d'un inévitable "hung parliament" (absence de majorité absolue), cette confiance aveugle dans les sondages les ont même conduits à se détourner des commentaires pourtant clairvoyants de certains grands éditorialistes de la presse nationale comme Philip Collins, Dan Hodges et John Rentoul qui avaient annoncé la victoire des conservateurs. C'est ainsi, expliquent les auteurs, que cette même confiance a conditionné non seulement les perceptions partisanes mais aussi l'orientation de la couverture médiatique qui, si la victoire des conservateurs avait été envisagée, se serait davantage attardée sur le bilan du gouvernement Cameron, pour le critiquer, que sur l’hypothèse d'une coalition entre les travaillistes et le SNP.
5 En définitive, certains pourront certes déplorer le manque de cadre théorique de cette étude, d'autres la surabondance de détails et d'anecdotes, parfois superflues, autant d'arguments sans doute recevables. Mais l'objectif de l'ouvrage est ailleurs : dans l'équilibre subtil et réussi entre le défi de la rigueur scientifique qu'il relève et le plaisir de la lecture qu'il procure.
AUTEURS
AGNÈS ALEXANDRE-COLLIER EA 4182, Université de Bourgogne Franche-Comté, Dijon.
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Review of Gilbert Bonifas & Martine Monacelli (eds.), Southern Horrors: Northern Visions of the Mediterranean World, Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013, xxv-215 p.
Stéphanie Prévost
REFERENCES
Gilbert BONIFAS et Martine MONACELLI (eds.), Southern Horrors: Northern Visions of the Mediterranean World, Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, xxv-215 p.
1 “Nothing is more difficult than for a foreigner to give a correct account of the state of a country – its laws, its manners, its customs; – the first often so different in their operation from what outwardly appears; the latter, never fully understood, Proteus- like, assume a thousand contradictory appearances and elude investigation.” Quite unexpectedly, Mary Shelley’s remark in a February 1843 letter on Tuscany perfectly applies to the collection of essays presented by Gilbert Bonifas, Emeritus Professor of English History and Civilization, and Martine Monacelli, Professor of British Studies at Nice-Sophia Antipolis University, in Southern Horrors: Northern Visions of the Mediterranean World. Whereas Shelley insists on how difficult it is to ascertain what there is to see because of deep-rooted preconceptions that may have been nurtured by personal, but also cultural and societal mindsets, Southern Horrors sets a slightly different tone, it seems: due to its foundational nature, the Mediterranean South has been mostly – not to say exclusively – envisaged by Northerners as “travels through darkness” [1]. But is it so simple? In reality, the title of Roderick Cavaliero’s prologue
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[1] invites us to read beyond this Manichean axiomatic/ geographical division of the North as good and the South as evil. In a similar way, although the book is indeed about looking into the “less enticing aspects and repugnance” (back matter) that an extended Mediterranean South induced in Northern (Protestant) Europeans from the late sixteenth century to the 1930s, the reader is subtly brought to understand that “the cornucopia of Southern horrors” [6] is but very often only one side of the coin. The critical introduction by Gilbert Bonifas and Martine Monacelli, as well as the perspicacious prologue by Roderick Cavaliero make this very clear. So do the subsequent fifteen chapters, which give analyses of direct or indirect encounters with the Mediterranean World from the standpoint of Northerners, mostly British and German ones, but some of them also American.
2 Southern Horrors is part of a tradition seeking to deconstruct Northern accounts of what remains “one-way exchanges”, most brilliantly embodied by John Pemble’s 1987 landmark study The Mediterranean Passion: Victorians and Edwardians in the South. If both works have similarities, especially in eventually bringing home that Northerners often experienced a mix of attraction and repulsion vis-à-vis the South – although Pemble’s take on the Mediterranean South was more positive at the onset –, differences are nevertheless many … and not just a matter of timeframes or standpoints. Indeed, whereas Pemble strove to show “how a revolution in transportation enabled the British middle classes to follow the aristocracy to the South in pursuit of culture, health, pleasure, and spiritual inspiration”, the raison d»être of Southern Horrors is “to decipher the ethos and to unravel the nexus of mentalités that determined the Northern perception (or imagination) of a dark Mediterranean world and inspired its representation” [xiii]. The originality of Southern Horrors thus lies in the fact that it offers case studies in which authors try to pin down what the South meant for a specific – but varied – array of Northerners, who developed a special relationship with the Mediterranean South: not necessarily because they experienced it and responded to it as travellers or churchmen in the field (see Chapters 6, 7, 9, 12 and 13 respectively about Grand Tourists responding to the Roman Campagna, Germans in eighteenth- century Lisbon, British visitors and winter residents in Nice, Marmaduke Pickthall in the Ottoman Empire, and American missionaries in the Levant), but also because this reconstructed geographical space was a source of inspiration for writers and artists (see especially Chapters 1, 14-15 on Gothic fiction, Chapter 3 on Elizabethan drama, Chapter 5 on Surrealists, and Chapter 8 on Dickens’s Pictures from Italy). The great variety of these case studies, which are revised versions of papers presented at an international symposium held in Nice in April 2012, helps to show how complex Northern perceptions of the Mediterranean South are – complex to the point that they make generalizations uneasy, as had already been intimated in liminal remarks to L’Angleterre et le monde méditerranéen (1987). Approaches used here, which mostly combine methodologies from the humanities (literature in a broad sense, history and the visual arts) with some employed in the social sciences (analyses of judicial cases and urban history in particular), also definitely contribute to this better extending of the Mediterranean South, which takes readers from Portugal to the Balkans, through Egypt, Turkey, Syria and Lebanon.
3 If the timelessness of “Southern horrors” permeates throughout these accounts, what comes out is that no matter the type of contact with the Mediterranean South (direct or indirect), it mostly remained an intellectual journey for which preconceptions often
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precluded an objective encounter, also with its inhabitants – or at least made it difficult, as Mary Shelley suggested in 1843. This is true also of pieces dealing with travel experiences, which tend to highlight the tensions between the world that these Northerners discovered and the world they had imagined. For instance, in her chapter about Grand Tourists» reactions to the Roman Campagna (Chapter 6), Lisa Beaven accounts for their dismay by insisting that “their mental image of an ideal Claudian landscape, with antique associations, clashed with the reality of a seemingly barren and treeless landscape” [91]. In most of the accounts of Northern (Protestant) Europeans, what is identified as decadence from idealized Ancient and Classical worlds – which, as Cavaliero rightly, remarks, could still be replete with violence as well [1-4] – not only leads to disappointment, but mostly results in outright denunciation and condemnation of such «horrors». Amongst these, Roman Catholicism, Islam, violence, lewdness, debauchery and despotism ranked prominent, with religion often being mentioned in these post-Reformation discourses as the cause of the fall of past, glorious civilizations. In Chapters 5 and 11, Paul Barlow and Francesca Vanke powerfully argue that such «degradation» [65] was also perceived as being due to innate racial inferiority, to the point that beautiful ceramics or rugs were misattributed and called “Persian” – even if they were Turkish. Vanke reminds her readers that Robert Knox had declared “Oriental races” incapable of progress because of “race” in his 1850 publication The Races of Men, and echoes Barlow’s presentation of the classification of races. As far as the Southern Mediterranean (and actually East) were concerned, both Barlow and Vanke emphasize the importance of the “Turanian” category, which is being rediscovered in studies of Northern perceptions of the South. Vanke’s wonderings about why James Fergusson considered the Turks of “the Turanian race”, often described as «the most primitive» one, attest to how fluctuating such categorizations could actually be and how problematic (the legacy of) Orientalist racializing is [146]. As Vanke deftly shows, the association between Turks and Turanians gathered momentum in the context of «the Bulgarian atrocities» of 1876, which provides an analytical framework to Chapter 10, dedicated to young journalist William T. Stead’s passionate campaign against Islam and the Turks at the time and to Gladstone’s response. The late Jean-Claude Sergeant concurs with historians of the 1876 Eastern Question, especially Richard T. Shannon and Ann P. Saab, that Stead «probably exaggerated his part in influencing Gladstone’s progressive acceptance of his role as national mouthpiece of the opposition to Disraeli’s Eastern European policy» [140]. Sergeant does not investigate other factors that may have drawn the «Great Old Man» out of political retirement, and interested readers will have to have to look elsewhere for a more detailed analysis, especially in the publication that followed the William T. Stead Centenary conference held at the British Library in 2012. But this chapter serves a broader purpose in demonstrating how some «Southern horrors» could rouse a widespread feeling of national duty to stamp them out and impose Christian moralism instead onto people presented as morally, intellectually, if not racially inferior.
4 In their critical introduction, Bonifas and Monacelli forewarn readers that «Orientalism, in fact, is not absent from this book» [xxi] and that «geographically we seem to be passing from a North/South to a West/East divide» [xxi], which is also accountable in terms of shifting historical boundaries with the Balkans only becoming completely independent from Ottoman/ Turkish rule in 1912. If Stead’s and Gladstone’s participation in the Bulgarian agitation movement is mostly about how the Concert of Europe should hasten reform in the Ottoman Empire to protect Ottoman Christians and
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Europeanize it, Chapters 4 and 15 clearly exemplify Said’s point in Orientalism (1978) that the denunciation of «Southern horrors» could also stem from a fear of contamination within Europe [xxi]. In Chapter 15, Susan Oliver examines the critical reception of Keats’s Lamia (1820) and Polidori’s The Vampyre (1819) in Britain and finds that disapproval had to do with concerns over the immorality of both stories, but also invasion [210] in much the same way as Stoker’s Dracula (1897) would be perceived a few decades later. By contrast, after a careful examination of trial proceedings involving Mediterranean-born offenders in between 1830-1900, Neil Davie identifies a shift in how such offenders were considered and concludes on a dwindling «fear of a wave of foreign-inspired knife crime» [62] after 1865, when “concerns about endemic lawlessness about the English ‘residuum’” more or less supplanted it [63]. Despite the permanence of “Southern horrors” chapter after chapter, readers are made to feel that their perception is also linked to specific historical and political contexts and is also an issue of personal interpretation. Marmaduke Picktall’s Turcophile writings presented by Alice Salvatore in Chapter 12 are an intriguing case in point of complex counter- Orientalism as later Picktall blames the West for creating “Southern horrors” [169], while still posing a Western gaze on Eastern realities, especially in his fiction.
5 In a nutshell, Southern Horrors presents a convincing argument throughout that unfolds from the critical edition and the prologue to the subsequent fifteen chapters, which are most often extremely well-referenced, engage with current historiographical debates, and have cross-references. This book will appeal to all those who are interested in Northern representations of the Mediterranean South … or the East.
AUTHORS
STÉPHANIE PRÉVOST Université Paris-Diderot
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Review of Julie V. Gottlieb ‘Guilty Women’, foreign policy, and appeasement in inter-war Britain.
Marc Calvini Lefebvre
REFERENCES
Julie V Gottlieb, ‘Guilty Women’, foreign policy, and appeasement in inter-war Britain, Basingstoke and New York, Palgrave Macmillan,340 pages, ISBN : 978-0-230-30429-1, $69.99
1 Women’s history and gender history share a propensity to fundamentally disrupt well- established historical narratives. Yet the emergence of the second has at times been so controversial as to give the impression that feminist historians had to choose between them. Julie Gottlieb’s impressive study is a wonderful example of their complementarity and, in her skilful hands, their combination profoundly recasts the familiar story of the “Munich Crisis” of 1938.
2 This feat is achieved by bringing together two questions that are usually kept separate: “did Britain follow a reasonable course in foreign policy in response to the rise of the dictators?” and “[h]ow did women’s new citizenship status reshape British politics in the post-suffrage years?” (9). The first is the preserve of appeasement literature: prolific in output but narrow in both its interpretive paradigms and choice of sources, this literature has paid insufficient attention to women as historical actors and to gender as a category of historical analysis. It thus barely registers or questions a widespread view held by contemporaries: that appeasement was a “feminine” policy, both in the (literal) sense of being what women wanted and in the (gendered) sense of lacking the necessary virility to counter the continent’s alpha-male dictators. The second question has driven the enquiries of women’s historians, whom have neither paid much attention to foreign affairs, a field saturated with male actors, nor to women engaged on the conservative end of the political spectrum. This has resulted in a dual
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blindness: to the elite women who were deeply embroiled in the making or contesting of appeasement, and to the grass-roots Conservative women who overwhelmingly supported it.
3 In order to write women back in to the story of what Gottlieb insightfully calls “the People’s Crisis”, the book is divided into four main parts, each exploring a different group of women: feminists (chapters 1 & 2), elite and grass-roots party political – mostly Conservative – women (chapters 3, 4 & 5), ordinary women (chapters 6, 7 & 8), and the women “Churchillians” (chapter 9). The care taken here not to homogenise women, to pay close attention to their social and political locations and the impact of these on their expressions of opinion about the government’s foreign policy is a first remarkable feature of this study. Indeed, it allows the author to convincingly dismantle the idea that women supported appeasement qua women, and to identify the origins of this tenacious myth. To disprove it, Gottlieb could have been content with pointing to a series of remarkable women anti-appeasers of the first hour such as the the Duchess of Atholl, formidable antifascist of the right, or the highly articulate feminists Monica Whatley or Eleanore Rathbone who, encountering fascism on their European travels or on British streets, dropped their 1920s campaigning for internationalism and produced a deluge of anti-fascist literature in the 1930s. But she delves below this illustrious surface, going off the beaten track to seek out new sources from which to glean ordinary women’s views on appeasement. The result is a startling cornucopia of source materials – the archives of the Conservative Women’s Association, opinion polls, recurring press cartoons, letters written by women to the Chamberlains, Winston Churchill, Duff Cooper and Leo Amery, women’s Mass-Observation diaries, commemorative plates sold to Chamberlain’s admirers, and the results of 1938’s seven by-elections – each treated with considerable care. This tour de force leads to an authoritative conclusion: that although ordinary British women tended on the whole to espouse a deep but uninformed pacifism and to record their sense of significant differences between the sexes over appeasement, it was simply not the case that British women voted systematically as a bloc in favour of appeasement candidates.
4 Why then, has the dominant frame of interpretation, both at the time and in subsequent decades, been that appeasement was the policy that women wanted? A first answer can be given by turning to women’s history: it is very clear that plenty of women did vocally and electorally support appeasement, and Gottlieb meticulously itemises the different groups of these “guilty women”. They ranged from socially and politically visible women – those close to Chamberlain (his sisters, his wife, Nancy Astor), aristocratic supporters of Nazism (Lady Londonderry), most Conservative female MPs, and pacifist feminists (Helena Swanwick) – to the ordinary foot soldiers of the Conservative Party and the British Union of Fascists, all the way down to the myriad women (including foreign women) who wrote letters to the Prime Minister to show their support. In the process two central claims of this book emerge. First, that women’s exclusion from the institutionally sexist Foreign Office was not tantamount to an exclusion from foreign policy making. This is most obvious in the case of elite women, whose interventions via private channels and unofficial diplomacy could be decisive. But it was true also of all women, both ordinary and not, whose letter writing to politicians, Gottlieb insists, must be taken seriously as a form of political expression, precisely because they “otherwise had little access to power” (262). This was their way, via what she helpfully characterises as an “epistolary democracy” (262), of attempting to sway foreign policy. This leads directly to her second major claim: that appeasement
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would not have been implemented, much less maintained, without the staunch loyalty of Conservative women to Chamberlain and his policy, and without the PM’s unwavering belief, based on the letters he received, that he was carrying out a policy that women overwhelmingly supported. Blind to the existence of these women, and unaware of the importance of these sources, historians have failed to see how the domestic setting in which Chamberlain operated, and from which he gained emotional sustenance in what were highly stressful times, played a key role in the shaping of his foreign policy.
5 They have also failed to see “how gender mattered” (263) to foreign policy debates and actors. Turning to gender history, Gottlieb throws new light on three phenomena: “public opinion”, the place of misogyny in anti-appeasement politics, and the importance of masculinity to foreign policy actors. First, she deftly shows how public opinion was seen after 1918, by politicians and journalists struggling to come to terms with the notion of a feminized democracy, as a feminine force in need of patriarchal guidance. When the elites spoke of “the Public” what they meant was “women” (p.178). And when it came to foreign affairs, particularly questions of war/peace, she establishes convincingly that the dominant view, both in elite and ordinary discourse, remained the pre-war notion that women were “the world’s natural pacifists” (154) because of their role as biological and/or social mothers. Little surprise then that the Government and its backers in the Press saw this feminised public opinion as a dependable source of support and legitimacy for appeasement – and framed their political campaigning and messaging accordingly. Little surprise also that it was denounced by anti-appeasers as guilty of emasculating the country. Indeed, Churchill, his “glamour boys”, and their supporters in the Press such as cartoonist David Low were notoriously misogynistic and framed appeasement, “the Public” who allegedly supported it, and male appeasers, as effeminate or under the control of nefarious feminine influences, such as that of Lady Nancy Astor. Gottlieb’s proposed interpretation of the attacks on the Cliveden set as motivated by sexism is compelling, as are her arguments that male anti-appeasers are responsible for the writing out of anti-appeasement history of the women they knew and worked with. Equally convincing is her demonstration that competing understandings of masculinity were at play in male actors’ own sense of who they were and what they were doing, and in the way they were perceived by the public.
6 Bringing gender and women’s history together, Julie Gottlieb has thus provided us with an immensely rich and rewarding analysis of appeasement. My only regret is that there is no separate concluding chapter in which she might have brought the numerous threads of her rich tapestry together to allow readers to see it more clearly and in the round. This might, furthermore, have been an opportunity to expand on one theme, which I personally felt was not as convincingly explored as the rest: the idea that shame was a central emotion in women’s, as distinct from men’s, turn against appeasement. Indeed, without counterpoints in men’s writings, it is difficult for this claim to appear as more than a fruitful hypothesis to pursue. These are however but small quibbles with this work of stunning craftswomanship and path-breaking scholarship.
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AUTHORS
MARC CALVINI LEFEBVRE LERMA Université aix Marseilles.
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Compte rendu de Emmanuelle Avril, Pauline Schnapper (eds.), Le Royaume-Uni au XXI siècle : mutations d’un modèle
Baudry Rocquin
RÉFÉRENCE
Emmanuelle AVRIL, Pauline SCHNAPPER (eds.), Le Royaume-Uni au XXI siècle : mutations d’un modèle, Paris : Editions Ophrys, 2014, 374 p., ISBN : 978-2-7080-1378-0, 25 euros.
1 Le livre coordonné par Emmanuelle Avril et Pauline Schnapper est une contribution importante à la science politique, la sociologie et l’histoire récente du « modèle » britannique au XXIe siècle.
2 Peut-on encore parler aujourd’hui d’un modèle britannique ? Par modèle on entend un exemple qu’on admire, qu’on recopie et qui s’exporte. C’était le cas à partir du XVIIIe et surtout du XIXe siècle où le Royaume-Uni était perçu comme un modèle de démocratie parlementaire, de développement industriel et de puissance mondiale à travers son Empire dont s’inspiraient de nombreux pays, alimentant ainsi le mythe d’un « exceptionnalisme britannique ».
3 L’introduction distingue trois grands traits de ce modèle : le modèle politique de Westminster, le rôle de l’Etat dans l’économie et le pluralisme et la tolérance religieuse du point de vue social. Globalement, ce qui caractérisait ce « modèle » britannique depuis 1945 a été sa souplesse et son succès qui ont permis des changements progressifs politiques tout en assurant une certaine cohésion sociale, appuyés sur sa lingua franca qui l’ont imposé dans le monde.
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4 Les mutations mises en avant dans l’ouvrage sont de deux types : des transformations internationales – la mondialisation des échanges, les changements technologiques, l’entrée dans la Communauté européenne, la fin de la guerre froide, les attaques du 11 septembre 2001 – et des évolutions internes – les évolutions démographiques, le maintien de fortes inégalités sociales et géographiques, la crise de légitimité du système politique, l’émergence d’un gouvernement de coalition conservateur-libéral démocrate en 2010, la menace de l’indépendance de l’Ecosse, la crise financière et économique, les critiques du multiculturalisme depuis 2001.
5 Tous ces développements contribuent à remettre en question la souplesse du modèle britannique dans un monde en changement. Ce sont ces questions, et en particulier celui des mutations de l’exceptionnalisme britannique, que les auteurs de cet ouvrage soulèvent – avec beaucoup de talent – en abordant successivement les aspects politiques, économiques, sociaux et culturels du Royaume-Uni au début du XXIe siècle.
6 Dans la première partie, consacrée aux questions politiques et institutionnelles, les auteurs montrent une adaptabilité des institutions qui ont toutes évolué, notamment sous l’impulsion du New Labour de Tony Blair (réforme de la chambre des Lords, « relation spéciale ») et des idéologies qui ont également changé, avec une normalisation des petits partis et un affaiblissement des élections transformées par le multipartisme. Enfin, la politique étrangère britannique a du mal à évoluer, malgré l’expérience du déclin. Un des grands atouts de cette partie est de présenter les partis politiques (Conservateurs, Travaillistes mais aussi libéraux-démocrates, SNP, Plaid Cymru, UKIP, etc.) sans parti-pris, avec autant de précision et de développement pour chacun, de manière à bien montrer l’émergence d’une « opposition » multipartite.
7 La deuxième partie traite des aspects économiques et sociaux et met en lumière une évolution graduelle vers une libéralisation de l’économie (des services et de la finance, principalement) et de la société (droits des femmes, des homosexuels mais aussi évolution du financement des universités ou du NHS), reflétant une tradition de libéralisme social proprement britannique. Ce phénomène s’accompagne paradoxalement de la persistance des inégalités économiques, géographiques et sociales, de la polarisation traditionnelle entre nord et sud, entre haves et have nots. Cette partie est particulièrement habile à mettre en évidence les complexes réformes sociales-libérales depuis le New Labour dans la société, que ce soit dans l’enseignement, la santé, la justice ou l’économie, et qui jouent de l’identité britannique au XXIe siècle. Ces domaines sont-ils indépendants des changements politiques et mondiaux ?
8 La troisième partie, qui couvre les aspects culturels, traduit la même ambivalence, entre l’émergence d’un modèle d’intégration, notamment des minorités ethniques et religieuses, et la persistance de clivages socio-culturels qui dans certains cas semblent de plus en plus marqués. On note là encore que l’identité britannique, au travers du sport comme le rugby ou les JO de 2012 ou le rôle des médias papier en déclin, évolue vers plus de périphéries. On l’observe également dans les loisirs ou le mainstreaming du cinéma britannique.
9 Cet ouvrage est donc un parfait manuel de science politique, sociologie ou histoire contemporaine du Royaume-Uni, qui satisfera tout autant les chercheurs en civilisation britannique que les étudiants en abordant de manière précise et exhaustive de nombreux domaines de la culture et de l’histoire récente du Royaume-Uni. La lecture est d’autant plus stimulante que les auteurs ont réussi le pari de réunir plus d’une dizaine de contributeurs spécialistes dans leur domaine (dont Jean-Claude Sergeant, à
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qui le livre est dédié) en un peu plus de 300 pages avec chiffres et faits à la clé, tout en assurant une homogénéité des sections surprenante. Il semble que le livre ait été écrit d’une seule main. Enfin, et ce n’est pas négligeable pour un ouvrage de civilisation britannique, il contient très peu de calques et propose très souvent une traduction des concepts importants en français tout en se référant aux termes originaux en langue anglaise entre parenthèse dans le texte. Cela en fait un ouvrage tout à fait homogène et agréable à lire.
10 Chaque chapitre dispose ainsi d’une bibliographie à jour et concise dans chacune des sections. Ce choix permettra autant aux non-spécialistes qu’aux étudiants de parfaire leurs connaissances auprès de textes plus spécialisés sans pour autant nécessiter de l’érudition. Les chercheurs quant à eux trouveront leur bonheur dans les mises à jour des questions économiques, politiques et sociales depuis 2010 et des problématiques sur l’identité britannique au XXIe siècle abordée à travers de nombreuses perspectives – du sport à l’économie en passant par la « relation spéciale ». Les derniers ajouts théoriques sont présents, notamment sur les questions internationales et sociales (le « Great British Class Survey » de Savage et Devine de 2013, par exemple).
11 Pour terminer, il faut souligner la qualité du cahier couleur en fin d’ouvrage et la présence d’un index – certes un peu court par rapport au nombre de concepts évoqués dans le corps du texte – qui parachèvent cette œuvre qui fera date dans les questions de modèles nationaux et d’identité britannique. On attend d’ores et déjà avec impatience la seconde édition qui, après les élections du 7 mai 2015 et ce qui suivra, permettront de préciser encore celles-ci.
AUTEURS
BAUDRY ROCQUIN Université de Bordeaux, Centre Emile Durkheim (UMR 5116)
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Review of Karine Tournier-Sol and Chris Gifford (eds), The UK Challenge to Europeanization. The Persistence of British Euroscepticism, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
Richard Davis
REFERENCES
Karine Tournier-Sol and Chris Gifford (eds), The UK Challenge to Europeanization. The Persistence of British Euroscepticism, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
1 Few issues today occupy a more central place in British politics than that of the UK’s position in, and relation to, the rest of Europe. Indeed, this debate, and the upcoming referendum on the country’s continued membership of the European Union, is quite rightly regarded as having enormous consequences for the future of British society as a whole. The outcome will no doubt have an important impact on all aspects of British life and may well determine its economic and political future, perhaps even its constitution and its future as a United Kingdom 1. The publication of this collection of articles is, therefore, timely and likely to be of great interest to both specialists and non-specialists alike. These are also important issues for the European Union as whole.
2 The authors of the various chapters in this collection come from differing disciplines and backgrounds and they address these questions from various angles, using different forms of analysis. As its editors argue in their introduction, the “book embraces diversity in its multi-national authorship and its multi-disciplinary approach” (p.13). Taken as a whole this allows the book to provide an interesting variety of approaches to their common theme.
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3 The book is structured in such a way as to take the reader in a logical progression from the roots of Euroscepticism, through its differing expressions and to its various manifestations. The first chapter begins by providing an interesting analysis of the cultural, especially religious, roots of British Euroscepticism before considering the deep-rooted and widely-held feelings in Britain of their essential difference from the European other. In chapters two and three the authors consider the interactions between the debates on Europe and that around the British state: between Euroscepticism, British national consciousness and identity, and the forces pushing towards the disintegration of the UK. Both authors here are no doubt right to emphasise the role played by the various nationalisms in the UK in British Euroscepticism. Chapter four gives an excellent summary of the historical background to today’s Euroscepticism from 1945 onwards and usefully sets the current Euroscepticism in the context of the intellectual debate going back to Hume and Burke. The place of Euroscepticism within the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties is dealt with in the following chapters: how they have tried to manage the impact of Eurosceptic forces among their own members and supporters, and how they have reacted to both the Eurosceptic forces coming from outside their ranks and to the challenge to them from UKIP. Part three of the book then considers Euroscepticism in civil society: in the media, with an analysis of the reactions to David Cameron’s Bloomberg speech, and in various Eurosceptic pressure groups. Part four approaches the questions of the Eurozone crisis and role of finance. In chapter ten Catherine Macmillan uses an interesting political discourse analysis to convincingly show how, over time, a dominant Eurosceptic discourse was set down, that has reinforced the sense of otherness and difference between Britain and Europe. As Macmillan and several of the other authors here argue, today’s politicians operate within this same broadly Eurosceptic framework, one that limits and conditions the whole European debate. The final chapter brings in a further transatlantic dimension highlighting, as some of the earlier chapters also do, the inconsistencies and contradictions in both the Eurosceptics’ arguments and also in some of the decisions taken by successive British governments when confronted with a choice between European and US policy options.
4 The overall impression here is that the authors regret the extent and depth of Eurosceptic feelings in the UK. There is, therefore, an underlying sense of criticism, perhaps even condemnation, of the British governments, politicians and the majority of British opinion for their reluctance to engage positively with the rest of Europe and with the EU; that the British are somehow bad Europeans for not adhering to the European project. The views of the Eurosceptics themselves are absent from this collection of articles. There is, therefore, no real confrontation of ideas or any attempt to present the arguments put forward by the Eurosceptics themselves to justify their campaign to either leave the EU entirely, for the hard Eurosceptics such as UKIP, or to reform (perhaps transform) it as David Cameron and his supporters are currently negotiating. Clearly Euroscepticism is widespread and deeply entrenched in British politics and society. The authors of this collection put forward several examples, past and present, to back this up. No doubt British politics today is conducted in largely Eurosceptic terms and the British people seem as unsure as ever as to their position in Europe. The EU and its institutions certainly have few friends in the UK. Yet there are other, contrary, arguments suggesting a Europeanization of British culture, particularly in recent years. The impact of European players and coaches on football in the UK, perhaps the most popular of all British cultures, the popularity of Scandinavian
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TV series or of European cuisine come to mind. Numerous British writers and film- makers, still more British journalists, can certainly be found to express the underlying sense of suspicion towards Europe but these could perhaps be contrasted with other more Europhile viewpoints. Of course it needs to be recognised that the central theme of this book is Euroscepticism, and its central position in British politics and culture today. But this should not be taken as being the only side to the European debate in the UK.
5 The authors are nevertheless surely right in concluding that the majority of British people can be regarded as Eurosceptic, although the question here is surely “what does it take for someone, a group or a party, to be defined as 'Eurosceptic'?” Is it, as Anthony Forster has argued (cited p.78), someone who holds “a negative point of view towards the EU” and who sees it as undesirable? Or who simply doubts the European project’s utility or its viability? (Alexandre-Collier, cited p.78) Fitzgibbon takes it as “encompassing a range of critical positions on European integration, as well as outright opposition”.2 Definitions are thus central to this particular study of Euroscepticism and to the wider debate as a whole. Part of this concerns the distinction made by the authors between the ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ varieties of Euroscepticism. If the former is easily identified, as for example in UKIP, this is not so easy for the latter. Equally, if we accept the definitions of Euroscepticism given above, then it could be argued that the overwhelming majority of British people, perhaps the majority of all Europeans, are, at least to some degree, Eurosceptics. After all, who has never had some doubts about, or issue with, some aspect of the European Union as it exists today? Perhaps scepticism of any institution or political project is healthy? The very definition of what constitutes Euroscepticism is, therefore, open to considerable debate and this is reflected in several of the chapters here.
6 As the authors argue, the current debate in the UK on all of these questions is being conducted very much in Eurosceptic terms while the Europhiles' arguments are by and large absent. The role of the media, and the political elite's inability, or refusal, to go against its frequently vehemently Eurosceptic position, is important here. The authors are surely right to argue that beyond the overtly anti-EU media there is an underlying Euroscepticism that runs throughout British politics and British society and which conditions the whole debate. Chapters 4, 5 and 6 outline how, over the past decades, support for, or pragmatic acceptance of, a constructivist European project has given way to a Eurosceptic discourse. They also show how this has accelerated in recent years, to the point where this Eurosceptic discourse has come to occupy a hegemonic position, across all major political parties, and to the point where, as Crowley (p.89) argues, even the “case for remaining in Europe… must… be formulated in the Eurosceptic idiom.” His example of the ‘extra grade’ ‘regulation cucumber’, whose curvature is controlled by the EU, shows the ease with which Eurosceptics are able to seize on almost anything in their ‘crusade’ against the EU. As the other authors point out, the Eurosceptics’ arsenal is stocked with much more than a simple vegetable (or is it a fruit?). Their arguments, frequently populist and often contradictory, have, nonetheless, proved increasingly effective.
7 The historical context to the European debate in the UK today is a key element to understanding how Eurosceptic ideas have come to play such a key role and this aspect is drawn out by several of the authors here. As they point out, their roots need to be traced back over several centuries. At the same time the argument that the origins of
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the concept of Euroscepticism “can be traced back to articles in… The Times in 1985 and 1986” (p.2) needs to be questioned. This may well have been true for the first use of the term itself but surely the concept must, as other authors here show, be traced back much earlier. Opposition to Europe and to the European Union and its precursors did not begin in the mid-1980s. In fact, by looking at the history of Britain's relations with the rest of Europe since the beginnings of the European Union in the post-1945 era, the authors show how the debates currently animating the British political scene are very much recurrent themes. The questions being asked today, and which are at the heart of this collection of articles, have frequently been asked in the past. They will probably continue to be asked in the future, no matter what the outcome of the upcoming referendum.
8 Here again we come back to what exactly Euroscepticism is, especially when we come to consider the 'soft' Eurosceptics. If their ambition is not, as is the case for the ‘hard’ Eurosceptics, to ‘leave Europe’ or to bring about the destruction of the EU and the whole political project for the future of the continent, but rather to reform it then the question that needs to be asked is not ‘Europe, yes or no?’ or ‘should the UK be in or out of the EU?’ but ‘what sort of Europe do we want?’ and ‘what sort of Europe is best for the UK and for Europe as a whole?’ Indeed, these were the very questions raised by British politicians in the past. Already in 1965, for example, Harold Wilson was speaking of the ‘right sort of Europe’.3 Successive British leaders from Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown to David Cameron today have been asking very much the same questions and have been campaigning for a fundamental reform of the EU along lines that correspond to British thinking and the British vision of just what the ‘right sort of Europe’ is.4
9 There is, therefore, a need to qualify British Euroscepticism, particularly its more moderate branch, and to place this alongside the pragmatism of both the leading British political parties and of a large part of British public opinion. The majority of post-war Conservative and Labour Prime Ministers, perhaps all of them, may be regarded as being, to some degree, Eurosceptics. Yet they have consistently tempered this by their sense of political and economic realism. The out and out Euroscepticism of UKIP, and their ability to adopt a whole-hearted and consistent criticism of Europe and the European project in all its manifestations, is made all the easier by the fact that they are not in a position of responsibility, of decision making. Rather they remain on the fringes of power. This is not the case for those, like David Cameron, who actually occupy positions of power.
10 If the answers to the debates being addressed here are ambiguous the reason no doubt lies in the difficulties in precisely defining the terms of these debates. What exactly Euroscepticism is remains one of the key issues usefully addressed by the authors here. The case put forward by ‘hard’ Euroscepticism is relatively easily understood. Their arguments are clear and their case coherent. Nevertheless, they are, as shown here, inherently populist. Nor do their claims stand up to close examination. What is perhaps of greater interest, in so far as their ideas are more widely held, including by the mainstream of British politics and at the centre of the British political establishment, is the extent and influence of ‘soft’ Euroscepticism. Here, the authors’ analyses of the fundamental inconsistencies and paradoxes of the soft Eurosceptics’ position is one of the main interests of this collection. How, they ask, can these ‘soft’ Eurosceptics reconcile their undeniably critical and sceptical attitude towards the present EU, and
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perhaps towards the whole European project as outlined by its founding fathers in the 1940s and 1950s and more recently by certain key political leaders on the continent - most particularly in Germany and France, and yet simultaneously claim to want to remain part of this European grouping? This is the basic paradox of the ‘soft’ Eurosceptic case. Sentimentally it is opposed to both the European project and to many aspects of the EU, in fact to nearly all of them with the exception of the commercial side of the EU as a common market, as a commercial entity. At the same time most ‘soft’ Eurosceptics understand, however unwillingly, that there is no other viable alternative. They may not like the EU but life for the UK outside may be even less comfortable than remaining inside, whatever the discomfort and disadvantages that come with EU membership or the unwelcome restrictions that this imposes on the UK in the form of its rules and regulations. Equally, the only logical solution is to reform the EU, the only form of Europe that is currently on offer, and that can only be dome from within. Leaving the EU would definitively sideline the UK from the key decision-making processes, decisions that would then be taken by others who do not share the British vision of Europe but who would, nonetheless, have a significant impact on Britain itself. At the same time can the ‘soft’ Eurosceptics in Britain hope to win the debate inside the EU and to achieve the reforms they want? The most likely outcome, as the authors here suggest, is that the British will continue to be awkward partners in Europe, unable to break away and thus reluctantly stuck to the EU, in an unsatisfactory and tetchy relationship that will inevitably remain Eurosceptic in nature. Unable either to throw in their lot with the other Europeans or to play the European game as a fully-fledged member of the EU, and unable to entirely turn their backs on Europe, the British seem likely to hold onto their present half-in half-out position, sentimentally Eurosceptic but pragmatically European.
11 This point is underlined by the editors of this collection who argue (p.13) that “British Euroscepticism is marked by incompatibilities and contradictions that are profoundly systemic”. Various examples are given in the following chapters. Both FitzGibbon (p. 175) and Macmillan (p.197) conclude that it is ambivalence as much as Euroscepticism that marks British attitudes towards the EU, on the one hand regarding European integration as a threat to British sovereignty and to British identity and on the other as an economic and geopolitical necessity. On the specific, and central, question of the Eurozone crisis Macmillan (p.204) points to the confusion between the ways in which most Conservative and Labour leaders simultaneously recognize “the need for further integration within the eurozone in order to overcome the crisis, a lack of desire for Britain to participate in such integration, and a fear that, as a result, Britain will be excluded from taking part in making important decisions which could affect its well- being.” Likewise, Vincze (p.235) points to the UK’s complaints “about the lack of sufficient European military capabilities and willingness to take on more responsibilities” while simultaneously doing “everything in its power to prevent any meaningful European operation from being launched under the EU flag... under the pretext that it would precipitate the US disengagement from Europe.” Vincze is also surely right to highlight (p.241) the inconsistency between the UK’s reluctance to pool its sovereignty in any European project while accepting a perhaps even greater loss of sovereignty by consistently, and dogmatically, tying itself into a very imbalanced relationship with the US.
12 This mixture of short-term political pragmatism, confused thinking and inconsistencies in the long-term approach to Europe and Europeanization is, of course, nothing new.
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Indeed they have been the hallmarks of British attitudes and policies for over half a century. These have been evident from Churchill’s famous remark that Britain was “with Europe, but not of it”, Macmillan’s timorous attempts to enter the Common Market that were hedged around with provisos and conditions and without ever reconsidering the ties that bound the UK to the US in the so-called ‘special relationship’, Heath’s push into Europe without fully working out the details of the relationship that would ensue, Thatcher’s support for the European single market and the free circulation of goods and capital alongside her vehement and vitriolic opposition to any form of political or monetary union, John Major’s paralysis when faced with the almost impossible task of reconciling pro- and anti-European supporters within his own party and government, Tony Blair’s promise of greater participation in the European project (and even to play a leading role there, via the St Malo agreement on European defence with France and to enter the Eurozone when the time was right) and his ultimate lack of political courage to realise these ambitions, up to David Cameron’s current attempts to sophistically portray himself as both pro-Europe, in so far as he is advocating the UK’s continued membership of the EU, and as the defender of a form ‘soft’ Euroscepticism. This seems likely to continue well into the future, no matter what the outcome of the in-out referendum in 2016 or 2017.
13 In conclusion this collection of articles is a welcome addition to the literature on this highly topical question. The debate around Britain’s future relationship with Europe and with the EU cannot be reduced to a debate about Euroscepticism alone. Nor should Euroscepticism be necessarily equated with Europhobia, although the two do often merge into one. It is, however, as this book makes plain, an essential aspect of this debate and one which is becoming ever more prevalent as we approach the in-out referendum. Whatever the outcome the debates around this never-ending story will continue to deserves our attention.
NOTES
1. Tony Balir and others in favour of continued British membership of the EU have warned that a 'no' vote may lead to a renewed call in Scotland for a second referendum on Scottish independence should a majority of voters in Scotland vote in favour of EU membership while their English counterparts vote against. 2. Quoting Szczerbiak and Taggart, Opposing Europe? The Comparative Party Politics of Euroscepticism. Oxford: OUP, 2004, p.3. 3. For Wilson this meant ‘the effective working unity of Europe within an Atlantic framework’, creating a Europe that would be ‘genuinely outward-looking, and not autarkic’ (Public Record Office, PREM 13/306. Michael Stewart Note for Harold Wilson, 3 March 1965). 4. Ralf Dahrendorf’s conclusion was that ‘Britain entered the European Community too late, and when it entered, it was the wrong Community for Britain.’ (Ralf Dahrendorf, On Britain. London: BBC Publications, 1982, p.151).
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AUTHORS
RICHARD DAVIS Université de Lille
Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique, XXI-1 | 2016