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Download Thesis This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Between Universalism and Particularism Government and Civil Society Responses to Contemporary Antisemitism in Britain Cardaun, Sarah Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 01. Oct. 2021 Between Universalism and Particularism: Government and Civil Society Responses to Contemporary Antisemitism in Britain Thesis submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) by Sarah K. Cardaun Student number: 0949094 (Revised version, 21 April 2014) King’s College London School of Arts & Humanities Middle East & Mediterranean Studies Programme 1 Abstract At the beginning of the twenty-first century, antisemitism still constitutes a significant problem in many parts of the world, including in Britain. Although many historical, social and political aspects of anti-Jewish prejudice have been studied extensively, something that has received only scant attention is whether and how key institutions and actors have attempted to counteract it. This thesis contributes towards filling this gap in the scholarly literature by examining governmental and non-governmental responses to contemporary antisemitism in Britain, which it conceptualises as a multi-dimensional and contested social problem. Analysing government documents, parliamentary records and other publications, the thesis compares how state and civil society actors have discursively framed antisemitism, and what practical measures – if any – they have adopted to counter it. This analysis shows that the state has traditionally tended to neglect anti-Jewish prejudice, or to address it only indirectly in the context of much larger categories of issues, such as racism or inequality. While this universalistic approach is not entirely dismissed, the thesis problematizes the underlying assumption that contemporary antisemitism should simply be subsumed under the larger umbrella of racism. The limitations of such an approach become especially apparent in the context of Holocaust remembrance and Holocaust education, to which the thesis devotes a separate chapter. On the other hand, while the thesis does not propose a simple dichotomy of universalistic state responses and particularistic civil society responses, it argues that the work of groups such as the All-Party Parliamentary Group against Antisemitism and the Community Security Trust highlights the potential of civil society to make significant contributions to the fight against contemporary antisemitism by engaging with it as a particular issue. However, an examination of British Israel advocacy organisations in the final chapter demonstrates that this inherent potential is not always realised in practice. Overall, the thesis argues that a multi-level framework for addressing anti-Jewish prejudice that includes different governmental as well as non-governmental actors is most likely to be effective in countering antisemitism in all its complexity. 2 Table of Contents Abstract 2 Acknowledgements 7 List of Acronyms and Abbreviations 8 Introduction 10 Research question and overall conceptual framework 11 The study’s contribution to existing knowledge 14 Research design and methodological approach of this study 20 The selection of units of analysis 22 Data collection 24 Method of data analysis: The significance of language for political and social analysis 28 The search for effective measures against prejudice and antisemitism 31 Description of the thesis 38 Chapter 1: Governance in the modern British state and civil society’s role in addressing social problems 41 1.1. The declining centrality of the state: The end of an era? 42 1.2. Civil society: From high hopes to readjusted expectations 46 The promises of civil society 50 Disenchanted civil society and the debate on the return of the state 52 1.3. The transformation of the state and civil society’s role in the governance of modern societies 54 The transformation of the state 55 Civil society and “low politics” 56 Civil society’s role in the identification and definition of social problems 58 1.4. Conclusion 63 Chapter 2: Antisemitism in England and Great Britain and responses towards it in historical perspective 66 2.1. Defining and explaining antisemitism 66 2.2. Historical trajectories of antisemitism in England and Great Britain 70 2.3. Responses to antisemitism in historical perspective 79 3 Responses to antisemitism since late-Victorian Britain 83 Responses to antisemitism in the twentieth century 88 2.4. Conclusion 96 Chapter 3: Contemporary antisemitism as multi-dimensional and contested social problem 97 3.1. The persistence of antisemitism in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries 98 Empirical evidence for antisemitism across the world and in Britain 98 Strands of traditional antisemitism 101 3.2. The new antisemitism: Beyond a “certain climate of opinion”? 105 The new antisemitism as a global concept 105 Identifying the new antisemitism in Britain 107 British Muslims and the new antisemitism 112 Questioning the new antisemitism thesis 116 The contentious boundaries between anti-Israelism and antisemitism 118 3.3. Conclusion: the multifaceted nature of antisemitism in Britain today 126 Chapter 4: Political responses to contemporary antisemitism in the context of universalistic equality and race relations policies in Britain 128 4.1. The needle of antisemitism in the haystack of British race relations, equality and integration policies 129 From Race Relations to Community Cohesion: The conceptual legacy of ‘Race’ in the context of expanding diversity agendas 129 The equality of inequalities: Universalistic tendencies in the management of diversity in discourse and political practice 135 4.2. Advantages and limitations of addressing antisemitism through universalistic approaches 140 Advantages of universalistic approaches 140 Limits to the applicability of an universalistic anti-racist agenda to contemporary antisemitism 143 4.3. The All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism (APPIA) and its significance for addressing antisemitism 151 4 The All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism: context and analysis 154 Significance and impact of the APPIA: Government responses and subsequent developments 157 4.4. Conclusion 162 Chapter 5: Holocaust commemoration and education in Britain: Between the rhetoric of battling antisemitism and universalistic practice 164 5.1. The history of the Holocaust in the service of the present 166 The “uses” of history 166 The uniqueness debate, the origins of the “Final Solution” and antisemitism 167 Employing Holocaust remembrance and education to counter antisemitism 172 The rhetorical connection between the Holocaust and battling antisemitism in the UK 175 5.2. Commemorating the Holocaust in Britain 177 The long road to Holocaust remembrance in Britain 177 Holocaust remembrance in Britain today: Inclusiveness, politicisation and universalisation 183 Universalistic Holocaust remembrance and the fight against antisemitism 189 5.3. Holocaust education in Britain 192 Mandating Holocaust education England: aims and objectives 192 Does Holocaust education counter antisemitism in practice? 194 The Anne Frank Trust UK: A civil society organisation committed to universal lessons of the Holocaust 197 5.4. Conclusion 200 Chapter 6: Confronting the contentious: Particularistic approaches and the role of NGOs in fighting the new antisemitism 202 6.1. Locating the work of NGOs within a multi-level framework of addressing antisemitism 203 6.2. The Community Security Trust’s security oriented-approach to antisemitism in the context of associative governance 208 The CST and the new antisemitism 212 5 6.3. Speaking up for Israel in the battle against antisemitism 215 Assessing the relevance and effectiveness of British Israel advocacy in the battle against the new antisemitism 220 6.4. Conclusion 229 Conclusion 231 Civil society, the state, and the problem of antisemitism 241 Practical implications for the fight against antisemitism 246 Bibliography 249 6 Acknowledgements I would like to thank a number of individuals and institutions that have supported me in a variety of different ways in the context of this research project. I was very grateful for the grants by the Felix Posen Fellowship of the Vidal Sassoon Center for the Study of Antisemitism at the Hebrew
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