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This chapter reviews the Conservative decision at the Carlton Club meeting of 1922 to end the coalition with the Lloyd George Liberals, and examines the part played by the Conservative's identity as the party of anti-socialism in this decision. Key issues discussed include the impact of taxation, the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, and the activism of the middle classes with the formation of the Middle Class Union, the Anti-Waste League, and the People's Union for Economy.

The first step in developing the theory of policy voting requires explaining what is meant by policy attitudes and political sophistication, which represent the key concepts that animate the book. Scholars have identified three broad classes of policy attitudes that people may hold: liberal conservative attitudes, issue preferences, and policy principles. The chapter draws on social-psychological models of the attitude construct to conceptualize each class of policy attitudes as evaluations of some political object that endure to a greater or lesser degree. The object in question is what distinguishes policy attitudes: these include liberal-conservative labels, diverse issue controversies, and the principles of limited government, traditional morality, and military strength. After explicating policy attitudes, the chapter defines political sophistication and assesses its distribution in the U.S. public.

The second chapter introduces what is called “fusion constitutionalism,” a name that comes to describe the Constitutions that emerged after the agreement between liberal and conservative forces that took place in most countries by the mid-19^th Century. These early years (approximately between 1850 and 1880) represent the “founding period” of Latin American constitutionalism, given that the Constitutions that were then drafted defined the fundamental features of what would come to be defined as Latin American constitutionalism.

This chapter charts the rise of the neo-liberal Conservatism approach to the welfare state under the Thatcher and Major governments. While emphasis was given to economic reforms during the first and second term Thatcher governments, there were clear indications of a neo-liberal turn in social policy. These included enabling council house tenants to buy their homes under the 1980 Housing Act, reforms to the social security system and the adoption of a more `business-like’ approach to running the NHS. In the third term social policy took centre stage with changes in health and social care. The Education Reform Act of 1980 led to the introduction of a national curriculum and national testing of pupil performance. Thatcher’s downfall led to Major taking the reins in 1992. After securing victory in the General Election, Major embedded Thatcher’s neo-liberal social reforms years, maintaining public funding whilst seeking cost savings and more `efficient’ non-state forms of delivery.

This chapter addresses the health policy of the Conservative Party. First, it describes the theories of party politics that have some utility in explaining policy change and continuity. In particular, the first concerns the adoption of policy positions by parties and the second explores the influence of changes in party government on government policy. The chapter then examines policy developments between 1997 and 2005. The Conservatives' defeat at the 1997 general election led to a period of introspection and the gradual development of a new health policy. This is followed by an analysis of health policy under David Cameron's leadership of the party. The possible future directions in policy under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition are also discussed. The coalition with the Liberal Democrats adds a further level of complexity.

Chapter 2 examines the five decades that go from Mexico's independence from Spain in the 1820s to the early 1870s, a period when there is consensus that the nation's current economic underdevelopment may have originated. The chapter reviews the key characteristics of the economy of New Spain on the eve of independence and the disruptive effects of the wars of independence on economic activity. It proceeds then to focus on the constraints to economic development resulting from political instability, the decline of mining activity, foreign competition, institutional backwardness, and the lack of transport infrastructure and financial capital. It contrasts the economic programs of liberals and conservatives. It argues that, unfortunately, the coalition to forge a developmental state could not emerge because of highly antagonistic views by the politically liberal and the conservative factions on matters regarding the role of the state in the economy and the pace of political and social modernization. The failure to build a developmental coalition impeded the removal of the key obstacles to economic development in this decades.

This chapter addresses the function of political ideology, as well as the extent to which traditional left-right and liberal-conservative distinctions still orient citizens’ political choices. It then focuses on empirical studies aimed at assessing the role of personality dispositions and basic values in accounting for political choice. Findings attest to the unique contribution of personality to understand citizens’ political choices and to better appreciate what is common and distinctive in traditional ideological division. It also discusses the relationship of basic traits and values with religiosity, as well as the influence that religiosity plays in accounting for political preference across countries that differ widely in history and culture.

This chapter identifies new lines of division and disputation that overlap without entirely displacing the older liberal-conservative cleavages—a center-left “Third Way” that Clinton and Tony Blair crafted in the 1990s and a center-right “Fourth Way” that Bush offered, at least rhetorically, in the 2000 presidential election. It observes that in some ways voting has become more partisan—there are fewer split tickets these days—yet the role of Independents in politics looms large. It further observes that America is divided sharply along ideological lines—such is the lesson of polarization around the Clinton impeachment and the Florida election fiasco of 2000—yet there is that rush to the political center. It asks the historical context of these changes.

This chapter accounts for the successful campaign against proposals for a third runway and sixth terminal at Heathrow airport. It argues that local campaigners engaged in a transformative campaign, equating anti-airport struggles to opposition to air travel and to climate change, and linking local campaigns with direct action protests, in particular activists in Plane Stupid. It draws attention to how campaigners provided ‘ideological cover’ for the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties by negating economic arguments in favour of aviation expansion and making visible new dimensions of conflict. Detailing the politics of the consultation process leading to the Labour's 2009 approval of expansion, the chapter concludes that the re-signification of air travel as a ‘problem’ of climate change cut across traditional alliances, a heresthetic manoeuvre by campaigners which provoked new cleavages and fractures in the pro-expansion discourse coalition and provided the conditions for the Conservative-Liberal Democratic Coalition to reverse Labour's decision in May 2010.

This chapter maps out the landscape of Czech think tanks. It is based on two types of literature: empirical studies of think tanks and discursive institutionalism. Drawing on think tank studies, the text categorizes Czech think tanks as academic, contractual, advocacy, and party-affiliated. Drawing on discursive institutionalism, it differentiates among four major policy discourses in the Czech Republic: liberal-conservative, social democratic, support for democracy, and international and foreign policy discourses. While the liberal-conservative discourse is most developed, social democratic organizations are the exact opposite. Most likely due to the general ideological and funding context, they are poorly resource endowed, not numerous, and not densely connected to other partners.

The victory of the Liberal party in the general election of 1905 thrilled the Indian intelligentsia. The election reduced the strength of the Conservative party in the House of Commons to 157 members. The Liberals captured 401 seats and could, in addition, count upon the support of the 83 Irish nationalist and 29 Labour members. Indian observers of the British scene were agog with excitement and felt that the day of India’s deliverance was at hand. This chapter describes the appointment of John Morley as the Secretary of State for India and his dealings with Gokhale. It concludes that the possibility of a political ‘truce’ in India, suggested by Morley, had been spoilt by his own wobbling in the summer and autumn of 1906. While he had postponed and not abandoned constitutional reforms, the delay fatally accentuated tensions and deepened the crisis in India.

This concluding chapter aims to provide an overview of policy change under New Labour and critically assess these policy changes in relation to revisions to the roles, rights, and responsibilities of parents and families versus those of the state in respect of child and family well-being. In addition, the chapter reviews the contemporary era and the major revisions in welfare state support for families with children under way following the indecisive 2010 General Election and the forming of a Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition government. Since coming to office in May 2010, the new Coalition government has introduced unprecedented public spending cuts and begun a radical programme for welfare state reform.

This chapter describes the long 2010–15 fiscal squeeze under the first Conservative–Liberal coalition since the early 1920s, in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis and with debt and deficit at levels not seen for four decades or more. It included sharp political debate over timing, depth, and tax/spending balance of fiscal squeeze, with most of the coalition squeeze based on its Labour predecessor’s plans, and the deficit reduction outcome roughly the same as those Labour plans, principally because of shortfall on the revenue side. This episode was marked by a repeat of ‘bear trap’ tactics by the incumbents, and the post-squeeze 2015 election rewarded one party in the coalition, while the other party was heavily punished and so was the Labour Opposition. How far the victory of ‘Vote Leave’ (Brexit) in the 2016 referendum on UK membership of the EU can be attributed to fiscal squeeze is debatable.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom, which presents contemporary party politics as ahistorical, it is clear that history remains an ever-present point of reference in political discourse, providing a source of lessons, warnings and precedents. Yet while previous understandings of the political past emphasised its capacity to make demands upon the present – whether of conservative duty or radical obligation – this has now been sidelined in favour of a present-focused view of the past as ‘heritage’, which can be embraced or rejected as politically expedient. Above all, the past is used to set the present within a legitimating framework, whereby it appears constantly ‘historic’, as can be seen in the rhetoric surrounding the 2010 General Election and formation of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition.

Chapter 4 shows that ideological differences between social classes have remained constant across the last fifty years. As with persistent divisions in resources, risks, opportunities, and educational attainment, classes and educational groups have maintained their differences in policy preferences. People in working class jobs are more economically left-wing (more in favour of redistribution, public ownership, and trade unions) and people with lower levels of education are more socially conservative (more in favour of the death penalty, censorship, and restricting gay rights). People with middle class jobs and more education are also more in favour of immigration and EU integration. There is very little change over time in these divisions. The changing sizes of classes have therefore shifted the average voter to a more economically right-wing and more socially liberal position.

The third of three chapters that examine “cultural division in a capitalist society,” chapter 7 focuses upon behavioral and ideational differences and oppositions between country and bohemian homesteaders, which is a particular iteration of the larger cultural schism between left and right in the contemporary United States. Weaving together story and evidence, the chapter argues that this is a class division, but one in which literate education plays a more prominent role than occupation or monetary wealth. The argument is developed by examining the role of education in the lives of individual characters, in terms of issues such as diet, trash burning, attitudes toward non-straight sexualities, and susceptibility to mass-media propaganda.