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116 results in British government, politics and policy

Page 1 of 6

Writing Politics in Modern Britain
  • Genre and Cultures of Publishing since 1900
  • Edited by Gary Love, Richard Toye
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    February 2026
    Print publication:
    28 February 2026
  • Why do people write about politics? And why does political writing get published? This innovative study explores the diverse world of modern British political writing, examining its evolving genres and their pivotal role in shaping political identities, ideologies, and movements. Spanning memoirs, biographies, parliamentary novels, fanzines, and grassroots publications, chapters consider how these forms have documented lived experiences, challenged authority, and influenced political discourse across all levels of society. Contributions from leading scholars illuminate the creative strategies and cultural contexts of political writing since the late nineteenth-century across varied regional contexts, from Beatrice Webb's diaries to punk zines and Conservative pamphlets. In doing so, they examine the interplay of literature, propaganda, and activism, offering fresh perspectives on the connections between politics and publishing. Accessible and insightful, this study provides a window into how political ideas are crafted, disseminated, and reinforced through the written word.

The British Civil Service
  • Current Issues and Future Challenges
  • Janice Morphet
  • Published by:
    Bristol University Press
    Published online:
    12 September 2025
    Print publication:
    28 May 2025
  • Taking account of its evolution in recent decades, this book provides an up-to-date account of the role of the Civil Service in the UK.

The Conservative Effect, 2010–2024
  • 14 Wasted Years?
  • Edited by Anthony Seldon, Tom Egerton
  • Published online:
    24 July 2024
    Print publication:
    27 June 2024
  • After fourteen years of Conservative government, we rightly ask what changed for the better or worse during this prolonged period of power? The country experienced significant challenges including austerity, Brexit and Covid: did they militate against the government's making more lasting impact? Bringing together some of the leading authorities in the field, this book examines the impact of Conservative rule on a wide range of economic, social, foreign and governmental areas. Anthony Seldon, Tom Egerton and their team uncover the ultimate 'Conservative effect' on the United Kingdom. With powerful insights and fresh perspectives, this is an intriguing study for anyone seeking to understand the full scope of the Conservative government's influence on our nation. Drawing the immediate lessons from the last fourteen years will be pivotal if the country is to rejuvenate and flourish in the future.

The Impossible Office?
  • The History of the British Prime Minister - Revised and Updated
  • Anthony Seldon
  • Assisted by Jonathan Meakin, Illias Thoms, Tom Egerton
  • Published online:
    14 March 2024
    Print publication:
    14 March 2024
  • A Times and Sunday Times Book of the Year. The recent political chaos enfolding Downing Street provides the framing for the extraordinary story of the office of Prime Minister, and how and why it has endured longer than any other democratic political office in world history. Sir Anthony Seldon, historian of Number 10, explores the lives and careers, crises and scandals, and successes and failures of our great Prime Ministers from Robert Walpole to Clement Attlee and Margaret Thatcher, up to the recent churn of Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. Seldon discusses which of our PMs have been most effective and why, as well as probing the changing relationship between the Monarchy and the Prime Minister in intimate detail. A celebration of the humanity, frailty, work and achievements of 57 remarkable individuals who averted revolution and civil war, leading the country through times of peace, crisis and war.

Real News about the News
  • Media and British Politics
  • Kenneth Newton
  • Published online:
    09 February 2024
    Print publication:
    01 February 2024
  • What role does the media play in British politics? There is growing concern that the media environment is biased, and that online news and social media spread fake news, conspiracy theories, propaganda, and foreign interference. Examining TV, radio, newspapers and the internet, Kenneth Newton unravels the real effects of the mainstream and alternative news media. With abundant evidence, Newton demonstrates that, contrary to popular belief: newspapers neither win nor lose elections; nor set election agendas; most citizens have a fairly mixed news diet and do not inhabit echo-chambers; social media influences on political attitudes are generally small and actually expand the range of news people get; impartial and reliable public service news still provides the bulk of the nation's news diet. Evidence shows that the main media effects on political attitudes and behaviour are positive and inform and mobilise citizens rather than influencing their voting choice.

Brexit, Union, and Disunion
  • The Evolution of British Constitutional Unsettlement
  • Sionaidh Douglas-Scott
  • Published online:
    26 October 2023
    Print publication:
    09 November 2023
  • This book provides a critical analysis of Brexit, placing it in the broader context of the historical development of the British Constitution and earlier disputes as to the meaning of statehood, sovereignty, and territorial boundaries. Some of the greatest challenges posed by the UK's withdrawal from the EU are those it places on the British Constitution, which is already 'unsettled' and under strain. This book investigates this impact, but also uniquely locates Brexit in the broader context of historically significant British 'acts of union or disunion' – such as the loss of former US colonies and British Empire, and the place of Scotland and Ireland in the Union. These precedents help us understand how a British constitutional identity has been shaped or dismantled by legal concepts of union or sovereignty.

Futures of Socialism
  • ‘Modernisation', the Labour Party, and the British Left, 1973–1997
  • Colm Murphy
  • Published online:
    25 May 2023
    Print publication:
    08 June 2023
  • The transformation of the Labour Party by 1997 is among the most consequential political developments in modern British history. Futures of Socialism overhauls the story of Labour's modernisation and provides an innovative new history. Diving into the tumultuous world of the British left after 1973, rocked by crushing defeats, bitter schisms, and ideological disorientation, Colm Murphy uncovers competing intellectual agendas for modern socialism. Responding to deindustrialisation, neoliberalism, and constitutional agitation, these visions of 'modernisation' ranged across domestic and European policy and the politics of class, gender, race, and democracy. By reconstructing the sites and networks of political debate, the book explains their changing influence inside Labour. It also throws new light on New Labour, highlighting its roots in this social-democratic intellectual maelstrom. Futures of Socialism provides an essential analysis of social democracy in an era of market liberalism, and of the ideas behind a historic political reconstruction that remains deeply controversial today.

Brexit Britain
  • The Consequences of the Vote to Leave the European Union
  • Paul Whiteley, Harold D. Clarke, Matthew Goodwin, Marianne C. Stewart
  • Published online:
    25 April 2023
    Print publication:
    04 May 2023
  • In June 2016, more than 17 million people voted for Britain to leave the European Union. The fallout of this momentous referendum has been tumultuous and unpredictable. Now, from the authors of the highly-acclaimed Brexit: Why Britain Voted to Leave the European Union (Cambridge University Press, 2017), comes the definitive guide to the transformation of British politics in the years following the Brexit vote. By charting the impact of Brexit on three major elections – the 2017 and 2019 general elections as well as the 2019 European Parliament elections – this book reveals the deeper currents reshaping modern Britain. The authors draw upon many years of unique and unprecedented data from their own surveys, giving key insights into how and why Brexit has changed British electoral politics. The book is written in a clear and accessible style, appealing to students, scholars and anyone interested in the impact of Brexit on Britain today.

A Nation of Petitioners
  • Petitions and Petitioning in the United Kingdom, 1780–1918
  • Henry J. Miller
  • Published online:
    02 February 2023
    Print publication:
    09 February 2023
  • Between 1780 and 1918, over one million petitions from across the four nations were sent to the House of Commons. A Nation of Petitioners is the first study of this nineteenth-century heyday of petitioning in the United Kingdom. It explores how ordinary men and women engaged with politics in an era of democratisation, but not democracy, and restores their voices and actions to the story of UK political culture. Drawing on more than a million petitions, as well as archives of leading politicians, institutions, and pressure groups, Henry J. Miller demonstrates the centrality of petitions and petitioning to mass campaigning, representation, collective action, and forging collective identities at the local and national level. From the early nineteenth century, the massive growth of petitions underpinned and reshaped the popular authority of the UK state, including Parliament, the monarchy, and government. Challenging accounts that have stressed disciplinary or exclusionary processes in the evolution of popular politics, A Nation of Petitioners conclusively establishes the importance of the mass participation of ordinary people through petitions.

The Cambridge Companion to Winston Churchill
  • Edited by Allen Packwood
  • Published online:
    19 January 2023
    Print publication:
    26 January 2023
  • Viewed by some as the saviour of his nation, and by others as a racist imperialist, who was Winston Churchill really, and how has he become such a controversial figure? Combining the best of established scholarship with important new perspectives, this Companion places Churchill's life and legacy in a broader context. It highlights different aspects of his life and personality, examining his core beliefs, working practices, key relationships and the political issues and campaigns that he helped shape, and which in turn shaped him. Controversial subjects, such as area bombing, Ireland, India and Empire are addressed in full, to try and explain how Churchill has become such a deeply divisive figure. Through careful analysis, this book presents a full and rounded picture of Winston Churchill, providing much needed nuance and context to the debates about his life and legacy.

The Unfinished Politics of Race
  • Histories of Political Participation, Migration, and Multiculturalism
  • Les Back, Michael Keith, Kalbir Shukra, John Solomos
  • Published online:
    18 November 2022
    Print publication:
    01 December 2022
  • The Unfinished Politics of Race argues that the past few decades have seen important transformations in the politics of race. Contending that existing accounts have focused narrowly on the mainstream political sphere, this study argues that there is a need to explore the role of race more widely. By exploring the mainstream as well as transitional and alternative spheres of political mobilisation the authors stress the need to link the analysis of both local and national processes in order to make sense of the changing contours of racialised politics. The underlying concern of this study is to outline both a theoretical frame for an analysis of racial politics, and detailed empirical accounts of different arenas of political mobilisation. By exploring the unfinished politics of race, this study provides a timely reminder that the position of racial and ethnic minorities in political institutions remains deeply contested.

Justice for Everyone
  • The Jurisprudence and Legal Lives of Brenda Hale
  • Edited by Rosemary Hunter, Erika Rackley
  • Published online:
    05 May 2022
    Print publication:
    26 May 2022
  • As the first woman to be appointed President of the UK Supreme Court, Brenda Hale was one of the UK's most high profile and influential judges, and she is among the most powerful women leaders of our time. For almost half a century, she pioneered as an educator, reformer, and decision-maker, leaving a distinct mark on the law and the lives of many. In commemoration of her recent retirement from the Supreme Court, this collection celebrates her long and illustrious career. Organised by thematic chapters and featuring original research from leading academics, judges and lawyers, this book offers a comprehensive account of Lady Hale's achievements and enduring impact. The contributors, many of whom were her peers and colleagues, demonstrate how Hale forged her own path within male-dominated institutions, carved a space for herself and others, and, ultimately, endeavoured to promote justice for everyone.

The Life and Death of the Shopping City
  • Public Planning and Private Redevelopment in Britain since 1945
  • Alistair Kefford
  • Published online:
    31 March 2022
    Print publication:
    07 April 2022
  • How have British cities changed in the years since the Second World War? And what drove this transformation? This innovative new history traces the development of the post-war British city, from the 1940s era of reconstruction, through the rise and fall of modernist urban renewal, up to the present-day crisis of high street retailing and central area economies. Alistair Kefford shows how planners, property developers, councils and retailers worked together to create the modern shopping city, remaking the physical fabric, economy and experience of cities around this retail-driven developmental model. This book also offers a wider social history of mass affluence, showing how cities were transformed to meet the perceived demands of a society of shoppers, and why this effort was felt to be so urgent in an era of urban deindustrialisation. By bringing the story of the shopping city right up to its present-day crisis and collapse, Kefford makes clear how the historical trajectories traced in this book continue powerfully to shape urban Britain today.

The Law and Practice of the Ireland-Northern Ireland Protocol
  • Edited by Christopher McCrudden
  • Published online:
    20 January 2022
    Print publication:
    03 February 2022
  • The Ireland-Northern Ireland Protocol, part of the Withdrawal Agreement concluded between the European Union and the United Kingdom, is intended to address the difficult and complex impact of Brexit on the island of Ireland, North and South, and between Ireland and Great Britain. It has become an exceptionally important, if controversial, part of the new architecture that governs the relationship between the UK and the EU more generally, covering issues that range from trade flows to free movement, from North-South Co-operation to the protection of human rights, from customs arrangements to democratic oversight by the Northern Ireland Assembly. This edited collection offers insights from a wide array of academic experts and practitioners in each of the various areas of legal practice that the Protocol affects, providing a comprehensive examination of the Protocol in all its legal dimensions, drawing on international law, European Union Law, and domestic constitutional and public law. This title is also available as Open Access.

The Brexit Challenge for Ireland and the United Kingdom
  • Constitutions Under Pressure
  • Edited by Oran Doyle, Aileen McHarg, Jo Murkens
  • Published online:
    17 August 2021
    Print publication:
    26 August 2021
  • Since the 1950s, European integration has included ever more countries with ever-softening borders between them. In its apparent reversal of integration and its recreation of borders, Brexit intensifies deep-seated tensions, both institutional and territorial, within and between the constitutional orders of the United Kingdom and Ireland. In this book, leading scholars from the UK and Ireland assess the pressures exerted by Brexit, from legal, historical, and political perspectives. This book explores the territorial pressures within the UK constitution, connecting them to the status of Northern Ireland before exploring how analogous territorial pressures might be addressed in a united Ireland. The book also critically analyses the Brexit process within the UK, drawing on Irish comparative examples, to assess unresolved tensions between popular mandate, legislative democracy, and executive responsibility. Through practical application, this book explores how constitutions function under the most intense political pressures.

Law and Administration
  • 4th edition
  • Carol Harlow, Richard Rawlings
  • Published online:
    06 July 2021
    Print publication:
    22 July 2021
  • Law and Administration takes a contextual approach to administrative law, setting law and legal rules in the context of the social, political and economic forces that shape the law, and of the complex constitutional framework in which contemporary administrative law operates. This book contains a full account of judicial review, the traditional heartland of administrative law, and adds to this by taking into account the concerns of government, officials and agencies who operate and shape the law. It also looks at the possible future of administrative law in an increasingly automated and digitalised world. A fully revised and updated new edition, this book includes new case studies of regulatory agencies and government contracting to develop understanding of law in practice.

Electrified Democracy
  • The Internet and the United Kingdom Parliament in History
  • Andrew Blick
  • Published online:
    11 June 2021
    Print publication:
    01 July 2021
  • The story of how the UK Parliament came to use the Internet from the 1960s onwards has never been told. Electrified Democracy places the impact of technology on parliamentary workings in its longer term historical context. The author identifies repeating patterns of perception and analysis, and cultural tendencies in the perception of inventions dating back over centuries that have reasserted themselves in connection with the parliamentary response to networked computers. He uncovers evidence and makes new connections, while situating all this within the wider global debates on connections between communication and democracy in the age of the Internet, constitutional law and history, and 'law and technology'. This book will be of interest to a wide readership including policy makers, researchers, and all those interested in contemporary controversies about the role of the Internet in modern societies.

Refugees in Twentieth-Century Britain
  • A History
  • Becky Taylor
  • Published online:
    23 April 2021
    Print publication:
    13 May 2021
  • This timely history explores the entry, reception and resettlement of refugees across twentieth-century Britain. Focusing on four cohorts of refugees – Jewish and other refugees from Nazism; Hungarians in 1956; Ugandan Asians expelled by Idi Amin; and Vietnamese 'boat people' who arrived in the wake of the fall of Saigon – Becky Taylor deftly integrates refugee history with key themes in the history of modern Britain. She thus demonstrates how refugees' experiences, rather than being marginal, were emblematic of some of the principal developments in British society. Arguing that Britain's reception of refugees was rarely motivated by humanitarianism, this book reveals the role of Britain's international preoccupations, anxieties and sense of identity; and how refugees' reception was shaped by voluntary efforts and the changing nature of the welfare state. Based on rich archival sources, this study offers a compelling new perspective on changing ideas of Britishness and the place of 'outsiders' in modern Britain.

The Impossible Office?
  • The History of the British Prime Minister
  • Anthony Seldon
  • Assisted by Jonathan Meakin, Illias Thoms
  • Published online:
    01 April 2021
    Print publication:
    01 April 2021
  • Marking the third centenary of the office of Prime Minister, this book tells its extraordinary story, explaining how and why it has endured longer than any other democratic political office in world history. Sir Anthony Seldon, historian of Number 10 Downing Street, explores the lives and careers, loves and scandals, successes and failures, of all our great Prime Ministers. From Robert Walpole and William Pitt the Younger, to Clement Attlee and Margaret Thatcher, Seldon discusses which of our Prime Ministers have been most effective and why. He reveals the changing relationship between the Monarchy and the office of the Prime Minister in intimate detail, describing how the increasing power of the Prime Minister in becoming leader of Britain coincided with the steadily falling influence of the Monarchy. This book celebrates the humanity and frailty, work and achievement, of these 55 remarkable individuals, who averted revolution and civil war, leading the country through times of peace, crisis and war.

Advising Governments in the Westminster Tradition
  • Policy Advisory Systems in Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand
  • Jonathan Craft, John Halligan
  • Published online:
    18 December 2020
    Print publication:
    05 November 2020
  • In turbulent environments and unstable political contexts, policy advisory systems have become more volatile. The policy advisory system in Anglophone countries is composed of different types of advisers who have input into government decision making. Government choices about who advises them varies widely as they demand contestability, greater partisan input and more external consultation. The professional advice of the public service may be disregarded. The consequences for public policy are immense depending on whether a plurality of advice works effectively or is derailed by narrow and partisan agendas that lack an evidence base and implementation plans. The book seeks to addresses these issues within a comparative country analysis of how policy advisory systems are constituted and how they operate in the age of instability in governance and major challenges with how the complexity policy issue can be handled.

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