Reassessing Britain’s ‘Post-war consensus’: the politics of reason 1945–1979

Blackburn, Dean

doi:10.1057/s41293-017-0049-5

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 19 publications

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“…In Addison’s (1994) view, the foundations of consensus were laid out by the work of coalition government on social reform during the Second World War. This thesis, running counter to the prevailing political customs (Palonen, 2019: 45–46), was subject to much historical debate: historians, political scientists and economists tried to test it by comparing ideological convictions and particular political decisions of the main parties, paying close attention to the parties’ epistemological beliefs (Blackburn, 2018) and also defining several time periods in which the ‘consensus’ ostensibly existed (Lowe, 1990: 152–154). In a later edition of his book, Addison qualified his thesis by renaming it ‘the Whitehall consensus’ (1994: 281).…”

Section: Post-war Consensus?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Temporal comparisons, historical semantics of interaction and ‘post-war consensus’ in British Parliament: Studying time references in a deliberative environment

Postoutenko

Sabelfeld

2021

Time & Society

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This article aims to demonstrate that the transition from the mainstream narrative to the interactional history of concepts promises tangible benefits for scholars of social time in general and temporal comparisons in particular. It is shown that the traditionally close alignment of narration with the production of historical consciousness at various levels hinders the study of time as a semantic variable perpetually contested, amended and upheld across society. Alternatively, the references to time made in public settings, allowing for more or less instant reactions (turn-taking) as well as expression of dissenting opinions (stance-taking), offer a much more representative palette of temporal semantics and pragmatics in a given sociopolitical environment. In a particularly intriguing case, the essentially deliberative venue where contestation is supported by both institutional arrangements and political reasons (British House of Commons) is put to test under circumstances commonly known as ‘the post-war consensus’ – the unspoken convention directing opposing political parties to suspend stance-taking regarding the past actions of the government during WWII, its immediate aftermath and its future prospects. As a reliable indicator of this arrangement, the contestation of temporal comparisons between relevant pasts and futures is tested in oppositions reflecting party allegiances (Conservatives vs. Labour vs. Liberals) and executive functions (government vs. opposition) between 1946 and 1952. It is shown that, notwithstanding the prevalence of non-contested statements aimed at preserving interactional coherence and pragmatic functionality of the setting, the moderately active contestation of the adversary’s temporal comparisons in the House of Commons at that time helped all parties, albeit to a different degree, to shape their own political and institutional roles as well as to delegitimize their respective adversaries.

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Section: Post-war Consensus?mentioning

confidence: 99%