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Definition of the term ‘Political culture’ is a rather nebulous concept, although Iain McLean’s Dictionary of Politics manages a reasonably crisp definition: ‘The attitudes, beliefs, and values which underpin the operation of a particular political system.’ These will include, he writes, ‘knowledge and skills’; ‘positive and negative emotional feelings’ towards the system of government; and ‘evaluative judgments’ about it (McLean, 1996, p. 379). Factors contributing towards these feelings, emotions, values and attitudes include historical experience, the
INTRODUCTION In the scholarship of Anglo-American relations, and it is very extensive, there is surprisingly little written about the political culture that the two countries might share. Perhaps this is because at first sight differences rather than commonalities appear to predominate, especially in the institutional sphere. Often claims are made that the United States is more libertarian, laissez-faire economically, socially conservative on the death penalty, abortion, the right to bear arms, health provision, and gay rights, and traditionally more right
1 George Howell, the Webbs and the political culture of early labour history M alcolm Chase George Howell (1833–1910) was the epitome of a nineteenth-century auto didact, having received an indifferent education, largely part-time, that ended when he was twelve. Successively a ploughboy, apprentice shoemaker and from the age of twenty-two a bricklayer, he doggedly built a career in labour movement politics, first achieving public prominence as Secretary of the London Trades’ Council in 1861–62. He established a reputation as an exceptionally energetic
Simon Walker studied modern history at Magdelen College, Oxford, graduating with first-class honours in 1979. When Walker began researching the retinue of John of Gaunt in 1980, 'bastard feudalism' had been the subject of debate for thirty-five years. A study of John of Gaunt's retinue could be expected to throw important, if not decisive, light on these problems. For not only was his the largest retinue in late medieval England, but for thirty years the duke himself had a dominant role in the domestic, military and diplomatic policy of England. In 1994, Michael Jones and Walker published for the Camden Society an edition of all the surviving private life indentures for peace and war apart from those of John of Gaunt and William, Lord Hastings. Walker's introduction to the volume reviewed the evolution of life indentures, the range of services they embraced, the regulation of obligations for service and reward, and the changing role of such indentures over the period 1278-1476. From these broad investigations into the balance of power between magnates and gentry, Walker returned to examine how, in individual cases, two men from different backgrounds built their careers on noble and royal patronage. Walker then turned to examine the retrospective view of the 1399 revolution in literate culture. He used case studies to build up a picture of collective mentalities among different social grades and vocational worlds, hoping ultimately to construct a new approach to the tensions and strength of the late medieval polity.
Over the course of the 1930s, the comic persona of Algonquin humorist Robert Benchley changed from that of a sophisticated humorist to an average man. This article situates Benchley‘s How to short subjects for MGM (1935–44) within a broader public preoccupation with averageness that characterised the populist political rhetoric of New Deal-era America. In particular, it explores the function of seriality as a discursive trope conjoining the format of Benchley‘s MGM shorts to the broader construction of average identities in the eras political culture.
in celebrity humanitarianism ( Richey and Brockington, 2020 ). The roundtable called it out very clearly about Angelina being a ‘carer’ and Affleck being a ‘doer’. And that’s how celebrity humanitarianism works: celebrities are not meant to do real things, they’re meant to embody ideal worlds as normative vessels. The third related aspect is national political culture and concerns the male celebrity humanitarian who represents ‘American Heroism in a cape’. The
This book takes a fresh look at British radicalism in the first half of the nineteenth century from the perspective of the new and burgeoning field of the history of emotions. It represents a major challenge to the ways in which historians have studied political culture in modern Britain by showing how we must break away from teleological assumptions about the rise of the rational public sphere. Politics did not just revolve around ideas, power, organisation and practice but also feeling. This project raises questions fundamental to politics in every age: should the public sphere be a domain free from feeling, or at least one where restraint is exercised? What are the consequences for democratic polities where either affective restraint, or its opposite, excess, operates? Are there occasions when public displays of feeling are acceptable (or less acceptable), and, if so, when and why?
Political systems are shaped by the societies in which they function. For this reason, it is helpful to know something about the historical, geographical, social and economic settings against which they operate. It is also helpful to understand something of the values and ideas which have mattered and continue to matter to those who inhabit any individual country. This book examines the background factors that help to shape the way in which political life and processes operate in Britain and America. In particular, it examines the similarities and differences in the political culture of the countries. Constitutions describe the fundamental rules according to which states are governed, be they embodied in the law, customs or conventions. Liberties and rights are of especial concern in liberal democracies, which claim to provide a broad range of them. The book examines the protection of liberties in both countries, in particular the right of freedom of expression. In advanced Western democracies, the media perform a major role. The book deals with the impact on political life of the two major mass media: the press and television. Elections are the main mechanism for expressing the public's collective desires about who should be in government and what the government should do. The book examines a number of issues about the functioning of elections in two democracies, looking at the electoral system, and the way in which voters behave and the influence upon their voting.
Few screen icons have provoked as much commentary, speculation and adulation as the 'she' of this plaudit, Catherine Deneuve. This book begins with a brief overview of Deneuve's career, followed by a critical survey of the field of theoretical star studies, highlighting its potential and limitations for European, and particularly French, film scholarship. It argues the need for the single-star case study as a model for understanding the multiple signifying elements of transnational stardom. Her first role, at the age of 13, was a brief appearance as a schoolgirl in André Hunebelle's Collégiennes/The Twilight Girls. It was in 1965 that Roman Polanski would cast Catherine Deneuve in Repulsion, described by one critic as a 'one-woman show' in a role that would effectively create a persona which would resonate throughout her future film career. The darker shades of the Deneuve persona are in even greater evidence in Tristana. Demy's Donkey Skin is arguably an equal source of the tale's iconic status in France today, and largely because of Deneuve. The book also investigates films of the 1970s; their role in shaping her star persona and the ways in which they position Deneuve in relation to French political culture. The book considers exactly why directors gravitate towards Deneuve when trying to evoke or represent forms of female homosexual activity on film, and to consider exactly what such directors actually make Deneuve do and mean once they have her performing these particular forms of lesbian relation.
This book is the first in-depth study of the changing nature of moral politics within working-class Radicalism between 1820 and 1870. It highlights how Radicalism's attitudes to morality and everyday life shifted from a festive and libertarian culture to a more austere and ascetic politics. This has been done through study of the lives, activism and intellectual influences of a number of key leaders of working-class Radicalism. This culture emphasized moral improvement, temperance and frugality after the 1840s. Although the London Working Men's Association (LWMA) has often been regarded as elitist and reluctant to adopt a leadership position within organised Chartism, several key members were instrumental in forming the organisational basis for Chartism outside of London. These tours illustrate how not only Vincent but many Chartist activists achieved success by adopting the festive and populist ethos evident amongst London Radicals. In reality the advocacy of teetotalism and education were part of a popular ethical turn within the movement, and O'Connor's attempts to present the danger of a split movement was 'artificial'. The principles and strategies that William Lovett and Henry Vincent developed over the course of 1840 became accepted as a core aspect of Chartist political culture. By 1842, Ethical Radicalism became hegemonic within the movement after 1842 largely because of the constitutional, peaceful, and moral politics of electoral interventions. Working-class moral politics was a product of working- class Radicalism in the first half of the century rather than a post- Chartist imposition.