London Program

British Politics and Democracy (Prof. Ned Lebow ~ 92)

During most of the long period during which England and then Britain became democratic, the idea of democracy was entirely different from what it is today and regarded as a bad form of government. The adoption of “democracy” was slow, piecemeal and for a long time without recognition of universal rights or adult franchise. In today’s Britain -- and in much of the world -- democracy is seen as the only acceptable system of government. It is an anomaly for many that an unelected House of Lords can play any role at all in the lawmaking and wider legal process. 

The British and American experiences are the foundation for much of our theory about democracy.  However, unlike so many countries where democracy was imported or imposed, it developed indigenously and over a long period of time in Britain and its former colonies.  What brought about this outcome and how contingent was it?  At its core, democracy depends on civil liberties and free elections, and a state sufficiently strong and neutral to protect both. We will explore how these ideas and practices developed and key turning points in British history that brought them to the fore. The goal is not only to understand the development of democracy in Britain, but the extent to which democratic practices are exportable. We will meet twice a week at the LSE.  We will also make occasional field trips to sites and museums associated with the growth of British democracy, including, of course, the Houses of Parliament.

Political Conservatism in the US and the UK: Principals, Principles, Practices, and Policies (Prof. Richard Winters ~ 92)

A seminar that attempts to cover “individuals, beliefs, behaviors, and outcomes,” i.e. “Principals, Principles, Practices, and Policies,” can be decomposed in a number of ways. In examining these four “Ps” in the U.S. and in the United Kingdom, we most often will employ the typical and “twin” modes of political analysis, that of the empirics, e.g., the nature of conservative beliefs and practices in American and British political life, as well as the philosophical analysis of the meaning of political conservatism in the two countries.

Empirically, what do we mean by ideology as employed in practice by voters and elected officials? Do voters even employ ideology in their political reasoning, and how would we know if they did? Is conservatism largely an “elite” trait shared by the well-educated and politically involved? Further, we analyze the “empirics” of political practices employed by “conservatives” when in power in each country. In a philosophical analysis, we want to understand what values rest at the heart of a belief system. What do conservatives believe? Are there “core” values that are common to every brand or stripe of “conservatism”? And, at the core, is “conservatism” in the US and UK a coherent, inter-related system of values and opinions that can properly be called a “belief system”?

In our empirical and philosophical analyses, we also examine the main actors – the so-called “principals” among conservatives. We will focus on the iconic conservatives in the US and UK, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, but will also consider George W. Bush, his father, David Cameron, the current UK Conservative Party leader as well as other active conservatives in each country. We will also review the “principals” among the philosophers of conservatism: in the U.K. from Edmund Burke to Michael Oakshott to David Willetts and John Gray and from James Madison to John Kekes in the U.S.

Fifteen seminar sessions will take place over the space of the academic term in the U.K and will be supplemented with guest speakers drawn from the academy and British political life.

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