James Cooper

The Foreign Politics of Opposition: Margaret Thatcher and the Transatlantic Relationship before Power

As Leader of the Opposition, Margaret Thatcher undertook visits across the Atlantic, establishing an international profile and formulating a political narrative that would offer a new economic approach to the British electorate. This article will use Thatchers visits to the America/USA as a case study of how domestic Opposition leaders can establish an international profile. It will examine how Thatchers transatlantic trips were conducted and reported; how Thatcher negotiated the politics of meeting foreign leaders; and, finally, it will assess how far Thatcher could go as an Opposition leader in staking out her own position without undermining unwritten diplomatic codes. The article concludes that Thatchers transatlantic trips were a successful case in point for Opposition Leaders.

‘Superior to anything I had seen in the States’: the ‘Thatcherisation’ of Republican strategy in 1980 and 1984

The collaboration and exchange of ideas and tactics between American and British political parties is a well-established and accepted fact of political life. This article examines a previously marginalised aspect of the transatlantic relationship in the Margaret Thatcher-Ronald Reagan epoch, namely the extent to which the Conservative Party’s electioneering in 1979 and 1983 influenced the presidential campaigns to elect Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984. Just as Thatcher and Reagan shared a ‘special relationship’ in foreign affairs, their respective campaigns also had much in common as each sought to secure power in similar circumstances. Whereas previous work has focused on the extent of the ‘Americanisation’ of British political campaigns, the extent of British influence, particularly that of Thatcher and of the Conservative Party’s innovations, has been a relatively neglected issue. Thus, this article contributes to the Americanisation’ debate by proposing that Republican electioneering in the 1980s was ‘Thatcherised’.

From Reykjavik to Fulton: Reagan, Thatcher, and the ending of the Cold War

Following the 1986 Reykjavik Summit between Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher debated the future of nuclear weapons and the solidarity of the western alliance with the American president. After leaving office, all three leaders delivered lectures at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, the site of Winston Churchill’s famous address that articulated the embryonic Cold War in 1946. This article argues that just as Reagan and Thatcher’s Fulton speeches held different emphases on the past and future of international affairs, Reykjavik was a flashpoint in the endgame of the Cold War that reflect different approaches to the challenges of the international system as outlined by Churchill at Westminster College. Thatcher, in the spirit of her predecessors, including Churchill, had to diplomatically manage Anglo-American relations in order to secure her own policy objectives.

The Cold War and After: History, Theory, and the Logic of International Politics, by Marc Trachtenberg

first three of her case studies of the notebooks of these officials, from which the subsequent, more anodyne minutes were composed. This supplementary source makes it clear, for example, as the cabinet minutes do not, that Eden’s government intended to topple Nasser as well as to recover control of the canal. But the great strength of Bennett’s book is to capture the kaleidoscopic nature of the decision-making process. History often appears too neat. Historians want to understand events and decisions one by one, often isolated from the complexity of other contemporaneous issues which filled the minds of the decision-makers themselves. Here Bennett offers an important corrective. Her ‘second golden rule’ is that ‘even in times of crisis, ministers always think about more than one thing at a time, even if at the meeting in question they discuss a single issue’ (5). To support her case the author presents a series of revealing character sketches of leading ministers sitting at the cabinet table and outlines the mental baggage which each brought to the decision-making process. This factor tended to mean that decisions were not necessarily reached on their intrinsic merits, much to the bafflement of those outside or on the fringes of this complex process. Thus, the junior minister, Kenneth Younger, deputising for the ailing Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, found the decision over Korea to involve ‘too little principle and too much pragmatism’ (35). Gill Bennett has written a deceptively simple book, a virtue underlined by the clarity of her prose style. It will serve as a valuable antidote for anyone who still wishes to ensnare the foreign policy-making process in rigid formulas and theories.

“A log-rolling, Irish-American politician, out to raise votes in the United States”: Tip O’Neill and the Irish dimension of Anglo-American relations, 1977–1986

The Irish dimension of Anglo-American relations is a relatively marginalized aspect of the historiography of transatlantic studies. Historians have focused on the role of the Clinton administration in the Northern Ireland “peace process” but previous American contributions also warrant attention. As the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill was one of the most prominent Irish-American politicians. This article demonstrates O’Neills attempts to ensure that the American contribution to the Anglo-Irish process steadily increased, despite the transition from arguably his natural political ally in the President Jimmy Carter administration to President Ronald Reagan in 1981. O’Neills interest in Northern Ireland and position as speaker helped ensure that Carters promise of financial aid to Northern Ireland in 1977 following progress in the political process was fulfilled in March 1986.

I must brief you on the mistakes: When Ronald Reagan Met Margaret Thatcher, February 25-28, 1981

Margaret Th atcher and Ronald Reagan won general elections in 1979 and 1980, respectively, as a result of the international instability and stagfl ation of the 1970s. Reagan and Th atcher saw their international interests converge as the Cold War reemerged, and they both promised to deliver parallel monetarist, free market, and incentive-based solutions to economic decline. 1 When they met for the fi rst time as world leaders in February 1981, it was clear that Reagan and Th atcher sought to demonstrate a commonality in domestic policy and closeness in foreign policy. Such a show of unity would allow them both to enjoy political cover as they wrestled with economic challenges at home and Communism abroad. However, behind that unity was a much more complicated picture, born out of the fact that in the 1980s the United States and Britain had very diff erent economies. For instance, Reagan and Th atcher inherited economies with high infl ation and higher rates of income taxation that they would seek to reduce, but, in contrast to the American case, the British economy was arguably defi ned by its nationalized industries and subsequent power of the trade unions related to them. Th erefore, while the Reaganite and Th atcherite solutions could be superfi cially similar, they had to diff er in important details. As a result, there was the risk that either side

Conclusions: ‘Who Influenced Whom?’

This study has examined the extent of policy and tactical transfer in domestic policy between the Thatcher and Reagan administrations, and sought to identify ‘who influenced whom’ in the decade when New Right economics defined the policy agenda in Britain and America. It has also examined, although more briefly, the extent of intellectual transfer from academics and think tanks to the administrations. This concluding chapter addresses briefly what Thatcher and Reagan thought about each other’s role and achievements in domestic affairs, the comments of contemporary journalists and historians, and, finally, identifies the strongest and weakest links between the two administrations, therefore in an attempt to understand the extent of ‘who influenced whom’.

Privatisation and Deregulation

The role of privatisation and deregulation, much like trade (labor) union reform, was to change how the British and American economies functioned. This chapter examines the relationship between the Thatcher and Reagan administrations in their approach towards privatisation and regulation (or deregulation in America). It must be noted that while there is extensive literature on the issues of monopolies, ownership, and regulation in both countries, this chapter focuses on the comparative political developments in Britain and the USA, and the extent to which those developments constituted intellectual and policy transfer.1

Second Term Cuts and Policy Transfer

The previous chapter examined the origins of Thatcherite tax policies in Britain and Reaganomics and their implementation up to 1984. This chapter will examine the implementation of tax policies in Britain and America after 1984 and the extent of policy transfer between the Thatcher and Reagan administrations in taxation policy. It will also focus on the implementation of enterprise zones in Britain and America, the press reaction to the administrations’ tax cuts and, crucially, the tensions between Thatcher and Reagan about the impact of the emerging American deficit on the Thatcherite financial revolution.

Origins and Implementation

The apparent failure of the post-war Keynesian economic settlement on both sides of the Atlantic during the 1970s meant that the Thatcher and Reagan administrations together sought an alternative economic paradigm to reverse stagflation. Thatcher and Reagan argued that their monetary policy would address the crippling levels of inflation, which were preventing real economic growth. Monetarism, the economic theory espoused by the Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman, was viewed as the necessary policy prescription. Indeed, Thatcher’s early dogmatic persistence with her monetary policy, and Reagan’s support for the monetary policy implemented by Paul Volcker, Chairman of the Federal Reserve System (the Fed), defined the period. In short, monetarists argue that inflation is caused by an uncontrolled increase in the money supply. ‘Monetarist’ policies are typically associated with high interest rates. For instance, interest rates were the blunt instrument utilised by the Thatcher government to control the money supply. In the United States, interest rates were the result of monetary-based control (MBC), which sought to control the quantity of available bank reserves. ‘Monetarism’ lent itself as a label to describe an extraordinarily difficult period for the Thatcher and Reagan administrations.