Oliver Daddow

British foreign policy

Acknowledgements Glossary 1. Introduction 2. The Actors in British foreign policy 3. How is British foreign policy made?. 4. Self-identity and British Foreign Policy 5. Britain in the world 6. Ethics and British foreign policy 7. Defence and British foreign policy 8. Economics and British foreign policy Conclusion: The future of British foreign policy Notes Bibliography Index

Introduction: Interpreting British Foreign Policy

This special issue collects together a series of essays that investigate the analytical possibilities offered to the study of British foreign policy by the interpretive approach to political science and international relations. The interpretive approach concentrates on the beliefs of various policy actors, the meanings of their actions, and, crucially, explains the beliefs by locating them in historical traditions and as responses to dilemmas. It highlights the contingency, diversity, and contestability of the beliefs, narratives, and expertise that inform political action. This interpretive approach is widespread in the study of governance and domestic policy (Bevir and Rhodes 2003, 2006 and 2010; Bevir et al. 2003; Dudley 2003; Richards and Smith 2004; Irazabal 2005; Orr 2005, 2009; Craig 2006; Monro 2006; Morrell 2006; Stoker 2006; Bevir and Trentmann 2007; Clark and Gains 2007; Finlayson 2008; Jose 2007; Rhodes et al. 2007; Sullivan 2007; Yi-Chong and Weller 2007; Bache and Catney 2008; Dinham and Lowndes 2008; Wood et al. 2008; Bevir and Richards 2009; O’Brien et al. 2009; Orr and Vince 2009; Bevir 2010; Booth 2010; Edwards 2011; Kenny 2010; Krueger and Gibbs 2010; Richards and Mathers 2010; and for earlier critical discussions in this journal see Finlayson 2004; Marsh 2008).

Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair and the Eurosceptic Tradition in Britain

This article advances the interpretivist perspective on British foreign policy by studying Tony Blairs difficult encounter with the Eurosceptic tradition in Britain, popularized by Margaret Thatcher from the late 1980s. Using discourse data taken from key foreign policy speeches by the two leaders across their periods in office, the article investigates the problems Blair and his New Labour team faced when trying to justify and legitimize Britains more constructive approach to the European Union from 1997. The article argues that Blair failed to modernize public attitudes and build support behind a Europeanist consensus in Britain because, contrary to the reputations they have built up over the years, the two leaders’ webs of belief about the British in Europe were remarkably similar. Blair reworked rather than undermined core themes within the British Eurosceptic tradition.

Euroscepticism and the culture of the discipline of history

This article explores the uses of history in contemporary Eurosceptic discourse in Britain. It does so in the knowledge that studying an essentially contested concept such as Euroscepticism poses severe methodological problems, and in the first section I situate my article in the emerging scholarly literature on the subject. Having explained why I limit my research to popular Euroscepticism in the tabloid press, in the second section I critically analyse the rhetorical strategies employed by the Sun and the Daily Mail to garner support for their line on Europe, suggesting that the appeal of their discourse resides in its recourse to national history of the school textbook variety. In the third part I use this finding to argue that the discipline of history has been an unwitting accomplice in making Euroscepticism so popular amongst the British public, press and politicians. This has considerable ramifications both for the theoretical study of Euroscepticism and the political efforts to counter its popularity, and I consider all of these in the conclusion.

Introduction: Interpreting British European Policy

Britain has had particular problems reconciling itself to the idea of being a ‘European’ actor and a wholehearted member of the EEC/EU since 1973. Now, potentially, the ‘awkward partner’ is edging towards the exit door of the EU because a membership a referendum gauging the opinion of a sullenly Eurosceptical UK public is a likely prospect in the coming years. The aim of this special issue of JCMS is to consider how one can account for the present state of affairs by adopting an interpretivist perspective on British European policy over the past four decades. The article begins with a comprehensive review of the extant literature on Britain and Europe and an elaboration of the ‘traditions and dilemmas’ framework within which the contributors have studied the empirical material in their articles. It then explains the major themes that connect the articles and suggests how future research might build on the agenda proposed in this special issue. This article is part of the January 2015 Special Issue titled ‘Interpreting British European Policy’, which also includes Safeguarding British Identity or Betraying It? The Role of British ‘Tradition’ in the Parliamentary Great Debate on EC Membership, October 1971 by N. Piers Ludlow (DOI: ), The Return of ‘Englishness’ in British Political Culture – The End of the Unions? by Michael Kenny (DOI: ), Interpreting the Outsider Tradition in British European Policy Speeches from Thatcher to Cameron by Oliver Daddow (DOI: ), ‘One Womans Prejudice’: Did Margaret Thatcher Cause Britains Anti‐Europeanism? by Cary Fontana and Craig Parsons (DOI: ), Between One‐Nation Toryism and Neoliberalism: The Dilemmas of British Conservatism and Britains Evolving Place in Europe by Mark I. Vail (DOI: ), Euroscepticism and the Anglosphere: Traditions and Dilemmas in Contemporary English Nationalism by Ben Wellings and Helen Baxendale (DOI: ), Reworking the Eurosceptic and Conservative Traditions into a Populist Narrative: UKIPs Winning Formula? by Karine Tournier‐Sol (DOI: ), The Labour Party and Europe from Brown to Miliband: Back to the Future? by Pauline Schnapper (DOI: ), Educating Britain? Political Literacy and the Construction of National History by Helen Brocklehurst (DOI: )

Interpreting foreign policy: National, comparative and regional studies

This Special Issue advances an interpretive research programme into Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) and International Relations by showcasing new work on the study of foreign policy and regional cooperation. This introductory article explains the rationale and contents of the Special Issue in three parts. The opening part explains how the contributions complement the broader study of ideas in FPA and International Relations through a critique of methodological positivism in the social sciences. The second part elaborates the theoretical framework used to cohere the collection, which centres on the study of ‘situated agents’ who, when confronted with policy dilemmas, draw on inherited traditions to inform their foreign policy practices. This is accompanied by a methods case study centring on David Cameron’s European Union referendum strategy, which is used to illustrate the practical ways in which one can conduct interpretivist research into foreign policy. In conclusion, we spell out how the contributors conducted their work to advance the interpretivist research programme.

The Ideology of Apathy: Historians and Postmodernism

This article explores the reasons why the relationship between historians on the one hand and philosophers and theorists of history on the other tends to be acrimonious more than harmonious. Having examined the continuing allure of ‘truth’, ‘science’ and ‘objectivity’ to those who seek to construct historys disciplinary identity, the article invites us to deconstruct these terms as a means of refining our understanding of what historians do in practice. It re-examines the origins of the discipline of history since its professionalization at the end of the nineteenth century, and highlights how it has been intensely ideological and politically positioned from its inception. Seen in this light, it argues, defending history against supposedly damaging philosophical and theoretical reflection is itself an ideological step, both distorting what historians do in their day-to-day research activities and caricaturing what these ‘other’ scholars seek to achieve by analysing historiography.

Introduction: Blair, Brown and New Labour’s Foreign Policy, 1997–2010

Hindsight rarely delivers definitive answers, but now New Labour’s period in government has drawn to a close it is an apt moment to step back and ask what the party achieved across its suite of domestic and foreign policies from 1997–2010. Any investigation into this topic needs to be stimulated by more than academic curiosity because it reaches to the heart of helping us understand both the ‘New Labour project’ and the painful realities of Britain’s position in the contemporary global arena. As the above words from Tony Blair in 1997 indicate, New Labour was rarely modest about its achievements or its potential to make Britain fit for life in the twenty-first century. Having been in power for just six months, Blair triumphantly proclaimed that the government had helped make Britain ‘great’ again after what he routinely depicted as years of drift, delay and decline during the John Major years, 1990–1997. His government pledged to build on that new-found confidence in the nation’s greatness to fashion a new understanding of Britain’s place in the world. This meant re-visioning everything from what it meant to be British to how Britain should deal with other nations and international organizations on the world stage. New Labour’s thinking on how to achieve its lofty ambitions for British foreign policy was predicated on two overlapping concepts.

Constructing a ‘great’ role for Britain in an age of austerity: : Interpreting coalition foreign policy, 2010–2015

This article interprets the ideational underpinnings of the British Conservative–Liberal coalition government’s foreign policy from 2010 to 2015. It uses qualitative discourse analysis of speeches, statements and policy documents to unpack the traditions of foreign policy thought which informed some of the key foreign policy practices of the coalition government. The analysis centres on the British identity constructed by liberal Conservatives, and the values and interests flowing from this baseline identity that the government’s foreign policy sought to express through its foreign policy. Liberal Conservative foreign policy is argued to have been an attempt to come to terms with the limits on Britain’s international agency in the face of three major foreign policy dilemmas: the legacy of the New Labour years, dramatically reduced economic resources in the ‘age of austerity’ and an increasingly restricted capacity for Britain to exercise ideational entrepreneurship in the international community. The article substantiates the claim in the extant literature that liberal Conservatism significantly adapted but did not restructure an established British foreign policy tradition of merging values and interests in complex ways.

Strategising European Policy: David Cameron's Referendum Gamble

As David Cameron moves towards a renegotiation of the UKs terms of membership of the EU and an in/out referendum, he will confront a series of strategic challenges. Oliver Daddow argues that the prime minister will first have to develop a convincing pro-membership narrative against the backdrop of an EU in crisis and a widespread antimembership movement in the UK, given voice by a generally EU-hostile media.