Toward a Sociology of Conservative Crisis
Despite winning the largest number of seats and 42% of the popular vote at the 2017 general election, the Conservative Party is in crisis. Rather than relying on explanations emphasising a catalogue of missteps by the party leadership to the exclusion of all else, this paper argues the election result and divisions over Brexit negotiations has brought to a head a number of long running tensions symptomatic of the party’s long-term decline. These are expressed in diminishing party organisation, the reliance on a declining voter base and media support, and its retreat from a party of business-in-general to an increasingly sectional party. The opposite but complementary process to the growth and recomposition of Labour under Jeremy Corbyn, this working paper draws on the cognitive capitalism approach of Hardt and Negri (2000, 2004, 2009) and others to explain the trajectory of the Conservatives, how it lost “natural” seats but gained "traditional" Labour seats at last year's election, the delicate balance of power at the top of the party, and the low chances of it being able to reinvent itself sufficiently to overcome these structural difficulties in the short to medium term.
9 comments:
I was with you until 'The opposite but complementary process to the growth and recomposition of Labour under Jeremy Corbyn, this working paper draws on the cognitive capitalism approach of Hardt and Negri (2000, 2004, 2009) and others to explain the trajectory of the Conservatives.'
Labour must be one of the few opposition parties to fail to take advantage of a government in such disarrray; torn apart by its own factions, by grassroots vs unions power struggles, its antisemitism issues and an EU referendum position that took a year to clarify it is in as much turmoil as the Conservative party. You Brits should be pleased your voters are so conservative that no populist party will get voted for in serious numbers but then again you Brits should be sad your voters are so conservative that they'll keep voting for a shambles.
Also, maybe Negri isn't a good guide to anything when I look at the state of the left in Italy
You're guilty of making the same faulty assumptions as our mainstream commentariat. The fact of the matter is there are effectively two mainstreams in politics now because British politics is *polarising* along an overlapping line of immaterial labour and age. It is explained here, here, and here as well as my chapter in Mark Perryman (ed) The Corbyn Effect.
What I'm interested in is why the Tory Party is in decline, and why it continues to decompose. Regardless of what you think of Corbyn and Corbynism, the huge membership and widely unexpected vote secured at the last election are facts of political life that point in the *opposite* direction to the problems the Tories are facing.
As for continental parties, it's telling that the centre left collapses time and again when they pursue policies inimical to the interests of their constituencies. Funny that.
“You Brits should be pleased your voters are so conservative that no populist party will get voted for in serious numbers but then again you Brits should be sad your voters are so conservative that they'll keep voting for a shambles.”
Labour has been consistently ahead in the polls since July. No one, right or left, expects anything but a Labour victory in the next election, and centrist claims to the contrary are nakedly disingenuous.
Have you looked on http://www.cultdyn.co.uk/ there's some good business on there
I think you mistake your Labour party for a radical party and not a centrist party riding populist coat-tails. I also think you are seeing structure where there is only the ebb and flows of trends. I dont know what it is like over there but here the young kids all like Starnger Things and Fleetwood Mac and all the 70s and 80s retro things. Like Jeremy Corbyn. Don't mistake them for your natural followers they will find their own way.
You say the Left always fails whenit moves to the center I say the parliamentary Left always capitulates when it gains power. I am old and have always followed British working class politics. I rememer the architect of the miners and therefore working class defeat. It was the 1977 reforms of Tony Benn that set up the fractures that split the miners along regonal lines. But even now retro Leftists still treat this aristocratic fool as a hero.
And so it is with those links and your fandom of Negri my Italian friends of a similar age remember a narcistic idiot. He has changed his tune since those days but his postmodern 'multitude' seems like his old self. Out of touch with the working class and fantasising about a lumpenproletariat revolution. I think you should read this essay http://libcom.org/library/aufheben/aufheben-14-2006/keep-on-smiling-questions-on-immaterial-labour and reconsider getting lifted up by his hot air and philosophical flourishes.
My other friend who says Labour have had a consistent lead. I looked at yougov (I dont know if this is accurate). Two weeks ago, Labour 2% lead%. Last week Labour 1% lead. Not good figures for an opposition party against a terrible government.
I wish you luck but I think you have the same problem as most of us. No natural Left party that knows how to represent all workers equally.
I note that your title is yet another work in progress in Sociology. How many titles have I read which included “towards a..” and how many times I have hoped to reach a destination, only to be disappointed.
I can only conclude you didn't read my previous links, anonymous. It's *all about movement*.
And whether Negri is a narcissist is irrelevant. His work has made a number of provocative analyses that I find convincing. The move to immaterial labour and immaterial production is obvious. That capital is adopting a capture rather than an extraction pose for dealing with this is obvious. That global sovereignty is fragmenting among states and transnational institutions is obvious. That workers are networked and socialised and is fostering a spontaneous social liberalism is also obviously obvious. There are some issues around his view about the collapse of value, but that doesn't invalidate the rest of his analysis.
And, again, British politics is polarising. There are constituencies clinging to the Tories because, for whatever reason, Corbynism terrifies them. There is also the small issue of Brexit, which the Tories are seeing through and is the basis of their gobbling the UKIP vote up.
Of course it's anothr work in progress, Ken. I've only just started properly reading up on it! This is a working paper out of which a perfectly formed and ultra-correct opus will bud :)
Yes!!!!
I look forward to it.
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