Why We Hate Politics

243 Pages·2013·3.95 MB·English

by  Hay

Why We Hate Politics
For Ailsa and Ian
Why We Hate Politics
COLIN HAY
polity
Copyright © Colin Hay 2007
The right of Colin Hay to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2007 by Polity Press
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ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-5742-4
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Contents
List of Figures and Tables
Preface and Acknowledgements
1 Political Disenchantment
2 Politics, Participation and Politicization
3 The Domestic Sources of Depoliticization
4 The Global Sources of Depoliticization
5 Why Do We Hate Politics?
Notes
References
Index
Figures and Tables
Figures
1.1 Trends in electoral turnout, OECD average and selected
countries
1.2 Average British voter turnout by age cohort and year, 1964–97
1.3 Electoral participation and duration of voter eligibility, UK 1997
1.4 Decline in turnout and party membership, OECD countries
1.5 Levels of trust in politicians and government in the US, 1958–
2004
1.6 Do politicians care? Comparative attitudinal trends
2.1 Mapping the political realm
2.2 Politicization(s) and depoliticization(s)
3.1 The rationale for central bank independence
4.1 Rate of growth of world exports and production, 1995–2003
4.2 Growth in world merchandise trade, 1948–2003, in billions of
US dollars
4.3 Ratio of merchandise trade to GDP at current prices
4.4 The triad’s share of inward and outward FDI stock, 1980–2003
4.5 Intra-regional trade as a proportion of total trade, selected
regions and regional trade areas
4.6 State expenditure as a share of GDP, per cent selected OECD
countries
4.7 Economic openness and state spending, OECD member state
averages, 2000–3
4.8 Inbound foreign direct investment and state revenue, OECD
member state average, 2000–3
Tables
1.1 Decline in electoral turnout, 1945–2005, selected OECD
countries
1.2 Trends in political participation in the US and the UK
1.3 Arenas of political participation and nonparticipation
1.4 Satisfaction with democracy
1.5 Trends in the evaluation of democracy
1.6 Trust in public institutions in the US and the EU, 2004
1.7 Changing UK public trust in the professions, 1983–2005
1.8 Primary interests served by MPs
1.9 US perceptions of the interests that government serves 38
1.10 US perceptions of wastage of taxpayers’ money by government
1.11 Potential demand-side and supply-side factors responsible for
declining political participation
2.1 Politics as context, politics as conduct – narrow and inclusive
definitions
2.2 Forms of political participation
2.3 Political and nonpolitical participation and nonparticipation
3.1 Rationalizing neoliberalism
Preface and Acknowledgements
This book has taken rather longer to write than I had hoped, just like the last one,
and the one before that … and, almost certainly, the one before that (I forget).
When the idea for this book, or at least a book somewhat like this, was first put
to me by Louise Knight, I was about to begin a three-year tenure as Head of the
Department of Political Science and International Studies (POLSIS) at the
University of Birmingham. I accepted enthusiastically the offer to submit a
proposal, both because I was excited about the prospect of sorting out in my own
mind the nature of the contemporary condition of political disaffection and
disengagement and because this was the kind of book that I could imagine
writing as Head of Department. That was to prove a forlorn hope. It has been far
more difficult and more challenging intellectually to sort out my previously
rather disparate thoughts on the issues addressed in this volume than I had
thought likely. And the process has taken me in some genuinely new directions.
It also became clear, rather early on, that I was profoundly naïve to think that I
was going to write anything very much as Head of Department. But the book is
probably better for its rather lengthy gestation. It is certainly the case that when I
eventually sat down to consign my thoughts to paper at the start of my period of
sabbatical in the Department of Government at the University of Manchester, I
was far clearer about what I was seeking to do. The months that have followed
have proved unusually cathartic.
As this perhaps already implies, I have, as usual, amassed a great variety of
debts, both personal and intellectual, in writing this book. I must first thank my
colleagues in POLSIS. It is not their fault that I failed to write this book whilst
acting as their Head of Department – indeed, they have contributed greatly to
making that a far less legitimate excuse for my inability to meet my publisher’s
deadlines than it would normally be in British higher education today. I must
also thank my friends, new and old, in the Department of Government at the
University of Manchester, who have accommodated my sabbatical but who
have, by virtue of this book, seen rather less of me than they might have
expected. Now that it is completed, I hope to rectify that and to repay as best I
can their generosity. An innumerable array of friends and colleagues have