Why Politics Matters: Making Democracy Work
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partners, in particular those of Central and Eastern Europe. For Redwood there is no nuance, no considered reflection, no need for in-depth research, no requirement for objectivity, and no need to allow evidence to interfere with a good argument. In Redwood’s world ‘the war in Afghanistan was short and decisive’ (p. 5); Britons are proud of their imperial history (p. 58); the 2004 presidential election was primarily fought over Iraq and Bush won decisively, revealing ‘a convincing majority in favour of unilateral American action’ (p. 94); and, unlike the EU, most senior office holders in America go through an election before they gain their position (p. 137) — forgetting that the administration is made up of appointments based solely on presidential patronage. John Redwood has produced a manifesto setting out his position against Europe and in favour of closer relations with America. He states what is clear to all that China is the ascending economic and military power. For him the way to face that reality is with the United States firmly by our side. Like most manifestos, however, this is strictly time limited and probably better off not read. Lee Marsden Oxford Brookes University, Gipsy Lane Campus, Headington, Oxford OX3 0BP, UK. E-mail: [email protected]
Why Politics Matters: Making Democracy Work Gerry Stoker Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2006, xiv þ 232pp, d14.99 ISBN 1 4039 9740 3 British Politics (2007) 2, 445–448. doi:10.1057/palgrave.bp.4200070
Both authors should feel they are being complimented if I say that Gerry Stoker’s book does for the period in which we are now living what Bernard Crick’s In Defence of Politics did for the 1960s. Stoker indeed makes several references to Crick’s work. They are both concerned to explain what politics is for and what it can achieve. They both want us to understand the importance of the collective and the public sphere, and the inevitability of conflict and dispute in governing that sphere, and hence in the essentially contested and difficult character of political affairs. The primary change in the past four decades with which Stoker knows he has to grapple is what one might sum up most succinctly as the replacement of the British Politics 2007 2
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citizen by the customer. Politicians, the mass media and the many spokespeople for private business have all encouraged us to see government as about the delivery of services to individual customers, and to run election campaigns as exactly as if they were product sales campaigns. Even where the concept of customer can be applied only as a very partial analogy, government has seized on it. HM Revenue and Customs are told to regard taxpayers as customers and to speak of the various taxes as ‘products’. We have not yet heard the population of Basra described as the customers of the British Army, but it could happen any day. Commercialisation is by no means the only aspect of public life that Stoker sees as responsible for the current political malaise. His coverage of a mass of factors is c
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