Thesis--M.A., University of Hong Kong. / Typewritten.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Queensland, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references.

Immigration to Britain from the New Commonwealth began in earnest in the late 1940s and the early 1950s. British governments, both Socialist and Conservative, found the issues raised by such immigration difficult to deal. with. This is evident from the succession of immigration control and race relations measures in the period 1961 to 1981. These dates mark respectively the Parliamentary debates on what became the 1962 Commonwealth Immigration Act and the 1981 British Nationality Act. As such these measures delineate clearly the development of this major policy area. One of the noticeable features of this policy area is the recognition by participants of the existence and importance of values and attitudes characterised by the term "liberal". Such liberal values were commonly associated with opinion formers in a wide variety of institutions, but particularly amongst leaders of the Labour and Liberal Parties, the churches and governmentsponsored race relations bodies. This study examines the values and attitudes of such people and suggests that several themes have been predominant in the liberal response to race politics. Five themes are identified and discussed: a social determinist view of human behaviour together with a desire for rationality, equality, pluralism and community. These themes are examined for evidence of any inconsistencies or conflict of values, both within themselves and in relation to each other. The purpose throughout is not to question or criticise such liberal values; rather it is to study any inconsistencies within them.

The thesis seeks to determine the relationship between community feeling and political activity in one interwar town, Northampton. It is argued that localism continued to be an important dimension of social and political experience in this period for businessmen, employers and workers. The development of modern industrial relations and welfare policies in industry gave employers a renewed interest in their location of operations. Depression and decline in the private enterprise economy made municipal intervention important to both the lower middle class and the working class. At the same time central governments expanded the role of local authorities by giving them more mandatory responsibilities and greater funding. A public culture developed in Northampton which stressed service to the common interest and meritocratic leadership. In this context the Labour Party was able to gain some legitimate authority in the town community. Its leaders were accorded a grudging acceptance in the meritocracy. The ethos of public and political life was reflected in neighbourhood and workplace experience. Most Northamptonians defined their social identity in terms of citizenship rather than class. However, there were a number of social, economic and industrial factors which produced a crisis in the 1933 to 1935 period. That crisis increased Labour support and led to abstention by many non-Labour voters. A different approach to the study of society and politics in Britain from 1918 to 1939 is advocated on the basis of the Northampton evidence. It is noted that there already exists considerable material showing that there was a wide range of difference in local response to government social policy. It is also argued that the Labour Party's philosophy and electoral performance during these years may owe more to community influences than has previously been acknowledged.

The purpose of this thesis was to highlight an aspect of the heterogeneous character of working class culture. To this end, it investigated the Irish Catholic population of Manchester and Salford, two cities not normally associated with sectarianism, in the period 1890-1939, a time when anti-Irish and anti-Catholic sentiment was supposedly on the wane in the face of 'class' feeling. The study concluded that hostilities based on nationality and religion were a recurrent feature of popular culture. The rise of the Labour party failed to transform such deep-rooted sentiments, to some extent it made use of them. The Catholic Church used its extensive influence in order to isolate adherents from non-Catholics, thereby contributing to the prevalent - although often latent - sectarian feelings. Despite changes which helped weaken the strength of mutual mistrust, in 1939 Irish Catholics remained culturally Janus-faced: they were neither fully Irish nor completely Mancunian. Consequently, they held a contingent and variable place within the city's working class. This study utilised numerous source materials, including oral history, the local press, Catholic diocesan and parochial archives, as well as political records.

This thesis examines effects of the Boer War (1899- 1902) on images of the soldier. The thesis argues that the trauma of the Boer War for British political culture be may explored in changes in representations of the soldier to be found in the production and reception of contemporary literary genres and popular forms. This change cannot be theorized adequately in terms of an intensification of patriotism, the development of nationalism or a crisis of imperialism. A pervasive approach, often drawing on the work of Edward Said, has as its central premise that imperial polity imposes a discourse of domination on its relacitrant Other. This approach will be found to lack the conceptual nuances needed to address the different forms of representation examined in the thesis. These different forms of representation articulate a range of responses to the repercussion of the war on the relation between the shifting external boundaries of Empire and the internal boundaries of civil society between state and civil society, civilian and military identities, class antagonisms and national projections. Changes in the image of the soldier bear the irresistable politicization as well as the contrary paradoxical burdens of the attempted pacification of those related external and internal boundaries. The thesis includes a study of a range of sources, including as yet undiscussed texts, which verify and explore further the argument that literary and popular forms and representations display the changing fault lines of political culture rather than simply present or act as vehicles for a truiumphalist and unequivocal discursive domination.

This thesis explores the practice of government secrecy in Britain from 1945-1975. Drawing on oral testimony, unpublished correspondence, and newly released archival material, it addresses the question of how and why governments kept information secret in the context of the Cold War and profound domestic social change. Topics incorporated within the ambit of this study include the origins and troubled history of the Official Secrets Act; the customs and cerebral landscapes of the civil service; the investigative journalism of Chapman Pincher; the disappearance of naval frogman 'Buster' Crabb; and the censorship of political and intelligence biographies. In a departure from traditional histories of secrecy, often written by detractors in the spirit of shrill political partisanship, it will be shown that many secrets were entirely defensible, concealed legitimately in the interests of national security and good government. The argument emphasises that the most effective antibodies to state secrecy were memoirists - who, possessing deep reservoirs of secret knowledge, exploited their status and old boy contacts to circumvent regulations they had themselves parented, and abided by, during their official careers. By 1975, it will be offered that Whitehall had begun to volunteer more information, especially under the aegis of official histories and other selectively discharged 'insider' accounts, in order to ameliorate public relations and deflect calls for more wide-ranging open government initiatives. While primarily political history, this thesis also incorporates socio-cultural analysis of the secret bearers themselves.

This thesis traces the British role in the evolution of international law prior to 1914, utilizing naval arms control as a case study. In the thesis, I argue that the Foreign Office adopted a pragmatic approach towards international law, emphasizing what was possible within the existing system of law rather than attempting to create radically new and powerful international institutions. The thesis challenges standard perceptions of the Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907 which interpreted these gatherings as unrealistic efforts at general disarmament through world government, positing instead that legalized arms control provided a realistic means of limiting armaments. This thesis explores how a great power employed treaties to complement maritime security strategies. A powerful world government was not advocated and was unnecessary for the management of naval arms control. While law could not guarantee state compliance, the framework of the international legal system provided a buffer, increasing predictability in interstate relations. This thesis begins with an account of how international law functioned in the nineteenth century, and how states employed international law in limiting armaments. With this framework, a legal analysis is provided for exploring the negotiations at the Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907, and in the subsequent Anglo-German naval arms race. What emerges is how international law functioned by setting expectations for future behaviour, while raising the political cost of violations. Naval arms control provided a unique opportunity for legal regulation, as the lengthy building time and easily verifiable construction enabled inspections by naval attachés, a traditional diplomatic practice. Existing practices of international law provided a workable method of managing arms competition, without the necessity for unworkable projects of world government. Thus failure to resolve the arms race before 1914 must be attributed to other causes besides the lack of legal precedents.

This thesis investigates the factors involved in the processes of health policy change. It questions the validity of path dependency theory in the context of changes observed within the United Kingdom health system under the Conservatives between 1979 and 1997. The development of the National Health Service (NHS) ‘internal market’ reforms is considered together with five specific cases of change affecting public-private boundaries. The research combines literature research, including biographical and archival sources, with a selection of interviews with important actors from the health policy arena of the time. The cases are mapped using an adapted version of the three policy streams developed by Kingdon for the analysis of agenda-setting processes, as a structured basis for comparison. The research finds little evidence of the self-reinforcing processes that are required to generate path dependency, or that a change of path can take place only at a critical juncture.It shows that small changes can produce substantive and enduring changes of path. It also identifies that the factors involved appear to go beyond Kingdon’s three streams, and attaches importance to the potential for disloyalty to the status quo. Cultural or technical change, as well as policy change, can generate disloyalty amongst those who deliver services. The presence of the potential for disloyalty is, therefore, an important factor in the achievement of a change of path. Taken together the changes between 1979 and 1997 show a notable consistency of purpose in pursuit of a dual agenda of consumerism and public spending control. Whilst analysis of individual cases of change can suggest an absence of strategy, each case plays a part within a remarkable consistent Conservative programme of change the roots of which predate the National Health Service.

This thesis investigates the restructuring of local government in the reign of George II in the county of Surrey. The decay of mediaeval and Tudor institutions such as manors and church courts, the redefinition of the role of the Assizes in local administration, the ending of the isolation of the boroughs, the marked professionalisation of County Quarter Sessions contributed to a very considerable change in the nature of local government in the period. The research opens with an introduction on the administrative relationship between central and county government, is then divided into three parts, each subdivided into chapters. Part one discusses forms of government at parish and borough level and charts the development of vestries and, against a background of municipal insecurity, assesses the reality of an urban renaissance in eighteenth century Surrey towns. Part two examines the important work of the court of Quarter Sessions and, in particular, the impact of administrative prescription on the individual Surrey inhabitant. Part three looks at the influence and social status of the county magistracy and their commitment and dedication to administrative work in the localities. The importance of administrative procedure as an agency of social control in the eighteenth century is emphasised in the conclusion, which also stresses the uses of administrative history to the social historian.