University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities. / Department of Government and Public Administration

This research is concerned with issues of episteme, epistemology, and community. It asks how and why an epistemic community emerges? It looks at the study of the Northern Ireland conflict and peace process as covered in the British and Irish political science academy in order to answer this question. This research is thus ultimately about knowledge, knowledge creators, and the circumstances and conditions in which they develop. It is also a case study of what happens when academics engage with political events. Do they act as innovators or simply as scholar who react to changing political environments? This research explains the emergence of the Northern Ireland epistemic community using the boundary object concept. It asserts that knowledge communities do not develop de novo but instead emerge through academics struggles and frustrations with existing knowledge paradigms. A boundary object is the means by scholars can come together and challenge such paradigms and build new knowledge infrastructures. Through the emergence of the Northern Ireland peace process and scholar’s (re)engagement with and application of consociational theory and comparative methods this epistemic community was made possible. This research looks at the barriers that prevented the emergence of this community during the Troubles, its emergence following the outbreak of the Northern Ireland peace process, and its evolution following the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. Additionally, we look at the conflicts that developed between members of this community and how these academics define themselves both professionally and in relation to a community they are a part of yet see themselves as a part from.

This thesis traces the development of political competition in Britain by exploring the relationship between politicians and their constituents; in particular, it examines the decisions rank-and-file politicians made when choosing how to run election campaigns. Between the pre-Reform period and the First World War, three major developments changed campaigning. Firstly, campaigning shifted from clientelistic to programmatic. Secondly, competition became polarized along an economic left-right dimension. And thirdly, elections became a venue for holding incumbents accountable by means of retrospective voting. Together, these three changes transformed political competition in Britain. Each of the three papers in this dissertation addresses one of these changes. The first paper shows how the Second Reform Act caused a shift in politicians’ preferences away from clientelistic campaigning. It uses a difference-in-differences strategy to estimate the causal impact enfranchisement had on how MPs spoke in the House of Commons, finding that reform increased the extent to which MPs – particularly Liberals – discussed corruption. It argues that this increase raised the salience of corruption so much that previously abstaining or opposing Liberals came around and passed the Ballot Act in 1872. The second and third papers get more directly at the relationship between politicians and constituents by introducing a new dataset of all ‘election addresses’ issued by all parliamentary candidates in the six elections between 1892 and 1910, which provide, for each candidate, a comparable text advertising their political positions and personal qualities. The second paper, joint work with Daniel Ziblatt, uses these manifestos to show how campaigning became concentrated on an economic left-right dimension, and increasingly polarized. It also addresses the long-running debate over whether the rise of Labour doomed the Liberal Party into third place, showing that while Labour did initially stake out a unique programmatic identity, by 1910 the Liberals moved to occupy the same ideological space, positioning themselves as the natural party of progressivism going into World War I. Finally, the third paper shows the rise of retrospective accountability in campaigning. It uses a regression discontinuity design to show that the way candidates appealed to their constituents depended on their position: incumbent candidates’ campaign addresses are more positive than those of challengers, indicating that politicians appeal to their constituents on the basis of their record in government. I show that this effect developed around the turn of the century, and is particularly strong in those constituencies in which the Third Reform Act of 1884 enfranchised more people. Together, the papers capture these three distinct facets of the transformation of campaigning. By using quantitative text analysis to explore parliamentary speeches and campaign manifestos, I am able to examine how rank-and-file politicians spoke about – and to – their constituents, and how this changed. Focusing on rank-and-file politicians rather than party leaders, the thesis shows the importance of the decisions made by backbench politicians in changing how they related to their voters.

Almshouses providing accommodation for poor people are a common feature of the towns and villages of England, but in the historical literature are rarely considered to have made a genuine contribution to the poor and needy. This study examines the extent and nature of almshouse provision in early modern England, and places this within the context of overall approaches to the poor in the period. The archival research focuses on the contrasting counties of Durham, Warwickshire and Kent between about 1550 and 1725. Information on all the almshouse foundations in those areas is collated and summarised in an appendix, enabling both quantitative and qualitative evaluations to be made. A detailed analysis of the policy background to housing the poor provides the context for the study, and reveals that almshouses were initially seen as part of a national as well as local solution to the problem of poverty. Many of the diverse people involved in founding and running almshouses responded to this agenda, motivated by political responsibility and particular group identities, rather than just the desire for personal memorialisation. A case study of a single almshouse exemplifies the way this parish used the almshouse alongside other resources to meet the needs of the poor. Overall, there was a surprising variation in the socio-economic status of almshouse occupants and their experience of almshouse life. In many almshouses, occupants’ standard of living was similar to that of other poor people, including parish paupers. The guaranteed nature of the benefits and security of the accommodation were, however, distinct advantages, and most almspeople were able to enjoy considerable independence and autonomy, with women possibly benefiting most. Over the period, however, statutory poor relief and the introduction of workhouses enabled almshouses to develop as more exclusive institutions, which were less embedded in local welfare systems.

A woodland manor in the west of Worcestershire, Hanley was held by the Crown from 1075, and then by wealthy magnates from 1217. The Anglo-Saxon landscape, in spite of considerable woodland, gave scope for the farming communities described in the region in Domesday Book. 1-lanley not only supported a robust agricultural economy in its priJne, supplemented by woodland industries such as pottery manufacture, but it was also, with its castle built by king John, the headquarters of the royal forest and chase of Malvem. The forest covered about one hundred square miles of the Malvem plain from Worcester to Gloucester, although Corse was detached in theory in the early thirteenth century. 1-lanley's agriculture was based on open fields, along with smaller irregular fields, and crofts held in severalty. Demesne and tenant land was expanded by assarting in the twelfth century, followed by some retrenchment and a gradual decline from the early fourteenth. The assarting led to a new demesne and the growth of settlement in the west of the manor, reinforcing and adding to the pattern of dispersed hamlets, but there was an old nucleus and focal settlement in the east, near the Severn. Here lay the early demesne, the open fields, the markets, the quay, the castle, and the pre-Conquest church. A vigorous land market demonstrated by surviving deeds suggests many confident peasants, some of whom can be seen progressing towards gentry status.

The historiography of Scotland and the British army in the early eighteenth century largely concerns the suppression of the Jacobite risings and the growing assimilation of Highland soldiers into its ranks during and after the Seven Years War. This thesis seeks to redress this by foregrounding all Scots and their earlier contribution to the British army. It does this by analysing the transition of Scottish soldiers from mercenaries in foreign service to soldiers of the British army. Additionally, the wider role of the British army in Scotland is investigated, including the legal constraints it operated under. The career patterns of prominent Scottish soldiers are also appraised, revealing issues of identity, motivation and nationality. Scottish auxiliary forces are then examined, especially where their function, administration and utilisation are particular to Scotland. Finally, an analysis is made of Scotland’s fortifications and their development and significance regarding the defence of Scotland and Great Britain. The thesis concludes by extending Colley’s suggestion that ‘Britishness’ stemmed from a common threat from France to include Jacobitism, evidenced by the large-scale presence of Scots of all origins in military service well before William Pitt the Elder boasted of ‘harnessing’ the military resources of the Highlands in 1762.

Casualties during the First World War were far higher than had been anticipated in pre-war planning. They required rapid replacement in order to maintain operational effectiveness. This Thesis considers the provision and management of British Other Rank replacements for Infantry battalions on the Western Front. The initial influx of volunteers meant a much larger Army, which in turn required an increased number of draft-finding units and changes to reinforcement procedures for its maintenance. It has previously been assumed that these changes, together with the introduction of conscription, destroyed the previous cohesion of regiments. A chronological approach is used in order to trace the evolution of changes. Although predominantly pitched at the management level, implicit in this examination are the effects of political decisions together with the impact on battalions of changes in the drafting and reinforcement process. Amongst the conclusions reached are that there is little or no evidence that the Government actively withheld reinforcements. Analysis of details of soldiers of selected Infantry battalions from the English/Welsh Marches also indicates that, despite the growing scarcity of men, drafts continued to be provided to a large extent from Western Command even at the end of the war.

This study argues that Leo X’s naming Henry VIII ‘fidei defensor’ (1521) represented the culmination of a political strategy aimed at protecting the papacy from France since 1509. Based on full reconstruction of the Anglo-papal narrative, this was found to be motivated by a xenophobia rooted in England’s historic rivalry with France and further fuelled by the prospect that French hegemony in Italy would limit papal ‘independence’. While Henry preferred military means to pursue this, limitations of English power and geography sometimes forced him to employ peaceful methods to divert the French from Italy (1517 on). This thesis was tested on several aspects of the Anglo-papal relationship: papal honours, censures, the influencing of conclaves and composition of the cardinalate. In each, Henry acted as the papacy’s ‘loyal’ defender against France, expecting active support from and to be appropriately rewarded by Rome, particularly by the politicised invocation of papal ‘spiritual’ authority. Furthermore, popes cultivated this English self-perception when they sought support against France. In consequent attempts by both parties to assert political leverage over each other, Henry occasionally succeeded in gaining concessions from Rome (a cardinal’s hat here, an honorary award there), but often found it difficult to capitalise on this.

Along with causewayed enclosures, the tor enclosures of Cornwall and Devon represent the earliest enclosure of large open spaces in Britain and are the earliest form of surviving non-funerary monument. Their importance is at least as great as that of causewayed enclosures, and it might be argued that their proposed associations with settlement, farming, industry, trade and warfare indicate that they could reveal more about the Early Neolithic than many causewayed enclosure sites. Yet, despite being recognised as Neolithic in date as early as the 1920s, they have been subject to a disproportionately small amount of work. Indeed, the southwest, Cornwall especially, is almost treated like another country by many of those studying the Early Neolithic of southern Britain. When mentioned, this region is more likely to be included in studies of Ireland and the Irish Sea zone than studies concerning England. Perhaps this is due, in part, to interpretations of Carn Brea and Helman Tor as defended settlements of people who relied upon agriculture for the bulk of their subsistence, conducted economic trade with other areas, and formed a quasi-political unity through warfare. This interpretation does not sit well with post-processual suggestions of a mobile, wild resource based early Neolithic, with the emphasis on cultural change, in neighbouring Wessex chalkland areas. The aim of this thesis is to re-examine the evidence from the southwest and to interpret it with reference to and in contrast with the potentially radically different interpretations of the Early Neolithic in nearby Wessex. By understanding the southwestern landscapes before the tors were enclosed, placing the tor enclosures in their cultural landscape contexts, using ethnographic analogy and re-examining the existing archaeological record, it is possible to achieve a better understanding of tor enclosures and to demonstrate their importance for understanding other elements of the Early Neolithic in Britain.

This thesis tested a methodology for tracing eighteenth- and nineteenth-century migrants, based on the Cambridge Group reconstitution methods. It began with a sample from Whitbourne parish in the under-researched county of Herefordshire, investigating the effect of regional urbanisation and industrialisation on migration choices. Longitudinal family dispersal patterns were traced, and comparisons were made with studies in other regions. The method focused on out-migration, setting spatial mobility in its wider context, and increasing its representativeness by incorporating additional search strategies for less visible groups, including married women. A high tracing rate was achieved, and the method is proposed as a viable tool for analysing migration from small rural parishes which are considered unsuitable for conventional reconstitution studies. The west midlands industrial areas were not apparently a destination for this population until the second quarter of the nineteenth century, but there were early migrants to Worcester, London, and later to Cheltenham, Cheshire and elsewhere, especially for domestic service and urban service trades. Some familial trends were observable, and others related to land holding, occupation and geographical propinquity. Marriage and dependent children did not prevent migration, but literacy and transport networks were found to be strongly associated with occupational options and distances moved.