British Labour Party&rsquo / s attitudes and policies towards European integration have historically oscillated between varying degrees of support for concrete integration steps and obstinate opposition to it. A major and pronounced volte-face on European policy occurred after 1983 and the aim of this study is to locate the causes of this shift in European policy and its subsequent course under &lsquo / New&rsquo / Labour period. The causes and motivations are searched within the general transformation of the party and they are assessed according to the changes in party&rsquo / s ideology and its perceptions about the needs of British national political economy. The scope of the study covers the intersection area between intra/inter-party politics and political economy. On these areas, Neo-Marxist theories of state and Regulation Approach are utilised, as well as the classical political sociology models on party politics. An historical inquiry on party policy encompassing the post-war period has been undertaken. In a similar vein, in order to compare it on ideological grounds, other European social democratic-socialist party policies are analysed alongside the British Labour case.
It is argued that party&rsquo / s policy preferences are strongly influenced by and shaped according to the national socio-political institutional structure. The thesis comes to the conclusion that historical institutionalist analysis coupled with a &lsquo / structural dependency to capital&rsquo / theory offers a highly plausible explanation for the evolution of Labour Party&rsquo / s policy course on Europe, including the recent &lsquo / New&rsquo / Labour period.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:METU/oai:etd.lib.metu.edu.tr:http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/2/12607578/index.pdf |
| Date | 01 September 2006 |
| Creators | Keser, Hasan |
| Contributors | Yalman, Galip |
| Publisher | METU |
| Source Sets | Middle East Technical Univ. |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | M.S. Thesis |
| Format | text/pdf |
| Rights | To liberate the content for METU campus |
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