New Labour: A Critique

Bevir, Mark

ISBN 10: 0415359252 / ISBN 13: 9780415359252

Published by Routledge, 2005

About this Item

Seller Inventory # U9780415359252

Bibliographic Details

• Title: New Labour: A Critique
• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication Date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0415359252
• ISBN 13: 9780415359252
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1780912952.
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: 48056768
• Signed: 6/8/2026 10:02:32 AM
• Seller catalogs:
  • 9780415359252
  • 1
  • U

About this title

Synopsis

New Labour is the most innovative and powerful political movement in Britain today. However, New Labour: A Critique argues that its apparent pragmatism disguises an ideological commitment to particular forms of social science, deploying new institutionalism and communitarianism to respond to the New Right.

Bevir traces the impact of these forms of social science on the ideas and policies of New Labour, paying particular attention to the welfare state and the economy. New Labour, the new institutionalism and communitarianism typically objectify aspects of the social world to sustain claims to expert knowledge. Bevir defends and enacts an alternative, interpretive approach to social science. This interpretive approach inspires a critique of New Labour as a contingent reworking of a particular socialist tradition rather than the necessary or pragmatic response that it portrays itself as.

About the Author

Mark Bevir is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley.