Spaces of New Labour Youth policy

Abstract

This thesis examines the issue of policy change by focussing on time and space as the conditions of possibility for change. Drawing on post-structuralist theory, it interrogates existing theories of policy change with special attention paid to how these theories construct time and space. This engagement with policy theory, time and space leads to the introduction of a new theoretical logic which is termed the logic of demarcation. The logic of demarcation is then deployed along with other concepts, rooted in the post-Marxist political theory of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, such as political, social and fantasmatic logics, to investigate changes in New Labour youth policy from 1998 to 2008. The thesis focuses on the related but separable policy areas of Anti-social Behaviour and Every Child Matters and aims to explain change and/or resistance to change with respect to these policies as well as their relationship to each other. The aim is to examine the how the demarcations and exclusions that constitute these policy areas change over time. This is achieved by examining a mixture of textual data and drawing on data gained from primary interviews with key actors