La evasión en The House of Commons y el Congreso de los Diputados: un estudio intercultural

Falta palabras claveThe purpose of this dissertation is to carry out an analysis of political discourse used by politicians in the House of Commons1 in the United Kingdom and El Congreso de los Diputados2 in Spain. This analysis will consist of a comparative study of question and answer sessions in the British and Spanish Parliaments, with the idea of comparing and contrasting linguistic and cultural differences between the two nations mentioned, the United Kingdom and Spain. The concept of “face”, an idea proposed by Goffman (1955, 1967), and subsequently developed by Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987), and other authors such as R. Lakoff (1973), Leech (1983), and Fraser (1990) will be examined, and applied to political discourse. The phenomenon of equivocation, used in situations when people find themselves in a position where telling the truth could be hurtful and unnecessary, and telling a blatant lie could also be inappropriate, developed by Bavelas et al. (1990), will be thoroughly discussed and applied to the political debates analysed. The typology of equivocation put forward by Bull and Meyer (1993) will be thoroughly discussed, and we will see how the equivocation strategies which they propose are employed by the interviewees in the question and answer sessions of both the British and Spanish Parliaments. This will be followed by a discussion on the political similarities and differences between the two cultures, after which the pertinent conclusions will be drawn

Trust and Political Life: the need to transform our democracy

One of the major concerns of contemporary public life centres on how much we can trust our politicians and the public institutions and services that they, with civil servants and political aides, are responsible for. This of course is not a new concern as, ever since we have had a system of representative parliamentary democracy, we have needed to trust our elected representatives and those they appoint, to undertake good governance on our behalf. However, in more recent years trust in UK national politicians and political life has been put under considerable stress. A 2011 Europe-wide Guardian/ICM opinion poll found that only 12% of those polled in the UK said they trusted politicians to ‘act with honesty and integrity’. Further, 66% stated they did not trust the UK government ‘to deal with the country’s problems’ (Glover, 2011). Political trust is central to democratic rule, and any decline in this can reduce the quality and stability of our democracy. Importantly, a reduction of trust in government and confidence in political institutions can damage the vitality of our democracy

The crown's marine estate- A sovereign wealth fund?

A response to the Treasury Select Committee investigation of the management of the Crown Estate, focusing on the marine estate and highlighting the Crown Estate's stewardship responsibilitie

Misconduct by voters' own representatives does not affect voters' generalized political trust

One reason given for declining levels of trust in politicians and institutions is the incidence of scandals involving voters’ representatives. Politicians implicated in scandals, especially financial scandals, typically see their constituents’ support for them decrease. It has been suggested that these specific negative judgements about a representative’s misconduct spill over into constituents’ diffuse political trust in the system as a whole. We argue that the 2009 Parliamentary expenses scandal in the United Kingdom is the strongest yet-studied test of these scandal spillover effects in a non-experimental context. Yet, using a multilevel analysis of survey and representative implication data, we find no evidence for these effects. This is despite voters being aware of their MP’s scandal implication and this awareness affecting voters’ support for their own MP. We conclude that voters’ judgements about their constituency representatives are unlikely to affect their diffuse political trust

Women2Win et la féminisation du Parti conservateur : les coulisses d'un débat

National audienceLe 5 mai 2005, le Parti conservateur subissait une troisième défaite consécutive face aux travaillistes, remportant seulement 32,3 % des voix et 198 sièges. Pour certains de ses militants, Women2Win et la féminisation du Parti conservateur : les coulisses d'un débat 13 Observatoire de la société britannique, 6 | 2008 ce résultat était en grande partie la conséquence de l'incapacité du parti à se moderniser et à offrir une image représentative de la société actuelle. L'absence quasi-totale, parmi les députés conservateurs, de minorités ethniques et de femmes, notamment, fut comparée avec les progrès accomplis durant les dix années précédentes par le Parti travailliste dont le succès, depuis 1997, avait largement été attribué à l'électorat féminin. C'est avec pour objectif de reconquérir les électrices perdues en 1997 --et du même coup tenter de reconquérir le pouvoir-- que certaines figures du Parti conservateur ont, fin novembre 2005, formé Women2Win, groupe de pression destiné à promouvoir la sélection d'un plus grand nombre de candidates. Cet article se propose d'examiner les stratégies utilisées par ce dernier pour féminiser le partiainsi que les résultats obtenus et les résistances rencontrées. Nous verrons ainsi que les initiatives et les débats suscités par la question ont été en grande partie engagés dans les coulisses du parti, même si la place grandissante occupée par les nouvelles technologies de l'information a partiellement contribué à déplacer cette dernière sur le devant de la scène

The Parliamentary Conservative Party : the leadership elections of William Hague and Iain Duncan Smith

The aim of this research is to investigate the post1997 Parliamentary Conservative Party, with particular attention placed upon the Conservative Party leadership election of 1997 and 2001. The thesis uses these two leadership elections as a lens which can be utilised to focus upon and analyse the ideological disputations of contemporary British Conservatism. This is done by identifying the voting behaviour of Conservative parliamentarians in the two leadership elections and then by putting forwards a systemic explanation of the candidates’ support. Three sets of variables are tested. First, the thesis analyses socio-economic variables (i.e. the occupational and educational background of conservative parliamentarians). Second, the research considers the candidates’ support in relation to electoral and political variables (i.e. electoral vulnerability, political insider / outsider status, age and experience). Finally the research will evaluate the candidates’ support with regard to the ideological disposition of the candidates and their supporters. This requires an extensive exploration of the attitudes of Conservative parliamentarians with regard to the dominant ideological divides within contemporary post- Thatcherite Conservatism – economic policy (wet / dry), European policy (europhile / eurosceptic), and social, sexual and moral attitudes (social liberalism / social conservatism). By analysing the patterns of voting in relation to social background, political attributes and ideological disposition the thesis locates and interprets the differing motivational influences on voting behaviour. The thesis argues the ideological disposition of the candidates and their supporters was the crucial factor in both the leadership elections. The final round of the 1997 leadership election was a straight ideological battle between the europhile and eurosceptic wings of the parliamentary Conservative Party. This benefited the eurosceptic William Hague at the expense of the europhile Kenneth Clarke. In 2001 both Clarke and Portillo attracted support from across the ideological spectrum of the parliamentary party, suggesting that a section of the parliamentary party had moved away from ideologically driven voting behaviour. However, Iain Duncan Smith reaching the final ballot was due to the support of an ideologically cohesive group of traditional Thatcherite MPs and indicative of the continued significance of ideology on the direction of the Conservative party.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo