All that is solid melts into Blair? Ein historiografisk studie av New Labour

Abstract

Oppgåva undersøkjer historieskrivinga om New Labour frå mange ulike vinklar. Kapittel set debatten om Anthony Giddens' omgrep "den tredje vegen" i samband med tre ulike perspektiv på New Labour, og skisserer ein alternativ historiografi. Kapittel 2 drøftar forskinga på organisatoriske reformer og tilhøvet mellom Labour og fagrørsla. Kapittel 3 ser på historieskrivinga om Labour frå fløyene, med utgangspunkt i "sosialdemokratisk revisjonisme" og ein "venstrekritisk" skule.

Thesis updates the «New Labour» historiography and explores how the British Labour Party's renewal has been explained and historicised, from a variety of angels. Taking an untraditional, non-chronological approach to the material, Chapter 1 examines the academic debate surrounding the relationship between «The Third Way» and New Labour and different interpretations of New Labour's place in the broader view of Labour Party history and research. Chapter 2 concerns the historiography of the party-unions link. Making a distinction between works about Labour's relationship with the unions and the unions' relationship to Labour (the «party-union relationship» and the «union-party» relationship, respectively), a closer reading of several important works sheds light on how different perspectives can produce different «histories». Chapter 3 examines the historiography of writing about and from the perspective of the Right and Left wings of the party.