Muscular Unionism
The British Political Tradition Strikes Back
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6345600 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mark Sandford (0000-0002-2987-4356, House of Commons Library, London, UK, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 72 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 1160-1177 |
| Publication date | 2024-08-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Political Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0032-3217 • E-ISSN: 1467-9248 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/00323217231176474 |
| OpenAlex | W4378218420 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 8 |
| References cited | 47 |
This article argues that shifts in the UK’s territorial management practice in the late 2010s and early 2020s, described by various terms, including ‘muscular unionism’, may be more rhetorical and ideational than substantive. The practices associated with these terms are recognisably part of the ‘British political tradition’, and the changes of the early 2020s can be viewed as reasserting traditional governance practices rather than introducing new ones. The article examines the various phenomena described as ‘muscular unionism’ and suggests that many are relatively ad hoc, low-level initiatives, often rhetorical. There is also much evidence that the UK governments of the 2020s see the ‘Millennium Settlement’, introduced in 1999, as continuing to be a core part of UK territorial management. The clearest break from historical practice comes in the overt, explicit quality of ‘muscular unionist’ rhetoric. The article then suggests that, contrary to some scholarly expectations, this muscular unionist turn may come to be an effective territorial management strategy for the UK government, as it aligns with an Anglo-British imaginary within England that continues to conflate England, Britain and the UK in terms of governance and national identity
Corporate governance · Economics · Government (linguistics · Identity (music · Management · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Rhetoric · Rhetorical question · Settlement (finance · Sociology · Labor Movements and Unions · Law · Political and Economic history of UK and US · Public Administration · Social Policy and Reform Studies
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A Very British Election
Taking the border out of politics’
An unstable Union? The Conservative Party, the British Political Tradition, and devolution in Scotland and Wales 2010–23
The British Political Tradition and Constitutional Policy
The challenge of devolved English governance and the rise of political spatial inequality
Instability, crisis, and statecraft in Conservative Britain, 2010–24
Whither the Centre? Tracing Centralisation and Fragmentation in UK Politics
Understanding Federalism and Federation
Devolution in the UK
Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies
State and Nation in the United Kingdom
Governance, politics and political economy – England’s questions after Brexit
Speaking for ‘our precious Union’
Crisis and state transformation
The British Political Tradition
Reframing English Nationalism and Euroscepticism
Ripening time? The Welsh Labour government between Brexit and parliamentary sovereignty
Westminster’s Brexit Paradox
The British Political Tradition and the Material-Ideational Debate
Federalism in a Unitary State
Why Stay Together? State Nationalism and Justifications for State Unity in Spain and the UK
Stretched But Not Snapped’
A changing democracy
Crisis, what crisis? Conceptualizing crisis, UK pluri-constitutionalism and Brexit politics
The Forward March of Devolution Halted—and the Limits of Progressive Unionism
Intergovernmental Relations in the UK
After Bagehot
Contesting sovereignty and borders
The future of Northern Ireland
The English Question
The Conservatives and the Union
Never Reflective, because So Obviously a Fact
The ‘Politicisation’ of Englishness
England’s Dissatisfactions and the Conservative Dilemma
The British Political Tradition
When Planets Collide
How the “Northern Irish” National Identity Is Understood and Used by Young People and Politicians
Taking Back Control’, the UK’s Constitutional Narrative and Schrodinger’s Devolution
Bi-constitutionality
Reasserting the Centre
These Englands, or where does devolution leave the English
The United Kingdom and the pandemic
Brexit, the tides and Canute
Unequal Plurality
The Unfinished Business of Devolution
Changing images of the State
| Unique citing works | 8 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 4 |
| Citation span | 2024 - 2026 (3) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 7 |