The Paradox of National Registration in a Liberal State

This article traces the history of British government policy on wartime national registration from 1915 to 1952. In contrast to accounts that emphasise the significance of registration for the development of an ‘information state’, it explores the implications of the fundamental paradox in national registration in a liberal state. That is, the distinctive value of a register lies in its continuing accuracy and comprehensiveness; but these properties depend on wholesale and continuing compliance with the bureaucratic demands of a tool widely regarded in Whitehall as intrusive, coercive and unpopular. The register used in the First World War never recovered from Whitehall’s unwillingness to enforce it, and preparations for registration in a second major war were frustrated by the reluctance of its principal users—those responsible for military conscription and food rationing—to be closely associated with it or dependent on it. The article explains why a robust register was nevertheless set up in 1939, but suggests, too, that the capabilities it offered to identify and trace people were less warmly welcomed and extensively exploited by other government services than is often assumed. Furthermore, the perceived need to maximise trust in its confidentiality restricted the disclosure of information recorded in the register to other public agencies, especially the police. The overall thrust of the article, then, is to cast doubt on whether the wartime national registers in the Great Britain could have developed into a formative pillar of an emergent information state

Bureaucracy · Government (linguistics · Political economy · Political science · Register (sociolinguistics · Sociology · State (computer science · Australian History and Society · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Irish and British Studies · Law · Public Administration

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