After The War Consensus Politics (in 1945 -80 Years),

Consensus politics is the main characteristic of postwar British politics. There have been long consistency between the Labour Party and the Conservative Party on a series of important domestic and foreign policies. But this topic has been much ignored by historians and certainly more research needs to be done. The aim of this theses is to illustrate the main tendency of the development of postwar British party politics through analysing the convergence and collaboration of the Conservative and Labour governments.This theses is designed to make an inquiry into the postwar consensus politics of Britain and the reasons of its formation and development.The first chapter of this theses focuses on a survey of the recent development in the studies of British consensus politics both in China and in Britain. Chapter two traces the origin of British consensus politics in history and makes an examination of the influence of the Second World War on the development of postwar consensus politics. It is argued that the Conservative Party' s adjustment and reform of its policies greatly helped the establishment of consensus politics. The following three chapters consider the policy convergence of the two parties in the postwar period. Chapter three examines the consensus in respect of economic policies, especially on the policies concerning nationalization. Chapter four deals with the consensus in the field of social policies, mainly on such aspects as welfare state, full employment and trade unions. Welfare state is a typical field of consensus. In order to win the support of the electorate, neither the Labour Party nor the Conservative Party has made great changes about the structure of welfare state established by the Attlee government. Full employment policy was the common goal pursued by the two parties from the mid 1940s to the mid 1970s and was realized in the years following the Second World War and lasted for more than ten years. The consensus on this field did not break down until 1979 .The trade unions became even more important in the political life of Britain after the war. The Party' s consensus on the trade unions existed chiefly in the following three areas: the use of law, a national wages policy and the involvement of trade unions in the formation of macro economic policy. Foreign policy consensus between the two parties was mainly about such areas as the Anglo-American relationship, the Anglo-Russia relationship, the British Empire, the independent nuclear deterrent and the European integration.Chapter six looks into the new development of consensus at the end of the 20th century as the result of the Labour Party' s modernization. It also studies the impact of the revolution of Thatcherisin on the post-war consensus.Chapter seven tries to analyse the reason for the formation of the post-war consensus through examining the main tendency of the development of the British society by using the basic principles of Marxist historical materialism. The third scientific and technical revolution has greatly changed the economic and political life of the society. As a result, the social and industrial structure has dramatically changed. This is the main reason for the rise of the middle class. The class characteristic of the main parties in Britain has changed a lot as the result of the emergence of a strong middle class, which in turn led to the convergence of the class attribute of the leaders and the members of the parties converge and close. The result is thus the class property of the parties in power also converged. This is the main reason for the post-war consensus.With the development of the parliamentary politics and the bi-party system, the parties in power must face the realities of the changed social and industrial structure when they drafted and carried out their policies. They must modify their policies in order to be in power and represent the interests of the majority of the electorate. This is the crucial social and political reason for the formation of the post-war consensus .The the...