Some Politicians can – and do - make a Difference

 ”Emancipations” is a ”journal of critical social analysis” edited by Albena Azmanova and James Chamberlain to both of whom I am grateful for their acceptance of Dilemmas of Social Change for publication in a future issue. The article’s title may be a play on the title of a famous book from 1967 Dilemmas of Social Reform but it really does spend a few pages spelling out the dilemmas some of us faced aș we wrestled with developing, in the early-1980s, the UK’s very first social strategy.

The article is an update on one I drafted last year ,choosing to ask at both its start and end, the simple question of why it is now so difficult to get politicians to give any sort of priority to the ”marginalised”. Instead they are stigmatised and hounded. This is how the article starts -

There was a sense of shock when poverty appeared on the agenda in the 1960s – the 

US launched an official War against it - the UK, typically, was more restrained in its 

reaction to such television portrayals as “Cathy Come Home” in 1966 and 

the establishment of the Shelter campaign. After all, the 1945-51 

Labour government was supposed to have eradicated it. And it was to take 

a couple of decades before it became an issue for the Europeans.

In looking at the circumstances which created the UK’s first “Social Strategy”, 

this article asks the larger question of why politicians are so 

reluctant to take action against the scourge of poverty. Is it simply public 

indifference – or do the roots lie deeper in various myths and rationalisations 

as argued by Daniel Dorling viz that exclusion is necessary; prejudice 

is natural; greed is good and despair is inevitable. 

I had the good fortune to be in at the start of a great adventure in 1974 – the inauguration of a new system of Scottish local government and, more specifically, the creation of Strathclyde Region covering half of Scotland’s population. In May of that year I was one of 74 newly-elected Councillors who assembled one Sunday to find myself in a leadership position and able to help forge its priority strategy relating to the scandal which had emerged the previous year (in the “Born to Fail?” report) about the conditions in which many people in the urban areas lived viz of what we then knew as ”multiple deprivation” or a triple whammy of insults – poor housing, poor health and unemployment.

My luck extended even further – the Region had attracted the most talented of officials and politicians who discovered new ways of getting the best out of each other in something, for example, called ”Member-officer” groups and were also blessed by a serie of other innovations from the Labour government of 1964-70, not least a new planning regime and corporate management.

But, equally, the Region’s very legitimacy was in question from the start by virtue both of its size and the prospects of a Scottish Assembly which were then being actively discussed - before being settled by the 1979 devolution referendum. Arguably, however, this was one of the factors which pushed us into commiting to the more open and community-based style of policy-making which was our legacy. It was just a few politicians and officers who pushed those initiatives but we rarely felt any pushback – whether from councillors, officials or the wider public. 

The behaviour of politicians does not receive the attention it deserves in 

political science. Political psychology - despite Trump’s arrival – still seems 

a marginalised subject. Here’s how the Oxford Handbook (see below) defines the subject - 

Political psychology, at the most general level, is an application of what is
known about human psychology to the study of politics. It draws upon 
theory and research on biopsychology, neuroscience, personality,
psychopathology, evolutionary psychology, social psychology,
developmental psychology, cognitive psychology, and intergroup
relations. It addresses political elites—their personality,
motives, beliefs, and leadership styles, and their judgments,
decisions, and actions in domestic policy, foreign policy,
international confl ict, and confl ict resolution. It also deals with
the dynamics of mass political behavior: voting, collective action,
the influence of political communications, political socialization
and civic education, group-based political behavior, social justice,
and the political incorporation of immigrants.
I remember the impact Leo Abse’s “Private Member” made on me when it 

was published in 1973. It did a Freudian dissection of the personalities of 

people such as Hugh Gaitskell and Harold Wilson in a way I had never seen 

before – and, later, of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown
 
These are the only books I feel able to recommend on the subject 
The Psychology of Politics B Richards (2019) focuses too much on populism
How Statesmen Think – the psychology of international relations Robert Jervis (2017) 

limits itself to foreign affairs
The oxford handbook of political psychology ed L Huddy et al (2013) runs to 1000 pages!
The Psychology of Politicians; Ashley Weinberg (2012) For me, the most interesting and 

readable of the titles