Through a rhetorical analysis, this book explores how the parties in a coalition government create a united public front while preserving their distinct identities. After proposing an original framework based on the ‘new rhetoric’ of Kenneth Burke, the author charts the path from the inconclusive outcome of the 2010 UK general election and the formation of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition to the dissolution of the partnership in the run-up to May 2015. In doing so, she sheds valuable light on the parties’ use of rhetoric to manage the competing dynamics of unity and distinctiveness in the areas of higher education, constitutional reform, the European Union and foreign policy. This unique and highly-accessible analysis will be of interest to a wide audience, including scholars and students of rhetoric, British politics and coalition studies.

This paper is one of a series being prepared for the National Research Council's Committee on International Conflict Resolution. The committee was organized in late 1995 to respond to a growing need for prevention, management, and resolution of violent conflict in the international arena, a concern about the changing nature and context of such conflict in the post-Cold War era, and a recent expansion of knowledge in the field. The committee's main goal is to advance the practice of conflict resolution by using the methods and critical attitude of science to examine the effectiveness of various techniques and concepts that have been advanced for preventing, managing, and resolving international conflicts. The committee's research agenda has been designed to supplement the work of other groups, particularly the Carnegie Corporation of New York's Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, which issued its final report in December 1997. The committee has identified a number of specific techniques and concepts of current interest to policy practitioners and has asked leading specialists on each one to carefully review and analyze available knowledge and to summarize what is known about the conditions under which each is or is not effective. These papers present the results of their work.

David Cameron was leader of the Conservative Party (2005-16) and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (2010-16). His legacy may be one of the most significant of any post-war British prime minister. But did he have a distinctive political strategy, and if so how should we characterise it? This book provides a new and distinctive interpretation of ‘Cameronism’, focusing on the twin themes of modernisation and manipulation. Heppell identifies three core aspects of Cameron’s modernisation strategy: his attempts to detoxify the image of the Conservative Party; his efforts to delegitimise the Labour Party by blaming it for the financial crisis and austerity; and Cameron’s use of the ‘Big Society’ narrative as a means of reducing the perceived responsibilities of the state. Manipulation is explored in relation to the Coalition Government and the exploitation of the Liberal Democrats, on policies such as austerity, tuition fees and electoral reform. Finally, the book examines Cameronism in relation to current challenges to the existing political order: Brexit, Scottish independence, and the rise of populism. This timely book is essential reading to those interested in British party politics and Prime Ministerial leadership.

The end of the Cold War has changed the shape of organized violence in the world and the ways in which governments and others try to set its limits. Even the concept of international conflict is broadening to include ethnic conflicts and other kinds of violence within national borders that may affect international peace and security. What is not yet clear is whether or how these changes alter the way actors on the world scene should deal with conflict: Do the old methods still work? Are there new tools that could work better? How do old and new methods relate to each other? International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War critically examines evidence on the effectiveness of a dozen approaches to managing or resolving conflict in the world to develop insights for conflict resolution practitioners. It considers recent applications of familiar conflict management strategies, such as the use of threats of force, economic sanctions, and negotiation. It presents the first systematic assessments of the usefulness of some less familiar approaches to conflict resolution, including truth commissions, "engineered" electoral systems, autonomy arrangements, and regional organizations. It also opens up analysis of emerging issues, such as the dilemmas facing humanitarian organizations in complex emergencies. This book offers numerous practical insights and raises key questions for research on conflict resolution in a transforming world system.

A clear, accessible introduction to the institutional regimes of 15 countries in western Europe, by an outstanding team of leading European political scientists. Each chapter is devoted either to a single country or to a small group of countries, allowing students to draw sophisticated comparisons of their political parties, electoral systems, and institutions of goverment at national, regional, and local level.

Traditional comparative studies of parliaments have focused on constitutional and organizational characteristics of parliaments, or differences in the historical contexts, in which legislative assemblies have developed. The motivations of individual Members of Parliament have been neglected. This volume provides empirical work on legislative role orientations and behaviour in six West European parliaments: Belgium, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and the United Kingdom. All contributions present a wealth of empirical findings on parliamentarians' role orientations in different institutional contexts.

This book investigates competing modes of thought about gender security and aims to understand the policy implications of personal-political imaginations. The work draws upon extensive research conducted by the author in Serbia to develop a comprehensive picture of how feminist and women’s organising relates to the broader national and international contexts surrounding gender security. Through an innovative analytical framework of personal-political imaginations, the book explores the role that memories, perceptions and hopes about conflict and post-conflict have upon the logics of gender security. It investigates how contrasting and competing modes of thought about ‘gender security’ are made, paying attention to how the dynamics of gender politics in Serbia shape the security discourse and narratives of activists. The volume explores in detail how feminist and women’s organisations have responded to UNSCR 1325 by analysing two policy debates and campaigns that seek to ‘achieve’ its goals and gender security in Serbia: (1) feminist antimilitarism and (2) connecting domestic violence to the abuse of small arms and light weapons. Ultimately, the book argues that the configuration of gender security discourse is intimately linked to personal-political imaginations of conflict and post-conflict. This book will be of much interest to students of gender politics, conflict studies, critical security studies, European politics and IR in general.