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The Deferential English: A Comparative Critique*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Dennis Kavanagh
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ALL POLITICAL CULTURES ARE MIXED AND CHANGING. WHAT IS interesting in the English case, however, is the way in which a veritable army of scholars has seized on the deferential component. Other features in the overall cultural pattern have been neglected. This paper is devoted to an examination of the concept of deference as it is applied to English politics. In particular it will focus on the different meanings that the concept has assumed in the literature describing and analysing the popular political attitudes, and those aspects of the political system, including stability, which it has been used to explain. My concluding argument is that deference, as the concept is frequently applied to English political culture, has attained the status of a stereotype and that it is applied to such variegated and sometimes conflicting data that it has outlived its usefulness as a term in academic currency.

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Articles
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Government and Opposition , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , 01 July 1971 , pp. 333 - 360
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Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1971

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References

1 Accordingly, I ignore Harold Lasswell's use of the term; for him deference, which entailed properties like prestige, status and respect, was a basic value sought by politicians. I also ignore Edward Shils's highly persuasive refinement of the concept for sociological purposes. See ‘Deference’, in Jackson, J. A. (ed.), Social Stratification, Cambridge, 1968.Google ScholarPubMed

2 The quotations in this paragraph are drawn from Chapter 8 of The English Constitution.

3 Engels made a similar observation. See Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, New York, 1938, p. 26.

4 Bagehot, Chapter 9.

5 The argument in this section is heavily indebted to Reinhard Bendix, Nation‐Building and Citizenship, Chapter 2, and his Work and Authority in Industry, New York, 1956, Chapter 2. Also see Briggs, Asa, ‘The Language of “Class” in Early 19th Century England’, in Briggs, A. and Saville, John (eds.), Essays in Labour History, London, 1960.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Cited in Bendix, Work and Authority in Industry, p. 47.

7 W. J. M. Mackenzie has suggested that Bagehot offered an esoteric model of English politics; it asserts the primacy of social power over political institutions and forms. Mackenzie, however, suggests that there are other models. See his ‘Models of English Politics’, in Rose, Richard (ed.), Studies in British Politics, London, 1970.Google Scholar

8 On the conservative effects of the French Revolution on many sociologists in the 19th century see Bramson, Leon, The Political Context of Sociology, Princeton, 1961, Chapters 1 and 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Rose, Richard and Mossawir, Harvé, ‘Ordinary Individuals in Electoral Situations’, in Rose, Richard (ed.), Policy‐Making in Britain, London, 1960, p. 75.Google Scholar

10 Rose, Richard, Politics in England, London, 1965, p. 41 Google Scholar; Nordlinger, op. cit. pp. 17–18; and Birch, A. H., Representative and Responsible Government, London, 1964, p. 245;Google Scholar and The British System of Government, London, 1967, pp. 27–8; also see Eckstein, Harry, ‘The British Political System’ in Beer, Samuel H. and Ulam, Adam (eds.), Patterns of Government, New York, 1965, pp. 75–7.Google Scholar

11 The citation is from Abrams, Mark and Rose, Richard, Must Labour Lose? London, 1960, p. 25.Google Scholar

12 See Alford, Robert, Party and Society, Chicago, 1963, pp. 164 ff.Google Scholar, and Samuel, Ralph, ‘Dr. Abrams and the End of Politics’, New Left Review, 1960, pp. 2–9.Google Scholar

13 See the evidence in the very thorough analysis of Blunder, Jay and McQuail, Denis, Television and Politics, London, 1969, pp. 115–17Google Scholar. Also see National Opinion Polls for February 1968 and May 1969 and Butler and Stokes, pp. 378–80.

14 The Working Class Tories, London, 1967.

15 Angels in Marble, London, 1968.

16 It should be noted that McKenzie and Silver employed a composite index for the major part of their work. McKenzie and Silver, however, at one stage, had to employ a single item, namely, the leadership one; they report that they found that this item was an excellent predictor of deference according to the more inclusive scale (Appendix B).

17 Butler and Stokes, pp. 378–80. Moreover, only 3 per cent of Nordlinger's working‐class Tories mentioned the leaders' social status as a reason for liking the party, op. cit., p. 155.

18 Almond, Gabriel and Verba, Sydney, The Civic Culture, Princeton, 1963, p. 456.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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21 Ibid., p.455.

22 ‘The political culture of democratic Britain assigns to ordinary people the role, not of citizens, but of subjects.’ McKenzie and Silver, p. 251.

23 Mossawir, Harvé, The Significance of an Election, M.A. Thesis University of Manchester, 1965.Google Scholar

24 The Politics of Accommodation: Pluralism and Democracy in tbe Netherlands, Berkeley, 1968, p. 208.

25 Ibid., p. 145.

26 Relative Deprivation and Social Justice, London, 1966, pp. 146 and 180–1.

27 Ibid., pp. 180–1.

28 Rose, Politics in England, pp. 100–1 and Nordlinger, op. cit., p, 63.

29 See the data reported in Miliband, Ralph, The State in Capitalist Society, London, 1969, Chapter 3, pp. 66–7Google Scholar; Subramanian, V., ‘Representative Bureaucracy: A Reassessment’, American Political Science Review, LXI, 1967, pp. 1010–19;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Men Who Govern, Brookings Institute, 1968.

30 Thomas, Allen, and Kornberg, N., ‘Representative Democracy and Political Elites in Canada and the United States’, Parliamentary Affairs 19, 1965–66, pp. 91–102 Google Scholar. On the gradual withdrawal of the social elite from politics see Guttsman, W. L., The British Political Elite, London, 1963, Chapter 3.Google Scholar

31 On this see Kavanagh, D. A., Constituency Electioneering in Britain, London, 1970 Google Scholar. Japanese voters appear to be highly aware of and deferent to the candidates. See Flanagan, Scott C., ‘Voting Behaviour in Japan’, Comparative Political Studies, 1, 1968.Google Scholar

32 ‘Authority Relations and Governmental Performance: A Theoretical Framework’, Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 2, 1969, pp. 269–326, particularly P. 304.

33 The British Political System, p. 77.

34 The Civic Culture, p. 455.

35 Eckstein, The British System of Government, p. 90.

36 3 See Nordlinger, Chapter 1, for a summary of the literature.

37 E.g. Chapman, Brian, British Government Observed, London, 1963,Google Scholar and Rose, Richard, ‘The Variability of Party Government’, Political Studies, 17, 1969.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38 Modern British Politics, London, 1965.

39 Skidelsky, Robert, Politicians and the Slump, London, 1967.Google Scholar

40 Jackson, Robert, Rebels and Whips, London, 1968 Google Scholar. For a sample of similar arguments see Jones, George, ‘The Prime Minister's Power’, Parliamentary Affairs, 18, 1965, pp. 167–85;Google Scholar and Rose, Richard, ‘The Variability of Party Government’; and ‘Complexities of Party Leadership’, Parliamentary Affairs, 16, 1963, PP. 251–73.Google Scholar

41 Comparative Government, London, 1970, pp. 170, 183–5.

42 Brian Chapman, op. cit., Balogh, Thomas, ‘The Apotheosis of the Dilettante’, in Thomas, Hugh (ed.), The Establishment, London, 1962;Google ScholarPubMed Brittan, Samuel, Steering the Economy, London, 1969;Google Scholar and the contributions in Stankiewicz, W. J. (ed.), Crisis in British Government, London, 1967 Google Scholar.

43 See Samuel Brittan, Steering the Economy.

44 Thoughts on the Constitution, London, 1947.

45 See Nordlinger, Chapter 1; Eckstein, The British System of Government, pp. 76 ff; McKenzie and Silver, p. 251.

46 See Schumpeter, Joseph, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, New York, 1943,Google Scholar and Sartori, Giovanni, Democratic Theory, Detroit, 1962.Google Scholar

47 Representative and Responsible Government.

48 A History of the English Speaking People, Vol. 1, London, 1937, pp. 193–8.

49 Rudé, G., The Crowd on History, 1730–1848, London, 1964, p. 228.Google Scholar

50 Thomson, E. P., The Making of the English Working Class, London, 1963.Google Scholar

51 Pelling, Henry, Popular Politics and Society in Late Victorian England, London, 1968, pp. 5, 71.Google Scholar For a similar argument but from a different perspective see Hoggart, Richard, The Uses of Literacy, London, 1957, Chapter 3.Google Scholar

52 For particularly sweeping statements of this thesis see Lipset, S. M., ‘Must the Tories always Triumph?’, Socialist Commentary, 11, 1960 Google Scholar, and Pulzer, Peter, Political Representatives and Elections, London, 1968, p. 20 Google Scholar

53 Angels in Marble, p. 12.

54 David Goldthorpe, et al., The Affluent Worker, Cambridge, 1969, p. 20.

55 Butler, David and Stokes, Donald E., Political change in Britain, London, 1969, Chapter 6.Google Scholar

56 Ibid., pp. 87 and 113.

57 Alford, Robert, Party and society, Chicago, 1963 Google Scholar, and Linz, Juan J., ‘Cleavage and Consensus in West German Politics’ in Lipset, Seymour M. and Rokkan, Stein (eds.), Party Systems and Voter Alignments, New York, 1967.Google Scholar

58 See Nils Sternquist in Dahl, Robert A. (ed.), Political Oppositions in Western Democracies, New Haven, 1965, p. 371.Google Scholar

59 Butler and Stokes, pp. 70, 77.

60 Ibid., Chapters 3 and 5.

61 Ibid., pp. 104–9.

62 Nordlinger, pp. 27–8 and 131; Turner, Ralph H., ‘Sponsored and Contested Mobility in the School System’, American Sociological Review, 1966;Google Scholar Rose, Richard, Politics in England, pp. 63–71 Google Scholar and Chapter 3, and Wilkinson, Rupert, The Prefects, London, 1966.Google Scholar

63 ‘A Theory of Stable Democracy’ in Division and Cohesion in Democracy, Princeton, 1966.

64 McQuail, Denis, et al., ‘Elite Education and Political Values’, Political Studies, 16, 1968, pp. 257–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

65 Chapter 12.

66 E. R. Tapper, Secondary School Adolescents, Manchester Ph.D., 1967, Chapter 6. For data supporting this position see also Rose, Richard, Students in Society, Manchester, 1963,Google Scholar and Dennis, Jack et al., ‘Support for Nation and Government Among English Children’, British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 1, 1971, pp. 25–48.Google Scholar

67 See Almond and Verba, op. cit., Chapter 8 and Chapter 15; and Nordlinger op. cit., Chapter 9.

68 Runciman, op. cit.

69 The problems involved in applying these hypotheses and the shortcomings in the theories themselves are brilliantly explored in Barry, Brian, Sociologists, Economists and Democracy, London, 1970,Google Scholar Chapters 3 and 4. I have relied heavily on Barry in this paragraph.

70 Actual attempts to isolate such types as parochials, participants and subjects are likely to be unrewarding given that the qualities of such types are often mixed in most individuals. See Mossawir, Had, The Significance of an Election, MA. Thesis, University of Manchester, 1965.Google Scholar

71 Heinz Eulau has noted that much of this analysis has led to the establishment of functional rather than causal relationships between variables. The Behavioural Persuasion in Politics, New York, 1963, p. 128.

72 Date from Almond and Verba. Also see Butler and Stokes, p. 32.

73 To argue, as does Martin Needler, that a larger dose of ‘English deference’ is what Latin‐American states need if they are to achieve greater political stability seems to me quite naive. It is a view which is too deterministic and involves a misperception of English political culture. See his Political Development in Latin America, New York, 1968, p, 91.

74 ‘The Problem of National Character’ in Smelser, N.J. and , W.T., Personality and Social Systems. New York, 1963, p. 86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

74a ‘Queen and Prime Minister: The Child's View’, New Society, 23 October 1970.

75 Many early 19th‐century observers of English and American life were interested, for a variety of motives, in exaggerating the differences between the old world and the new. On this see Pesson, Edward, Jacksonian America: Society, Personality and Politics, Illinois, 1969, p. 44.Google Scholar

76 The First New Nation, Part III, and ‘Anglo‐American Society’, International Encyclopedia of Social Science, New York, 1967.

77 For evidence of American deference see Lane, Robert, Political Ideology, New Haven, 1962, Chapter 2.Google Scholar

78 It is fair to add, however, that Nordlinger admits his expectation that the middle‐class are also likely to possess politically acquiescent attitudes, see pp. 232–5. This admission is hardly reconcilable with the emphasis he places on hierarchy and working‐class submissiveness to classes above them in status.

79 Nie, Norman, et al. ‘Social Structure and Political Participation: Developmental Relationships, American Political Science Review, Vol. LXIII, 1969.Google Scholar

80 For a similar line of argument relating to Norwegian workers, see Rokkan, Stein and Campbell, Angus, ‘Citizen Participation in Political Life: Norway and the United States of America’, International Social Science Journal, Vol. 12, 1960, PP. 66–99.Google Scholar

81 Butler and Stokes, pp. 104–7; Goldthorpe, John H., et al. The Affluent worker) Political Attitudes and Behaviour, Cambridge, 1968;Google Scholar Lockwood, David ‘Sources of Variations in Working‐Class Images of Society’, The Sociological Review, Vol. 14, 1966, pp. 249–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

82 Pollsters have found that members of the working class are more likely than members of the middle class to agree with such cynical views as: ‘Most politicians will promise anything to get votes’; ‘Most politicians care more about their party than about their country’; ‘Politicians are all talk and no action’; ‘Most politicians are in it for what they can get out of it’; ‘Once they become MPs they forget all about the people who elected them’. The average agreement per social class with these judgements was: AB‐55%, C1–62%, C2–65%, DE‐68%. Calculated by the author from National opinion Polls, February 1968.

83 For more sustained argument along these lines, see Goldthorpe, John H. ‘Social Inequality and Social Integration in Modern Britain’, Advancement of Science, 12 1969, pp. 190–202 Google Scholar, and Fox, Alan and Flanders, Alan, ‘The Reforms of Collective Bargaining: from Durkheim to Donovan’, British Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 7, 1969.CrossRefGoogle Scholar