Changing Parties An Anthropology of British Political Conferences [Hardcover]

Party conferences are central to the life of political parties. They contribute to setting policy agendas, developing policy options, legitimizing policy choices, building party cohesion, motivating activists and publicizing party activities to the wider public. An analysis of their evolution in Britain helps us understand the ways in which political parties change. This book combines anthropological methods with political science to analyze changing power relationships, party organizations and political culture in British political parties: Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrats, The Greens.An Anthropological Approach to 'Conventional Politics' Why do People Attend Conferences? Imagined Communities Constructing Leadership and Authority Setting the Agenda Making the News The Public Performance The Discourse of 'Deliberative Democracy' Direct Democracy: The Vote as Fetish Fringe Benefits: Dissent vs Commercialisation Conclusion: Politics in the Age of the Individual Appendix Bibliography

' Changing parties is a welcome in-depth study of the transformation of the British party conferences...This is a thoroughly-researched book which provides a welcome insight into the transformation of these annual seaside gatherings and the changes within British political parties in the 1990s; it is a welcome addition to the study of political parties and more generally to British political ethnography'. - James Stanyer, Political Studies Review

FLORENCE FAUCHER-KING is a Professor at the CEVIPOF in Sciences Po, Paris, France, where she teaches and researches. Her interests include political parties, new social movements and green politics. She has previously taught at Stirling University and she is the author of Les Habits Verts de la Politique (1999).