Political Culture in Contemporary Britain: People and Politicians, Principles and Practice - Tapa dura

It may well be that this book will become a landmark in British political science ... The book will appeal to the cognoscenti, but its main impact will be on the next generation of textbooks ... The great merit of this book lies in its attempt to delineate not only the ingredients that comprise political culture but also their relative strengths and, most ambitious of all, how they react and inter-relate, thsu strengthening the definition of political culture. (Sir Trevor Smith, Times Higher Education Supplement)

A very thoughtful study of political culture in Britain (Archie Brown, The Guardian)

This is an immensely detailed research work. ... It will certainly be an essential work of reference for those interested in British political attitudes or writing about British political culture. (unknown, vol.50, no.2, April 1997)

Your library needs it, and your graduate students will study and prehaps reanalyse the data. (Iain McLean, British Journal of Sociology, vol.48 issue no.3, 1997)

This is the most authoritative picture to date of what the British people and their politicians really think about the fundamentals of politics. Based on new and revealing survey data, it presents a wide-ranging analysis of British attitudes to civil, political, and social rights.

The study uncovers two broad `macro-dimensions' of political principle - liberty and equality - which underlie a large number of more specific principles and shape people's responses to many practical issues. Controversially, it claims that commitments to liberty and equality tend to run together - only the least educated treat them as alternatives; left-wingers support both and right-wingers oppose both.

It explores the influence of social background, personal experience, and the institutional setting on attitudes towards political principles, highlighting in particular age and the complex influences of education and religion. And it also shows how arguments and propganda combine with political principles and party loyalties to influence opinion on practical issues. The final chapter presents an overall model and quantifies the relative power of all these different influences.

The book will be invaluable reading for all those interested in British politics, political sociology, civil liberties, and public opinion as well as those planning their own social science survey research.