Labour's economic competency: a discursive institutionalist approach

SEAN MCDANIEL, PHD, UNIVERSITY OF WARWICKS.MCDANIEL@WARWICK.AC.UK

Aims and structure of the paper

1. Theoretical framework: the role of ideas and discourse in the institutional environment

2. Exploring the strategic context: the importance of economic competence and the politics of

austerity

3. Exploration of how Labour’s ‘economic competence’ was discursively constructed

Context•Labour’s crushing defeat in May 2015 – “this could be the greatest crisis the Labour party has faced since it was created” (John Cruddas MP)

•‘Why Labour Lost’ – “Retail policy offers to one group or another will not be enough to win again. Labour needs to be trusted on the economy, on immigration and welfare. It must start by being a credible and competent opposition” (Hunter 2015)

•Not another account of why Labour lost

• Analysis of how the idea of a party’s economic competency can form part of the institutional context

A dialectical relationship between the ideational and the institutional

•John Searle (1995: 1) - two core types of ‘reality’

• A ‘brute’ material reality - exists independently of human understanding

• A socially constructed reality, entailing those things that exist ‘only because we believe them to exist’ Role of ‘social construction’ (ideational) in shaping institutional environments

•Social realities act as ‘coordination devices’ for ‘reality’, and thus set boundaries of what is desirable,

legitimate and even possible (see Abdelal, 2009: 63; Hay, 2008: 65)

Constructivist institutionalism and legitimation

•Constructivist approach to institutionalist theory applied by authors such as Schmidt (2002, 2008), Hay (2004, 2008), and Blyth (2002)

•EIPE critique - legitimation must be seen as ongoing and two-way process, ‘between claims made by those who seek to govern … and the conferral or rejection of such claims by those being governed’ (Seabrooke 2007: 796).

Legitimation and ‘communicative discourse’•Yet, ‘legitimation’ does play a not insignificant role, particularly in Schmidt’s work - ‘discursive institutionalism’ (DI)

•Discourse, ‘serves not only to generate the ideas for change in policies and practices … but also to legitimize them’ (Schmidt, 2002: 211)

•Can involve ‘technical arguments’ and ‘more generally accessible narratives about the causes of current problems and what needs to be done to remedy them’ (Schmidt, 2002: 215)

•Element of deliberation, where external opinion can serve to reshape policy programmes (Schmidt, 2002: 237).

Defining ‘economic competence’

•Its salience is not questioned here, yet it is important to recognise the concept as ‘socially constructed’

•Is reliant upon a range of background assumptions:

• Normative judgements about the purpose of economic policy

• Understandings of the contemporary economic environment and/or nature of a particular economic crisis

• Assumptions around the ability (and even desire) of certain political actors to enact policies

•In Searle’s framework - though socially constructed, it is a reality within the institutional context of British politics, and can thus shape and constrain the behaviour of political actors

The strategic context: Best Party on “Managing the Economy”

[1] http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/datasets-and-tables/downloads/csv.csv?dataset=pn2&cdid=IHYQ

Strategic context: Best Party on “Managing the Economy” and Q/Q GDP growth

[1] http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/taxonomy/index.html?nscl=Unemployment

Strategic context: Best Party on “Managing the Economy” and unemployment rate

Strategic context: Austerity as a success story? The Coalition government’s “long term economic plan”

Paul Krugman:

Though severe, in the UK austerity ‘was mostly imposed

during the Coalition’s first two years in power …

‘Given the fact that the Coalition essentially stopped

imposing new austerity measures after its first two years,

there’s nothing at all surprising about seeing a

revival of economic growth in 2013’ (Krugman 2015)

Strategic context: Austerity as a painful necessity

•Despite rise in economic optimism, in Nov 2014 80% still “felt little, if any, impact on their

standard of living” as a result of economic recovery (Ipsos MORI)

•Yet, austerity has been seen consistently as ‘unfair’ but ultimately ‘necessary’ (YouGov)

•“Take one’s medicine” phenomenon - Stanley (2015)

•Ties in with the growing public legitimisation of the Conservative economic programme

Constructing Labour’s economic competence: policy discourse analysis

Labour

•‘Budget Responsibility Lock’ (BRL) before Miliband’s foreword

•Labour openly sought to rebrand itself as “the party of fiscal responsibility”

•Mimicked normative Conservative messaging on the economy – Labour ‘believe in living within our means’

•Labour thus set its stall out as offering an equally fiscally responsible, with “tough, but fairer choices” than the Conservatives

•Playing ‘catch up’ on issue of economic competence

•No mention of crisis origins/Labour’s record

Conservatives

•“Labour’s Great Recession” - crisis definition underpinned Conservative claims

•‘Long term economic plan’ – “By halving the deficit, we have helped to restore confidence to the economy”

•“failing to control our debt would be more than an economic failing; it would be a moral failing”

•“A clear choice” – “Economic competence, with David Cameron … following through on our long-term economic plan. Or economic chaos under Labour, with higher taxes, more debt”

Constructing Labour’s economic competence cont. …

The Leaders’ Debates

•Labour’s mixed message and failed challenge - “How can you stand there and say you didn’t overspend and end up bankrupting this country? That is absolutely ludicrous. You’re frankly just lying.”

•Labour ‘caused the crisis’ – Cameron: “the things that got us into a mess in the first place … the tax, the waste, the spending and the debt” of last Labour government

•The ‘pincer effect’:• Natalie Bennett (Green): Tory/Labour = ‘austerity heavy

and austerity light’ • Cameron: “We’ve said that there is a £30 billion

adjustment that needs to be made, and the other political parties have voted for this too”

Constructing Labour’s economic competence cont. …

Newspaper editorials

•Labour ‘caused the crisis’

•Austerity as a necessity and a success

•Labour’s lack of fiscal credibility

•The SNP threat

•Labour’s ambiguous fiscal plans

Constructing Labour’s economic competence cont. …

Conclusion

•Labour’s fiscal approach was a clear attempt to ‘catch up’ with the Conservative Party, who were seen as more economically competent

•Labour allowed arguments put forward by the Conservatives and within the news media on nature of crisis to go largely uncontested

•A clear discursive pattern: Labour’s fiscal recklessness caused the crisis, austerity thus necessary, austerity has been successful, Labour can’t be trusted

•Labour failed to articulate and legitimise a coherent alternative