Speaking to Authority and State

Chair: Lori Lee Oates

“Smuggling across Boundaries: Contraband and State Formation in Eighteenth-Century England” by Thomas Hine

Much of the historical and sociological work on the formation of states in eighteenth-century Europe relies to a degree on the creation of oppositions. States are opposed to other states, often rivals in trade and warfare, for example in Linda Colley’s vision of British patriotism set up against a Said-inspired despotic Catholic French ‘Other’. Similarly the State is set up in opposition to Society, with the former seen as growing at the expense of the latter, an argument which has obvious resonances in modern political debate. These oppositions imply boundaries between their two sides (and in some cases such as borders, these can be very physical). However, this golden age of what Adam Smith called the ‘mercantile system’ was also (and by no coincidence) the golden age of smuggling. Smugglers crossed boundaries in very physical ways, but also in more metaphorical senses. The worlds in which they moved complicate notions of developing patriotism and rivalry between nation-states, and responses to their violation of State prerogative – which were not always led by agents of the State – force us to look again at any State/Society dichotomy we may seek to impose on this period. Engaging with the literature on the subject and using illustrative vignettes from my own research, I shall attempt to suggest what the study of smuggling in eighteenth-century England can add to this debate.

““Nothing like showing people who is boss”: India’s Central and Regional Politics in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children and The Moor’s Last Sigh” by George Twigg

Salman Rushdie’s novels support the often-espoused truism that India is less a nation than a centrally administered collection of regions.  This piece will explore the extent and limits of centralized political power (as wielded by the Congress Party) by an examination of particular episodes in the above novels, through two distinctive theoretical prisms.  Firstly, drawing on the work of postmodern geographers (Edward W. Soja) and critics exploring the theory of spatiality in literature and politics (Sara Upstone, Arjun Appadurai), the paper will analyse the precarious nature of India’s territorial integrity in Rushdie’s novels, with regard to the Partition of 1947 and the numerous wars over the political status of Kashmir.  Secondly, a reading inspired by Foucault’s political philosophy will assert that, ultimately, the disillusionment of Rushdie’s protagonists with the Indian nation is not primarily caused by its central government being unable to unite diverse regions by means of territorial possession, but is due to the methods used in an attempt to enact this federal unity; namely, military and police action against rebellious regions, and the fact that in an effort to placate the voters of such locales as Bombay, the Indian political system often devolves power to communalist, regionalist parties.

“Party Political Identity, the Liberal National Party and the British General Election of 1935” by Simon Mackley

The recent re-emergence of coalition politics in Britain raises a number of lines of inquiry for students of British party culture. What challenges face the junior partners of coalition governments? How do such parties retain an identity separate from that of their senior partners? And what is the significance of tradition in a disrupted and uncertain party system? This paper explores these questions through a critical reassessment of the Liberal National Party, a junior partner in the National Governments of the 1930s, establishing the methods by which the party attempted to retain a ‘Liberal’ identity while in coalition. Focusing on the Liberal Nationals’ campaign at the 1935 general election, this paper examines how the party’s leading figures sought to represent the party as distinctively Liberal, despite its alliance with the Conservatives. The rhetoric and language of the Liberal Nationals is analysed, and the significance of nomenclature, policy, and tradition to the party’s appeal assessed. In doing so, this paper suggests a need to review contemporary historical treatment of the Liberal National Party, and advocates the wider study of party political identity as a key aspect of British political culture.