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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 November 2009
A popular theme in the literature on British government and politics describes British culture as suffused with deference to political authority. However, recently observers have begun to question whether political deference is characteristic of the British public. They argue the need to reexamine the extent of deference in the light of changes in the political culture. Accordingly, this note critically examines the hypothesis concerning political deference with respect to England specifically, and presents some evidence relating to deference among the younger generation there. We can thereby assess the persistence of political deference and explore some hypotheses concerning the sources of political deference in England.
1 See for example, Eckstein, Henry H., “The British Political System,” in Beer, Samuel H. and Ulam, Adam B. (eds.), Patterns of Government (New York: Random House, 1958), 57–73Google Scholar; Nordlinger, Eric, The Working Class Tories (London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1967), 13–45Google Scholar; Lipset, Seymour Martin, “The Value Patterns of Democracy: A Case Study in Comparative Analysis,” American Sociological Review 28 (1963), 515–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Shils, Edward A., The Torment of Secrecy (London: William Heinemann, 1956), 48–49.Google Scholar
2 See Kavanagh's, Dennis provocative article, “The Deferential English: A Comparative Critique,” Government and Opposition 6 (1971), 333–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Although Kavanagh is concerned with deference in general and not just political deference, he does examine some claims made by commentators who are concerned with political deference.
3 See also Dennis, Jacket al., “Support for Nation and Government Among English Children,” British Journal of Political Science 1 (1971), 25–48.Google Scholar
4 The literature on this subject tends to make reference to Britain in general, and does not distinguish between England, Scotland. Wales and Northern Ireland. Since this author's data are restricted to England, this note will be similarly restricted. At a time when regional sentiments are experiencing a revival in Britain, and Northern Ireland presents its own peculiar difficulties, one cannot and should not assume there are no differences in the nature and levels of political deference between England and the rest of Britain.
5 For a discussion of the kinds of deference treated in the literature, see Jessop, Bob, Traditionalism, Conservatism and British Political Culture (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1974), 30–37.Google Scholar The definition of political deference used here (and derived from the literature cited above) differs slightly from that of Jessop. He restricts political deference to deference directed toward the government. The definition used in this paper includes deference directed to political leadership in general, and not just that of the government. In other words, it includes deference to the leadership of non-government as well as government parties.
6 See Mckenzie, R. T. and Silver, A., Angels in Marble (London: Heinemann, 1968)Google Scholar; and Nordlinger, Working Class Tories, for elaboration on this kind of deference in British politics.
7 Eckstein, “The British Political System,” and Nordlinger, Working Class Tories, 13–23.
8 Eckstein, “The British Political System,” 61. His emphasis.
9 It is this normative element involved in the submission which distinguishes political deference from apathy.
10 Nordlinger, Working Class Tories, 16.
11 Eckstein, “The British Political System,” 67.
12 It should be noted here that the kind of “respect” for political leaders which is being described may theoretically occur without submission to the initiatives of this leadership. However, it is the conjunction of submission and respect which is described or at least implied in the political deference literature.
13 From Amery, L. S., Thoughts on the Constitution (London: Oxford University Press, 1964)Google Scholar, quoted in Nordlinger, Working Class Tories, 15.
14 Shils, Torment of Secrecy, 48. As one reviewer has noted, it could also be argued that historically, political deference was elicited by the political elite not only because as aristocracy they were emulated socially, but also because as aristocracy they were purportedly motivated by an ideal of public service. That is, they were accorded deference as a social elite which accepted community responsibility.
15 Working Class Tories, 17.
16 As Kavanagh suggests, desire for strong leadership may be based on instrumental, not deferential, values. “The Deferential English,” 338.
17 Almond, Gabriel A. and Verba, Sydney, The Civic Culture (Boston: Little, Brown, 1963), 177–180.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
18 Ibid., 171.
19 For details of the measures used see ibid., 70, 141.
20 Ibid., 315.
21 Ibid.
22 The civil service in Britain has traditionally been a more independent and less politicized body than its American counterpart. It may be then that the public in Britain have had more positive experiences with the impartiality of the administrative sector. In other words, expecting good treatment may now be a pragmatic assessment and not a reflection of submission because of notions about superiority (which seems to be the connotation involved in a “deferential” explanation).
23 Eckstein, “The British Political System.” 63–64.
24 Kavanagh, “The Deferential English.” 335.
25 Lipset, “Value Patterns of Democracy.” 517.
26 It is not suggested that historically the media have always been supportive of the government. But it is true that modern audiences are proportionately larger and have greater exposure to media communications, especially since the advent of television.
27 “Great Britain,” Polls 3 (1968), 39.
28 For a review of the socialization literature which criticizes the view that “adult opinions are in large part the end product of youthful political socialization,” see Marsh, David, “Political Socialization: The Implicit Assumptions Questioned,” British Journal of Political Science 1 (1971), 453–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar But for a reasoned defence of the view that pre-adult socialization does play an important role in the development of adult opinions, see Niemi, Richard, “Political Socialization,” in Knutson, Jeanne,ed., Handbook of Political Psychology (San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass, 1973), 134–36.Google Scholar
29 This position rests on two arguments. The first one concerns the kinds of attitudes which find their basis in pre-adult socialization. In the absence of sufficient longitudinal data to establish just what these attitudes are, I would suggest that it is basic assumptions, commitments and values which are forged prior to adulthood, and that more specific manifestations such as issue opinions or specific role behaviour are developed later. Except in the face of compelling circumstances or experiences, adults seldom seem to question their basic attachments and commitments. See Brim, Orville G., “Socialization Through the Life Cycle.” in Brim, Orville G. and Wheeler, Stanton, Socialization After Childhood (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1966), 24–39.Google Scholar I would further suggest that deferential values and norms of the sort concerning us in this study are fundamental orientations, being general values concerned with status and life style. Consequently, they probably do find their beginnings prior to adulthood.
The second argument is that any change which might occur in orientations to political authority would generally be in the direction of less not more political deference. This is because the tendencies of the young are toward idealization of political authorities, and this idealization fades with age. For a discussion and illustration of this kind of phenomenon among American adolescents see Jennings, M. Kent and Niemi, Richard, “Continuity and Change in Political Orientations,” American Political Science Review 69 (1975), 1130–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
30 For descriptions of the qualitative changes in modes of political thinking between childhood and adolescence, see the work done by Joseph Adelson and colleagues at the University of Michigan, for example, Adelson, , Green, Bernard and O'neill, Robert, “Growth of the Idea of Law in Adolescence,” Developmental Psychology 1 (1969), 327–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Adelson, and O'Neill, , “The Growth of Political Ideas in Adolescence: The Sense of Community,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 6 (1966), 295–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
31 Statistics of Education, 1969: Schools Vol. 1 (London: HMSO. 1970), 26.
32 For a detailed description of the sample, see the author's unpublished dissertation. “Citizen Orientations of English Adolescents: A Developmental Perspective” (University of Alberta, 1974), chap. 4.
33 The distribution of the study group among the four types of schools closely approximates that for England and Wales, although grammar school pupils were slightly overrepresented and those from direct grant and independent schools slightly underrepresented. However, since the general social status and ability groupings found in these types of schools are on the high side of the spectrum, possible biases are to some extent compensating. Even though the social status of the public school population is much higher than that of the grammar school population, the public school sector contained only about 5 per cent of the total population of fourth-form pupils in 1969 (see Statistics of Education, 1969, 13). Moreover, since one would expect political deference to be least prevalent among public school pupils, their underrepresentation makes the findings reported below even more compelling.
34 In terms of ability groupings of the pupils, the schools and classrooms sampled did adequately represent virtually all ability levels, both within and between school types. This is because schools from the two tiers of the selective system were visited, in addition to the more heterogeneous comprehensive schools, and because the testing was not restricted to the “best” classes in schools as showpieces, nor was it relegated to disturbing only the less motivated or lower achievement classes. A number of schools made special efforts to provide a cross-section of the fourth form, while in six of the schools the entire fourth form was interviewed. In the remaining schools, the selection of fourth form classes in the end resulted in a balance in the kinds of classes interviewed.
35 This trust in the British system need not, of course, be just an alternative to ideas of elite superiority, but may be an additional element of a deference “syndrome.” 581
36 The principal factor which separated out the four deference items accounted for 58.5 per cent of the total variance. The loadings of all the original items on this factor were as follows:
For more detailed results of the factoring procedure, see Erickson. “Citizen Orientations,” 269–70.
37 See Nunnally, J. C., Psychometric Theory (New York: McGraw Hill, 1967), 328Google Scholar for the argument that substantive considerations should be the criteria for using solutions found through factor rotation.
38 It is interesting to note that question number 5, asking how much attention government should pay to what the people think when they decide what laws to make, is noticeably unrelated to any of the deference items. This is probably because the content of this question, although relevant to the issue of the independence of government, was, of all the questions, most closely associated with notions of the popular mandate. As such it was the question most obviously concerned with a basic tenet of democracy which enjoys cultural support. The fact that even political deferents did not tend to discount the desirability of government responsiveness in decision-making illustrates that deference is not an orientation which persists wholly outside the context of cultural values related to democracy. Rather, it conforms to Eckstein's description of political deference as part of a value system which simultaneously accommodates—although with some inconsistency—pre-democratic and democratic values. See Eckstein. “The British Political System,” 62–63.
39 Respondents were scored for each deferential item and the points were simply added. Respondents who had any missing items were eliminated from the scale.
40 I would like to thank Orest Kruhlak for his assistance in this part of the survey. It was through his efforts I was able to secure the sample of American teenagers.
41 The English sample did have a slightly higher proportion of respondents from homes of nonmanual workers than did the American sample. However, there was no relationship found between deference and social class in the American sample, and the relationship in the English sample was not great enough to have made any appreciable difference between the groups' scores.
42 Small style changes were necessary in the wording of questions in order to conform to the American idiom. However these changes were insignificant.
43 The comparative distribution of responses to the deference items is as follows:
44 It is to be remembered that this survey was conducted at a time when internal opposition to the American government policy in Vietnam was growing and may have caused the students to polarize on this issue of duty to the government.
45 Dennis el al.,, “Support for Nation and Government.” 25–48.
46 While this assumption is never made explicit in the literature, this is the general understanding one comes to upon reading the literature.
47 It is also interesting to note that when compared to party supporters, whether Labour, Conservative or Liberal, those who indicate no partisan leanings have the lowest level of political deference. Moreover, these differences are not limited to questions on political leadership, but extend to those concerned with governmental leadership. Whether this is the sort of elitism one expects of the older more traditional parties, but not of Labour supporters in an opposition situation, awaits testing under conditions of a non-Labour government. What can be suggested is that under conditions of opposition, partisan attachments to the Conservative or Liberal parties seem to sustain a level of political deference not found among nonpartisans.
48 See Eckstein, Harry, “A Theory of Stable Democracy.” Appendix B in Division and Cohesion in Democracy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966), 246–47.Google Scholar
49 See Erickson, “Citizen Orientations,” 103.
50 Government of England (New York, 1924), Vol. 11, 508, cited in Beer, Samuel, British Politics in the Collectivist Age (New York: Vintage Books, 1969), 254–55.Google Scholar
51 See Bendix, Reinhard, Nation Building and Citizenship (New York: Wiley, 1964), 40–43Google Scholar, for a description of traditional relationships. For a discussion of the change in the ideological basis of community rights and obligations of the feudal period to that of marketplace relationships see 55–61.
52 The occupational descriptions used for class assignment were provided by the pupils. The division between working class and middle class was made according to the usual manual/nonmanual criteria with the exception of the unskilled nonmanual group (n=43). Since the political and social attributes of this group were more like the manual than nonmanual respondents (Erickson, “Citizen Orientations,” 116–17). the pupils in this category were included in the working-class group. For discussion of the issue of the appropriate division point for class analysis, see Kahan, M. J., Butler, D. E. and Stokes, D. E., “On the Analytical Division of Social Class,” British Journal of Sociology 17 (1966), 122–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Butler, D. E. and Stokes, D. E., Political Change in Britain, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan Press, 1974), 75–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Hamilton, Richard, Class and Politics in the United States (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1972)Google Scholar, chaps. 4 and 5.
53 For works suggesting the effects of educational selection on political orientations, see Abramson, Paul, “Differential Political Socialization of English Secondary School Students,” Sociology of Education 40 (1967), 246–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nordlinger, Working Class Tories, 25–34; and Turner, Ralph, “Sponsored and Contest Mobility and the School System,” in Halsey, A. H.el al., eds, Education, Economy and Society: A Reader in the Sociology of Education (New York: The Free Press, 1965), 12–139.Google Scholar
54 Statistics of Education, 1969, 13.
55 Elder, Glen H. Jr., “Life Opportunity and Personality: Some Consequences of Stratified Secondary Education in Great Britain,” Sociology of Education 38 (1965), 192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
56 Turner, “Sponsored and Contest Mobility,” 126.
57 There are, of course, features of the English system which do not conform to this model in terms of occupational selection. One is the introduction of comprehensive schools and another is the use of academic curricula and statewide examinations (G.C.E.) in secondary modern schools. Although only some of the pupils in secondary modern schools take the state examinations, those that do can then receive the same academic credit as do grammar school pupils.
58 Dennis McQuail and colleagues also found that the “special education” received by the elite in public schools—which are presumably even more consciously oriented to inculcating notions of special esteem and leadership among their clientele—did “not produce any striking effects in the political attitudes … studied” (“Elite Education and Political Values,” Political Studies 16 [1968], 257–66).
59 Almond and Verba, The Civic Culture, 271–74.
60 Eckstein, “A Theory of Stable Democracy,” 246–47. Eckstein's argument concerning the relevance of both the school and family life for political expectations does not suggest that there is simply a one-to-one relationship between experiences here and individual's expectations with regard to political authority. As he has explicitly stated, other institutions may mediate between more private experiences in the family, schools and occupational contexts to revise expectations. But he still suggests these private contexts are likely to have some effect (see 249).
61 With no controls, the Cramer's V was .08. For the Labour respondents it was. 13 and for the non-Labour respondents it was. 10. For details of the scale construction, see Erickson, “Citizen Orientations,” 249.
62 Primary school experience would add another and sometimes different experience in teacher-pupil relationships which would make homogeneous school experience even less likely.
63 Seymour Lipset, Martin, Political Man (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1963), 242.Google Scholar
64 The distribution of deference scores among the boys and girls was as follows:
65 See Dowse, Robert and Hughes, John A., “Girls, Boys and Politics,” British Journal of Sociology 22 (1971), 53–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar