INVENIRE

In enshrining values such as the consent of the governed, the American constitution is commonly associated with the Whig political tradition. Despite the fact that the American constitution owes more to the ideas of Whigs than those of royalists, the Constitution’s repeated insurance against treason and its framework for the foundation of a strong federal government indicates its mixed ideological heritage. Moreover, the Constitution’s blend of Whig and royalist ideas, girded by its own historical context, demonstrates that these political philosophies are not diametrically opposed; the Whigs of the 17th and 18th centuries supported the notion of monarchy, albeit a constitutional one. While the Constitution draws much from whiggish thought, evidence of royalist inspiration abounds. The American constitution’s emphasis on the consent of the governed is drawn from whiggism. The idea that “the People of the United States” are the sole arbiters of government legitimacy recurs. The fact tha...

If good politics unifies, rather than divides, populations; achieves political goals and reflects the will of the electorate, politics would be better without political parties. Partisan politics stokes unproductive national division, reduces the quality of political discussion, hinders political progress and allows for the corruption of the government by corporate and foreign - non-constituent - agents. Nevertheless, the weight of criticism of partisan politics has not yet resulted in detaching politics from partisanship. Citizens of liberal democracies live in a state of “partisan realism”; to appropriate Mark Fisher’s description of capitalism, “it is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to political parties.”. The fact that only ten sovereign states lack political parties - seven of which are absolute monarchies - justifies the belief that parties are the gatekeepers to politics and immutable components of democracies. Therefore, in addition to outlining how political ...

The notion that governments rely on the tax revenues derived from individuals and businesses and thus cannot simply “print more money” to solve budgetary issues is orthodox in popular thinking. The idea is so pervasive that proposals for new tax cuts or new public services programmes are invariably met with demands that they are funded by tax increases or spending decreases elsewhere. In the United Kingdom, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has become the de facto inspector of all fiscal plans proposed by political parties; their unfavourable assessment of the September 2022 mini-budget brought about the lack of market confidence that precipitated the downfall of the Truss ministry. [i] Bidding to seem fiscally responsible in this way, governments frequently prioritise debt reduction, either via expenditure-cutting austerity measures, as initiated by the UK Coalition government of 2010-2015, [ii] or revenue-raising tax increases. Politicians do not accept the idea that we can rely on ...

The past twelve months have been disastrous for the Conservative Party. Besieged by scandals, the Johnson ministry premiership was fatally felled by the Pincher scandals of July 2022. The ensuing summer offered the Conservatives a purgatorial slate; some commentators hailed the advent of  "unapologetic, liberal Toryism" a la Truss and Kwarteng. The self-described Thatcherite Liz Truss bid to embody her ideology's namesake with   an ambitious Growth Plan. Unlike her political role model, however, Liz Truss lacked the strength of will necessary to abstain from the U-turn. Instead of bracing the maelstrom of negative press and public backlash, Truss turned on her Chancellor, reversed The Growth Plan and resigned just forty-nine days into her premiership. Nevertheless, the Truss premiership did not deal unmitigated damage to the Conservative Party. In representative democracies like the United Kingdom, the parliamentary strength of a political party is twofold: its popularit...

 Following the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon Bonaparte could do nothing but reminisce. Exiled to Saint Helena, he spent the twilight of his life imprisoned by the British. An ocean away from the land-roaming and strategising of a few years prior, Bonaparte was relegated to comparatively dull pastimes. He spent the hours complaining (probably justly) about his living conditions at Longwood House; playing cards with the small band of Frenchmen permitted to travel with him and, most productively, dictating memories of his storied career to them. At one point, Napoleon Bonaparte had ruled everything between the Atlantic and the Niemen; no activity would prove an adequate substitute, but writing his memoirs had to suffice. Napoleon's tales were duly recorded and published by Emmanuel, comte de Las Cases, as  Le Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène. With a preface that refers to Napoleon Bonaparte as "the most extraordinary man that ever existed", the writer's goal - glorifying Napoleo...

The study of imperialism speaks to the reality that great man theory, in its emphasis on the talents and volitions of a handful of individuals in determining events, is the foremost historiography. National borders are shaped by individuals and small groups of particular note, not the people at large. This strikes in contradiction to history from below, which considers ordinary people in societies to be the crucial factor for the development of historical events. In applying history from below to events, historians tend to favour social histories to biographies as historical accounts. While history from below is useful in reframing our reaction to historical events, great man historiography is far more useful when answering questions like, “Why was this empire able to acquire this territory?” and “Why was this state unable to maintain control of these territories?” It is difficult to support the notion that the ordinary people in the nations of Europe drove the division of Africa. The ...