It was a massive privilege to take part in a @politicalquarterly.bsky.social symposium on the life & work of David Marquand in January. My article for the forthcoming special issue has now been published. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... - ThreadSky

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npjgarland.bsky.social • 39 days ago

It was a massive privilege to take part in a @politicalquarterly.bsky.social symposium on the life & work of David Marquand in January. My article for the forthcoming special issue has now been published.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-923X.13528

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npjgarland.bsky.social•39 days ago

Tributes to Marquand after his death placed the greatest emphasis on his work from the late 1980s, and his relatively late embrace of "democratic republicanism". Here, I shift focus to Marquand's time as an MP b/w 1966 & '77, and his part in the ideological development of the SDP.

npjgarland.bsky.social•39 days ago

I argue we should understand Marquand's project, and that of Jenkinsite "liberal revisionism", as an attempt at a sort of social-democratic "statecraft": resolving the crisis of an "overloaded" state through a distinctive blend of incomes policy, fiscal retrenchment, political decentralisation.

npjgarland.bsky.social•39 days ago

This also shows quite how far he strayed from a centre-left mainstream, through engagement with public choice economics & a fundamental questioning of the value of "equality". By the late 1980s, shaped by the experience of Thatcherism & Owen's leadership of the SDP, this changed.

npjgarland.bsky.social•39 days ago

This is IMO the most interesting & intellectually dynamic period of DM's career. Rather than the moral critic he later became, here he was a practically engaged political actor, grappling (sometimes, admittedly, in a rather abstract way) with questions of governance.

npjgarland.bsky.social•39 days ago

Really grateful to the editors for the invitation to take part, and to @colmpm.bsky.social, @iprnickp.bsky.social, @pjsloman.bsky.social, @emilyrobinson.bsky.social, Gregg McClymont & Roger Liddle for some very perceptive comments.

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