The Political Incorporation of the British Working Class: An Interpretation

Abstract

This paper challenges the type of interpretation of the successful political incorporation of the British working class in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries which stresses normative factors—'deference', craving for respectability, bourgeoisification, religious feelings etc. It corrects misleading statements in some of these accounts and uses historical evidence to stress the importance of objective, structural constraints on working class ability to mobilize on a class basis in the political system prior to 1918. Following this interpretation some points are made about the British political culture on theoretical grounds stemming from Durkheim.