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Professor Michael Kenny charts changing ideas of statecraft in the UK

26 June 2014

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On 23 June 2014, CsaP's second Visiting Research Fellow Professor Michael Kenny delivered a seminar based on his new book 'The Politics of English Nationhood'. In the talk, Kenny discussed what kind of statecraft was necessary and viable as the UK appears set on the course of evolution to a looser form of Union.

You can listen to the seminar here.

In the talk, co-hosted by CSaP and CRASSH, Kenny took as his point of departure the landmark study Territory and power (1984) by the political scientist Jim Bullpit, which sought to characterise twentieth century statecraft in the UK. Kenny looked at how this work may help us understand the question of statecraft in the UK after devolution, introduced by the first Blair government in 1999.

Within this context, the talk focused on the dynamic relationship between the political centre and the periphery with respect to the forthcoming referendum on Scottish independence and debates surrounding the UK’s membership of the European Union. As a corollary of these political changes, Kenny also touched on the question of English identity, the salience of which has been on the rise in the last twenty years.


Banner image from Rafael Carvalho on Flickr

Professor Michael Kenny

Bennett Institute for Public Policy, University of Cambridge