Governing against the tide: Populism, power and the party conference

Guiney, Thomas; Farrall, Stephen

Abstract

In this article we argue that a tendency to treat populism as a ubiquitous, mechanistic characteristic of contemporary penality has impeded systematic theoretical discussion of how populist ideologies find contingent expression within national penal systems. Drawing upon an agonistic perspective we seek to show that the intersection between populism and punishment must be understood as a structured process that is shaped by struggle between actors with different types, and amounts, of political power. We illustrate these claims with reference to a historical case study of the 1981 British Conservative Party Conference; a political calendar ritual that facilitated symbolic conflict and provided an institutional point of entry for populist movements seeking to disrupt the prevailing liberal consensus on crime and secure substantive policy concessions from government.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 31, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Feb 24, 2022
• Publication Date: 2023-02
• Deposit Date: Feb 3, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 24, 2022
• Journal: Theoretical Criminology
• Print ISSN: 1362-4806
• Electronic ISSN: 1461-7439
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 27
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 147-164
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/13624806221081504
• Keywords: agonistic perspective, law and order, party conferences, penal policy, populism
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/7373903
• Publisher URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13624806221081504