List of Acronyms and Abbreviations
List of Tables
Preface and Acknowledgements
Introduction
PART I: THATCHERISM AND THE NEO-POULANTZASIAN APPROACH
1. The Hall-Jessop Debate
2. Neo-Poulantzasian Political Analysis
PART II: CLASS AND POLITICS IN BRITAIN, 1977–99
3. Method of Presentation
4. Pre-history: Britain in Crisis (–1977)
5. Emergence: A New Agenda for the Conservative Party (1977–9)
Case Study: Preparing for Government – Conservative Policy Papers
from 1977
6. Material Gains: Conducting Class Politics by Stealth
(1979–84)
7. Instability and Confrontation (1984–8)
Case Study: Attacking the Union Movement – The Miners’ Strike
Case Study: Dividing the Nation – The ‘Big Bang’ and the
Liberalisation of Financial Markets
8. Stabilisation: Entrenching the Advance (1988–92)
9. Erosion: Losing Control (1992–9)
PART III: THE AFTERMATH
10. The Consequences of Thatcherism
11. New Labour and the Thatcherite Legacy
Conclusion
References
Index
Features in Historical Materialism
Promotion targeting left academic journals
Published to coincide with the annual Historical Materialism
conference
Publicity and promotion in conjunction with the author's speaking
engagements
Alexander Gallas, PhD (2010), Lancaster University, is Assistant Professor of Politics at the University of Kassel. He is editor of the Global Labour Journal and regularly writes on topics such as the state, class, labour relations and British Politics. His publications include Reading Poulantzas (Merlin, 2011).
"[T]he conceptual framework Gallas develops for the analysis of
articulated levels and fields of governance and political strategy
in relation to different phases of class struggle under capitalism
is extraordinarily powerful....[This] is no less than a cognitive
map of the key political processes under conditions of capitalist
democracy. As such, Gallas has, in my view, made a hugely important
contribution to (neo)Poulantzasian theory…Overall, The Thatcherite
Offensive is a highly impressive book. I certainly have no
hesitation in recommending it to all scholars interested in the
politics and political economy of Thatcherism, the development of
neoliberalism in Britain more widely and indeed to all those
interested in the field of (neo)Poulantzasian theory."
—Ed Rooksby Capital and Class
"The Thatcherite Offensive speaks directly to current expressions
of authoritarian statism, and their contradictory role in advancing
the neoliberal project. Thatcher’s government relied (in part) on
authoritarian-type state strategies to undermine resistance to
their broader economic project – Gallas provides the tools to
analyse the strength of these regimes given their complex and
problematic relationship with democracy."
—PPE blog
"In this brilliantly innovative, theoretically sophisticated,
methodologically self-reflexive, critically engaged, and
conjuncturally sensitive study, Alexander Gallas provides a
substantive analysis of Thatcherism as a class project. Inspired
notably by the later Poulantzas and drawing on incisive case
studies, the author analyses successive stages in the development
Thatcherism (and Blairism) ... Exemplary in its clarity, this
approach will also inspire other work in conjunctural analysis and
struggles over class hegemony and domination."
—Bob Jessop, Lancaster University
"A must read for everyone who believes that there is such a thing
as society."
—Andreas Bieler, University of Nottingham
"Alexander Gallas's book is a highly innovative account of
Thatcherism as a class political regime, which reveals, with great
clarity, the value added of a political analysis based on Nicos
Poulantzas's state theory."
—John Kannankulam, University of Marburg
“Alexander Gallas’ study of Margaret Thatcher’s eleven years of
government – readable, engaged and provocative – has the parallel
aim of boosting Poulantzas’ conceptual tools and their value for
understanding states, classes and populist authoritarianism.”
–Logos journal
“Gallas’ intervention [is] both a relevant and crucial contribution
to understanding the contemporary political economy.” –Progress in
Political Economy
“The Thatcherite Offensive by Alexander Gallas is an important new
contribution from an old perspective, the work of Nicos Poulantzas,
towards an analysis of an era most of us would prefer to forget,
Thatcherism.” –Mark Perryman, author of The Corbyn Effect
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