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Interpreting the Outsider Tradition in B ritish E uropean Policy Speeches from T hatcher to C ameron
Author(s) -
Daddow Oliver
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
jcms: journal of common market studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.54
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1468-5965
pISSN - 0021-9886
DOI - 10.1111/jcms.12204
Subject(s) - narrative , argument (complex analysis) , identity (music) , politics , sociology , historiography , political science , media studies , law , literature , aesthetics , philosophy , art , biochemistry , chemistry
This article investigates how B ritish E uropean policy thinking has been informed by what it identifies as an ‘outsider’ tradition of thinking about ‘ E urope’ in B ritish foreign policy dating from imperial times to the present. The article begins by delineating five phases in the evolution of the outsider tradition back to 1815 through a survey of the relevant historiography. The article then examines how prime ministers from M argaret T hatcher to D avid C ameron have looked to various inflections of the outsider tradition to inform their E uropean discourses. The focus in the speech data sections is on B ritish identity, history and the realist appreciation of international politics that informed the leaders' suggestions for EEC / EU reform. The central argument is that historically informed narratives such as those making up the outsider tradition do not determine opinion‐formers' outlooks, but that they can be deeply impervious to rapid change. We can therefore understand why Britain has come to hover near the EU exit door because British leaders have consistently drawn upon ‘outsider’ narratives as the organizing frame for their European policy discourses.