Topic: The key role determining the success and failure of democratisation
lies in the political skills of politicians

Description: [?]
Preferred language style: English(U.K.)

Aim of the Module for this Essay: this module focuses upon one of the
major issues and problems in the world today – the attempt to
establish liberal democracy. While central core is the evolutionary
development of democracy in Britain, this experience is set against
the far more difficult democratisations that have taken place since
1918. Britain is seen as typical of other countries that were located
in the first phase of democratisation taking place across much of
Western Europe and North America between around 1800 and 1918. This
module will examine both how British democracy developed and some of
the reasons why it was relatively successful – particularly the
pro-active and mainly functional role of elites, and Britain’s
vibrant network of civil society. ..

Essay Title:
‘The key role determining the success and failure of democratisation
lies in the political skills of politicians’. Discuss.

The question focuses on British case, Britain’s democratisation from
early 19th – 20th centuries. In other words, it is asking us to
determine to what extent the political elites of the 19th century in
Britain helped and were responsible for successful democratisation and
where does their usefulness stop? (For example, it is worth to not
forget that outside world also counts…..,civil society has also
played an important role, etc…). The question focuses on British
case, though you can draw out comparisons with elsewhere if it seems
relevant and revealing to do so.

Module’s Key book:
John Garrard, ‘Democratisation in Britain’, chapter 3.

Other recommended readings for the essay:
• For an overview of British aristocracy
o F.M.L Thompson, English Landed Society in the Nineteenth Century
• Elites and the reconstruction of monarchy
o William Kuhn, Democratic Royalism
o Frank Prochaska, Royal Bounty: the Making of a Welfare Monarchy
o Eric Hobsbaum and Terence Ranger (eds) The Invention of Tradition,
for chapter by David Cannadine
• Elites and Reform
o Peter Mandler, Aristocratic Government in the Age of Reform: Whigs
and Liberals 1830-52
o Ellis Archer Wasson, ‘The Great Whigs and parliamentary reform
1809-1830’ Journal of British Studies, vol. 24 (1985), pp.628-52
• Alternative views of Elites and the passing of the 1832 Reform Act
o M.Brock, The Great Reform Act
o N. Gash, Politics in the Age of Peel
o Hamburger, J.S. Mill and Revolution
• Alternative Views of Elites and the Passing of the Second Reform
Act (p.s. for the arguments, outside world counts)
o Maurice Cowling, 1867: Disraeli, Gladstone and Revolution
o Royden Harrison, Before the Socialists
o F.B. Smith, ‘The Making of the Second Reform Bill
o M. Bentley and John Stevenson (eds), High and Low Politics in Modern Britain
• Gladstone as the Master Politician
o E.Biagini, Liberalism, Retrenchment and Reform: Popular Liberalism
in the Age of Gladstone
• On the Calculations of Politicians in relation to Reform and
Redistribution 1884-5.
o Mary E.J. Chadwick, ‘The Role of Redistribution in the Making of
The Third Reform Act’ in Historical Journal vol 19, 3 (1976), 665-83
• On the role of local elites
o John Garrard, ‘Parties Members and Voters After 1867’ in T.R.
Gouvish and Alan O’Day (eds), Later Victorian Britain
o Patrick Joyce, ‘the factory politics of Lanchashire in the Late
Nineteenth Century’ in Historical Journal 18, 1975
o John Garrard, Leadership and Power in Victorian Industrial Towns 1830-1880
o John Garrard, ‘Urban Elites 1850-1914: the Rule and Decline of a
New Squirearchy?’ in Albion, vol 27, no 3, 563-621
o Jon Lawrence, ‘Gender, Class and the making of Urban Toryism’,
English Historical Review, 1993, pp.628-52.

Referencing: Oxford Style (footnotes, bibliography), for the reference
http://www.deakin.edu.au/current-students/study-support/study-skills/handouts/oxford-docnote.php
p.s. when paraphrasing, please also include full references to the resource.

Length: 3000 words plus bibliography