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This document evaluates David Cameron's performance as British Prime Minister using Chris Byrne, Nick Randall, and Kevin Theakston's study based on Skowronek's theory of US presidential leadership in the context of political time and regime cycles. The authors discuss Cameron's position in political time, vulnerability of the regime, and his leadership style.
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Chris Byrne University of Leeds Nick Randall Newcastle University Kevin Theakston University of Leeds Keywords: prime minister(s), leadership performance, political time, historical institutionalism, David Cameron, Conservative Party
Introduction Assessments of prime ministerial performance are ubiquitous in contemporary UK politics. Print, broadcast and increasingly social media provide a running commentary (see for example, Blair 2007). Opinion polls routinely collect popular assessments of prime ministers while the ascendancy of ‘valence politics’ means such evaluations are increasingly salient to electoral choice (Clarke et al. 2009; Whiteley et al. 2013). Biographers find evaluation of prime ministerial performance an irresistible enterprise (Marquand 2011). But all too often such assessments of performance are idiosyncratic. Where evaluation employs any criteria, these are typically implicit and adrift of any underpinning theoretical framework. Comparisons, where offered, tend toward the casual rather than the systematic. This paper makes an early contribution to what will doubtless become a substantial literature evaluating David Cameron's premiership. Its broader contribution is towards the development of theoretically informed but empirically grounded assessments of performance which are explicitly attentive to the structural conditions in which UK prime ministers exercise their agency. The paper begins by reviewing existing models for evaluating the performance of UK prime ministers, principally those based on the approaches of Greenstein (2001) and Bulpitt (1986). The case is then made for an alternative framework which applies to the UK and then, in one of the paper’s original contributions, significantly develops Stephen Skowronek’s historical institutionalist analysis of the US presidency. After outlining the modifications necessary to Skowronek's approach, Cameron is identified as a disjunctive prime minister. On the basis of an analysis of the premierships of Edward Heath (1970-74), Harold Wilson (1974-76) and James Callaghan (1976-79) we then identify the
‘predominance’ in contemporary formulations) and arguments about more systemic labels or trends (e.g. ‘presidentialisation’). The difficulty both models share is taking into account the context and the wider environment in which leaders operate, and the opportunities, challenges and constraints they face. The nexus between the personal qualities of leaders and the demands of the times is central to their effectiveness, as Greenstein has conceded. Perhaps some of the qualities or skills he noted are more important in some situations than others. ‘The capacity of the president to make a difference is a function not only of his personal attributes, but also the political environment in which they are brought to bear. A president who is well suited to serve in one setting may be ill suited for another’ (Greenstein 2005 quoted in Theakston 2007, p.60). But Greenstein does not develop this aspect of the model in any detailed or extended way. The statecraft model goes further in incorporating several aspects of structural context into leadership evaluation (Buller & James 2012), including the electoral constraint faced by parties and politicians, public attitudes towards policies, the international situation and the relationship between foreign and domestic policy and politics, and pre-eminently economic factors. Buller and James have recently sought to strengthen the statecraft model's engagement with this structural context. The relationship between the ‘objectives... ideas and preferences’ of leaders and their structural context is vital they suggest, even if the demands or difficulties of varying contexts cannot be weighted, graded or ranked in a quantitative sense. The structural contexts of prime ministerial action are also dynamic. A prime minister will find a stable and predictable structural context easier to govern within than one that changes suddenly, unexpectedly or dramatically. But Buller and James have yet to provide an overall analytical framework that can be used systematically to make sense of the relationship between leaders and their contexts, compare different prime ministers and
contexts, or understand and explain patterns of change over time (Buller & James 2015, pp.80-83). The argument of this paper is that a historical institutionalist account, such as that offered by Skowronek, permits incorporation of ‘the changing universe of political action’ (Skowronek 2011, p.77) in a fashion that these other models do not presently allow. In contrast to Greenstein, Skowronek (1993, p.19) rejects a focus on the characters and political skills of leaders, arguing that they have almost nothing to do with success or failure in office, and tell us little about the political impact of presidential leadership. Equally, he conceives of the leadership ‘test’ in a broader and more demanding way than the statecraft model’s primary focus on ‘how many elections [leaders] win’ (Buller & James 2015, p.79). Skowronek’s (1993) theory of US presidential leadership in the context of political time and regime cycles provides a way of understanding the dynamic inter-relationship of structure and agency in analysing, comparing and explaining leadership performance and success that can be broadly applied to other political systems (Laing & McCaffrie 2013; McCaffrie 2012). The challenges and opportunities that presidents face, and the scope and authority they have, according to Skowronek, essentially depend on whether they are opposed to or affiliated with the prevailing ‘regime’ (understood as a set of ideas, values, policy paradigms and programmes, and the associated pattern of political interests and institutional supports), and the extent to which that ‘regime’ is itself resilient or vulnerable (table 1). Table 1. Skowronek’s typology of leaders, regimes and patterns of politics Affiliated leader Opposed leader Resilient regime Articulation Pre-emption
transplanting Skowronek’s model (Laing & McCaffrie 2013, pp.84-89; Heffernan 2005). These differences are well understood and do not need detailing extensively here. The assumptions, practices and processes of collective (Cabinet) government constrain even dominant prime ministers in a way that deprives them of the sort of authority a US president can claim or assert. Prime ministers can sometimes lead from the front, but also have to routinely consult, broker, bargain, and compromise within the executive. ‘Prime ministers never have an absolute monopoly on authority to shatter the political order and create a new one the way some presidents have had’, meaning that Westminster-type systems may provide ‘less pure examples of prime ministers standing in opposition to the political orthodoxy as either reconstructors or pre-emptors’ (Laing & McCaffrie 2013, p.85). Conversely, a fusion of powers and disciplined parties can grant prime ministers a dominance over the legislature that a president would envy. Even disjunctive prime ministers facing backbench dissent will still get most of their major legislation through parliament (Laing & McCaffrie 2013, p.87). Prime ministers can face more of a challenge from an organised and institutionalised Opposition that can enjoy more authority and legitimacy than the forces ranged against a US president. The stance and behaviour of Opposition parties can contribute to the success of reconstructive prime ministers (McCaffrie 2013), whether through strengthening the arm of government by their own ineptitude, internal divisions and ineffectiveness, or by acceptance of the new agenda and accommodation to the new policy framework, eventually consolidating reconstructive leaders’ legacies when the electoral wheel turns again putting the Opposition back into office. Certainly we can envisage that an orthodox innovator prime minister is likely to face a different challenge to their authority from a pre-emptive Opposition leader than that posed by an Opposition leader in the same orthodox innovator mode. A disjunctive prime minister facing an effective insurgent Opposition leader with a
reconstruction agenda will find their room for manoeuvre and options shrink further. For those who become prime minister after a period leading the Opposition, it is also possible that the transition experience, and the commitments made and pressures faced during it, may affect or constrain their premiership in ways that a president may not encounter, particularly if circumstances change radically (perhaps increasing the vulnerability of the regime) during that period of time. Compared to the presidential system, political parties are a more important component of a prime minister’s authority (Heppell 2013b). In particular, a prime minister enjoys less security of tenure than a president. Failing prime ministers are vulnerable to removal by parties nervous about electoral defeat. The security of tenure of presidents, even when experiencing ‘prolonged and dramatic failures’, may mean therefore that the US provides ‘clearer examples of disjunctive leadership’ (Laing & McCaffrie 2013, p.88). Able to continue in office without term limits as long as their parties and the electorate will support them, long-serving prime ministers may also find political time changing around them. As new circumstances and events affect the viability of the existing regime, the leadership challenge they face may alter, so that they move from one of Skowronek’s leadership types to another (Laing & McCaffrie 2013, pp.88-89, 98). Furthermore, only one president (Cleveland) has served two non-consecutive terms (Skowronek 1993, pp.48-49) but this pattern has been more common in Britain (for instance MacDonald, Baldwin, Churchill and Wilson in the twentieth century), again with possible consequences for a prime minister’s place in political time. Skowronek’s conception of political time has been criticised as being a domestic one and not taking account of international events, pressures and constraints. The cycles of party politics
2014a, p.219; Hoekstra 1999). Regime vulnerability is a relatively undifferentiated phenomenon in Skowronek’s account. Yet it may present itself in various ways. Deep vulnerabilities may be evident across a narrow range of commitments. Alternatively, regime vulnerability may be shallower but evident across many governing commitments. Skowronek also fails to provide any criteria to identify the symptoms of regime vulnerability. The few attempts to apply the framework of regimes to British politics provide limited assistance since they focus primarily upon those factors associated with the emergence of new regimes rather than on signals of an existing regime’s vulnerability (Studlar 2007). While tempting, it is also challenging to construct a definitive checklist of indicators of regime vulnerability. Each regime embodies different commitments. Vulnerabilities will manifest themselves in a variety of ways. The selection of indicators to ‘measure’ regime vulnerability is far from straightforward. For example, historic poll data would reveal that Margaret Thatcher, a reconstructive prime minister, recorded much worse poll ratings than her disjunctive counterparts. However, such difficulties should equally not prevent us from identifying aspects of the ideational, policy, political and institutional environment which deserve scrutiny when assessing regime vulnerability. So, while some regard “public opinion as too fickle, shallow and sporadic to provide reliable measurements of political time” (Price 2002, pp.613-4) changes in public attitudes towards the regime or the emergence of popular protests may demonstrate regime vulnerability. Following Crockett (Crockett 2009, p.8), electoral outcomes, particularly deviating and disaligning elections, may be an important signal. The decay of a previously dominant policy agenda and emergence of new issues and concerns could indicate challenges to existing governing commitments. Finally, an outpouring of books and articles from the ‘commentariat’ which question the viability of the status-quo and the established ways of doing things would seem a plausible indicator of regime vulnerability.
[Figure 1 about here] Mindful of such environmental features, our assessment is that Cameron encountered a governing regime more vulnerable than any time since the early 1980s. Central to this vulnerability were the effects of the 2007-8 financial crisis. The recession proved longer than any since the Great Depression. Living standards only slowly recovered and coincided, in Cameron’s first term, with an ongoing European sovereign debt crisis. Continuing misconduct, including Libor rate manipulation and assisting tax evasion, diminished faith in financial institutions. Tax avoidance by major multi-nationals also generated public dismay and political controversy. These political-economic regime vulnerabilities ran in parallel with the malaise of other institutions. A perception of disconnection between elites and those they serve was abroad. Surveys demonstrated widespread distrust of politicians (see for example, Phillips & Simpson 2015). The disaffection with the two major parties evident at the 2010 election quickly engulfed the Liberal Democrats shortly thereafter. That the SNP and UKIP were the principal beneficiaries placed further strains on the regime. The SNP's rise and the 2014 independence referendum strained the UK's territorial integrity. UKIP's success testified to a constituency of disaffected voters 'left behind' by recent governments. But it also manifested and mobilised a growing disaffection towards the EU and immigration into the UK. Indeed, Britain's commitments beyond its borders were under broader question. Defence cuts and the legacies of Afghanistan and Iraq raised doubts about Britain's ability and willingness to intervene abroad. Faith in institutions mediating state-society relations also diminished (figure 1). The phone-hacking scandal and Leveson Inquiry laid bare the absence of ethical and political constraint upon the print media. The scandal also implicated the Metropolitan police and formed one of a series of episodes including the 2011 riots, the
modernisation process capable of re-synchronising politics, society and economy - but also the ancillary vision of a concerted international response to impending environmental disaster and an unfolding military and security catastrophe triggered by the spread of radical Islam. Cameron's only novel contribution to this discourse was, as as Finlayson (2011) has noted, the notion of the ‘post-bureaucratic age’. This highlighted the transformative potential of technological advances usually associated with economic globalisation to democratise access to information previously monopolised by powerful bureaucracies. A new breed of informed and engaged citizens would emerge, capable - Cameron hoped - of ‘co-producing’ government policy and holding it to account more effectively. Such notions formed the basis of the policy which featured most prominently in Cameron’s speeches throughout this period: the Big Society. The clearest (although still somewhat nebulous) exposition of the Big Society was set out in the 2010 Conservative manifesto : The size, scope and role of government in the UK has reached a point where it is now inhibiting, not advancing, the progressive aims of reducing poverty, fighting inequality, and increasing general well-being. We can’t go on pretending that government has all the answers. Our alternative to big government is the Big Society: a society with much higher levels of personal, professional, civic and corporate responsibility; a society where people come together to solve problems and improve life for themselves and their communities; a society where the leading force for progress is social responsibility, not state control. (Conservative Party 2010) However, the Big Society had little impact on the general policy orientation of a prospective Cameron government. ‘Social Action Zones’ - a Big Society take on Thatcher’s Enterprise
Zones - and the National Citizens Service - a voluntary personal development programme designed to encourage social action among 16 and 17-year-olds - were the only substantive policies linked to the Big Society during this period. Meanwhile, the policies which received most fanfare were plans to introduce a tax break for married couples, stage a referendum on the EU Constitution and withdraw from the social chapter and, following the onset of the financial crisis, to restore the Bank of England’s power to regulate financial markets and rein in public spending in order to deal with the mounting budget deficit. It is difficult to see how any of these policy commitments represented a significant departure from the existing political and institutional configuration of British politics. For example, the married couples tax break was a matter of raw political calculation which did little to alter the basic contours of the overall tax system and the measures relating to the EU stopped far short of having the potential to precipitate a British exit. In fact, it is noteworthy that many of the policy commitments made by Cameron before the 2010 general election were ‘negative’ commitments, in the sense that they were commitments to scrap policies which Labour had, or was planning to introduce, such as Cameron’s promises to abolish the Human Rights Act and ID cards. Cameron made only sparing references to Conservative predecessors such as Michael Howard and Iain Duncan-Smith throughout this period. When it came to Margaret Thatcher’s legacy Cameron adopted an equivocal stance designed to deflect Labour's attacks while avoiding antagonising partisans outside the modernising camp. As he put it in an interview prior to winning the leadership he was ‘certainly a big Thatcher fan, but I don't know whether that makes me a Thatcherite.’ In a similar vein, Cameron's oft-repeated soundbite - ‘there is such a thing as society, it’s just not the same thing as the state’ - sought
you really believe needs to happen to make things right. I believe that to rebuild our economy, it’s not more of the same we need, but change… Experience is the excuse of the incumbent over the ages. Experience is what they always say when they try to stop change. In 1979, James Callaghan had been Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary and Chancellor before he became Prime Minister. He had plenty of experience. But thank God we changed him for Margaret Thatcher (Cameron 2008). However, the significance of Cameron's harsher rhetoric from 2007 should not be overestimated. Not only because it did little to interrupt the lines of policy continuity outlined above, but for two other reasons as well. Firstly, such rhetoric is to be expected in the run-up to a general election. Secondly, because Cameron made it abundantly clear at the height of the financial crisis that he was committed to rescuing a regime that New Labour had imperilled with its mania for statist solutions and which, as the 2010 general election neared, he presented as under further threat from leftist calls to strengthen rather the withdraw the state from economic management. On the basis of our analysis it is hard to conclude that Cameron is anything other than an affiliate of a vulnerable regime. As such, he has faced the challenge of a disjunctive premiership. Characterising the Disjunctive Premiership Skowronek's account of disjunctive leadership is considerably less developed than those of the politics of articulation, reconstruction or pre-emption. He is nevertheless emphatic; disjunctive leadership is “the very definition of the impossible leadership situation” (1993, p.39). This is because, as a regime affiliate, the disjunctive president cannot repudiate existing governmental commitments. But equally, given the regime's vulnerability, they cannot convincingly affirm those same commitments either. They become “consumed by a
problem that is really prerequisite to leadership, that of establishing any credibility at all.” (1993, p.39) They also have fewer and weaker options to establish their own authority. For Skowronek, “Authority takes the form of a timely set of warrants addressed to the circumstances that brought the president to power, warrants that promise to justify and sustain the exercise of presidential power.” (2011, p.84) The only warrant available to disjunctive presidents is a technocratic one. They reify technique, claiming a privileged insight into national problems and a special personal dedication to their resolution. Ultimately, Anything short of a miraculous solution will pass to the opposition effective control over the political definition of the situation… these affiliates stigmatize the current situation as wholly untenable... they become the foils for reconstructive leadership, the indispensable premise upon which traditional regime opponents generate the authority to repudiate the establishment wholesale. (1993, p.40) Yet, we should be cautious in assuming that this dismal and deterministic trajectory applies to disjunctive prime ministers in Britain. Firstly, the prime minister's greater authority makes it likely that “disjunctive prime ministers will be less obvious failures than disjunctive presidents are.” (Laing & McCaffrie 2013, p.87) Secondly, a disjunctive prime minister may not automatically cede authority to opponents as Skowronek expects. British opposition parties also need to position themselves in political time. It is not inevitable that they will pursue reconstructive politics and the regime will be less vulnerable if Leaders of the Opposition are also affiliated to it. Thirdly, political regimes in the UK have tended to be more resilient than Skowronek expects of those in the US (see for example, Gamble 2014, p.31) and may persist for some considerable time before they are repudiated. Finally, it is
entrenched sense of right and wrong than his predecessor (see Morgan 1997, pp.486, 527). However, a wider range of warrants beyond those proposed by Skowronek is evident. Firstly, given regime vulnerability, each sought to lower expectations by conveying the scale of national difficulties and the absence of easy solutions. For example, Heath warned the nation in December 1973 that it “would have a harder Christmas than any since the war” (Clark 1973). Wilson and Callaghan repeatedly returned to the the warning set out in the February 1974 manifesto that the nation faced “the most serious political and economic crisis since 1945.” (Labour Party 1974, p.1) Secondly, all supplemented their technocratic warrants with calls for national unity and reconciliation. As his industrial relations policies unravelled, Heath repeatedly called for national unity (see for example Wood:1972vz Clark 1973). Wilson presented himself as uniting the nation after his divisive predecessor (see for example, Labour Party 1975, p.180) while Callaghan portrayed himself as “the respected social patriot out for national unity.” (Morgan 1999, p.47) These premierships also reveal several strategies to manage the vulnerable regime. Firstly, it is striking that these prime ministers sought to buy time and wait out events in the hope that conditions would change. The arrival of North Sea Oil presented the prospect of additional resources to revitalise the existing regime (see for example Wilson 1979; p. 16 Callaghan 1977). Short-term measures of stabilisation like Wilson’s £6 pay policy (Pimlott 1992, p.664) and Callaghan’s Lib-Lab pact (Morgan 1997, p.569) carried the hope that economic recovery would gain momentum and rescue their prospects. Secondly, where time could not be bought, these prime ministers pursued adaptive strategies to attempt to revive the existing regime, particularly policy u-turns and 'inter-paradigm borrowing' (Hay 2013, p.23). Heath's
government became increasingly economically interventionist, nationalising Rolls Royce, rescuing the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders, adopting an activist industrial policy and seeking to revive tripartite consultation. Similarly, Callaghan pursued a “monetarily contained Keynesianism” (Fforde 1983, p.203) as the regime’s economic difficulties grew. Such strategies, however, invite dilemmas that are intrinsic to the disjunctive premiership. U- turns erode the claim to a warrant of governing competence. Accusations of ideological inconsistency accompany inter-paradigm borrowing. Both can serve to magnify the problems of party management that present a general difficulty for disjunctive prime ministers. Under each of these prime ministers, parliamentary dissent reached record levels (Norton 1978; 1980). If Heath did not face rebellions on central issues or at Cabinet level there was nevertheless doubt about Heath’s lack of a guiding philosophy and growing disaffection in Conservative ranks, particularly after the humiliation of the first miners’ strike and the 1972 Industry Act (Ramsden 1996, p.27). Wilson and Callaghan's problems of party management were even more acute. By-election defeats and a sequence of defections rendered the government vulnerable to defeat in the Commons. Like Heath, Wilson and Callaghan came to be viewed by many within their party as pragmatists adrift of ideological anchors. In each case populist and maverick figures served as a focus for disaffection with the established regime. For Heath, it was Enoch Powell who articulated the need for a reconstructive solution to national malaise. Under Wilson and Callaghan, Tony Benn became the repository of left-wing hopes for a reconstructive alternative. Nor were such mavericks the only avenue for disaffection. This period of disjunctive politics is notable as the moment in which the post-war mould of a stable two- party system was broken. Growing disillusion with the governing parties found avenues for
