Testing Social Democracy's Inner Limits: From Collectivism to the Politics of Dissonance in Britain

In a world where transitions to democracy are often turbulent, interrupted, and uncertain, it is easy to think of Britain, where an embryonic form of parliamentary democracy emerged in the seventeenth century as an exception because the basic shape of politics has appeared settled for so long. On the contrary, I will argue, since the 1970s Britain has been fundamentally transformed from a consensus-driven, institutionally cohesive, model West European democracy, into a fractious, institutionally rigid, and quite unresponsive political system. I will suggest that these developments in Britain have broader comparative significance for they help identify a critical shift from social democracy or collectivism to what I call a post-collectivist politics of dissonance.