Conference Reports

The Importance of the Size of Member States in the EU (5 November 2004)

The conference was held at Manchester Metropolitan University’s Centre for European Integration with sponsorship from UACES, the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence in Manchester and the Manchester European Research Institute at MMU. The idea was to look at the role that the size of the member states of the EU has had on their policy and on the EU itself.

Baldur Thorhallsson of the Centre for the Study of Small States, University of Iceland, dealt with the concepts, examining the variables affecting states in the international system and the traditional measurements of the size of states. Michael Lake from a practitioner’s viewpoint, questioned whether size mattered and concluded that it did to a limited extent, together with factors such as location.

Teija Tiilikainen, the Centre for European Studies at the University of Helsinki, showed that Finland displayed a pronounced small state identity, whereby the importance of rules, norms and institutions mattered. Roderick Pace of the Department of Politics of the University of Malta, said Malta is often regarded as a micro-state, but one that had never resigned itself to smallness.

José Magone, Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Hull, described Spain as being ‘middle-sized with ambitions’. Aleks Szczerbiak, of the Sussex European Institute, University of Sussex, considered that a combination of size and distance from the EU centre had helped to determine the policies of Poland.

Helen Drake, Department of Politics, International and European Studies at the University of Loughborough, covered France which she considered no longer could take for granted its prestige and had found that its position did come down to a question of size and what the country did with it. Simon Bulmer, Department of Government in the University of Manchester, dealt with Germany in a joint paper with William Paterson of the Institute of German Studies, University of Birmingham. Germany had changed from the days when it was an economic giant but a political dwarf, but fears of a new German hegemony in Europe after unification had proved to be unfounded. Size had been a factor but one tempered by a number of non-size elements.

The organizers, Clive Archer and Neill Nugent, both from MMU, made closing comments to what had been an interesting and lively day. Some of the papers will be revised to form a special edition of Journal of European Integration, late in 2005.

Election ’64 (5 November 2004)

This conference, organized under the auspices of the British Political and Labour History Unit, brought together nine papers in four different sessions. Professor Peter Barberis, the conference organizer, will edit a selection of the papers for a special issue of Contemporary British History.

Papers given were as follows:

PANEL ONE: The campaign – winners and losers

‘1964: why did Labour win?’ (Steve Fielding, Salford University)
‘Explaining voting behaviour – now and then’ (David Denver, University of Lancaster)

PANEL TWO: Labour, the constitution and the nation

‘RHS Crossman, the Labour Party and constitutional change, 1964-70’ (Duncan Tanner, University of Bangor)
‘The nationalist threat to Labour: did Wilson get it wrong?’ (Andrew Edwards, University of Bangor)

PANEL THREE: Aspects of foreign and domestic policy

‘International factors in the 1964 election’ (John Young, University of Nottingham)
‘It’s the economy, stupid! Labour and the economy, circa 1964’ (Jim Tomlinson, University of Dundee)

PANEL FOUR: Other perspectives

‘The trade unions and the 1964 election’ (Chris Wrigley, University of Nottingham)
‘The Conservative Party and the ’64 election’ (Michael Kandiah, CCBH, University of London)
‘Jo Grimond, the 1964 elections and the Liberals’ (Peter Barberis, MMU)

Workshops In Political Theory: Inaugural Conference (15-17 September 2004)

These workshops, organised by Jules Townshend of the Politics and Philosophy Department and Joe Femia (University of Liverpool), and held in the Manton Building (MMU), were hugely successful. The aim was to provide a new forum for political theorists to develop their ideas in a relaxed and informal setting. The workshops covered diverse styles and themes within political theory, from the nature of the ‘political’, contemporary republicanism, the thought of John Gray and Hobbes, to environmental citizenship, law and political philosophy, the question of ‘space’, and current feminist and Marxist thought. Fifty papers were given, and the delegates, from diverse universities, included leading UK political theorists as well as those from the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Denmark and Ireland. Although the initial idea was for a one-off occasion, the response was so enthusiastic that we propose to make these workshops an annual event.