| Abstrakt: |
In all the main advanced industrial countries of the West since the 1970s, the family has become an issue which excites media attention and public debate and which has become a prominent item on the agenda of the major political parties. The family has become politicized. This has been particularly the case in America and Britain where it has been associated to different degrees with the electoral successes of a revived conservatism under Thatcher and Reagan which committed itself to policies to strengthen the 'traditional' family. This article argues, contrary to a number of Left and feminist commentaries, that this commitment has not been realized in practical politics. A number of reasons are offered for this. It is argued that the sheer weight and momentum of the major demographic, economic, social and cultural shifts in the sub-stratum of the advanced industrialized societies, particularly since the Second World War, have had such enormous impact on women and consequently on the family that they are unlikely to be reversed. It is also suggested that counter- campaigns and the role of professional groups in the formulation, implementation and evaluation of public policy have inhibited attempts to return to 'Victorian values'. Yet another reason advanced is the difficulty that recent conservative governments have experienced in aligning their economic objectives with policies to strengthen the 'traditional' family. However, the article argues that an important factor in any explanation of this lack of success lies in the nature of the New Right itself. The revived conservative parties of the 1970s were in fact an amalgam of a number of different ideological strands on the right of the political spectrum, for which the family became an important unifying symbol in its capacity to align radical liberal economic policies with traditionalist conservative concerns, and its rhetorical value in translating these into a popular political discourse. While this enabled them to attract a number of different constituencies and widen their electoral base, particularly with new voters, this uneasy coalition was itself a major obstacle to the realization of any consistent and coherent family policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
