AbstractsPolitical Science

This project set out to analyse the relationship between the UK and the EU spurred by Prime Minister David Cameron’s proposal of, the possibility of, an in/out referendum. Using analytical tools from Laclau & Mouffe’s Discourse Theory this project analyses political articulations and how these construct and follow discursive logics that constrain and enable political action. This is done through a historical analysis, discerning the logics of different political articulations that are then used to perform a contemporary analysis of Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrats and Ukip. It seeks to identify how historically constructed logics manifest themselves in the present debate. The analysis argues that historically constructed logics are prevailing in the whole spectrum of British politics and that these logics constrain the different political actors, especially the Conservative and Labour that engage in an attempt to re-articulate and converge discursive logics that have historically been constructed as oppositions.