Race plays a central role in British political life, as recent events like the 2024 riots, the Grenfell tragedy, the Windrush scandal, and policy discussions around immigration reveal. Despite that, the discipline of British politics tends to ignore race as a significant factor of analysis. Sadiya Akram exposes the poor coverage of race and racism by two of the most influential journals studying British politics, and argues that the discipline has to reckon with this stark omission.

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The Grenfell tragedy (2017), the Windrush scandal (2017), and the Black Lives Matter movement signify the centrality of race to British life and politics, yet the discipline of British politics has been curiously absent in these debates. Disciplinary silence on race extends to the litany of post-war race-related events that foreshadow contemporary issues, whether they be the political response to post-war immigration and the pressure for legislative restrictions, or the race riots of the 1980s and 2000s. While race is undoubtably a significant vector for analysis in the British polity, the discipline of British politics has neglected race from its disciplinary remit – how do we explain and, in turn, remedy this?

The argument that the discipline of British politics has neglected questions of race is patently demonstrated by the exclusion of race from the core concerns of the discipline.

While there is a apparent commitment to equality and anti-racism in the discipline of British politics, persistent racial inequality in British society necessitates that we are alert to disciplinary blind spots. British politics scholars may perceive race to be outside of their disciplinary remit, but this is misjudged. Sociology, for example, has had to grapple with its own complicated relationship with race, including the question of to what extent the birth of the discipline of sociology, linked as it is with modernity, was involved in promoting racialised imperial projects and exclusionary practices with regards its canon. Such questions are being considered under the decolonisation agenda, but in British politics we are somewhat behind in this process of reckoning with our past. Admittedly these are hard conversations, which may involve discomfort, but disciplinary reflexivity does not come without its challenges.

The argument that the discipline of British politics has neglected questions of race is patently demonstrated by the exclusion of race from the core concerns of the discipline. While race may be noted in the relationship between demography and representation, its status as a social construct is not addressed. Rather than mere oversight, the neglect of race is intimately linked to the discipline’s reliance on the Westminster Model, which obscures questions of race. This diagnosis is severe, but it is not fatal and a meaningful engagement with race requires a re-calibration exercise which situates Britain in terms of its imperial past and racial present.

Insofar as British politics has explored the relationship between politics and race, we see that it is a concern with how race affects voting behaviour which characterises much of the literature on race in British politics.

Race in British politics: an empirical analysis

British politics’ distinctiveness on matters of race might stem from the fact that the discipline focuses on governing institutions, the elites who inhabit them, and the voters who formally participate in the selection of such elites. Insofar as British politics has explored the relationship between politics and race, we see that it is a concern with how race affects voting behaviour which characterises much of the literature on race in British politics. Here we might point to the longstanding body of work addressing the relationship between race and voting behaviour or on race and the Labour party.

An illustration of the thesis that the discipline of British politics has neglected race can be seen in Table 1 below which provides a systematic mapping of articles published on race in two of the journals of the discipline: The British Journal of Politics and International Relations (BJPIR) [1999–2022] and the journal, British Politics (2006–2022).                        

Notes:  Search Terms used: Race, ethnicity, racism, ethnic, BAME, intersectional. **Searches on ‘race’ or ‘ethnicity’ found similar number of entries, hence the single mode of analysis here. ***Miscellaneous includes: books reviews, rejoinders/responses to published articles, editorials, and repetition of articles.

To date, BJPIR (1999–2022) has published 205 out of 924 articles which mention race, ethnicity and related terms. A closer analysis of the data suggests that of these 205 articles identified with the search term race or ethnicity, only 17 deal with race or ethnicity in a substantive manner, meaning that they explore the topics as the main, or one of the main focuses of the article. A further 172 of the 205 articles brought up in the search mention race or ethnicity but do so in a cursory manner. This means that race or ethnicity is mentioned at least once in the article but is not explored in any depth, so it may be mentioned without any examination, or appear in the references or the biography of the author(s) or refer to race as in a competition. Of the total number of articles published in the journal over its history—924 articles—17 of these, or 1.84 per cent deal with race in a substantive manner.

Of the two journals, British Politics (2006–2022) is the younger and has published 102 articles which mention either race, ethnicity or similar terms. Of these 102 articles, only 11 deal with race or ethnicity in a substantive manner. Eleven articles is just over two per cent of the total 535 articles published over the journal’s 28 year span. As such, in BJPIR and British Politics we see that of the total number of articles published, race and related topics feature at around one to two percent. These stark facts speak for themselves.

What is it that we do when we do British politics?

What is the nature of, and limits on, disciplinary reflexivity ask Emirbayer and Desmond? Exploring this issue enables one to address the unsettling question of why certain disciplines have neglected race. To answer this question for the discipline of British politics, we need to recognise that British politics has been extraordinarily resilient in maintaining its dominant paradigm – the Westminster Model – over the years and that if we explore the presuppositions which underlie the model, we also see how the dominance of this model results in the occlusion of race.

This disciplinary unconscious of British politics runs parallel to the scholarly unconscious of the discipline and aligns the political as being wholly contiguous with formal procedures within the public realm.

Documenting racial reflexivity requires that we outline the disciplinary and scholastic unconscious of the discipline and how this shapes its approach to race. Outlining the “disciplinary unconscious” of British politics requires mapping out the disciplinary “common sense”. British politics has remained relatively immune to change, maintaining a core set of assumptions over the course of its evolution, which revolve around the Westminster Model, whose central features include strong cabinet and institutions; government based on majority rule; the importance attached to constitutional convention; a two-party system based on single member constituencies, and the assumption that minorities find expression in one of the major parties. As Dearlove argued in 1982, a central limitation of the Westminster Model is that it purports to portray a particular image of the British political system that is “fundamentally and essentially democratic” rather than a theoretically well-developed model of how British politics works – or one that acknowledges conflict and inequality that is racial or otherwise.

This disciplinary unconscious of British politics runs parallel to the scholarly unconscious of the discipline and aligns the political as being wholly contiguous with formal procedures within the public realm. Consequently, it pays negligible attention to the non-elite individuals who comprise the British polity and neglects the perspectives of subordinate groups and their experiences of race, or other forms of social differentiation. It assumes a neutral starting point for citizens, and equal access to, and engagement with, political resources when this is clearly not the case.

Race features in a vast array of policy decisions including how many international students universities recruit and the knock-on effects this has on immigration policy.

A British politics of race?

If we accept that race has been neglected in British politics and that this requires remedy, then what would a British politics which centres race look like? It must start with critical race theory and its challenge to centre race in our analysis rather than to evade it. A British politics approach to race must also be historically literate, and British racism at a domestic level would be cognisant of critiques of colonialism, empire and racial capitalism and, crucially, recognise Britain’s unique role in orchestrating this racialised order as was argued by Eric Williams in Capitalism and Slavery. British politics departments in the UK contain their own mechanisms for sidelining research on, but also the researchers of, race. Departments need to recruit staff who research race, but also support those who do this work to progress within the discipline.

Disciplinary introspection on the question of race is long overdue. It is beyond contention that the British state is a racializing state, that it mobilises race to create outcomes with symbolic and material effects and the study of British politics needs to reflect this. Race features in a vast array of policy decisions including how many international students universities recruit and the knock-on effects this has on immigration policy. The discipline might easily continue in its present mode and continue to ignore race from its disciplinary remit, but this has serious consequences for its relevance.

All articles posted on this blog give the views of the author(s), and not the position of LSE British Politics and Policy, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Image credit: David Mbiyu on Shutterstock

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