@article{oai:shiga-u.repo.nii.ac.jp:00008144,
 author = {Aspinall, Robert W},
 issue = {第385号},
 journal = {彦根論叢},
 month = {Sep},
 note = {Departmental Bulletin Paper, This paper addresses the changes that took
place in the Labour Party under Tony Blair’s
leadership. It examines what happened to the
internal organization of the party and what effect
this had on the identity and nature of the party. The theory of party organization devised
by Robert Michels known as “the iron law of
oligarchy” is used to examine the balance of
power between party leadership and rank-andfile
within the Labour Party. During the early 1980s the rank-and-file members of the party
were able to exert their influence against the
wishes of most of the leadership. In the late
1980s and into the 1990s, however, the leadership re-asserted their authority. Tony Blair was at first a very popular and
charismatic leader who seemed to justify the
“psychological causes of oligarchy” described
by Michels. However, his popularity and the
electoral success of the Labour Party subsequently
declined. The paper then investigates
four possible long-term effects of Blair’s leadership on the party. (1) The Labour Party became
a kinder and gentler version of Thatcher’s Conservative Party. (2) The Labour Party under
Blair tried to modernize and adapt to new challenges
but ultimately failed to do so. (3) The
Labour Party modernized and adapted to new
external conditions while retaining its core values.
(4) Blair modernized the party to such an
extent that it was transformed into a new kind
of progressive party suitable to the politics of
the 21st Century. The paper concludes that none of these four options describes adequately
the entire story of the rise and fall of New Labour under Tony Blair’s leadership. Each
account does, however, describe in part what
happened during the two decades of the 1990s and the 2000s., 彦根論叢, 第385号, pp. 18-31, The Hikone Ronso, No.385, pp. 18-31},
 pages = {18--31},
 title = {The British Labour Party Under Tony Blair's Leadership : Transformation, Evolution or Wrong Direction?},
 year = {2010}
}