Blick_UK Politics (9780198825555)_CH10

222 Chapter 10  Identity, equality, and power

Learning Aims After reading this chapter, you will be able to: ❚ Remember the range of different characteristics that can define identity within UK society. ❚ Understand the different forms of discrimination that people can face. ❚ Apply a variety of theoretical perspectives involving identity, equality, and power in UK society, including around enforcement of socio-economic equality, and representation. ❚ Analyse the rules and mechanisms that exist to promote equality and prohibit discrimination in the UK. ❚ Evaluate how effective different people and groups are at exercising power. ❚ Create an argument about the nature of political equality in the UK.

10.1 What is it? 10.1.1 Identity and equality

Identity and equality, therefore, have important connota- tions for UK politics. While there are efforts from within the system to respond to issues they raise, they are not always successful. Some groups may be numerically underrepre- sented in positions of public authority; and policy might not effectively provide for their interests. The complexity of social identity and efforts to achieve equality can encourage the use of different ways of viewing politics. For instance, a feminist approach to UK politics can perceive a system in which male-centred, pa- triarchal values retain a predominant role (John, 2018b: 7). Critical race theory—which originated in the US but is applied by some theorists to the UK—rests on the tenet that white supremacy is ingrained within a society char- acterized by institutional discrimination against people from other racial groups (Warmington, 2012: 9–11). Queer theory entails the analysis of political power structures from the perspective of sexual identity, and the marginali- zation or exclusion of certain groups within society (Sulli- van, 2003). All of these outlooks suggest that identity is a fundamental lens through which many groups of people in the UK see politics.

Identity is about the things that make you who you are. In a democracy, people are supposed to be equal. These two concepts and the connections between them are central to politics (Bernstein, 2005). Your identity might affect how you vote or lead you to take part in a political campaign as a way of giving expression to your sex, your ethnicity, or your sexual orientation. Other people may behave towards you in certain ways because of the characteristics making up your identity (or characteristics they perceive you to have). Your university or workplace might provide you with support be- cause of a physical or mental disability. Or—less favourably— an employer might discriminate against you, perhaps declin- ing to offer you a job for which you have applied, for the same reason (even though they probably would not admit to this reason, and such discrimination is likely to be illegal). The political system to some extent reflects the exist- ence of identity; parties might seek to appeal to voters within identity groups (such as women, or people from par- ticular ethnic or religious groups). They might also adopt policies they think will appeal to people who possess those characteristics, or give attention to the profile of their own candidates and how far that profile reflects different groups within society. Public authorities also have a role in dealing with issues relating to identity on behalf of individuals and society as a whole. They might, for instance, promote equality and set out to prevent discrimination through legislative measures and policy programmes. In doing so they seek to reconcile an im- portant tension within a democracy. On the one hand, people are in theory equal and enjoy the same rights within a socie- ty that seeks to bind them together (see Chapter 5). Yet, on the other hand, they have many divergent characteristics for which they might desire recognition or which they might seek to express, and which may in turn lead to their being denied the security and opportunity to which they are entitled.

A longstanding means of classifying members of society has been class. This concept can be difficult to define. It might be related to someone’s family background and per- haps the area they come from; even the accent in which they speak. Some of these factors can have significant consequences for a person’s future life chances. A fre- quently employed way of defining social class —or social grade , the term usually strictly employed in this instance— is through classifying the particular type of occupation they, or the main income earner in their household, perform (or whether they work at all). As discussed in Chapter 7, social class or grade is becoming less relevant as a means of determining the likelihood of people voting for a particular party in an election. But while class is seemingly less im- portant to party-political orientation than it once was, it still © Oxfor University Press