ABSTRACT
The previous two chapters used an interpretive approach to explore the traditions and problems that inform New Labour’s ideas. All too often political scientists assume that interpretive approaches aim solely at an understanding of ideas as opposed to an explanation of actions and practices. In their view, interpretation enables us to understand the meanings that bubble up on the surface of politics, but, if we want to explain these bubbles, we need to invoke the deeper currents of interests, economic forces, or institutions. This view implies that interests, economic forces, or institutions are given, objective facts as opposed to subjective beliefs. Typically it also equates subjective beliefs solely with values and identities. I have argued, in contrast, that interests, economic forces, and institutions can influence actions only by way of people’s beliefs about them, for all of our experiences are constructed in part by our prior theories. When people act on interests or institutional norms, they still act on their beliefs; it is just that the relevant beliefs are those they hold about their interests or institutional norms rather than about values or identities. Any adequate explanation of people’s actions has to invoke their beliefs even if only implicitly. An interpretive study provides us, in other words, with an explanation – as well as an understanding – of the relevant actions and practices. When we point to the traditions and problems against the background of which people formed their beliefs, we explain why they hold the beliefs they do, and when we unpack people’s beliefs and desires, we explain their actions and the practices to which these actions give rise.
