ABSTRACT
Dennis Kavanagh Thatcherism and British Politics (1990) One conclusion is already clear. If a democratic deficit distinguishes British politics at the end of the twentieth century, an important part of the reason is to be found in the political traditions that have dominated British politics for much of the century. Ostensibly rivals, they have nevertheless colluded in the maintenance of a particular view of politics and of a system which gave expression to that view. The same point can be put in reverse: what has distinguished twentieth-century British politics has been the general absence of effective political traditions capable of pressing alternative definitions of a democratic polity. One such tradition is that of radicalism, or civic republicanism.
