Statecraft (political science)

The origins of statecraft theory is in the work of British academic Jim Bulpitt. He argued the Conservative government of the early 1980s, under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher, were not motivated by ideological position. Instead, he controversially argued that they were motivated by winning power. What motivates politicians, he argued, was their objective of statecraft. This was defined as the ‘art of winning elections and art of winning elections and achieving some necessary degree of governing competence in office’..[1]

In response to criticisms of the approach, later scholars sought to reflect on the philosophical underpinnings, provided more information about how it could be applied using empirical research and introduced new concepts. The term neo-statecraft was coined to capture the revised approach.[2]

The more recent neo-statecraft variant has a number of core assumptions.[2][3]

1. The primary focus is on the political leader of the state and their closest advisers. The group is referred to as the leadership 'Court'.
2. The Court is a unitary, rational and self-interested actor with the primary governing objective of winning and maintaining power. Rather than seeking to achieve any ideological goals, the Court seeks to achieve statecraft.
3. In order to achieve statecraft, they have to undertake five key tasks:

• Governing competence – governments and leaders need to be seen as competent at managing the country’s affairs, particularly the economy.
• Party management – managing parliamentary backbenchers, constituency associations and pressure groups carefully.
• Developing a winning electoral strategy – creating a set of policies and image that creates momentum in the polls.
• Political argument hegemony – winning the battle of ideas in elite debates
• Bending the rules of the game – they will seek to tilt the political game by introducing constitutional reforms that makes statecraft easier.

The Court will find itself in a strategically selective context, which might make statecraft easier or more difficult to achieve[4]. It has been argued, for example, that Gordon Brown faced a particularly difficult context to govern in because of the financial crisis.[5]

The approach is premised in critical realism and compatible with work historical institutionalism, rather than positivist and behaviouralist approaches to political science.[6]

The approach has been used in a variety of settings, such as a method for assessing political leaders[7]. Using the approach, assessments have been made of Tony Blair[8] and Nicolas Sarkozy[9]. It has also been applied to understand how and why elites change electoral laws[10] and the British policy towards the European Union[11]