Emma Crewe

The Anthropology of Parliaments offers a fresh, comparative approach to analysing parliaments and democratic politics, drawing together rare ethnographic work by anthropologists and politics scholars from around the world. Crewe’s insights deepen our understanding of the complexity of political institutions. She reveals how elected politicians navigate relationships by forging alliances and thwarting opponents; how parliamentary buildings are constructed as sites of work, debate and the nation in miniature; and how politicians and officials engage with hierarchies, continuity and change. This book also proposes how to study parliaments through an anthropological lens while in conversation with other disciplines. The dive into ethnographies from across Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the Pacific Region demolishes hackneyed geo-political categories and culminates in a new comparative theory about the contradictions in everyday political work. This important book will be of interest to anyone studying parliaments but especially those in the disciplines of anthropology and sociology; politics, legal and development studies; and international relations.

The Anthropology of Parliaments offers a fresh, comparative approach to analysing parliaments and democratic politics, drawing together rare ethnographic work by anthropologists and politics scholars from around the world. Crewe’s insights deepen our understanding of the complexity of political institutions. She reveals how elected politicians navigate relationships by forging alliances and thwarting opponents; how parliamentary buildings are constructed as sites of work, debate and the nation in miniature; and how politicians and officials engage with hierarchies, continuity and change. This book also proposes how to study parliaments through an anthropological lens while in conversation with other disciplines. The dive into ethnographies from across Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the Pacific Region demolishes hackneyed geo-political categories and culminates in a new comparative theory about the contradictions in everyday political work. This important book will be of interest to anyone studying parliaments but especially those in the disciplines of anthropology and sociology; politics, legal and development studies; and international relations.

Featuring interviews with the MPs, journalists and officials close to the centre of Britain's biggest political crisis since the Profumo Affair, this is the story of what really happened during the expenses scandal of 2009. Andrew Walker, the tax expert who oversaw the parliamentary expenses system, and Emma Crewe, a social scientist specialising in the institutions of parliament, bring a fascinating insider/outsider perspective to this account. Far from an apologia, An Extraordinary Scandal explains how parliament fell out of step with the electorate and became a victim of its own remote institutional logic, at odds with an increasingly open, meritocratic society. Charting the crisis from its 1990s origins - when Westminster began, too slowly, to respond to wider societal changes - to its aftermath in 2010, the authors examine how the scandal aggravated the developing crisis of trust between the British electorate and Westminster politicians that continues to this day. Their in-depth research reveals new insight into how the expenses scandal gave us a taste of what was to come, and where its legacy can be traced in the new age of mistrust and outrage, in which politicians are often unfairly vulnerable to being charged in the `court' of public opinion by those they represent.

The House of Commons is one of Britain's mysterious institutions: constantly in the news yet always opaque. In this ground-breaking anthropological study of the world’s most famous parliament, Emma Crewe reveals the hidden mechanisms of parliamentary democracy. Examining the work of Members of Parliament – including neglected areas such as constituencies and committees – this book provides unique insights into the actual lives and working relationships of parliamentarians. 'Why do the public loathe politicians but often love their own MP?' the author asks. The antagonistic façade of politics irritates the public who tend to be unaware that, backstage, democracy relies on MPs consulting, compromising and cooperating across political parties far more than is publicly admitted. As the book shows, this is only one of myriad contradictions in the labyrinths of power. Based on unprecedented access and two years of interviews and research in the Palace of Westminster and MPs’ constituencies, The House of Commons: An Anthropology of MPs at Work challenges the existing scholarship on political institutions and party politics. Moving beyond the narrow confines of rational choice theory and new institutionalism, Emma Crewe presents a radical alternative to the study of British politics by demonstrating that all of its processes hinge on culture, ritual and social relations. A must-read for anyone interested in political anthropology, politics, or the Westminster model.

The House of Commons is one of Britain's mysterious institutions: constantly in the news yet always opaque. In this ground-breaking anthropological study of the world’s most famous parliament, Emma Crewe reveals the hidden mechanisms of parliamentary democracy. Examining the work of Members of Parliament – including neglected areas such as constituencies and committees – this book provides unique insights into the actual lives and working relationships of parliamentarians. 'Why do the public loathe politicians but often love their own MP?' the author asks. The antagonistic façade of politics irritates the public who tend to be unaware that, backstage, democracy relies on MPs consulting, compromising and cooperating across political parties far more than is publicly admitted. As the book shows, this is only one of myriad contradictions in the labyrinths of power. Based on unprecedented access and two years of interviews and research in the Palace of Westminster and MPs’ constituencies, The House of Commons: An Anthropology of MPs at Work challenges the existing scholarship on political institutions and party politics. Moving beyond the narrow confines of rational choice theory and new institutionalism, Emma Crewe presents a radical alternative to the study of British politics by demonstrating that all of its processes hinge on culture, ritual and social relations. A must-read for anyone interested in political anthropology, politics, or the Westminster model.

In recent decades international development has grown into a world-shaping industry. But how do aid agencies work and what do they achieve? How does aid appear to the adults and children who receive it? And why has there been so little improvement in the position of the poor? Viewing aid and development from anthropological perspectives gives illuminating answers to questions such as these. This essential textbook reveals anthropologists' often surprising findings and details ethnographic case studies on the cultures of development. The authors use a fertile literature to examine the socio-political organisation of aid communities, agencies and networks, as well as the judgements they make about each other. The everyday practice of development work is about negotiating power and culture, but in vastly different ways in different contexts and for different social groups. Exploring the spaces between policy and practice, success and failure, the future and the past, this book provides a rounded understanding of development work that suggests new moral and political possibilities for an increasingly globalised world.

This is the only anthropological book about the British Parliament. It marks the first time a researcher has had almost untrammelled access, and every significant aspect of the Upper Chamber has been inquired into. The result is a unique portrait, packed with the unexpected, of a surprising institution which is becoming increasingly influential. Meticulous scholarship is combined with clarity in explanation to produce a work that helps to bridge the gap between anthropology and political science. Political science scholars and students, and those in related fields, as well as anthropologists, will find it of interest, as will many general readers curious about politics.