The Theory and Practice of Conservative Propaganda and Organisation in Britain and France in the Interwar Years

Abstract

Kevin Passmore compares the theory and practice of conservative propaganda and organisation in Britain and France in the 1930s. The ‘failure’ of the French conservatives to establish a united conservative party on the ‘British model’ has much preoccupied historians. They have advanced various explanations, from the persistence in France of incompatible mentalities inherited from the Revolution, through the atavistic individualism of local politicians, to the failure of French society to respond to the challenges of modernity. These explanations all assume that French conservatism is a discrete national ‘case’ that should be measured against the normative ‘British model’. Instead, Kevin Passmore combines comparative with transnational methods to demonstrate that right-wing politicians in both countries, belonging to different conservative tendencies, drew upon similar ideas, notably crowd psychology, updated with the latest management and work science and the techniques of ‘modern advertising,’ but put them to very different uses in specific contexts.

The various shades of [French] Republicans are widely separated both on principle and on policy. They are individualists by conviction, and have no ingrained habit of party discipline. M. Henri de Kerillis, who has done more than anyone else to educate up to party unity, is himself doubtful of its fortunes in the second ballot.

The Times, ‘Republican divisions’, 4 May 1928