Third Way essays

Third Way essays We live in a world of dramatic change and the old ideologies that have dominated the last century do not provide the answers. (Tony Blair). Do you think Blairs Third Way provides the answer? In this essay I intend to examine the underlying concepts of the Third Way and the solutions it has to offer on some of the major issues confronting contemporary British and politics. I shall in no way be able to do justice in this short essay by discussing the Third Way in any great detail as the Third Way itself has proven to be a very ambiguous subject. I am proposing to structure this essay in a way so that I shall be able to cover three to four central ideological concepts of Blairs Third Way. So what is the Third Way. Its critics claim that its eyewash, void of any real substance. They hold it to be a collaboration of policies, which are with out any real content. They define the Third Way as being undefined, an elusive set of doctrines which have been taken from existing ideologies on orde r to form an incoherent set of policies. They argue that the underlying concept of the Third Way is in no way unique, its remnants can be found littered throughout the twentieth century where a compromise or a third way has a always been sought to the problems of that particular time. Alan Ryan offers the following interpretation: The Third Way is a distinct and viable political position, but it isnt an innovation. It first emerged in British Politics about a century ago at which point it was known as new Liberalism. (1) Keeping in mind that before the advent of the Third Way, the Labour government before its ascent to power was portrayed has having a non-ideological basis for their policies. Steven Wood (a fellow in politics at Magdalene College, Oxford) says that the Third Way represents a product differentiation with out really knowing what the product is (2) Proponents of the Third...