Sir Ivor Martin Crewe DL

FAcSS The Fellowship of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS) is an award granted by the Academy of Social Sciences to leading academics, policy-makers, and practitioners of the social sciences. Fellows were previously known as Academicians and used the ...

(born 15 December 1945) was until 2020 the Master of

University College, Oxford University College (in full The College of the Great Hall of the University of Oxford, colloquially referred to as "Univ") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It has a claim to being the oldest college of the unive ...

, and President of the

Academy of Social Sciences The Academy of Social Sciences is a representative body for social sciences in the United Kingdom. The Academy promotes social science through its sponsorship of the Campaign for Social Science, its links with Government on a variety of matters, ...

. He was previously

Vice-Chancellor A chancellor is a leader of a college or university, usually either the executive or ceremonial head of the university or of a university campus within a university system. In most Commonwealth and former Commonwealth nations, the chancellor is ...

of the

University of Essex The University of Essex is a public research university in Essex, England. Established by royal charter in 1965, Essex is one of the original plate glass universities. Essex's shield consists of the ancient arms attributed to the Kingdom of Es ...

and also a Professor in the Department of Government at Essex.

Early life and education

The son of

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

refugees from

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

and

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

, Crewe was educated at

Manchester Grammar School The Manchester Grammar School (MGS) in Manchester, England, is the largest independent day school for boys in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1515 as a free grammar school next to Manchester Parish Church, it moved in 1931 to its present site at ...

and then went to

Exeter College, Oxford (Let Exeter Flourish) , old_names = ''Stapeldon Hall'' , named_for = Walter de Stapledon, Bishop of Exeter , established = , sister_college = Emmanuel College, Cambridge , rector = Sir Richard Trainor ...

, where he gained a first-class BA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics in 1966. In 1968 he received his MSc (Econ.) from the

London School of Economics and Political Science The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is a public university, public research university located in London, England and a constituent college of the federal University of London. Founded in 1895 by Fabian Society members Sidn ...

where he earned the SSRC (now, the

ESRC The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), formerly the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), is part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). UKRI is a non-departmental public body (NDPB) funded by the UK government. ESRC provides fundi ...

) post-graduate award.

Academic career

Crewe was appointed as an Assistant Lecturer in Politics at Lancaster University at the age of 21, before returning to Oxford in 1969 for two years as a Junior Research Fellow, thereafter moving to a Lectureship at the Department of Government at the University of Essex in 1971. At Essex, Crewe was director of the ESRC Data Archive from 1974 to 1982, and co-director of the British Election Study from 1973-81. With Dr David Rose, he established the British Household Panel Study and founded the Institute of Social and Economic Research at Essex in 1990. From 1977-82, Crewe was editor of the ''

British Journal of Political Science ''British Journal of Political Science'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering all aspects of political science. Abstracting and indexing The journal is abstracted and indexed in EBSCOhost, International Political Science Abst ...

'' and from 1984-92 he was a co-editor. Crewe undertook extensive research from the early 1970s to the mid-1990s in elections and voting behaviour, and published his results in ''Decade of Dealignment'' (1983, with Bo Sarlvik) and numerous articles, including the influential 'Partisan Dealignment in Britain 1964–74', ''British Journal of Political Science'', 7(2), pp. 129–90 (with Bo Sarlvik and James Alt), which argued that voters' identification with the

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

and

Labour Parties Labour Party or Labor Party is a name used by many political parties. Many of these parties have links to the trade union movement or organised labour in general. Labour parties can exist across the political spectrum, but most are centre-left or ...

was steadily weakening as a result of the decline in class loyalty and in the connections voters made between class interests and party policies. He was a frequent commentator on UK elections for television and the press. He argued that the Labour Party was destined for electoral defeat as the traditional working class contracted unless it both appealed to a wider social constituency embracing other classes and revised its assumptions about the policies that would appeal to a majority of voters. He regarded the electoral success of

New Labour New Labour was a period in the history of the British Labour Party from the mid to late 1990s until 2010 under the leadership of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. The name dates from a conference slogan first used by the party in 1994, later seen ...

in the 1997 and 2001 general elections as a vindication of his electoral analysis. In 1995 he published (with Anthony King) a study of the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties Fo ...

(SDP), a breakaway from the Labour Party, which for him represented a symptom of the crumbling of the old foundations of Britain's two-party system. From 1995 to 1 September 2007, Crewe was the Vice-Chancellor of the

and is a former Chair of the 1994 Group and President of

Universities UK Universities UK (UUK) is an advocacy organisation for universities in the United Kingdom. It began life in the early 20th century through informal meetings of vice-chancellors of a number of universities and principals of university colleges and ...

. As President of UUK from 2003 to 2005, he mobilised university Vice-Chancellors in favour of the Government's proposal to introduce tuition fees. In July 2008, Crewe succeeded

Lord Butler of Brockwell Frederick Edward Robin Butler, Baron Butler of Brockwell, (born 3 January 1938) is a retired British civil servant, now sitting in the House of Lords as a crossbencher. Early life and family Butler was born in Lytham St Annes, Lancashire, on ...

as Master of

. In 2013 Crewe and King published ''The Blunders of our Governments'', a study of major failures of public policy in modern Britain.

Peter Preston Peter John Preston (23 May 1938 – 6 January 2018) was a British journalist and author. He was editor of ''The Guardian'' for twenty years, from 1975 to 1995. Early life Peter Preston was born in Barrow upon Soar, Leicestershire, the son of J ...

's review in ''The Guardian'' commented "It should be a deeply distressing account of blunders past, present and pending from two of our most brilliant political analysts, but in fact you have to smile gallantly through many of the disasters that throng 400 or more of these pages".

Honours

The Ivor Crewe Lecture Hall, from Library

Crewe was appointed

Knight Bachelor The title of Knight Bachelor is the basic rank granted to a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not inducted as a member of one of the organised orders of chivalry; it is a part of the British honours system. Knights Bachelor are t ...

in the

2006 New Year Honours The New Year Honours 2006 in some Commonwealth realms were announced (on 31 December 2005) in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Grenada, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize, and Saint Christopher and Nevis to cel ...

. Named in his honour and designed by the architect Patel Taylor, the ''Ivor Crewe Lecture Hall'' at the University of Essex was completed in 2006. The building was nominated for a Civic Trust Award in 2008.

References

Bibliography

*Ivor Crewe, 'The Electorate: Partisan Dealignment Ten Years On (1984)', ''West European Politics'', 6(4), pp. 183–215. *Ivor Crewe, 'Has the Electorate Become Thatcherite?', in Robert Skidelsky (ed.), ''Thatcherism'' (

Chatto & Windus Chatto & Windus is an imprint of Penguin Random House that was formerly an independent book publishing company founded in London in 1855 by John Camden Hotten. Following Hotten's death, the firm would reorganize under the names of his busines ...

, 1988), pp. 25–49. *Ivor Crewe, 'Values: The Crusade that Failed' in Dennis Kavanagh and

Anthony Seldon Sir Anthony Francis Seldon (born 2 August 1953) is a British educator and contemporary historian. As an author, he is known in part for his political biographies of Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Ther ...

(eds.), ''The Thatcher Effect'' (

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...

, 1989), pp. 239–50. *Ivor Crewe, 'Margaret Thatcher: As the British Saw Her', ''The Public Perspective'', Vol. 2(2), January/February 1991, pp. 15–17. *Ivor Crewe, 'The Thatcher legacy', in Anthony King (ed.), ''Britain at the Polls, 1992'' (Chatham House, 1992), pp. 1–28. *Ivor Crewe, 'Electoral Behaviour' in Dennis Kavanagh and

(eds.), ''The Major Effect'' (Macmillan, 1994), pp. 99–121. *Ivor Crewe and Anthony King, ''SDP: The Birth, Life and Death of the British Social Democratic Party'' (Oxford University Press, 1995). *Ivor Crewe and Anthony King, ''The Blunders of our Governments'' (Oneworld Publications, 2013).

External links

Biography
from

EPSRC The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is a British Research Council that provides government funding for grants to undertake research and postgraduate degrees in engineering and the physical sciences, mainly to unive ...

.
Ivor Crewe: all to play for
''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide ...

'', 3 February 2004.
Sir Ivor Crewe's CV at the University of Essex
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crewe, Ivor 1945 births Living people British Jews People educated at Manchester Grammar School Alumni of Exeter College, Oxford Alumni of the London School of Economics People associated with the University of Essex Deputy Lieutenants of Essex Fellows of Nuffield College, Oxford Masters of University College, Oxford British political scientists Fellows of the Academy of Social Sciences British editors Academic journal editors Knights Bachelor