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 t ...

(born 15 December 1945) is a former

Master Master, master's or masters may refer to: Ranks or titles In education: *Master (college), head of a college *Master's degree, a postgraduate or sometimes undergraduate degree in the specified discipline *Schoolmaster or master, presiding office ...

University College, Oxford University College, formally The Master and Fellows of the College of the Great Hall of the University commonly called University College in the University of Oxford and colloquially referred to as "Univ", is a Colleges of the University of Oxf ...

, and President of the

Academy of Social Sciences The Academy of Social Sciences (AcSS) 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 m ...

. He was previously

Vice-Chancellor A vice-chancellor (commonly called a VC) serves as the chief executive of a university in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Kenya, other Commonwealth of Nati ...

of the

University of Essex The University of Essex is a public university, public research university in Essex, England. Established by royal charter in 1965, it is one of the original plate glass university, plate glass universities. The university comprises three camp ...

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

Early life and education

The son of

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

refugees from

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

and

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

, Crewe was educated at

Manchester Grammar School The Manchester Grammar School (MGS) is a highly Selective school, selective Private_schools_in_the_United_Kingdom, private day school for boys aged 7-18 in Manchester, England, which was founded in 1515 by Hugh Oldham (then Bishop of Exeter). ...

and then went to

Exeter College, Oxford Exeter College (in full: The Rector and Scholars of Exeter College in the University of Oxford) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England, and the fourth-oldest college of the university. The college was founde ...

, where he gained a first-class BA in

Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Philosophy, politics and economics, or politics, philosophy and economics (PPE), is an interdisciplinary undergraduate or postgraduate degree which combines study from three disciplines. The first institution to offer degrees in PPE was the Unive ...

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), established in 1895, is a public university, public research university in London, England, and a member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the University ...

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 fundin ...

) 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 Abstr ...

'' 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 and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...

and

Labour Parties Labour Party or Labor Party is a name used by many political parties. Africa Burkina Faso * Party of Labour of Burkina, active 1990–1996 * Voltaic Labour Party, active South Africa * Labour Party (South Africa) * Labour Party (South Africa, ...

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 is the political philosophy that dominated the history of the British Labour Party from the mid-late 1990s to 2010 under the leadership of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. The term originated in a conference slogan first used by the ...

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 Form ...

(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 The 1994 Group was a coalition of smaller research-intensive universities in the United Kingdom, founded in 1994 to defend these universities' interests following the creation of the Russell Group by larger research-intensive universities earlie ...

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 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 ...

'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

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 Order of chivalry, orders of chivalry; it is a part of the Orders, decorations, and medals ...

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 c ...

. Named in his honour and designed by the architect

Patel Taylor Patel Taylor is an architectural practice based in Clerkenwell, London. Placemaking defines its work. It operates from studios in Rawstorne Street, in an old warehouse converted by the firm in 2011. History Patel Taylor was founded by Pankaj ...

, the ''Ivor Crewe Lecture Hall'' at the University of Essex was completed in 2006. The building was nominated for a

Civic Trust Award The Civic Trust Awards scheme is a British awards scheme to recognise outstanding architecture, planning and design in the built environment. It was established in 1959, and is the longest-standing built environment awards scheme in Europe. The ...

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 Robert Jacob Alexander Skidelsky, Baron Skidelsky, (born 25 April 1939) is a British economic historian. He is the author of a three-volume, award-winning biography of British economist John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946). Skidelsky read histor ...

(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 Dennis Kavanagh (born 27 March 1941) is a British political analyst and since 1996 has been Professor of Politics at the University of Liverpool, and now Emeritus Professor. He has written extensively on post- war British politics. With David Bu ...

and

Anthony Seldon Sir Anthony Francis Seldon (born 2 August 1953) is a British contemporary historian and educator. As an author, he is known for his political biographies of consecutive British Prime Ministers, John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Camer ...

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

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, 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

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 univers ...

.
Ivor Crewe: all to play for
''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', 3 February 2004.
Sir Ivor Crewe's CV at the University of Essex
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crewe, Ivor 1945 births Living people Jewish British scientists 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 British academic journal editors Knights Bachelor