Abolition and Agenda: The role of ideas in the construction of the UK Government response to human trafficking and modern slavery

Williams-Woods, Alexandra (2021) Abolition and Agenda: The role of ideas in the construction of the UK Government response to human trafficking and modern slavery. PhD thesis, University of Liverpool.

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Abstract

When the UK Modern Slavery Act (2015) was passed in March 2015 it was proclaimed by the government to be ‘world leading’. The Act represented the culmination of several years of political focus on the issue of modern slavery, led by then Home Secretary Theresa May. This period also saw the reframing of ‘human trafficking’ to ‘modern slavery’ in government discourse. Discussion within the literature has argued that human trafficking/modern slavery (HTMS) policy responses in the UK have been the result of immigration agendas, international pressure, or domestic campaigning. A small field of scholarship has applied methods of public policy analysis to the problem. However, there has been a paucity of research attempting to understand how the ‘problem’ of HTMS has been constructed in UK political discourse, and how this influences policy responses. There is also a lack of understanding of why policies took the form they did at crucial policy moments. By focusing on the role of ‘ideas’ and using an interpretive policy analysis methodology drawing on Discursive Institutionalism, this thesis analyses the discursive construction of HTMS in the UK between 2000 and 2015. The argument is made that as a ‘new’ policy area, the construction of HTMS was influenced by existing policy discourses within certain key areas with which there is overlap: immigration, sex work, and economic regulation. This research demonstrates that the interaction between these discourses initially created an understanding of HTMS that was based on extreme examples of exploitation and a ‘moral obligation’ to respond, with a corresponding securitization of the border. This changed in 2013, when a discursive shift took place that obscured immigration discourses and emphasised the threat to UK society and economy from ‘modern slavery’. This research contributes to the existing literature by theorising the link between the problem construction and policy agenda of HTMS. By focusing on intersecting policy areas of immigration, sex work, and economic regulation this thesis develops an understanding of the importance of domestic political communication and contestation in HTMS construction. Using Discursive Institutionalist theory, the research evidences the communication of ideas as a causal mechanism in the development of the modern slavery policy field.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Divisions:	Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Histories, Languages and Cultures
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	13 Oct 2022 14:48
Last Modified:	18 Jan 2023 21:19
DOI:	10.17638/03145564
Supervisors:	Balch, Alex Harris, Erika ORCID: 0000-0001-9284-0215
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3145564