FROM SCHOLARSHIP TO ADMINISTRATION

We have seen in the previous chapters that the foundation of Barker's thought had been laid by the end of the First World War. It was a workable, if somewhat fragile balance between a range of ideas about society and the state in British political thought at the turn of the century. Moreover, it was ensconced within a broader framework of English cultural values, attitudes, and images. His intellectual efforts hitherto were rewarded with invitations to visit colleges in the United States in 1920 and 1929; and the award of a Doctor of Laws degree from Edinburgh in 1921, a Doctor of Letters from Oxford in the following year, and a Doctor of Laws from Harvard when he visited America in 1929. The latter especially pleased him as it constituted – in his mind – ‘the greatest honour the USA can do to an Englishman’. Also, by attaining it, he followed in the footsteps of a political scientist whom he much admired, Lord Bryce.

But despite this recognition, his work was yet to be consolidated more fully; it existed in broad outlines only, with much elaboration and integration still to come from the 1930s onwards. It was not until after 1927 – when he secured the Chair of Political Science at Cambridge – that he turned to this task.