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Glite Dictionary
parish-pump approach

parish-pump approach

9.9
A focus on small local issues and interests instead of wider public needs
  • noun
  • Literature
translation icon : enfoque parroquial
  • The new mayor rejected the parish-pump approach and promoted policies that benefited the entire city.

Examples

  • Critics accused the committee of taking a parish-pump approach instead of considering impacts on the whole country.

  • Her speech condemned the parish-pump approach that often hindered meaningful reform.

  • The parish-pump approach is too limited.

  • Don't use the parish-pump approach!

  • Critics accused the committee of taking a parish-pump approach instead of considering impacts on the whole country.

  • Her speech condemned the parish-pump approach that often hindered meaningful reform.

  • The new mayor decided to abandon the parish-pump approach and focus on initiatives that served the whole community.

Synonyms

parish pump politics
vsparish-pump approach
  • Literature
8.4

Local political issues that focus on small community matters instead of national problems

is an approach focused on local interests while ignoring wider national concerns
parochial attitude
vsparish-pump approach
8.0

A way of thinking that only cares about local matters and ignores wider issues

is specific to decision making that limits consideration to local interests only

Antonyms

holistic
46 5.8

Considering the whole and how its parts work together

Surface Forms

parish-pump approach singular
parish-pump approaches plural

Morphology

parish-pump + approach

The sense of narrow, parochial concerns is only indirectly signaled by the constituents: 'parish' denotes a small local community and 'pump' a mundane local facility, so the phrase relies on a metonymic/cultural extension (the 'parish pump' as shorthand for petty local issues). A B1 learner who knows the two words might guess a local connection but would not reliably derive the idiomatic meaning without exposure to the British political usage, so it is partially but not fully transparent.

Etymology

Parish-pump approach may come from village life where people met at the parish pump to chat about small local problems. So it now means 'focusing only on local interests' instead of thinking about the whole country.