Author: policypressblog

Democracy needs more than just voice: coping with communicative plenty

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Ercan_Hendricks_DryzekSelen A. Ercan, Carolyn M. Hendriks and John S. Dryzek

Imagine a crowded restaurant that is starting to get noisy. The noise at each table begins to rise as people try to make themselves heard. Eventually the noise becomes so loud that nobody can hear anything. Here’s a familiar context where there is plenty of expression, but precious little listening, and not much good conversation.

The noisy restaurant is a metaphor, we believe, for what we see in contemporary democracy where citizens have plenty of opportunities to express their views and opinions about anything that concerns them, but there is no guarantee and little likelihood that these views will be listened to, reflected upon, and/or taken up by decision-making bodies.

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Do contract characteristics impact on private investment in public-private partnerships? Evidence from China

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Wang etalHuanming Wang, Bin Chen, Wei Xiong and Guangdong Wu

Over the past three decades, many developed and developing countries have witnessed the increasing provision of public goods and services through private firms. With the New Public Management movement, state monopolies in many infrastructure sectors have been relaxed and privatization has been utilized as an alternative way of delivering public services. Private-capital investment has been allowed to build, operate and maintain components of the infrastructure through various types of cooperation between the public and private sectors. As a result, public-private partnerships (PPPs) have become a prominent part of the local government landscape. Advocates have emphasized the advantages of private investment in PPP infrastructure projects: enhanced efficiency, cost savings, improved effectiveness, better quality of services, and reduced government overheads.

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Understanding academic impact: fear and failure, stealth and seeds

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Matt FlindersMatthew Flinders

This blog post was originally published on the Oxford University Press Blog on 8 August 2018.

Failure is an unavoidable element of any academic career. For all but a small number of ‘superstar über-scholars’ most of the research papers we submit will be rejected, our most innovative book proposals will be politely rebuffed, and our applications for grants, prizes and fellowships will fall foul of good fortune. There is, of course, a strong correlation between ambition and failure in the sense that the more innovative and risky you try to be, the bolder the claims you try to substantiate, and the ‘bigger’ the journal you try to publish in the higher your chances of rejection.

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New research articles on democracy from Policy & Politics: free to download until 20 September

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BROWN_SarahSarah Brown,
Journal Manager of Policy & Politics

In celebration of APSA’s Conference theme this year on democracy and its discontents, we bring you the latest and best of our research on that topic which is free to access until 20 September 2018. Just click on the hyperlinks below to go straight to the download page for each article.

To whet your appetite, here are three highlights from our range of articles on democracy, all of which aim to enhance our understanding of its importance.

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New virtual collection on Public Participation: free to download until 20 September

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BROWN_SarahSarah Brown,
Journal Manager of Policy & Politics

Read our new free virtual collection on Public Participation while you’re at ECPR 2018. All the articles are free to download from 20 August – 20 September 2018.

Whatever your view on public participation, our new virtual collection brings you our most recent research on the topic from a range of different perspectives, all of which aim to enhance our understanding of its importance. Opening the collection is one of our most innovative articles that seeks to address the gap between evidence and policy on how population health outcomes are determined by health discourses. To explore understandings of the cause of ill health in two deindustrialised areas of Scotland, interviews with participants produced vivid articulations of the links between politics, policies, deindustrialisation, damage to community fabric and impacts on health, hence the title: Working-class discourses of politics, policy and health: ‘I don’t smoke; I don’t drink. The only thing wrong with me is my health’.

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Updating your course reading lists? Check out our essential reading recommendations from Oscar Berglund, Digital Associate Editor for Policy & Politics

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OscarOscar Berglund,
Digital Associate Editor for Policy & Politics

All articles mentioned in this blog post are free to access until 20th September. 

This time of year, many of us involved in teaching are looking at how to refresh our reading lists for the upcoming academic year. Here at Policy & Politics, we thought that we would give a little helping hand with that by going through some of our latest content that we think will help students understand the things we try to teach.

For those of us teaching concepts, models and theories of the policy process, the recent Weible and Cairney special issue on ‘Practical lessons from policy theories’ is a gold mine where many of the papers give a good account of their respective field, whilst seeking to take the concepts forward and increase their policy relevance. This includes articles on the Multiple Streams Approach, Institutional Analysis and Development, Punctuated Equilibrium Theory and the Advocacy Coalition Framework that will all help students make sense of these concepts.  Continue reading →

Do candidates from non-profit organisations who adopt party political values improve their chances of electoral success?

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Potluka_PerezOto Potluka and Marybel Perez

Candidates aspiring to win a seat in local elections may lead candidates to act instrumentally. In our recent research published in the journal Policy & Politics, we question whether leaders of non-profit organisations (NGOs) may be willing to set aside NGO values to adopt party values when they become candidates for local office. Our answer is yes. Our results suggest that the most important factor relating to whether a candidate was elected was the national standing of the relevant political party; local values on local issues were found to be irrelevant.  Continue reading →

New call for Policy & Politics special issue proposals

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logoSarah Brown, Journal Manager

The journal’s co-editors invite proposals for a special issue to be published online in 2020 and in print in 2021 that will make a significant contribution to our understanding of public or social policy and/or politics.

We receive a large number of enquiries about and proposals for special issues which means that we are in the enviable position of selecting only the very strongest. To be successful proposals need to offer a coherent set of excellent original research articles that will reframe or develop knowledge on a topic which is at the leading edge of current debates and is clearly relevant to the journal’s worldwide readership. Proposals may include a mixture of theoretical, conceptual and empirical cases and a range of research methods, and must demonstrate how they will make a significant and lasting contribution to the field.  Continue reading →

Direct Democracy: Political back-seat driving, without licence and under the influence?

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Bianca Rousselot_Thomas Milic_Adrian VatterBianca Rousselot, Thomas Milic and Adrian Vatter

 

 

Chances are, if you were in the “remain” and not in the “leave” camp, you probably think the referendum on Brexit should never have been called. And you probably wouldn’t be alone in that. Think back to the time when French and Dutch voters dealt a death blow to the EU Constitutional Treaty in the 2005 referendums. There were probably a good many people who thought the same thing then. As Qvortrup (2014) puts it, direct democracy “in recent years has thwarted cherished ideas and many a politician’s pet project”.  Continue reading →

Paul Cairney reviews Graham Room’s book on Agile Actors on Complex Terrains (2016)

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Paul CairneyPaul Cairney

Paul Cairney reviews Graham Room’s Agile Actors on Complex Terrains (Routledge, 2016). Paul is guest editor of our 2018 special issue: Practical Lessons on Policy Theories

Some background context on complexity theory

If used wisely, complexity theory has the potential to make a great contribution to the study of politics and policymaking. It offers a way to think about, and visualise, the interaction between many actors, following many rules, to produce outcomes that we can relate to the properties of complex systems.  Continue reading →