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 →

Policy & Politics authors call for a moratorium on the use of management consultants in the NHS until effective governance is established

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IanKirkpatricketalIan Kirkpatrick, Andrew Sturdy, and Gianluca Veronesi

A recent study on the impact of management consultants on public service efficiency, published in Policy & Politics, prompted this letter from the authors calling for a moratorium on their use until effective governance is established.

 

Open letter to the Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care

 2nd July, 2018

Dear Mr Hunt,

Re Calling for a moratorium on the use of external management consultants in the NHS until effective governance is established

We recently conducted independent research on the use of external management consultants in the NHS in England. This was subjected to peer review to establish the rigour of its analysis and published in an academic journal (Policy & Politics). Since then, it was mentioned in a parliamentary debate (23rd April, 2018, Hansard Volume 639) and widely reported in the media (21st February, 2018), including in The Times, which has also seen this letter.  Continue reading →

Integration strategy must focus on tackling poverty for BME families

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debbie-weekes-bernard-square_0Debbie Weekes-Bernard, Joseph Rowntree Foundation

This blog post was originally published on the Joseph Rowntree Foundation blog on 8 June 2018.

Someone from a black and minority ethnic background is twice as likely to experience poverty as someone from a white background in the UK. The Government’s developing Integration Strategy is an opportunity to right this wrong, but it currently neglects vital aspects of how to tackle poverty for people from different ethnic backgrounds – specifically how low pay and a lack of progression opportunities trap people in poverty.  Continue reading →

Framing unpopular policies and creating policy winners – the role of heresthetics

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Drew_FaheyJoseph Drew and
Glenn Fahey

This blog post was originally published on the Discover Society – Policy and Politics blog on 5 June 2018.

Policy-makers sometimes find themselves in desperate predicaments when attempting to become policy winners – especially when they have previously sustained resounding losses on a given issue. In such situations, rhetorical efforts may have failed to persuade audiences and, yet, the status quo position may also be untenable. In our recent Policy & Politics article on ‘Framing unpopular policies and creating winners – the role of heresthetics’ (free to access until 30 June), we show how policy-makers in these kinds of desperate predicaments can still win, somewhat against the odds, by employing the art of political manipulation (the term for this is ‘heresthetic’, coined by the late William H. Riker). Specifically, we draw attention to the ‘dimension’ heresthetic – arguing that by changing the way an unpopular policy is framed, one can tap into latent attitudes conducive to one’s cause and thus structure the world so that one can win. We call practitioners of this art of heresthetic ‘herestheticians’.  Continue reading →

How majoritarianism endures in the structures of the UK’s devolved institutions

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FelicityProfileFelicity Matthews, Co-Editor of Policy & Politics

This blog post was originally published on the Democratic Audit UK website on 11 May 2018.

This year, the Scotland Act 1998 and the Government of Wales Act 1998 celebrate their twentieth anniversary. Few would disagree that the passage of these acts, which established the Scottish Parliament and National Assembly for Wales, was an important watershed in the United Kingdom’s majoritarian tradition. This milestone anniversary provides a timely opportunity to reflect on the extent to which devolution has delivered the ‘new politics’ that was widely anticipated; and in my recently published article in The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, I examine the extent to which devolution has ‘made a difference’ by systematically comparing the institutional architecture of the Scottish Parliament and National Assembly for Wales with that of Westminster.  Continue reading →