We need to challenge the myth that the rich are specially-talented wealth creators

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Andrew Sayer
Andrew Sayer

In this article Andrew Sayer revives some concepts – ‘unearned income’, ‘rentiers’, ‘functionless investors’, and ‘improperty’ – to explain why the very rich are unjust and dysfunctional. We need to challenge the myth that the rich are specially-talented wealth creators, he argues. This article is reposted from the British Politics and Policy Blog.

In light of the news that the richest 80 people in the world have as much wealth as the poorest half of the world’s population, all 3.5 billion of them, and at the time of the plutocrats’ World Economic Forum in Davos, many people are talking about the extraordinary concentration of wealth at the top.

Here in the UK, the combined wealth of the richest 1,000 people is £519 billion (up from $450 billion in 2013). That’s over 4 times the size of the annual NHS budget (£127 billion), 12 times the size of the education bill (£42 billion), and 9 times the size of the welfare bill (£58 billion). We might well ask which of these figures can’t we afford? Given the tendency of the rich to portray themselves as specially-talented wealth creators we have to ask whether these inequalities are justified. In my new book Why We Can’t Afford the Rich, I argue they are unjust and dysfunctional. Continue reading →

Should our principles always guide our actions?

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Hatier cartoon

Cécile Hatier from the University of Wolverhampton gives us an overview of her latest article, which discusses when it’s appropriate to resign from office…

Politicians are constantly vilified for their lack of moral principles, and rightly so, given the outrageous actions of some! We get frustrated because they turn back on their promises the minute they get into office, and are driven by political expediency, if not selfish considerations, instead of the public interest. I won’t even start listing examples, the press rages about two or three cases a day in the UK. It is no surprise then that when Continue reading →

‘Did you hear the one about the immigrant barman?’ The role of legal status and legal insecurity in immigrant occupational attainment in Europe

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Owen Corrigan
Owen Corrigan

Owen Corrigan, Trinity College Dublin, introduces his article ‘Conditionality of legal status and immigrant occupational attainment in western Europe‘. It is now available on Policy & Politics fast track.

Why is that immigrant barman fresh from architecture school designing only shamrocks on the head of your Guinness? Or that cleaning lady with perfect English and the degree in literature, why is she cleaning the blackboard at your kids’ school and not teaching at it? Traditional accounts of immigrant success, or otherwise, in the labour market highlight a number of important, even obvious, factors at play in outcomes such as these: grasp of the language, level of education, time in the country, and networks of contacts all matter.

Not all migrants hold low level jobs of course: 28% of third-country nationals in the UK in 2006 were employed in ‘prestige’ occupations. However Continue reading →

Latest issue of Policy & Politics now available: 43.1

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43-1Policy & Politics, Volume 43, issue 1, is now available in print and online. David Sweeting introduces the issue.

The latest issue of Policy & Politics showcases some of the most creative and innovative work that is going on in the field, covering a variety of topics. As ever, the contributions combine theoretical insight with empirical analysis, and offer a wide geographical spread. The issue also contains our first ‘research provocation’ piece.

The opening article, authored by co-editor Matthew Flinders and Katharine Dommett, draws on Chris Hood’s original piece in the 1980 volume of the journal to critique the coalition government’s policy on the reform of state architecture. They conclude that rather than a simple case of abolition, the approach Continue reading →

Where next after the third way?

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Christoph Arndt and Kees van Kersbergen
Christoph Arndt and Kees van Kersbergen

Christoph Arndt and Kees van Kersbergen reflect on their article ‘Social democracy after the Third Way: restoration or renewal?’, available now on Policy & Politics fast track.

What do social democratic parties do after they regain power after the Third Way? This was the guiding question for our study of the public policies of the current Danish social democratic government (2011-2015). The Third Way (TW), with Britain’s New Labour as its forerunner, was at first a successful strategy for many European social democratic parties to regain power after long bourgeois incumbencies in the 1980s and 1990s. However, it usually ended in electoral disaster since TW policies did not square with the preferences and values of many social democratic core voters who then abstained or shifted to Continue reading →

Lord Anthony Giddens to give 20th Policy & Politics Annual Lecture on the Politics of Climate Change

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Lord Anthony Giddens
Lord Anthony Giddens

UPDATE – THIS EVENT IS NOW FULLY BOOKED. You can still #askgiddens a question during the lecture via our live twitter feed @policy_politics

We are delighted to welcome Lord Anthony Giddens to speak on the Politics of Climate Change at our Annual Lecture on the evening of 17th March 2015 in the Great Hall of the Wills Building at the University of Bristol. The lecture is free of charge to attend though numbers are limited so tickets must be booked in advance at bit.ly/1y0vM2Q

Climate change is arguably one of the greatest threats to a stable future for humanity. Lord Giddens’s book The Politics of Climate Change (Bill Clinton called it ‘A landmark study in the struggle to contain climate change, Continue reading →

The politics of behaviour change: Nudge, neoliberalism and the state

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Will LeggettWill Leggett, School of Government and Society, University of Birmingham, discusses his article, ‘The politics of behaviour change: Nudge, neoliberalism and the state’ which is free to download in January 2015.

In 2013 there was controversy when it emerged in the UK that unemployed jobseekers had unwittingly been used as guinea pigs for a government experiment. They had been told to complete an online psychometric questionnaire called ‘MyStrengths’, with the threat of benefit withdrawal if they did not comply. Having entered their answers, participants were presented with apparently personalised electronic messages of ‘positive reinforcement’ eg that their answers had demonstrated a ‘love of learning’. But it later transpired that no matter what answers were entered, everybody received exactly the same messages. The real objective had been to indiscriminately instil positive psychology among the Continue reading →

Democracy, Inequality and Power is the theme of our 2015 Policy & Politics conference

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Bristol Marriot Royal Hotel
Bristol Marriot Royal Hotel

Join us at the Marriott Royal Hotel in Bristol on 15th and 16th September to debate the relationship between democracy, inequality and power. This year will mark the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta providing an opportunity to reflect on the failures and successes of democratic policy and politics in the UK and around the world.

Some of the issues we’ll be discussing include:

  • austerity politics and the disproportionate impacts on society’s most vulnerable,
  • increased awareness of disparities in relation to electoral and political participation amongst a range of social groups (leading to concerns about ‘a divided democracy’),
  • the reshaping of the relationship between government, business and civil society,
  • rising ‘urbanisation’ and associated concerns about the governance of place, space and territory,
  • developments in information and communication technology and its impact on citizens’ engagement with politics and public services,
  • civic unrest linked to demands for democracy, equality and transparent government,
  • human rights initiatives around gender, age, race, disability and sexuality, and
  • a reconfiguration of the role of the mass media and social media in policy and politics.

Continue reading →

Rip It Up and Start Again: Parliamentary Politics, Destruction and Renewal

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Matthew Flinders
Matthew Flinders

by Matthew Flinders, Co-Editor of Policy & Politics

This blog was originally published on the Oxford University Press blog.

‘London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down; London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady’. ‘Oh no it’s not!’ I hear you all scream with oodles of post-Christmas pantomime cheer but Parliament is apparently falling down. A number of restoration and renewal studies of the Palace of Westminster have provided the evidence with increasingly urgency. The cost of rebuilding the House? A mere two billion pounds! If it was any other building in the world its owners would be advised to demolish and rebuild. Let’s design for democracy – Let’s do it! Let’s rip it up and start again!

The Georgian Parliament Building might be a rather odd place to begin this New Year blog about British politics but the visionary architecture behind the stunning new building in Kutaisi offers important insights for those who care about British politics.

Put very simply, the architecture and design of a building says a lot about the values, principles and priorities of those working within it. The old parliament building in Tblisi was a stone pillared fortress that reflected the politics of the soviet era whereas the new parliament is intended to offer a very public statement Continue reading →

Policy & Politics 2015 – A Year to Remember

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Felicity Matthews
Felicity Matthews

by Felicity Matthews, Associate Editor of Policy and Politics

Happy New Year, everyone!  I don’t know about you, but I am so looking forward to having a quiet and uneventful 2015.  Boring, even.  Nothing on the horizon other than uninterrupted expanses of nothingness…  If only!  As if!  This is 2015!  The year of the general election!  The battle to save the NHS!  The battle to save party politics as we know it!  This is 2015!  The 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta!  The 750th anniversary of the first English parliament!  The 70th anniversary of VE Day!

Quite clearly, 2015 is already lining up to be a year to remember.  A year in which democracy is both celebrated and put to the test; a year in which party lines and battle lines are drawn; a year in which identities and alliances are simultaneously dismantled and forged anew.  And quite clearly, 2015 is lining up to be a year of unprecedented Continue reading →