
Quarterly highlights collection 1 August – 31 October 2022
Welcome to this quarter’s highlights collection featuring three articles that provide a range of insights from different perspectives on policy and regulation. Continue reading
Quarterly highlights collection 1 August – 31 October 2022
Welcome to this quarter’s highlights collection featuring three articles that provide a range of insights from different perspectives on policy and regulation. Continue reading
Libby Maman
Transparency, accountability, participation, and representation are concepts that are seen by many as positive and desirable attributes in the context of public organisations. Transparency means when a public organisation discloses information publicly, accountability means when it reports, answers, and justifies its actions to politicians or other state actors. Representation refers to the identity of the people working in the organisation, and participation means when public organisations consult with non-state actors in the rule-making process. Continue reading
Sarah Brown
Journal Manager, Policy & Politics
This quarter’s collection highlights three of our most popular and highly cited articles in 2021 which, based on their readership and citation levels, have clearly made an important contribution to their fields.
The first article, A theoretical framework for studying the co-creation of innovative solutions and public value, forms an introduction to the special issue on co-creation in public policy and governance, guest edited by Jacob Torfing, Ewan Ferlie, Tina Jukić and Edoardo Ongaro, published in April 2021. The central proposition is that the concept of public value carries unexploited potential as a ‘game changer’ for advancing the co-creation of innovative solutions in the public sector. They argue that it allows us to appreciate the many different public and private actors, including service users, citizens and civil society organisations, which can contribute to the production of public value. The authors quip that co-creation is the “new black” because it mobilises societal resources, enhances innovation and builds joint ownership over new public value outcomes. Continue reading
All articles featured in this blog post are free to access until 31 October 2021
Introducing Elizabeth Koebele: our new Digital Associate Editor for Policy & Politics, and Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of Nevada, Reno.
I am thrilled to have begun serving as Digital Associate Editor for Policy & Politics in January 2021. I have spent the last few months taking over this position from my colleague, Oscar Berglund, who now serves as one of the journal’s co-editors. As many of us are beginning to plan for our policy and politics-focused courses next semester, I figured what better way to celebrate joining the P&P team than to share with you some of my favorite Policy & Politics articles that make a great fit on a variety of syllabi? I hope this saves you time and effort in mining our recent articles, while also ensuring your course materials reflect the latest research from the frontiers of the discipline.
My initial suggestions are structured around two general topics that I hope many of you find yourself teaching or studying: one focused on knowledge, and one focused on actors/influence. I’m also sharing my top picks for readings on an increasingly popular policy topic: policy diffusion/transfer. In each case, I’ve recommended three articles that represent some of the most significant research we’ve published recently. Please let me know what you think when you’re compiling your reading lists for the start of the academic year. I’d value your feedback and suggestions for future topics to cover! Continue reading
Sarah Brown
Journal Manager, Policy & Politics
In our second virtual issue of 2021, we focus on central-local relations and feature some of the latest research on that topic from a range of different perspectives and three quite different political systems. Against a backdrop of austerity coupled with an imminent global recession resulting from the pandemic, the politics of central-local relations and their impact on policy are, we believe, even more topical than ever. So we hope that you enjoy this short collection featuring some of our most recent scholarship on this theme. Continue reading
Sarah Brown
Journal Manager, Policy & Politics
Welcome to our first virtual issue of 2021 and to a new year of reflecting on some of the latest thinking on the major policy questions of our time including the growing importance of digital democracy and on-line public service delivery, the decline of public trust in conventional politics, and the potential of citizen participation to reconnect electorates with political and policymaking processes.
Given that on-line working has become so pervasive and so important during the coronavirus pandemic, we start this virtual issue with a collection of papers that explores the role of digitalisation in promoting public participation and delivering public services. Read on as we journey from analyses of these innovative examples of digitalisation, stopping off at some familiar but important themes for regular readers of the journal including direct democracy, political leadership, and new insights into citizen participation. Continue reading
By Sarah Ayres, Felicity Matthews and Steve Martin
Co-editors of Policy & Politics
We are delighted to announce the 2020 prizes for award winning papers published in Policy & Politics in 2019. Continue reading
Oliver Loveday-Fuller
My name is Oli, I am currently studying for a BSc Social Policy (2nd year). I am passionate about issues surrounding inclusion and access in higher education, as well as contemporary challenges facing the welfare state.
I was delighted and surprised to receive the award for the ‘Best Undergraduate Public Policy student essay’. It has given me real confidence in my written voice and ability to comment on policy debates.
In brief, my essay reflects on the relative merits of choice and voice as mechanisms for improving policy outcomes and public service quality. My reading led me to be fairly critical of both mechanisms. Instead, I argue that more privileged social groups are better placed to exercise choice and to make their voice heard. Overall, I advocate voice mechanisms, drawing on the potential of participatory innovations to improve policy outcomes for the greatest number of people. Continue reading
Xiaojun Yan and Ge Xin from the University of Hong Kong, discuss civic engagement in non-democratic states – the theme of their article now available on fast-track.
Democracies are built on civic participation; their governance depends upon the active engagement of citizens in the political processes that allow them to thrive. Indeed, generations of political scientists have studied the dynamic patterns of civic participation in democratic societies. Unfortunately, there is much less understanding of the process and substance of civic engagement in non-democratic states. This gap must be addressed, especially considering the rise in international influence and the endurance of the authoritarian regime in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Continue reading
History may come to define the current UK coalition Government as the government that ushered in the end of the welfare state as we know it. The government that forced through a fundamental reconfiguration of the relationship between the citizen and the state. It may well turn out that the British population like the principle of firm action to address the state’s fiscal problems rather more than they like the practice. That story is yet to play out fully.
A more positive aspect of the current political agenda is the emphasis upon localism and involvement. The government aims to move power out of Whitehall and down to localities, giving local elected representatives and communities more scope to determine their own future. The two parties that comprise the current Con-Dem government may value this policy direction for different reasons. Are we talking about a vision of state withdrawal and survival of the fittest? Or a more positive vision of enhancing social cohesion and commonality of purpose in the more fragmented and networked Big Society? It is difficult to identify a consistent narrative. But the parties’ interests intersect and we are expecting Localism bill to be laid before Parliament next month.
While greater local autonomy and accountability in decision making is laudable, it is not without problems. What are the practicalities of delivering on this agenda? Is it another case of something that many feel is fine in theory but less palatable in practice?
Much has been written about participation and deliberation in policy making. Much has been written about the challenges facing those seeking make it a reality. The news is, generally, not encouraging. This is well-trodden ground.
One aspect of the issue which requires greater exploration is how changing structures of governance interact with mechanisms to enhance participation and local deliberation. In a paper in Policy & Politics Robert Hoppe addresses precisely this question.
The paper aims to provide some theoretical reflections on the links between policy problems, the structure of policy networks and appropriate mechanisms for deliberation. It focuses on the practical ‘perplexities’ and dilemmas in running deliberative projects, highlight problems at each of the input, throughput and output/outcome stages.
Equally importantly in the current context, the author pinpoints power – or the ‘ironies of real power politics’ – as at the heart of the issue. Participation mandated from the centre runs the risk of simply being seen as a supplement to existing processes, without significantly altering the locus of control. While deliberation from the bottom -up runs the risk of colliding with the self-identity of those at the centre who see themselves as having the legitimacy to make the decisions.
The author holds out some hope that governance structures can be nudged in the direction of accommodating the views of a wider range of stakeholder and citizens. But there remains a tension between peaceful, collective “puzzling” over what do to and the ‘competitive and potentially violent mode of political interaction’ that is “powering”. A timely reminder of the complexity of the challenges in realising the potential of deliberation – and a suggestion that some of the more far-reaching aspirations for deliberation may be over-reaching in the face of the unavoidable subtle, and not so subtle, uses of power.
Hoppe, R. (2010) Institutional constraints and practical problems in deliberative and participatory policy making, Policy & Politics.
Alex Marsh, Management Board, Policy & Politics