Showing papers by "Matthew Flinders published in 2018"

Territory, power and statecraft: understanding English devolution

Abstract: In recent decades, the devolution of power to subnational regional authorities has formed a key element of what has been termed the ‘unravelling’ or ‘unbundling’ of the state in many parts of the w...

Learning for democracy: The politics and practice of citizenship education

Abstract: It is now two decades since the Advisory Group on Citizenship, commissioned by the newly elected Labour government, recommended the introduction of statutory citizenship education. On the twentieth anniversary of the eponymously named ‘Crick Report’, this article presents the findings of a rigorous mixed-methods study of citizenship educators in the UK. This research suggests that teachers continue to lack a shared understanding of citizenship, conceptually and pedagogically, and also reveals an emphasis amongst teachers upon individualistic notions of good citizenship that are reflective of national, and increasingly global, political discourse. The findings are analysed using a new conceptual framework—the declarative–procedural paradigm—which is developed here to understand the relationship between political and normatively driven visions of democratic citizenship and classroom pedagogy. In doing so the article adds, theoretically and substantively, to the specific research pool of citizenship studies and broader debates about political disengagement.

Governing under Pressure? The Mental Wellbeing of Politicians

Abstract: Despite the singular importance of the work of national politicians in creating legislation, representing constituents and holding government to account, relatively little work has been done concerning their wellbeing and psychological health. There are unique, as well as universal, stressors that impact upon politicians; a neglect of these issues has profound consequences for those individuals and wider democracy. We propose a ‘taxonomy of stressors’ as a starting point for further inter-disciplinary and comparative research, and argue that it offers analytical leverage vis-a-vis a far broader set of debates concerning the future of representative democracy.

From senseless to sensory democracy: Insights from applied and participatory theatre:

Abstract: This article seeks to stimulate a fresh and inter-disciplinary debate which revolves around the need to move from a ‘senseless democracy’ that is insufficiently attuned to the dilemmas and challeng...

The Politics of Parliamentary Restoration and Renewal: Decisions, Discretion, Democracy

Abstract: An extensive literature on aversive constitutionalism and elite blockages outlines the manner in which embedded political elites will generally reject or dilute reform agendas that threaten their privileged position within a constitutional configuration. It is for exactly this reason that the same seam of scholarship frequently highlights the role of crises in terms of providing a ‘window of opportunity’ through which a significant or fundamental recalibration of a political system may be achieved. ‘The Palace of Westminster’ the Joint Committee on Restoration and Renewal (R&R) concluded in September 2016 ‘faces an impending crisis which we cannot possibly ignore’. Their recommendation was that the Palace be completely vacated for five to eight years so that a multibillion-pound programme of rebuilding work can be undertaken. This article offers the first research-based analysis of the ‘Scoping & Planning’ stage (2012–2016) and reveals the ‘hidden politics’ of R&R in the sense of how it threatens both the British Political Tradition and the position of the two main parties. This explains the nature of the very closed and secretive decision-making processes that have characterised this stage and why a number of formative decision-making points that have been deployed to frame and restrict the reform parameters.

Pedagogy and deliberative democracy: Insights from recent experiments in the United Kingdom

Abstract: A growing body of research suggests the existence of a disconnection between citizens, politicians and representative politics in advanced industrial democracies. This has led to a literature on the emergence of post-democratic or post-representative politics that connects to a parallel seam of scholarship on the capacity of deliberative democratic innovations to ‘close the gap’. This latter body of work has delivered major insights in terms of democratic design in ways that traverse ‘politics as theory’ and ‘politics as practice’. And yet the main argument of this article is that this seam of scholarship has generally failed to explore the existence of numerous pedagogical relationships that exist within the very fibre of deliberative processes. As such, the core contribution of this article focuses around the explication of a ‘pedagogical pyramid’ that applies a micro-political lens to deliberative processes. This theoretical contribution is empirically assessed with reference to a recent project that sought to test different citizen assembly pilots around plans for English regional devolution. The proposition being tested is that a better understanding of relational pedagogy within innovations is vital, not just to increase levels of knowledge, but also to build the capacity, confidence and contribution of democratically active citizens.

The (Anti-)Politics of the General Election: Funnelling Frustration in a Divided Democracy

Abstract: ‘All general elections are interesting; some are surprising; only a few can be described as astonishing,’ David Denver notes in his contribution to this volume, ‘The latter certainly applies to 2017.’ This is certainly true but what also made the election remarkable was the emergence of anti-political sentiment as a key resource for a mainstream party, channelled through a particular blend of hybrid populism. To develop this argument and dissect what might be termed the (anti-) politics of the General Election this chapter is divided into three sections. The first section seeks to place the General Election within its broader historical and comparative context and places particular emphasis on the post-Brexit collapse of UKIP and how this changed the political landscape in ways that Labour would later exploit. The second section develops this argument by arguing that ‘the Corbyn effect’ was essentially synonymous with the adoption of a populist strategy that sought to re-frame the Labour Party as a fresh, new, anti-political, anti-establishment ‘outsider’ party. This re-positioning of the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn represents arguably the most ‘astonishing’ element of the 2017 General Election and helps explain how the party exceeded expectations to secure ‘a glorious defeat’. The final section reflects on the long-terms risks of this strategy in terms of the perils of playing with populism.

Nexus Politics: Conceptualizing Everyday Political Engagement

Abstract: Existing research on alternative forms of political participation does not adequately account for why those forms of participation at an “everyday” level should be defined as political. In this article we aim to contribute new conceptual and theoretical depth to this research agenda by drawing on sociological theory to posit a framework for determining whether nontraditional forms of political engagement can be defined as genuinely distinctive from traditional participation. Existing “everyday politics” frameworks are analytically underdeveloped, and the article argues instead for drawing upon Michel Maffesoli’s theory of “neo-tribal” politics. Applying Maffesoli’s insights, we provide two questions for operationally defining “everyday” political participation, as expressing autonomy from formal political institutions, and building new political organizations from the bottom up. This creates a substantive research agenda of not only operationally defining political participation, but examining how traditional governmental institutions and social movements respond to a growth in everyday political participation: nexus politics.

the future of political science? the politics and management of the academic expectations gap: evidence from the UK

Abstract: Political science has for some time been afflicted with an existential and empirical angst concerning impact and relevance. This is by no means a new or unique disciplinary pathology, but it is one that has intensified in recent years. The reasons for this intensification have been explored in a burgeoning literature on ‘the tyranny of impact’. The central argument of this article is that a focus on the ‘relevance gap’ within political science, and vis-a-vis the social sciences more generally, risks failing to comprehend the emergence of a far broader and multifaceted ‘expectations gap’. The core argument and contribution of this article is that the future of political science will depend on the politics and management of the ‘expectations gap’ that has emerged. Put slightly differently, the study of politics needs to have a sharper grasp of the politics of its own discipline and the importance of framing, positioning, connecting vis-a-vis the broader social context.

The (Anti-)Politics of Brexit

Abstract: This chapter explores the relationship(s) between anti-political sentiment and Brexit. The challenge for the political and social sciences, however, is that understanding the relationship(s) between Brexit and anti-politics is the intellectual equivalent of being charged with untangling a vast Gordian knot of complex, multifaceted, interwoven and densely layered factors. The chapter substantiates the argument that anti-political sentiment was a critical underlying factor in explaining the decision to leave the European Union (EU). In the post-crisis 'age of austerity', anti-political sentiment had increased and was visible through a number of authoritative social surveys. As Alan Finlayson has noted, Brexit became a campaign of 'anti-political politics organised around resentment at past losses and scepticism about promised futures'. It is possible to suggest that the spillover consequences of Brexit have had very direct and tangible impacts upon British politics due to the manner in which it framed the 2017 general election.

Accountability in Liberal Democratic, Parliamentary Systems

Abstract: This chapter looks at some of the factors that shape and inform accountability in European liberal democratic parliamentary systems. Specifically, we will identify the key institutional features that define parliamentary democracy, and seek to understand how they could mould national political cultures and processes, and in so doing, showing how the nature of their respective systems affect the form issues of accountability take. The chapter provides a snapshot of Europe’s parliamentary liberal democracies, capturing the range of this system type, showing how they function, and how differences in function have been manifest in practice. It assesses how and why different countries have different interpretations and approaches to accountability, and therefore how different agendas develop with respect to the issue.