Showing papers in "The British Journal of Politics and International Relations in 2004"

Celebrity Politicians: Popular Culture and Political Representation:

Abstract: Considerable political and media attention has focused on the phenomenon of the ‘celebrity politician’. As this article illustrates, there are two main variants of the phenomenon. The first is the elected politician or candidate who uses elements of ‘celebrityhood’ to establish their claim to represent a group or cause. The second is the celebrity—the star of popular culture—who uses their popularity to speak for popular opinion. Both examples have been seen by critics to debase liberal democratic political representation. This article challenges this critique and argues that the celebrity politician is consistent with a coherent account of political representation. This does not mean that all examples of the celebrity politician are to be seen as legitimate, but that the representative claim has to be analysed more carefully and discriminatingly than the critics typically suppose.

Getting on or getting by? Women, social capital and political participation

Abstract: This article considers the utility of the concept of social capital in explaining differences in patterns of political participation among women and men, with particular reference to local politics and governance in Britain. It investigates whether women have access to the same quantity of social capital as men, whether their social capital is of the same type, and whether they use their social capital in the same way as men. Taking forward the ‘capital’ analogy, the article looks at how rich women are, and the extent to which they invest their social capital in political activity. As well as providing new insights into women's political behaviour, the analysis illuminates key issues for the broader social capital debate—regarding the distribution of social capital within communities, and the nature of the link between networks of sociability and patterns of political engagement.

A Feminised Style of Politics? Women MPs in the House of Commons

Abstract: One hundred and one Labour women MPs were returned to the House of Commons at the 1997 general election. Constituting 24 per cent of the Parliamentary Labour Party, they were, according to critical...

Defining Interests: Disambiguation and the Need for New Distinctions?

Abstract: This article notes the systemic lack of conceptual clarity in the social sciences and attempts to illustrate the adverse consequences by closer examination of the particular example of the interest group field. It indicates the significant ambiguities implicit in the term. Not all policy-influencing organisations are interest groups as normally understood, but because there is a lack of an appropriate label the term interest group is used by default. The article seeks to distinguish between interest groups and other policy relevant bodies—often corporations or institutions. It finds disadvantages in adopting a functional interpretation of the interest group term (i.e. any organisation trying to influence public policy). While the wider range of organisations are crucial in understanding the making of public policy, it is confusing to assume that this wider population are all interest groups. The article instead advances the complementary notions of pressure participant, policy participant and interest group. This slightly expanded repertoire of terms avoids conflating important distinctions, and, in Sartori’s term permits ‘disambiguation’. The core assumption is that the search for comparative data and exploration of normative questions implies some harmonisation in the interest group currency. With few—if any—exceptions, concepts in the social sciences are poorly defined: indeed most prove popular precisely because they have an imprecision that allows promiscuous application. 1 Though the press and non-specialist political scientists think they know when an organisation is, or is not, an interest group, this is an area where more careful scrutiny produces less rather than more confidence. This article ‘tests’ a very basic ‘unit of analysis’ crucial to political science, the interest group, and finds that the elasticity of understanding among scholars in the area makes cumulative studies (unnecessarily) difficult. In the absence of definitional clarity, general conclusions about what sorts of groups dominate the democratic system—an important dimension to interest group study—are almost impossible to draw with any accuracy. The core proposition in this article 2 is that different authors cover different types of organisation in the field loosely delineated by the interest/pressure group label. While there is value in Karl Popper’s concern that we should not be ‘goaded into taking seriously words and their meanings’ (Popper 1976, quoted in Gerring 1999, 360), if there are no agreed language-tools there can be no comparison of conclusions.

Gender and Political Representation in the UK: The State of the ‘Discipline’:

Abstract: Who governs is a traditional question in the study of politics: who is absent and who is present in the domains of public power? Feminist political scientists have taken and transformed this conventional question by focusing on the intractable problem of the relative exclusion of women. In so doing, the under-representation of women in parliaments and in national, local and regional assemblies has moved from the footnotes of political science to the focus of a flourishing international sub-field of scholarly inquiry. Academic interest has mirrored and paralleled growing political activism and advocacy around the issue by actors in local, national and international arenas. Despite global trends towards transformations in gender roles, such processes do not translate in a straightforward way into opportunities for political leadership (Inglehart and Norris 2003). During the 1980s and 1990s the political under-representation of women was reframed as a serious problem for democracy and human development, which was seen to raise awkward and crucial questions about the distribution of power. Governments and political parties were placed under increasing pressure to counter women’s chronic minority status in political institutions through affirmative action such as gender candidate quotas.

The Interpretive Approach in Political Science: a Symposium1:

Abstract: One might perhaps expect to find interpretive methodology occupying a strong and secure place in British political science. With its origins in philosophy and history (see Kavanagh 2003) British political studies never fully or exclusively embraced behaviourism or subsequent positivist methodologies. Interpretivism represents the major alternative for social science in which, as Weber declared, ‘we are concerned with mental phenomena the empathic “understanding” of which is naturally a task of a specifically different type from those which the schemes of the exact natural sciences in general can seek to solve’ (quoted in Giddens 1971, 146). But interpretivism does not have a secure footing in British political studies. 2 The systematic explication of political phenomena through interpretive concepts and methods, despite some notable attempts and a growing intensity of focus, is still at an early stage of development (see Carver and Hyvarinen 1997; ECPR 2002). In the academic study of contemporary British government interpretivism is not at all widespread. Are things about to change? Recent methodological disputes in British political science map on to broader debates about how the structure and process of British government might or might not be changing (see, for example, Marsh and Smith 2001; Dowding 2001; Hay 2002). If we are in the midst of a shift from top-down ‘command and control’ to a looser framework of ‘governance’, then the time of interpretivism may well have arrived. But methodological arguments are always about more than method. They map on to and can define broader debates concerning what government is, how it works and whether or not it is changing. The publication of Mark Bevir and Rod Rhodes’ Interpreting British Governance (2003), which advocates and demonstrates the analysis of governance using interpretive theories and methods, is a significant development in these debates. Interpreting British Governance is an attempt to bring together some philosophically derived themes about context, agency and tradition with political science research into the conduct of governance in Britain today. As such it presents an opportunity to review the questions raised by interpretivism, put them into the broader contexts of methodological argument and assess the contribution this all makes to the analysis of British politics. In what follows Bevir and Rhodes begin by laying out the basics of their post-foundational approach to studying governance. They stress the significance of traditions in shaping actions, even as those traditions are reshaped by the ways in which people act. They use this to help make sense of a shift from government to governance: a revision of the ‘Westminster model’. BJPIR: 2004 VOL 6, 129‐164

Thinking About Making a Difference

Abstract: This article works across disciplines: politics, geography and social and cultural theory. Issues of space and body are brought to bear on how we think about the question 'making a difference'. By considering difference in terms of the socio-spatial impact of the presence of hitherto socially excluded groups, such as women and racialised minorities, the gendered and racialised nature of the body politic and most specifically its 'elite' positions is brought into focus. The co-existence of women and 'black' and Asian MPs in Westminster demonstrates how these 'groups' are both historically and conceptually 'space invaders'. This positionality underlies a series of social processes which illustrate how their very presence is a disruption as well as a continual negotiation. While accepting the agnostic perspective that there are 'no guarantees' that the arrival of these 'new' bodies will articulate a different politics, in terms of policy outcomes and political debate, this article asserts that the sociological terms of their presence deserves in-depth attention.

New Labour, Gender Mainstreaming and the Women and Equality Unit

Abstract: New Labour's approach to gender mainstreaming is perhaps best exemplified through the work of the Women and Equality Unit (WEU). In this article we chart the development of the Unit and varied init...

Gender, ideology and issue preference: is there such a thing as a political women's interest in Britain?

Abstract: This article is not intended as a comprehensive study of gender and attitude in Britain. Neither is it a thorough analysis of gender and vote in Britain. It is, however, designed to ascertain whether there is any evidence to suggest that men and women might think about politics in different ways. Mainstream measures of ideology are examined and it is asked whether they can be applied equally to both sexes and also whether issues that might be defined as being especially important to women, such as health and education, provide more powerful explanations of women's voting choices than men's.

Digital Rank-And-File: Party Activists' Perceptions and Use of the Internet:

Abstract: Political parties are in a transitional phase. A declining, socially restricted membership, decreasing levels of activism and a shift towards more individualistic modes of political engagement thre...

Hearing Voices: Negotiating Representation Claims in Public Deliberation

Abstract: The last decade has seen a great amount of experimentation with processes which involve citizens directly in public decision making, in part justified by claims of greater representativeness. However, representation arguments are also used to make cases against direct involvement of citizens, particularly by those with power under existing representative structures like elected officials and interest group leaders. This paper explores those conflicting claims both normatively and empirically, the latter through analysis of secondary materials and interviews with participants in a public debate about hospital reconfiguration in the city of Leicester in early 2000. It categorises different claims, discusses both their normative and practical political strength, with the aim of offering some guidance to political actors trying to negotiate these competing claims.

The New Public Diplomacy: Britain and Canada Compared:

Abstract: This article examines the ways in which diplomacy is adapting in the information age, to the increased pressures and opportunities that changes in information and communication technologies and cap...

Electing the Leader: The British Labour Party's Electoral College:

Abstract: This article uses a principal-agent model to explore how leadership selection rules affect the autonomy and security of tenure of the British Labour party's leader. It examines Labour's electoral college, which was intended to enable activists and trade unions to hold the leader to account. However, it had the reverse effect, increasing leaders' autonomy. Nomination rules frustrate activist attempts to instigate leadership contests, while a range of ‘transaction costs’ rule out anything but the most serious challenges to incumbents. The college was originally dominated by trade unions because block voting enabled union leaders to determine the trajectory of contests. The introduction of ‘one member–one vote’ curtailed the power of union leaders, shifting power mainly to MPs. The conceptual tools deployed can be used to analyse leadership selection mechanisms in other parties.

What's ‘Social’ about ‘Social Capital’?:

Abstract: Debates around the concept of social capital are often also debates about the level at which social capital can be abstracted for analytical use. Yet while many theorists and commentators involved in these debates implicitly discuss the issue of abstraction it is rarely done explicitly. In this article I attempt to overcome this missing link in the social capital literature by theoretically examining the ‘social’ in ‘social capital’ through interconnected levels of abstraction. In particular, and at a high level of abstraction, I argue that social capital is underpinned by a contradictory relationship associated with what I term as ‘isolated reciprocity’. At lower levels of abstraction I show how isolated reciprocity poses problems for the establishment of ‘good’ social capital in the UK.

Presidential Attribution as an Agency of Prime Ministerial Critique in a Parliamentary Democracy: The Case of Tony Blair:

Abstract: The allusion to presidentialism in relation to the status, role and meaning of a prime minister's position is almost invariably skewed towards positive, purposive and expansive interpretations of strong executive authority. This study examines the negative and critical dimensions of the presidential attribution, and analyses the nature of its appeal as a device for organising and rationalising political dissent. The incidence and conditions of its usage in political argument during Tony Blair's premiership are reviewed. As a consequence, seven strands of usage are identified in the selection of presidentialism as a focus of opposition. In assessing the relative strengths and weaknesses of the presidential critique, the analysis not only shows its utility in drawing upon other sources of complaint, but also demonstrates its limitations in the delegitimation of executive authority.

The Evolution of a ‘Meta‐Policy’: The Case of the Private Finance Initiative and the Health Sector

Abstract: This article examines the evolution of the Private Finance Initiative in Britain since 1992 withparticular reference to the health policy area. The initiative is presented as a ‘meta-policy’ in sofar as it was not sectoral, but was situated above and beyond the normal run of Whitehall poli-cies; it was also heavily ideologically driven. The evolution of the policy, however, was influencedby the policy networks and institutional interplay. In turn the PFI, as it gathered momentum,affected the culture, personnel and institutional structures within which it operated. The historyof the PFI is then set against some recent theories of the policy process, particularly those producedby Peter John, stressing evolutionary approaches, and by David Marsh and Martin Smith, sug-gesting dialectical approaches to networks. It is suggested that there is a need for some theoreticalrevision which recognises the possibility that a policy itself can make a distinctive contribution tothe causal process of policy change.

Mad Cows and Mad Money: Problems of Risk in the Making and Understanding of Policy

Abstract: Risk is now being widely used both as a way of understanding policy and decision-making, and as a way of making decisions. However, there is little agreement on how risk is defined. For some risk is objective and measurable, while for others risk is subjective. What this article demonstrates is that because risk is a contested concept, it is extremely difficult to use it either as a tool for analysing government or for making decisions. In their different ways both scientists and social theorists assume an objectivity to risk. However, risk is not objective but contingent, and depends on decisions that are often related to issues of power. Consequently both governments and analysts are caught between matching subjective and political notions of risk with objective risk assessment. Two case studies are used, BSE in cows and British exchange rate policy, to demonstrate the difficulties in using risk as a way of analysing the policy process and for making decisions.

Interpretation as Method, Explanation and Critique: A Reply

Abstract: Interpretation as Method, Explanation, and Critique By Mark Bevir and R. A. W. Rhodes CONTACT DETAILS Mark Bevir Department of Political Science University of California Berkeley CA 94720-1950 USA Phone: (510) 642 4693 mbevir@socrates.berkeley.edu R. A. W. Rhodes Research School of Social Sciences Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200 Australia Tel: 61 (0)2 6125 2117 Rhodes@coombs.anu.edu.au BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES Mark Bevir is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Rod Rhodes is Professor of Political Science and Head of Program in the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra.

Prosperity and Fairness? Can New Labour Bring Fairness to the 21st Century by Following the Dictates of Endogenous Growth?

Abstract: By the late 1980s changes in the British and global political, social and economic situation necessitated a major rethink of the Labour party's policy approach. This rethink began with the 1987 Pol...

Fairness and Electoral Reform

Abstract: First-past-the-post is often seen as unfair. But this reflects a narrow understanding of fairness. Several ideas of fairness exist, some of which help to defend first-past-the-post. Two key parts of the British electoral reform debate are discussed: the translation of votes to seats, and the translation of votes to power. Several arguments about fairness by both critics and defenders of first-past-the-post are questioned. Tensions within and between certain ideas of fairness are addressed. Stronger justification of different notions of fairness, and more rigorous empirical assessment of normative claims, are advocated. Conceptual clarity requires that protagonists identify explicitly which ideas of fairness they favour, or preferably, that they simply avoid the misleading and overly rhetorical language of fairness.

Beyond Diplomacy? UK Relations with China since 1997:

Abstract: In developing a framework for relations with China since 1997, official UK policy towards China has had two main aims: to develop commercial opportunities for UK companies and to promote ‘positive’ social and political change in China. Although some have argued that this represents a contradictory set of objectives, the counter argument is found in liberal theory. Economic engagement will create a dense network of transnational interactions that will generate political change in China as it becomes deeply enmeshed in the global economy. If we follow the logic of this approach through, then the UK government has transferred much of the power to attain its stated objectives in relations with China from traditional diplomatic agencies to governmental economic agencies. More important, individual companies, whilst pursuing their own commercial activities, are effectively carrying out government policy in relation to China. Thus, the key actors in post-diplomatic relations with China are increasingly non-state...

Treasury Rules OK? The Further Evolution of a British Institution

Abstract: Her Majesty’s Treasury is like an old-fashioned villain in an Edwardian melodrama—booed whenever it makes an appearance on stage in suitably dark and suspicious black, and thereafter assumed to be the culprit behind all unpopular or cataclysmic events. This image has a long pedigree. In W. H. Greenleaf’s monumental study of British politics he devotes a chapter to the ‘Department of Departments’ (Greenleaf 1987) responsible for managing the rise of collectivism and in constant struggle for control of Whitehall. Do recent studies of the Treasury and its political masters, chancellors of the exchequer, cast new light and insights into a department which continues to fascinate? BJPIR: 2004 VOL 6, 121–128

The Case for Disciplinary History: Political Studies in the 1950s and 1960s

Abstract: This article proposes a greater emphasis upon the intellectual history of political studies in the UK. The limitations of conventional understandings of the disciplinary past are considered in relation to the 1950s and 1960s. The author seeks to challenge contemporary views of this period in two respects. First, he shows how the key institutions of the emergent discipline were formed for highly contingent reasons, and how they were underpinned by a disciplinary ethos that was inherited from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Second, he draws attention to an important, and neglected, shift in disciplinary self-understanding in the late 1950s and 1960s, as figures like W. J. M. Mackenzie blended aspects of the dominant approach to political inquiry with newer ideas, thus generating an influential conception of a distinctively British political science.

IR as Practical Philosophy: Defining a 'Classical Approach'

Abstract: This article addresses the centrality of normativity to IR (International Relations) by engaging in an investigation of the meaning of a ‘classical’ approach (Bull 1969). It demonstrates how a classical approach, properly understood, might provide common ground for IR theorists. The substantive argument is that IR can benefit from reflection on the classical understanding of the relationship between theory and practice, and in particular on the understanding of this relationship provided by philosophical hermeneutics. Philosophical hermeneutics is an approach to the human sciences informed by Aristotle's conception of a practical philosophy. A practical philosophy in the classical sense sees theory as a moral and political inquiry involving a body of knowledge and a philosophy of practice engaging in reflection upon the nature of the good life and the means to achieve it.

‘It's Not Just Tea and Buns’: Women and Pro-union Politics in Northern Ireland

Abstract: This article assesses the reasons for the ongoing under-representation of women in Northern Ireland politics, with particular reference to women who take a pro-union stance. The stereotype that uni...