Breaking the Mould? Roy Jenkins’ ‘Radical Centre’ and British Social Democracy in the ‘New Hard Times’

Social democratic politics in Britain requires compelling answers to three animating questions that Roy Jenkins posed in his landmark 1979 Dimbleby lecture. Firstly, how can the British system of democracy be reformed to develop a culture of political participation and pluralism that leads to more equitable economic and social policies? Secondly, how can the centre‐left and left unite to forestall long periods of Tory dominance in electoral politics, thereby avoiding calamities such as the 2016 referendum on EU membership? And, thirdly, how can a flourishing intellectual ecosystem be cultivated on the progressive left that generates radical ideas for economic and social reform, recognising the importance of concerted dialogue between political traditions? This article revisits Jenkins’ 1979 lecture by considering the prospects for ‘breaking the mould’ of British politics in the ‘new hard times’ of Brexit and ‘permanent austerity’.     

Towards a ‘New English Regionalism’ in the North? The Case of Yorkshire First

Traditionally, the debate over English devolution has been framed by mainstream parties, favouring a top‐down approach. However, this scenario has recently started to change, particularly in the areas with stronger regional identities such as the North of England. In 2014, the first regionalist party (Yorkshire First) was created, followed by the North East Party and the Northern Party. Such actors overtly challenge the narratives of regionalisation that have prevailed so far, and endorse bottom‐up regionalism. This article offers the first analysis of these ‘new regional voices’ in the North, and seeks to assess emerging tensions between regionalisation and regionalism in the devolution debate. To achieve this, it concentrates on the case of Yorkshire First, drawing on documentary analysis and the results of a membership survey. It will be argued that, although still limited in its impact, the rise of Yorkshire First signals the presence of a political vacuum in the region which has been left open by mainstream politics, and that regional identity and territorial cleavages do matter in the current debate on devolution in the North of England.     

Did they ‘Read Before Burning’? The Coalition and Quangos

Attitudes to quangos are paradoxical. On the one hand they are perceived to be undemocratic, unaccountable organisations, while on the other they are seen to improve effectiveness, limit political interference and increase public confidence in government. This paradox is reflected in the behaviour of political parties, which generally adopt a harsh line towards quangos in opposition, but come to rely on these bodies in office. Ahead of the 2010 general election it was, however, noticeable that the Conservative party rejected this dynamic by promising to pursue ‘a more sophisticated approach’. This article explores the Coalition government's subsequent ‘public bodies reform programme’, assessing its progress against recommendations contained within the Institute for Government's Read before Burning report of July 2010. It concludes that while the Coalition has addressed long‐standing concerns about the day‐to‐day governance of public bodies, it has failed to resolve a set of broader and strategic (metagovernance) issues.     

‘New dissidents are but old Provisionals writ large’? The Dynamics of Dissident Republicanism in the New Northern Ireland

This article discusses recent developments in dissident Irish republicanism and some of the arguments advanced to explain its emergence as a factor in Northern Irish politics. In particular it considers those explanations which define these new armed groups as either the latest manifestation of a historically determined Irish republican tradition or simply as ‘residual terrorist groups’ left behind by Provisional republicanism's movement into the constitutional mainstream in the 1990s. It rejects these arguments as ahistorical and schematic, and instead suggests that the dynamics and trajectory of dissident republicanism are shaped instead by the inherent tensions and structures of ‘the new Northern Ireland’. It goes on to compare the contemporary political, social and economic forces that produce the dissidents with the conditions that created the Provisionals as in the early 1970s and concludes that whilst these new groups will continue to pose a threat to the ‘normalization’ of the new dispensation they will not be successful as their republican forebears in mobilizing a significant and sustained challenge to the Northern Irish state.     

‘Come together?’ Citizens and civil servants dialogue and trust

Trust is a key element in the co‐creation of solution for public problems. Working together is a gradual learning exercise that helps to shape emotions and attitudes and to create the foundations of trust. However, little is known about how institutions can promote trust. With the intention of going deeper into the subject, this paper focuses on a local experience in Spain: Madrid Escucha, a City Council initiative aimed at stimulating dialogue between officials and citizens around projects to improve city life. Three are our questions: who participate in these spaces, how the interactions are, and what advances are achieved. Based on qualitative research, empirical findings confirm a biased participation in this kind of scenarios as well as the presence of prejudices on both sides, an interaction characterised by initial idealism followed by discouragement and a possible readjustment, and a final satisfaction with the process even when results are not successful.     

A ‘Property‐Owning Democracy’ or ‘Generation Rent’?

‘A property owning democracy’ has been at the centre of Conservative Party social policy since Noel Skelton coined the phrase in 1924. The idea has been underpinned by contrasting the independent, hygienic, suburban homeowner with the urban, managed, flat‐dwelling, high‐density council tenant. No Conservative‐led government has left office with a homeownership rate lower than when it came to power and the right to buy has enabled this growth to be maintained. However, in 2005, homeownership started to decline and this drop has continued into the Coalition government's term of office with more households now exiting owner‐occupation into the private landlord sector than entering owner‐occupation from private renting. The ‘reinvigorating’ the right to buy is an attempt put a ‘property owning democracy’ back on track but, should it fail, the Conservative Party may turn to more radical policies such as sale on vacant possession of ‘high value’ local authority and housing association houses.     

The Big Society in Australia: A Case of ‘Non’‐Policy Transfer?

The Big Society was a flagship policy initiative launched by the UK Conservative party, under the leadership of David Cameron, to win office in 2010. Closely associated with the ideas of Phillip Blond, the Big Society agenda seeks to introduce new forms of civic activism and revive wider civil society. There has been speculation that the Big Society agenda might take hold in Australia, and Blond has been active in promoting it in Australia. Using Dolowitz and Marsh's policy transfer heuristic, this article examines the likelihood of the Big Society being adopted by the Abbott Liberal Coalition. The article outlines a number of potential variants of the Big Society, and concludes that for a variety of reasons it is unlikely to be adopted by the Liberal federal government in Australia. The case also highlights both strengths and limitations in the Dolowitz and Marsh framework, arguing that it can be used in an innovative way to speculate on potential transfers, but is limited in accounting for why transfer may or may not take place.     

Smoke but No Fire? The Politics of a ‘British’ Bill of Rights

This article systematically explores the political context behind Labour and the Conservatives' new commitment to a British Bill of Rights. This is linked to conflicting incentives to resist the current trajectory towards rights constitutionalism (‘Constitutional Freeze’), to further encourage further rights constitutionalism (‘Constitutional Fire’) and to engage in largely cosmetic change (‘Constitutional Smoke’). Ultimately, the latter has proved dominant for both parties. This demonstrates the difficulty of building political momentum behind significant revision of institutional responsibility for protecting human rights in stable, democratic settings. It specifically illustrates the strong barriers which both a hegemonic policy preserving and an ‘aversive’ constitutionalising dynamic must overcome to succeed.     

Britain's Wages Crisis—Is ‘Predistribution’ or ‘Redistribution’ the Way Forward?

Is ‘predistribution’ as championed by Ed Miliband, or old fashioned ‘redistribution’ as adopted, if stealthily, by Labour from 1997, the best way to create greater equality? Some critics have argued that a strategy of predistribution—aimed at closing the income gap before the application of taxes and benefits—would not work and that it will be necessary to rely mainly on redistribution. This article examines the potential impact of weak and more radical predistribution‐style measures on one of the key drivers of inequality—‘wage compression’. It examines the potential of a mix of policies for raising the wage floor. It argues that reliance on traditional redistribution would face its own set of constraints and that creating a more equal distribution of the cake, before taxes and benefits, is a necessary condition for lowering the risk of continuing economic crisis.     

Arrogant Posh Boys? The Social Composition of the Parliamentary Conservative Party and the Effect of Cameron's ‘A’ List

In the light of the recent controversy over Andrew Mitchell's alleged ‘pleb’ comments to police officers and Nadine Dorries’ characterisation of David Cameron and George Osborne as ‘arrogant posh boys, this article examines the social composition of the parliamentary Conservative Party. It looks at previous attempts to widen the social base of the PCP and analyses the effect of Cameron's priority or ‘A’ list of candidates on the composition of the 2010 PCP. The article asks whether the perception that the Conservatives are the party of the rich has damaged the party's electoral appeal and if so what can be done to rectify the situation.     

Information technology and development: creating ‘IT harems’, fostering new colonialism or solving ‘wicked’ policy problems?

The proliferation of information technology offers challenges to developing countries which struggle with basic human needs. Yet the key to their survival may lie in information which is inaccessible to them. Facing these challenges, developing nations start from a position of frailty based on low levels of capital; a limited information infrastructure; dependencies on foreign aid and multinationals; and an ever‐increasing population growth. It is essential that foreign technology inflow is adopted strategically within the pre‐existing framework of national policies for technological development and with an emphasis on technology transfer. The broad policy direction needs to be towards the establishment of an information infrastructure and a contingent perspective for the meta‐policy process of designing appropriate information technology infrastructures. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Who ‘marries’ whom? The influence of societal connectedness,economic and political homogeneity,and population size on jurisdictional consolidations

For decades, political scientists have been asking how political jurisdictions are formed and reshaped. Nevertheless, studies of local government jurisdictional formation are few and often plagued with endogeneity since the formation of jurisdictions cannot be separated from sorting effects. In this article, the unique case of the Danish structural reform is utilised to overcome endogeneity due to migration‐related sorting by studying patterns of municipal amalgamations. In the recent Danish reform, 239 of 271 municipal entities were forced to amalgamate simultaneously, while who actually amalgamated with whom was left entirely to negotiations between the respective municipalities. Applying logistical regression to a dataset where the unit of analysis is dyads of municipalities allows the construction of a relational model for estimating the effect of different political and societal variables on the likelihood of amalgamation. Societal connectedness, population size and geography are important predictors of amalgamation patterns, while political and economic homogeneity between municipalities does not appear to matter much.     

What Does ‘Collaboration’ Without Government Look Like? The Network Qualities of an Emerging Partnership

Cross‐sectoral partnerships are increasingly common in Australian human service delivery. Yet research has not often focused on partnerships where private actors broker an arrangement to address complex community needs. Using a combination of interviews, focus groups, and social network analysis (SNA), this paper investigates the network qualities of a nascent partnership between a not for profit (NFP) service provider and a major retail water company that seeks to address financial hardship. Ultimately, we assess whether this represents genuine collaboration or another form of joint action. We find that the privately steered partnership generates instrumental benefits characteristic of cross‐sectoral arrangements, as well as challenges. SNA reveals a very high degree of connection between the partner organisations, but the results suggest that the partnership is coordinative rather than collaborative. We also find that this is leading to tacit organisational and institutional modifications as the NFP assumes a ‘market facing’ posture and adjusts to the demands of working with private sector partners. However, at this early stage of development, the level of systemic adjustment between both organisations remains incomplete.     

‘New spaces’ for change?: Diamond governance reforms and the micro‐politics of participation in post‐war Sierra Leone

While the majority of research carried out on diamonds and development in Sierra Leone has focused on debates concerning the role that diamonds played in the country's civil war of the 1990s, little attention has been directed towards understanding how the emergence and consequences of ‘new spaces’ for citizen engagement in diamond governance are shaping relationships between mining and political economic change in the post‐war period. Recent fieldwork carried out in two communities in Kono District illustrates how the emergence of such spaces—although much celebrated by government, donors and development practitioners—may not necessarily be creating the ‘room for manoeuvre’ necessary to open up meaningful public engagement in resource governance. The analysis focuses on one recent governance initiative in the diamond sector—the Diamond Area Community Development Fund (DACDF)—which aims to strengthen citizen participation in decision‐making within the industry, but has frequently been at the centre of controversy. In framing and articulating socio‐environmental struggles over resource access and control in Sierra Leone's post‐war period of transition, the article highlights how the emerging geographies of participation continue to be shaped by unequal power relationships, in turn having an impact on livelihood options, decision‐making abilities and development outcomes in the country's diamondiferous communities. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

‘May Contain Nuts’? The Reality behind the Rhetoric Surrounding the British Conservatives' New Group in the European Parliament

The British Conservative Party's decision to leave the European Peoples' Party-European Democrats (EPP-ED) group in the European Parliament and establish a new formation—the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR)—has attracted criticism, much of it focused on the supposedly extremist politics and character of the partners with which the Conservatives have chosen to work. In fact, while those parties which have joined the Conservatives in the new group are for the most part socially conservative, they are less extreme and more pragmatic than their media caricatures suggest. Moreover, such caricatures obscure some interesting incompatibilities within the new group as a whole and between some of its Central and East European members and the Conservatives, not least with regard to their foreign policy preoccupations and their by no means wholly hostile attitude to the European integration project.     

A rising generation of Europeans? Life‐cycle and cohort effects on support for ‘Europe’

Despite much research on age and attitudes, it remains unclear whether age reflects accumulated life experience or conditions prevailing during an individual's formative years – that is, a life‐cycle effect or a cohort effect. In respect to attitudes towards the European Union (EU), the issue is particularly important. Although many analyses indicate a correlation between age and support, the relationship has not been adequately theorised and extant analyses have generated contradictory results. In this article, theoretical expectations for both life‐cycle and cohort effects on support for the EU are developed and tested using a cross random effects model. This not only identifies the nature of an age‐support relationship, but also highlights substantial generational differences in attitudes towards European integration and explains the inconsistencies in extant empirical analyses.     

How can ‘Britishness’ be Re‐made?

Modern Britishness is widely seen to be based on shared values like ‘fair play’, ‘tolerance’, and respect for ‘diversity’. Can such a ‘values‐based Britishness’ be effective as a national binding agent in an era of devolution and globalisation? The idea that a uniquely ‘British’ character is based on shared values of some kind is not new. The contemporary debate is framed by decisions made over a century ago in the Victorian era—when the decisive shift occurred from a British identity based on religious difference to one based on shared moral values. Through political rhetoric, legislation, and the courts, Victorian governments shaped and changed the character of Britishness. The same tools remain available to contemporary lawmakers in shaping a twenty‐first century Britishness that embraces modern universal values, but also defines some more uniquely British emotional connection points around which national identity can be built.     

What Happened to Queensland's Disaster Management Arrangements?: From ‘Global Best Practice’ to ‘Unsustainable’ in 3 Years

The Queensland Police and Community Safety Review (PACSR) 2013 headed by Mick Keelty was tasked by the Queensland government to examine the State's emergency management practices and processes. Commissioned before any crisis, the PACSR was still collecting evidence when extensive flooding occurred across many regional centres of Queensland in 2013. It was the subsequent management of this event, and selected evidence from earlier inquiries that underpinned many of the findings in the final PACSR report. Keelty recommended institutional and organizational restructuring that included the abolition of a department, and the tasking of the fire and rescue service with additional oversight and audit functions. PACSR argued too much emphasis was placed on relationships, which made disaster management in Queensland potentially unsustainable in the longer term. Some of the findings replicated those of earlier inquiries (O'Sullivan 2009; QFCI 2012), including the apparent reluctance by police to implement communications systems that are interoperable with other emergency agencies. This reluctance to embrace new technologies indicates institutional and cultural barriers to reform. Despite this, the Police and Fire and Rescue services have been given additional responsibilities by the Newman government, based on Keelty's recommendations. PACSR did not appear to evaluate some of the best practice aspects of the 2010–2011 flooding event, whereas some suggest the report had a predetermined element to it (Byrne 2014). In finding that too much emphasis was placed on informal relationships and networks in 2013, and concentrating on structural reforms instead, this paper argues that the PACSR discounted many features that current crisis literature notes as important for a successful disaster management response.