Human Rights in a Post‐Brexit UK

This special issue was written to reflect on the current role of human rights in the United Kingdom, seventy years after the United Nations General Assembly voted in favour of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Human rights are explored by the authors in this issue from a wide variety of perspectives. Some authors are critical of the failure of the state to implement human rights principles in practice; others lament how human rights often appear of little relevance to most people’s lives in the UK. The overall message, however, remains consistent: a human rights framework brings many positive elements to our country, ensuring it is a society where individuals, no matter their actions or characteristics, are treated with dignity.     

Governance in the Post‐Soviet Era: Challenges and Opportunities

In the aftermath of the Soviet Union's demise, the countries formerly comprising it embarked on massive reforms to transition from socialist to market‐driven economies. This transition also required substantial transformation of their governance systems. In this Viewpoint essay, the authors reflect on critical reforms in human resource management, ethics management, and anti‐corruption, and highlight successful initiatives in these fields. They also discuss the role of the Astana Civil Service Hub in helping the countries in the region to jointly look for solutions to common governance challenges and to learn from policies and strategies that proved effective for their peers. The authors conclude by identifying the common elements of effective public administration reforms in the post‐Soviet setting.     

The State as Investment Market: A Framework for Interpreting the Post‐Soviet State in Eurasia

What type of state has emerged in post‐Soviet Eurasia, and what kind of theoretical framework can help us understand its behavior and performance? This article argues that we can usefully understand the logic of political and administrative organization in terms of a kind of “investment market.” Access to the state is frequently determined by actual financial payment. Would‐be officials invest in offices to obtain access to a stream of income associated with an office. This framework represents a novel perspective on the post‐Soviet state, which has hitherto either been premised on modernization theory or emphasized a robustly personalistic logic of political organization.     

UK Euroscepticism and the Brexit Referendum

This article shows that key to understanding the referendum outcome are factors such as a profoundly eurosceptic public, high levels of citizen uncertainty, divided mainstream political parties on the EU and lack of unity within the ‘Leave’ campaign. The Brexit referendum is more than just about domestic issues and government approval. Utilitarian concerns related to economic evaluations of EU integration coupled with support of or opposition to EU freedom of movement are very likely to influence vote choice. Those campaigns that focus on rational utilitarian arguments about the costs and benefits related to EU membership as a whole but also to EU freedom of movement are expected to swing voters.     

The UK Brexit vote and its potential strategic impact

The United Kingdom's 'Leave' camp is mounting a strident and emotive campaign for the UK's departure from the European Union, and has gained significant popular traction. 'Brexit' would pose serious economic and political risks to the UK and significantly diminish the EU's size and clout. The 'Remain' camp will need to work hard to mobilise voters and put across the EU's benefits more effectively to prevent Brexit.     

The regulatory state and the UK Labour Government's re‐regulation of provision in the English National Health Service

Following its election in 1997, the UK Labour Government embarked upon a 10 year program of reform of the National Health Service (NHS). By 2005, Labour had doubled the NHS budget and dramatically transformed the shape of the Service. In England, a basic characteristic of the NHS is the organizational split between provider and commissioning agencies. In this article I argue that Labour's re‐regulation of NHS provision is a coherent representation of the influence of the “regulatory state” in restructuring arrangements between government, market, and society. The article offers an account of the regulatory state based on a discussion of five key theses: The Audit Society, Regulation Inside Government, The New Regulatory State, The British Regulatory State, and Regulatory Capitalism. The article unfolds Labour's program of reform across themes common to these accounts: the division of labor between state and society, the division of labor within the state, the formalization of previously informal controls, and the development of meta‐regulatory techniques of enforced self‐regulation. It concludes that the key themes of the regulatory state are at work in Labour's transformation of NHS provision and it offers a discussion of the implications for both scholars of regulation and the UK and European health policy literature.     

Brexit: The EU Policy‐Making State Hits the Populist Buffers

There seems to be an emerging conventional wisdom that the Brexit vote resulted from specific domestic factors in Britain, such as divisions within the ruling Conservative party, the rise of UKIP, strong reaction to increased immigration, all set against the backdrop of globalisation and its adverse effects. The end result was a populist revolt. The argument presented here is somewhat different. Whilst accepting that the above factors were certainly very important, it is argued that it is important to examine the key role of the EU itself in the creation of the current crisis within the EU. The construction of an EU policy‐making state has run far ahead of what voters at the national level want, leading to a central paradox within the EU, namely that the European elite which runs the EU has introduced some very beneficial public policies, yet that elite has become increasingly out of touch with its peoples.     

Post‐Democratic Party Politics

In recent years many scholars have diagnosed a crisis of party politics. This article considers recent changes in the UK and Europe that appear to challenge this idea. Exploring Colin Crouch's notion of ‘post‐democratic’ party politics and considering his diagnosis of shifts in parties' agenda setting, organisation and communication, the article considers evidence of post‐democratic politics and the possibility for future renewal.     

Labour Market Organisations' Participation in Swedish Public Policy–Making

Unions and employers are political actors. Besides defending their interests on the labour market they act in the political arena. In order to weaken the trade unions, neoliberal parties and employers’ organisations have tried to change existing systems in Sweden and elsewhere. Hence, the general questions being asked in this article are: Do Swedish labour market organisations still participate in (i.e. try to influence) public policy–making on a large scale? Are there any substantial differences in the degree to which unions and employers’ organisations participate or in their access and strategies of participation? In this article it is argued that while participation of labour market organisations in the old institutionalised framework has decreased, it has not vanished. Labour market organisations are also very much involved in public policy–making by informally contacting politicians and public servants. The unions have extensive contacts with politicians on all levels, but especially with the Social Democratic Party, while employers’ organisations have more intense contacts with the public administration and public servants. The overall picture being presented in this article is that labour market organisations in Sweden have not at all been left out in the cold. It is clear that Sweden is far from the British situation and still remains similar to its Scandinavian neighbours.     

The March Towards Post‐Democracy,Ten Years On

Events since I published my book Post‐democracy in 2004 suggest that democracy continues to decline in effectiveness in those parts of the world where it has been most strongly established. The global financial crisis, the consequent euro crisis, the likely shape of a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and growing evidence of the political power of giant mass media corporations all suggest that the dominant forces in today's politics are not those of democratic will. Movements like Syriza in Greece possibly suggest a democratic reawakening, but that is too early to determine. Meanwhile, it is important also to be aware of democracy's limits, and to try to resolve the problem of post‐democracy by extending its reach beyond its competence.