What does “Political” Mean to You?

How do regular people define the term “political”? This original study gives Americans and Canadians an opportunity to express their interpretations of the concept. It identifies a great deal of inter-personal variation in terms of how many and what kinds of topics people perceive as the stuff of politics. And this variation comes in predictable patterns: the findings reveal correlations between socio-political attributes (such as gender, nationality and ideology) and the boundaries people draw around the political domain. The study also provides insight into the ways people distinguish the political from the non-political in their minds. And importantly, individuals’ interpretations of the term “politics” relate systematically to other measures of self-reported political behavior including political interest and frequency of political discussion. These results can be used to refine survey analysis and to broaden knowledge of day-to-day citizen politics.     

What does Brexit Mean for the UK's Climate Change Act?

This article examines the potential implications of the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union (so‐called ‘Brexit’) for the success and survival of the country's flagship climate policy, the Climate Change Act 2008. The impact of a ‘soft’ and a ‘hard’ Brexit for the main features of the Climate Change Act are assessed, building on documentary evidence and elite interviews with key policy‐makers and policy‐shapers. The article argues that the long‐term viability of the Climate Change Act was being threatened even before the EU referendum, and that Brexit will do little to improve this situation. Even though the existence of the Climate Change Act is not under immediate threat, a range of issues presented by Brexit risk undermining its successful implementation.     

Participation for What? A Policy-motivated Approach to Political Activism

Normatively and intuitively, we conceive of political participation as an integral component of democratic policymaking. However, research on participation generally does not include policy considerations as part of individuals’ decisions to engage in activism. I offer an opportunity model of participation that begins to study how policy goals shape individual participation and how aggregate participation shapes policymaking. The central argument is that individuals’ policy goals allow them to recognize those moments when it is most efficient and/or effective to take action. Examining black participation from 1980 to 1994, I show that black Americans are more likely to participate when they face external threats, are embedded in social networks, and have greater access to policymakers. Most importantly, the recognition of these opportunities varies according to individuals’ resources. This research moves beyond the discussion of who participates to address the equally fundamental question: participation for what?     

What are MPs for?

After the expenses scandal, it is time to ask what Members of Parliament are for. The traditional formal arguments are inadequate as they fail to engage with what MPs actually do. A typology is useful in illuminating the different ways in which MPs see their role: as Lickspittles, Loyalists, Localists, Legislators, Loners and Loose Cannons. Current trends in the performance of these roles can be identified, raising questions about the nature of politics and the vitality of Parliament.     

Science and Technology for What?

In 1939 American scholar Robert S. Lynd first published his classic book Knowledge for What? ( Lynd, 1948 ). It provided statements on the requirement for social science knowledge to serve policymaking. This paper addresses the requirement for science and technology education policy to undergo changes dictated by the 21st‐century environment. It also identifies the inseparable links between political governance and educational policymaking. Views of 50 global professionals were solicited for their answers to the fundamental question: Science and technology for what? Experience of the respondents was in science, technology, education, religion, defense, engineering, space, business, and government. This paper classifies and summarizes those responses, then provides the author's analysis and conclusion that humanity has reached the point in history where its long‐term future is doubtful if both policymaking and education fail to formally conclude that the answer to the question, Science and technology for what? . . . is determined to be: Global humanity. The paper, therefore, is more concerned with the strategic answers to the meta question of Science and technology for what? than the precise answers for individual science disciplines. The paper data‐reduces focus group responses into 18 categories ( Figure 1 ), and provides only illustrative discrete uses of what education for science and technology within those categories should do. The reader will grasp the complexities of moving from strategic decisions to changes within the disciplines of science and the applications of technology.

Figure 1 Open in figure viewer PowerPoint . What 50 Professionals Think about “Science & Technology for What?”: Challenges for Education Policy     

What Future for the Ombudsman?

The ombudsman institution, in both the public and private sectors, is increasingly identified with the ethos of consumerism and the protection of consumer rights. The current trend is exemplified and reinforced by the EU ADR Directive and by the government response to a recent inquiry into complaints conducted by the Public Administration Select Committee. This article argues that the dominant consumerist ethos diminishes the ability of the ombudsman institution to fulfil its potential. If the ombudsman institution, in particular as manifest in the office of the UK Parliamentary Ombudsman, is to serve the public interest, it must instead promote human rights principles and constitutional morality, adopt a process that is marked by public reasoning and participation and seek by a whole‐system approach to realise a vision that is integrated and truly democratic.     

“What have you done for me lately?” Re-thinking local representation

Scholars have studied the influence that constituents exert on elected representatives’ action in national parliaments at length. Still, academic pundits have usually confined local representation to distributive policies and casework, and limited local legislators’ focus to a territorial perspective. In this study, I try and propose a more nuanced theory of local representation, and I use automated text analysis to capture elected representatives’ propensity to serve functional as well as territorial interests. In an effort to provide empirical backing to my theoretical argumentation, I present an analysis of Italian legislators’ behavior which shows that deputies are willing to divert public spending to their district but also to favor the interests of specific economic sectors. Scholars have already acknowledged the multidimensional character of political representation at the national level, my analysis offers theoretical justification and empirical evidence to support doing so at the local level as well.     

Can democracy induce development? A constitutional perspective

We examine the constitutional design required for democratic societies to overcome poverty traps. Restricting agenda setting by ensuring subsistence levels of consumption and applying simple majority voting as a decision rule will not enable a society to overcome poverty. We show that a combination of suitable constitutional rules can, however, overcome poverty and induce economic well-being. Besides majority voting, these rules include rotating agenda setting, agenda repetition, and tax-protection rules. We thus highlight the crucial role of democratic institutions for economic development.     

A framework for the multimodal analysis of online news galleries: What makes a “good” picture gallery?

The development of digital technology in recent years has led to a revolution in news production and dissemination. In terms of production, we have witnessed a fundamental shift towards visual story-telling. Images dominate the verbal story space and have the potential to become the story themselves. Beyond this, they are also creating unique spaces for themselves (e.g. the online news gallery), with new multimodal genres posing challenges for practitioners and analysts alike. The potential effects of such fundamental shifts on the professional news story-telling practices of the legacy news media provide a rich research opportunity for understanding both how and whether news organisations fulfil their mandate of making sense of the plethora of information that is now available. In this paper, we concern ourselves with one particular innovation in visual news reporting – the online news gallery, or picture gallery in journalism terms. We report on a qualitative analysis of 35 galleries from 12 English-language newspapers with online presence from Europe, North America, Australia and Asia, and interrogate the choices made by institutions in composing this particular type of multimodal “text”, as it is situated in a professional, news story-telling context. In doing so, we explore how a systemic-functional semiotic approach to multimodal news discourse may help us to access the meaning potential of this emerging genre as a vehicle for multimodal digital news reporting, present a framework for the multimodal analysis of online news galleries and consider its implications for the education of media practitioners.     

What Is Patronage? A Critical Reexamination

Despite a long and storied history, patronage and the functions it plays in American politics and public administration are still very much a mystery. This paper examines how patronage has been used and understood in American political science and public administration. The author calls for a reexamination of the concept based on developments found in the field of anthropology. In an effort to generate future scholarship, the author introduces a typology of patronage styles based on this reexamination.     

Disability and support relationships: What role does policy play?

Very little is known about how relationships between people with disabilities and their paid support workers are positioned in policy. With the policy shift toward choice of provider, individualised approaches, person centredness and self‐directed funding, the nature of their relationship assumes a more prominent role in the quality of support practice. The policy analysis in this article explores the extent to which current disability policy acknowledges, promotes, or diminishes the relationships between people with disabilities and workers, in their organisational context. It uses Honneth's conditions for recognition—love (cared for), rights (respected) and solidarity or social esteem (valued)—to understand how policy positions mutuality in the relationship. The policy review applied a three‐stage process: categorisation of policies, textual analysis and content analysis to policy documents at four levels—international, Australian federal, state and organisational in two case studies. The analysis revealed that while a rights framework is explicit in most policies, the emphases on the conditions for recognition within a relationship between people with disabilities and workers are compromised in instructional policies that attempt to manage the tension between choice and risk, particularly at the organisational level.     

What Role for Human Rights in Business?

The Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) were endorsed by the United Nations Human Rights Council in June 2011, following the six‐year mandate of the Special Representative to the Secretary General (SRSG) on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises. The SRSG developed a framework comprised of three pillars: (1) States have a duty to protect against human rights abuses committed by third parties, including business enterprises; (2) business enterprises have a responsibility to respect human rights; and (3) victims of business‐related human rights abuses need access to effective remedies. In particular, guiding principle (GP) 11 provides that business enterprises should respect human rights, that is, they should avoid infringing on the human rights of others and address adverse human rights impacts with which they are involved. This article considers the implications of the Guiding Principles' framework for business; the continuing role of conventional accountability mechanisms in providing access to remedy for victims under the third pillar of the framework; and developments in ‘hard law', with a particular focus on the approach by the UK, since the introduction of the UNGPs, before turning, briefly, to the future for business and human rights.     

Voting for development? Ruling coalitions and literacy in India

Across the world, governments skew the distribution of state resources for political gain. But does such politicisation of resource allocation affect development trajectories in the long run? We focus on the long-term effects of voting for the ruling coalition on primary education in India. Using a close-election instrumental variable design and drawing on a new socio-economic dataset of India's state assembly constituencies in 1971 and 2001, we examine whether areas represented by members of ruling coalitions experienced greater increases in literacy over 30 years. We find no evidence of this being the case, in the overall data or in relevant sub-samples. The null results are precisely estimated, and are consistent across OLS and 2SLS specifications and several robustness checks. These findings suggest the politicised distribution of some funds in the short run does not affect long-term development trajectories.     

What does it take for a roving bandit settle down? Theory and an illustrative history of the Visigoths

A roving bandit provides exclusive (rivalrous) collective goods to members of its in-group. A stationary bandit further provides inclusive (non-rivalrous; public) collective goods to the out-group. The inclusive goods are an input to the production of the exclusive goods enjoyed by the in-group. As such, the transition from roving to stationary bandit is likely to involve the redefinition of the in-group, its collective interest, and the type of goods that it provides. To illustrate these points, I employ a case study of the roving Visigothic confederacy as it evolved during the fourth and fifth centuries towards the stationary Visigothic Kingdom. The illustration provides insights into why competition amongst roving bandits does not always (or often) lead to the emergence of a non-predatory state.     

What does Brexit Tell Us about Our Understanding of European Identity?

This paper reports on a number of Eurobarometer surveys undertaken by the European Commission as a way of reflecting on Brexit and the challenges it poses to European identity. Our work with the surveys has been undertaken in the context of developing an educational game (RU EU?) which will explore European identity. European citizenship and identity have been strongly promoted by the EU but, while they appear to have been accepted at an elite level, the EU—and the UK in particular—have so far not constructed a narrative which has been supported by ‘ordinary’ citizens. Brexit has therefore exposed the failings of European elites in this regard. That said, there is some evidence that the complexities of Brexit have led to a strengthening of European identity in the other EU 27 countries.     

What the House of Lords is Really for?

The Lords beats the Commons hands-down in scrutinising legislation, but it is also a repository of informed opinion to serve the nation. It is, that is, so long as it remains appointed not elected.