A Kinder,Gentler Democracy? The Consensus Model and Swedish Disability Politics

Arend Lijphart's seminal consensus model of democracy does not only try to explain how democracy actually works. It also purports to be a ‘kinder, gentler’ form of democracy with regard to e.g. unemployment, disability, illness and old age. So far, this conjecture has not been brought to a systematic test which is the purpose of this article. We look into the consequences for one of the areas Lijphart singles out: disability. Does consensus democracy promote a more generous policy towards disabled people than majoritarian democracy? We transfer Lijphart's theory to municipality level. In Sweden, disability care is namely the responsibility for the municipalities, which are comparatively large and independent and with the right to tax their citizens; they are like small nation‐states. There is, however, a considerable variation in disability support between them. Some give ten times as much support than others. Is it those governed according to the consensus model? Our approach helps controlling for the variation in political and cultural context and expands the number of observations. The statistical comparison of Swedish municipalities does not, however, lend any confirmation of the famous theory. Instead, there are reasons to doubt that consensus democracy promotes more generous policies.     

Is Britain Facing a Crisis of Democracy?

This article contributes to the debate in this journal about the state of British democracy. I criticise the tendency to use a ‘demand–supply’ dichotomy in interpreting the strong distrust experienced by institutions and politicians, and especially the idea that all the blame for current problems is to be attributed to the inadequateness of the British political tradition (BPT). By referring to international data on democracy and to recent British trends in both public attitudes and institutional innovations, a more nuanced picture on the state of democracy emerges. I argue that the BPT is not incompatible with incremental changes that have already introduced innovations in the way politics works in Britain today, and that the task of empowering citizens is one of the most delicate aspects in this process of innovation.     

A Dominant SNP in a Unionist Scotland? The 2019 UK General Election in Scotland

The UK general election in December 2019 produced a resounding victory for Boris Johnson’s Conservatives, returning a majority government and the mandate for Brexit that he had campaigned for. The picture was less rosy for the Conservatives in Scotland, where his party lost half its seats to the SNP. This article reviews the election outcome in Scotland, considering the fortunes of each of the main parties, and projects forward to the devolved election in 2021, when the parties will once again debate the key constitutional question in Scotland.     

A Bonfire of the Regulations,or Business as Usual? The UK Labour Market and the Political Economy of Brexit

Employment and labour market regulation initially appeared as one of the solid red lines in the UK's renegotiation of the country's place in the EU. The basic argument is that the UK's more deregulated labour market would sit uneasily in the more organised models, based on statutory instruments or collective bargaining, found on the continent. While there is a legitimate problem here, EU employment regulations appear manageable from the point of view of business, while unions see them as important tools for socially responsible economic restructuring. Most of UK employment case law is now deeply entangled with EU law; labour market regulations have, on the whole, become part of the way of doing business in the Single Market; and a simple cost–benefit analysis appears impossible because some costs are not quantifiable and the costs of others are reduced when taken as a bundle. Labour unions agree that transposition of European law needs to be done taking into account local sensitivities, while internationally oriented companies do not see EU regulations on the whole as detrimental to business. Importantly, though, the costs and benefits of EU employment regulations are not symmetrically distributed across different companies: large companies are better able to reap the rewards and accommodate the costs of operating in the Single Market than smaller companies.     

Schools or Pools of Democracy? A Longitudinal Test of the Relation Between Civic Participation and Political Socialization

In this contribution we demonstrate how the usage of panel data offers possibilities for testing new hypotheses in a research tradition with a long history in political science. Focusing on citizens’ transitions in and out of voluntary associations, we tested four possible explanations for the well-documented correlation between civic engagement and political socialization. Two are due to self-selection effects (pools of democracy), and two are due to socialization effects (schools of democracy). Our analyses offer little support for the idea of voluntary associations playing a major role in political socialization processes: our latent growth curve models showed no or very little increase of political discussion, interest, efficacy, and action among those who became actively involved in voluntary associations. In contrast, we found convincing evidence for our pools-of-democracy hypotheses, and the self-selection turns out to be a double-edged sword: politically engaged citizens are more likely to join voluntary associations and less likely to leave them. These findings challenge the conclusions of many studies based on cross-sectional data.     

A Comparison of Tobacco Policy in the UK and Japan: If the Scientific Evidence is Identical,Why is There a Major Difference in Policy?

Tobacco policy in the UK and Japan has diverged markedly. In the 1980s, both countries oversaw regimes with minimal economic and regulatory policies. Now the UK has become one of the most, and Japan one of the least, controlled (advanced industrial) states. These developments are puzzling to public health scholars who give primary explanatory weight to scientific evidence and a vague notion of “political will”, because policy makers possessed the same evidence on the harms of tobacco, and made the same international commitment to comprehensive tobacco control. Instead, we identify the role of a mutually reinforcing dynamic in policy environments, facilitating policy change in the UK but not Japan: policy makers accepted the scientific evidence, framed tobacco as a public health epidemic, placed health departments at the heart of policy, formed networks with public health groups and excluded tobacco companies, and accentuated socio-economic conditions supportive of tobacco control. This dynamic helps explain why the UK became more likely to select each tobacco policy control instrument during a series of “windows of opportunity”. Such analysis, generated by policy theory, is crucial to contemporary science/practitioner debates on the politics of “evidence-based policy making”: the evidence does not speak for itself, and practitioners need to know how to use it effectively in policy environments.     

Austerity Policies,the UK State and the Energy Utilities: a Changing Paradigm or Business as Usual?

In 2008, the economic downturn coincided with a major shift in the energy sector paradigm. This state of emergency forced the UK government to try to steer the objectives of its major energy players. This crisis put the UK state's capacity to influence its mostly privately‐owned energy sector to the test. Using the example of energy utilities, this article aims to explore whether the austerity agenda impacted the relationship between the UK state and its public services. The purpose is to determine whether current multiple crises have forced the UK state to adopt an exceptionally interventionist approach that doesn't tally with the austerity agenda, or whether these crises merely revealed dynamics which had been underlying in the management of its energy utilities since the beginning of the neo‐liberal era.     

Is Neoliberalism a Liberalism,or a Stranger Kind of Bird? On Hayek and Our Discontents

Abstract

This paper examines the theoretical ideas of Friedrich von Hayek, arguably the key progenitor of the global economic orthodoxy of the past two decades. It assesses Hayek's thought as he presents it: namely as a form of liberal ism. Section I argues that Hayek's thought, if liberal, is hostile to participatory democracy. Section II then argues the more radical thesis that neoliberalism is also in truth an illiberal doctrine. Founded not in any social contract doctrine, but a form of constructivism, neoliberal thought at its base accepts the paradoxical need to "discipline subjects for freedom", however this might contravene peoples' natural, social inclinations. The argument is framed by reference to Aristophanes' great comedy, The Birds, whose off shore borderless empire ironically prefigures the dream of neoliberal social engineers, and their corporate supporters.     

Scotland,Renewable Energy and the Independence Debate: Will Head or Heart Rule the Roost?

Political support for renewable energy development, especially offshore renewables, is particularly conspicuous in Scotland and is a centrepiece of SNP policy. However, this is built on something of a paradox because, put simply, without the subsidies paid by electricity consumers in the rest of the UK, the Scottish Government's ambitious targets for renewable energy would be politically unachievable. We argue in this paper that if Scotland does move towards independence, then there could be little reason for the UK to continue paying (much) of the subsidies since the resulting renewable generation would no longer contribute towards UK renewable energy targets. We suggest that the potential scenarios, and their implications, needs to be far better considered in the arguments around the Scottish constitutional position and the broader aims of UK energy policy.     

Differential Turnout Decline in Norway and Sweden: A Generation of Apathy or Alienation?

Voter turnout has been in a trend of gradual decline in most established democracies in recent decades and the reasons for this are by no means fully understood. While most studies agree that the trend is largely driven by younger generations voting less than older cohorts, the individual‐level mechanisms of their declining propensity to vote are still disputed. A major distinction in the literature on democratic developments is that between theories of political apathy and political alienation: whether citizens are less interested in politics or still interested but instead estranged from their political systems. An interesting test for these different explanations can be found in Scandinavia: While Norway and Sweden have intimate historical, political and cultural similarities, Norway has been experiencing gradual turnout decline, while there has been no clear overall trend in Sweden. This study uses a combined dataset of over 50.000 respondents from 31 national election studies in these two countries from 1956–2013 to test the relative roles of apathy, alienation and generational dynamics in explaining these different trends in turnout. The results indicate that apathy has been declining while alienation has been rising in both countries. However, in Norway, those who are more apathetic today are much less likely to vote than apathetic citizens were in the past. The youngest generations are also significantly more apathetic and less likely to vote in Norway than in Sweden. These dynamics appear to account for the larger trend of turnout decline in Norway.     

Laboratories of Democracy? Brandeis, Federalism, and Scientific Management

Although Louis Brandeis is rightly regarded as a champion offederalism, this article suggests that his famous depictionof the American states as "laboratories" of democracy in facthas little to do with federalism and in fad rests on an understandingof public policy inimical to federal diversity. More specifically,it argues that Brandeis's choice of metaphor largely reflectshis hope for scientifically based public policy, which in turnreflected the influence of Scientific Management upon his thought.The article concludes that abandoning Brandeis's metaphor wouldbe useful in rethinking the relations among states in the diffusionof innovations.     

UK Devolution and the European Union: A Tale of Cooperative Asymmetry?

The post-1999 devolution project has resulted in a major recalibrationof the preexisting arrangements for making European Union policywithin the United Kingdom. The devolved administrations in Scotlandand Wales (but not the English regions) have gained in electorallegitimacy and legislative powers, and thereby have a greaterclaim to consultation with UK central government. Four key characteristicsof European Union policymaking in a devolved United Kingdomare identified. The legal contingency of the "devolveds" statushas not yet impeded traditional cooperative relations betweengovernment tiers, but the stability of the new arrangementsremains in question. The UK case is compared with European Unionregionalization in other member states and a distinction isdrawn between a cooperative regionalist approach (the devolveds)and a consultative one (the English regions).     

Working or shirking? Expenses and attendance in?the?UK?Parliament

This paper studies the determinants of MPs?? expense claims and of their attendance at Parliamentary meetings. Using a multiple regression framework, we correlate the expenses with three sets of variables: constituency characteristics, political variables, and individual characteristics. We then look at the ratio of parliamentary expenses claimed to votes cast in Parliament as a crude measure of value for money. This take on the data provides a somewhat benign view of the usage of expense claims. We use the results to reflect on two views of the motivation of MPs??the public choice view and the public service view.     

Democracy or Good Governance? Globalization,Transnational Capital,and Georgia's Neo-liberal Revolution

Western aid donors merge democracy and good governance in theory and practice. Yet, since the 2003 Rose Revolution, Georgia's governance indicators have soared while its democracy scores have plummeted. The good governance–democracy merger constitutes an attempt by the transnational capitalist class to cultivate consent for its hegemonic project of neo-liberal globalization. This article highlights the personal and institutional networks connecting Georgian elites with the organizations involved in globalizing governance and democracy. It shows how these organizations are dominated by the representatives of transnational capital. Finally, it shows that Georgia, as an undemocratic but effective ‘governance state’, is not an exception.     

Levels or changes?: Ethnic context,immigration and the UK Independence Party vote

Will the rising share of ethnic minorities in western societies spark a backlash or lead to greater acceptance of diversity? This paper examines this question through the prism of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), the most successful populist right party in British history. The paper contributes to work on contextual effects by arguing that ethnic levels and changes cross-pressure white opinion and voting. It argues that high levels of established ethnic minorities reduce opposition to immigration and support for UKIP among White Britons. Conversely, more rapid ethnic changes increase opposition to immigration and support for UKIP. Longitudinal data demonstrates that these effects are not produced by self-selection. The data further illustrate that with time, diversity levels increase their threat-reducing power while the threatening effects of ethnic change fade. Results suggest that the contextual effects literature needs to routinely unpack levels from changes. This also suggests that if the pace of immigration slows, immigration attitudes should soften and populist right voting decline.     

Scotland Out the Union? The Rise and Rise of the Nationalist Agenda

The election of the Scottish National party as a majority government in 2011 is as challenging to the British state as it was unexpected. While explanations for SNP success focused on Labour's faulty campaign and poor leadership, the last half‐century has seen the rise and rise of the nationalist agenda in Scotland. Scotland's politics are now more different from England's than at any time since the 1950s. The Scottish parliament is the effect of that change rather than its cause, while party competition between Labour and the SNP north of the border has shifted political gravity centre‐left in contrast with England. It is not inevitable, however, that Scots would vote for Independence in a referendum. Nevertheless, Scotland is a more semi‐detached country than at any point in the history of the Union, and the future of the British state, at least in its present form, cannot be taken for granted.     

Is trust the missing root of institutions, education, and development?

We report evidence that trust is the missing root relating education, institutions, and economic development. We observe that more trust both increases education and improves legal and bureaucratic institutions, which in turn spurs economic development. We substantiate this intuition with a series of regressions that provide evidence that trust determines both education and the quality of institutions, and that education and institutions in turn affect GDP per capita.