Of ‘Misguided Notions’ and Misguiding Nations: The Growth Report,Poverty and Climate Change

The Growth Report neither addresses the issue of growth and poverty, nor considers the implications of binding constraints on global carbon emissions, which invalidate the argument for global growth as a positive‐sum game. The polarisation of the debate on growth and poverty reflects different perspectives and priorities between economists, environmentalists and development professionals, and the absence of constructive dialogue between them. “Growth or no growth?” is the wrong question. Reconciling poverty eradication and tackling climate change requires us rather to ask what our ultimate objectives are, and how economic policy can best achieve them.     

Towards ‘reinventing government’: the changing perspectives of democratic governance for development

Good governance has now become a passion as all governments and regimes appropriate and/or misappropriate the term for development or populist reasons. However, democratic good governance is the catalyst for development. The idea of reinventing government is necessary in order to confront the dynamics and challenges of development in the era of globalisation. This is the main thrust of this review article. The article reviews three major books, the focus of which provides analytical insight towards reinventing government for achieving the MDGs and other development agenda. The books argue that to redesign and reinvent governments for development, attributes of democratic good governance must be articulated, localised and contextualised based on individual country's historical–political experiences and socio‐economic capabilities. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Power transitions and global trade governance: The impact of a rising China on the export credit regime

The existing liberal international economic order was constructed during the era of American hegemony and has been heavily shaped by US power. How is the rise of China affecting global economic governance? This article analyzes the case of export credit, which has long been considered a highly effective international regulatory regime and an important component of global trade governance. I show that the rise of China is profoundly altering the landscape of export credit and undermining its governance arrangements. State-backed export credit is a key tool of China's development strategy, yet I argue that an explosion in China's use of export credit is eroding the efficacy of existing international rules intended to prevent a competitive spiral of state subsidization via export credit. The case of export credit highlights a fundamental tension between liberal institutions of global governance and the development objectives of emerging powers.     

Between Two Stools? The Government's ‘Preventing Violent Extremism’ Agenda

The 7/7 London suicide bombings of July 2005 and numerous subsequent Islamist terror plots have highlighted the reality of an 'internal' threat to Britain. One governmental response has been the 'Preventing Violent Extremism' (PVE) programme. Whilst the educational aspect of its focus on Muslim young people is to be welcomed, there are serious concerns as to whether PVE policy, as currently designed, is falling between two stools. To date, the programme focuses exclusively on Muslim communities in flat contradiction to the integration policy priority of community cohesion, so risking further defensiveness from Muslim communities and resentment from white working class communities. Whilst ignoring the right-wing extremism growing in some of those white communities, PVE work with young people is actually failing to engage openly and robustly with the real political issues driving Muslim anger and minority extremist support. The confidence, understanding and skills of educational practitioners are vital here.     

Slow Change at the Top: ‘Old Hands’ and ‘Accidental Executives’ in New South Wales Local Government

Scholars and practitioners alike have recognised that an increased role for women leaders in Australian local government would strengthen the sector, yet little research to date has examined the career paths of non‐elected officials. This article combines the gender in organisations literature with career theory to examine the career paths of 16 general managers (GMs) in New South Wales. We found that half the participants had linear career paths based entirely within local government and half had boundaryless careers originating outside the sector. This second cohort consisted overwhelmingly of women. Nevertheless, a high incidence of happenstance characterised both career types. Several participants saw themselves pitted against a gendered (i.e. male) group of ‘old hands’ who were resistant to change being driven by ‘accidental executives’, a high proportion of whom were women. The findings have implications for a sector attempting to attract and retain skilled staff, particularly women.     

Rapid knowledge: ‘Bridging research and policy’ at the Overseas Development Institute

Numerous organizations advocate the need to ‘bridge research and policy’. Philanthropic foundations, national social science funding regimes and international organizations have sought to improve knowledge utilization. Similarly, research consumers such as NGOs and government departments complain of research irrelevance for policy purposes. The concern of this article is with ‘evidence informed policy’ within the field of international development in which the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), a London‐based think tank, forms the case study. Most think tanks are driven by the need to influence immediate political agendas but ODI has also developed organizational strategies of policy entrepreneurship that extend to longer term influence through creating human capital, building networks and engaging policy communities. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The ‘Othering’ of ‘Red Ed’, or How the Daily Mail ‘Framed’ the British Labour Leader

This article takes as its starting point the attack on the late Ralph Miliband, the left‐wing intellectual and father of the current Labour leader Ed Miliband, by the Daily Mail in late 2013. It argues that this attack was a response by the Mail to its failed campaign to dub the Labour leader ‘Red Ed’. The article demonstrates that ever since Miliband won the Labour leadership in 2009, the Mail has sought to ‘other’ him by presenting him as ‘alien’—this by constant references to his Jewish background, his upbringing in a wealthy North London intellectual milieu, his supposed extreme left‐wing views and his ineffable ‘oddness’—at least, an oddness as characterised by the newspaper. The paper will conclude by asking why the Daily Mail's ‘Red Ed’ moniker failed to catch on, while noting that their ‘Odd Ed’ moniker seems to have had more resonance.     

Better the Devil: A Response to Gus O'Donnell's ‘Better Government’

Gus O'Donnell's vision of ‘better government’ is presented as a critique of party politics, most specifically the short‐termism, selfishness and incompetence of elected politicians. There are few people better placed than O'Donnell to form such judgements. However, O'Donnell goes much further, by calling into question the legitimacy of the democratic system which gives rise to party politics. His article outlines several mechanisms by which the exercise of power by elected ministers could be constrained by a managerialist accountability framework, without addressing the question of who determines the appropriate framework for ministerial performance. The House of Commons is condemned as ‘too politicised’. O'Donnell also offers substantial praise for apparently ‘depoliticised’ policy‐making processes, overlooking the inherently political constitution of such processes. In doing so, O'Donnell claims to be challenging party politics on behalf of voters/taxpayers, but instead seeks to dismantle any possibility of the public expressing a collective will via the ballot box that might challenge the immutability of the market economy.     

The ‘Hows’, not the ‘Whys’ or the ‘Wherefores’: The Role of Intra‐party Competition in the 2011 Breakthrough of the True Finns

From minor party status, the True Finn Party (PS) claimed nearly one‐fifth of the vote and almost the same proportion of parliamentary seats at the April 2011 Finnish general election. It registered the largest gains made by any party in postwar Finnish history, thus writing – in the eyes of foreign journalists at least – yet another chapter in the surge of populist radical right parties across contemporary Europe. This article, however, is concerned more with how the substantial PS vote was mobilised than with how much was mobilised. The idea is not to identify the primary causes of the PS's national breakthrough, but to explore the internal dynamics of party's explosive growth and the process of translating a large prospective vote into ‘hard votes’ through the ballot boxes. The focus is on district‐level nomination strategies, the range of candidate types, the mechanics of vote optimisation and the distribution of the personal vote. With regard to the latter, the article seeks to measure and analyse the role of intra‐party competition in the anatomy of party transformation and to do so by the novel means of adapting the Laakso‐Taagepera index to measure the ‘effective number of co‐partisans’. Significantly, at the 2011 Eduskunta election the PS exhibited the highest level of intra‐party competition of any of the eight parliamentary parties.     

‘Irish Republic’, ‘Eire’ or ‘Ireland’? The Contested Name of John Bull's Other Island

One of the less visible consequences of the Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement of 1998 was that it finally put to rest a fifty year dispute between Ireland and the United Kingdom about the names of the respective states. This article begins by outlining the constitutional background to this complex terminological dispute, and then examines it from three perspectives. The first is that of the Irish state itself, which in recent decades has opted unambiguously for 'Ireland'. The second is the British government, which until the end of the twentieth century preferred the labels 'Eire' or 'Irish Republic'. The third is the militant nationalist republican movement, whose terminology was designed to deny the legitimacy of the existing state. The article concludes by examining the political significance of this issue, arguing that while its most obvious importance is symbolic, it has also had real meaning for the identity and for the geographical definition of the state, as well as for the British-Irish relationship.     

Guaranteed Rotation in Office: A ‘New’ Model Of Democracy

Although once a classic democratic ideal, rotation in office is nowadays seen more as a natural consequence of competitive elections than a goal in its own right. But this article proposes that a strict rota, with each group taking a turn in office, might be preferable to ordinary electoral democracy in certain sorts of countries: nascent democracies, divided societies with persistent minorities and failed one‐party democracies. Ways are suggested of combining intraparty democracy with interparty rotation.     

Bagehot Smiling: Gordon Brown's ‘New Constitution’ and the Revolution that Did Not Happen

The MPs expenses scandal that erupted in May 2009 has certainly rekindled interest in the next stage of constitutional reform and democratic renewal in Britain. This article examines how Gordon Brown's tenure as Prime Minister has differed from Tony Blair's in relation to the ‘new politics’ narrative. It argues that despite his long‐term personal commitment to major constitutional reforms, the role of crises in recalibrating the political opportunity structure and the manner in which electoral incentives can alter elite attitudes to institutional change that Brown's tenure can be characterised by optimism followed by timidity. Gordon Brown may have flown a few kites in relation to a written constitution, electoral reform, English devolution and the future of the House of Lords but he has left things far too late for a ‘constitutional moment’. Brown may have the political inclination but he lacks the capacity to deliver far‐reaching reform; Cameron is likely to have the capacity but not the inclination.     

From ‘Tiger’ to ‘PIIGS’: Ireland and the use of heuristics in comparative political economy

This article analyses the consequences of the narrative construction of the group of countries that has been grouped as ‘PIIGS’ (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain) for their sovereign debt risk rating. Acronyms for groups of countries can provide a useful shorthand to capture emergent similarities in economic profile and prospects. But they can also lead to misleading narratives, since the grounds for use of these terms as heuristic devices are usually not well elaborated. This article examines the process whereby the ‘PIIGS’ group came into being, traces how Ireland became a member of this grouping, and assesses the merits of classifying these countries together. The contention is that the repetition of the acronym in public debate did indeed shape the behaviour of market actors toward these countries. It is argued that this involved a co‐constituting process: similarities in market treatment drives PIIGS usage, which in turn promotes further similarities in market treatment. Evidence is found of Granger causality, such that increased media usage of the term ‘PIIGS’ is followed by increased changes in Irish bond yields. This demonstrates the constitutive role of perceptions and discourse in interpreting the significance of economic fundamentals. The use of acronyms as heuristics has potentially far‐reaching consequences in the financial markets.     

From ‘Judicial Mind’ to ‘Democratic Soul’: Law and Politics on the Bureaucratic Frontline

This article considers the relationship between law and democratic politics as manifest in the practice of ‘street‐level bureaucracy’. By glancing back to debates about citizenship and public administration between the two world wars, it sets contemporary concerns about the political constitution in broader context. In doing so, it discloses a fundamental division between conceptions of the state derived from Roman jurisprudence on the one hand, and ancient Athenian political practice on the other. It finds in the tragic dilemmas posed for street‐level bureaucrats—by the competing claims on their values—a test of individual moral agency and of democracy as the management of diversity. It concludes that what is at stake in our estimation of street‐level bureaucracy is not so much the purity of the ‘judicial mind’ as the complexity of the ‘democratic soul’ and the ‘connected society’.