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.     

Introduction: In Defence of Politics

In a world that is increasingly dominated by literary hyperbole there can be no doubt that Bernard Crick's In Defence of Politics remains a classic text. Classic not just in the sense that it provides a masterly account of the essence, meaning and fragility of democratic politics but classic in the sense that it is written with a style, verve and passion that is rarely found within political science. If the test of pretensions to ‘a classic’ status is that a book defies the passage of time in terms of significance and argument then Crick's Defence would also make the grade for the simple fact that its arguments remain arguably far more important today than they were when they were first published exactly fifty years ago. This article reflects on the contemporary significance of Crick's Defence by defending politics against an updated set of adversaries in the form of: public expectations, marketisation, depoliticisation, the media, and crises before locating the book within the contours of current debates about public disengagement, the rise of ‘disaffected democrats’ and questions concerning the future and relevance of political science.     

The death of scientific knowledge in [South] Africa: An Afrocentric response to M. P. Sebola

On the basis of the Afrocentric perspective, this article uses South Africa as a test case to critique Mokoko Piet Sebola's piece titled “Peer review, scholarship and editors of scientific publications: the death of scientific knowledge in Africa,” which appeared in Koers ‐ Bulletin for Christian Scholarship, Volume 83 (1): 1–13. I argue that Sebola's piece provides a partial guide to understanding the state of the knowledge industry in Africa, particularly in South Africa. Safe to say that Sebola's work deepens scholarly and public discourse on the politics of scholarship in Africa and the world at large. However, I do not intend to blatantly praise Sebola's contribution to this academic area, which remains under researched due to the reasons that are beyond the scope of this article. In particular, the current article aspires to identify scholarly weaknesses in Sebola's work with a view to correcting them by offering an alternative view. This correction deserves the attention of all scholars and practitioners especially because it is interdisciplinary in nature, and it is poised to undo the misinformation disseminated in Sebola's piece. Such misinformation has a potential to overshadow the few truths advanced in his article. Methodologically, this article is based on document review, conversations, and interdisciplinary discourse analysis in its broadest form.     

The transformation of cleavage politics The 1997 Stein Rokkan lecture

Abstract. In this lecture I discuss the development of the social divisions in Western Europe and their translation into politics. I successively take up the three aspects embraced by the notion of 'cleavages'— their structural base, the political values of the groups involved, and their political articulation. My main argument is that the decline of traditional cleavages does not necessarily signify the end of structuration of politics by social divisions. There is ample empirical evidence for the existence of a new social division between two segments of the new middle class, which has important consequences for politics. This new social division is shown to be closely linked to the new 'value cleavage' although it is not able to fully account for the enormous political implications which contrasting value–orientations have today. Finally, I suggest that the political articulation of both the transformed class structure and the new configuration of values is strongly shaped by the political legacy of traditional cleavages.     

Three decades of populist radical right parties in Western Europe: So what?

The populist radical right constitutes the most successful party family in postwar Western Europe. Many accounts in both academia and the media warn of the growing influence of populist radical right parties (PRRPs), the so‐called ‘verrechtsing’ (or right turn) of European politics, but few provide empirical evidence of it. This lecture provides a first comprehensive analysis of the alleged effects of the populist radical right on the people, parties, policies and polities of Western Europe. The conclusions are sobering. The effects are largely limited to the broader immigration issue, and even here PRRPs should be seen as catalysts rather than initiators, who are neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for the introduction of stricter immigration policies. The lecture ends by providing various explanations for the limited impact of PRRPs, but it is also argued that populist parties are not destined for success in opposition and failure in government. In fact, there are at least three reasons why PRRPs might increase their impact in the near future: the tabloidisation of political discourse; the aftermath of the economic crisis; and the learning curve of PRRPs. Even in the unlikely event that PRRPs will become major players in West European politics, it is unlikely that this will lead to a fundamental transformation of the political system. PRRPs are not a normal pathology of European democracy, unrelated to its basic values, but a pathological normalcy, which strives for the radicalisation of mainstream values.     

Power,Profit and Prestige: The History of American Imperialist Expansion

ABSTRACT

This article provides a critical reading of the idea of ‘the reasonable’ in contemporary politics, as reflected in the work of John Rawls. I argue that this concept is best understood as a practice of political identification, which provides the template for mutual accommodation without concurrent agreement on any substantive commitments. However, by constructing a teleological story in which the reasonable leads naturally back to the liberal principles of justice, Rawls reveals the limits of the concept. Rather than ending political disagreement by establishing a shared foundation, prioritizing reasonableness only repurposes conflicts by transforming disagreement into a series of debates over the meaning of reasonableness itself, battles which are every bit as partisan and vicious as those Rawls sought to exclude. Revitalizing the idea of the reasonable requires abandoning the effort to deploy it as a technique of exclusion. Instead, reasonable politics should be oriented toward engagement with unreasonable critics.     

Power Politics and Wars without States

In order to evaluate the applicability of power politics theories of war and international stability to interactions among nonstate actors, I test hypotheses from power transition theory and from neorealist arguments about systemic polarity against the behavior of 20 state and nonstate actors in nineteenth‐century South America. I find considerable support for two of the three hypotheses tested and conclude that existing IR theory has more explanatory power within the empirical domain of nonstate relations than critics of such theory claim.     

Crisis for the State or Crisis of the State?

The Conservative‐Liberal Democrat government's policy risks turning the financial crisis into a crisis of the state. This article argues that the current trajectory of the British state risks exacerbating the very social antagonisms which it has fought so hard to contain in recent years. It contends that the crisis (2007–09) was a crisis of neoliberalism and yet, paradoxically, neoliberalism—in the form of further depoliticisation and a new politics of debt—is being re‐invoked to deal with the post‐apocalyptic condition of the British economy. The article suggests that the state lacks the necessary political discourse to secure popular consent and—as a result—is resorting to a more coercive form of political management; and that the effects of austerity are being offset through an increased indebtedness of the British public. Both risk igniting social conflict. In the conclusion several points are indicated for an alternative political agenda.     

Power,norms and theory. A meta-political inquiry

Realism criticizes the idea, central to what may be called ‘the priority view’, that philosophy has the task of imposing from the outside general norms of morality or standards of reasonableness on politics understood as the domain of power. According to realism, political philosophy must reveal the specific standards internal to the political practice of handling power appropriately and as it develops in actual circumstances. Framed in those terms, the debate evokes the idea that political power itself is lacking normativity until such time as norms are devised that govern its use. In contrast, this essay identifies a normative dimension internal to (the conquest and exercise of) power. Power depends on recognition and support in the form of belief. This dependence explains how an interest in power introduces a responsiveness to normative considerations into the domain of politics.     

Fast thinking: Implications for democratic politics

A major programme of research on cognition has been built around the idea that human beings are frequently intuitive thinkers and that human intuition is imperfect. The modern marketing of politics and the time‐poor position of many citizens suggests that ‘fast’, intuitive, thinking in many contemporary democracies is ubiquitous. This article explores the consequences that such fast thinking might have for the democratic practice of contemporary politics. Using focus groups with a range of demographic profiles, fast thinking about how politics works is stimulated and followed by a more reflective and collectively deliberative form of slow thinking among the same participants. A strong trajectory emerges consistently in all groups in that in fast thinking mode participants are noticeably more negative and dismissive about the workings of politics than when in slow thinking mode. A fast thinking focus among citizens may be good enough to underwrite mainstream political exchange, but at the cost of supporting a general negativity about politics and the way it works. Yet breaking the cycle of fast thinking – as advocated by deliberation theorists – might not be straightforward because of the grip of fast thinking. The fast/slow thinking distinction, if carefully used, offers valuable new insight into political science.     

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’.     

Toward a New Critical Theory with a Cosmopolitan Intent

In this article I want to outline an argument for a New Critical Theory with a cosmopolitan intent. Its main purpose is to undermine one of the most powerful beliefs of our time concerning society and politics. This belief is the notion that “modern society” and “modern politics” are to be understood as society and politics organized around the nation‐state, equating society with the national imagination of society. There are two aspects to this body of beliefs: what I call the “national perspective” (or “national gaze”) of social actors, and the “methodological nationalism” of scientific observers. The distinction between these two perspectives is important because there is no logical co‐implication between them, only an interconnected genesis and history.     

Globalisation and Public Language

This article questions what the concept of ‘globalisation’ really amounts to. In doing so it highlights problems for the ascendancy of globalisation in contemporary public debate. Globalisation has become a catch‐all; the phrase is now used to try and explain all manner of phenomena from everyday life to international politics. But the article suggests that this may be little more than a combination of rhetoric and wishful thinking. It asserts that the contemporary world is being driven by older and familiar pressures, such as state power and nationalism. As a result, the idea of ‘globalisation’ needs to be treated with some scepticism.     

Self-respect and public reason

In A Theory of Justice John Rawls argues that self-respect is ‘perhaps the most important’ primary good, and that its status as such gives crucial support to controversial ideas like the lexical priority of liberty. Given the importance of these ideas for Rawls, it should be no surprise that they have attracted much critical attention. In response to these critics I give a defense of self-respect that grounds its importance in Rawls’s moral conception of the person. I show that this understanding of self-respect goes well beyond giving support to the lexical priority of liberty, also supporting Rawls’s still more controversial view of public reason. On my account, taking self-respect seriously requires the coercive enforcement of public reason. This is a novel argument for public reason, in that it grounds the idea in justice as fairness and mandates its coercive enforcement.     

In Defence of British Politics Against the British Political Tradition

This article explores some of the current themes round the perceived crisis in British politics in supposed an age of ‘anti‐politics’. Drawing on Bernard Crick's In Defence of Politics, it offers a critique of what is referred to as a dominant British political tradition and in so doing seeks to challenge ‘demand‐side’ accounts that ostensibly defend the traditional arena politics of the Westminster system. Instead, it argues that developments around issues such as big data, social media and freedom of information have led to a more open society in recent years. It concludes by suggesting that if traditional political institutions wish to restore a greater degree of legitimacy, they need to ‘do’ or, more particularly, ‘supply’ politics differently, adapting to these changes by seeking out new modes of openness, engagement and accountability.     

Reviews Editor's Introduction

Many thanks are due to John Berg for his service to the journal as Reviews Editor for the past seven years. After preparing this, my first issue, for publication I am more fully aware of the time and energy that he devoted to the task. I also thank John for his assistance and guidance as I have assumed the role of Reviews Editor. I plan no major departures from the path established by John, who commissioned reviews on a wide array of topics and cultural forms. My commissioning of reviews will be guided by the following considerations, not necessarily in this order: (1) of likely interest to NPS members; (2) critical, progressive perspectives; (3) written or produced by NPS members; (4) somebody recommended it for review or volunteered to review it; and (5) my own idiosyncratic preferences. I claim no ability to comprehensively represent the diverse interests of NPS Caucus members. While my own research and teaching interests include democratic theory, political economy, public policy, and the politics of art and popular culture, I will attempt to commission reviews covering a broad range of topics. Since New Political Science is “A Journal of Politics &; Culture,” I will seek to include reviews of cultural forms other than books. This issue includes a fine review by Bruce Caswell of two films of potential interest to readers. In addition to books, I am interested in commissioning reviews of cultural forms as diverse as public art, comic books, contemporary fiction, music, and movies, always with the understanding that they say something interesting and valuable about contemporary politics. Our publication schedule, which includes a substantial lag of at least five to six months between finishing a review and publishing it, makes it impossible to publish timely reviews of movies and some other cultural forms. However, movies and other cultural forms often have a deep and lingering impact on culture and politics, making them fit subjects for retrospective review.     

Racial structural solidarity

Abstract

Effective political action against racial injustice requires a conception of solidarity based on the social and material reality of this form of injustice. I develop such a notion of solidarity by extending Iris Young’s notion of ‘gender as seriality’ to race. This notion of solidarity avoids the problems encountered by Shelby’s ‘common oppression view’ and Gooding-Williams’s non-foundational view. On Shelby’s ‘common oppression’ view, solidarity is based solely on the victims’ shared condition of oppression. According to Shelby, all victims of racial oppression can be reasonably expected to endorse a set of principles that will move them to common action. Gooding-Williams sheds doubt on the idea that such shared principles exist and defends instead a view of politics as action-in-concert, marked by reasonable disagreement, and a non-foundational view of solidarity constituted through the controversy of politics rather than given in virtue of pre-political commitments or interests. I argue that the problem with such a notion is that it is unable to link the material and social reality of the unjust structures to the forms of political action that would effectively transform social reality. My notion of ‘structural racial solidarity’ would avoid these problems.     

Stern Review 2.0? The Report of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate

Eight years after the launch of the Stern Review of the economics of climate change, a new major report on economic growth and climate change (Better Growth, Better Climate) has been published by a Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, chaired by Nicholas Stern. While this comprehensive review of recent evidence has some overlap with the original Stern Review, it focuses more on the short‐term costs and benefits of action needed to reduce carbon emissions in specific parts of the economy such as cities, energy and agriculture. Perhaps the most noted conclusion of the report is that policies which governments should be pursuing anyway, because they will reduce pollution, improve health, raise productivity and reduce congestion, will cut carbon emission by between 50 and 90 per cent of what is needed to get to a 2°C pathway. This is an important report that will have considerable influence, although it has had lower public visibility than the original Stern Review. However, it also points to the need for a better understanding of the politics of climate policy, and why the opportunities to adopt policies that have multiple long‐term public benefits do not get taken. While Better Growth, Better Climate does have a chapter on the political economy of change, the analysis is limited, and could be deepened by bringing in the growing literature on the politics of climate policy.     

Coombs’ Bastard Child: The Troubled Life of CDEP

In the mid 1970s HC Coombs was a major promoter of the idea behind the CDEP scheme: that rather than pay lots of Aboriginal people in remote areas unemployment benefits it would be more constructive for them to be employed part‐time by local Indigenous organisations to undertake socially useful tasks. From this simple idea was born one of the most significant and, in time, one of the largest Indigenous‐specific programs Australia has seen, the Community Development Employment Projects scheme. The birth was not easy and neither has been the subsequent life of what I have called, with great licence, Coombs’ bastard child.     

Disagreement and the Avoidance of Political Discussion: Aggregate Relationships and Differences across Personality Traits

Social networks play a prominent role in the explanation of many political phenomena. Using data from a nationally representative survey of registered voters conducted around the 2008 U.S. presidential election, we document three findings. First, we show that during this period, people discussed politics as frequently as (or more frequently than) other topics such as family, work, sports, and entertainment with frequent discussion partners. Second, the frequency with which a topic is discussed is strongly and positively associated with reported agreement on that topic among these same discussion partners. Supplementary experimental evidence suggests this correlation arises because people avoid discussing politics when they anticipate disagreement. Third, we show that Big Five personality traits affect how frequently people discuss a variety of topics, including politics. Some of these traits also alter the relationship between agreement and frequency of discussion in theoretically expected ways. This suggests that certain personality types are more likely to be exposed to divergent political information, and that not everyone is equally likely to experience cross‐cutting discourse, even in heterogeneous networks.