Is Leviathan Manageable?

Books reviewed:
Peri E. Arnold, Making the Managerial Presidency: Comprehensive Reorganization Planning, 1905–1996.     

What Is Governance?

This commentary points to the poor state of empirical measures of the quality of states, that is, executive branches and their bureaucracies. Much of the problem is conceptual, as there is very little agreement on what constitutes high‐quality government. The commentary suggests four approaches: (1) procedural measures, such as the Weberian criteria of bureaucratic modernity; (2) capacity measures, which include both resources and degree of professionalization; (3) output measures; and (4) measures of bureaucratic autonomy. It rejects output measures and suggests a two‐dimensional framework of using capacity and autonomy as a measure of executive branch quality. This framework explains the conundrum of why low‐income countries are advised to reduce bureaucratic autonomy while high‐income ones seek to increase it.     

Is governance democratic?

This paper argues that governance can engender undemocratic inequality, exclusion and populism. It does so by analysing the concept of governance, and unearthing three theoretical justifications for it: one libertarian, one radical and one republican. These justifications are in turn refuted by showing how they respectively undermine a process-view of democracy, neglect structural avenues for accountability and encourage elites to wield power.     

Does Voting History Matter? Analysing Persistence in Turnout

Individuals who vote in one election are more likely to vote in the next. Yet modelling the causal relationship between past and current voting decisions is intrinsically difficult, as this positive association can exist due to habit formation or unobserved heterogeneity. This article overcomes this problem using longitudinal data from the British National Child Development Study (NCDS) to examine voter turnout across three elections. It distinguishes between unobserved heterogeneity caused by fixed individual characteristics and the initial conditions problem, which occurs when voting behavior in a previous, but unobserved, period influences current voting behavior. It finds that, controlling for fixed effects, unobserved heterogeneity has little impact on the estimated degree of habit in voter turnout; however, failing to control for initial conditions reduces the estimate by a half. The results imply that voting in one election increases the probability of voting in a subsequent election by 13%.     

Proving,Pleasing and Persuading? Rhetoric in Contemporary British Politics

Expressions of disaffection with politics are often connected with criticism of the ways in which contemporary politicians speak and communicate. In this article I show how political speech is in part a product of the way in which a society organises and arranges communication institutionally, technologically and aesthetically. The art of rhetoric is most fundamentally concerned with how, in the midst of political dispute and contestation, political arguments may be made persuasive through their connection with the ‘common sense’ of audiences. This process enables a people to reflect on its beliefs and values and to assess their adequacy in particular circumstances. Decline in this art may be attributed to social and technological change but also, and above all, to the dominance of ideologies hostile to the concepts of ‘common sense’ and ‘common good’, and which privilege the arts of behaviour change and choice management over those of argument, debate and persuasion.     

Towards the Vernacular,Away from Politics? Political History after the ‘New Political History’

This article considers how modern British political history has changed since the ‘new political history’ of the 1990s. It focusses on the ‘vernacular’ histories which have emerged in the last decade or so. The vernacular ‘turn’ is frequently framed by its proponents in opposition to the new political history, with its focus on the rhetoric of politicians and subsequent tendency to reproduce the perspectives of political elites. This article, however, identifies continuities between these approaches, noting their shared interest in advancing a more complex understanding of the relationship between politics and people in the past. It argues that the real challenge posed by the vernacular lies in the necessary reckoning with the ‘apartness’ of politics from the perspective of ordinary people. Yet here too, this piece suggests, the vernacular turn can be seen as the latest stage in a continual rethinking of the relationship between political, social and cultural history.     

What Is It About Politicians?

Why do people dislike politicians and could anything be done about it? Drawing upon survey evidence, it is argued that the twin charge against politicians is that they are engaged in a kind of game and that they are a political class out of touch with real life. These charges are examined and found to have at least some merit. Remedies would involve a change in political behaviour; and measures to widen political recruitment. The consequences of not making such changes will be a further erosion of political trust. Constitutional change is less important in tackling dislike of politicians than alterations in political behaviour.