Path Dependency and the Reform of English Local Government

This paper uses the concept of path dependency to examine the changes to the political management structures of English local government. We note how the possible experience of decreasing returns among some local authority actors combined with the powerful intervention of politicians within New Labour at the national level led to a significant break from past policy and the imposition of measures to establish a separate executive that was claimed as a radical step forward for local democracy. Using survey data from the Evaluating Local Governance research team ( http://www.elgnce.org.uk ), we explore the establishment of a separate political executive in all major local authorities and map out the style of decision-making that is emerging. We find that some established institutional patterns reasserted themselves in the process of implementation, but that increasing returns are not as great as some theorists of path dependency would suggest and they may be a force for system change as well as for stability.     

Voter Engagement,Electoral Inequality and First‐Time Compulsory Voting

This paper reviews the problem of declining turnout and proposes as a solution a system whereby each elector would be legally obliged to vote in the first election for which they were eligible. Popular attitudes toward first‐time compulsory voting are measured and probed by means of UK data. The main findings of the paper are that first‐time compulsory voting is a politically and administratively feasible proposal that appears tentatively to command popular support and has the potential to help address a number of the problems associated with declining turnout, and in particular low rates of electoral participation among younger citizens.     

Negative Capital and the Wealth of Nations

The so-called global economy has generated tremendous international wealth inequality that only increases as globalization deepens. This process is capped by the failure of classical economic theory to incorporate such free market externalities as negative capital . Negative capital can be defined as situations, events, or environmental conditions that degrade or threaten to degrade the standard of living or life expectancy of great numbers of persons, including those living in wealthy nations. These problems cut across issues of sovereignty and security, economic development, and the environment. They can be monetized and have value because the rich will have to pay in order to mitigate them, whether at home or abroad. Payment can take many forms, but it will involve a politics of redistribution. Negative capital is a systemic phenomenon "in nature" without which the classical economic theory is both incomplete and notably ideological. A tamed and therefore enlightened free market, that recognizes and addresses negative capital, may be better equipped to resolve the situations created by its inherent inadequacies.     

Transnational Cultural Studies: What Price Globalisation?

One of the most significant aspects of globalisation has been the developing focus upon local resistances, of various types, and the ways in which these resistances seek to carve out specific spaces that both maintain and construct cultural difference. Performing cultural studies in those spaces, particularly those not determined by the philosophical and ideological underpinnings of cultural theories that are traditionally highly resistant to orthodoxies, is both challenging and exciting. Questions of whether a transnational cultural studies is possible in such contexts have been exercising a number of scholars in the past few years. This paper reviews some of those concerns and considers some of the issues involved in the developments of cultural studies within a transnational humanities context, which often operates in ways unfamiliar with the anti-establishment beginnings of Anglo-American/Australian cultural studies.     

State urban enterprise zones: origin,policy context,and administrative constraints

This article examines the origins of state enterprise zone policies. Further, the range of state enterprise zones are reviewed, drawing out patterns and generalizations of implementing this type of revitalization policy. As part of this analysis President Reagan urban policy is analyzed as to its effect on state programs. Lastly, the article analyzes three important obstacles - labor, incentives, and politics - that state and local administrators must negotiate to successfully implement the enterprise zone policy.