EXPERTISE AND POLICY‐MAKING: LEGAL PROFESSIONALS IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Professional influence in policy‐making is generally believed to rest on professionals successfully laying claim to access to expertise – knowledge, understanding or experience – not available to others, above all politicians. On the basis of a 2005 survey of nearly 800 lawyers serving in local authorities in England and Wales, this article explores the relationship between specialization and political influence. Lawyers who shape policy use conventional routes for political influence, establish contacts with political officeholders, tend to identify less with the profession at large and are less likely to see themselves as specialists in any field of law. This means that the relationship between expertise and political power is complex and that the notion that professionals use their expertise to shape policy should be treated with some caution.     

The Effect of Limiting Participation in Special District Elections to Property Owners: A Research Note

Scholars have found significant policy differences between special districts governed by elected officials and those overseen by appointees. However, their research ignores U.S. Supreme Court rulings that allow many special districts to restrict electoral participation to property owners. This study finds that the presence of officials elected by property owners upon a district's governing board is related to a reduced reliance upon property taxes for revenues and a greater reliance upon service charges. Using Census data sets and a review of state statutes, the study demonstrates that board elections can be an effective means for property owners to influence policy.     

LIVING WITH THE CONTRADICTIONS OF MODERNIZATION? EMOTIONAL MANAGEMENT IN THE TEACHING PROFESSION

The state education system in the UK has undergone significant transformation such that New Labour’s modernization policy embodies aspects of the marketized system, inspired by New Right thinking, with a concern for placing schools at the centre of the social inclusion agenda. In this paper, we explore the impact of the modernized agenda on teachers’ work and identify the tensions and contradictions which emanate from these policies. The research centred on interviews with teachers and headteachers in four school case studies and explores the changing nature of the profession by focusing on teachers’ emotional management. It is evident that at a time when a large proportion of what teachers do is subject to scrutiny and audit, the emotional and less definable elements of teaching have also increased but remain relatively unrecognized. The findings suggest that issues of emotional management bring into sharp relief the contradictions evident in the modernized agenda.     

The Obama Buzz

I didn't expect any of my students to care about American politics. When I first moved to China to teach English in August 2008, I figured some of the     

Political Marketing and Propaganda: Uses,Abuses, Misuses

Although previous issues of well-respected marketing journals (e.g., Revue Française du Marketing, Psychology & Marketing, Journal of Marketing Management, European Journal of Marketing) have focused on political marketing, and although there are now journals which regularly publish papers on political marketing including, of course, this one and the Journal of Public Affairs, none has focused exclusively on how the techniques developed for use in electoral and governmental campaigning, in lobbying and party fundraising campaigns, are now being used more generally in the military, in public diplomacy programs, and by companies, not-for-profit organizations, and even terrorist groups, with a focus on “winning hearts and minds.” The aim of this special issue is to seek to fill in this gap in our knowledge and encourage further research into the political marketing/propaganda interface. In this special issue, we seek to elucidate the meaning of propaganda and political marketing by exploring their parameters, both contemporary and traditional.     

MEASURING NEED IN THE NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE RESOURCE ALLOCATION FORMULA: STANDARDIZED MORTALITY RATIOS OR SOCIAL DEPRIVATION?

All methods of dividing public expenditure between competing claims become contentious, particularly when they rely on social indicators of need. The Resource Allocation Working Party (RAW) formula devised in 1976 for distributing National Health Service financial resources fairly between different parts of England relies on the size, age/sex structure and mortality rates (in the form of standardized mortality ratios – SMRS) of populations as combined surrogates for their need for health care. This paper aims to demonstrate three things: first, that RAW'S approach in selecting SMRS was sure-footed; second, that no better proxy of health care need which could be used in RAW has been produced since RAW; and third, that the continuing criticism of SMRS has been sustained by political pressures within the NHS. The result has been the application of ever more indirect and complex surrogates for'need in the resource allocation process which are known to be contaminated by the prevailing unequal supply of health service facilities.