The Politics of the British Environment since 1945

This article examines, first, how environmental concerns have shaped British politics since 1945, making the environment an object of governance; and second, how political developments have an environmental history, focussing on the environmental demands of social democracy. It contends that environmentalism should be considered alongside other political ideologies, such as socialism and feminism, as helping to constitute the modern British state and the evolving relationship between government and the citizen. It considers how the management of the terrestrial environment became a hotly contested matter in the postwar decades, drawing a distinction between the politics of ‘landscape preservation’ and ‘nature conservation’. This discussion is related to access politics and questions of rural governance and regulation, particularly with respect to the agricultural sector. The article concludes with a discussion of some current environmental concerns, reflecting on the possible transition from today's ‘carbon democracy’ to tomorrow's ‘renewable democracy’.     

Over the border and under the radar: can illegal migrants be active citizens?

Active citizens can become a powerful driver of development by holding to popular account those who traditionally wield decision-making power at the local and national levels. Active citizenship draws from a long history of understanding the importance of community participation and ownership of development interventions. However, in spite of its inherent strengths, active citizenship may not be a possible (or optimal) outcome in all circumstances. This article argues for the realistic expectation of active citizenship (and indeed participation) of one specific sub-population in Thailand, where the overwhelming majority of illegal migrants (of an estimated total of 800,000–1.5 million) are Burmese. Their precarious existence as illegal migrants compounds the development needs that confront any poor community. This in turn hinders their ability to engage actively in the development process. This article reviews the lessons learned by a Thai-based NGO that has worked with illegal Burmese migrants for more than 15 years. It discusses the unique strengths and weakness of these illegal communities, whether or not it is appropriate to seek to engage them as active citizens, and the implications for NGOs working with such communities. It suggests that the unique role that NGOs must play, in cases where public participation could endanger the lives of community members, is that of advocate-guardians, whereby they assume the role of active citizen on behalf of the community in question and simultaneously provide development interventions and advocate on its behalf.     

The Electoral Costs of Party Loyalty in Congress

To what extent is party loyalty a liability for incumbent legislators? Past research on legislative voting and elections suggests that voters punish members who are ideologically “out of step” with their districts. In seeking to move beyond the emphasis in the literature on the effects of ideological extremity on legislative vote share, we examine how partisan loyalty can adversely affect legislators' electoral fortunes. Specifically, we estimate the effects of each legislator's party unity—the tendency of a member to vote with his or her party on salient issues that divide the two major parties—on vote margin when running for reelection. Our results suggest that party loyalty on divisive votes can indeed be a liability for incumbent House members. In fact, we find that voters are not punishing elected representatives for being too ideological; they are punishing them for being too partisan.     

Leadership and Organizational Culture: Sustaining Dialogue between Practitioners and Scholars

Few topics in the study of contemporary public organizations better illustrate the burdens—and potential benefits—of sustaining dialogue between practitioners and scholars than the interplay between leadership, organizational culture, and public sector performance. Following two decades of intensive research and advocacy, the last 10 years have seen diminished scholarly attention to this subject, while efforts to shape culture remain central to the leadership of public organizations. This essay reflects on the 8 Cs of organizational culture: complicated, control, competence, commitments, credibility, conflict, context, and change.     

Retention Practices for Engineering and Technical Professionals in an Australian Public Agency

Retaining employees with core business skills is a key human resources (HR) activity. This article examines retention of engineering and technical (E&T) professionals in an Australian public service agency by collecting data from 670 E&T professionals to compare attraction, retention and turnover intention by age and occupation. It was hypothesised that the influencers would vary by age, in line with the research on generational differences and employment patterns ( Chaminade 2005 ; Kyles 2005 ). This hypothesis was largely supported. It has also been suggested that intention to leave is influenced by job opportunity ( Hwang and Kuo 2006 ) and we thus sought to examine the influencers for turnover intention for the differing occupations in the E&T group surveyed. There were no significant differences by occupation, except for location, although this may be because occupational groups were aggregated due to the small numbers in some occupations. The current findings address the call for evidence‐based data on the influencers for attraction, retention and turnover intention ( Allen, Bryant and Vardaman 2010 ), and suggests that retention strategies need to take into account generational differences.     

Gentle Savages and Fierce Citizens against Civilization: Unraveling Rousseau's Paradoxes

Rousseau seems to argue, on one hand, that moderns are luxurious, lazy, weak, and soft, in opposition to primitive hardiness, vigor, ferocity, and rustic virtue. On the other hand, he depicts modern life as cruel, frenzied, competitive, and harsh, in opposition to primitive gentleness, idleness, abundance, and spontaneity. Is Rousseau, then, simply an imaginative ideologue, forwarding wildly opposed and oscillating characterizations of these eras, merely to be contrarian? This article attempts to demonstrate a degree of coherence in his analyses, by focusing on the various sociopolitical contexts he discusses, and the various moral characterizations and norms which apply to each of these contexts. Building upon a half‐century of interpretations, it offers an innovative logical typology of Rousseau's social thought—in terms of social complexity, environmental resources, and normative foundation—which may explain many of his central paradoxes.