AGENCIFICATION AND BLAME SHIFTING: EVALUATING A NEGLECTED SIDE OF PUBLIC SECTOR REFORMS

The establishment of autonomous agencies has been a strong trend in the public sector across countries for about 25 years. In line with the official rhetoric accompanying such reforms, almost all reform evaluations have focused on various kinds of performance improvements. This article investigates a set of behavioural consequences of such reforms, which have been claimed by the blame avoidance literature, but have never been subjected to systematic empirical analysis. In particular, the article examines how a reform of agencification influences the propensity of agency managers to blame the political principals when the agency is subject to public criticism. Furthermore, it examines how the reform influences the blaming rhetoric of ministers and MPs. To evaluate such reform effects systematically, the article introduces a new empirical approach and illustrates the utility of the approach in a case study of the transformation of the national Danish railway company from 1995 to 2007.     

Profoundly Un‐Conservative? David Cameron and the UK Bill of Rights Debate

This article considers David Cameron's proposal to repeal the Human Rights Act (HRA) and replace it with a British Bill of Rights. Cameron's proposal has been heavily criticised by a range of political, academic and non‐state actors and was described by a current senior Coalition Cabinet member as ‘xenophobic’ and ‘legal nonsense’. This article takes a slightly different direction to those lines of attack and critique that have been developed of the Conservative's proposals. The central proposition of the article is that Cameron's proposal is profoundly un‐Conservative at two levels. Firstly, at the level of Conservative approaches to constitutional reform and secondly, at the level of Conservative political philosophy.     

A Prosperity of Thought in an Age of Austerity: The Case of Ulster Loyalism

A central failing of analysis of the peace process has been to account for, explain and determine the extent of loyalist‐led conflict transformation. My argument is that, despite evident wrong‐doing, there has been a failure to appreciate the prosperity of loyalist thinking and action in the period after the paramilitary ceasefires of 1994. Loyalism has appeared less relevant than it is to peacemaking due to its criminalisation, its refusal to accept positive morphology and a failure to self‐promote. An appreciation of the positive nature of loyalist transition offers much to those who seek to comprehend the future of Northern Ireland.