Policy In Britain Research Articles

Europeanization and Multilevel Governance – Cohesion Policy in the European Union and Britain – By I. Bache

Europeanization and Multilevel Governance – Cohesion Policy in the European Union and Britain , by I. Bache ( Lanham/New York : Rowman & Littlefield , 2008 , ISBN 9780742541337 ); xii + 193pp. , £21.99 pb . For long simply a ‘simple polity’, Britain has recently undergone profound changes in governance. This book investigates the extent to which EU cohesion policy has promoted multi-level governance (MLG) and assesses which seemingly associated changes can be attributed to Europeanization. It considers how formal, high-profile developments such as devolution, and informal or lower-profile phenomena, such as the proliferation of agencies and quangos, can really be explained by EU integration – perhaps to dispel the easy, false assumption that all attributes of MLG are the result of Europeanizing forces. First the building blocks: after applying Schmidt's (2006) refinements to Lijphart's twofold democracy model – they allow for varying degrees of regionalization, representation and statism – Bache provides his own ‘substantial revision’ of Risse, Cowles and Caporaso's (2001) three-step approach to Europeanization, thereby offering a more nuanced categorization of the extent and depth of potential domestic change. Recognizing weaknesses in the distinction between type I features (regional powers extended through devolution) and type II features (sideways movement of power to non-state actors) of MLG, he proposes policy networks as a conceptual complement to provide a bridge to Europeanization. Such refined theoretical grounding over five chapters provides solid foundations for the examination of cohesion policy in Britain in chapter 7 (1989–97) and chapter 8 (1997–2006). Highlighting how forces of change were present before EU cohesion policy, the book proceeds by examining the administrative impacts of policy principles such as ‘partnership’, ‘additionality’ and ‘programming’ in the early days of Structural Fund reform post-1988, while also making clear that these very notions were fed up from Member States. The evidence suggests that not all MLG has been due to the EU, whose impact, where identified, manifests itself via type II institutional architecture. The book delivers valuable, refined theoretical insight, applicable for policy analysis in other domains. The authoritative examination of key developments in policy, from the creation of the ERDF in 1975, through the Thatcher, Major and Blair administrations, deepens our understanding of the broader, ongoing process of British institutional reform. It is the culmination of 15 years of work on British politics and over 200 interviews with policy-makers. Further empirical chapters on the role of trade unions in partnerships for implementation, and operational programmes engaging regional networks, would have made welcome reading. As Bache asserts, the prerequisite for any attempt to grasp the prospects for MLG through Europeanization in Britain is a British understanding of ‘sovereignty’– itself no mean feat. After compound analysis, Britain may not be such a simple polity after all.

The Lure of the Plan: The Impact of the Five-Year Plans in Britain

This article investigates the impact of the initial Soviet Five-Year Plans upon political discourse in Britain, and in particular its impact upon the left. It shows that a broad swathe of political opinion in Britain was encouraged by the impact of the crash of 1929 to accept the need for the state to intervene in economic affairs, and that the growth of the Soviet economy under the initial Five-Year Plans played a catalytic role in accentuating this opinion. Many commentators who rejected the political norms of the Soviet regime nonetheless considered that valuable lessons could be drawn in respect of economic policy in Britain. The article then looks at the attitudes held on the left towards planning, and concludes that the idea that socialist planning must involve democratic decision-making on the part of producers and consumers was submerged beneath a technocratic concept of élite economic management, and that the rise of this idea of planning during the 1930s was a component of the defeat of the wave of working-class radicalism that had erupted at the end of the First World War.

On the Function of Britishness on Social Cohesion and Cultural Diversity : A Perspective for the Appreciation of the Social Integration Policy in Britain

On the Function of Britishness on Social Cohesion and Cultural Diversity : A Perspective for the Appreciation of the Social Integration Policy in Britain

Sustainable Development Policy in Britain: Shaping Conduct Through Global Governmentality

This paper relies on the premise that the environment (in an ecological sense) is political. In other words, the environment and the threat of environmental degradation and destruction are operational discourses that work to legitimate and shape power relations between states, corporations, societies and peoples. Based on this premise, and in line with Michel Foucault's notion of governmentality, this paper traces the shifting discourses of environmentalism in Britain to offer an overview of how environmental issues work to discipline relations around achieving market based objectives. I go on to argue that environmental concerns legitimate and are legitimated by globalisation and that, perhaps conversely, globalisation in relation to the environment, works in the service of neoliberal expansionist agendas. As such, this paper turns to investigate Britain's international sustainable development policy and how this works to shape and discipline, primarily gendered, social relations in consolidation of neoliberal principles. In sum, this paper contends that environmental degradation is a discourse that works to shape identities in line with a global neoliberal expansionist agenda.

Striving towards Inclusive Research: An Example of Participatory Action Research with Older Lesbians and Gay Men

This paper sets out to explore the implications of participatory action research (PAR) as a method of encouraging older people from minority groups to have a ‘voice’ in defining knowledge, theory and practice about their lives. Recent policy in Britain has promoted the recognition of diversity of experience in later life () and the importance of working with older people as equal partners (). At the same time, notions of partnership and service user involvement in both research and practice development are now firmly established within health and social care practice. Despite this, the needs of older lesbians and gay men are still very much invisible within mainstream policy and practice (). PAR approaches seek to address issues of power, politics and empowerment () and therefore offers an inclusive method of working with marginalized and excluded voices. This is important in research with minority groups, as their experiences can be masked by imposing mainstream categories and assumptions (). The paper considers participatory action research as a methodology for inclusive social work research and uses a case study to explore the methodology. It reviews the ‘cycle’ of research using the six principles for working with disempowered groups identified by . The paradoxes involved in participatory research are explored, including issues of inclusiveness and exclusivity, and the possibility of ‘untold truths’ (). The challenges involved in striving for inclusive and empowering research methodologies are discussed, exploring the implications for ‘outsider’ researchers, and the challenges of working with ‘variant truths’.

Emerging Equality Policy in Britain in Comparative Context: A Missed Opportunity?

Evolving equality policy in Britain shows little evidence of drawing upon comparative experience. Both fair employment policy in Northern Ireland and employment equity in Canada offer approaches significantly more radical than in Britain but key policy documents show little appetite for engaging with these examples.

Second Face of Security Strategies: Anglo-German and Anglo-Japanese Trade Concessions During the 1930s

Great powers can pursue deliberate Trojan horse policies to transform rising and threatening states into followers and supporters rather than challengers by altering their domestic political and economic institutions. I contend that a great power can use trade concessions, rather than punishment, to enable a favorable foreign policy coalition in a target country. The intent is to strengthen the political power of state and societal elites who have a stake in deepening international ties, while opponents of such policies will be weakened politically and economically. The societal winners will then apply pressure on the government to support their preferred outward-oriented grand strategy. I term this process the second face of security since it entails a less direct and more nuanced method of creating security. I examine Britain's commercial policies toward Germany and Japan during the 1930s to better understand second-face strategies. I argue that the intent of Britain's industrial and commercial policy was to strengthen conservative business, government officials, and economic circles in banking, light industry, and finished goods, and even heavy industry in order to steer Berlin and Tokyo away from rearmament, extreme autarky, and war.

Helen Parr, Britain's Policy towards the European Community: Harold Wilson and Britain's World Role, 1964–1967.

Helen Parr, <i>Britain's Policy towards the European Community: Harold Wilson and Britain's World Role, 1964–1967</i>.

The Change to Engagement in Britain's Cold War Policy: The Origins of the Thatcher-Gorbachev Relationship

Using previously unseen British Cabinet Office and Foreign Office papers obtained through the UK Freedom of Information Act, this article shows how a change in Britain's stance in the Cold War was initiated in 1983. As a result of this process, the British government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher decided to move to greater engagement with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Distrusting the Foreign Office as an institution, Thatcher asked for papers from eight outside academic specialists, on whose analyses she placed considerable weight. The desire for East-West dialogue was strongly favored by Foreign Office ministers and officials, whose advice, paradoxically, was more readily accepted by Thatcher when similar policy recommendations (though with some differences in analysis) were made by the academics. The invitation to Mikhail Gorbachev to visit Britain in 1984, prior to his becoming leader of the Soviet Union, had its origins in a Chequers seminar involving both academics and officials on 8–9 September 1983. This was the beginning of an important, and surprising, political relationship that transformed Britain's militantly anti-socialist prime minister into the strongest supporter—certainly among conservative politicians worldwide—of the new leader of the Soviet Communist Party.

Understanding and Responding to Crime and Disorder: Ensuring a Local Dimension

Despite paying lip service to the local dimension to crime and disorder auditing,government policies in Britain have tended to prioritize national goals and standards. This is regrettable. The early acknowledgement that Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships could be grouped into families with distinct social, economic and criminogenic profiles underlined the importance of assessing crime and disorder issues in context. One example is the impact that tourism has upon crime and anti-social behaviour in areas catering for mass tourism and especially youth tourism. Using data from the 2001 and 2004 Crime and Disorder audits in Cornwall, and other local evaluations, this paper illustrates both how tourism impacts upon local crime patterns and how its impact needs to be recognized and incorporated into local planning processes.

Are British higher educational concerns different from European higher educational concerns?

British universities are known among the other Bologna countries not to have adjusted fully to the new common three-tier degree structure. Is it the case that British higher educational concerns are different from Continental concerns? A study of recent developments in two British graduate schools of history shows that a three-tier study structure was generalised in British universities 15 years ahead of Bologna as the one-year taught master's degree gained ground. This article argues that there were similar concerns related to massification and to an increasing demand for efficiency and employability in British, French and Norwegian higher education policy. These common concerns have been met by common reform measures in the three countries: a transition from individual and unstructured postgraduate degrees to structured and skill-oriented taught degrees. In contrast to the situation in other European countries, the Bologna Process has not represented a legitimate framework for higher education policy in Britain. However, British universities have proved susceptible both to national policy measures and to foreign university models. If the Bologna Process gradually appears as a strong and unified model, the British universities might not be immune to change.

De-Heterosexualising Health: Exploring Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans Health Issues and Policy in Britain

De-Heterosexualising Health: Exploring Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans Health Issues and Policy in Britain

A New Policy for Britain's Cities: Choices, Challenges, Contradictions

The general perception of cities has been transformed over the last decade. The purpose of the article is to consider the idea and reality of urban revitalisation and to examine whether the government's emerging spatial policy will help to strengthen and sustain the revival. Evidence shows that there has been a significant improvement in urban economic conditions in recent years, but the short-term outlook is less favourable. While the government has taken some useful steps along the road to a more effective policy for cities, there is further to go. There are also important dilemmas to be addressed that go beyond a simple spatial fix.

Electricity and energy policy in Britain, France and the United States since 1945

Martin Chick’s book is a major economic and historical study of the development of electricity and energy policy in Britain, France and the United States since 1945. Using newly available archival material the author draws important comparisons between these countries and includes all of the fuel and power industries.

The origin of the welfare state in England and Germany, 1850-1914: social policies compared

Acknowledgements Introduction Part I. Public Relief of the Poor: 1. The national framework 2. The Urban Poor Law Part II. The State and Industrial Injury: 3. Factory legislation to 1878 4. German accident insurance 5. British workmen's compensation 6. Factory legislation to 1914 Part III. Sickness, Invalidity, and Old Age: 7. The friendly societies of England and Wales 8. From Prussian Hilfskassen to German Krankenkassen 9. Cash benefits, contribution and coverage in the Friendly Society Era 10. German invalidity and old age insurance 11. British old age pensions 12. National health insurance for Britain 13. Medical provision in Britain and Germany 14. Contributions and benefits in the National Insurance era 15. White-collar insurance Part IV. Unemployment: 16. Unemployment policies in Britain 17. Unemployment policies in Germany Conclusion Epilogue.

The Politics of Free Markets: The Rise of Neoliberal Economic Policies in Britain, France, Germany, and the United States

The Politics of Free Markets: The Rise of Neoliberal Economic Policies in Britain, France, Germany, and the United States, Monica Prasad, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006 pp. 328, ix.Following the Second World War many western democracies embarked on an expansion of their respective welfare states. This effort would be effectively stopped, even reversed, with the development of neoliberal policies within established parties of the right. In other states, neoliberalism was effectively blocked from affecting public policy. Monica Prasad's book is an effort to explain the success or failure of neoliberalism in western democracies.

The Politics of Free Markets: The Rise of Neoliberal Economic Policies in Britain, France, Germany, and the United States

The Politics of Free Markets: The Rise of Neoliberal Economic Policies in Britain, France, Germany, and the United States. By Monica Prasad. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. 280p. 23.00 paper.This is an ambitious book, and an important one. It asks one of the key questions of contemporary political economy: how to explain the rise of neoliberal economic policies in advanced industrialized countries. It answers this question by considering the rise of neoliberal policies in four countries—Britain, France, Germany, and the United States—in three policy areas—taxation, welfare, and industrial policy. Although the book's main focus is on important moments of policy change in the 1970s and 1980s, it considers these in the light of the preceding postwar period and uses them to illuminate more recent events. It notes that although in retrospect it may seem natural that the United States and the UK would have become neoliberal and France and Germany not, this was not at all obvious at the time. Much the contrary, since both the United States and the UK in the 1970s had more progressive tax policies, more egalitarian welfare states, and more anti-business industrial policies than France or Germany. The puzzle, then, is how to explain the transformations in all four countries, which left the United States and the UK much more neoliberal in tax policies, less egalitarian in welfare states, and arguably more pro-business.

Nepřátelé či spojenci? Příspěvek ke studiu britsko-německých vztahů před první světovou válkou

Na přelomu 19. a 20. století byly vztahy mezi Velkou Británií a Německem značně komplikované a v řadě ohledů přímo ambivalentní. Impozantní hospodářský vzestup sjednoceného Německa a s tím související ambiciózní zahraniční politika císaře Viléma II. a jeho vlády vyvolávaly na Ostrovech na jedné straně vážné obavy, na druhé straně zde však byl patrný obdiv mnoha Britů k výkonnosti německé ekonomiky, k funkčnosti německého sociálního státu, k výsledkům německé vědy, nemluvě o kontaktech na univerzitách, o příbuzenských i společenských vazbách mezi britskými a německými aristokratickými rody a tak dále. Zda byla tzv. Haldaneova mise, výsledek této rozpolcenosti, vážně míněným pokusem Asquithovy liberální vlády o "změnu zahraničně-politického kurzu" (tj. pokusem o případné uzavření spojenectví s Německem) či naopak projevem tradiční politiky Velké Británie vůči spojencům na evropském kontinentě (tj. úsilí dosáhnout politiky "balance of power" s upřednostňováním stávajících dohodových partnerů - Francie a Ruska), je nesmírně obtížné rozhodnout. Události z ledna až dubna 1912 přinášejí řadu důkazů i "důkazů" pro jednu či druhou interpretaci. Není pochyb o tom, že v britské vládě, v Dolní sněmovně i mimo bezprostřední okruh vysoké politiky působili jednotlivci, jimž bylo spojenectví s "tradičním nepřítelem" - Francií - trnem v oku, a proto si přáli jeho rozpad; mnoha Britům navíc imponovaly hospodářský vzestup a ambicióznost Německa do té míry, že viděli ve spojení (spojenectví) s ním nejlepší způsob, jak do budoucna zabezpečit národní zájmy. Stoupenci Entente s Francií (a Ruskem) však byli natolik silní, že změnu zahraničněpolitického kurzu nepřipustili. Jednání Velké Británie na počátku první světové války v létě 1914 však svědčí o tom, že pokusy o nastolení "nového kurzu" v zahraniční politice ostrovního státu nebyly pouhou chimérou, ale vážně míněnou snahou o zásadní změnu v konstelaci mezinárodních vztahů. Právě tak je na ně třeba pohlížet.

The Controversy Regarding Race Relations Policy in Britain and Its Blind Spot : Social Cohesion and Cultural Diversity in Post-Multiculturalism

The Controversy Regarding Race Relations Policy in Britain and Its Blind Spot : Social Cohesion and Cultural Diversity in Post-Multiculturalism

Disability and Social Policy in Britain since 1750

Disability and Social Policy in Britain since 1750