Our Politics and International Relations list engages with today’s global challenges and with political change at domestic and international levels. It includes work from across the subdisciplines and reflects the variety of approaches and methods used in political analysis.
Book highlights include the Bristol Studies in East Asian International Relations and Bristol Studies in International Theory series, the Policy & Politics and European Journal of Politics and Gender journals and work from prestigious authors such as Andrew Gamble, Andrew Linklater, Laura Shepherd and Keith Dowding.
Our journals in the area are Policy & Politics, ranked 15th of 49 in Public Administration and celebrated its 50th year in 2022, Global Discourse, the European Journal of Politics and Gender and Global Political Economy.
Politics and International Relations
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Why and how do policymakers initially sceptical of policy innovations from abroad eventually transfer them to their own countries? Focusing on Chile’s reforms to combat business cartels in 2009 and 2016, this article answers that question. Policy diffusion and transfer literatures maintain that coercion, competition, learning or emulation could account for foreign inspirations in policymaking. However, these literatures overplay the role of coercion and emulation in policy transfer to countries in the global south, and have difficulty distinguishing between different mechanisms in empirical studies. To address these limitations, I suggest analysing three intermediate causal steps in policy transfer: first, policymakers’ motivations in initiating policy reforms, second, their reflections on how the foreign-inspired model responds to the policy problem at hand, and third, their reflections on the fit between the foreign model and domestic conditions. Through process-tracing of two anti-cartel reforms in Chile, I find that policymakers introduced foreign-inspired policy measures to combat business cartels through a process of learning from other countries and international organisations, rather than coercion or emulation. Learning was evident in three ways. First, in the initiation of the reform, as policymakers responded to a clearly identified policy problem; second, in policymakers’ careful reflection on how the foreign-inspired model responded to these problems; and third, in the adjustments made to fit the foreign model to domestic conditions. The analysis demonstrates the utility of analysing intermediate causal steps in policy transfer, and of paying more attention to local actors and political processes.
The role of charity in the provision of public services is of substantial academic and practitioner interest, and charitable initiative within the English and Welsh National Health Service (NHS) has recently received considerable attention. This study provides rich insights into the role that NHS-linked charities present themselves as playing within the NHS. The dataset analysed is a novel construction of 3,250 detailed expenditure lines from 676 sets of charity accounts. Qualitative content analysis of itemised descriptions of expenditure allows us to explore how these charities portray their activities. We distinguish between expenditures that can be framed as supplementary to government funding (such as amenities and comforts) and items that suggest charitable effort is substituting for government support (such as funding for clinical equipment). We also consider the claims being made through these representations, and suggest that the distinctiveness of the charity and NHS spheres are currently under question. We argue that, through their representational practices, charities are both shaping and blurring the expected roles of government and charity. Acceptance of the benefits that charitable initiative does provide, in terms of innovation, pluralism and participation, must be tempered with the realisation that charitable funds are playing a role in service provision that is not guided by clear policy, and that this has the potential to widen existing inequalities within a key public service.
It is often asserted that the representation of women in leadership positions within public service organisations is likely to result in improved outcomes for other women within those organisations. However, there has been little systematic research devoted to understanding whether this argument holds for the nonprofit organisations that now provide many public services. To cast light on this important issue, this article presents an analysis of the representation of women in leadership roles and the gender pay gap in Welsh housing associations – registered societies responsible for providing more than half of the social housing within Wales. The findings show that nonprofit service providers led by women in the most senior organisational positions may be more likely to have a lower gender pay gap, confirming arguments about the importance of actively representing female interests. At the same time, it seems that representation in the upper echelons in general is not likely to influence gender pay equality, which raises questions about whether a glass ceiling may be present, as has been observed in state-led public service provision. These findings suggest a need for more in-depth, multi-method research which systematically evaluates the way in which female leaders actively represent women’s interests in the myriad organisations that provide public services. This article has important implications given a renewed period of austerity in the public sector, which, as in the past, may threaten further progress on equality for those women who provide and receive public services.
Addressing needs and safeguard rights, public services are a crucial part of modern states and everyday lives. This book presents an in-depth introduction to public services as a field of study and provides a holistic guide to both the discipline of public services and core elements of working in public services. Aiming to provide a comprehensive account of core public service topics, this book explores the context in which public services operate, the delivery of public services between the state, the market and civil society as well as strategy, leadership and management of public services and emerging key themes of public service delivery. The introduction provides an outline of the aims and nature of public services. The first part of this book introduces the reader to the relationship between public services and public policies, explores organisations and the mixed economy of public service provision, and outlines the legal framework that shapes public services. Focusing on the internal dimension of public services, the second part then explores strategy, management and leadership of and in public services. Contributions on current and emerging issues and themes, from sustainability and the environment to equality, and their relationship to public services form the third part of the book.
Climate change has emerged as the most important environmental problem of our era that also affects the function of public services. This chapter introduces the reader to climate change as a challenge for public services and outlines potential contributions of public services to tackling climate change. Based on the central importance of energy for climate change, the chapter focuses on how public services adapt in the era of an unprecedented in scale and timeframe energy transition. More specifically, this chapter examines energy-related functions of public services actors and outlines how these can contribute to facilitating an energy transition as part of a response to climate change. Overall, this chapter raises questions in regard to the ways and the extent to which public services adapt their functions and strategies in a climate-burdened world and to the appropriate balance between the marketisation and public provision of public services. Finally, it assesses the degree to which public services provision adjusts to climate change concerns.
Drawing on the previous chapters, the conclusion brings together main insights developed throughout the book. It highlights that, like many welfare state institutions, public services are exposed and adapting to a changing social, economic and political environment. This chapter outlines the challenges of ever more complex issues reshaping the way public service organisations interact with the state and the other sectors and the influences these developments have on the internal operations of public services. Many of the attempts to adapt to broader changes draw on best practice from a range of industries but they also show the barriers to applying management concepts in different settings. As a result, public services have to find new techniques to meet the challenges of shifting demographics, financial restrictions and ecological change in a sustainable way.
Addressing needs and safeguard rights, public services are a crucial part of modern states and everyday lives. This book presents an in-depth introduction to public services as a field of study and provides a holistic guide to both the discipline of public services and core elements of working in public services. Aiming to provide a comprehensive account of core public service topics, this book explores the context in which public services operate, the delivery of public services between the state, the market and civil society as well as strategy, leadership and management of public services and emerging key themes of public service delivery. The introduction provides an outline of the aims and nature of public services. The first part of this book introduces the reader to the relationship between public services and public policies, explores organisations and the mixed economy of public service provision, and outlines the legal framework that shapes public services. Focusing on the internal dimension of public services, the second part then explores strategy, management and leadership of and in public services. Contributions on current and emerging issues and themes, from sustainability and the environment to equality, and their relationship to public services form the third part of the book.
Public services comprise a wide range of organisations carrying out an array of activities. Starting with an exploration of the broad variance of services and the different ways in which they are organised and delivered, this chapter examines the nature and goals of ‘public services’. This chapter outlines the complexity involved in defining the term ‘public services’, particularly in cross-cultural and cross-national perspective. It argues that public services can be defined as services provided by or on behalf of the state based on political decisions. This chapter then proceeds to place public services in the context of social policy and public administration.
Effective management and good leadership are vital for public services. Yet, while both are important for effective public services, leadership and management are two distinct concepts. Taking the difference between management and leadership as a starting point, this chapter examines leadership and management with reference to public services. It explores the main theories of leadership and management and traces their development over time. Throughout the chapter, leadership and management are placed in ‘real world’ contexts through a series of case studies for modern public service organisations.
The last decades have seen growing privatisation and contracting out of public services, which are increasingly delivered by private and third sector organisations. Providing a long-term historical view of the delivery of public services, this chapter examines this mixed economy of public services and showcases that the involvement of private and third sector organisations in the delivery of public services is, in fact, not a new development. It examines different actors involved in the delivery of services and explores the increasing need for innovation and partnerships. The growing importance of partnerships and collaboration leads to a need to understand the different sectors involved in the delivery of public services, their interactions as well as an understanding of challenges and opportunities.
