Ailsa Henderson

Shrinking welfare states? Comparing maternity leave benefits and child care programs in European Union and North American welfare states, 1985–2000

This paper tests whether changes in program design, coverage, and government funding of maternity and parental leave and child care and early childhood education (ECE) programs can be observed over the past fifteen years in European and North American countries. Analysis of cross-national and cross- time data reveals, first, that reports of the welfare state’s demise do not hold true in these areas. In most of the countries surveyed, the number of places for children in child care and ECE expanded, as did the duration of maternity/parental leaves (although the benefit levels declined in some countries). Second, the data reveal some policy convergence by the late 1990s, although not as much as functionalist theories would expect. Statistical analysis of factors to account for the continued though decreasing divergence reveals that traditional theories of welfare state variation hold greater explanatory power in the late 1980s than in the late 1990s. Demand factors continue to play a role in maternity leave duration but while a combination of demand, political and spending factors help to account for variation across countries in the 1980s, by the 1990s none were relevant in explaining variation in three of our policy fields. These results suggest that the scope of substantive policy provision is even more dependent on domestic policy choices.

England, Englishness and Brexit

In the 1975 referendum England provided the strongest support for European integration, with a much smaller margin for membership in Scotland and Northern Ireland. By 2015 the rank order of ‘national’ attitudes to European integration had reversed. Now, England is the UKs most eurosceptic nation and may vote ‘Leave’, while Scotland seems set to generate a clear margin for ‘Remain’. The UK as a whole is a Brexit marginal. To understand the campaign, we need to make sense of the dynamics of public attitudes in each nation. We take an ‘archaeological’ approach to a limited evidence-base, to trace the development of attitudes to Europe in England since 1975. We find evidence of a link between English nationalism and euroscepticism. Whatever the result in 2016, contrasting outcomes in England and Scotland will exacerbate tensions in the UKs territorial constitution and could lead to the break-up of Britain.

Do Shared Values Underpin National Identity? Examining the Role of Values in National Identity in Canada and the United Kingdom

This article examines whether shared national values form a vital component in the construction and development of national identity. In so doing, it challenges Kymlicka and Norman in their assumption that shared values have little relevance for national identity. Drawing upon competing nationalist discourses in Canada, Quebec, Scotland and the United Kingdom, we argue that the idea of shared values serves as a useful tool in shaping and reinforcing national identities within multinational states. Such values contribute to defining the collective conception of national identity, describing who we are as a people, and what it is that binds us together while distinguishing us from others.

Why Regions Matter: Sub-state Polities in Comparative Perspective

Thirty years ago, David Elkins and Richard Simeon edited a collection of essays, entitled Small Worlds, on the importance of regions. Their focus was on Canadian provinces and the very real differences across the country in terms of political attitudes and behaviour. Citizens in Quebec, and those in British Columbia or Nova Scotia, held different expectations of government, different policy preferences and supported political parties to differing degrees. At the same time, regional variations were also evident in the way provincial governments pursued social policies. Whether diversity had a consequent effect on national unity or stability formed an overarching theme of the book. The arguments and the empirical data contained within Small Worlds have been of obvious relevance to more than just specialists in Canadian politics, and have provided empirical proof of how sub-state polities can generate and sustain separate political cultures, serving as ‘small worlds’ for citizens. Since it was originally published, the political terrain has changed in Canada and elsewhere. Regions now wield greater authority than they did in the 1970s (Keating, 1998; Loughlin, 2001; Bache and Flinders, 2004). Indeed, as one index of regional authority in 42 mainly Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) states makes clear, between 1970 and 2005 only two states became more centralized while almost three-quarters saw regional powers increase (Hooghe et al., 2008). In addition, social welfare provisions, which, in the post-war period, helped to build and sustain a sense of state-wide solidarity, are no longer untouchable elements of policy and, particularly in the 1980s, were radically altered in some states. The strengthening of regional government and the supposed erosion of expectations of state-wide policy uniformity provide very practical motivations to re-examine evidence of regions as ‘small worlds’. Academic debates about the importance of states and the relative importance of regions have also developed considerably since 1980 and now include discussions about the nature and impact of multi-level government, cultural pluralism and

‘Small Worlds’ as Predictors of General Political Attitudes

In a federal system, do citizens have varying amounts of trust and efficacy for different levels of government? Individuals might, for example, feel a greater sense of efficacy for the more proximate level. This contribution examines 40 years of Canadian Election Study (CES) data to determine whether and how citizens distinguish between levels of government to determine which level of government is deemed more important and whether one is more likely to prompt higher levels of trust and efficacy. After establishing that individuals do indeed hold varying levels of trust and efficacy for provincial and federal governments, the analysis takes advantage of innovative questions in the 1984 CES and makes clear that state and sub-state trust and efficacy exert an independent impact on general political attitudes.

How Brexit was made in England

The Leave majority recorded in England was decisive in determining the UK-wide referendum result. Brexit was made in England. We take this as a prompt to challenge the conventional Anglo-British mindset that animates most studies of ‘British politics’ and has shaped public attitudes research on the United Kingdom. We explore the persistence of distinctive Eurosceptic views in England and their relationship to English national identity prior to the referendum. We then model referendum vote choice using data from the Future of England Survey. Our analysis shows that immigration concerns played a major role in the Brexit referendum, alongside a general willingness to take risks, right-wing views, older age, and English national identity. Therefore, Brexit was not just made in England, but Englishness was also a significant driver of the choice for Leave.

National Identity or National Interest? Scottish, English and Welsh Attitudes to the Constitutional Debate

This article analyses political attitudes to the union in England, Scotland and Wales after the Scottish independence referendum. Using public opinion data, we explore constitutional preferences and perceptions of national grievance, before examining the role that national identity plays in structuring preferences. Our evidence shows that considerable demand exists for nationally demarcated forms of government within the UK, although these constitutional preferences do not translate in support for policy diversity across the UK. We also find evidence that these constitutional preferences relate closely to national identity, but relate also to appeals to national interest.

Creating Effective Civic Engagement Policy for Adolescents: Quantitative and Qualitative Evaluations of Compulsory Community Service.

For high school community service programs to have a positive impact on subsequent civic engagement, students must volunteer in a sustained manner and must evaluate their volunteering experiences positively. Using a survey with 1,293 respondents and 100 semistructured interviews with past participants of the mandatory community service program implemented by the Ontario provincial government in 1999, the authors identify how and why students generate positive evaluations of community service requirements and whether the diversity of implementation or the mandatory nature might account for negative reactions to volunteering. The authors discuss the significance of these findings for academic debates about community service and for discussions about the ways in which public policy can promote the civic engagement of young people.

Forging a new political culture: Plenary behaviour in the scottish parliament

Part of the appeal of creating a new Scottish Parliament lay in the ability of legislators to re-define the institutional culture of politics. For advocates of change, the Westminster system, with its emphasis on adversarial and male-dominated politics, turned citizens off politics. Devolution advocates argued that a Scottish Parliament, composed of a new type of politician and operating according to modernised rules, would better serve the public. The four principles of the Consultative Steering Group report included among them references to a more open and accessible political system. The 1999 elections introduced a number of new faces but among the 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) are a number of sitting and former local councillors, Members of Parliament and party workers. This article examines these individuals and their behaviour in the first year of plenary debates to determine whether the social characteristics of these MSPs, their gender, their partisan ties or their previous political experiences affects the likelihood of a new model of political debate. It argues that initially the political experience of MSPs affected their levels of participation but that increasingly, position within the Parliament exerts a greater influence. Some social characteristics such as gender, however, continue to influence the extent and manner of participation.

England’s Dissatisfactions and the Conservative Dilemma

In the immediate aftermath of the Scottish independence referendum, Prime Minister David Cameron raised the ‘English Question’ by advocating English Votes for English Laws in the House of Commons. This article explains why. It uses findings from the 2014 Future of England Survey of attitudes to constitutional issues in England. It reveals a group of interlinked concerns in England: about the advantages Scotland is perceived to have in the UK Union, about the absence of institutional recognition of England in the UK political system, and about the European Union and immigration. It shows that these concerns are distinctively English, held in a broadly uniform way across England and held most strongly by people in England who identify themselves as English, and not British. These concerns, and their linkage to and by English identity, differentiate the supporters of different political parties. They are held least strongly by Labour and Liberal Democrat supporters, and more strongly by Conservative and, especially, UKIP supporters. Cameron’s move on the English Question – and subsequent profiling of English issues in the 2015 UK general election – recognised a territorially distinctive electoral battleground in England on which the Conservatives are now competing with UKIP to articulate a new English nationalism, perhaps at the expense of the Conservative Party’s unionist heritage.