Helen Margetts

Policy punctuations in the UK: fluctuations and equilibria in central government expenditure since 1951

Jones and Baumgartners punctuated equilibrium model of agenda change has reinvigorated decision-making theory; moreover their US budget project offers a set of techniques to apply to UK data. We replicate the method by plotting percentage budget changes in central government budgets to see whether the distribution is normally distributed as predicted by the incrementalist account or leptokurtic as hypothesized by the punctuated equilibrium model. Taking the period 1951–96, we create 405 data points from budget changes from the National Income Accounts (‘Blue Book’) on agriculture, defence, social security, education, health, housing, industry, law and order and transport, all adjusted using the GDP deflator at factor cost. We find that the budget changes form a leptokurtic distribution. Such a pattern appears in most policy sectors.

The second wave of digital-era governance: a quasi-paradigm for government on the Web.

Widespread use of the Internet and the Web has transformed the public management ‘quasi-paradigm’ in advanced industrial countries. The toolkit for public management reform has shifted away from a ‘new public management’ (NPM) approach stressing fragmentation, competition and incentivization and towards a ‘digital-era governance’ (DEG) one, focusing on reintegrating services, providing holistic services for citizens and implementing thoroughgoing digital changes in administration. We review the current status of NPM and DEG approaches, showing how the development of the social Web has already helped trigger a ‘second wave’ of DEG2 changes. Web science and organizational studies are converging swiftly in public management and public services, opening up an extensive agenda for future redesign of state organization and interventions. So far, DEG changes have survived austerity pressures well, whereas key NPM elements have been rolled back.

The Internet and Public Policy

This article looks at the role of the Internet in policymaking, identifying potential policy effects of widespread use of the Internet by citizens, firms, governments and voluntary organizations. It considers how the Internet and Internet-enabled social change might impact upon each of the four ‘tools’ of government policy — nodality, authority, treasure and organization — and how it might impact upon the mix of tools that policymakers select. It suggests a number of values normally associated with the Internet — innovation, trust, openness and equity — that might be expected to emerge in policy trends. It discusses the implications of Internet-driven change for public policy research, pinpointing some key methodologies that will become increasingly important; generation of large-scale transactional data; network analysis and experimental methods. The article argues that we cannot understand, analyse or make public policy without understanding the technological, social and economic shifts associated with the Internet — a task that the journal Policy & Internet is poised to undertake.

Experiments for Public Management Research

Abstract Although there has been a ‘dramatic drift’ towards experimentation in political science, the methodology remains scarce in public management research. This article considers the potential for the experimental method for public management. It discusses the benefits and costs of an experimental design. It identifies three barriers to the use of experiments distinctive to public management; a stress on realism and practical solutions; a focus on organizations rather than individuals; and ethical and logistical challenges. It re-evaluates these barriers in the light of recent experiments, arguing that experimental approaches should now be added to the toolkit of public management research.

Information Technology in Government: Britain and America

Introduction: Information Technology and a Dream of the Future 1. Computerising the Tools of Government: The Spread of Information Technology 2. Governmental Responses to Information Technology: Innovation, Expenditure and Control 3. Computerization of the UK Benefits Agency 4. Computerization of the US Social Security Administration 5. Computerization of the US Internal Revenue Service 6. Computerization of the UK Inland Revenue 7. New Players: Government Contracting of Information Technology 8. The Ambiguous Essence of the State of the Future

Social information and political participation on the internet: an experiment

This paper tests whether the social information provided by the internet affects the decision to participate in politics. In a field experiment, subjects could choose to sign petitions and donate money to support causes. Participants were randomized into treatment groups that received varying information about how many other people had participated and a control group receiving no social information. Results show that social information has a varying effect according to the numbers provided, which is strongest when there are more than a million other participants, supporting claims about critical mass, and tipping points in political participation.

Regime Politics in London Local Government

The authors provide an encompassing eight-point characterization of regimes designed to cover all cases of this complex multicriteria concept, arguing that not all eight characteristics need be present for a regime to exist but that the larger the subset, the more a governing coalition constitutes a regime. The regime concept is then applied to six London boroughs during the early to mid-1990s. They demonstrate the utility and limits of the regime concept in identifying and explaining the politics of these boroughs at this time, suggesting that three of the cases constitute different types of regimes, and the other three constitute failed regimes.

The Latent Support for the Extreme Right in British Politics

This article argues that the extreme right in Britain has a higher level of latent support than would be indicated by its polling performance. After reviewing the likely salience of demand, supply and opportunity structures as factors that could explain the level of support of the extreme right in British politics, the article analyses survey evidence and voting data on the British National Party (BNP) from 2004 to 2007. The article presents results from surveys of the liking for and propensity to vote for the major and minor parties, and explores the patterns of preferences in the London elections. It argues that supporters of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) provide another source of latent support due to linkages perceived by the electorate between the BNP and the UKIP, especially through their perception of the most important policy problem. The article argues that the BNP has entered the mainstream of British politics and suggests that the potential support for the extreme right in Britain is more solid than many comparative studies indicate.

Leadership without Leaders? Starters and Followers in Online Collective Action

The internet has been ascribed a prominent role in collective action, particularly with widespread use of social media. But most mobilisations fail. We investigate the characteristics of those few mobilisations that succeed and hypothesise that the presence of ‘starters’ with low thresholds for joining will determine whether a mobilisation achieves success, as suggested by threshold models. We use experimental data from public good games to identify personality types associated with willingness to start in collective action. We find a significant association between both extraversion and internal locus of control, and willingness to start, while agreeableness is associated with a tendency to follow. Rounds without at least a minimum level of extraversion among the participants are unlikely to be funded, providing some support for the hypothesis.

From Majoritarian to Pluralist Democracy? Electoral Reform in Britain Since 1997

The rapid changes in electoral systems and party systems in Britain since 1997 pose fundamental problems of explanation both for electoral system analysts and for students of British politics. We first describe the main types of electoral system change introduced and show how the new systems have already brought about important differences in party systems and patterns of party government across the UK. Possible explanations of the changes include: general trends across liberal democracies to re-appraise their historic voting systems; the UK’s historical and political distinctiveness in comparative terms; long-run processes specific to Britain triggering a lagged or ‘catch-up’ political and constitutional modernization; and short run (‘why now?’) causal factors. In our view change is already irreversible. For the foreseeable future either plurality rule and new electoral systems will co-exist within a primary/secondary elections structure; or the new systems will over time erode the previously foundational position of plurality rule, in tandem with a realignment of party politics UK-wide.