Jack Corbett

Why Small States Offer Important Answers to Large Questions

Small states are conspicuously absent from mainstream comparative political science. There are a variety of reasons that underpin their marginal position in the established cannon, including their tiny populations, the fact that they are not considered “real” states, their supposedly insignificant role in international politics, and the absence of data. In this article, we argue that the discipline is much poorer for not seriously utilizing small states as case studies for larger questions. To illustrate this, we consider what the case study literature on politics in small states can offer to debates about democratization and decentralization, and we highlight that the inclusion of small states in various ways augments or challenges the existing literature in these fields. On this basis, we argue that far from being marginal or insignificant, the intellectual payoffs to the discipline of studying small states are potentially enormous, mainly because they have been overlooked for so long.

Just like us: everyday celebrity politicians and the pursuit of popularity in an age of anti-politics

In a supposedly ‘anti-political’ age, the scholarly literature on celebrity politicians argues that politicians gain popularity by adopting strategies from within the world of entertainment. This article offers the findings of a research project that has detected a marked shift in the interplay between celebrity culture and the presentational strategies adopted by politicians. At the heart of this shift is an increased focus on the concept of ‘normality’ as politicians increasingly attempt to shake-off the negative connotations associated with ‘professional politicians’ and instead attempt to appear ‘just like us’. As such, this article offers an original approach by distinguishing between ‘superstar’ celebrity politicians and ‘everyday’ celebrity politicians before identifying three aspects of each strategy (i.e. media platform, marketing technique and performative role). It offers numerous empirical examples that serve to underpin this distinction before using the example of Boris Johnson as a case study in the attempted shift from ‘superstar’ to ‘everyday’ celebrity. This focus on normality offers a fresh entry-point into the analysis of contemporary political statecraft while also posing distinctive questions about the tension between political popularity and credibility in an anti-political age. As such, the approach also has significant implications for normative ideas about how celebrity can be ‘democratised’ to remedy anti-politics.

Intersecting Identities, Divergent Views: Interpreting the Experiences of Women Politicians in the Pacific Islands

Anecdotally, it is assumed that the factors that constrain women from entering parliament spill over into the way they experience holding public office, thus limiting their influence. Drawing on in-depth biographical interviews and other publically available materials we test this supposition by investigating the experiences of women who have served in parliament in the Pacific Islands, a region famous for its low levels of womens representation. We ask if and how women see their gender as influencing their parliamentary roles. We identify two narratives. The first aligns with the orthodox assumption where prevailing patriarchal norms stymie the influence of women MPs. The second, however, is a counternarrative that defies the conventional reading and instead posits that gender matters little once inside parliament with MPs, highlighting the importance of other identities—family, community, religious, etc.—to their constituent representation and reelection campaigns. In turn, women MPs who hold to this latter perspective are often critical of what they see as the imposition of gender norms by foreign donors. Employing the concept intersectionality allows us to simultaneously acknowledge and problematize this duality, thus providing a more nuanced reading of the impact of gender on parliamentary life in the Pacific region.

Stoic Democrats? Anti-politics, élite cynicism and the policy process

ABSTRACT Disenchantment with politics appears to be proliferating throughout contemporary liberal democracies, as outlined in the growing literature on anti-politics. Overwhelmingly, this literature has focused on the disaffection citizens express towards the policy process. Here, using policy-making on the issue of obesity in Australia and Britain as a case study, we show that disenchantment is not limited to citizen outsiders; the élite policy actors at the core of the process are cynical, too. Indeed, we unveil an élite cast of ‘stoic democrats’ who see little reward for their continual efforts. We also point to the limits of stoicism highlighted by this ‘extreme’ case, as some élites begin to challenge the legitimacy of formal policy processes, subvert their norms, or ignore them altogether, all in search of more direct impact. We conclude that the literature on anti-politics would benefit from paying greater attention to the potential challenge élite cynicism presents to democratic governance.

‘Two Worlds’?: Interpreting Political Leadership Narratives in the 20th-Century Pacific

The phrase ‘two worlds’ is often used to describe the way in which political leaders in the Pacific Islands navigate and define their lives, and the different sets of societal norms to which they are subject. The capacity to move between ‘worlds’ is often central to their claims to leadership legitimacy and can be one of the reasons why they are ultimately chosen to lead. Through a comparative analysis of their published life histories, this paper explores the lives of the 20th-century Pacifics political leaders by capturing their experiences of growing up and out of colonialism, and what they did before they took up political office. They describe being significantly shaped by their relationships with educational and religious institutions, including with particular teachers and mentors, their experiences living and working overseas, and their vocational backgrounds, both religious and professional. The paper concludes that rather than ‘two worlds’ — often used as a metaphor for a larger historical narrative about modernisation and the passing of traditional way of life — life histories highlight the importance of multiple ‘sites’, ‘spheres’ or ‘worlds’ to our understanding of leaders’ life trajectories.

Diagnosing the Problem of Anti-Politicians: A Review and an Agenda

In response to growing popular dissatisfaction with politics and politicians, several scholars have sought to explain the cause of this malaise and demonstrate what can be done about it. To tease out the significance of four recent additions to this discussion, this article reviews how they diagnose the problem of anti-politicians and what they consider the cure might be. Riddell and Flinders, it is argued, view the problem in terms of an expectations ‘gap’, while Kane and Patapan, and Medvic cast it as a leadership ‘paradox’ or an expectations ‘trap’. The former two primarily see greater citizen participation, generated via institutional reform or revived civic values, as the solution, whereas the latter two question whether the problem can or should be solved at all. The article concludes that while these books provide important insights, by and large they neglect to take serious or systematic account of the views, experiences and reflections of political leaders themselves. To take this research agenda forward, this omission warrants further attention. Flinders, M. (2012) Defending Politics: Why Democracy Matters in the Twenty-First Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kane, J. and Patapan, H. (2012) The Democratic Leader: How Democracy Defines, Empowers and Limits its Leaders. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Medvic, S. (2013) In Defense of Politicians. The Expectations Trap and Its Threat to Democracy. New York: Routledge. Riddell, P. (2011) In Defence of Politicians (In spite of Themselves). London: Biteback.

Embracing impressionism: revealing the brush strokes of interpretive research

For its most prominent proponents, interpretive research is emphatically a ‘systematic’ craft; though iterative and creative, if practiced expertly it enables the researcher to progress towards a more coherent, comprehensive and convincing interpretation of both the political phenomenon under investigation and its scholarly significance. We argue that this process is neither as systematic in nature nor as satisfying in execution as such a characterization implies. Instead, drawing on our own experiences of conducting this sort of research, we argue that the craft is inherently an ‘impressionistic’ one; it entails the deliberate and at times painful creation of a stylized and simplified account. By necessity, doing interpretation means glossing over complexity or presenting a partial representation in order to say something meaningful to academic and practitioner audiences. We argue that instead of shying away from the impressionistic nature of their work, interpretive researchers like us should embrace it, and that doing so will buttress this type of research from criticism, enhance its connection to the policy world, and strengthen its appeal from within.

But why do we need politicians? A critical review

In response to growing popular dissatisfaction with politics and politicians there has been a marked increase in academic work about anti-politics and depoliticization with numerous scholars seeking to defend politics by restating why it matters. However, these efforts have largely glossed over the related question of why politicians also matter. To fill this gap I propose a typology that captures how the different intellectual perspectives in this debate see the role of politicians – identifying six in particular: procedural, legitimacy, values, authority, persuasion and dissimulation. In doing so I review each contribution and highlight synergies and disagreements between them that in-turn reveal important insights and new lines of inquiry.

An Antipodean History of Interpretation

Elsewhere, especially in Europe and North America, the interpretive approach to political research has emerged as a counter identity. Key figures like Dvora Yanow and Frank Fischer have typically defined and defended interpretivism in opposition to the positivist paradigm they see as dominant in the North American and European contexts. In this paper, we explore the connections between intepretivism’s core and its peripheries in both geographical and epistemological terms, by tracing the relationship between interpretivism and Australian political scholarship. In this task, we draw on some of the most celebrated and influential work on Australian politics—by political scientists but before them historians and anthropologists—to show how the approach typically undertaken by these researchers echoes key tenets of interpretivism, especially through an interest in subjective beliefs and experiences, a desire to uncover and bring to life richly contextualised detail, and a commitment to the abductive linking of theory and practice. As such, we suggest that the spread of this counter identity to interpretive researchers in Australia risks manufacturing a sense of methodological antipathy, marginalising the work of interpretivists from mainstream political scholarship

Practising Reflection: Empathy, Emotion and Intuition in Political Life Writing

Attempts to unravel the relationship between scholar and subject are common in life writing and underpin the emphasis on reflexivity in interpretive research. However, while the conceptual basis for reflexive practice is well established, there is less written on how it is actually done. In this article I reflect on how I created a collective portrait of politicians in the Pacific Islands. My rationale for describing how I produced knowledge in this project echoes the call for interpretive researchers and biographers, who wish to become reflexive, to engage in and describe reflexive practices. In doing so, I illustrate how empathy, emotion and intuition shaped my sources, analysis and writing, and argue that these non-objectivist tools, reflexively considered, have the capacity to enhance our descriptions of the lives we choose to portray.