Jim Chandler

Liberal Justifications for Local Government in Britain: The Triumph of Expediency over Ethics

It is shown in this article how theories justifying local government in Britain are largely based on the expedience of providing administrative efficiency or stable democracy for the central state rather than ethical grounds that justify local government as an independent entity in its own right. The article critically reviews the development of theories justifying local government within Britain and argues that it is possible on the basis of Mills arguments within On Liberty to establish a strong ethical justification for local government. It is shown how Mill did not develop this line of thought but established substantive arguments concerning the value of local government for securing a stable liberal democracy and how successive mainstream theorists have modified but not substantially departed from this approach.

Explaining local government: local government in Britain since 1800

1. Local government before 1832 2. The impact of industrialisation 3. Compromise and confusion 4. Municipal government to its zenith 5. Restructuring local government 6. The turning point: growth with decline 7. The slow road to modernisation 8. War and social democracy 9. Modernising the system 1951-1979 10. Professionalism and alienation 11. Thatcher and Major 12. New Labour 13. Accounting for the evolution of local government in Britain Appendices.

A Rationale for Local Government

Abstract This article develops an ethical justification for local government based on classical liberal theory and analyses its implications for the structure and functions of a system of local governance within a liberal democracy. It will argue that local government ought to determine and implement those policies that do not infringe the interests of those outside its area and represent its views to other agencies where its policies affect others. The principle would require, as a consequence, radical restructuring to secure a multi-tiered system based on spatial communities of interest as is established in much of Europe and North America. The role of the central government in the context on inter-governmental relations would be to act as the guarantor of both individual and collective freedom and equality of opportunity between local governments as well as determining those policies that affect all members within the national polity.

Deregulation and the decline of public administration teaching in the UK

In 1991 eight polytechnics offered a BA in public administration while five universities provided the degree with either public or social policy. Currently, no higher education institution in Britain offers a BA degree solely entitled public administration. The subject area is, however, offered in 16 higher education institutions under a variety of names that include, in any order, the words public, management, policy and administration. This paper analyses the reasons for the transformation during the 1990s in undergraduate courses for the public sector. It is argued that these changes do not so much derive from academics, employers or students taking on board an enthusiasm for new public management but are as much the consequences of deregulation of student choice and an expansion in student numbers that has not been matched in financial terms. The consequence has been to increasingly move this sector towards business and management teaching geared to private sector interests and away from its more political and social science roots.

Comparative Inter-Governmental Relations: Models That Need to Travel

Studies of inter-governmental relations are generally country-specific. The analysis of the relationship in the United States makes little or no reference to the theories that currently describe British practice and similarly British studies make little reference to United States theory. Therefore, in studies of inter-governmental relations there is little that can establish a genuinely comparative framework for the description of such a relationship. This paper will seek to develop a basis for a more comparative approach, arguing that such an analysis needs, at root, to consider the established cultural values that condition the extent of consensus concerning the role of central and local governments within the state rather than issues of bargaining and conflict.

The role of government and community in the scaling up and sustainability of mutual health organisations: An exploratory study in Ghana

Governments of many developing countries, including those in Sub-Saharan Africa have embraced the community-based health insurance schemes phenomenon under the health sector reforms with optimism. Ghana has introduced a National Health Insurance Scheme, which is amalgamated with social health insurance and community-based health insurance schemes. The aim of this study was to explore the role of the Ghana government and community in the scaling-up and sustainability of mutual health organisations. Four district mutual health insurance schemes were selected using geographical locations, among other criteria, as case studies. Data were gathered through interviews and documentary/literature review. The findings of the empirical study were analysed and interpreted using social policy and community field theories. The findings of the paper suggest that in order to ensure their effective scaling up and maintain overall sustainability, there is the need for some form of government regulation and subsidy. However, since government regulation cannot work without the acceptance of the community, there is the need to integrate these actors in policy formulation.

Public Policy and Private Interest : Ideas, Self-Interest and Ethics in Public Policy

Public Policy and Private Interest explains the complexities of the policy making process in a refreshingly clear way for students who are new to this subject. The key topics it explains are: How policy originates, is refined, legitimised, implemented, evaluated and terminated in the forms of theoretical models of the policy process; Which actors and institutions are most influential in determining the nature of policy; The values that shape the policy agenda such as ideology, institutional self-interest and resource capabilities; The outcome of policies, and why they succeed or fail; The main policy theories including the very latest insights from network theory and post-modernism; How national policy is influenced by globalization. The text is fully illustrated throughout with a broad range of national and international case studies on subjects such as the banking crisis, the creation of unitary authorities and global environmental policy and regulation. Combining both a clear summary of debates and theories in public policy and a new and original approach to the subject, this book is essential reading for students of public policy and policy analysis.

Local Government in the United Kingdom

from these events were important triggers for all the other parties, not just Labour. Although Steven Woodbridge considers the relations between the BNP and the National Front, there are other strands to the BNP success that are overlooked. Clearly, the Conservative party, the United Kingdom Independence Party and the English Democrats were paying close attention to how the BNP message resonated amongst some voters, but aside from Messina’s attempt to integrate this into his account there is no attempt to measure the BNP impact on other parties’ policy statements on race, immigration and national identity. Instead, the editors contribute a chapter on the media response to the BNP which neglects to incorporate any analysis at all of the way in which local and regional newspapers report the party’s activities, choosing instead to provide a lengthy account of the party leader’s appearance on the BBC’s Question Time. It is stated as a fact that Griffin performed badly and came across a ‘smirking extremist’ (p. 4) but nevertheless 22 per cent of those polled afterwards stated they would ‘seriously consider’ voting for the party. Some analysis of these polling data would have shed light on which fifth of the electorate contemplated voting for the party. As with the Rhodes chapter it is not entirely clear how the chapter on the BNP in local government fits within this particular section, but at least the Bottom/Copus analysis does recognise the importance of understanding the BNP within a broader comparative framework that demonstrates the party’s councillors behave in a manner similar to councillors from mainstream parties. The third section, on international perspectives, contains the chapter by Messina that largely succeeds in locating the BNP in a comparative European perspective while a helpful chapter by Roger Griffin explores the evolution and contemporary development of neo-populism, locating his namesake’s own statements and publications in a right-wing tradition that extends across parts of Western Europe. The concluding chapter, instead of weaving the different strands together into a single narrative, begins to chart new territory by addressing themes that were omitted from the volume or new avenues that might be explored in the future. One overlooked variable of importance is gender, the relative importance of women in the party’s organisation and its electoral support. Some figures are produced that show women comprise 21 per cent of the party’s councillor base, interesting it appears partly because of the extreme misogynistic views of one of its activists. There is a gender divide in the BNP; but then there is a gender divide across all political parties in the UK, so it is not entirely clear what point is being made. The omission of any analysis of the local press is noted here, but no satisfactory explanation provided for why it is missing; the chapter that examines the rise of the BNP in Stoke on Trent would certainly have been stronger had the city’s own newspaper’s coverage been examined in detail. On the whole, therefore, the book is a rather disappointing examination of the contemporary relevance of the BNP and an opportunity is missed to understand how and why the party was able to build a relatively strong electoral base over the past decade.