Mark Bevir

Traditions of governance: interpreting the changing role of the public sector

TRADITIONS and GOVERNANCE * Mark Bevir R. A. W. Rhodes Patrick Weller Address for correspondence: R. A. W. Rhodes Department of Politics University of Newcastle Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE1 7RU UK Telephone: 44 191 222 8823 Fax: 44 191 222 5069 E-mail: r.a.w.rhodes@ncl.ac.uk Length: 7,935 words. Mark Bevir is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley, USA. Rod Rhodes is Professor of Politics in the Department of Politics, University of Newcastle, UK. Patrick Weller is Professor of Politics and Public Policy in the School of Politics and Public Policy, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia.

The Logic of the History of Ideas

This paper provides a short summary of Mark Bevir, The Logic of the History of Ideas . Logic stands here as a subset of Wittgensteins notion of philosophy as a matter of the grammar of our concepts. It studies the forms of reasoning appropriate to a discipline, rather than the material of that discipline. Hence, the logic of the history of ideas considers the nature of meaning, the way we should justify our knowledge of past meanings, and how we should explain things such as the existence of meanings, the beliefs people held, and conceptual change.

Searching for civil society: changing patterns of governance in Britain

To understand governance, we ask who is telling the story from within which tradition. We argue there is no essentialist notion of governance but at least four conceptions each rooted in a distinctive tradition. The first section of the paper describes the relevant traditions: Tory, Liberal, Whig and Socialist. The second section describes the different notions of governance associated with each tradition; intermediate institutions, marketizing public services, reinventing the constitution and trust and negotiation. We explain these distinct conceptions of governance as responses to the dilemmas of inflation and state overload. In the conclusion, we summarize how and why traditions change, concluding, there is no such thing as governance, but only the differing constructions of the several traditions.

Rethinking governmentality: Towards genealogies of governance:

Foucault introduced the concept ‘governmentality’ to refer to the conduct of conduct, and especially the technologies that govern individuals. He adopted the concept after his shift from structuralist archaeology to historicist genealogy. But some commentators suggest governmentality remains entangled with structuralist themes. This article offers a resolutely genealogical theory of govermentality that: echoes Foucault on genealogy, critique, and technologies of power; suggests resolutions to problems in Foucault’s work; introduces concepts that are clearly historicist, not structuralist; and opens new areas of empirical research. The resulting genealogical theory of governmentality emphasizes nominalism, contingency, situated agency, and historicist explanations referring to traditions and dilemmas. It decenters governance by highlighting diverse elite narratives, technologies of power, and traditions of popular resistance.

Comparative governance: prospects and lessons

This article revisits the country case studies and seeks to answer two questions. What are the strengths and weaknesses of an interpretive approach? What lessons can we draw from our analysis of public sector reform? To assess an interpretive approach, we discuss: the issues raised in identifying beliefs; the meaning of explanation; how to select traditions; the shift from prediction to informed conjecture and policy advice as storytelling. To assess the lessons, we outline our preferred story of public sector reform. We seek to show that an interpretive approach produces insights for students of public administration. We argue it remains feasible to give policy advice to public sector managers by telling them stories and providing rules of thumb (proverbs) to guide managerial practices.

Concept Formation in Political Science: An Anti-Naturalist Critique of Qualitative Methodology

This article offers an anti-naturalist philosophical critique of the naturalist tendencies within qualitative concept formation as developed most prominently by Giovanni Sartori and David Collier. We begin by articulating the philosophical distinction between naturalism and anti-naturalism. Whereas naturalism assumes that the study of human life is not essentially different from the study of natural phenomena, anti-naturalism highlights the meaningful and contingent nature of social life, the situatedness of the scholar, and so the dialogical nature of social science. These two contrasting philosophical approaches inspire, in turn, different strategies of concept formation. Naturalism encourages concept formation that involves reification, essentialism, and an instrumentalist view of language. Anti-naturalism, conversely, challenges reified concepts for eliding the place of meanings, essentialist concepts for eliding the place of contingency, and linguistic instrumentalism for eliding the situatedness of the scholar and the dialogical nature of social science. Based on this philosophical framework, we subject qualitative concept formation to a philosophical critique. We show how the conceptual strategies developed by Sartori and Collier embody a reification, essentialism, and instrumentalist view of language associated with naturalism. Although Colliers work on concept formation is much more flexible and nuanced than Sartoris, it too remains attached to a discredited naturalism.

New Labour and the Public Sector in Britain

We examine the nature of the third way as a vision of public sector reform in Britain. New Labour has a distinctive public philosophy that contains an ideal often found in the socialist tradition, that is, citizens attaining moral personhood within and through the community. Old Labour generally sought to realise such an ideal in a universal welfare state characterised by a command form of service delivery. New Labour has responded to dilemmas, akin to those highlighted by the New Right, by transforming this model of the public sector. It conceives of the state as an enabler acting in partnership with citizens and other organisations, delivering services through networks characterised by relationships of trust. We explore this distinctive public philosophy through its ethical vision and then its implications for welfare reform and the delivery of public services.

Prime Ministers, Presidentialism and Westminster Smokescreens

This article asks, ‘how do practitioners understand the relationship between the prime minister, ministers and the rest of Westminster and Whitehall?’ We focus on three topics. First, we review tales of a Blair presidency. Second, we explore the governance paradox in which people tell tales of a Blair presidency as they recount stories of British governance that portray it as fragmented with several decision-makers. Finally, we argue that this paradox reveals the distorting influence the Westminster model still exerts on many accounts of British politics. It acts as a smokescreen for the changes in executive politics.

Decentering Tradition: Interpreting British Government

This article argues that the study of traditions is an integral part of the human sciences; it then concentrates on how to study traditions. First, the authors outline a pragmatic approach to traditions. Next, they illustrate the case by analyzing three features of British government: public sector reform, Thatcherism, and joined-up governance. The authors seek to show that it is possible to decenter the idea of tradition and analyze traditions at several levels. Finally, they discuss the problems posed when analyzing traditions at different levels of generality, including reifying traditions, essentialism, identifying traditions, and creating traditions.

Objectivity in History

Many philosophers have rejected the possibility of objective historical knowledge on the grounds that there is no given past against which to judge rival interpretations. There reasons for doing so are valid. But this does not demonstrate that we must give up the concept of historical objectivity as such. The purpose of this paper is to define a concept of objectivity based on criteria of comparison, not on a given past. Objective interpretations are those which best meet rational criteria of accuracy, comprehensiveness, consistency, progressiveness, fruitfulness, and openness. Finally, the nature of our being in the world is shown to give us a good reason to regard such objective interpretations as moving towards a regulative ideal of truth.