Title : British Public Policy M13045 (20 credits) Level 3 Taught Autumn Semester Module Convenor

Guidance to Essay Writing:

There is no coursework for this module.

Assessed Essay Titles:

There is no coursework for this module.

Example of Past Exam Paper:

Past exam papers for this module are available electronically via the Information Gateway of the Hallward Library, as follows.

Over the last ten years, Britain has undergone radical reform of its political system, encompassing the territorial organisation of power; the method of electing representatives; the nature of the legislature; the role of the judiciary; the status and operation of political parties; the scrutiny and oversight of the executive, and the allocation of policy competences between elected and unelected actors.  For political analysts, two questions arise from these changes: what caused the reforms, and what are their effects?  This paper focuses on the latter.  A light industry of research and analysis has been devoted to the British reforms.  However, much of this work is descriptive or only lightly analytical; little attention has been paid in theoretical terms to the way the new institutions will work and their implications for policy decisions.  Yet there is an established literature, based on abstract or rational choice models of politics, devoted to the role and effects of political institutions.  The paper draws on this literature to provide an explanation of the actual and potential consequences of institutional reform.

An emphasis on policy delivery and advocacy of joined up government were defining features of the New Labour governing project. Attempts to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of policy delivery resulted in a major departmental restructuring in each of their three terms in office. This paper asks three questions with regard to the New Labour project and departmental restructuring. First, from a historical perspective, was there a greater degree of departmental restructuring under New Labour than under previous governments? Second, in the case of New Labour, what was the rationale and justification for departmental restructuring? Finally, what are the criteria for evaluating successful processes of departmental restructuring and, once defined, can we identify any examples of success? Based on interviews with former New Labour ministers, this paper seeks to address these questions and determine the impact of departmental restructuring on policy delivery. 

This paper will explore the changing nature of UK governance throughout the last two decades, focusing in particular on the legacies of both the Blair and Brown administrations and assessing the potential impact of the new Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition.  The core theme of the paper concerns the impact of change on the delivery of public goods in an era of austerity framed within the context of debates on the relationship between states, networks and markets.  In particular, it will focus on analysing  the changing role in the relationship between the state and the third and private sectors by considering the current coalition’s narrative of the need to establish a new post-bureaucratic state settlement based on the notion of a 'small state and a big society'.  It asks the question of how the notion of devolved power fits within the UK tradition of governance framed within a discussion on the contrasting narratives presented by the 'differentiated polity model' and the 'asymmetric power model'.

The need for the EU to become closer to its citizens is frequently stressed at both EU and sub-state levels. This paper will explore the extent to which sub-state parliaments (in this instance, the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales) can achieve this aim, through the Protocol on Subsidiarity and other mechanisms. 

Political trust has seemingly been in decline across western liberal democracies since the 1960s. Whilst the trend is fairly consistent, on the individual level the distribution of political trust varies significantly. Following extant research in the USA, one putative cause of this variation is whether the individual supported the winning candidate at the last election. Yet within the UK we still know relatively little about the individual effect of ‘winning’ at the constituency level. Moreover, we know virtually nothing about how this effect plays out in the devolved context where a constituency may have a politically different (in terms of party) national representative to their devolved administration representative. Thus we do not yet know if SNP supporters are more politically trusting now than they were before the SNP became the largest party in the Scottish Parliament. As such, an important aspect of devolution – the extent to which it can increase citizens’ positive political perceptions – has been left under-analysed. This paper will explore this issue through a quantitative analysis of individual level data by constituency.

 

I investigate the extent to which social policy and ideology in the UK has drawn on concepts and ideas associated with the social capital theory of Robert Putnam. The model indicates that shared trust, norms and social networks lead to community cohesion, more active citizens and a wide range of other benefits in political, economic and social spheres. Social capital theory was adopted through academics, think-tanks and policymakers into ‘Third Way’ ideology in two ways. Firstly, it encouraged the creation of local partnerships between community, voluntary, public and private organisations to rebuild civil society and tackle problems of ‘social exclusion’. Secondly, it promoted a model of citizenship promoting active and responsible participation in society. Diverse areas of policy in the UK have utilised aspects of these ideas, such as Neighbourhood Renewal, Social Exclusion, Citizenship Education, and New Deal in welfare provision. I will also look at more recent moves, including the ‘Big society’ agenda, to see the transformation and lasting effects of these ideas.