'Bargaining and puzzling; power and thought; dealing and agonising; compromise and commitment. These are two sides of political practitioners whether politician, public servant or campaigner. Understand the interplay and we can, just sometimes, make sense of the real world we seek to interpret.'Patrick Weller's observation comes from half a century of contemplating politics in action. The question of how government works lies at the heart of political science, and it has also been the career focus of this pioneer in the field.The Craft of Governing offers a tribute to the contribution of Patrick Weller to Australian political science, with chapters from leading political commentators including Michelle Grattan, Peter Shergold, Bob Jackson and James Walter. Contributors consider the role of the prime minister, approaches to studying executive government, the continuing significance of senior public servants and the nature of leadership in public bureaucracies. They also reflect on how insights from the study of domestic public policy can be applied to international organisations, challenges faced by Westminster democracies and approaches to political biography.The Craft of Governing is an invaluable resource for readers interested in approaches to studying politics and the development of political science as a discipline.

Published in 1999. Originally published in 1981, Control and Power in Central-Local Government Relations set out to provide a re-interpretation of central-local relations in Britain. The book reviewed the (then) existing literature; redefined the subject of intergovernmental relations (IGR); and developed a theory linking IGR to broader issues in the study of British Government. It rapidly became a classic in the study of local government. The link to broader issues what achieved through the power-dependence model and the focus on policy communities. The book underpinned the vast growth in the study of policy networks in British government. This revised edition includes four new chapters, two of which have been specially written. The new Preface traces the fortunes of the power-dependence model, commenting on and updating the individual chapters. A new part II continues the story. It contains a 1986 essay reviewing criticism of the original model (chapter 6); a 1992 article discussing unresolved issues in the study of policy networks (chapter 7); and a new chapter assessing where we are now in the study of networks. It argues, provocatively, for an ethnographic focus on traditions and narratives; on how individuals construct networks. The book remains essential reading for all students and academics concerned with the study of IGR and policy networks.

Interpretive political science focuses on the meanings that shape actions and institutions, and the ways in which they do so. This Handbook explores the implications of interpretive theory for the study of politics. It provides the first definitive survey of the field edited by two of its pioneers. Written by leading scholars from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, the Handbook's 32 chapters are split into five parts which explore: the contrast between interpretive theory and mainstream political science; the main forms of interpretive theory and the theoretical concepts associated with interpretive political science; the methods used by interpretive political scientists; the insights provided by interpretive political science on empirical topics; the implications of interpretive political science for professional practices such as policy analysis, planning, accountancy, and public health. With an emphasis on the applications of interpretive political science to a range of topics and disciplines, this Handbook is an invaluable resource for students, scholars, and practitioners in the areas of international relations, comparative politics, political sociology, political psychology, and public administration.

This volume explores new directions of governance and public policy arising both from interpretive political science and those who engage with interpretive ideas. It conceives governance as the various policies and outcomes emerging from the increasing salience of neoclassical and institutional economics or, neoliberalism and new institutionalisms. In doing so, it suggests that that the British state consists of a vast array of meaningful actions that may coalesce into contingent, shifting, and contestable practices. Based on original fieldwork, it examines the myriad ways in which local actors - civil servants, mid-level public managers, and street level bureaucrats - have interpreted elite policy narratives and thus forged practices of governance on the ground. This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners of governance and public policy.

'Bargaining and puzzling; power and thought; dealing and agonising; compromise and commitment. These are two sides of political practitioners whether politician, public servant or campaigner. Understand the interplay and we can, just sometimes, make sense of the real world we seek to interpret.' Patrick Weller's observation comes from half a century of contemplating politics in action. The question of how government works lies at the heart of political science, and it has also been the career focus of this pioneer in the field. The Craft of Governing offers a tribute to the contribution of Patrick Weller to Australian political science, with chapters from leading political commentators including Michelle Grattan, Peter Shergold, Bob Jackson and James Walter. Contributors consider the role of the prime minister, approaches to studying executive government, the continuing significance of senior public servants and the nature of leadership in public bureaucracies. They also reflect on how insights from the study of domestic public policy can be applied to international organisations, challenges faced by Westminster democracies and approaches to political biography. The Craft of Governing is an invaluable resource for readers interested in approaches to studying politics and the development of political science as a discipline.

Published in 1999. Originally published in 1981, Control and Power in Central-Local Government Relations set out to provide a re-interpretation of central-local relations in Britain. The book reviewed the (then) existing literature; redefined the subject of intergovernmental relations (IGR); and developed a theory linking IGR to broader issues in the study of British Government. It rapidly became a classic in the study of local government. The link to broader issues what achieved through the power-dependence model and the focus on policy communities. The book underpinned the vast growth in the study of policy networks in British government. This revised edition includes four new chapters, two of which have been specially written. The new Preface traces the fortunes of the power-dependence model, commenting on and updating the individual chapters. A new part II continues the story. It contains a 1986 essay reviewing criticism of the original model (chapter 6); a 1992 article discussing unresolved issues in the study of policy networks (chapter 7); and a new chapter assessing where we are now in the study of networks. It argues, provocatively, for an ethnographic focus on traditions and narratives; on how individuals construct networks. The book remains essential reading for all students and academics concerned with the study of IGR and policy networks.

Interpretive political science focuses on the meanings that shape actions and institutions, and the ways in which they do so. This Handbook explores the implications of interpretive theory for the study of politics. It provides the first definitive survey of the field edited by two of its pioneers. Written by leading scholars from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, the Handbook's 32 chapters are split into five parts which explore: the contrast between interpretive theory and mainstream political science; the main forms of interpretive theory and the theoretical concepts associated with interpretive political science; the methods used by interpretive political scientists; the insights provided by interpretive political science on empirical topics; the implications of interpretive political science for professional practices such as policy analysis, planning, accountancy, and public health. With an emphasis on the applications of interpretive political science to a range of topics and disciplines, this Handbook is an invaluable resource for students, scholars, and practitioners in the areas of international relations, comparative politics, political sociology, political psychology, and public administration.

This book asks, 'what are the implications of blurring genres for the discipline of Political Science, and for Area Studies?' It argues novelists and playwrights provide a better guide for political scientists than the work of physicists. It restates the intrinsic value of the Humanities and Social Sciences and builds bridges between the two territories. The phrase blurring genres covers both genres of thought and of presentation. Genres of thought refers to such theoretical approaches as post structuralism, cultural studies, and especially interpretive thought. Part 1 explores genres of thought, focusing on the use of narratives. Specific examples include the narratives of post-truth political cultures; narratives in Canadian general elections; autoethnography as a new research tool; and novels as a way of understanding economic development. Part 2 emphasises genres of presentation and focuses on the visual arts. The chapters cover: photography in British political history, the architecture of American statehouses and city halls, design, comics, and using the creative arts to improve policy practice. This book is interdisciplinary and should have an appeal beyond political science to area studies specialists and others in the humanities. It is an advanced text, so it is aimed primarily at academics and postgraduates.

This book asks, 'what are the implications of blurring genres for the discipline of Political Science, and for Area Studies?' It argues novelists and playwrights provide a better guide for political scientists than the work of physicists. It restates the intrinsic value of the Humanities and Social Sciences and builds bridges between the two territories. The phrase blurring genres covers both genres of thought and of presentation. Genres of thought refers to such theoretical approaches as post structuralism, cultural studies, and especially interpretive thought. Part 1 explores genres of thought, focusing on the use of narratives. Specific examples include the narratives of post-truth political cultures; narratives in Canadian general elections; autoethnography as a new research tool; and novels as a way of understanding economic development. Part 2 emphasises genres of presentation and focuses on the visual arts. The chapters cover: photography in British political history, the architecture of American statehouses and city halls, design, comics, and using the creative arts to improve policy practice. This book is interdisciplinary and should have an appeal beyond political science to area studies specialists and others in the humanities. It is an advanced text, so it is aimed primarily at academics and postgraduates.

This volume explores new directions of governance and public policy arising both from interpretive political science and those who engage with interpretive ideas. It conceives governance as the various policies and outcomes emerging from the increasing salience of neoclassical and institutional economics or, neoliberalism and new institutionalisms. In doing so, it suggests that that the British state consists of a vast array of meaningful actions that may coalesce into contingent, shifting, and contestable practices. Based on original fieldwork, it examines the myriad ways in which local actors - civil servants, mid-level public managers, and street level bureaucrats - have interpreted elite policy narratives and thus forged practices of governance on the ground. This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners of governance and public policy.

These two volumes have one simple objective - to provide a summary of the key findings of all the projects on the Economic and Social Research Council's Whitehall Programme. The Programme combined basic research on the evolution of British government with policy relevant research on contemporary practice in Britain and Europe. Volume 1 surveys the main constitutional changes. Volume 2 examines the changing roles and relationships of the Prime Minister, ministers and civil servants. Edited by Rod Rhodes and written by a team of distinguished political scientists and historians these volumes provide an authoritative account of how British government has changed over the past fifty years.

The first volume in a series of comparative studies within the ESRC's Whitehall Programme focuses on core executives in five parliamentary democracies comparing the Westminster model as in Australia, Canada and Britain with the continental democracies of Germany and the Netherlands showing how political leadership is shackled by a vast array of constraints, from globalisation to internal fragmentation and rationalisation, making a heroic model of decisive political leadership hard to sustain.

The first volume in a series of comparative studies within the ESRC's Whitehall Programme focuses on core executives in five parliamentary democracies comparing the Westminster model as in Australia, Canada and Britain with the continental democracies of Germany and the Netherlands showing how political leadership is shackled by a vast array of constraints, from globalisation to internal fragmentation and rationalisation, making a heroic model of decisive political leadership hard to sustain.

Narratives or storytelling are a feature of the everyday life of all who work in government. They tell each other stories about the origins, aims and effects of policies to make sense of their world. These stories form the collective memory of a government department; a retelling of yesterday to make sense of today. This book examines policies through the eyes of the practitioners, both top-down and bottom-up; it decentres policies and policymaking. To decentre is to unpack practices as the contingent beliefs and actions of individuals. Decentred analysis produces detailed studies of people's beliefs and practices. It challenges the idea that inexorable or impersonal forces drive politics, focusing instead on the relevant meanings, the beliefs and preferences of the people involved. This book presents ten case studies, covering penal policy, zero-carbon homes, parliamentary scrutiny, children's rights, obesity, pension reform, public service reform, evidence-based policing, and local economic knowledge. It introduces a different angle of vision on the policy process; it looks at it through the eyes of individual actors, not institutions. In other words, it looks at policies from the other end of the telescope. It concludes there is much to learn from a decentred approach. It delivers edification because it offers a novel alliance of interpretive theory with an ethnographic toolkit to explore policy and policymaking from the bottom-up. Written by members of the Department of Politics and International Relations of the University of Southampton, with their collaborators at other universities, the book's decentred approach provides an alternative to the dominant evidence-based policy nostrums of the day.

Narratives or storytelling are a feature of the everyday life of all who work in government. They tell each other stories about the origins, aims and effects of policies to make sense of their world. These stories form the collective memory of a government department; a retelling of yesterday to make sense of today. This book examines policies through the eyes of the practitioners, both top-down and bottom-up; it decentres policies and policymaking. To decentre is to unpack practices as the contingent beliefs and actions of individuals. Decentred analysis produces detailed studies of people's beliefs and practices. It challenges the idea that inexorable or impersonal forces drive politics, focusing instead on the relevant meanings, the beliefs and preferences of the people involved. This book presents ten case studies, covering penal policy, zero-carbon homes, parliamentary scrutiny, children's rights, obesity, pension reform, public service reform, evidence-based policing, and local economic knowledge. It introduces a different angle of vision on the policy process; it looks at it through the eyes of individual actors, not institutions. In other words, it looks at policies from the other end of the telescope. It concludes there is much to learn from a decentred approach. It delivers edification because it offers a novel alliance of interpretive theory with an ethnographic toolkit to explore policy and policymaking from the bottom-up. Written by members of the Department of Politics and International Relations of the University of Southampton, with their collaborators at other universities, the book's decentred approach provides an alternative to the dominant evidence-based policy nostrums of the day.

"Public Administration: 25 Years of Analysis and Debate" presents a history of the last quarter century of journal "Public Administration" by its editor R. A. W. Rhodes, and features a collection of the journal's most influential articles published between 1986 and 2011. Features a history of the evolution of "Public Administration" over the past 25 yearsProvides highly cited source material of proven quality in a single volumeRepresents an ideal supplementary reader for any public administration and public management course

Understanding Governance asks: * What has changed in British government over the past two decades, how and why? * Why do so many government policies fail? * What does the shift from government to governance mean for the practice and study of British government? This book provides a challenging reinterpretation which interweaves an account of recent institutional changes in central, local and European Union government with methodological innovations and theoretical analysis. It emphasizes: the inability of the 'Westminster model', with its accent on parliamentary sovereignty and strong executive leadership, to account for persistent policy failure; the 'hollowing out' of British government from above (the European Union), below (special purpose bodies) and sideways (to agencies); and the need to respond to the postmodern challenge, rethinking the methodological and theoretical assumptions in the study of British government. Professor Rhodes makes a significant and timely contribution to our understanding of government and governance.

This book explores the roles and workings of the heads of government departments in six nations: departmental secretaries in Australia, departmentschefs in Denmark, directeurs d'administration in France, secretaris-generaal in the Netherlands, chief executives in New Zealand, and permanent secretaries in the UK. It also seeks to explore their 'infinite variety' by showing how inherited government traditions shape the response to reform. It examines how such reforms as privatization and contracting out have affected who does these jobs and how they do them. It asks whether the demands of the new public management have made departmental heads more accountable, more public and more vulnerable. For each of the six countries the authors give details of departmental secretaries' backgrounds, their career paths, their conditions of employment, their impacts, and their changing positions. Central to each chapter are short biographies or portraits of top officials with extensive quotations from interviews in which they talk about how they see their worlds and how, for instance, they now focus more on managing their departments and less on policy-making. The experience of senior public servants is brought vividly to life. This book is the first comprehensive, comparative portrait of top government officials, and is an important resource for students and scholars of politics, public policy and public management, and makes fascinating reading for all senior civil servants themselves.

Is it possible to compare French presidential politics with village leadership in rural India? Most social scientists are united in thinking such unlikely juxtapositions are not feasible. Boswell, Corbett and Rhodes argue that they are possible. This book explains why and how. It is a call to arms for interpretivists to embrace creatively comparative work. As well as explaining, defending and illustrating the comparative interpretive approach, this book is also an engaging, hands-on guide to doing comparative interpretive research, with chapters covering design, fieldwork, analysis and writing. The advice in each revolves around 'rules of thumb', grounded in experience, and illustrated through stories and examples from the authors' research in different contexts around the world. Naturalist and humanist traditions have thus far dominated the field but this book presents a real alternative to these two orthodoxies which expands the horizons of comparative analysis in social science research.

Interpretive Political Science is the second of two volumes featuring a selection of key writings by R.A.W. Rhodes. Volume II looks forward and explores the 'interpretive turn' and its implications for the craft of political science, especially public administration, and draws together articles from 2005 onwards on the theme of 'the interpretive turn' in political science. Part I provides a summary statement of the interpretive approach, and Part II develops the theme of blurring genres and discusses a variety of research methods common in the humanities, including: ethnographic fieldwork, life history, and focus groups. Part III demonstrates how the genres of thought and presentation found in the humanities can be used in political science. It presents four examples of such blurring 'at work' with studies of: applied anthropology and civil service reform; women's studies and government departments; and storytelling and local knowledge. The book concludes with a summary of what is edifying about an interpretive approach, and why this approach matters, and revisits some of the more common criticisms before indulging in plausible conjectures about the future of interpretivism. The author seeks new and interesting ways to explore governance, high politics, public policies, and the study of public administration in general. Volume I collects in one place for the first time the main articles written by Rhodes on policy networks and governance between 1990 and 2005, and explores a new way of describing British government, focusing on policy making and the ways in which policy is put into practice.

Political leadership has made a comeback. It was studied intensively not only by political scientists but also by political sociologists and psychologists, Sovietologists, political anthropologists, and by scholars in comparative and development studies from the 1940s to the 1970s. Thereafter, the field lost its way with the rise of structuralism, neo-institutionalism, and rational choice approaches to the study of politics, government, and governance. Recently, however, students of politics have returned to studying the role of individual leaders and the exercise of leadership to explain political outcomes. The list of topics is nigh endless: elections, conflict management, public policy, government popularity, development, governance networks, and regional integration. In the media age, leaders are presented and stage-managed-spun-DDLas the solution to almost every social problem. Through the mass media and the Internet, citizens and professional observers follow the rise, impact, and fall of senior political officeholders at closer quarters than ever before. This Handbook encapsulates the resurgence by asking, where are we today? It orders the multidisciplinary field by identifying the distinct and distinctive contributions of the disciplines. It meets the urgent need to take stock. It brings together scholars from around the world, encouraging a comparative perspective, to provide a comprehensive coverage of all the major disciplines, methods, and regions. It showcases both the normative and empirical traditions in political leadership studies, and juxtaposes behavioural, institutional, and interpretive approaches. It covers formal, office-based as well as informal, emergent political leadership, and in both democratic and undemocratic polities.

As citizens, why do we care about the everyday life of ministers and civil servants? We care because the decisions of the great and the good affect all our lives, for good or ill. For all their personal, political, and policy failings and foibles, they make a difference. So, we want to know what ministers and bureaucrats do, why, and how. We are interested in their beliefs and practices.
In Everyday Life in British Government, a fascinating, new piece of political anthropology, R.A.W. Rhodes uncovers exactly how the British political elite thinks and acts. Drawing on unprecedented access to ministers and senior civil servants in three government departments, he answers a simple question: 'what do they do?' On the basis of extensive fieldwork, supplemented by revealing interviews, Rhodes tries to capture the essence of their everyday life, describes the ministers' and permanent secretaries' world through their own eyes, and explores how their beliefs and practices serve to create meaning in politics, policy making, and public-service delivery. Everyday Life in British Government goes on to analyze how such beliefs and practices are embedded in traditions; in webs of protocols, rituals, and languages.
The story Rhodes has to tell is dramatized through in-depth accounts of specific events to show ministers and civil servants 'in action'. He challenges the conventional constitutional, institutional, and managerial views of British governance. Instead, he describes a storytelling political-administrative elite, with beliefs and practices rooted in the Westminster model, which uses protocols and rituals to domesticate rude surprises and cope with recurrent dilemmas.

The study of political institutions is among the founding pillars of political science. With the rise of the 'new institutionalism', the study of institutions has returned to its place in the sun. This volume provides a comprehensive survey of where we are in the study of political institutions, covering both the traditional concerns of political science with constitutions, federalism and bureaucracy and more recent interest in theory and the constructed nature of institutions. The Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions draws together a galaxy of distinguished contributors drawn from leading universities across the world. Authoritative reviews of the literature and assessments of future research directions will help to set the research agenda for the next decade.

Comparing Westminster explores how the governmental elites in Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa understand their Westminster system. It examines in detail four interrelated features of Westminster systems. Firstly, the increasing centralization in collective, responsible cabinet government. Second, the constitutional convention of ministerial and collective responsibility. Third, the role of a professional, non-partisan public service. And finally, parliament's relationship to the executive. The authors explain the changes that have occured in the Westminster model by analyzing four traditions: royal prerogative, responsible government, constitutional bureaucracy, and representative government. They suggest that each tradition has a recurring dilemma, between centralization and decentralization, party government and ministerial responsibility, professionalization and politicization, and finally elitism and participation. They gone on to argue that these dilemmas recur in four present-day debates: the growth of prime ministerial power, the decline in individual and collective ministerial accountability, politicisation of the public service, and executive dominance of the legislature.
Comparing Westminster concludes by identifying five meanings of--or narratives about--Westminster. Firstly, 'Westminster as heritage'--elite actors' shared governmental narrative understood as both precedents and nostalgia. Second, 'Westminster as political tool'--the expedient cloak worn by governments and politicians to defend themselves and criticize opponents. Third, 'Westminster as legitimising tradition'--providing legitimacy and a context for elite actions, serving as a point of reference to navigate this uncertain world. Fourth, 'Westminster as institutional category'--it remains a useful descriptor of a loose family of governments with shared origins and characteristics. Finally, 'Westminster as an effective political system'--it is a more effective and efficient political system than consensual parliamentary governments. Westminster is a flexible family of ideas that is useful for many purposes and survives, even thrives, because of its meaning in use to elite actors."

The State as Cultural Practice offers a fully worked out account of the authors' distinctive interpretive approach to political science. It challenges the new institutionalism, probably the most significant present-day strand in both American and British political science. It moves away from such notions as 'bringing the state back in', 'path dependency' and modernist empiricism. Instead, Bevir and Rhodes argue for an anti-foundational analysis, ethnographic and historical methods, and a decentred approach that rejects any essentialist definition of the state and espouses the idea of politics as cultural practice. The book has three aims: to develop an anti-foundational theory of the state; to develop a new research agenda around the topics of rule, rationalities, and resistance; and by exploring empirical shifts and debates about the changing nature of the state to show how anti-foundational theory leads us to see them differently.
Bevir and Rhodes argue for the idea of 'the stateless state' or the state as meaning-in-action. So, the state is neither monolithic nor a causal agent. It consists solely of the contingent actions of specific individuals; of diverse beliefs about the public sphere, about authority and power, which are constructed differently in contending traditions. Continuity and change are products of people inheriting traditions and modifying them in response to dilemmas. A decentred approach explores the limits to the state and seeks to develop a more diverse view of state authority and its exercise. In short, political scientists need to bring people back in to the study of the state.