scholarly journals How Members of Parliament understand and respond to climate change

2017 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 475-491 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Willis
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
National Level ◽  
Political Support ◽  
The Political ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
Governance Challenges ◽  
The Uk

Action on climate change, to meet the targets set in the 2015 Paris Agreement, requires strong political support at the national level. Whilst the political and governance challenges of climate change have been discussed at length, there is little understanding of how politicians, as influential individuals within the political system, understand or respond to climate change. This article presents findings from 14 qualitative interviews with Members of the UK Parliament, to discuss how politicians conceptualise climate change, and their deliberations on whether or how to act on the issue. First, it reviews an interdisciplinary literature from sociology, political theory and science and technology studies, to investigate how politicians navigate their work and life. Second, it presents ‘composite narratives’ to provide four different MPs’ stories. Last, it draws conclusions and implications for practice. It highlights three crucial factors: identity, or how politicians consider the climate issue in the context of their professional identity and the cultural norms of their workplace; representation, how politicians assess their role as a representative, and whether proposed political action on climate is seen as compatible with this representative function; and working practices, how day-to-day work rituals and pressures influence the aims, ambitions and engagement of politicians with climate change.

scholarly journals Implications of transforming climate change risks into security risks

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 460-477
Author(s):  
Ksenia Chmutina ◽  
Peter Fussey ◽  
Andrew Dainty ◽  
Lee Bosher
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
National Level ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Security Risk ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Climate Change Risks ◽  
The Uk

Purpose A number of severe weather events have influenced a shift in UK policy concerning how climate-induced hazards are managed. Whist this shift has encouraged improvements in emergency management and preparedness, the risk of climate change is increasingly becoming securitised within policy discourses, and enmeshed with broader agendas traditionally associated with human-induced threats. Climate change is seen as a security risk because it can impede development of a nation. The purpose of this paper is to explore the evolution of the securitisation of climate change, and interrogates how such framings influence a range of conceptual and policy focused approaches towards both security and climate change. Design/methodology/approach Drawing upon the UK context, the paper uses a novel methodological approach combining critical discourse analysis and focus groups with security experts and policymakers. Findings The resulting policy landscape appears inexorably skewed towards short-term decision cycles that do little to mitigate longer-term threats to the nation’s assets. Whilst a prominent political action on a global level is required in order to mitigate the root causes (i.e. GHG emissions), national level efforts focus on adaptation (preparedness to the impacts of climate-induced hazards), and are forming part of the security agenda. Originality/value These issues are not restricted to the UK: understanding the role of security and its relationship to climate change becomes more pressing and urgent, as it informs the consequences of securitising climate change risks for development-disaster risk system.

scholarly journals (In)coherent subjects? The politics of conceptualising resistance in the UK asylum system

2021 ◽  
pp. 239965442110338
Author(s):  
Sarah M Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Political Action ◽  
Political Agency ◽  
The Political ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Sovereign Power ◽  
Subject Formation ◽  
Grounding Resistance ◽  
Migration Control ◽  
The Uk

Many accounts of resistance within systems of migration control pivot upon a coherent migrant subject, one that is imbued with political agency and posited as oppositional to particular forms of sovereign power. Drawing upon ethnographic research into the role of creativity within the UK asylum system, I argue that grounding resistance with a stable, coherent and agentic subject, aligns with oppositional narratives (of power vs resistance), and thereby risks negating the entangled politics of the (in)coherence of subject formation, and how this can contain the potential to disrupt, disturb or interrupt the practices and premise of the UK asylum system. I suggest that charity groups and subjects should not be written out of narratives of resistance apriori because they engage with ‘the state’: firstly, because to argue that there is a particular form that resistance should take is to place limits around what counts as the political; and secondly, because to ‘remain oppositional’ is at odds with an (in)coherent subject. I show how accounts which highlight a messy and ambiguous subjectivity, could be bought into understandings of resistance. This is important because as academics, we too participate in the delineation of the political and what counts as resistance. In predetermining what subjects, and forms of political action count as resistance we risk denying recognition to those within this system.

Behavioral Correlates of Political Support

1977 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 454-467 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward N. Muller
Keyword(s):  
Political Behavior ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Political Support ◽  
The Political ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Behavioral Consequences ◽  
Action Type ◽  
Group Politics ◽  
Conventional Behavior

Theories of the behavioral consequences of political support coincide in the prediction that political support will correlate positively with indices of conventional behavior, negatively with indices of unconventional behavior. Survey data drawn from three communities in the Federal Republic of Germany show that an index of support for the structure of political authority is negatively correlated both with an index of actual participation in aggressive political behavior and with an index of participation in conventional electoral/pressure-group politics. Since the political behavior indices are themselves positively correlated, it is useful to construct a typology which differentiates between “pure” types – no participation, participation only in conventional, participation only in aggressive – and “mixed” types – participation in conventional and moderately aggressive, participation in conventional and highly aggressive. When the relationship between political support and the political-action type index is examined, it turns out that two of the types are associated with medium political support, while four of them occur at low support. To achieve more accurate explanation of types of political behavior, a model for prediction of each action type is proposed, taking into account interaction between political support, sense of personal political influence, and belief in the efficacy of past collective political aggression. The test of the model yields positive results, suggesting that it represents a fruitful beginning toward development of a theory of behavioral consequences of political support.

scholarly journals Technology, Public Participation, and the American Bureaucracy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher George Torres
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Participation ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Environmental Literacy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Policy Entrepreneurs ◽  
Decision Making Processes

This dissertation analyzes three participatory technology assessment (pTA) projects conducted within United States federal agencies between 2014 and 2018. The field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) argues that a lack of public participation in addressing issues of science and technology in society has produced undemocratic processes of decision-making with outcomes insensitive to the daily lives of the public. There has been little work in STS, however, examining what the political pressures and administrative challenges are to improving public participation in U.S. agency decision-making processes. Following a three-essay format, this dissertation aims to fill this gap. Drawing on qualitative interviews with key personnel, and bringing STS, policy studies, and public administration scholarship into conversation, this dissertation argues for the significance of “policy entrepreneurs” who from within U.S. agencies advocate for pTA and navigate the political controls on innovative forms of participation. The first essay explores how the political culture and administrative structures of the American federal bureaucracy shape the bureaucratic contexts of public participation in science and technology decision-making. The second essay is an in-depth case study of the role political controls and policy entrepreneurs played in adopting, designing, and implementing pTA in NASA’s Asteroid Initiative. The third essay is a comparative analysis of how eight political and administrative conditions informed pTA design and implementation for NASA’s Asteroid Initiative, DOE’s consent-based nuclear waste siting program, and NOAA’s Environmental Literacy Program. The results of this dissertation highlight how important the political and administrative contexts of federal government programs are to understanding how pTA is designed and implemented in agency science and technology decision-making processes, and the key role agency policy entrepreneurs play in facilitating pTA through these political and administrative contexts. This research can aid STS scholars and practitioners better anticipate and mitigate the barriers to embedding innovative forms of public participation in U.S. federal government science and technology program design and decision-making processes.

scholarly journals The role of national politicians in global climate governance

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 885-903 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Willis
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
National Level ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Climate Governance ◽  
Earth Systems ◽  
Ability To Act ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Democratic Support

The scientific case for co-ordinated global governance of the climate system is firmly established, but how does this fit with a politician’s mandate as a democratically elected representative? What role do national politicians think they can and should play in climate governance? This paper tests these questions empirically, using data from interviews with 23 Members of the UK Parliament, and a focus group of civil society advocates, conducted between 2016 and 2018. A global goal to limit climate change has been agreed through the 2015 Paris Agreement. Yet while the Agreement sets a clear goal, the means to achieve it remain firmly at the level of the nation-state, with each country assuming responsibility for its own national plan. Thus national administrations, run by elected politicians, have a crucial role to play. This study shows that, while Members of the UK Parliament have an understanding of the challenges posed by climate change and wider changes to earth systems, few have yet been able to operationalise this understanding into meaningful responses at the national level. The study highlights two, linked, reasons for this. First, politicians’ ability to act – their agency – is limited by the practicalities and procedures of everyday politics, and by the norms and cultures of their working life. Second, UK politicians feel little pressure from their electors to act on climate change, and have to work to justify why action on climate change carries democratic legitimacy. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of this research, in the light of the recent high-profile climate protests and declarations of a ‘climate emergency’. It argues that politicians, working with other stakeholders, need support in order to articulate the scale and significance of global climate governance, and craft responses which build democratic support for further action.

Do Women Make a Difference?

Politics ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 63-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Bochel ◽  
Jacqui Briggs
Keyword(s):  
Policy Making ◽  
Women Politicians ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
National Level ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Environment ◽  
Policy Making Process

Using qualitative interviews the authors analyse how women politicians at local and national level are impacting upon politics and the policy-making process and how this is affecting the nature of the political environment.

scholarly journals From EHR to PHR: let’s get the record straight

BMJ Open ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. e029582
Author(s):  
Joshua D Symons ◽  
Hutan Ashrafian ◽  
Rachel Dunscombe ◽  
Ara Darzi
Keyword(s):  
Digital Health ◽  
National Level ◽  
Information Access ◽  
Record System ◽  
Health Records ◽  
Governance Challenges ◽  
Patient Health ◽  
Universal Interface ◽  
The Uk ◽  
And Control

This article reflects on the changing nature of health information access and the transition of focus from electronic health records (EHRs) to personal health records (PHRs) along with the challenges and need for alignment of national initiatives for EHR and PHR in the National Health Service (NHS) of the UK. The importance of implementing integrated EHRs as a route to enhance the quality of health delivery has been increasingly understood. EHRs, however, carry several limitations that include major fragmentation through multiple providers and protocols throughout the NHS. Questions over ownership and control of data further complicate the potential for fully utilising records. Analysing the previous initiatives and the current landscape, we identify that adopting a patient health record system can empower patients and allow better harmonisation of clinical data at a national level. We propose regional PHR ‘hubs’ to provide a universal interface that integrates digital health data at a regional level with further integration at a national level. We propose that these PHR hubs will reduce the complexity of connections, decrease governance challenges and interoperability issues while also providing a safe platform for high-quality scalable and sustainable digital solutions, including artificial intelligence across the UK NHS, serving as an exemplar for other countries which wish to realise the full value of healthcare records.

The Scotland—England Divide: Politics and Locality in Britain

1993 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
David McCrone ◽  
Frank Bechhofer
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Models ◽  
Political Support ◽  
The Political ◽  
Common Currency ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Electoral Behaviour ◽  
The Common ◽  
Political Differences ◽  
The One ◽  
The Uk

Growing territorial cleavages within Britain have attracted considerable interest from social scientists in recent years. New spatial models of voting, accounting for the declining homogeneity of electoral behaviour,1 have drawn attention to localised patterns of political support, as well as the emergence of regional cleavages across Britain as a whole.2 Talk of a North–South split has become the common currency of political commentators to account for regional disparities between Conservative and Labour support.3 Alongside these local and regional divisions in voting patterns, there is a new interest in broader aspects of the political differences between the nations of the UK, notably between England on the one hand, and Scotland and Wales on the other.4

scholarly journals Student Protests. Three Periods of University Governance

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 524-539
Author(s):  
Joan Ramon Rodriguez-Amat ◽  
Bob Jeffery
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Political Action ◽  
University Governance ◽  
The Political ◽  
Student Protests ◽  
Political Role ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Right ◽  
The University

Exploring the idea of student protests as an autonomous object of research and discussion, this paper leads to the understanding that the transforming role of the university and its governance defines the possibilities for the political role of students. In this perspective, there is a particular constellation of the different forms of higher education governance that provides students with the right and even the responsibility of protesting as politically engaged citizens of the university and of the state. Approaching the transformation of the models of university governance as a set of archaeologically organised states this paper identifies the sequential roles provided to the students and the meaning of their protests and demonstrations. After visiting some antecedents of more contemporaneous student movements and protests, this paper focuses on the UK to explore three manifestations of university governance that can be roughly differentiated as the enduring democratic period that extends from the late 1960s to the late 1980s, the globalisation period that extends from the early 1990s to the mid-2000s and as the post-millennial turn. These periods, embodying three different styles of governance of higher education, not only demonstrate conformity with the political and economic contexts in which they are embeded, they also correspond to particular socio-technological and communicative ecosystems and determine the specificities of the role of the students and their capacity for political action.

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