scholarly journals Outsourcing the State: New Sources of Elite Power

2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 77-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Froud ◽  
Sukhdev Johal ◽  
Michael Moran ◽  
Karel Williams
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Deleuze And Guattari ◽  
Financial Problems ◽  
Private Companies ◽  
Financial Consequences ◽  
Uncertain Outcomes ◽  
The Uk

This article uses the example of public sector outsourcing to explore how elite power can be fallible. A contract between the state and private companies represents a complex interweaving of different kinds of power with uncertain outcomes: the experience of outsourcing in the UK and elsewhere is that it frequently goes wrong, with fiascos creating political embarrassment for states and financial problems for companies. Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari, the article explores how the contract is a political device that can be both tool and weapon but which has uncertain outcomes. In doing so, it makes a distinctive contribution by arguing that elite work is often about repair and managing the political or financial consequences of failure.

Introduction: Beyond Benefits Street – exploring experiences and narratives of welfare reform

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Patrick
Keyword(s):  
Welfare Reform ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Citizenship ◽  
Theoretical Context ◽  
Working Through ◽  
Longitudinal Approach ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter outlines the rationale behind conducting repeat interviews with out-of-work benefit claimants in an effort to better understand lived experiences of welfare reform. It introduces readers to the political and theoretical context, and highlights the value in employing social citizenship as a theoretical lens in order to tease out citizenship from above and below. The recent context of welfare reform in the UK is also introduced, highlighting the extent to which successive rounds of welfare reform have cumulatively reworked the relationship between the citizen and the state. The research on which this book is based is detailed, and the value in working through and across time by taking a qualitative longitudinal approach highlighted.

A Discussion of Katherine J. Cramer's The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 521-522
Author(s):  
Christina Wolbrecht
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Language ◽  
Thick Description ◽  
The Public ◽  
Interpretive Theory

The policies of Republican Governor Scott Walker have come to symbolize a resurgent assault on the public sector, and on public employee unions in particular, by the Republican Party. The fact that this is happening in Wisconsin, the state that in the last century was considered the “laboratory of Progressivism,” makes the politics surrounding these policies all the more compelling. In The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker, Katherine J. Cramer analyzes the “politics of resentment” surrounding these developments. Employing an ethnographic “method of listening,” Cramer furnishes thick description of the political language employed by rural Wisconsinites, and proceeds to develop an interpretive theory of “political resentment” that illuminates the reasons why lower-class citizens so strongly oppose public policies seeking to offset social and economic inequality. The book is important methodologically and politically. We have thus invited a range of social and political scientists to comment on the book as a work of political science and as a diagnosis of the current political moment.

A Discussion of Katherine J. Cramer's The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 523-524
Author(s):  
Jeffrey R. Dudas
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Language ◽  
Thick Description ◽  
The Public ◽  
Interpretive Theory

The policies of Republican Governor Scott Walker have come to symbolize a resurgent assault on the public sector, and on public employee unions in particular, by the Republican Party. The fact that this is happening in Wisconsin, the state that in the last century was considered the “laboratory of Progressivism,” makes the politics surrounding these policies all the more compelling. In The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker, Katherine J. Cramer analyzes the “politics of resentment” surrounding these developments. Employing an ethnographic “method of listening,” Cramer furnishes thick description of the political language employed by rural Wisconsinites, and proceeds to develop an interpretive theory of “political resentment” that illuminates the reasons why lower-class citizens so strongly oppose public policies seeking to offset social and economic inequality. The book is important methodologically and politically. We have thus invited a range of social and political scientists to comment on the book as a work of political science and as a diagnosis of the current political moment.

Enterprising Professionals

2004 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurie Cohen ◽  
Gill Musson ◽  
Joanne Duberley
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Customer Orientation ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
Medical Practitioners ◽  
The Social ◽  
Financial Consequences ◽  
Working Practices ◽  
The Uk ◽  
General Medical Practitioners

The last 20 years have heralded a fundamental change in approach towards the UK public sector. Successive governments have enacted policy changes aimed at bringing public services closer to the market. This paper examines how this re-framing has been experienced by public sector scientists and general medical practitioners. Whereas for scientists the concept of the customer was seen to describe adequately the social relations and financial consequences embedded in their work, GPs were largely more resistant to the label. The evidence presented reveals the diversity of ‘customers’ faced by these scientists and GPs, and their wide-ranging and sometimes contradictory needs and expectations. This increased customer orientation is seen to have implications for GPs' and scientists' working practices and their sense of professional expertise.

A Century of Fiscal Squeeze Politics

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Hood ◽  
Rozana Himaz
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Analysis ◽  
Marked Reduction ◽  
Public Spending ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Financial Outcomes ◽  
Political Cost ◽  
Political Choices ◽  
The Uk

Contributing to the literature on austerity, this book identifies and compares episodes of ‘fiscal squeeze’ (that is, substantial efforts to cut public spending and/or raise taxes) in the UK over a century from 1900 to 2015. It looks at how different the politics of fiscal squeeze and austerity is today from what it was a century ago, ways in which fiscal squeeze can reshape the state, leading to new ways of organizing government or providing services, and at how political credit and blame play out in the aftermath of fiscal squeeze. The analysis is both quantitative and qualitative, starting with reported financial outcomes and then looking at the political choices and processes that lie behind those outcomes to identify patterns and puzzles that have not been recognized or explained adequately so far in received theory. Thus the book identifies a long-term shift from deep but short-lived episodes of spending restraint or tax increases in the earlier part of the century towards episodes in which the pain is spread out over a longer period during the latter part of the century. It also identifies a marked reduction of revenue-led squeezes in the last part of the century. Analysing fiscal squeeze both in terms of reported outcomes and a qualitative analysis of loss imposition, political cost to incumbents and state, helps to solve a puzzle in the literature about the electoral effects of austerity and apparently erratic voter ‘punishment’ of governments that impose austerity policies.

A Discussion of Katherine J. Cramer's The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 525-526 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darren Davis
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Language ◽  
Thick Description ◽  
The Public ◽  
Interpretive Theory

The policies of Republican Governor Scott Walker have come to symbolize a resurgent assault on the public sector, and on public employee unions in particular, by the Republican Party. The fact that this is happening in Wisconsin, the state that in the last century was considered the “laboratory of Progressivism,” makes the politics surrounding these policies all the more compelling. In The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker, Katherine J. Cramer analyzes the “politics of resentment” surrounding these developments. Employing an ethnographic “method of listening,” Cramer furnishes thick description of the political language employed by rural Wisconsinites, and proceeds to develop an interpretive theory of “political resentment” that illuminates the reasons why lower-class citizens so strongly oppose public policies seeking to offset social and economic inequality. The book is important methodologically and politically. We have thus invited a range of social and political scientists to comment on the book as a work of political science and as a diagnosis of the current political moment.

All Shook Up?

2020 ◽  
pp. 157-174
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Chatterjee
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Economic Reforms ◽  
Rent Seeking ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
State Autonomy ◽  
The Public ◽  
Indian State ◽  
Dominant Classes

The Political Economy and Development of India (PEDI) outlined highly influential theories of both the Indian state and its bureaucracy. Professionals within the public sector were one of Bardhan’s three competing dominant classes, yet he was also clear that the state was an autonomous actor distinct from the rent-seeking officials who populated its lower ranks. Three decades later, economic reforms have ostensibly challenged the public sector’s economic, ideological, and policy dominance. This chapter argues that the Indian system remains more statist—and correspondingly less ‘pro-business’—than many scholarly interpretations today allow. Nonetheless, elite public sector professionals have become fragmented that challenge their coherence as a class, while new obstacles to effective state autonomy have arisen from the nexus between politicians and the petty bureaucracy.

A Discussion of Katherine J. Cramer's The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 527-528 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward G. Carmines ◽  
Eric R. Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Language ◽  
Thick Description ◽  
The Public ◽  
Interpretive Theory

The policies of Republican Governor Scott Walker have come to symbolize a resurgent assault on the public sector, and on public employee unions in particular, by the Republican Party. The fact that this is happening in Wisconsin, the state that in the last century was considered the “laboratory of Progressivism,” makes the politics surrounding these policies all the more compelling. In The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker, Katherine J. Cramer analyzes the “politics of resentment” surrounding these developments. Employing an ethnographic “method of listening,” Cramer furnishes thick description of the political language employed by rural Wisconsinites, and proceeds to develop an interpretive theory of “political resentment” that illuminates the reasons why lower-class citizens so strongly oppose public policies seeking to offset social and economic inequality. The book is important methodologically and politically. We have thus invited a range of social and political scientists to comment on the book as a work of political science and as a diagnosis of the current political moment.

Political Impediments to Economic Rationality: Explaining Zimbabwe's Failure to Reform its Public Sector

1989 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Herbst
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Rationality ◽  
Economic Decline ◽  
Economic Management ◽  
Agricultural Prices ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Sector Reforms

After Many years of exhortations, it is now widely claimed that African governments are beginning to implement the reforms needed to fundamentally alter their economies.1 Zimbabwe, after achieving independence 15 years later than most of the continent, has been singled out as a country that immdiately recognised the lessons of African economic failures and therefore adopted more rational policies.2 However, efforts to rationalise the public sector have often proceeded much slower than other reforms designed to reverse ‘the trend of chronic economic decline’, notably by reducing over-valued currencies, increasing agricultural prices, and lowering real urban wages.3 Even Zimbabwe, despite its record of relatively good economic management, has not been able to adopt a package of policies which would resolve the severe problems of its parastatals, namely those companies/corporations/other organisations owned by the state that operate outside the formal governmental apparatus. In Zimbabwe specifically and in Africa generally, the political imperatives of leaders have often prevented the adoption, let alone the implementation of comprehensive public-sector reforms.

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