Intelligence and the Core Executive

2010 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin J. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Policy Process ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Considerable Influence ◽  
British Government ◽  
The Core ◽  
Core Executive

Much of the analysis of intelligence and security in British government has treated it as a separate and distinct sphere. This article argues that the core executive framework provides a useful mechanism for integrating security policy making with other aspects of the domestic policy process. The article analyses the changing nature of the core executive and its impact on decision-making. The article argues that if we look at intelligence through the core executive framework we can analyse intelligence as a particular form of knowledge that can provide the Prime Minister with considerable influence on policy outcomes. This is not, however, to suggest that the Prime Minister is presidential.

From Prime Ministerial Power to Core Executive

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. A. W. Rhodes
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Government Policies ◽  
Approaches To Studying ◽  
The Core ◽  
Executive Politics ◽  
Core Executive ◽  
The Government ◽  
Different Parts

The core executive is a new concept replacing the conventional debate about the power of the prime minister and the Cabinet. It refers to all those organizations and procedures that coordinate central government policies, and act as final arbiters of conflict between different parts of the government machine. In brief, the ‘core executive’ is the heart of the machine. The chapter reviews the several approaches to studying the British executive: prime ministerial government; prime ministerial cliques; Cabinet government; ministerial government; segmented decision-making; and bureaucratic coordination. It then discusses several ways forward by developing new theory and methods. The Afterword discusses the core executive as interlocking networks, and the fluctuating patterns of executive politics.

What Is New about ‘Network Governance’ and Why Does It Matter?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. A. W. Rhodes
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Policy Networks ◽  
Network Governance ◽  
The State ◽  
Accurate Description ◽  
British Government ◽  
The Core ◽  
Core Executive ◽  
Court Politics

This chapter replies to key criticisms about policy networks, the core executive, and governance. On networks, the chapter discusses the context of networks, and the ability of the theory to explain change. On the core executive, it discusses a shift away from a focus on the prime minister to court politics. On governance, the chapter returns to redefining the state, steering networks, metagovernance, and storytelling. It restates the case for the idea of the differentiated polity. This is edifying because it provides a vocabulary for a more accurate description of British government. Finally, the chapter provides a link to Volume II by summarizing the decentred approach to the differentiated polity.

Executive Agencies in Government: The Impact of Bureaucratic Networks on Policy Outcomes

2003 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesca Gains
Keyword(s):  
Policy Process ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Policy Network ◽  
British Government ◽  
Network Approach ◽  
Alternative Service ◽  
Executive Agencies ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Key Questions

The creation of agencies is a growing feature of contemporary governance yet key questions about agency autonomy and their influence on policy making remain unanswered. This article operationalises a policy network approach to explore the impact of agentification in three British government departments. It argues that the transfer of resources from departments to agencies created differing power-dependent networks between minister, department and agency. The networks have had both intended and unintended impacts on policy outcomes. Agencies have input to policymaking, the network's level of integration affects how well policies are delivered, networks have developed policy preferences and acted to impede further institutional change. These findings assist in understanding the nature of agencies' autonomy, the diversity of their impact on the policy process, and provide insights for other forms of alternative service delivery.

The Prime Minister and the Core Executive: A Liberal Intergovernmentalist Reading of UK Defence Policy Formulation 1997–2000

2005 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 508-525 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Dover
Keyword(s):  
Policy Making ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Policy Formulation ◽  
Domestic Policy ◽  
Government Policies ◽  
Common Denominator ◽  
European Security ◽  
The Core ◽  
Defence Policy ◽  
Core Executive

This article explores the domestic formulation of UK European defence policy 1997–2000 through the intergovernmental meetings at Pörtschach and Saint Malo which set in train the development and codification of a common European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) in 2000, through a Liberal Intergovernmentalist (LI) framework. This research leads to five conclusions: first, that the Saint Malo initiative was a tactical shift of government policies rather than core preferences; second, that the prime minister centralised European defence policy-making within the core executive; third, that the prime minister was crucial to the development of the initiative; fourth, that the presentation of the initiative was made on lowest common denominator grounds; and, lastly, that the ‘successive limited comparisons' framework provides an effective corrective to LI's domestic policy formulation hypotheses.

32. Conclusion: The Future of Parliamentary Politics

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Judge ◽  
Cristina Leston-Bandeira ◽  
Louise Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Participation ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
The Political ◽  
Collective Decision Making ◽  
The Core ◽  
Parliamentary Sovereignty ◽  
The Future ◽  
Parliamentary Politics

This concluding chapter reflects on the future of parliamentary politics by identifying key puzzles implicit in previous discussions which raise fundamental questions about what Parliament is and why it exists. The goal is to determine the ‘predictable unknowns’ as starting points for exploring the future. Three principal puzzles that need ‘hard thinking’ in order to understand legislatures are considered: representation, collective decision-making, and their role in the political system. The chapter also examines the difficulties in reconciling ideas about popular sovereignty and direct public participation with notions of parliamentary sovereignty and indirect public participation in decision-making; the implications of the legislative task of disentangling UK law from EU law in the wake of Brexit for Parliament's recent strengthened scrutiny capacity; and how Parliament has integrated the core principles of representation, consent, and authorization into the legitimation of state policy-making processes and their outputs.

Transformation of the Japanese State in Antimonopoly Regulation after the 1980s

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
MASAHIRO MOGAKI
Keyword(s):  
Policy Making ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
The State ◽  
State Transformation ◽  
Major Topic ◽  
Japanese Politics ◽  
The Core ◽  
Collective Group ◽  
Core Executive

AbstractAlthough state transformation after the 1980s has been a major topic of debate in political science, the transformation of the Japanese state has not been fully explored, with the pluralist and rational choice approaches dominating within the Japanese politics literature. This article addresses the lacuna by exploring state transformation in Japan's antimonopoly regulation after the 1980s, focusing on the state at the macro level through analysing evolving power relations within the core executive in response to the challenges of governance. The case study reveals the flexible change of power relations within the core executive; the core executive retained its dominance within policy-making arenas through this adaptation, which is regarded as the reconstitution of the state. Drawing on that, the article argues that the nature of state transformation in Japan is the sustained dominance of the core executive as a collective group over the sector through reconstituting the state.

scholarly journals The curious death – and life? – of British transport policy

2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (8) ◽  
pp. 1458-1479 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iain Docherty ◽  
Jon Shaw ◽  
Greg Marsden ◽  
Jillian Anable
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Policy Process ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Investment Decisions ◽  
Transport Policy ◽  
Relative Influence ◽  
Transport Planning ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Future ◽  
Deliberate Strategy

This article analyses the transport policy record of the 2010–2015 Conservative–Liberal Democrat Coalition and 2015–2016 Conservative majority UK governments. We argue that the style of policy making under these administrations departed significantly from that of previous decades, which had been characterised by the ascendancy of specific technical disciplines and decision-making norms about how transport planning should be carried out. Our key contention is that despite abandoning the idea of a single, overall narrative for transport policy, these governments (perhaps unwittingly) gave new life to broader debates about what transport investment is actually for and how investment decisions should be made. We interpret this as a shift away from the longstanding idea of a ‘deliberate’ strategy of intervention to a more ‘emergent’ approach, which raises important new questions about the future of transport policy both in terms of the objectives it seeks to realise and the relative influence of professional/technical and political actors in the policy process.

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