scholarly journals Austerity and Its Impact Upon Public Services in The UK: An Analytic Narrative Approach

Author(s):  
Tania Arrieta Hernandez
2015 ◽  
Vol 82 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Bovaird ◽  
Gerry Stoker ◽  
Tricia Jones ◽  
Elke Loeffler ◽  
Monica Pinilla Roncancio

2010 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 341-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monika Nalepa

How can outgoing autocrats enforce promises of amnesty once they have left power? Why would incoming opposition parties honor their prior promises of amnesty once they have assumed power and face no independent mechanisms of enforcement? In 1989 autocrats in a number of communist countries offered their respective oppositions free elections in exchange for promises of amnesty. The communists' decision appears irrational given the lack of institutions to enforce these promises of amnesty. What is further puzzling is that the former opposition parties that won elections in many countries actually refrained from implementing transitional justice measures. Their decision to honor their prior agreements to grant amnesty seems as irrational as the autocrats' decisions to place themselves at the mercy of their opponents. Using an analytic narrative approach, the author explains this paradox by modeling pacted transitions not as simple commitment problems but as games of incomplete information where the uninformed party has “skeletons in its closet”—that is, embarrassing information that provides insurance against the commitments being broken. The author identifies the conditions under which autocrats step down even though they can be punished with transitional justice and illustrates the results with case studies from Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary.


Author(s):  
David J Hunter

As in the case of other parts of the UK wider health system, it has been a turbulent time for public health since 2010. Not only has the function undergone major structural and cultural change following its return to local government from the NHS, where it had been located since 1974, but it has had to confront new challenges in public health arising from lifestyle behaviours and a widening health gap between social groups. All of this has occurred during a period of unprecedented financial austerity affecting public services in general but local government in particular. This chapter reviews the state of public health in the lead up to the changes announced by the Coalition government in 2010. It then summarises the reforms before offering an interim assessment of their impact. Finally, it discusses the evidence to date concerning the reforms and speculates on likely prospects in the years ahead.


2011 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 887-914 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARK DINCECCO ◽  
GIOVANNI FEDERICO ◽  
ANDREA VINDIGNI

We examine the relationships between warfare, taxation, and political change in the context of the political unification of the Italian peninsula. Using a comprehensive new database, we argue that external and internal threat environments had significant implications for the demand for military strength, which in turn had important ramifications for fiscal policy and the likelihood of constitutional reform and related improvements in the provision of nonmilitary public services. Our analytic narrative complements recent theoretical and econometric works about state capacity. By emphasizing public finances, we also uncover novel insights about the forces underlying state formation in Italy.“The budget is the skeleton of the state, stripped of any misleading ideologies.”Sociologist Rudolf Goldscheid, 19261


Author(s):  
Chi Maher

The UK government aims to increase the role of social enterprise as a vehicle to deliver public services directly to citizens and local communities. This chapter explores small social enterprises' experience of public service procurement in the UK including the introduction of the Social Value Act 2012. To understand small third sector social enterprises' experiences of gaining access to public services contracts, face-to-face interviews were conducted with 11 chief executive officers (CEOs) using an interview guide. Empirical evidence obtained suggests that some procurement policies and processes are impacting on these organizations' developments, growth, partnership arrangements and value creation.


2011 ◽  
pp. 2177-2194
Author(s):  
Jyoti Choudrie ◽  
Vishanth Weerrakody

This article examines how horizontal integration between the various departments of a local authority in the United Kingdom (UK) occurs. Following that the aim of this article is to extract the “success factors” in government intervention that support horizontal and vertical integration based on the strategies pursued in the UK in order to render favourable results if applied elsewhere. The research methodology consisted of an in-depth case study that used the research tools of interviews and referring to archival documents. This research is timely as the maturity of e-government increases the issues of integrating processes and systems across various government departments becomes pertinent. The conclusion and lessons that can be learnt from this research is that e-government integration on a horizontal level obtains significant ef- ficiency and effectiveness as more and more public services are being centralized.


Author(s):  
Emma Davidson

This chapter demonstrates how, in the UK, austerity has not been limited to the provision of social security. Most government departmental budgets were cut and there was a clear shift in responsibility from central to local government, which also had its budgets slashed. The cuts to local government have also resulted in a marked decrease in the provision of key services. The chapter finds that libraries can be important spaces for support workers to meet clients, as well as for those with fewer resources to access computers, books, or simply a safe communal space outside of their home. Future lack of investment in universal public services may perpetuate and further widen the inequalities in access to these resources.


2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 509-517
Author(s):  
Kitty Stewart ◽  
Kerris Cooper ◽  
Isabel Shutes

While social policy falls predominantly under national rather than European Union (EU) jurisdiction, there are nonetheless multiple ways in which social policy and social outcomes in EU member states have been affected by EU membership. This paper draws on existing evidence and analysis to review the consequences for UK social policy of the decision to leave the EU. We focus predominantly on the implications of the British government’s pledge to ‘take back control’ of money, borders and laws. Our conclusion is that Brexit is likely to have negative effects on the quality of public services and, for some groups in particular, social rights, and that these effects are likely to be greater the more distant are the future trading and wider relationships between the UK and the EU27.


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