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The sixth election to Senedd Cymru/the Welsh Parliament was held in May 2021. The context for the election was heavily shaped by the Covid‐19 emergency, which restricted election campaigning and dominated the political agenda prior to polling. The result saw the continuance of Labour's long‐term hegemony in Welsh politics;Labour benefitted from strong public ratings of the handling of Covid‐19 by the Welsh government and First Minister. However, apparent stability in devolved Welsh politics may be threatened by developments elsewhere in the UK, which could make the ‘devolutionist unionism’ of Welsh Labour more difficult to sustain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Political Quarterly is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Researchers on inequalities in representation debate about whether governments represent the preferences of the rich better than those of less affluent citizens. We argue that problems of high‐ and low‐status citizens are treated differently already at the agenda‐setting stage. If affluent and less affluent citizens have different priorities about which issues should be tackled by government, then these divergent group priorities explain why government favors high‐ over low‐status citizens. Due to different levels of visibility, resources and social ties, governments pay more attention to what high‐status citizens consider important in their legislative agenda and pay less attention to the issues of low‐status citizens. We combined three types of data for our research design. First, we extracted the policy priorities (most important issues) for all status groups from Eurobarometer data between 2002 and 2016 for 10 European countries and match this information with data on policy outcomes from the Comparative Agendas Project. We then strengthen our results using a focused comparison of three single country studies over longer time series. We show that a priority gap exists and has representational consequences. Our analysis has important implications for the understanding of the unequal representation of status groups as it sheds light on an important, yet so far unexplored, aspect of the political process. Since the misrepresentation of political agendas occurs at the very beginning of the policy‐making process, the consequences are potentially even more severe than for the unequal treatment of preferences. published

The issue of plastic waste is one of the main topics on the international societal and political agenda since ever‐increasing growth in the quantity of plastic materials produced has gone beyond the ability to manage them effectively at their end‐of‐life. Mostly pushed by social campaigns, an ever‐increasing number of initiatives have been taken by different institutions to reduce the huge amount of plastic waste: first of all, specific legal regulations have been introduced, both to realize effective systems of plastic collection, reuse and recycling, and to outlaw the use of unnecessary disposable one‐use items. However, due to the indisputable advantages derived from the use of such a material, every action of decision makers to limit the production or use of plastics is unavoidably affected by economic evaluations, as well as by the deficiency or drawbacks of alternative materials, rather than by environmental reasons. In the three reviews in this Special ‘In the Limelight’ section, Oliver Bajt, Paola Fabbri et al. and Frederic Debeaufort – invited speakers at the Special Session on Science & Society, entitled ‘Plastics: revolution, pollution and substitution’, of the 45th FEBS Congress to be held in Ljubljana, Slovenia, on 3–8 July 2021 – describe in detail the consequences of plastic pollution (Bajt, 2021, FEBS Open Bio 11, 954‐966), the complex transition to bioplastics (Degli Esposti et al., 2021, FEBS Open Bio 11, 967‐983) and the possibility to obtain these innovative biodegradable materials from food and marine waste (Debeaufort 2021, FEBS Open Bio 11, 984‐998), respectively. This introductory commentary highlights that, in the frame of the bioeconomy paradigm, not only multidisciplinary but also inter‐ and transdisciplinary research with integrated and multifaceted approaches are needed to produce novel eco‐friendly materials with features similar to those of traditional plastics, as well as with acceptable economic and environmental impact., In the frame of the bioeconomy paradigm, inter‐ and transdisciplinary research with integrated and multifaceted approaches are needed to produce novel eco‐friendly materials with features similar to those of traditional plastics, as well as with acceptable economic and environmental impact. The bioplastics circular bioeconomy is defined as an economy where the basic building blocks for materials must derive from renewable biological resources.

Socialism is back on the political agenda in the United States. I propose several variants of socialism, characterized by different kinds of property relation in the ownership of firms. In addition to property relations, a conception of socialism should include a specification of the cooperative ethos, in place of the individualistic ethos of capitalist society. Individualistic economic agents will optimize in the manner of John Nash, whereas cooperative ones do so in the manner of Immanuel Kant. I argue that Kantian optimization decentralizes resource allocation in ways that separate issues of equity (income distribution) from efficiency. I offer tentative thoughts concerning how we should conceive of socialism today.

Service user involvement in mental health research is on the international political agenda, for example mirrored by an emphasis on user involvement in funding of research. The idea is that service users contribute with their lived experiences of mental distress to the research process and thereby heighten the quality and relevance of the research. The purpose of this scoping review was to identify and evaluate empirical research of how mental health service users actually partake in collaborative research processes and to summarize this research in dialogue with mental health user-researchers. The review included 32 studies. Main findings indicated that actual involvement of service user-researchers in research processes encompassed a complex set of precarious negotiation practices, where academics and service user-researchers were positioned and positioned themselves in alternative ways. The review accounts for how mental health service users were involved in collaborative research processes. The extracted themes concerned: (i) Expectations of research processes, (ii) Contribution to research processes, and (iii) Training and learning from research processes. The study reveals that collaborative research in mental health requires changes to traditional research practices to create and support genuine collaborative partnerships and thereby avoid tokenism and power inequalities.

Since the 1970s, neoliberalism has evolved from ideology to political agenda, from political program to public policy, and from public policy to a system that replaces democratic control over economic policy with a system of elite economic management. This process of change has been possible due to the endorsement of a meta‐political theory that destroys democracy and legitimizes technocratic despotism, financial deregulation, the debasement of labor into a new proletariat, and the purging of constitutional politics. In this article, we analyze this profound transformation of social and legal relations in the “euro system” and, specifically, in the regressive policies that have emerged from the “crisis” in Spain, a peripheral country of the European Union. The problems in contemporary Europe are a direct consequence of the neoliberal version of European economic unity. Their solution will depend on the capacity of the member states to create a social Europe that strengthens institutional democracy and develops universal systems of social protection. This, in turn, will depend on the ability of citizens to remodel state institutions in accordance with new social goals that place life at the center.

In this article we conceptualise feminist engagement with neo-liberalism, austerity and crisis management and analyse potential to advance a feminist ?recovery? political agenda Feminist discursive analysis of crisis and a focus on narrative enables analysis of continuity and change in feminist responses to the pandemic and exposes the nature of opportunities and constraints for mobilization on gender equality A case study of responses to the pandemic in Ireland and empirical data in areas of care, income support and domestic violence is presented to reflect on gendered analysis of austerity and feminist responses to same, on gendered effects of COVID-19 and feminist responses to pandemic crisis management The case studies allow us to interrogate feminist's use of crisis to advance social transformation We discuss whether and how feminist actors in Ireland built on learning from previous crises to generate opportunity to advance feminist demands, to break continuities by reframing old problems and to mobilise in relation to COVID-19 We find some continuity over time, but also greater awareness of connective tissues of multiple crises, making overall strategies of feminist actors and organizations less reactive, more innovative, inclusive and independent than the previous crisis with greater potential for social transformation This article is protected by copyright All rights reserved

Aim - To explore the visibility of nursing in policy documents concerning health care priorities in the Nordic countries. Background - Nurses at all levels in health care organisations set priorities on a daily basis. Such prioritization entails allocation of scarce public resources with implications for patients, nurses and society. Although prioritization in health care has been on the political agenda for many years, prioritization in nursing seems to be obscure in policy documents. Methodology - Each author searched for relevant documents from their own country. Text analyses were conducted of the included documents concerning nursing visibility. Results - All the Nordic countries have published documents articulating values and criteria relating to health care priorities. Nursing is seldom explicitly mentioned but rather is included and implicit in discussions of health care prioritization in general. Conclusion - There is a need to make priorities in nursing visible to prevent missed nursing care and ensure fair allocation of limited resources. Implications for nursing management - To highlight nursing priorities, we suggest that the fundamental need for nursing care and what this implies for patient care in different organisational settings be clarified and that policymakers explicitly include this information in national policy documents.

This paper examines the relationship between politics and the supernatural in nineteenth-century Spain through the figure of Sor Patrocinio: a stigmatized nun and advisor to Queen Isabel II of Spain. I introduce Sor Patrocinio as an example of a "wonder nun:" a type of ultra-charismatic, supposedly supernaturally gifted religious woman who influenced her country's political agenda. During Sor Patrocinio's rise to fame, she lost control of her public image. In their efforts to dethrone Isabel II, Spanish republicans transformed Sor Patrocinio into a politico-religious symbol, a living reminder of the anti-liberal and neo-Catholic tendencies attributed to Isabel II and her clique. On the one hand, her case exemplifies the struggle of liberalism to form modern nations in Europe. On the other, it shows how some religious women obtained power through their experience of the supernatural during the "culture wars" of the period, reflecting how such experience was shaped by political affairs.

Background and aims The short-lived regulated legal market for new psychoactive substances (NPS) in New Zealand marked a radical departure from the traditional prohibition-based approach to drugs. This paper aimed to enhance understanding of this policy change using Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (PET). Methods The analysis draws on 3 years of evaluative research, including interviews with key stakeholders, analysis of legislation and policy documents and academic and grey literature. Results The reframing of the NPS issue from one of drug control to the need for stricter market regulation was achieved by the efforts of strategic policy entrepreneurs, including the legal high industry, drug law reform advocates, influential politicians and an independent legal advisory institution. This reframing was aided by the perceived saliency of the NPS problem and ineffectiveness of previous prohibition-based responses. In the absence of any political opposition to the regulatory approach, the Psychoactive Substances Act rapidly progressed through the Parliament. However, once the interim legal market was established, portrayal of the issues shifted away from experts and lobbyists to critique from local communities, local government, animal rights activists and the media, who viewed the new regime as a source of social and health problems. The mobilization of criticism ('Schattschneider mobilization') drew on ideas of animal welfare and community safety. With a looming national election, the government responded by ending the interim market with the urgent passage of amendment legislation. Conclusions Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (PET) helps explain how New Zealand's Psychoactive Substances Act (PSA) policy first emerged on the political agenda and how the initial positive tone of expert support for reform shifted to a tide of popular criticism during the interim regime. However, with its emphasis on explaining agenda-setting, PET does not account for the legislative design shortcomings of the PSA.

Recent research on Roma stigmatization has tended to focus on the marginal socio‐economic and spatial position of Roma people within European societies, with poverty, persistent inequalities and substandard housing conditions (for example, ghettoization) highlighting their differential treatment. Central to such accounts are group images and stereotypes of Roma as ‘benefit scroungers’ and/or ‘beggars’ lacking notions of self‐restraint and social responsibility. This body of research is hugely important in terms of its contribution to an understanding of the complex dynamics of marginalization and stigmatization of poor Roma households. Yet not all Roma are characterized by poverty and economic hardship. This article explores the neglected experiences of wealthy Roma within urban spaces in Romania. It draws on empirical evidence from interviews with Roma families, leaders and local authorities. Our analysis exposes the way in which Roma are vehemently stigmatized regardless of their economic position or housing circumstances and highlights deep underlying sentiments towards them within Romanian society. We critique Wacquant's concept of territorial stigmatization by applying it to wealthy groups outwith typical areas of relegation (for example, Roma ghettos) within the specific urban context of post‐socialist Romania. While our analysis points to the internalization of stigma, we also identify distinct defensive strategies wealthy Roma employ to counter and avoid stigmatization. We suggest that a focus on the neglected spaces of wealthy Roma groups can facilitate a more comprehensive understanding of the distinct urban power relations that shape Roma stigmatization, reveal how this long‐term process has recently been accentuated within Europe alongside a more overt populist and anti‐Roma political agenda, and contribute to the development and refinement of Wacquant's thesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use plausibly exogenous variation in the availability of Russian analog television signal in Ukraine to study how a media source with a conspicuous political agenda impacts political behavior and attitudes. Using highly granular election data and an original survey we estimate that Russian television substantially increased average electoral support for parties and candidates with a 'pro-Russian' agenda in the 2014 presidential and parliamentary elections. We show that this effect is attributable to persuasion rather than differential mobilization. The effectiveness of biased media varied in a politically consequential way: its impact was largest on voters with strong pro-Russian priors but was less effective, and to some degree even counter-effective, in persuading those with strong pro-Western priors. Our finding suggests that exposing an already polarized society to a biased media source can result in even deeper polarization.

The shift in financial intermediation from banks to financial markets, and the introduction of financial market logic into areas and domains where it was previously absent, have not just led to negative developmental impacts, but also changed the 'rules of the game' and facilitated rent-seeking practices of a self-serving global elite. Establishment (financial) economics has helped to depoliticize and legitimize this financialized mode of social regulation by invoking Hayek's epistemological claim that (financial) markets are the only legitimate, reliably welfare-enhancing foundation for a stable social order and economic progress. This article forms the Introduction to a set of 10 articles which assess the logic and consequences of 'financialization' across a range of geographic, economic and social scales, and confront Hayek's grotesque claim - deep down, at the level of 'ideas', but also by providing 'knock-out evidence' on the social inefficiency of a capitalism 'without compulsions' for finance. The authors in the Debate challenge the 'ruling ideas' and expose how establishment economics has been hiding its reactionary political agenda behind the pretence of scientific neutrality. The financial emperor wears no clothes.

In the wake of the COP21 conference in Paris, the transition to a low-carbon energy supply remains a central issue on the political agenda. The deployment of renewable energies is often challenged by multiple issues (e.g., public acceptance, landscape protection, and so forth). Political actors try to overcome such challenges with various measures; however, the policy instruments used vary greatly in their strength. This article questions what factors lead to the adoption of strong policy instruments promoting hydroelectricity. Explanatory factors are derived from Kingdon’s multiple streams framework and are analyzed with fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis within the Swiss cantons. The findings show that the strength of policy promoting hydroelectricity depends on the conjunction of mainly two factors: ambitious climate targets and an already well-established hydroelectricity sector that generates large tax revenues for the cantons. Depending on the context, the strength of left-wing and green parties as well as the current level of exploitation play an important role with the aforementioned factors.

During the 1960s, the Yugoslav Socialist authorities gradually recognised Bosnia and Herzegovina's Muslims as a nation. Interestingly, in the 1940s, the Yugoslav Communist leaders refused to consider Muslims even as an ethnic group and saw them only as a religious community whose members had to designate themselves as Serbs or Croats. Why did the regime decide to recognise Muslims as a nation in the 1960s, whereas 20 years earlier they supported the opposite position? To understand the shift, this nation‐building process must be understood as the result of a dual dynamic on the federal and the republican level, where important changes occurred. At the federal one, the Communist authorities initiated a decentralisation process within the context of Yugoslav self‐management in the 1950s, which significantly reinforced the republic elites. This coincided with the resurgence of the national question in the whole of Yugoslavia. Simultaneously, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a new elite progressively rose to power in the 1960s and put the ‘Muslim question’ on the political agenda. This led to the gradual increase in status of the Muslims from a religious community to an ethnic group at the beginning of the 1960s and then to a nation at the end of the decade.

Character education in schools has been high on the UK political agenda for the last few years. The government has invested millions in grants to support character education projects and declared its intention to make Britain a global leader in teaching character and resilience. But the policy has many critics: some question whether schools should be involved in the formation of character at all; others worry that the traits schools are being asked to cultivate are excessively competitive or military. In this pamphlet Randall Curren sets out a robust defence of character education. He welcomes the political support it presently enjoys, but contends that greater clarity about the nature, benefits and acquisition of good character is essential. In particular, he argues that too narrow a focus on traits like perseverance and resilience is a serious mistake: these traits are only virtues when they are part of a wider set of moral and intellectual qualities, and when their exercise is guided by good judgment. Curren offers us a compelling and coherent account of what good character is and how it might be cultivated in schools. He explains why schools must be needs-supporting environments that provide students with opportunities to engage in rewarding activity, and why cultivating good character implies promoting the ‘fundamental British values’ of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance. His groundbreaking pamphlet promises to expand the scope and strengthen the foundations of character education in British schools, and should go a long way towards allaying the fears of its detractors.

Why do “tainted” politicians in high-corruption countries adopt transparency and anti-corruption policies that risk exposing their wrongdoing? Using the cases of freedom of information and public asset disclosure in Romania, we assess three explanations: that these policies are meant to be mere window dressing, facilitate bottom-up monitoring, or ensure access to information for the ruling party if it loses power. We find that decision makers adopt transparency and anti-corruption policies because they want to signal their integrity and because they underestimate their consequences. Because they assume they will be able to control implementation, decision makers discount the potential costs of damaging information being released. Sustained political competition can keep corruption and lack of transparency on the public and political agenda, shifting attention from policy adoption to implementation and leading to increased compliance. Since politicians miscalculate the consequences of their actions, signals that are intended to be cheap can end up being quite costly.

This article examines whether the Citizens' Initiative (CI) in Finland has enhanced inclusion in processes of political agenda-setting. Democratic innovations such as CIs have been proposed as a solution to the challenges facing Western democracies. CIs are expected to increase political inclusion by allowing citizens to set the political agenda and by mobilising otherwise marginalised or passive citizens. However, the empirical evidence on this proposition remains scarce. This study examines the impact of the CI in Finland on political inclusion. It relies on the Civic Voluntarism Model (CVM) to determine whether the CI mobilises citizens who otherwise tend to be less involved in political matters and thereby enhances inclusiveness. The data come from the Finnish National Election Study 2015 (FNES2015), which is a cross-sectional representative survey conducted in the wake of the national parliamentary elections in April 2015. Logistic regression models are used in the article to examine the relative importance of socioeconomic resources and civic skills, psychological political engagement and recruitment networks. The results show that while users have many of the familiar traits of political activists, the CI also activates marginalised groups. Most importantly, young citizens are likely to support CIs and the Internet constitutes a central recruitment network. In this sense, the CI has helped increase democratic inclusiveness.

In this paper, we argue for repositioning geographies of children, youth and families at the centre rather than at the periphery of discussions about the economy. This not only reveals what contemporary and lived experiences of economic change feel and look like, but also exposes deeper problematics about the geographically and socially uneven nature of neoliberalism and the austere state. This editorial also introduces a collection which, when taken together, explores intersections between everyday life and austerity, with children, youth and families as the focus of inquiry. Adopting a multi-scalar approach, the collected papers ‘zoom in’ to explore the everyday realities of austere life in the UK in order to refract our understanding of the broader condition of economic change and concomitant austerity measures. Simultaneously, and speaking to a wider political agenda, the collection can be scaled up, or the framing ‘zoomed out’, to question and actively address the injustices of austerity and neoliberal retrenchment.

This article explores the recent rise of populist politics from the perspective of Karl Polanyi's theory of the ‘double movement’. It firstly introduces Polanyi's understanding of interwar populism, and relates this to his broader critique of liberal economic thought. This framework is then used to analyse three prominent explanations for populism which emerged in the wake of the UK's 2016 EU referendum: globalisation; cultural reaction; and social media. I show how each of these explanations exogenises contemporary populist movements, narrating them as something external to the liberal economic restructuring pursued globally since the 1980s. Failing to diagnose adequately the causes of contemporary populist movements, which lie in this utopian attempt to treat labour as a commodity, they cannot support an intellectually coherent progressive response to Brexit. Finally, I outline a political agenda centred on labour de-commodification, which could directly address populist grievances and reclaim the discourse of ‘taking back control’ for the left.

We consider contracts for public transport services between a public authority and a transport operator. We build a structural endogenous switching model where the contract choice results from the combined effects of the incentivization scheme aimed at monitoring the operator’s efficiency and the political agenda followed by the regulator to account for the voice of private interests. Our results support theoretical predictions as they suggest that cost-plus contracts entail a higher cost for society than fixed-price contracts but allow the public authority to leave a rent to a subset of individuals. Accounting for transfers to interest groups in welfare computations reduces the welfare gap between cost-plus and fixed-price regimes.

This article traces the introduction of public financial management (PFM) processes and systems in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs) since they came under the control of the Palestinian Authority (PA). A number of factors combined make for an extremely challenging context for external actors to catalyse change: non‐existent formal central government functions at the time the PA was established, major restrictions in the movement of goods and people, ill‐designed donor budget support and a very asymmetric distribution of power that favours the status quo. An unelected government, donor‐dependency and a suffocating and chronic (yet low‐level) conflict are increasingly de‐incentivizing long‐term institutional reform. Such a complex problem requires multi‐faceted solutions. This article describes a dual delivery model adopted by the Palestinian Governance Facility (PGF) encompassing adaptive interventions that support longer‐term PFM improvements combined with the introduction of a selective workstream targeting service delivery. This focuses on the management of external medical referrals, which emerged as a political problem. A flexible development assistance delivery model can allow reform areas not anticipated at project design to be tackled as they emerge on the political agenda and open the space for political capital. A constant examination of contextual issues and re‐programming of project activities are offering lessons from which to learn and adapt. The ideal coalition involves flexible, aligned donors and relevant “institutional entrepreneurs” from within local organizations, with direct access to politicians. If high‐level government buy‐in falters, a coalition of technocrats may help construct and broker problems from which to gain political access.

Land reform was one of the most important policies introduced in Latin America in the twentieth century and remains high on the political agenda due to sustained pressure from rural social movements. Improving our understanding of the issue therefore remains a pressing concern. This paper responds to this need by proposing a new theoretical framework to explore land reform and providing a fresh analysis of historical and contemporary land struggles in Ecuador. Drawing on the pioneering work of Karl Polanyi, the paper characterizes these struggles as the attempt to increase the social and political control of land in the face of mounting commodification. The movement started in the 1960s and remains evident in Ecuador today. Exploring land reform in Ecuador from this theoretical perspective provides new insight into land struggles in the country and contributes to debates over land reforms of the past and present elsewhere in the Global South.

This article examines the origins, trajectory and limitations of the Mexican students' movement, #YoSoy132 (YS132, I Am [number] 132), that emerged during the 2012 presidential election campaign in opposition to the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI, Institutional Revolutionary Party) candidate, Enrique Pena. The movement's electoral engagement led to internal crisis, and demobilisation following the PRI's return to power. After its creation at a private university, the movement became the first nationwide student movement since 1968. It will be argued that the internal tension between democratisation and electoral inclination and engagement did not allow the movement to develop autonomously from the party system nor to organise around its own political agenda.

The return of migrants to their country of origin and the development of efficient return measures have become more prominent on the political agenda of many Western European countries. Since policymakers prefer ‘voluntary’ return, governmental programmes to support the return of migrants – Assisted Voluntary Return (AVR) programmes – were developed as far back as the 1970s and have played an increasingly important role in migration policy over the last three decades. At the same time, general migration policy and welfare systems have undergone profound change, including in the meanings and connotations attached to social welfare, return support and return policy. This raises questions about the implications of these broader societal and policy changes for the widely implemented AVR programmes. In this article, we discuss the interpretation and evolution of AVR programmes by analyzing how one particular European country, Belgium, has developed its AVR programme over time. We explore the evolution of the programme’s content, target group and institutional positioning, which shed light on its changing goals and are closely linked to a broader shift towards a ‘managerial’ approach to migration policy and the welfare state. We argue that return support may become decontextualized when it adopts ‘conditional entitlement’ as a central principle. This leads to strong differentiation, based on personal responsibility, between ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ migrants, the levelling down of the support given to returnees, and a more coercive voluntary return policy in which social support is linked to deportation.

Later this year the UK will host the United Nations’ 26th world climate summit. The so-called COP26 will take place in Glasgow in November and is expected to be the biggest and most significant since the Paris summit in 2015. Not only can we expect to see the renewal of international pledges to reduce CO2 emissions, but we may see a greater shared understanding between countries about the scale of the climate challenge and perhaps more unity in terms of urgent measures to address it. The climate emergency has shot up the global political agenda. Here in the UK, our last prime minister, Theresa May, committed us to achieving net zero greenhouse gases by 2050. Now many experts and climate activists alike, agree this target date is too late; they …

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link. Open access article Aviation expansion and the construction of a third runway at Heathrow airport is firmly back on the political agenda. Yet, the stark fact remains that a growing list of British governments has been unable to engineer a partial or temporary policy settlement in aviation. Exploring the challenges of reaching such a settlement, this article characterises the shifting and contested political and policy contexts of UK aviation. It begins by exploring the ‘wicked issue’ of aviation expansion before foregrounding how the politics of air travel is riven by competing policy frames, fragmented governance and the absence of gatekeepers. It argues that the Davies Commission and its efforts to remove aviation from the domain of partisan politics provided little more than a temporary respite for government. It thus concludes by questioning whether the May government’s expansion proposals will succeed this time around, outlining how the contributions in this collection address the themes and issues of this overriding policy puzzle.

Public sector reform has rarely dropped off the political agenda of Western governments, yet the old craft skills of traditional public administration remain of paramount importance. Th e pendulum has swung too far toward the new and the fashionable reforms associated with New Public Management and the New Public Governance. It needs to swing back toward bureaucracy and the traditional skills of bureaucrats as part of the repertoire of governing. This article discusses the skills of counselling, stewardship, practical wisdom, probity, judgment, diplomacy, and political nous. Although these skills are of wide relevance, the article focuses on their relevance in Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand. It concludes that the next bout of reforms needs to recover the traditional craft skills. It is not a question of traditional skills versus the new skills of New Public Management or New Public Governance; it is a question of what works, of what skills fi t in a particular context.

On 24 November 1992, Australia overturned its longstanding ban on gay and lesbian service in the Australian Defence Force. The ban was on the political agenda throughout 1992, though it was never a government priority or subject to mass protest. The debates over gay and lesbian military service have subsequently received scant attention from historians. The arguments against gay and lesbian service centred on troop morale, security concerns, fears of predatory homosexuals and the spread of HIV/AIDS. The arguments to permit gay and lesbian service hinged to an extent on principles of non-discrimination, but even more so on international law. This article examines the debates in 1992 leading up to the repeal of the ban, focusing in particular on the Labor Party divisions and the ways international law influenced the decision-making process.

In response to record levels of youth worklessness and socio-economic inequalities, the UK Coalition government has sought to scale back public spending through welfare cuts, emphasising self-reliance for financial provision. Education, as a tool for both personal progression and national economic competitiveness has risen up the political agenda, as the Government champions an ‘aspiration nation’ which rewards ‘hard-working’ people. Young people are increasingly tasked with looking toward the future, taking responsibility and ‘raising’ their aspirations in order to contribute through economic production as active citizen-workers. The power to achieve is placed firmly at the feet of individuals; yet broader inequalities which characterise the contemporary climate and powerfully shape the life chances of young people are overlooked. This paper explores the hopes and expectations of young people living in the north west of England as they think about their own future school-to-employment ambitions. Firstly, the paper reflects on the structural changes which have occurred within the local economy over the last generation before secondly, examining how the task of responding to changing labour market conditions is internalised by the young people, with ‘success’ (or lack thereof) framed as an individual enterprise. Young people are negotiating a set of contradictory beliefs. They acknowledge their own responsibility as future adult citizens whilst also reflecting on the role of government in addressing inequalities, as contemporary economic restructuring and fiscal policies are reducing opportunities. The paper makes visible the emotional burdens young people anticipate as they endeavour to achieve a successful future in the context of economic uncertainty and an individualising political milieu of aspiration.

Accessible summary Little is known about how the prison environment may impact upon the mental health of adult prisoners. This paper highlights that prisoners perceive that the prison environment has a negative influence upon their mental health. However, a small number regarded prison as a place of respite, which afforded structure and an opportunity to access health services. There is a need for more research in this area specifically relating to the impact the prison climate may have upon those from black and minority ethic groups. Nurses must recognize the aspects of the prison environment that may impact upon the mental health of prisoners and demonstrate innovation and imagination in their application of interventions. Abstract Little is known regarding how the prison environment may affect the mental health of adult prisoners. Consequently, there is a need to investigate how this setting may exacerbate mental distress among this community. This literature review explores how the prison climate influences the mental health of adult prisoners. A thematic synthesis approach was used to elicit data relating to the aspects of the prison climate, which influence the mental health of prisoners. Four primary themes emerged from the synthesis: social, emotional, organizational and physical aspects. Prisoners perceive the prison climate to have a negative influence upon their mental health. However, perceived positively, prison was regarded as a place of respite, which afforded structure and an opportunity to access health services. There is limited research available specifically exploring the potential impact of the prison climate upon those from black and ethnic minorities groups. Nurses must recognize the aspects of the prison environment that may impact upon the mental health of prisoners and demonstrate innovation and imagination in their application of interventions. Additionally nurses need to take an active role in influencing and structuring the political agenda, which governs the clinical setting.

Pension reforms are on the political agenda of many countries. Such reforms imply an increasing responsibility on individuals’ side in building an efficient portfolio for retirement. In this paper, we provide a model describing workers’ choices on the allocation of retirement savings in presence of (1) mandatory pension contribution; (2) different pension plans; and (3) information costs and financial literacy investment decisions. In particular, we characterize the results from both a positive and normative standpoint, by highlighting the determinants of individuals’ choice, with special focus on information costs, on the role of income and preferences, and by characterizing the optimal contribution rate to mandatory complementary pension plans. We also introduce endogenous financial literacy and analyze how its optimal level is determined and how it affects the decisions on pension plans.

Radio has always had the potential to change public life. Ordinary citizens participate in programs during which they call in to the radio station and express their opinion. As such, these programs are part of the public sphere, as well as an entertainment form. These programs are taken as a service in public stations, and as a revenue source in commercial stations. In the commercial stations, the shows promote the one-sided political agenda of their hosts' stars. In the public stations, the shows facilitate a balanced discussion between different citizens. All participants in both types of programs use argumentative practices, including the use of rhetoric. Yet, the host is the power holder in the interactions. The programs and interactions in them also encode other power relations, as these programs may promote conservative, at times racist views. Radio is still a masculine medium, and participants in talk radio adhere to the normative gender order. Keywords: activism; gender; language and social interaction; political communication; radio

Ecological modernization has become a popular policy choice to mitigate negative effects on the environment. Rather than promoting radical changes, ecological modernization combines economic development with the limitation of environmental damage through technological advances. Such ideas are reflected in emissions trading schemes, which take a market approach to offer incentives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This paper compares the development of emissions trading schemes in Australia and South Korea to explore the factors that contribute to the adaptation of ecological modernization policies. The two countries share a dependence on energy-intensive industries for economic growth, but the debate on emission policies is dominated by different actors, offering alternative scenarios for the adaptation of ecological modernization in domestic policies. The role of business interests and civil society as well as priorities on the political agenda also differentiate the two cases, highlighting the role of political networks in the process of ecological modernization and the depth of such policies.

The failure of the Coalition government’s attempt to reform the House of Lords has by no means taken further reform off the political agenda. The commitment to installing an elected upper chamber is still widely shared across the political spectrum, on the basis of perceptions that the House of Lords lacks democratic legitimacy. Against this view, this article considers recent literature upon non-electoral representation, deliberative democracy and bicameralism, which together highlight the possibility of an unelected second chamber playing a legitimate role within a wider (democratic) system of government. The article then considers the House of Lords from this perspective, reflecting on changes in the upper chamber since the 1999 reforms and evaluating its role within the wider political system. The paper concludes by suggesting that political debate should focus upon small-scale reforms to ensure that the Lords becomes more effective, representative and legitimate, within the constraints of its present role.

The Conservative governments of the 1980s and 1990s privatized large numbers of state industries. Yet the privatization of the public utilities was not on the political agenda at the time of the May 1979 General Election or during the early months of the first Thatcher government. Privatization of the public utilities was considered both economically unattractive and beyond practical politics. This study details how and why the sale of the public utilities became government policy by the mid-1980s. In explaining the change two particular developments are singled out. The first involved a commissioned study by the Central Policy Review Staff of the Cabinet Office on whether monopolies could be privatized and the public interest protected. The second was the financing needs of BT at a time of strict controls on public borrowing.

Solutions to support older people to live independently and reduce the cost of an ageing population are high on the political agenda of most developed countries. Help-at-home schemes offer a mix of community support with the aim to address a range of well-being needs. However, not much is currently known about the costs, outcomes and economic consequences of such schemes. Understanding their impact on individuals' well-being and the economic consequences for local and central government can contribute to decisions about sustainable long-term care financing. This article presents results from a mixed-methods study of a voluntary sector-provided help-at-home scheme in England for people of 55 years and older. The study followed a participatory approach, which involved staff and volunteers. Data were collected during 2012 and 2013. Social care-related quality of life was measured with the Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit for 24 service users (59% response rate) when they started using the scheme and 4-6 months later. A customised questionnaire that captured resource use and well-being information was sent to 1064 service users (63% response rate). The same tool was used in assessment with service users who started using the scheme between November 2012 and April 2013 (100% response rate). Costs of the scheme were established from local budget and activity data. The scheme was likely to achieve a mean net benefit of £1568 per person from a local government and National Health Service (NHS) perspective and £3766 from the perspective of the individual. An expenditure of £2851 per person accrued to central government for the additional redistribution of benefit payments to older people. This article highlights the potential contribution of voluntary sector-run help-at-home schemes to an affordable welfare system for ageing societies.

This article examines the impact of politics on governmental rule production. Traditionally, explanations of rule dynamics have focused on nonpolitical factors such as the self-evolvement of rules, environmental factors, and decision maker attributes. This article develops a set of hypotheses about when, why, and how political factors shape changes in the stock of rules. Furthermore, we test these hypotheses on a unique, new data set based on all Danish primary legislation and administrative rules from 1989 to 2011 categorized into 20 different policy domains. The analysis shows that the traditional Weberian “rules breed rules” explanations must be supplemented with political explanations that take party ideology and changes in the political agenda into account. Moreover, the effect of political factors is indistinguishable across changes in primary laws and changes in administrative rules, a result that challenges the depiction of the latter rule-making process as more or less disconnected from the political domain.

The role of information and communication technology (ICT) in international development co-operation (IDC) is tightly linked with international political agenda. Currently, international development co-operation emphasizes three concepts: sustainable development, international human rights, and millennium development goals. This article presents to IT professionals six non-technical aspects for improving ICT oriented IDC projects. Firstly, those ICT projects should be aligned with internationally agreed political agenda. Secondly, they should cohere with internationally agreed development goals. Thirdly, their design should recognize the political and legal context of the host country. Fourthly, their design and implementation have to follow donor guidelines derived from commonly agreed good practices of IDC project management and design—even when the contextual design tools of ICT for development (ICT4D) research are of limited use with the structured design approaches of IDC. Fifthly, ICT oriented IDC projects should have appropriate indicators for their formative and summative evaluation. Sixthly, IT professionals should stay up-to-date with constantly developing ICT and evolving IDC. The presented non-technical aspects of IDC projects are derived from the central concepts and consensuses of IDC as well as from an analysis of the relevant literature, and the six aspects are reflected on our fourteen years of field work in IDC projects in the least developed countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. We argue that IT professionals are more competent for IDC projects when their technical expertise is complemented with the presented aspects.

The idea of higher wealth taxes to finance the mounting public debt in the wake of the financial crisis is gaining ground in several OECD countries. We evaluate the revenue and distributional effects of a one-time capital levy on personal net wealth that is currently on the political agenda in Germany. We use survey data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and estimate the net wealth distribution at the very top, based on publiclyavailable information about very rich Germans. Since net wealth is strongly concentrated, the capital levy could raise substantial revenue, even if relatively high personal allowances are granted. We also analyse the compliance and administrative costs of the capital levy.

Elizabeth Anderson traces the history of egalitarian ideas as they have grown out of grassroots movements focused on overcoming entrenched social hierarchies. In reply, Ben Jackson and Anne Phillips engage with this relational account, particularly in a British context where distributional concerns are high on the political agenda.

Between 2006 and 2010 climate change rose rapidly up the UK political agenda and the Labour Government, with cross-party support, introduced major changes in domestic climate and energy policy, including the landmark Climate Change Act 2008, which represented an important step toward the UK becoming a low carbon economy. Cross-party consensus was initially sustained by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition, before growing criticism from the political right began to turn climate change into an increasingly partisan issue, thereby weakening the commitment of David Cameron to climate leadership. The article examines the transition of climate change from low politics to high politics, assessing the role of public opinion, the media, business, environmental groups, and party competition in overcoming the obstacles to progressive climate change and energy policy. The roles of party politics and of individual political leadership are identified as critical factors in raising the profile of climate change and delivering radical policy change. The significance of the growing partisan divisions over climate change is assessed. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. Conflict of interest: The author has declared no conflict of interest for this article.