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This article adopts and reinvents the ethnographic approach to uncover what governing elites do, and how they respond to public disaffection. Although there is significant work on the citizens' attitudes to the governing elite (the demand side) there is little work on how elites interpret and respond to public disaffection (the supply side). It is argued here that ethnography is the best available research method for collecting data on the supply side. The article tackles longstanding stereotypes in political science about the ethnographic method and what it is good for, and highlights how the innovative and varied practices of contemporary ethnography are ideally suited to shedding light into the 'black box' of elite politics. The potential pay‐off is demonstrated with reference to important examples of elite ethnography from the margins of political science scholarship. The implications from these rich studies suggest a reorientation of how one understands the drivers of public disaffection and the role that political elites play in exacerbating cynicism and disappointment. The article concludes by pointing to the benefits to the discipline in embracing elite ethnography both to diversify the methodological toolkit in explaining the complex dynamics of disaffection, and to better enable engagement in renewed public debate about the political establishment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author offers opinions on politics and government and political science. Dissatisfaction among citizens of democracies is attributed to a disparity between increased and often unrealistic expectations for governments created by overall improvements in economic and social conditions and the actual abilities of democracies to meet those expectations, abilities which have been hampered by socioeconomic changes. Political scientists and political science as a discipline are criticized for failing to conduct research on this disparity and for failing to better explain democratic processes to the public.

In this essay, the author advocates for the modern-day relevance of the 1962 book "In Defence of Politics," by political scientist Bernard Crick. The author argues that Crick's work identified a sort of disjunction between governments and their subjects that has only increased as of 2012. He notes changes to political rule that have developed since the book's publication, such as information technology use, and defends politics against journalism and mass media.

This article focuses on the theories and methods that have been developed and deployed by scholars in order to understand both the cause and effect of delegation within state systems. It identifies three dominant traditions in the study of delegation, each of which reflects a certain disciplinary lineage as well as great variety in terms of ontological, epistemological and methodological positions. The aim of this article is not to make any normative claims about the innate superiority of any particular approach but to instead argue in favour of a pluralistic methodology which is sensitive to the layered quality of knowledge. By way of forging a sense of a shared enemy or weakness, the article concludes by arguing that all three traditions are united by their relative failure to study the logic of delegation and the power of ideas. In essence, each of the traditions has focused too heavily on what could be termed the politics of delegation (that is, the secondary consequences of delegation) and has, as a result, failed to focus attention on the politicization of delegation in terms of locating the basic logic of delegation back within the contours of public contestation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2008 David Cameron declared that the Conservative party was 'ready for government' and suggested that 'the change we need is not just from Labour's old policies to our new policies... It's about a change from old politics to new politics'. This 'new politics' narrative is something of a cliché: British constitutional history reveals a regular pattern whereby opposition parties renege upon implementing far-reaching constitutional and democratic reforms once they win power. It is in this context that this article draws upon documentary analysis and a number of interviews to examine the Conservative party's position on constitutional reform and democratic renewal. It concludes that although the Conservative party has spent the last decade decrying the 'destruction' of the constitution it has undertaken little detailed preparatory work in relation to how it might seek to alter the governance of Britain. As a result the research presented in this article provides a number of insights into elite politics, strategic game-playing and executive veto capacities within a context of growing political disengagement from politics and falling levels of trust in politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The structure of the British state is growing increasingly complex. This trend raises a number of questions that focus on the forces stimulating this complexity and its implications both for society-state relationships and the design and implementation of public policy. This article focuses on one specific element or strand of these debates: the growth in the number and role of quasi-autonomous public bodies within Britain. It seeks to analyse and reflect upon the distinctive approach taken by the Labour government, since winning office in May 1997, in relation to the sphere of‘distributed public governance’ in Britain. Moreover, the article seeks to locate this analysis within broader debates surrounding the future of the British state and the Labour government's approach to statecraft through a thematic framework based around: growth, co-ordination, accountability, depoliticization and power. The central argument of this article is that the Labour government has increased considerably the sphere of distributed public governance in Britain. This process has been largely devoid of an underpinning rationale and this may have significant implications for successful policy delivery, the public's trust in government and the future trajectory of the British state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Without definitional clarity the "quango debate" is inherently flawed and meaningful progress undermined. A possible solution to this problem is proposed in this article by way of a subsectional map which aims to clarify the quango topography. This accepts the diversity inherent in the quango debate while allowing for increased clarity and focused research. This, the authors believe, is the only way forward for practitioners, academics and policymakers working within the sphere of quasi-government. There is a need to address precise forms or subsections of the quango continuum as studies or reforms which focus on one type of quango would not necessarily work if applied to all quangos, or quangos in other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a world that is increasingly dominated by literary hyperbole there can be no doubt that Bernard Crick's In Defence of Politics remains a classic text. Classic not just in the sense that it provides a masterly account of the essence, meaning and fragility of democratic politics but classic in the sense that it is written with a style, verve and passion that is rarely found within political science. If the test of pretensions to 'a classic' status is that a book defies the passage of time in terms of significance and argument then Crick's Defence would also make the grade for the simple fact that its arguments remain arguably far more important today than they were when they were first published exactly fifty years ago. This article reflects on the contemporary significance of Crick's Defence by defending politics against an updated set of adversaries in the form of: public expectations, marketisation, depoliticisation, the media, and crises before locating the book within the contours of current debates about public disengagement, the rise of 'disaffected democrats' and questions concerning the future and relevance of political science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]