UCL Uncovering Politics

Questions about politicians’ behaviour have been high on the political agenda here in the UK in recent months and years. Boris Johnson’s premiership was dogged – and ultimately ended – by allegations that he was serially dishonest and tolerated bullying and other misconduct from his inner circle. Liz Truss sidelined independent sources of expertise and presided over catastrophic policy failure. And Rishi Sunak – though he entered Downing Street promising integrity, professionalism, and accountability – appointed a Home Secretary who only six days previously had left government for breaching the Ministerial Code, installed two other ministers against whom there are allegations of bullying, and (at the time of recording) yet to appoint an Ethics Adviser.So how can we ensure high standards of behaviour from our politicians? Can we rely simply on political accountability, and the disciplining role of the ballot box? Or do advisers, regulators, and perhaps even judges need also to play a role?This week our host Professor Alan Renwick is joined by two real experts:Professor Robert Hazell, who founded the UCL Constitution Unit in 1995 and remained its Director until 2015. Sir Peter Riddell, Honorary Professor in the UCL Department of Political Science, ex- Political Editor of the Financial Times and Chief Political Commentator at the Times, Director and Chief Executive of the Institute for Government between 2012 and 2016, and Commissioner for Public Appointments from 2016 until 2021. Related reading:Parliament’s watchdogs, Robert Hazell, Marcial Boo and Zachariah Pullar, UCL Constitution Unit report.Constitutional standards matter: the new Prime Minister must not forget that voters care about the honesty and integrity of their leaders, Peter Riddell, UCL Constitution Unit Blog.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier this year has created Europe’s largest refugee crisis in a generation and caused major disruption to the world’s economy and energy systems. In Ukraine itself, civilian life has been transformed and, in many cases, destroyed by the conflict.One notable dimension of the war has been the intervention of major tech companies, including Facebook, Google, and SpaceX. Through multiple rapid responses they have successfully inhibited Russia’s information warfare strategy. These steps include a targeted digital blockade of Russia and ensuring Ukraine’s internet infrastructure is protected from online and offline attacks. A new report published by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change analyses what the tech companies have done, explores implications for power and democracy, and makes recommendations for how states and tech companies should change their approach.This week we are joined by one of the authors, Dr Melanie Garson. Melanie is both Cyber Policy Lead and acting director of the Internet Policy Unit at theTony Blair Institute for Global Change and Associate Professor in Conflict Resolution & International Security in the UCL Department of Political Science. Mentioned in this episodeMelanie Garson and Pete Furlong. Disrupters and Defenders: What the Ukraine War Has Taught Us About the Power of Global Tech Companies

COP is back. This month, leaders from the worlds of politics, industry, activism, and academia will gather again – for COP27 – in Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt.A COP taking place in Africa underlines many of the pressing issues that delegates will face. How can justice be achieved for those countries that are least responsible for CO2 levels, but often the most damaged by climate change? And how can such a large-scale event, bringing people together from around the world, be run without in itself creating more environmental damage? This week we are joined by Dr Simon Chin-Yee, Lecturer in International Development in the UCL Department of Political Science and Professor Mark Maslin, Professor of Earth System Science in the UCL Department of Geography. Mentioned in this episode:Jonathan Barnsley, Jhénelle A Williams and Simon Chin-Yee et al. Location location location: A carbon footprint calculator for transparent travel to COP27. Jhénelle Williams, Simon Chin-Yee and Mark Maslin et al. Africa and Climate Justice at COP27 and beyond: impacts and solutions through an interdisciplinary lens.

Politics in the UK is in a state of turmoil. Every time we think it can’t get any crazier, it finds a way of doing just that. Many of the roots of the trouble can be found in Brexit. Whatever you think of Brexit, it’s clear that the referendum of June 2016 forced parliament to implement a massive switch in the direction of the country that most MPs thought was wrong, and split the main parties – particularly the Conservative Party – down the middle. The politics of ideology trumped the politics of competence. This week we look at a new piece of research by two researchers here at UCL, which sheds light on an important aspect of the story. It assesses just how much influence parliament had in shaping the various laws that had to be passed to make Brexit a reality and put alternative arrangements in place. The authors of the study are: Dr Tom Fleming, Lecturer in British and Comparative Politics here in the UCL Department of Political Science and a member of the UCL Constitution Unit, and Lisa James, Research Fellow at the Constitution Unit and co-author of the forthcoming OUP book, The Parliamentary Battle over Brexit. Mentioned in this episode:Fleming, T. and James, L., 'Parliamentary Influence on Brexit Legislation, 2017–2019', Parliamentary AffairsRussel, M. and James, L., 'The Parliamentary Battle over Brexit'. Oxford University Press

Rhetoric around immigrants ‘stealing people’s jobs’ has become common in contemporary British politics, especially during the debates around the 2016 Brexit referendum. Meanwhile, rising automation has spurred discussion of how many jobs will be taken over by the ‘robots’. The ways we talk about these two threats of job losses can be strikingly similar and both pose questions about how the labour market will be structured in the future.A new book examining these discourses and their role in British economic and political debate, called Robots and Immigrants: Who Is Stealing Jobs?, was published last month by Bristol University Press. It’s by Dr Kostas Maronitis, Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Leeds Trinity University, and Dr Denny Pencheva, Lecturer in European Politics and Public Policy at UCL. Mentioned in this episode:Maronitis, K., & Pencheva, D. (2022). Robots and Immigrants: Who is stealing jobs? Bristol University Press.

We’re focusing this week on public administration. While mention of the word bureaucracy rarely lifts hearts, it’s incredibly important for the development of public policy, for the delivery of public services, and for all the other things that the state does. To consider how public administration can be run well, UCL Uncovering Politics is joined by Marc Esteve, Professor of International Public Management in the UCL Department of Political Science. Mentioned in this episode:Bel, G., M. Esteve., J.G. Garrido., & J.L. Zafra-Gómez., 'The costs of corporatization: Analysing the effects of forms of governance', Public AdministrationLee, S., & M. Esteve., 'What drives the perceived legitimacy of collaborative governance? An experimental study', Public Management Review

The podcast has been on its summer break over the last few months, but politics certainly hasn’t stopped. The war in Ukraine has rumbled on. The global energy crisis, partly a result of the war, has forced policymakers to rethink how energy markets work. The energy crisis intersects with efforts to tackle the climate crisis, which have in some ways intensified in the wake of last year’s COP26 meeting in Glasgow. In the UK, Boris Johnson was forced out as Prime Minster and replaced by Liz Truss. And just days after Truss entered office, the death of Queen Elizabeth made headlines around the world.To discuss these issues and more, we’re joined by a trio of top professors from the UCL Department of Political Science.Kristin Bakke is Professor of Political Science and International Relations. She heads our Conflict and Change research cluster, and, among other things, she is currently an investigator on a collaborative research project exploring geopolitical orientations in Russia’s near abroad.Lisa Vanhala is Professor of Political Science and works on the politics of climate change and the socio-legal study of human rights and equality. She is currently leading a major research project examining the politics of climate change loss and damage.Meg Russell is Professor of British and Comparative Politics and Director of the UCL Constitution Unit. She is leading the Unit’s current project on Constitutional Principles and the Health of Democracy. And her latest book, The Parliamentary Battle over Brexit, will be published by Oxford University Press in March next year.

Tackling injustice is one of the main motivations that many people have for getting involved in politics. Whether those injustices relate to income inequalities, the harms caused by climate change, discrimination based on gender or ethnicity, or failures to acknowledge each person’s particular identity, most of us want to see change. But how best to achieve that?Well some intriguing new research focuses on the role of blame. Political theorists have often been dubious of the merits of blame, seeing it as backward-looking and unduly negative. But Hannah McHugh, a PhD student in the UCL Department of Political Science, argues that blame is due for something of a rehabilitation. To discuss this proposition, UCL Uncovering Politics is joined by Hannah and Dr Avia Pasternak, Associate Professor in Political Theory in the Department.Mentioned in this episode:H. McHugh., 'For a Backward-Looking Account of Political Responsibility: Rescuing the Role of Blame and Praise', Unpublished PhD chapterA. Pasternak., Responsible Citizens, Irresponsible States: Should Citizens Pay for Their States' Wrongdoings? (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021)'The Ethics of Violent Protest', UCL Uncovering Politics, May 2021

It is estimated that around a fifth of people working in the UK today are disabled in some way. Many of these people report feeling that their employers do a poor job at accommodating their requirements to make their workplaces more inclusive. Yet the 2010 Equality Act was designed to protect disabled people from ‘discrimination or disadvantage’ in work by placing a legal responsibility on employers to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to accommodate their disabled workers' needs. So why is this discrimination still occurring? Is the Equality Act still fit for purpose? And what can be done to improve the situation?To discuss these questions and the launch of their new report, Uncovering Politics is joined by two members of the UCL Department of Political Science: Dr Sarabajaya Kumar, Lecturer in Voluntary Sector Policy and Leadership; and Dr Colin Provost, Associate Professor of Public Policy.Mentioned in this episode:S. Kumar., & C. Provost., Ableism and the Labour Market (The Association of Disabled Professionals: 2022)

‘It’s the economy, stupid’. That, famously, was one of the organising principles of Bill Clinton’s campaign for the US presidency in 1992. Thirty years on, amidst a cost of living crisis, economic policy decisions still often dominate politics. Some of the debates about economic policy relate to questions of fundamental values: how much weight should we place, for example, on the size of the cake or on its distribution?But other debates focus on questions of fact. Would lowering taxes today fuel inflation? Did austerity a decade ago protect the public finances by bringing spending closer to tax receipts, or harm them by shrinking the economy and thereby diminishing the tax take?So, if fundamental questions at the heart of politics are, at least in principle, answerable by experts, that raises the question of what the relationship between elected politicians and expert economists should be. The Bank of England was given independent control over monetary policy 25 years ago. So should other areas of economic policy get similar technocratic treatment? Or does political control matter?To discuss these issues, UCL Uncovering Politics is joined by Dr Anna Killick, Research Fellow in the UCL Department of Political Science. Mentioned in this episode:A. Killick., Politicians and Economic Experts: The Limits of Technocracy (Newcastle: Agenda Publishing, 2022)

It almost goes without saying that public opinion matters in a democracy, where leaders can be scrutinised in the free press and held accountable at free and fair elections. But public attitudes matter in authoritarian contexts too – as illustrated by how careful Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is being at the moment to control the media narrative around his war in Ukraine. So, what role does public opinion play in autocracies? Can we accurately measure public opinion in such settings? And what does the evidence suggest about the state of public opinion in Russia today?To answer these questions, UCL Uncovering Politics is joined by Dr Katerina Tertytchnaya, Lecturer in Comparative Politics in the UCL Department of Political Science. Mentioned this episode:N. Buckley, K.L. Marquardt, O.J. Reuter, & K. Tertytchnaya., 'Endogenous Popularity: How Perceptions of Support Affect the Popularity of Authoritarian Regimes', Varieties of Democracy Institute N. Buckley, K.L. Marquardt, O.J. Reuter, & K. Tertytchnaya., 'How popular is Putin, really?', Washington Post

Uniquely, this week we are discussing both a new publication and a new institution. The publication is a book called Out of the Ordinary: How Everyday Life Inspired a Nation and How It Can Again. This book examines the political thought of a group of writers and artists in mid-20th-century Britain, centred around Dylan Thomas, George Orwell, and J.B. Priestley. Their ideas, it argues, offer a vision for how to overcome the polarisation and alienation of our politics today.The institution is the UCL Policy Lab, which was launched earlier this week, and which seeks to bring together UCL’s top political scientists and economists with policymakers and others in order, we hope, to foster positive change.Professor Marc Stears, the author of Out of the Ordinary and the inaugural Director of the UCL Policy Lab, joins Uncovering Politics this week.Mentioned this week:M. Stears., Out of the Ordinary: How Everyday Life Inspired a Nation and How It Can Again (London: Belknap Press, 2021)The UCL Policy Lab

Displacement of civilian populations is a feature of politics in many parts of the world. War is perhaps the most familiar driver of displacement – we have seen that, of course, on a tragic scale in Ukraine in recent months. But other factors lead people to leave their homes too, including government development policies and the effects of climate change. And displacement also has profound effects: on the people involved most directly; but also on the dynamics of conflict and of politics more broadly. To discuss population displacement, UCL Uncovering Politics is joined by two students from the Department of Political Science: Sigrid Weber and Pasan Jayasinghe. Sigrid and Pasan are currently researching population displacement for their PhDs, in Iraq and Sri Lanka respectively.Mentioned in this episode:S. Weber., 'Controlling a Moving World: Territorial Control, Displacement and the Spread of Civilian Targeting in Iraq', Unpublished PhD chapterP. Jayasinghe., 'A History of Resettlement and Electoral Administration in Sri Lanka', Unpublished PhD chapter

Climate change is perhaps the greatest challenge facing humans today. Yet politics appears to be failing to deliver the required response. Students of politics are therefore conducting a wealth of research to understand what’s happening and what could be done better. But is that research actually doing any good? Is it contributing to better outcomes?To explore this topic, UCL Uncovering Politics is joined by Dr Fergus Green, Lecturer in Political Theory and Public Policy in the UCL Department of Political Science.Mentioned in this episode:F. Green., & I. Robeyns., 'On the Merits and Limits of Nationalising the Fossil Fuel Industry', Royal Institute of Philosophy SupplementsF. Green., & E. Brandstedt., 'Engaged Climate Ethics', The Journal of Political PhilosophyFergus and Ingrid will be speaking about their paper tonight (Thursday 19 May), at Foyles on Charing Cross Road, London. You can get a free ticket to this event here.

Most of the UK went to the polls last week, and the vote in Northern Ireland was perhaps particularly significant. Next year will mark 25 years since the 1998 Belfast or Good Friday Agreement, which brought peace to Northern Ireland after nearly 30 years of conflict. The power-sharing arrangements established by the Agreement have brought many successes, but they are teetering on the edge of collapse. Whether a new Executive can be formed following last week’s elections is far from clear, but the consequences of failure could be severe.So can power-sharing be restored? If so, how? And how might Northern Ireland move beyond repeated collapses of devolved government and find a more stable political footing? To explore these questions, UCL Uncovering Politics is joined by Alan Whysall, Honorary Senior Research Associate at the UCL Constitution Unit, and by Dr Etain Tannam, Associate Professor of International Peace Studies at Trinity College Dublin. Mentioned in this episode:A. Whysall., 'Northern Ireland's Political Future - Challenges After the Assembly Elections: A Discussion Paper', Constitution UnitA. Whysall., 'Northern Ireland's political future: challenges after the Assembly elections', Constitution Unit BlogC.J. Kelly., & E. Tannam., 'The Belfast/Good Friday agreement's three strands have not outlived their usefulness', Constitution Unit Blog

No democracy in the world has yet achieved equal representation for women in its national parliament. So it’s important to understand what could be done to improve the situation. One long-standing idea is that some electoral systems may be better than others in enabling fairer representation. A new article co-authored by Dr Eleanor Woodhouse, Lecturer in Public Policy in the UCL Department of Political Science, explores this idea.Mentioned in this episode:P. Profeta., & E. Woodhouse., 'Electoral Rules, Women's Representation and the Qualification of Politicians', Comparative Political Studies

Climate change is – as the article we’re discussing this week puts it – ‘the quintessential long-term problem’. Action is needed to avert massive long-term harm. But the steps that are required will generate short-term costs. Democracies are famously short-termist. Politicians who want to be re-elected don’t like imposing short-term costs on voters.So: can we design democracies better to foster longer time horizons? To answer this question, UCL Uncovering Politics is joined by Dr Jared Finnegan, Lecturer in Public Policy in the UCL Department of Political Science.Mentioned in this episode:Jared J. Finnegan., 'Institutions, Climate Change, and the Foundations of Long-Term Policymaking', Comparative Political Studies

Some states are secular, while others are based, to a greater or lesser degree, on religion. The difference matters. Secular states are more likely to respect the diverse perspectives of their citizens and protect a range of social and political rights.So what explains variation in institutional secularism? Why did some state secularize centuries ago, while others underwent a secular shift more recently, and yet others remain religious to this day?This is one of the key questions about political development, but it has gone relatively under-studied.A new book, however, changes that. Called The Origins of Secular Institutions, it takes a sweeping view of political development across half a millennium and several continents. It combines statistical analysis with exploration of deep historical narratives. And it tells a new story about how the development of printing, the extent of censorship, and the timing of the emergence of secular movements have shaped the nature of politics around the world today.We are delighted to be joined by the author of this book, Dr Zeynep Bulutgil, who is Associate Professor in International Relations here in the UCL Department of Political Science.Mentioned in this episode:The Origins of Secular Institutions: Ideas, Timing, and Organization (Oxford University Press)

We’re looking this week at the political role of courage. The current, dreadful conflict in Ukraine provides numerous extraordinary examples of courage: of civilians who stand up to Russian tanks; of Ukraine’s president, who remains in Kyiv despite manifest personal danger; of anti-war protesters in Russia, who take to the streets though they know they are likely to be arrested and perhaps beaten. Courage can take many forms. So we ask what exactly it is, and what roles it can play – in times of conflict and in the context of peaceful democracy.But first, we’ll focus in on one kind of clearly courageous action in politics – the action of local peace communities in conflict-ridden societies. We’ll consider what these local peace communities are, where they can be found, and when they succeed.To explore courage and peace communities, we are joined by two PhD students here in the UCL Department of Political Science. Dušan Rebolj studies political theory and is a member of the Political Theory research cluster. His dissertation project applies the tools of political theory to the topic of political – especially democratic – courage.Jennifer Hodge is a student of international relations who belongs to the Conflict and Change research cluster. She has created a new dataset on peace movements around the world and is using it to analyse their dynamics.

A new book out this month by our colleague Tom O’Grady begins with a remarkable quotation from a UN Special Rapporteur writing in 2018 about welfare reforms in the UK:‘British compassion’ – the rapporteur said – ‘has been replaced by a punitive, mean-spirited and often callous approach apparently designed to impose a rigid order on the lives of those least capable of coping, and elevate the goal of enforcing blind compliance over a genuine concern to improve the well-being of those at the lowest economic levels of British society.’In his book, Tom argues that, over the past 30 years, the UK’s welfare policies – meaning policies that provide relief from unemployment, poverty, and disability – have shifted from relative generosity to sometimes extreme meanness. He analyses why the change has occurred, arguing that much of the responsibility lies in the discourse of politicians and the media – most particularly, the choices about such discourse made by the Labour Party under Tony Blair in the 1990s.The book combines cutting-edge political science, careful historical reconstruction and, in its final pages, an exploration of the options for better welfare policies in the future. It’s rich in meticulous research. But it is also passionate and committed, issuing a rallying cry to politicians – especially those on the left – to do better. And Tom’s book is our subject on this episode of UCL Uncovering Politics. We are joined by the author himself. Dr Tom O’Grady is Associate Professor in Quantitative Political Science at the UCL Department of Political Science. And we are delighted to say that we’re also joined by Garry Lemon, Director of Policy, External Affairs, and Research at the Trussell Trust, which supports over 1,200 food banks – helping people facing poverty across the UK.Mentioned in this episode The Transformation of British Welfare Policy, Politics, Discourse, and Public Opinion.

We talk a lot about trust – or, more often, the lack of trust – in politics. Often we’re referring to people’s trust in politicians. But social trust – our trust in the people around us – matters too. The evidence from must countries is that social trust has been falling in recent decades. But the countries of Scandinavia have bucked that trend. Indeed, in Denmark, the survey evidence suggests that social trust has risen since 1979 by 30 percentage points.So what’s going on? What factors shape social trust? What can policymakers do to promote social trust? And has Covid shifted any of the long-term trends?Host Professor Alan Renwick is joined by Professor Peter Thisted Dinesen, Professor of Political Science in the Departments of Political Science of both UCL and the University of Copenhagen. Mentioned in this episode:Danish Exceptionalism: Explaining the Unique Increase in Social Trust Over the Past 30 YearsEthnic Diversity and Social Trust: Evidence from the Micro-Context

The fortieth anniversary of the Malvinas/Falklands War of 1982 is coming up in just a few weeks’ time. There will no doubt be many retrospectives, which, here in the UK, will focus on the actions of the British government, and whether the UK’s response would be different if anything similar took place today.But what about Argentine perspectives on the war? Why did the then Argentine government invade the islands? How was the conflict perceived in Argentina at the time, and how is it seen today? In understanding the thinking of Argentina’s rulers in 1982, can we gain insights into the calculations of authoritarian leaders who might be contemplating military action today – not least, of course, President Vladimir Putin of Russia?Host Professor Jennifer Hudson is joined by Dr Luis Schenoni, Lecturer in International Relations. His research explores the determinants of international conflict and its effects on the dynamics of state formation, particularly in Latin America. Mentioned in this episode:Was the Malvinas/Falklands a Diversionary War? A Prospect-Theory Reinterpretation of Argentina’s Decline

How should we teach about politics? How – if at all – should teaching politics be different from teaching hard sciences, such as physics, or arts and humanities subjects, such as History or English, or indeed other social sciences, such as Economics or Sociology? The territory of politics is inherently contested, so should we embrace that contestation in our teaching or should we stick to known facts?These and many other questions are explored by a new centre within the UCL Department of Political Science called the UCL Centre for the Pedagogy of Politics. And we are delighted to be joined by two of its founders and Co-Directors in this episode.Dr Cathy Elliott is Associate Professor (Teaching) in Qualitative Methods and the Politics of Nature in the UCL Department of Political Science, as well as our Graduate Tutor.And Dr J-P Salter is Lecturer (Teaching) in Public Policy – again, in the UCL Department of Political Science – and also our Deputy Director of EducationMentioned in this episode:Poverty at the UCL Art Museum: Situated Learning in a World of ImagesUCL Centre for the Pedagogy of Politics twitter account

How can you best deliver effective public services? Is it better to exert top-down control over the work of bureaucrats on the ground – through targets, monitoring, and prescribed procedures – so that slacking or corruption or inconsistency can be prevented? Or can more be achieved if you free up bureaucrats to work out their own approaches, utilizing their practical knowledge and allowing their desire to do a good job to flourish?Our colleague Dr Dan Honig, who is Associate Professor of Public Policy here in the UCL Department of Political Science, argues that we have tended to get the balance wrong, with too much top-down control and not enough freedom on the ground. In two books – one of them published in 2018 by Oxford University Press and the other on its way – Dan sets out the case for a new approach.And his work is making waves not just in academia. At the end of 2021 he was announced by Apolitical as one of its hundred most influential academics in government in the world. Mentioned in this article:Navigation by Judgment. Why and When Top-Down Management of Foreign Aid Doesn't WorkDr Dan Honig is named as one of 100 most influential academics in government by Apolitical

It’s sometimes said that we’re living through an epidemic of taking offence. We have become hyper-sensitive, the story goes, to any slight against our sense of self-worth. And a generation of so-called ‘snowflakes’ are told they just need to relax a little. But what does it actually mean to take offence? How does feeling offended fit in alongside all the other emotions that our social interactions might invoke, such as anger, indignation, or contempt? Is taking offence really such a bad thing – or might it, at least in some circumstances, actually have positive value?Well the person who has thought about such questions more deeply than anyone else is Dr Emily McTernan, Associate Professor in Political Theory in the UCL Department of Political Science. Emily is currently finishing a book to be published by Oxford University Press called On Taking Offence, and last year a version of the first chapter was published in article form in one of the top political philosophy journals.Mentioned in this episode:Taking offense: An emotion reconsideredWhy taking offence is good: small acts of resistance

Ethnic voting means voting on the basis of ethnic identity, rather than, say, policy preferences or how well or badly you think the incumbents have governed. Ethnic and other forms of communal voting are found in many parts of the world – think, for example, of very different voting patterns between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. But ethnic voting is often thought particularly to be a feature of politics in many African countries.And such voting is also often seen as rather problematic for healthy democracy, because it can shield those in power from accountability if they govern poorly.Well a new study published last year sheds fresh light on ethnic voting in Africa. It focuses particularly on the fact that increasingly many marriages in many African countries now cross ethnic lines. And it explores the impact of such marriages on voting. One of its authors is Dr Adam Harris, Associate Professor in Development Politics in the UCL Department of Political Science and an expert on the politics of sub-Saharan Africa and he joins us for this episode.Mentioned in this episode:Electoral Preferences Among Multiethnic Voters in Africa

Now, no one would claim that the subject of contracts between governments and private sector suppliers is all that sexy. But the last two years of the Covid crisis have certainly revealed its importance. In the earliest weeks of the pandemic back in 2020, governments around the world scrambled to secure enough PPE, hospital ventilators, and Covid tests. Then there was the race to buy up vaccines. In recent weeks, shortages of testing kits have been back in the headlines. Here in the UK, vaccine purchasing is held up as exemplary, while contracting for PPE remains mired in allegations of cronyism.But controversies over government contracting are far from new. Debates about the merits – or otherwise – of the contracting out of public services and of public–private partnerships have been running for decades. And scandals over nepotism and revolving doors between the public and private sectors have been familiar for a lot longer than that. On the other hand, of course, many would say that close cooperation between governments and private sector suppliers has brought innumerable benefits.We are joined today by Dr Eleanor Woodhouse who is a Lecturer in Public Policy in the UCL Department of Political Science and an expert in, among other things, public–private partnerships. In 2021, she published (with colleagues) a book with Cambridge University Press, called Partnership Communities: Public–Private Partnerships and Non-Market Infrastructure Development Around the World.We are also joined by Alice Moore who is a PhD student in the UCL Department of Political Science. Her research investigates the role of trust and relationships in the delivery of outsourced public services and the effects on competition for public contracts and on the quality of the services provided. She’s also a Research Officer at the Centre for Analysis of Risk and Regulation at the London School of Economics.

Few issues in public policy are as important as the size of the state. How much should the state spend? How much, therefore, should it raise in taxes? And what exactly should it spend this money on?In a democracy, we expect policymakers to be responsive to public opinion in answering such questions. But what do the public actually want? Indeed, to what extent do most of us even have meaningful preferences that take account of unavoidable trade-offs between different priorities?Such questions have long challenged political scientists. But a new paper just published by three colleagues here in the UCL Department of Political Science offers a new approach to measuring such preferences, and some intriguing answers on what people want.Those colleagues are Lucy Barnes, Jack Blumenau, and Ben Lauderdale. And we are delighted to be joined by Dr Lucy Barnes, Associate Professor in Comparative Politics and our Deputy Head of Department, and Ben Lauderdale, Professor of Political Science and Head of Department in the UCL Department of Political Science.Mentioned in this episode: Measuring Attitudes toward Public Spending Using a Multivariate Tax Summary Experiment

Today we’re looking at a brand new article, Against Online Public Shaming: Ethical Problems with Mass Social Media, by Guy Aitchison (Loughborough University) and Dr Saladin Meckled-Garcia (UCL). Online Public Shaming (OPS) is a form of norm enforcement that involves collectively imposing reputational costs on a person for having a certain kind of moral character. OPS actions aim to disqualify her from public discussion and certain normal human relations. In the article, the authors argue that this constitutes an informal collective punishment that it is presumptively wrong to impose (or seek to impose) on others. OPS functions as a form of ostracism that fails to show equal basic respect to its targets. Additionally, in seeking to mobilise unconstrained collective power with potentially serious punitive consequences, OPS is incompatible with due process values.In this episode, host Professor Jennifer Hudson is joined by Saladin, Associate Professor of Human Rights and Political Theory here in the Department of Political Science to explore online public shaming, its consequences, the ethics, and more.

Northern Ireland experienced three decades of violence from the late 1960s to the late 1990s. Thousands of people were killed, injured, or bereaved. The so-called Troubles were brought to an end by the Belfast or Good Friday Agreement of 1998, an accord between the British and Irish governments and most of the main political parties in Northern Ireland that established new governing arrangements for Northern Ireland within the UK and set out how Northern Ireland might in future leave the UK and become part of a united Ireland, if majorities both north and south of the border wanted it.In many ways, the 1998 Agreement is a model peace settlement. Power-sharing government sputters, but survives. Everyday lives have been transformed. Violence between the communities has almost ended. Yet many legacies of the past live on. Today, we are focusing on one of those – namely, violence within communities, and, in particular, punishment attacks meted out by paramilitary groups against people whom they accuse of criminal or anti-social behaviour.What explains the persistence of such attacks? And does that carry lessons for peace-building processes elsewhere? Two colleagues at the Department have just published a study exploring just these questions and they join us for this episode...Kristin Bakke is Professor of Political Science and International Relations here in the UCL Department of Political Science and leads our Conflict and Change research cluster. She is also affiliated with the Peace Research Institute in Oslo. And she will be a familiar voice to regular podcast listeners. Kit Rickard, meanwhile, is a PhD student in the department, as well as a Research Associate and Teaching Assistant and again a member of the Conflict and Change research cluster. He is just about to submit his doctoral thesis on how external states affect civil wars.Mentioned in this episode:Legacies of Wartime Order: Punishment Attacks and Social Control in Northern Ireland

Today we’re taking a retrospective look at the outcomes of the COP-26 conference that was held in Glasgow earlier this month. COP – or Conference of the Parties – is the annual UN climate change conference. A key aim of the conference was to ‘keep 1.5°C alive’ – but was enough progress made on cutting emissions to reach this goal? Have rich countries stepped up to the plate by agreeing to pay for loss and damage in poorer countries? And, are we making progress fast enough?We have three leading experts on these matters here at UCL, and they join me now. Jared Finnegan is Lecturer in Public Policy. Before joining UCL he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Berkeley and Princeton University. His research investigates how governments, voters, and business understand and address long-term societal challenges, particularly climate changeFergus Green is Lecturer in Political Theory and Public Policy. His research normative analysis of public policy and on processes of political change, especially concerning climate change and decarbonisation.Lisa Vanhala is Professor of Political Science and the Principal Investigator of the ERC funded Climate Change Loss and Damage research project.

We’re focusing today on the regulation of the internet. Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen argues that her former employer persistently puts profit above prevention of harm. Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg himself argues that greater regulation of internet companies is needed – that rules for what is and isn’t allowed should be made through democratic means. And the UK – among other countries – is in the process of preparing legislation with just that goal.So what exactly are the problems that the current wild west of the worldwide web gives rise to? What principles should guide any new legislation? And where do those principles take us in terms of concrete policy?In this episode we are joined by two leading experts on these matters here at UCL. Dr Jeff Howard is Associate Professor of Political Theory in the UCL Department of Political Science. Regular listeners to the podcast will already be familiar with his work on regulating dangerous political speech. He is currently writing a book on the ethical limits of free speech. And he was recently awarded a highly prestigious UK Research & Innovation Future Leaders Fellowship to lead a major new multidisciplinary project on the governance of online speech. Dr Melanie Garson is Lecturer in International Conflict Resolution & International Security in the UCL Department of Political Science. She is also the Internet Policy Lead for Europe, Israel, and the Middle East in the Technology and Public Policy Department of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, where she focuses on cybersecurity policy as well as the intersection of technology and foreign policy.

Today our focus is on what politicians say – and on processes for analysing what politicians say. Politicians’ speech is, of course, a fundamental part of politics. We can think of it as a product of – and therefore a window into – deeper political forces. And in itself it also helps to constitute the political realm and how we think of all the parts of that realm. Analysis of what politicians say – and, indeed, of what others say, but we’re focusing today on politicians – is a tool that many political scientists use to explore a whole range of different aspects of politics. Many approaches are used in doing so. And these include increasingly sophisticated techniques for analysing vast bodies of speech systematically. We’re showcasing the work of some of our PhD students here on the podcast at the moment and this week our host Professor Alan Renwick welcomes Lotte Hargrave, who is looking at whether female and male MPs speak differently from each other and and Markus Kollberg, who is examining how parliamentarians use populist rhetoric.

COP stands for Conference of the Parties, and is the annual UN climate change conference. The conference will be attended by the countries that signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – a treaty that came into force in 1994. More than 190 world leaders are expected to arrive in Scotland. Together with tens of thousands of negotiators, government representatives, businesses and citizens for twelve days of talks. Among academics, campaigners, environmentalists and policymakers, COP26 is seen as a critical event: it's the moment at which countries must set out more ambitious goals for climate action five years on from the Paris Agreement. It also comes on the back of even more severe extreme weather events, evidence of rising global CO2 emissions, and continued biodiversity loss.Under the Paris Agreement, countries committed to bring forward national plans setting out how much they would reduce their emissions - known as Nationally Determined Contributions, or ‘NDCs’. They agreed that every five years they would come back with an updated plan that would reflect their highest possible ambition at that time. For this episode, host Professor Jennifer Hudson is joined by Lisa Vanhala, Professor of Political Science and the Principal Investigator of the ERC funded Climate Change Loss and Damage research project, Dr Elisa Calliari, Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Political Science, and Anjelica Johannson, PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science.Mentioned in this episode:Climate Change Loss and Damage ERC project

Today we’re looking at protest by prisoners. Some of the most famous cases of protest politics involve protests by prisoners. Think of hunger striking suffragettes in early-twentieth-century Britain.Think of the dirty protest among republican prisoners in Belfast in the late 1970s, and then the hunger strikes there in 1981.Indeed, just two weeks ago on this podcast we were discussing Alex Navalny, Russian opposition leader, who remains influential despite being behind bars.Prison protests may be invisible to the outside world, but they can nevertheless resonate widely.And in this episode, we're exploring another case – the case of Palestinian prisoners – in particular, of Palestinians who are in prison in jails in Israel. We are joined by Dr Julie Norman, Lecturer in Politics and International Relations here in the UCL Department of Political Science, whose book, The Palestinian Prisoners Movement: Disobedience and Resistance, came out over the summer, and Dr Carl Gibson, Assistant Professor in the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Nottingham. Mentioned in this episode:IAS Book Launch: The Palestinian Prisoners Movement by Julie M. Norman. 25th October 17.30-18.30The Palestinian Prisoners Movement: Disobedience and ResistanceUnderstanding Nonviolence. The Second Palestinian Intifada

In this episode we are looking at a new piece of research - Flight to Safety: COVID-Induced Changes in the Intensity of Status Quo Preference and Voting Behavior.This paper focusses on some important questions around covid. How do emotions and particularly anxiety, shape or influence voters preferences? How does anxiety resulting from this unforeseen external force, covid, or manufactured for political gain, influence democratic politics and elections? Are voters inherently risk averse during periods of uncertainty? And how did covid induce a flight to safety among voters?Joining host Professor Jennifer Hudson is Dan Honig, Associate Professor of Public Policy here at the Department of Political Science who has been exploring all of these questions and more.

In this, our first episode of the new academic year, we’re looking at politics in Russia. Alexei Navalny – who hit the headlines around the world last year by surviving an attempt to assassinate him by lacing his underpants with Novichok, and who now languishes in prison 100km east of Moscow – is Russia’s best known opposition leader. Indeed, a new book about Navalny’s life and activism describes him as ‘the main political counterforce in the country’ and ‘its second most important politician’. So who is Alexei Navalny? What does his current predicament say about the state of Russian politics? And what chance is there that he – or anyone else – might be able to lead Russia towards a more democratic future?Our host Professor Alan Renwick is joined by one of the new book’s authors Dr Ben Noble, Associate Professor in Russian Politics at UCL’s School of Slavonic and East European Studies, and Dr Katerina Tertychnaya, Lecturer in Comparative Politics in the UCL Department of Political Science and expert on Russian politics, who is now leading a major research project on ‘Non-Violent Repression in Electoral Autocracies’.Mentioned in this episode:Navalny: Putin's Nemesis, Russia's Future? Jan Matti Dollbaum, Morvan Lallouet, and Ben NobleHurst publishers: use the code NAVALNY25 for 25% discount.For those buying the in United States: use the code ADISTA5 for 30% discount.Amazon

In this our final episode for the current academic year, we’re going to tackle one of the biggest questions of political science: How do you run an effective government? In particular, how do you build a bureaucracy that’s able to deliver? Is it better to have neutral civil servants, who are appointed on merit and retain their posts whichever parties are in power? Or should we prefer a politicized bureaucracy, whose members are appointed at least in part for their loyalty to the politicians in charge, and who come and go with their political masters?That question is particularly salient here in the UK just at the moment. As we have discussed on several episodes of this podcast over the year, the current government under Boris Johnson has been widely criticized for undermining Britain’s longstanding tradition of civil service neutrality by pushing some senior officials out and bringing in others it thinks better attuned to its agenda. Government ministers counter, however, that a nominally neutral civil service in fact betrays the prejudices of the establishment, and that a democratically elected government should not be fettered by unelected bureaucrats.Similar questions arise in countries around the world. Indeed, by guest today has conducted research in dozens of countries aimed at answering these and related questions. That guest is Christian Schuster, who is Professor of Public Management here in the UCL Department of Political Science.

Many of the most important policy decisions that a state can make relate to education. What kind of education should children receive? How far should parents be able to dictate that choice? Is it acceptable to have schools that instruct pupils in a particular religious faith? Should elite private schools be allowed to exist? Given that such schools do exist, can socially progressive parents send their children there with a clean conscience?Our guest today has been exploring these and many other related questions for decades. Adam Swift is Professor of Political Theory here in the UCL Department of Political Science. His books and papers includeEducational Goods: Values, Evidence and Decision-Making, written with Harry Brighouse, Helen F. Ladd, and Susanna LoebFamily Values: The Ethics of Parent-Child Relationships, with Harry BrighouseHow Not To Be A Hypocrite: School Choice for the Morally Perplexed Parent.How to Regulate Faith SchoolsHow Not to Defend Private SchoolsPandemic as Political TheoryHe starts with the basic principles of political theory. And from these he draws out key implications for policy-makers and for parents.

The future of the Union here in the UK – that is, the union of England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland – is very much in the news. In Scotland, many opinion polls over the past year (though not so much over the last few months) have suggested majority support for independence, and political parties that want another referendum on the issue secured a majority of seats in the Scottish Parliament elections last month. In Wales, support for independence seems to have grown, though still at a far lower level. And in Northern Ireland too, there has been a rise in talk of a referendum – a referendum, that is, on whether Northern Ireland should remain part of the United Kingdom or become part of a united Ireland.In this episode we’re going to focus on Northern Ireland. If there were a referendum on the constitutional question there, how would it best be designed and conducted? Who would get to vote? What would the question on the ballot paper be? Would there need to be a referendum in the Republic of Ireland as well? Who would work out designs for a united Ireland? Would they do so before a referendum, or only afterwards, in the event that the vote went in favour of unification?It turns out that many of these questions haven’t previously been answered. Indeed, many haven’t been thought about very much. A landmark agreement was reached in 1998 between the British and Irish governments and most of the political parties in Northern Ireland – an agreement known variously as either the Belfast Agreement or the Good Friday Agreement. That brought an end to a quarter century of violent conflict in Northern Ireland and led to the creation of the Northern Ireland Assembly and the current arrangements for power-sharing government. It also included some provisions for a possible future referendum. But it left many questions unanswered.Well now a Working Group on Unification Referendums on the Island of Ireland has published a major report that seeks to fill that gap. Comprising twelve academics from six universities, including UCL, the group – which is impartial as to whether there should be a referendum or what the outcome should be if there is one – has looked into all the questions I just raised, and many more. It finds that referendums on this topic may be required in the coming years, but would carry significant risks. Conducting them well would be vitally important. And careful thought is needed as to what that would mean. Host: Dr Alan RenwickProfessor Katy Hayward Dr David Kenny Dr Etain TannamWorking Group on Unification Referendums on the Island of Ireland (report)

Most countries have a document call the Constitution – a legal text setting out basic principles of how that country is governed. And in most of those countries there’s a constitutional court (or supreme court) that determines whether the ordinary laws passed by the legislature are compatible with the Constitution and that strikes them down if it concludes they are not.The UK, famously, has no such capital C Constitution – no codified rulebook. And the courts here in the UK can’t (at least formally) strike down laws on the basis that they contravene higher law.So what kind of constitution do we have? Well, it’s often said that, in contrast to the legal constitutions found in many other countries, the UK has a political constitution – a constitution whose norms are enforced in the realm of politics rather than in the realm of law.But many think that the UK’s political constitution is today under threat, with potentially serious consequences for the polity’s ability to serve all those who live within it.So today we ask the question, ‘Does the UK still have a political constitution?’ And to do so, we’re joined by one of the leading experts on constitutional theory, Professor Richard Bellamy. Richard, who is Professor of Political Science here in the UCL Department of Political Science, is the author of ten monographs – the most relevant of which to our conversation today is Political Constitutionalism: A Republican Defence of the Constitutionality of Democracy, published by Cambridge University Press.Host: Dr Alan RenwickProfessor Richard Bellamy

The coming week sees the first anniversary of the murder of George Floyd. His killing by a white police officer in the American city of Minneapolis, sparked a global wave of protests. The vast majority of these were peaceful. But some were not. It’s estimated that, in the United States, acts of rioting, arson, and looting in the weeks that followed caused over a billion dollars-worth of damage – the highest recorded damage from civil disorder in US history.So can such violent protests ever be justified? Much public and political opinion says no. Here in the UK, even last year’s toppling of the inanimate statue of a seventeenth-century slave trader was condemned across much of the political spectrum.But one of our colleagues here at the UCL Department of Political Science argues differently. Dr Avia Pasternak, who is Associate Professor in Political Theory here, argues that, sometimes, violent protests are morally justified.Political Rioting: A Moral AssessmentHost: Dr Alan RenwickDr Avia Pasternak

Alexandra Hartman is Associate Professor in Political Science and Public Policy here at UCL, and her research focuses on the political economy of institutions in fragile states. She looks not just at formal political institutions such as courts or legislatures, but also at what we political scientists like to call informal institutions – the unwritten structures of norms and established practices that people follow in their interactions with each other. Such informal institutions can be crucial in shaping how society operates. And Alex examines whether policymakers can intervene to nudge them in directions that might lead to better outcomes.In particular, her new study – recently published in the Journal of Politics and co-authored with Robert Blair from Brown University and Christopher Blattman from the University of Chicago – looks at ways of resolving land disputes in Liberia. It’s fair to say that the results are mixed. And they help us think both about the kinds of policy mechanisms that might be effective—both in Liberia and elsewhere—and about how we can measure that effectiveness so that we can seek to identify the best policies for the future.Article: Engineering Informal Institutions: Long-Run Impacts of Alternative Dispute Resolution on Violence and Property Rights in LiberiaHost: Dr Alan RenwickDr Alexandra Hartman

This week, we’re focusing on politics in the United States. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have been in office for a little over 100 days now. So how is it going? Has Biden been sleepy Joe? Has he pursued the path of moderation and coalition-building that has characterized so much of his long career? Or has he turned out much more of a radical than many expected? What role is being performed by Vice President Harris? How, meanwhile, have Republicans responded to their defeat? And just want is Donald Trump up to now that he is out of office and banned from Twitter?Host: Professor Jennifer HudsonDr Thomas GiftDr Colin ProvostDr Julie Norman

Democracy is what one social scientist once famously called an ‘essentially contested concept’ – one that we are never likely all to agree about. And disagreements over the form that democracy should take have lately sparked major political conflicts in many democratic countries. How far were politicians in the UK obliged to follow the so-called ‘will of the people’ as expressed in the Brexit referendum of 2016? Can the strongman democracy pursued by leaders in Hungary, India, and Brazil be called ‘democracy’ at all? And what should we make of contemporary arguments in favour of bringing more public deliberation into our democratic processes?Questions such as these have prompted a new research project recently launched by UCL’s Constitution Unit, called Democracy in the UK after Brexit. Led by Dr Alan Renwick, working alongside Professors Meg Russell and Ben Lauderdale, the project will explore how people in the UK conceive of democracy and what kinds of democratic arrangement they prefer. Host: Professor Jennifer HudsonDr Alan RenwickProfessor Albert WealeProfessor Meg Russell

We’re returning this week to the topic of climate change. You may have heard our episode a few weeks ago exploring global climate governance. Well this week, we turn our attention to global climate justice. The climate crisis has been caused mostly by the rich countries of the old industrial world. But many of the effects of that crisis are being felt first and most harshly elsewhere – in countries that bear little responsibility and often lack the resources to adapt. So what would a just response to the climate challenge look like? How close have past rounds of negotiation come to that? And how are things looking for the COP26 climate summit taking place in Glasgow in November?Host: Dr Alan RenwickDr Simon Chin-Yee Dr Lauren Gifford Dr Jessica Omukuti

We typically divide the modern state into three branches: the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary. On a traditional view, the legislature makes the laws, the executive implements them, and the judiciary decides on disputes. In reality, in most states, the executive in fact plays a much bigger role than that. It not only executes the will of the legislature, but also shapes the policy agenda, develops legislative proposals, and conducts a great deal of foreign policy. And on some matters the executive can act without the consent of the legislature – even, in some cases, against its explicit opposition. Here in the UK, such powers are called prerogative powers, and they have been pretty controversial in recent years – relating, for example, to the government’s ability to suspend sittings of parliament. And they raised eyebrows in the United States too, when, on his first day in office, President Biden reversed a whole series of Trump-era policies just by signing a set of executive orders.So what such prerogative powers exist? How do they work? And, in the context of modern democracy, should they be subject to greater constraints?Host: Dr Alan RenwickProfessor Robert Hazell

How the European Union relates to the world of business has long been a matter of great contention. Scepticism towards the EU on the right of politics has for decades been fuelled by the perception that Brussels is a bureaucratic regulation generator, with little understanding of how business operates. On the Eurosceptic left, by contrast, the EU has been seen as a capitalist club, in hock to big business, incapable of seeing the interests of ordinary people.How has the relationship between business and the EU evolved over time? How does it vary from sector to sector? And what does it all mean for policy outcomes? A new book sheds much fresh light. Called Business Lobbying in the European Union, the book is co-authored by UCL’s very own David Coen, along with Alexander Katsaitis from the London School of Economics and Matia Vannoni from King's College London. Host: Dr Alan RenwickProfessor David CoenBusiness Lobbying in the European Union

There is common agreement that climate change poses the greatest policy challenge of our age. The costs of getting it wrong would be immense, but the barriers to getting it right are dauntingly high. Action is needed on a global scale. But global politics is deeply fractured, and individual countries may be tempted to free ride on the actions of others. So what are the global governance structures through which the world is attempting to address this challenge? Are they delivering, or do they need reform? Well three of the leading experts on these questions – David Coen, Julia Kreienkamp, and Tom Pegram – are based at the UCL Department of Political Science and have just written a book on the subject. It’s called Global Climate Governance and it’s published now by Cambridge University Press. And two of those authors join my now to discuss the findings.Host: Professor Jennifer HudsonJulia KreienkampDr Tom PegramGlobal Climate GovernancePolicy brief

The politics of asylum is more important than ever before. At the end of 2019, according to data from the UNHCR, there were 80 million displaced persons around the world. More than half of those were displaced within their own countries. But 25 million were refugees, and a further 4.2 million were seeking asylum in another country. So how do the countries that refugees and asylum-seekers flee to respond? And what determines the degree to which these countries adopt an open or a closed approach?Well two of our colleagues here in the UCL Department of Political Science are seeking answers to such questions in their research. Host: Professor Jennifer HudsonDr Anna Oltman Dr Judith Spirig