Interpreting British Governance
How is Britain governed? Interpreting British Governance develops a novel approach and answer to this question. It argues that political practices can be understood only by grasping the beliefs on which people act. It offers a governance narrative as a challenge to the Westminster model of British government and searches for a more accurate and open way of speaking about British government.
Part I defines the authors interpretive approach, their epistemology and governance. Part II provides an extended illustration of their approach by using the concepts of tradition and dilemma to re-analyse critically public sector reform as enacted by politicians. Part III uses history and ethnography to decentre public sector reform as constructed by civil servants.
This controversial and innovative volume argues that there is no necessary or given pattern of governance but only the constructions of various traditions. The authors thus reject the concept of a positivist political science for an interpretive approach which finds the study of politics rooted in history, philosophy and ethnography. This book will appeal to students and researchers of British government, public administration and political science methods.
Mark Bevir is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of The Logic of the History of Ideas . R.A.W. Rhodes is Professor of Political Science at the Research School of Social Science, Australian National University, Canberra. He is the author or editor of twenty books and has been editor of the journal Public Administration since 1986. He is President of the Political Studies Association of the UK.
First published 2003
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003.
2003 Mark Bevir and R.A.W. Rhodes
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by an electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
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Preface and acknowledgements
This book combines the skills of a political theorist and intellectual historian with those of a student of British government and administration. We share responsibility for all that follows, believing that it would be invidious to try to specify who had what ideas. Even when one of us has taken the lead in writing a section of the book, the other has read and commented on it at various stages in ways that have altered its tone and content. We hope the combination provides a distinctive take on how to understand British government.
Many people have helped us over the past four years. Mark Bevir thanks the University of California, Berkeley for the award of a faculty research grant. Rod Rhodes thanks the Economic and Social Research Council: the research for this book was done while he was director of its Whitehall Programme. For help and comments, we also thank Chris Ansell, Peter Barberis, Laura Bevir, Andrew Dunsire, Andrew Gamble, Carsten Greve, Colin Hay, Torben Beck Jrgensen, Lotte Jensen, Tim Knudsen, Patrick Le Gals, Janice McMillan, David Marsh, David OBrien, Cynthia Rhodes, Shannon Stimson, Gerry Stoker, Simon Walker, Bertram Welker and Pat Weller. The last thank you goes to Sir Robin Mountfield and Sir Richard Mottram for giving so generously of their time.
While we have drawn on several essays published jointly and singly since 1998, the book is not a collection of our earlier work. Rather, every chapter has been revised extensively no chapter is just a reprint of previously published material to create a new and continuous whole. The essays on which we have drawn are:
Bevir, M. (2002) Una Teroria Decentrata della Governance [A Decentred Theory of Governance], Stato e Mercato , : 467493.
Bevir, M. and OBrien, D. (2001) New Labour and the Public Sector in Britain, Public Administration Review , : 535547.
Bevir, M. and Rhodes, R.A.W. (1998) Narratives of Thatcherism, West European Politics , , 1: 97119. Reproduced with the permission of Frank Cass Publishers.
Bevir, M. and Rhodes, R.A.W. (1999) Studying British Government: Reconstructing the Research Agenda, British Journal of Politics and International Relations , , 2: 215239. Reproduced with the permission of Blackwell Publishers.
Bevir, M. and Rhodes, R.A.W. (2001) Decentring Tradition: Interpreting British Government, Administration and Society , , 2: 107132. Reproduced with the permission of Sage Publications, Inc.
Bevir, M. and Rhodes, R.A.W. (2002) Interpretative Approaches, in D. Marsh and G. Stoker (eds), Theory and Methods in Political Science . London: Macmillan. Reproduced with the permission of Palgrave Macmillan.
Rhodes, R.A.W. (1999) Understanding Governance: Comparing Public Sector Reform in Britain and Denmark, Scandinavian Political Studies , , 4: 341370. Reproduced with the permission of Blackwell Publishers. Copyright: Nordic Political Science Association.
Rhodes, R.A.W. (1999) Public Administration and Governance, in J. Pierre (ed.) Debating Governance . Oxford: Oxford University Press. Reproduced with the permission of Oxford University Press.
Rhodes, R. A. W. (2000) New Labours Civil Service: Summing-up Joining-up, Political Quarterly , , 2: 151166. Reproduced with the permission of Blackwell Publishers. Copyright: The Political Quarterly Publishing Company.
Rhodes, R.A.W. (2001) Everybody But Us: Departmental Secretaries in the UK, 197099, in R.A.W. Rhodes and P. Weller (eds) Mandarins or Valets? The Changing World of Top Officials . Buckingham: Open University Press. Reproduced with the permission of Open University Press.
Mark Bevir and R.A.W. Rhodes
Berkeley, California, and Spital Tongues, Newcastle
September 2002
