See: http://www.raw-rhodes.co.uk/
for papers Address: Politics and International Relations
Faculty of Social and Human Sciences
Murray Building, #58,
University of Southampton
Southampton
SO17 1BJ
UK
This article adopts and reinvents the ethnographic approach to uncover what governing elites do, ... more 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). We argue that ethnography is the best available research method for collecting data on the supply side. In doing so, we tackle long-standing stereotypes in political science about the ethnographic method and what it is good for. We highlight how the innovative and varied practices of contemporary ethnography are ideally suited to shedding light into the ‘black box’ of elite politics. We demonstrate the potential pay-off with reference to important examples of elite ethnography from the margins of political science scholarship. The implications from these rich studies, we argue, suggest a reorientation of how we understand the drivers of public disaffection and the role that political elites play in exacerbating cynicism and disappointment. We conclude 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.
Discussions of core executive operations in Britain have focused on a limited controversy about w... more Discussions of core executive operations in Britain have focused on a limited controversy about whether monocratic control is exercised by the premier or whether more collegial decision making persists in Cabinet. An extended typology of institutionalist views is examined, including the prime ministerial clique interpretation, models of ministerial government, segmented decision making, and bureaucratic coordination. This restricted debate reflects normative anxieties about Britain's unbalanced constitution, party-structured legislature and an inadequate rational policy process inside the executive. New directions for core executive research are examined, including the analysis of decisional studies, more disaggregated and differentiated accounts of the core executive, coalition politics in the core executive, and the analysis of leadership influences.
This article adopts and reinvents the ethnographic approach to uncover what governing elites do, ... more 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). We argue that ethnography is the best available research method for collecting data on the supply side. In doing so, we tackle long-standing stereotypes in political science about the ethnographic method and what it is good for. We highlight how the innovative and varied practices of contemporary ethnography are ideally suited to shedding light into the ‘black box’ of elite politics. We demonstrate the potential pay-off with reference to important examples of elite ethnography from the margins of political science scholarship. The implications from these rich studies, we argue, suggest a reorientation of how we understand the drivers of public disaffection and the role that political elites play in exacerbating cynicism and disappointment. We conclude 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.
Discussions of core executive operations in Britain have focused on a limited controversy about w... more Discussions of core executive operations in Britain have focused on a limited controversy about whether monocratic control is exercised by the premier or whether more collegial decision making persists in Cabinet. An extended typology of institutionalist views is examined, including the prime ministerial clique interpretation, models of ministerial government, segmented decision making, and bureaucratic coordination. This restricted debate reflects normative anxieties about Britain's unbalanced constitution, party-structured legislature and an inadequate rational policy process inside the executive. New directions for core executive research are examined, including the analysis of decisional studies, more disaggregated and differentiated accounts of the core executive, coalition politics in the core executive, and the analysis of leadership influences.
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Papers by R. A. W. Rhodes