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Prima facie, spectacular public events and large-scale capital projects are an ideal vehicle for 'high politics' and the predilection of policy-making elites for grand, iconic and schematic visions that offer high-profile policy successes and historic legacies. Yet the prospective political rewards from such mega-events and projects must be offset against high levels of risk and complexity. Further, such schemes tend to be at odds with the prevailing doctrines and practices of the modern state: in particular its deference to market-based mechanisms and its liking for instruments of calculation and control. Indeed, mega-projects and events often prove uneconomic despite the predictions of forecasters. This review essay considers how the bidding and planning process for the London 2012 Olympic Games demonstrates this tension between high politics, risk and the preferred methods of governing the modern state.

There is a wealth of research into time series dynamics of bureaucratic control in the federal presidential system of the US, but no equivalent investigation in unitary parliamentary systems. This article proposes an approach for measurement of the effect of political interventions on bureaucratic outputs in British politics. It throws some light on tools of bureaucratic control that are associated with the fusion of legislative and executive powers in Britain's Westminster system. In contrast to the US, political control in the form of oversight or appointments is not required because government is able to intervene directly in bureaucratic activities through legislative, executive and administrative controls. It uses Box-Tiao time series models to analyse administration of the UK asylum system by the Immigration and Nationality Directorate of the Home Office.

The responsiveness of government to the preferences of its citizens is considered to be an important indicator of the performance of advanced democracy. This article argues that the thermostatic model of policy/opinion responsiveness can be represented in the form of an error-correction model where policy and public opinion variables are cointegrated, and extends the focus of investigation to government outputs. This models the short-run and long-run equilibrium of interactions between public opinion and policy/bureaucratic outputs. The article assesses the performance of British government – and, in particular, the Immigration and Nationality Directorate of the Home Office – in the operation of border controls and administration of claims for asylum, for the period between 1994 and 2007.

Cover -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- Part One -- 1 Desire and sex -- 2 Domesticity -- 3 Marriage and commitment -- Part Two -- 4 Lesbians and the nuclear family -- 5 Creating a family -- 6 Parenting -- 7 Family, kinship and support -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Select bibliography -- Index.

1. Introduction -- 2. Ecstatic Church—Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity in Australia—Antecedents, History, and Present Shape -- 3. A Happy Science—LGBTQ+ Sexuality and Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity -- 4. Perfection and Anxiety: Theological and Scriptural foundations of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christian attitudes to LGBTQ+ -- 5. The Battleground: discursive conflict between LGBTQ+ people and Pentecostal-Charismatic Churches for LGBTQ+ people in Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity. 6 -- Turbulent Waters—Australian Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity and Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Change Efforts -- 7. Attempted Integrations—LGBTQ+ Christians who remained in PCC Churches -- 8. Counter-Rejections—LGBTQ+ people leaving Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity -- 9. "Born wrong" Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity and 'Troubling Bodies' -- 10. Conclusion.