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"This title was first published in 2001: In this compelling work, Matthew Flinders examines how far alternative forms of accountability have evolved and the extent to which they remedy the current shortcomings of the parliamentary system. Adopting a pluralistic perspective, this exploration of the accountability of the core executive is clearly grounded in research methodology, thus ensuring the book makes a valid, incisive contribution to the literature. Features include: - A detailed study of the location of power and mechanisms of accountability in modern government which challenges the largely prosaic existing literature - Useful summaries of the key tensions and trends within constitutional infrastructure - A new and refreshing approach to the study of central government - Insightful critiques of major governmental policies This intriguing volume will be of interest to undergraduates, post-graduates and lecturers for courses on legislative studies, central government reform, public administration, British politics and research methods."--Provided by publisher.

If the twentieth century witnessed the triumph of democracy then something appears to have gone seriously wrong. Citizens around the world have become distrustful of politicians, sceptical about democratic institutions, and disillusioned about the capacity of democratic politics to resolve pressing social concerns. Defending Politics meets this contemporary pessimism about the political process head on. Matthew Flinders makes a highly unfashionable butincredibly important argument of almost primitive simplicity: democratic politics delivers far more than most members of the public appear to acknowledge and understand. In rejecting fashionable fears about the 'end of politics', this book provides a fresh, provocative, and above all optimistic view of theachievements and future potential of democratic politics.

Background:This comment piece responds to points raised by Steve Johnson in 'The policy impact of entrepreneurship research: challenging received wisdom' (Johnson, 2022).
Aims and objectives:To build upon the intellectual foundations that Johnson has provided so expertly and to continue the debate through a focus on two issues – problem definition, and the need for continuing criticality.
Methods:Commentary.
Findings: Johnson stimulates a debate not just about the past, present and future of entrepreneurship research but about the science-society nexus more generally.
Discussion and conclusion:Taken together, the issues of problem definition, and the need for continuing criticality, highlight 'the politics of policy impact' and have direct implications for how academics, in general, and entrepreneurship researchers, in particular, face the emerging research, innovation and development ecosystem.

Robert Putman's The Upswing (written with Shaylyn Romney Garrett) provides a powerful meta-analysis of American social, political, economic and cultural change throughout the twentieth century. What this analysis reveals is the existence of an almost perfect arc of social progress which begins from a low position around the Gilded Age at the beginning of the twentieth century and then climbs across all variables until reaching a highpoint around 1960. The Progressive Era, Putnam argues, engineered an 'upswing' against inequality, polarisation, social disarray and a culture of self-centredness. Since then, however, the data suggest that a severe downswing has occurred which explains the existence of deep divisions and polarised politics in the United States. Putnam's core argument is simple: The United States has pulled itself out of a trough before and it can do it again. In a post-Trump context, this argument could hardly be more welcome which may explain the rave reviews this book has generally received. Nevertheless, the core weakness of The Upswing is that it arguably tells us far more about how the United States 'came together a century ago' but far less about how it 'can do it again' in the future.

This article explores the relationship between crises and democracy through a focus on the unfolding coronavirus pandemic. Its central argument is that to interpret the current pandemic purely in terms of its epidemiology and public health implications risks overlooking its potentially more significant socio-political consequences. This is because the challenges posed by the coronavirus crisis have themselves become overlaid or layered-upon a pre-existing set of concerns regarding the performance, efficiency and capacity of democratic political structures. The aim of this article is to try and understand and warn against what might be termed a rather odd form of cross-contamination whereby the cynicism, negativity and frustration concerning politicians, political processes and political institutions that existed before the coronavirus outbreak is allowed to direct, define and automatically devalue how democratic structures are subsequently judged in terms of how they responded to the challenge. As such, this article focuses on the link between the Coronavirus crisis and the democratic crisis; or, more precisely, the risk that the Coronavirus crisis may mutate into and fuel a broader crisis of democracy.

This article seeks to explore and emphasise the role of emotions as a key variable in terms of understanding both the rise of anti-political sentiment and its manifestation in forms of ethno-populism. It argues that the changing emotional landscape has generally been overlooked in analyses that seek to comprehend contemporary social and political change. This argument matters, not only due to the manner in which it challenges dominant interpretations of the populist signal but also because it poses more basic questions about the limits of knowledge and evidential claims in an increasingly polarised, fractious and emotive contemporary context. The core argument concerning the existence of an emotional disconnection and why 'feelings trump facts' is therefore as significant for social and political scientists as it is for politicians and policy makers.