Suchergebnisse

Pressures have increasingly been put upon social scientists to prove their economic, cultural and social value through 'impact agendas' in higher education. There has been little conceptual and empirical discussion of the challenges involved in achieving impact and the dangers of evaluating it, however. This article argues that a realist approach to social science can help to identify some of these key challenges and the institutional incompatibilities between impact regimes and university research in free societies. These incompatibilities are brought out through an autobiographical 'insider account' of trying to achieve impact in the field of electoral integrity in Britain. The article argues that there is a more complex relationship between research and the real world which means that the nature of knowledge might change as it becomes known by reflexive agents. Secondly, the researchers are joined into social relations with a variety of actors, including those who might be the object of study in their research. Researchers are often weakly positioned in these relations. Some forms of impact, such as achieving policy change, are therefore exceptionally difficult as they are dependent on other actors. Strategies for trying to achieve impact are drawn out such as collaborating with civil society groups and parliamentarians to lobby for policy change.

After a review of the rival approaches that are used to evaluate public sector
performance in general, five dimensions of EMB performance are set out which
are argued to be crucial for achieving democratic ideals in an electoral democracy.
The aim is to set out these dimensions, and the sources of data that can be
used by researchers to assess whether they are achieved. The UK and Canada
are then assessed against the framework so that the utility of the model becomes
clear. The concepts and framework also act as founding principles for the remainder
of the book.

In the immediate aftermath of the 2007 Kenyan Presidential election, the country
entered into a political, economic and humanitarian crisis. Post-election violence
erupted leading to estimates of over 1,000 people being killed by police, criminal
gangs and militia groups, and 660,000 displacements, as opponents of President Mwai
Kibaki alleged electoral manipulation (CBS News 2008; Kenny 2019). Tensions
were deeply rooted in Kenya's political history.

"This book offers the first comparative monograph on the management of elections. The book defines electoral management as a new, inter-disciplinary area and advances a realist sociological approach to study it. A series of new, original frameworks are introduced, including the PROSeS framework which can be used by academics and practitioners around the world to evaluate electoral management quality. A networked governance approach is also introduced to understand the full range of collaborative actors involved in delivering elections, including civil society and the international community. Finally, the book evaluates some of the policy instruments used to improve the integrity of elections, including voter registration reform, training and the funding of elections. Extensive mixed methods are used throughout including thematic analysis of interviews, ethnography, comparative historical analysis; and, cross-national and national surveys of electoral officials. This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners interested and involved in electoral integrity and elections, and more broadly to comparative politics, public administration, international relations and democracy studies"--

Election administration and electoral studies: theories, frameworks and anomalies -- Election administration : a tool for political statecraft? -- The statecraft approach: bringing political elites back in -- "Stopping the vote": election administration in the USA -- "Modernising elections": election administration in Britain -- "Our silly aul pencils": election administration in Ireland -- Agendas, systems and processes: elite strategy and election -- Administration in comparative perspective -- Conclusions and lessons for theorists and constitutional designers

What effect did Donald Trump have within and beyond America? This article assesses the policy impact of the President using the new layered framework for understanding the impact of political leaders, which considers their effect on the connected layers of societal structures, political institutions and policy. Firstly, the article extends the framework with a new typology of change. Secondly, it draws from the empirical articles in this volume to map his effects under the new typology and the layered approach. Trump is found to have largely acted as an accelerant for already existing causal processes in society, rather than providing a radical break with past politics in many areas. By undermining democratic institutions and encouraging hyper-partisanship within political institutions, for example, he was strengthening prevailing causal forces rather than constructing new forces. However, there were some more substantial effects such as the reversal of progress towards racial equality. In the layer of policy, he crucially failed to slow or reverse destructive pressures on the economy and public health or even fulfil major campaign promises on healthcare. Overall, Trump illustrates neither the strength nor weakness of the office of presidency, but instead the dangers of poor political leadership to citizens in America and beyond, especially in times of crisis.

Building better elections is a central task for the study of democracy and democratisation. Despite this, there have been no cross-national studies on the staff who manage and implement elections: electoral management body (EMB) workforces. This article provides the first macroscopic worldwide picture of workforce characteristics, human resource management practices and employee outcomes, and analyses the effects they have on electoral integrity, based on original international surveys of electoral management bodies (EMBs) ( n = 51) and electoral officials ( n = 2029). Drawing from the human resource management literature, a framework is developed to explain how these factors might interact with EMB performance. Analysis demonstrates them to be highly related. Adding data on human resource management practices and employee outcomes improves explanatory models designed to predict the performance of EMBs. Chiefly, EMBs that enable greater opportunities for employees to be involved in decision-making processes perform better. Recruitment practices, job satisfaction and levels of stress are also important.

Building better elections is a central task for the study of democracy and democratisation. Despite this, there have been no cross-national studies on the staff who manage and implement elections: electoral management body (EMB) workforces. This article provides the first macroscopic worldwide picture of workforce characteristics, human resource management practices and employee outcomes, and analyses the effects they have on electoral integrity, based on original international surveys of electoral management bodies (EMBs) (n = 51) and electoral officials (n = 2029). Drawing from the human resource management literature, a framework is developed to explain how these factors might interact with EMB performance. Analysis demonstrates them to be highly related. Adding data on human resource management practices and employee outcomes improves explanatory models designed to predict the performance of EMBs. Chiefly, EMBs that enable greater opportunities for employees to be involved in decision-making processes perform better. Recruitment practices, job satisfaction and levels of stress are also important.

This book offers the first comparative monograph on the management of elections. The book defines electoral management as a new, inter-disciplinary area and advances a realist sociological approach to study it. A series of new, original frameworks are introduced, including the PROSeS framework, which can be used by academics and practitioners around the world to evaluate electoral management quality. A networked governance approach is also introduced to understand the full range of collaborative actors involved in delivering elections, including civil society and the international community. Finally, the book evaluates some of the policy instruments used to improve the integrity of elections, including voter registration reform, training and the funding of elections. Extensive mixed methods are used throughout including thematic analysis of interviews, (auto-)ethnography, comparative historical analysis and, cross-national and national surveys of electoral officials. This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners interested and involved in electoral integrity and elections, and more broadly to comparative politics, public administration, international relations and democracy studies.

How should prime ministerial and party leadership be understood and assessed? One leading approach posits that we should assess them in terms of whether they achieve statecraft, that is, winning and maintain office in government. This article supplements and then assesses that theory by drawing from Pawson and Tilley's concept of the realistic interview, in which practitioners are deployed as co-researchers to assess and revise theory. Unprecedented interviews with British party leaders were therefore undertaken. The article provides new empirical support for the framework because many of the key generative mechanisms identified within the neo-statecraft model were present in an analysis of the interviews. The interviews also allowed the limitations of the model to be demarcated. Statecraft focuses purely on cunning leadership where the aim is to maximise power and influence. This approach differs from leadership by conscience where the aim is to achieve normative goals.