Using the Internet for Political Research (POL9RM 30.4.13)

Since I am giving a lecture on using the internet for political research (for POL9RM), it seems appropriate to upload it to your actual internet. This is, depending on how you view these things, either an excessively long or good-value blog. We might settle on ‘generous’.

The lecture will be split into two basic issues:

1. What type of information should you seek, and from where?

2. What are the best (or, at least, most used) tools to use to source that information?

Types of Information

Before we examine how best to use the internet for political research, we should consider why you (as a former first year student) may have been advised *not* to rely on the internet to produce essays. Why would there be such an objection to using freely available information produced by such a wide range of people? Why, perhaps, would people criticise you for favouring the democratic, as opposed to the elite, production of knowledge? The answer is not that your older lecturers – who still remember the days of punch cards, rolodexes, hard copy journals and the need to speak to someone about borrowing books – resent the fact that you can get information so quickly without going to a library or even leaving your home. It is also not a form of group closure, in which we protect and promote our own people, methods and types of information.  It is not that lecturers associate undergraduate student internet research with a small bunch of people copy-and-pasting from Wikipedia into their essays (although this does happen, sometimes).

The more important explanation is that, in a world where the amount of information seems infinite, it may be increasingly difficult to identify the information to which we should pay most or least attention.  We need to identify some sort of hierarchy of important and/ or reliable information. This is a skill like any other. Your successful development of this skill will be reflected in your grades, since it will relate to the willingness of your essay markers to accept the information you present, according to the way in which you account for your information.

One way to address this issue is to consider why lecturers tend to treat books and/ or journal articles as the gold standard of information – at least as secondary sources, before you are expected to do your own research using primary sources such as government documents.

Possible answers (though not always useful answers) include:

1. They are peer reviewed. Lecturers may recommend journals that only allow publication after a number of relevant academics have commented on the work, often anonymously. The number of peer reviewers may vary from 1 to 6; in my experience an article is usually read by 2 or 3 anonymous reviewers. Their evaluation of journals may be linked partly to the reputations that some journals have in terms of academic rigour, linked to the need for scholars to anticipate and address critical reviews before having their work accepted.

2. They are competitive and much work is rejected. Some journals have an acceptance rate below 10%, which helps them develop an image of prestige and cutting edge research. (You can get a rough idea of acceptance rates in politics and IR here – http://www.reviewmyreview.eu/ ). Some people also put some faith in proxy measures of journal reputations, such as their ‘impact factors’ (although this is a problematic faith). It is also an increasing trend to evaluate the status of individual scholars according to the extent to which the publication is cited by other scholars (see below on Google scholar). Being well cited is a proxy used increasingly to gauge respect for the information.

3. They may be based on a long period of scholarly research. This varies from discipline to discipline. Consider, for example, the historical research produced over years after painstaking attention to thousands of documents.

4. The research may be theoretically informed. Being theoretically informed means being aware of the general implications of individual pieces of information. In part, this focus on theory is based on one role of scientific research: to draw lessons from sets of single cases to produce insights that may apply to many or all cases. A focus on theory is a focus on generalisation – something that is difficult to do if we rely only on information that is produced in very particular circumstances.

5. The research may be methodologically sophisticated. Most research is required to reach some sort of level of sophistication. For example, a quantitative survey requires a certain (large) number of responses to be considered statistically significant (in other words, for us to conclude that the results could not have happened by chance). It is then subject to a series of statistical techniques (which you may learn, using programmes such as SPSS) to explore the associations between variables. Qualitative research may be judged on different criteria, but there is a similar requirement that the conduct of the research meets certain professional criteria. The data may then be subject to further techniques to gauge its meaning and significance. It is often a condition of journal article acceptance that the scholars set out clearly their methods (and often provide a copy of the data for others to use).

6. The research may be empirically rich. Much research is based on surveys of thousands of people or qualitative interviews of dozens or hundreds. The data may be combined with documentary and historical analysis to produce a wealth of information. That information may be compared with information from other studies, to help accumulate knowledge within particular fields.

7. The authors may be meticulous when they identify the source of their information. One aim of the scholarly text is to show the reader where they got their information, to allow the reader to follow up, confirm and/ or read further. Most of you will have noticed the attention that we pay to your referencing style and bibliographies (hopefully most of us are looking for a consistent style rather than a particular style, although be suspicious of people who don’t agree that Harvard is best). This is because, when people make empirical or theoretical claims, the understanding is that they show us the information on which they based their claims (or, at least, they give us the option to follow up their work).

It is according to these kinds of criteria that we may judge other sources of information. In many cases, the information may be useful even if it does not live up to many or any of these criteria. For example, it is legitimate to use newspaper stories and commentary pieces, particularly if they provide much-needed timely information and the source is seen as reliable (indeed, although some newspapers now suffer poor reputations, we can still identify a tradition of fact/ source checking as a routine part of information gathering – partly, but not exclusively, because journalists are generally proud of their reputations and newspaper managers do not want to be sued). However, we would then have to consider the trade off against the academic ‘gold standard’ (is the information likely to be theoretically informed and based on a sophisticated method?) and consider the extent to which the trade is appropriate. In many cases, this just comes down to a mix of sources – student essays could benefit from immediate sources but those sources may not be an alternative to a more comprehensive review of the relevant literature.

However, this is not to say that academic information is unproblematic. We may be meticulous when we catalogue our sources of information, but that information may still be of varying value. For example, quantitative work may be limited by the availability of information provided by other actors (such as governments) and qualitative work may be limited by access to the right sources of information and simple things like the ability of interviewees to recall or provide an honest recollection of relevant information. The more difficult task, then, is to consider in more depth how people access and present information and how we might compare and critically analyse those sources to produce what we consider to be an accurate or valuable overall assessment of the available information.

Search Tools

We might divide that search broadly intro two categories: primary and secondary sources. I will a focus on Scottish politics to tailor the advice.

Secondary sources

The starting point for most students is likely to be a secondary source: you look through the existing academic literature for your information. Those texts analyse things like government documents, and you get your information about those documents indirectly, through a secondary source.

For me, the best way to start a search for secondary sources is to use Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.co.uk/). You enter a small number of search terms and it produces a list of materials to consult. Most Universities also have the ability (particularly if you search on campus) to link the article access directly to the search. Your results are likely to reflect your search terms. For example, a search for ‘Scottish politics’ reveals a list of general texts, while a search for referendums in Scotland produces more specific texts. They tend to be organised according to the extent to which they have been cited elsewhere (which often produces a tendency for older materials to be listed first).

A good rule of thumb is that you should use Scholar more as you progress in your studies. The ‘further reading’ section of a textbook, or list of readings in a course guide, is essential when you are an early undergraduate. When you become an advanced undergraduate, and start to plan to write a relatively independent piece of work, you are expected to do your own searches for the relevant literature. This will require you to think carefully about your research question and the keywords you will have to use to get the most out of the search. You may also need to think about the sources of offer from Google scholar. There is now a wide availability of journals and books, but how do you prioritise and/ or determine the quality of the information?

Primary Sources

An independent project will also prompt you to seek primary sources of information, including government and parliamentary sources. This requires a bit more thought, since you are unlikely to get useful information unless you have first thought about what your research problem is and how you intend to address it. In other words, you think about what you want to know, what are the most appropriate methods to get the right information, and *then* do these sorts of searches.

Government and parliamentary sources

It is quite amusing to look through the Burnham et al (2008) 2^nd edition of ‘Research Methods in Politics’ because it still talks about CD ROMS. These were growing in popularity when I was a student, but you may never have used a physical, round, disk to secure information (and may never have to). Instead, sources of government and parliamentary information tend to be available online directly from them (or, if you are that way inclined, through sites that claim to provide documents that governments don’t want you to see). For example the Scottish Government has a fairly extensive site (http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics) which allows you to search using key terms. This tends to be less straightforward than a Google Scholar search, forcing you to be much clearer in your mind about what sort of information you want (since you will have to be fairly specific in your search unless you want to sift through a tonne of information). Similarly, the Scottish Parliament (http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/) provides a written record of virtually anything that any MSP has said in a committee or plenary discussion since 1999, as well as a full record of written and oral evidence to committees. Again, there is too much information to browse, so you first need to think about what you want to know.

Newspapers

Lexis Nexis (which can be accessed through library resources) is a key archive of UK newspapers and can track the Scottish papers to some extent (it is OK for Scottish papers like the Scotsman, Herald, Daily Record and Press & Journal, but it does not store Scottish editions of the UK papers like the Daily Mail). The archive varies, with papers like The Times providing the longest stretches of data (the Scotsman has also begun to archive its really old material). Again, to make the search manageable (below, say, 1000 stories), you need to be very specific about what you want. For example, a search for Scotland AND referendum AND independence will produce thousands of stories which will take you days to get through (unless you focus on a short space of time).

Blogs

Blogs are a minefield. Consider the extent to which they meet the gold standard criteria I outlined above. Some of them might do, but how would you know? I would treat blogs in the way that I might treat newspapers: you might trust them if they have a good reputation (but, then, whose opinions do you trust on reputations?). You should also expect biased, and often highly biased, opinions. That means that they can be a good source of information, but you might ask yourself if you can rely on a blog on its own, or as something to be compared with one or more sources. Interestingly (for me at least), along with my co-author on the 2^nd ed of Scottish Politics, Neil McGarvey, I had to come up with a list of websites to check out. The idea is that they would be relatively useful, but is this list (below) particularly reliable? Or, are they simply the ones that came to mind at the time?

SCOTTISH POLITICS BLOGS

http://www.betternation.org/

http://brightgreenscotland.org/

http://underdogsbiteupwards.blogspot.com/

http://lallandspeatworrier.blogspot.com/

http://burdzeyeview.wordpress.com/

http://www.labourhame.com/

http://andrewrunning.blogspot.com/

http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/

http://www.scotgoespop.blogspot.com/

http://joanmcalpine.typepad.com/

http://www.gerryhassan.com/

http://iainmacwhirter2.blogspot.com/

http://albamatters.blogspot.com/

http://the-universality-of-cheese.blogspot.com/

http://theshooglypeg.com/

http://scotspolitics.com

http://wingsland.podgamer.com/meltdown-man/

 

Twitter and other things

I tend to use Twitter as an alternative to the TV, as an additional source of entertainment. However, it is possible to sign up to a wide range of news and party sites and to use twitter as an alternative to reading newspapers page by page. This provides you with a new source of bias, but perhaps no more problematic than sticking with a paper like the Daily Mail. You might even simply follow specific lists (such as academics on twitter) or, if you are feeling particularly lazy, just look at the list of people/ organisations I follow and piggyback on that.  There are things that are particularly useful, such as the LSE blog sites and accounts such as ‘Writing For Research’ which you might find more useful if you progress to postgraduate work.

And finally ..

Here is a list of websites that Neil and I produced for our book. It is likely to be a bit scattergun and biased (for example, we don’t list small party websites), and some will already be out of date, but there may be some sources there that you wouldn’t otherwise consider.

EXAMPLES OF POTENTIALLY USEFUL WEBSITES ON SCOTTISH POLITICS

(from the chapters of the forthcoming 2^nd ed. of ‘Scottish Politics’ by Paul Cairney and Neil McGarvey)

The idea here is that these websites might get you started if you don’t want to rely on a scattergun search engine search. It is not a particularly well-thought-out list, so be careful!

DEVOLUTION

Scottish Parliament http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/
Report of the Consultative Steering Group http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/PublicInformationdocuments/Report_of_the_Consultative_Steering_Group.pdf 
The Economic and Social Research Council ‘Devolution and Constitutional Change’ research programme http://www.devolution.ac.uk  and ‘The Future of the UK and Scotland’ http://www.esrc.ac.uk/about-esrc/what-we-do/our-research/future-of-uk-and-scotland/index.aspx  
University of London’s Constitution Unit http://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/    
UK Politics page http://www.ukpolitics.org.uk/

Paul Cairney’s Blog: http://paulcairney.blogspot.co.uk/

MEDIA
http://www.smg.plc.uk
http://www.allmediascotland.com  
http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/
http://www.theherald.co.uk/
http://www.scotsman.com
http://www.holyroodmag.com/
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/
http://www.scotlandonsunday.com/
http://www.sundayherald.com
http://www.thisisnorthscotland.co.uk

SCOTTISH ECONOMY

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Economy

http://www.scottisheconomywatch.com/

http://www.cppr.ac.uk/centres/cppr/analysisofthescottisheconomy/

http://www.strath.ac.uk/fraser/

SCOTTISH SOCIETY

http://www.scottishcivictrust.org.uk/

http://www.stuc.org.uk/

http://www.churchofscotland.org.uk

http://www.scmo.org/

http://www.eis.org.uk/

http://www.cosla.gov.uk/

http://www.sns.gov.uk/

POLITICAL PARTIES

Scottish Conservative Party http://www.scottish.tory.org.uk/  
Scottish Green Party http://www.scottishgreens.org.uk/ 
Scottish Labour Party http://www.scottishlabour.org.uk/ 
Scottish Liberal-Democrats http://www.scotlibdems.org.uk/
Scottish National Party http://www.snp.org.uk

ELECTIONS

http://www.bcomm-scotland.independent.gov.uk/   
http://www.votescotland.com
http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/scotland
http://www.fairvote.org
http://www.yougov.com
http://www.populuslimited.com  

http://www.crest.ox.ac.uk  

http://www.aboutmyvote.co.uk/

http://www.hansardsociety.org.uk/

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/category/scotland

http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/polls_scot.html

http://www.scottishelections.org.uk/

http://www7.politicalbetting.com

PARLIAMENT

Scottish Parliament http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/
Scottish Constitutional Convention http://www.almac.co.uk/business_park/scc/ 
Consultative Steering Group http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/PublicInformationdocuments/Report_of_the_Consultative_Steering_Group.pdf 
House of Commons http://www.parliament.uk/business/commons/  

 UCL Constitution Unit – http://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/

SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT

Scottish Government http://www.scotland.gov.uk/

Scotland Performs – http://www.scotland.gov.uk/About/Performance/scotPerforms

UK Cabinet Office http://www.cabinet-office.gov.uk 
Scottish Ministerial Code http://www.scotland.gov.uk/About/14944/684 

 GOVERNMENT BEYOND THE CENTRE

http://www.scottishhousingregulator.gov.uk/
http://www.creativescotland.com/
http://www.visitscotland.com/
http://www.scottish-enterprise.com/ 
http://www.cosla.gov.uk

http://www.improvementservice.org.uk/
http://www.show.scot.nhs.uk 
http://www.scvo.org.uk 

http://www.scottishfuturestrust.org.uk

INTEREST GROUPS

Convention of Scottish Local Authorities http://www.cosla.gov.uk/  
Friends of the Earth Scotland  http://www.foe-scotland.org.uk/     
Scottish Council for Development and Industry http://www.scdi.org.uk/
Scottish Trades Union Congress http://www.stuc.org.uk/
CBI Scotland http://www.cbi.org.uk/about-the-cbi/uk/scotland/
Scottish Council for Voluntary Organizations http://www.scvo.org.uk/ 

NFU Scotland – http://www.nfus.org.uk/

Scotch Whisky Association – http://www.scotch-whisky.org.uk/

ASH Scotland – http://www.ashscotland.org.uk/

Educational Institute of Scotland – http://www.eis.org.uk/

SCOTTISH PUBLIC POLICY

ScotHub  http://www.scothub.org/

Centre for Scottish Public Policy http://www.cspp.org.uk  
Centre for Public Policy for Regions http://www.cppr.ac.uk

For SPICe summaries of all Scottish Government bills see http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/Bills/12417.aspx

INTERGOVERNMENTAL ISSUES

Alan Trench http://devolutionmatters.wordpress.com 

Cabinet Office http://www.cabinet-office.gov.uk/
Scotland Office http://www.scottishsecretary.gov.uk/
Scotland Europa http://www.scotlandeuropa.com
Government EU Office http://www.scotland.gov.uk/euoffice
British/Irish Council http://www1.british-irishcouncil.org

UK Supreme Court – http://www.supremecourt.gov.uk/index.html

McKay Commission http://tmc.independent.gov.uk/

Lallands Peat Worrier http://lallandspeatworrier.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/baccymongers-bankers-supremes.html

FINANCE

UK National Statistics http://www.statistics.gov.uk/hub/index.html

Her Majesty’s Treasury http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/

Scottish Government http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Economy
Scottish Parliament http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/17534.aspx

Improvement Service (http://www.improvementservice.org.uk/

CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES

Scotland Act 2012 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2012/11/pdfs/ukpga_20120011_en.pdf 

Scotland Act 2012 Sewel Motion – Scottish Parliament Official Report 18.4.12 http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28862.aspx?r=6972 

Scotland Bill committee final report http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/PreviousCommittees/29884.aspx

Calman Commission – http://www.commissiononscottishdevolution.org.uk/

National Conversation – http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/constitution/a-national-conversation

Steel Commission – http://www.scotlibdems.org.uk/files/steelcommission.pdf

Scotland Office – https://www.gov.uk/government/news/factual-analysis-promised-as-legal-implications-of-scottish-independence-made-clear

Scottish Government – http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2013/02/8079

Scottish Government’s Council of Economic Advisers Fiscal Commission Working Group – http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Economy/Council-Economic-Advisers/FCWG

Alan Trench – http://devolutionmatters.wordpress.com/

Lallands Peat Worrier – http://lallandspeatworrier.blogspot.co.uk/

ScottishPol – http://scottishpol.blogspot.co.uk/

BBC – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/scotland/scotland_politics/ 

Newsnet Scotland – http://www.newsnetscotland.com/index.php/scottish-opinion/4341-a-unionist-lexicon-an-a-z-of-unionist-scare-stories-myths-and-misinformation

Scots Independent – http://www.scotsindependent.org/index.htm

Constitution Unit – http://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/

Edinburgh University Blog – http://www.referendum.ed.ac.uk/

Scottish Constitutional Futures Forum – http://www.scottishconstitutionalfutures.org/Home/tabid/1269/Default.aspx

ESRC – http://www.esrc.ac.uk/about-esrc/what-we-do/our-research/future-of-uk-and-scotland/index.aspx

 

AND FINALLY again

Maybe you have read this far to see what we can say about Wikipedia. My view is that I am sometimes pleasantly surprised about what I see on some of those pages. However, you will find very few academics that will trust your information if your source is Wikipedia (partly because it is difficult to know who is providing the information, how they got it, how well they cite that information, and how easy the information is to edit and manipulate). Maybe a good rule of thumb is that you look at it for a short cut to information, but that you do not rely on it as your definitive source.

Brian Adam

There is a well written obituary of Brian Adam here – http://local.stv.tv/aberdeen/news/222852-brian-adams-death-at-just-64-robs-scottish-politics-of-a-much-admired-man/

I would like to add that he was very helpful to my students during my time at Aberdeen (as were people like Richard Baker and Alex Johnstone). He was the sort of MSP who would always offer his services to give informal lectures, either at the University or in Holyrood. He would do so even when he knew he should be elsewhere (such as in the chamber to vote or persuade others to vote the right way).  He was refreshingly frank about the details of things like whipping, in a no nonsense, not particularly careful way. I think that students really appreciated it. He also gave about 8 of my students (as many as could cram into the lift) a decent story, by telling me that an article I wrote, about the SNP, in Holyrood Magazine, was “guff” before reminding me to get out of my ivory tower. It may have been a little bit uncomfortable at the time, but I bet that a lot of people will have a little giggle as they remember that sort of exchange with Brian.

3 blogs on Thatcherism for the price of 1

To make up for missing the instant-reaction-to-Thatcher boat, I have written three short blogs on the subject:

1. Why was Thatcherism relatively unpopular in Scotland?
This one is fairly self explanatory

2. Thatcherism and the Idea of Policy Imposition.
It suggests that the myth of Thatcherite top-down policymaking is exaggerated (see also Thatcher’s letter)

3. The Unintended Consequences of Thatcherite Policies
Nevertheless, Thatcherite policies often had profound effects and unintended consequences.

The Unintended Consequences of Thatcherite Policies

I suggest in this blog that we should not exaggerate the effect of Thatcherism on UK policymaking. Yet, Thatcherite policies often still had a profound impact, often in areas we might least expect. The same article in 2002 (here) outlines the start of National Health Service reforms that may now be taken for granted in England, including: (1) quasi-markets to allocate resources (the purchaser provider split, with health authorities and GP fundholding surgeries often buying the services of hospitals); and (2) the assertion of management hierarchies, with NHS managers challenging the traditional authority of doctors.  

It then shows the unintended consequence of those reforms in a pre-devolved Scotland. Scotland is a ‘best case’ in this regard because we might expect NHS reforms to be implemented in a less extreme way (Scottish Offices were given more time and discretion to implement). Yet, the effect of a ‘power shift’ from providers to purchasers had quite the profound effect on the way that health services were delivered, in an area (HIV/ AIDS policy) previously characterised as distinctively Scottish and often quite removed from UK Government involvement.

Thatcherism and the Idea of Policy Imposition

I was one of many PhD students to do a thesis on the (then) sexy topics of Thatcherism and ‘policy networks’. My first proper academic publication was about Thatcherism (here) and the idea that Conservative governments used a ‘top down’ policy style with no time for arguments within government or consultation with affected interests.  This line may be seen as exaggerated for the following reasons:

1. All ministers or governments only have the time to pay attention to a small number of issues for which they are responsible. So, they may try to impose new policies in some areas but leave most untouched.

2. Ministers delegate responsibility for most policymaking to civil servants, who engage in the sort of consultation that some ministers reject.

The article then shows how this process worked in UK health policy, identifying a top-down internalised process (led by Thatcher) to reform healthcare, followed by a much wider process of policy formulation in the Department of Health under Kenneth Clarke and much greater consultation under his successor William Waldegrave. It suggests that internalisation tends to fail because policymakers need information from (often a wide range of) groups, while policy imposition may only go so far before bruiser-style ministers leave their posts to be replaced by ambassadorial figures who take a more conciliatory approach to the longer process of policy implementation. This is not to say that policy does not change (it often changes radically) but that we should not exaggerate the overall effect of any government. In this regard, the Thatcherite reputation is based partly on a myth that cannot be sustained logically.

By lucky chance (or because I have not changed my views in over a decade), I make a similar argument in more recent articles such as this one, this one, this one and, most recently, this one with Grant Jordan. Some of them are free this month, but please let me know if you want an emailed copy.

Why was Thatcherism relatively unpopular in Scotland?

Discussions of Scottish constitutional change and Thatcherism generally go hand-in-hand for at least three reasons:

1. It contributed to the old argument in the 1990s that Scottish devolution represented “unfinished business”, and that a Scottish assembly in 1979 could have “defended Scotland from Thatcherism” (McCrone and Lewis, 1999: 17) (whether or not this argument is true is discussed here in the context of the current independence debate)

2. “Not identifying with the Conservatives” was more important to support for devolution than identification with parties like the SNP (Mitchell and Bennie, 1996: 101). 

3. Conservative rule from 1979-97 (and 1970-4) symbolised the ‘democratic deficit’ in Scotland – it voted for Labour but received a Conservative Government.

The aim of this blog is to clarify what Thatcherism often means and how different aspects of Thatcherism may be relatively unpopular in Scotland (these points are discussed at greater length in Mitchell and Bennie, 1996):

• Thatcherism as personality.  Thatcher herself was fairly unpopular in Scotland and “perceived to be English and anti-Scottish”. For example, in 1989, 77% thought that Thatcher treated “the Scots as second-class citizens” (1996: 96-7). Yet, the removal of Thatcher as Prime Minister did not lead to a revival of Conservative popularity in Scotland (or even stop their growing unpopularity).
• Thatcherism as British Nationalism (putting the Great back into Great Britain) – this proved to be not a good strategy in a country which demonstrates much higher levels of Scottish rather than British national identity.
• Thatcherism as a ‘two nations’ electoral strategy. This involved focusing on core areas of support (including the south east of England) and accepting defeat in others (including Scotland).
• Thatcherism as new right ideology. This may have had more of an effect in Scotland which often displayed a (not always markedly) greater tendency to support the role of the public sector (partly because things like public sector employment and welfare payments were often higher in Scotland) and to oppose privatisation (selling off nationalised industries, forcing the sale of council houses (there were more in Scotland), introducing charges for services, introducing quasi-markets and private sector methods in government). In fact, many of these initiatives (such as the NHS internal market) were part-reversed by successive Scottish governments following devolution.
• Thatcherism as economic reform. The idea that Thatcher-led governments were willing to pursue policies that accepted higher unemployment and opposed subsidising major industries did not go down well in ‘the North’ as a whole and Scotland in particular.
• Thatcherism as centralisation – treating the UK as a unitary state (with unambiguous central government control and administrative standardization) rather than a union state (with some preservation of Scottish governmental and institutional autonomy).
• Thatcherism as ‘assimilation’. There is a long history of Scottish nationalism linked to the idea that the UK Government is trying to introduce UK-wide policies that do not recognise Scottish traditions. A great old and modern example is Scottish education reform in the late 19^th century and the 1990s under Michael Forsyth.
• Thatcherism as the poll tax. Much of the opposition was general (i.e. it was not popular in many parts of the UK) and much related to the idea that the policy was first imposed in Scotland which was used as a ‘guinea pig’ for UK initiatives (the latter is questioned by Alex Massie ).
• Thatcherism as a challenge to ‘social democratic consensus’. A lot of the Scottish ‘new politics’ rhetoric in the 1990s, in the lead up to devolution and political reform, related to the idea that Scotland had a more collectivist and participative political tradition that had to be protected during the Conservative years.  

Further old-school reading

Marsh, D. and Rhodes, R.A.W. (eds.) (1992) Implementing Thatcherite policies: audit of an era (Buckingham: Open University Press)

McCrone, D. and Lewis, B. (1999) ‘The 1997 Scottish referendum vote’ in B. Taylor and K. Thompson Scotland and Wales: Nations Again? (Cardiff: University of Wales Press)

McGarvey, N. and Cairney, P. (2008) Scottish Politics (Basingstoke: Palgrave) – a 2^nd edition is out in September 2013.

Mitchell, J. and Bennie, L. (1996) ‘Thatcherism and the Scottish Question’, in C. Railings et al. (eds.) British Elections and Parties Yearbook 1995, pp.90-104 (London: Frank Cass)

 

In the future, SNP policy may not be Scottish Government policy

This is a very short, cut-out-and-keep blog to use when people confuse SNP policy with Scottish Government policy. Currently, they can be treated as the same. In an independent Scotland, the SNP would be one of many viable parties (even if it does not seem like that just now). Use it for examples such as:

• Defence. The SNP has its views on Trident , but it would be possible for an independent Scottish Government to choose to keep the infrastructure in Scotland.
• Welfare. The SNP has its views on the ‘bedroom tax’ and other interesting UK Government initiatives, but it would be possible for an independent Scottish Government to dismantle the welfare state.
• Taxation. The SNP has its views on cutting some taxes, but this is open terrain. Scotland could be a low-tax-low-public-provision state or a high-tax-high-public-provision state. It could redistribute income or contribute to growing inequalities.

In my view, the debate should focus more on this issue (what level or type of government should be responsible for X, Y and Z?) and less on this issue (what would the immediate short term effects of a yes vote be, given what we know right now about the policies and popularity of the main parties?).

Gender and Getting Ahead in Academia

Summary: a blog in which I, an increasingly privileged, white, male Professor in the UK, give advice on how to get ahead in a profession that may have already changed since I started. My advice is to be lucky and/ or work until you are ill and alienate your family.

Two panel discussions at the UK Political Studies Association conference 2013 perhaps showed a great and enduring gender divide within the profession. One, focused directly on equality and diversity, largely discussed the barriers that women face when trying to combine a research-active career with taking primary responsibility for raising a family (there was also a man on the panel, discussing issues such as paternity leave and sleep deprivation (*and other things – I only walked in at the end of the session*). Another, focused on impact, saw a successful male professor advise people to follow their interests, only to be reminded by a female colleague that not everyone is in the position to take this advice (to be fair to him, he was answering my question and I am in that position). There is also the wider context of (a) the current REF mania which prompts many University managers to spend their money on high status professors, leaving little money to give permanent contracts to potential lecturers at the other end of the scale; (b) a continued gender and ethnic imbalance in professions like political science, where the profs tend to be white men; and (c) a general sense, often expressed in magazines such as the THE, that the people most likely to succeed in academic life are married men with families. I don’t have the evidence for (c) (but see this on the US), but it is the thing I on which I can comment most, so let’s proceed on the conditional basis (if it is true, what can I say?).

In this context, it may be difficult for me to give general advice that is applicable to most. I could give the excellent but frustrating advice – publish a tonne of books and articles in a very short space of time and generate millions of pounds in research income – but really the question is: how do you do it? Instead, I will raise some issues about being a relatively successful male academic and you can decide if you can, and want to, copy me. The best advice is to recognise that there will always be an element of luck to success, and that success may produce rotten unintended consequences.

1. Mentoring and Support.

I was championed by a large number of academics and almost all of them were white male professors. There are key points in my career trajectory that were influenced by decisions made by other people – to identify my UG potential, to employ me to fund my MSc, to push for my PhD scholarship, to supervise me well, to employ me as a research assistant after PhD graduation, to give me research jobs and to recommend me for a lectureship (and promotions). I guess you either have that support or you don’t. It is difficult to generate yourself.

2. Research, not Teaching.

There was a 5-year gap between the end of my PhD and the start of my lecturing career in 2004. This seemed, at the time, to be a lengthy gap, but not anymore. I spent the majority of that time in full and part time research posts (which cushioned a brief spell in which I thought I might become a full time parent). I now look back on that time as part-wasted because I arsed around too much. However, when I started to take things more seriously, I produced five or six decent articles in that period. This level of output, in journals rated by short-listers like me, is now almost mandatory for people looking for their first lectureship. So, if you are lucky enough to choose, choose a research, not a teaching intensive post. If you have the right sort of employers, they will encourage and help you to publish. In my experience, good teaching feedback is still an added bonus on your CV. The short-listing eyes still scan the CV for the publications (and, for me, published outputs still trump funding inputs).

3. Work Until You Make Yourself Ill.

I *now* tell myself not to work at nights or weekends and I normally take my advice (bar checking email, blogging and twitter because you can convince yourself that it is partly social and it helps you clear the decks for proper work the next morning). Indeed, I am increasingly convinced that my writing has improved after I have taken the time to get more exercise, enjoy family life and watch more TV. However, I did not take that advice when I was climbing the greasy pole. My promotion from lecturer to professor was really based on six years of intense research and writing (2006-12), in which I worked very long days and weekends. My favourite trick was to leave all of the urgent work until the last minute, so that I could write up to the wire, then be forced to do the other work to deadline. My best effort involved leaving the marking of 100+ essays until Christmas Eve, marking them on the sly around Christmas, working too much in the dark and becoming suitably ill a few days later. This took place before a family holiday to Florida, funded by my share of my dad’s will. I spent the first Disney day in bed swigging Nyquil while everyone else spent the day in the sun eating sweets.

4. Work Until You Alienate Your Family (if you have one – see (c) above)

The thing that people don’t tell men (much) is that, although you may have the time and space to work long hours and go on international conferences (the key to promotion and those big money moves), it comes at a cost to your family life and relationships. Looking after a family involves an unpredictable mix of stress, boredom and brilliance. I am increasingly convinced that you have to put in the stressful and boring hours to get the brilliance. Only occasionally can you nip in and see something brilliant your child has done. Perhaps more importantly, I know that my children don’t confide in me in the way that they confide in my partner. I am resigned to knowing that my partner will hear about any major event in our children’s lives before me (unless I get lucky). There is the rub – you get to be the brilliant academic but not the brilliant parent. Or, there is a clear trade off between the two. You can’t have it all.

5. Work Until You Alienate Your Partner.

I won’t say anything about my partner that she hasn’t put on the web (*UPDATE – I have removed the link to L’s website on her request*). All I will say is that, when things were bad, and my partner needed me at home, to help her deal with what she describes as “amazingly impressive post natal depression”, I was still trying to work out how to complete my research in London and Cardiff (mid-2000s, when my career was taking off). My selfishness often knew no bounds.  When I became more sensible, I learned two important lessons that could be more transferable than a lot of this blog: (i) phone interviews are not always the poor relation to face-to-face. I was surprised at how effective these things could be. (ii) When you have immense caring responsibilities, and very little time to work, you learn how to work in incredibly intense bursts. Indeed, the article of which I am most proud is in Regional and Federal Studies (2006), not so much because of the subject or journal, but because I completed the revise-and-resubmit over 5 nights, one hour per night, when everyone else was in bed. I then learned, more sensibly still, that one hour of work in the very early morning (6am seems doable) equals two or three hours during the day. It is more difficult to skive and check social media when you have gotten up early to do proper work. My recommendation, to maximise your promotion chances, is to keep this up until you have a Road-to-Damascus moment and realise how ridiculous and damaging it is. Hopefully, by that time, you will have been promoted.

6. Be Instrumental.

I am obsessed with every number out there, including my h, my m, my Klout score, and the number of hits on my blog. However, perhaps my best move was becoming a role analyst (the person who scores promotion applications according to UK-wide criteria) because it allowed me to work out (i) exactly what the criteria for promotion were; and (ii) what people say about each other on promotions panels (although some of it is predicable – being a good citizen may tip the balance, but is no substitute for a research record).

7. Publish Often – It is More of a Skill than a Craft.

Most people that I respect – and whose advice I seek and try to follow – tell me to slow down and focus more on quality rather than quantity. I would not give that advice, for two reasons. First, in my experience, a long CV with loads of publications has a bewitching effect on selectors and promoters (as long as it is not puffed up with book proposals under consideration and articles in preparation). Second, I agree with the argument that quality can result from quantity; that writing is a skill and constant writing/ publishing allows you to hone that skill (see http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/archives/28818).

8. Publish in Packages.

It is now common advice to treat publishing in terms of communication packages – the same research may produce articles, blogs, news stories and other forms of communication. To that list, I would like to add the textbook. My best work has surrounded the production of textbooks. Scottish Politics (with Neil McGarvey) was based on, and inspired, several articles. Understanding Public Policy forced me to get on top of the policy literature, allowed me to write several theoretical articles and underpinned my monograph (with Donley Studlar and Hadii Mamudu) on Global Tobacco Control. Some people are snobby about textbooks, and you certainly should not write one if you don’t yet have a permanent lectureship. However, UPP remains (in my opinion) my best work. It also allows me to communicate with people whose first language is not English (if you ever meet me, ask to see my photo of a Japanese colleague’s notes on my book) or political science (such as colleagues in physics or psychology, who may want to collaborate but don’t know the jargon).

9. Don’t take too much advice from apparently successful colleagues.

People who are doing well may not know why they have done well. They may give contradictory or silly advice. As ever, accept the advice you agree with, and reject the advice you don’t like.

[Update – I forgot one.

10. Annoy your colleagues.

One point that stuck with me at the PSA talk was the advice to women to not feel tied to their offices; to emulate high profile men whose absences are tolerated because the assumption is that they are off doing research or at conferences. I think this is terrific advice if you are in the position to follow it. I used to be described by former colleagues as a ghost-like figure and people would make digs about not seeing me very often. However, it allowed me to be productive while working at home (which, when school is out, often requires me to wear ear muffs to block out the noise until 5pm). I then made sure that I was highly visible while in my office (and that I answered anyone’s emails remarkably quickly). The unintended consequence is that students will turn up at your door unannounced. Then, when they don’t find you, they will knock on the next available door and expect advice from that person. This outcome can create considerable resentment if you don’t deal with it well – which is why I became such a gunslinger emailist (although other descriptions and solutions may be available). However, in my experience, it is nothing compared to the ill-directed, implicit or explicit, resentment that people have for colleagues on maternity leave in Universities that don’t provide resources to cover the absence. That is an issue on which I can only report; not give any meaningful advice]

[Update 5.4.13 How could I forget this one? It’s often the most important

11. Develop a Thick Skin.

The process of seeking article publication and grant income is often immensely dispiriting. Indeed, I have seen one or two people stumble in their careers because they are no longer willing to subject themselves to the often-harsh (and generally anonymous) criticism from their peers. For most, the criticisms and the mix of acceptance, revision and rejection is a regular part of professional life. It does not stop when you reach a particular status in the profession either (perhaps unless you are subverting the process and schmoozing editors on the sly, but few people have that ability). Indeed, my respect for my former Head of School, Steve Bruce, rose further when he sent round an email telling colleagues that he had just received a straight rejection from Sociology.  If you can put up with the criticism, it is worth aiming high for each article submission. If you then get a ‘major revision’ or other ‘revise and resubmit’, you have done well (a straight acceptance with minor revisions is uncommon). If you get a rejection, you can use the comments to make a stronger article to send elsewhere. My experience has been a mix of satisfying acceptances, rotten rejections and somewhere in between. For example, one of my highest status articles (in JEPP) was an acceptance after R&R. One of the articles that gives me the most satisfaction (in PSJ) followed the same positive-criticism process, but after a desktop rejection from Political Studies (largely my fault – I was playing the game instead of seeking the best fit). One article I have in Parliamentary Affairs was made stronger after an initial rejection, with comments, from the BJPS.]

See also: Journal Article Acceptance After 5 Rejections and 18+ months