School of Social and Political Sciences - Research Publications
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ItemEthical moments and institutional expertise in UK Government COVID-19 pandemic policy responses: where, when and how is ethical advice sought?(Bristol University Press, 2023-05-01)Background: The emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic has required a rapid acceleration of policy decision making, and raised a wide range of ethical issues worldwide, ranging from vaccine prioritisation, welfare and public health ‘trade-offs’, inequalities in policy impacts, and the legitimacy of scientific expertise. Aims and objectives: This paper explores the legacy of the pandemic for future science-advice-policy relationships by investigating how the UK government’s engagement with ethical advice is organised institutionally. We provide an analysis of some key ethical moments in the UK Government response to the pandemic, and institutions and national frameworks which exist to provide ethical advice on policy strategies. Methods: We draw on literature review, documentary analysis of scientific advisory group reports, and a stakeholder workshop with government ethics advisors and researchers in England. Findings: We identify how particular types of ethical advice and expertise are sought to support decision making. Contrary to a prominent assumption in the extensive literature on ‘governing by expertise’, ethical decisions in times of crisis are highly contingent. Discussion and conclusions: The paper raises an important set of questions for how best to equip policymakers to navigate decisions about values in situations characterised by knowledge deficits, complexity and uncertainty. We conclude that a clearer pathway is needed between advisory institutions and decision makers to ensure ethically-informed debate.
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ItemKnowledge coproduction: panacea or placebo? Lessons from an emerging policy partnership(TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2022-04-03)
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ItemCan Robots Understand Welfare? Exploring Machine Bureaucracies in Welfare-to-Work(CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS, 2022-07)Abstract The exercise of administrative discretion by street-level workers plays a key role in shaping citizens’ access to welfare and employment services. Governance reforms of social services delivery, such as performance-based contracting, have often been driven by attempts to discipline this discretion. In several countries, these forms of market governance are now being eclipsed by new modes of digital governance that seek to reshape the delivery of services using algorithms and machine learning. Australia, a pioneer of marketisation, is one example, proposing to deploy digitalisation to fully automate most of its employment services rather than as a supplement to face-to-face case management. We examine the potential and limits of this project to replace human-to-human with ‘machine bureaucracies’. To what extent are welfare and employment services amenable to digitalisation? What trade-offs are involved? In addressing these questions, we consider the purported benefits of machine bureaucracies in achieving higher levels of efficiency, accountability, and consistency in policy delivery. While recognising the potential benefits of machine bureaucracies for both governments and jobseekers, we argue that trade-offs will be faced between enhancing the efficiency and consistency of services and ensuring that services remain accessible and responsive to highly personalised circumstances.
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ItemDramaturgy and crisis management: A third act(WILEY, 2022-09)Abstract Dramaturgical perspectives have been used successfully in the past by crisis management researchers. However, previous contributions have been limited because they have been actor‐centered, which has meant that they have tended to ignore the critical role that an audience can play in the drama of a crisis. This article therefore presents a “third act” in which dramaturgical perspectives are used to deliver an actor‐and‐audience centered analysis of crisis management. This third act is built around the dramaturgical concept of “characterization,” which we introduce to assess how an audience receives the symbolic outputs and discourses that are produced by crisis actors. After this theorizing, we present an analytical model, which will allow future researchers to analyze the interplay between actor, audience, and legitimacy when examining crisis. We conclude by illustrating the model's analytical capacity via an examination of the role of leaders and experts during the COVID‐19 pandemic.