Professionalism and the Millbank Tendency: The Political Sociology of New Labour's employees

This article analyses party employees, one of the most under-researched subjects in the study of British political parties. We draw on a blend of quantitative and qualitative data in order to shed light on the social and political profiles of Labour Party staff, and on the question of their professionalisation. The latter theme is developed through a model derived from the sociology of professions. While a relatively limited proportion of party employees conform to the pure ideal-type of professionalism, a considerably greater number manifest enough of the core characteristics of specialisation, commitment, mobility, autonomy and self-regulation to be reasonably described as 'professionals in pursuit of political outcomes'

Participating locally and nationally: explaining the offline and online activism of British party members

Drawing on survey data on the members of six British parties gathered in the immediate aftermath of the general election of 2015, this article addresses the question of what members do for their parties during campaigns. It identifies a key distinction between traditional forms of activity and more recent forms of online campaign participation. While the well-established general incentives theory of participation continues to offer a useful basis for explaining both types of campaign activism, we find that our understanding is significantly enhanced by considering the impact of national and local political contexts. Whereas the former chiefly adds explanatory value to the model of online participation by party members, the latter considerably improves the model of offline participation

Uninterested youth? Young people's attitudes towards party politics in Britain

Following the outcome of the 2001 and 2005 General Elections, when the numbers of abstainers outweighed the numbers of Labour voters on both occasions, much attention has focused upon the state of British democracy and how to enthuse the electorate, especially young people. While the government is exploring ways to make the whole process of voting easier, it may be failing to tackle the real problem - that youth appear to find the business of politics uninviting and irrelevant. This paper examines data derived from a nationwide survey of over 700 young people in order to shed light on what lies at the heart of young people's apparent disengagement from formal politics in Britain - political apathy or a sense of political alienation. The findings reveal that they support the democratic process, but are sceptical of the way the British political system is organised and led, and are turned off by politicians and the political parties. However, there is no uniform youth orientation to politics, and the data indicate that views differ according to social class, educational history, and also gender. However both ethnicity and region of the country in which young people live seem to have little influence in structuring political attitudes and behaviour

Editorial: Introduction to a Special Issue on Political Trust

Questions about political trust have been thrust centre-stage in recent decades as scholars in political science and cognate disciplines have been worried by its gradual yet steady decline in many established democracies. At the same time, recent developments such as the resurgence of populism, the challenges posed by climate change, and crises such as the coronavirus pandemic, have forced us to confront the need for cooperation between citizens and governments and, in turn, the vital role of trust in facilitating such cooperative links. In this context, the purpose of this Research Topic is to bring together a collection of works pushing the boundaries of thought on political trust. This introductory essay outlines each of the contributions and the ways in which they help us better understand trust by answering three related questions: 1. How should we conceive of trust and distrust in politics, and are there any other conditions that need identification and measurement? 2. What are the key factors contributing to citizens’ trust judgments? 3. What are the consequences of trust for effective governance

‘Get yourself some nice, neat, matching box files’: research administrators and occupational identity work

To date, qualitative research into occupational groups and cultures within academia has been relatively scarce, with an almost exclusive concentration upon teaching staff within universities and colleges. This article seeks to address this lacuna and applies the interactionist concept of ‘identity work’ in order to examine one specific group to date under-researched: graduate research administrators. This occupational group is of sociological interest as many of its members appear to span the putative divide between ‘academic’ and ‘administrative’ occupational worlds within higher education. An exploratory, qualitative research project was undertaken, based upon interviews with 27 research administrators. The study analyses how research administrators utilise various forms of identity work to sustain credible occupational identities, often in the face of considerable challenge from their academic colleagues

Studying molecular 2 species econimic shrimps (P. merguiensis, P. indicus) Northern coast of the Persian Gulf and Oman sea using microsatelitte markers to separating and identificating of their possible populations

This study focuses on molecular investigation of two commercial shrimp species of penaeus family namely as : P. merguiensis and P. indicus in order to find and introduce the genetic differentiations and also probable genotypes for monitoring and managing the genetic resources of populations in three major catch areas in the Persian Gulf and the Oman Sea. Only five out of the eight primers for P. merguiensis and four out of the eight primers for P. indicus produced good amplified PCR products with fixed annealing temperature. The rest of the primers were either not easily amplified or produced nonspecific bands. Seven and six alleles were found to be unique to each of the three populations in P.merguiensis and and two populations of P. indicus respectively. Occurrences of heterozygosity deficiency were found at most loci. These heterozygosity deficiencies in observed heterozygosity in compare to expected heterozygosity may be due to inbreeding, genetic drift and consequences of illegal overharvesting of P. merguiensis and P. indicus in the studied areas as well. Deviation from HWE in both studied species was significant in most microsatellite loci (P <0.001). We observed deviation from HWE in most loci with hetrozygosity deficits. The genetic variation results showed that the pairwise Fst values were significant between populations in both species. The assignment test for P. merguiensis revealed high gene flow between Hormoz and Jask and restricted genetic flow between Guatr and Hormoz populations .We observed high gene flow between Hormoz and Jask populations for P. indicus. It seems that the changes in immigration patterns of populations between Hormoz, Jask and Guatr areas in both species are depend on the influence of Persian Gulf currents or the life cycle of studied species. Alternatively, the presence of ecological barriers such as mangrove forests may result in restricted genetic flow between Guatr and both Hormoz and Jask populations

Toward a conceptual framework of emotional relationship marketing: an examination of two UK political parties

The purpose of this paper is to review the notion of branding and evaluate its applicability to political parties. As ideological politics is in decline, branding may provide a consistent narrative where voters feel a sense of warmth and belonging. The paper aims to build an understanding of the complexity of building a political brand where a combination of image, logo, leadership, and values can all contribute to a compelling brand narrative. It investigates how competing positive and negative messages attempt to build and distort the brand identity. A critical review of bran ding, relationship marketing, and political science literature articulates the conceptual development of branding and its applicability to political parties. The success or failure of negative campaigning is due to the authenticity of a political party’s brand values — creating a coherent brand story — if there is no distance between the brand values articulated by the political party and the values their community perceives then this creates an "authentic" brand. However, if there is a gap this paper illustrates how negative campaigning can be used to build a "doppelganger brand," which undermines the credibility of the authentic political brand. The paper argues that political parties need to understand how brand stories are developed but also how they can be used to protect against negative advertising. This has implications for political marketing strategists and political parties. This paper draws together branding theory and relationship marketing and incorporates them into a framework that makes a contribution to the political marketing literature

Abdominal surgical site infections: incidence and risk factors at an Iranian teaching hospital

BACKGROUND: Abdominal surgical site infections are among the most common complications of inpatient admissions and have serious consequences for outcomes and costs. Different risk factors may be involved, including age, sex, nutrition and immunity, prophylactic antibiotics, operation type and duration, type of shaving, and secondary infections. This study aimed to determine the risk factors affecting abdominal surgical site infections and their incidence at Imam Khomeini, a major referral teaching hospital in Iran. METHODS: Patients (n = 802) who had undergone abdominal surgery were studied and the relationships among variables were analyzed by Student's t and Chi-square tests. The subjects were followed for 30 days and by a 20-item questionnaire. Data were collected through pre- and post-operative examinations and telephone follow-ups. RESULTS: Of the 802 patients, 139 suffered from SSI (17.4%). In 40.8% of the cases, the wound was dirty infected. The average age for the patients was 46.7 years. The operations were elective in 75.7% of the cases and 24.7% were urgent. The average duration of the operation was 2.24 hours, the average duration of pre-operative hospital stay 4.31 days and the average length of (pre- and post-operation) hospital stay 11.2 days. Three quarters of the cases were shaved 12 hours before the operation. The increased operation time, increased bed stay, electivity of the operation, septicity of the wound, type of incision, the administration of prophylactic antibiotic, type of operation, background disease, and the increased time lapse between shaving and operation all significantly associated with SSI with a p-value less than 0.001. CONCLUSION: In view of the high rate of SSI reported here (17.4% compared with the 14% quoted in literature), this study suggests that by reducing the average operation time to less than 2 hours, the average preoperative stay to 4 days and the overall stay to less than 11 days, and approximating the timing of shaving to the operation and substituting cefazolin for cefaluthin when prophylactic antibiotic is to be administered, the SSI may be reduced to a more acceptable level

District-level explanations for supporter involvement in political parties: The importance of electoral factors

© The Author(s) 2017. Traditional analyses of grass roots involvement in political parties have focussed almost exclusively on formal members. However, recent analyses across a range of democracies have shown that non-members (supporters) are playing important roles within political parties, including election campaigning, candidate and leader selection, online policy deliberations and even policy formation. The growing literature on this topic suggests that the involvement of supporters may be a function of party structure and availability of online recruitment. Using new data collected at the 2015 British general election, this article extends the examination of supporter involvement but challenges these assumptions. It shows that supporter activity is better explained by responses to electoral factors and that the focus on online recruitment seriously underplays the enduring importance of human contact.UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) Economic and Social Research Council (grant no ES/M007251/1