The Parliamentary arithmetic shows that the Cameron-Clegg coalition is almost immune to rebellions – it will last five years

Most commentators in the press and from the Labour party have assumed that the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government will be plagued by internal dissensions in the House of Commons. In fact, Patrick Dunleavy argues that the government can survive untouched until 84 right-wing Conservative MPs abstain, or 41 Liberal Democrats vote with the opposition – which should never happen. If the leaders and ministers can hold it together between themselves, this looks like a full-term government

David Cameron is running a ‘ring-donut’ government with a weak centre. His feeble grip on policy coordination suggests a failure of statecraft

Being the UK Prime Minister is about far more than looking good on TV and being unflustered in the Commons at question time. There is an essential policy co-ordination and policy motivation role to the office, which must be taken seriously if what government does is to cohere to an integrated whole. Yet after 16 months in power, Patrick Dunleavy has serious doubts about David Cameron’s ability to make public policies that work. He seems to be running an eclectic, ‘ring donut’ government of barons and caretakers, where Tory ministers are left free to create incoherent policies – while Cameron’s attention is focused only on keeping the Coalition afloat

With a likely cost of £4 billion, the Health and Social Care Bill has all the hallmarks of an avoidable policy fiasco

This week sees the release of a highly critical report from the cross-party Health Select Committee on the Health Minister, Andrew Lansley’s proposals to reorganise the NHS. The Committee’s Chairman, the former Health Secretary, Stephen Dorrell, said that the NHS should focus on achieving efficiencies rather than on management upheaval. Patrick Dunleavy argues that the proposed NHS reorganization will be a policy disaster for the government, which may end up costing up to £4billion – 1/5th of the amount needed to be saved by the NHS through efficiency gains

Book review: managing modernity: beyond bureaucracy? edited by Stewart Clegg et al

In this collection of essays Steward Clegg and co-authors envisage the end of bureaucracy, where big corporations and public sector organizations are open and free of constraints. Patrick Dunleavy is intrigued but not convinced, arguing that all forms of ‘beyondism’ and ‘post-x’ social theory are inherently dissatisfying. If the authors really knew what was happening now or next, they’d tell us – instead of assuring us only that it is ‘not x’

The government’s approach to reforming the House of Lords is 80 per cent of the way there. Nick Clegg needs to take courage and to go the rest of the way to a more democratic and coherent, wholly elected Senate.

After more than a century of constitutional reform debates, replacing the indefensible House of Lords with a decent elected Senate is now within sight. The government’s draft Bill is a vast improvement on previous Westminster-elite proposals. It needs only some achievable alterations to become a wholly desirable plan for reform. The key changes needed, Patrick Dunleavy writes, are fewer Senators, able to stand for two terms each, using a simple, open List system of proportional representation, and sitting in an all-elected House

Book review: paper books in a digital era: how conservative publishers and authors almost killed off books in university social science

For more than 15 years, books available only in paper form have fought a losing battle with digitally-available articles in academic journals – the publishing equivalent of horse cavalry repeatedly charging barbed wire defences with machine guns. As their usefulness and effectiveness waned, so the intellectual status of books in the social sciences declined strongly. In the first of a two-part blog post, Patrick Dunleavy traces the declining role of books that reached a nadir in 2010. Part 2 of the argument explores the second coming of books in digital forms

Leveraged Buyout, Management Buyout, and Going Private Corporate Control Transactions: Insider Trading or Efficient Market Economics?

According to one commentator, a particularly troublesome form of insider trading abuse has developed in the past decade without full public discussion of its ethics or its legality. This abuse has spurred significant commentary. Corporate control transactions of this type, known as insider leveraged buyouts, management buyouts, and going private, have totaled billions of dollars. On their face, these deals, regardless of their specifics, raise the most basic questions of whether security holders are getting the legal and ethical protection they require and, by law, deserve. It is a fundamental precept of the theory of going private that different groups of security holders of the same class will be treated differently. Furthermore, the arm\u27s-length bargaining that is present in the majority of intercorporate transactions is absent. Accordingly, going private transactions are often attended by uncertainty and legal risks. For these reasons, among others, substantive and administrative law are beginning to place limitations on the ability of corporations to engage in going private transactions. For example, under recent federal securities regulations, management must publicize its opinion as to the fairness or unfairness of certain going private transactions. Yet, there are those who question the effectiveness of these limitations. One commentator argues that persons who participate in a leveraged buyout have better knowledge of the true value of a parcel of real estate, an invention, a pending contract, or a competitor\u27s problems than do the security holders to whom they make their leveraged buyout offer. This commentator concludes that those who initiate leveraged buyout, management buyout, and going private transactions are inevitably acting on inside information for profit. This Note first examines the historical development and modern application of judicial decisions and statutes concerning insider trading. This Note then discusses the phenomena of leveraged buyout, management buyout, and going private transactions with emphasis on their structure, fairness to security holders, and a possible breach of fiduciary duty to shareholders in the case of management buyouts. Following a discussion of recommendations and policy arguments proferred by other commentators and scholars, this Note recommends that a remedy be afforded to minority security holder who feel they are being grossly undercompensated, while allowing leveraged buyout, management buyout, and going private transactions to continue in such a way that the principle of fiduciary duty remains untarnished

Five minutes with Patrick Dunleavy and Chris Gilson: “Blogging is quite simply, one of the most important things that an academic should be doing right now”

Following this week’s the launch of EUROPP – an academic blog investigating matters of European Politics and Policy –Patrick Dunleavy and Chris Gilson (also the creators of this blog!) discuss social scientists’ obligation to spread their research to the wider world and how blogging can help academics break out of restrictive publishing loops

Electoral reform in local government: alternative systems and key issues

The Government plans a full modernisation of local government, including annual elections and a stronger scrutiny role for elected representatives. Such a programme must also consider reform options which improve the match between votes and seats, revitalise local electoral dynamics and strengthen links between councillors and constituents. This research, by Patrick Dunleavy and Helen Margetts, investigates a key possibility for such an agenda: changing the local electoral system. The researchers simulated local elections under five alternative electoral systems to first-past-the-post

Hasty changes to the machinery of government can disrupt departments for up to two years

Prime Ministers who are new in government or who are facing difficulties, often reorganize Whitehall as a way of demonstrating impact. Yet Anne White and Patrick Dunleavy show that this approach often has substantial costs, which are particularly hard to bear in the current climate of budget austerity