Dr. Helen Mathers, Co-Investigator, Department of Politics, University of Sheffield, Elmfield, Northumberland Road, Sheffield, S10 2TU, United Kingdom

Homepage: http://www.shef.ac.uk/politics/staff/helenmathers.html

h.mathers@sheffield.ac.uk

Tel: 0114 222 2563

Political science has traditionally been reluctant to draw on the potentially rich resources offered by political biography and its associated methodology.  This project will offer a unique attempt to build bridges between political science and political biography by drawing from both approaches to provide an empirically-rich, yet theoretically informed, account of the contemporary nature of the British core executive.  It will bring together a political science research team, with a strong track-record in researching the British core executive, alongside a senior politician, David Blunkett, to study the work of  two Whitehall departments over which he presided as Secretary of State  - the Department of Education and Employment [DfEE] (1997-2001) and the Home Office (2001-04).  The aim is to understand and interpret the nature of the policy-making process, the relationships between ministers and civil servants and analyse the 'New Labour effect' on the core executive from the perspective of an experienced Cabinet minister.  

The research evidence will be interpreted according to the perspectives of the major theoretical models of the British core executive developed in the last two decades.  The project offers an opportunity to explore the extent to which these models resonate with the interpretations of the world  which political practitioners inhabit.

The project will draw on four key debates within current studies of British central government:

1.  The utility of  the Westminster model in offering a realistic organising perspective of the British political system.

2.  The utility of the 'power-dependency' model in explaining the nature of core executive relations.

3.  The use of the policy networks approach for analysing the nature of policy making.

4.  The impact of the present Labour Administrations on the way in which the core executive operates.

The research will draw on the biographical method to provide a detailed account of the ministerial career of David Blunkett, 1997/ 2004.  This will include consideration of how policy was made in the DfEE and Home Office, the difference in departmental cultures and relationships with other departments.  The sources will include the Secretary of State's diaries and personal correspondence files.  This will then be complemented by some 100 semi-structured elite interviews with key actors.  A series of detailed research questions will frame the analysis and we will conduct two case studies on policy-making: Sure Start (DfEE) and Immigration Policy (Home Office).

The results of the research will be disseminated beyond the normal academic channels.  This will include commentaries/articles in current affairs and political magazines such as Prospect, the New Statesman, the Spectator and the Economist, as well as broad-sheet newspapers and other media outlets. The research will also produce a monograph, and a closing seminar for political practitioners will be held.