Tag Archives: Politics

Public Engagement Awards: Dr Brendan McGeever, Professor David Feldman and Dr Ben Gidley – Facing Antisemitism: Politics, Culture, History

This is the sixth in a series of blogs showcasing the Birkbeck 2020 Public Engagement Awards winners and highly commended participants. This project was announced the winner of the category ‘Transforming Culture and Public Life’.

Stop smearing Labour sign

Facing Antisemitism is a new short course taught at Birkbeck that explores the sources, development and contemporary forms of antisemitism. It is open to students, the public and organisations. In 2019 the Labour Party enrolled its key staff on the course.

This project has been shaped directly by current research: Professor David Feldman’s Boycotts Past and Present (2019, Palgrave); his forthcoming The History of the Concept of Antisemitism (Princeton University Press, 2021); his essay ‘Toward A history of the Term of Anti-Semitism’ in The American Historical Review (2019); Dr Brendan McGeever’s new work on antisemitism and the left (Antisemitism and the Russian Revolution, CUP 2019) and Dr Ben Gidley’s Turbulent Times: the British Jewish Community Today, Continuum, 2010. Additionally, the three investigators are writing articles and a new monograph based on the module.

Facing Antisemitism draws on history and the social sciences to answer questions such as: how can we recognise and define antisemitism? How does it relate to other forms of racism? How widespread is antisemitism? Where does it come from? Why does it persist?  What is the impact of antisemitism on Jews? What is the relationship between anti-racism and antisemitism?

The research underpinning this course is directly relevant to Labour because over the last four years, the Party has found itself at the centre of public controversy about the nature and significance of antisemitism. This has been unprecedented: antisemitism now sits at the centre of British political debate like never before. The subject is explosive and controversial, but one that is poorly understood. By engaging with Labour in this way, Dr McGeever, Prof. Feldman, and Dr Gidley hoped to provide key figures in the Party with the concepts and knowledge to make better judgments about antisemitism. In turn, this project provided the former with a valuable opportunity to take their research in a classroom setting to stimulate change and engender new ways of thinking about an urgent problem of our time.

Birkbeck congratulates Dr McGeever, Prof. Feldman, and Dr Gidley on their exciting project, as well as on being selected as the winners in this year’s Public Engagement Awards in the category ‘Transforming Culture and Public Life’.

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If there is social capital, good Mayors are re-elected

Are the public more likely to re-elect a mayor who invests in long-term development? Yes, if there is social capital. The Department of Management’s Dr Luca Andriani shares the results of his latest research in collaboration with colleagues Alberto Batinti and Andrea Filippetti.

If a mayor is good, she should be re-elected. Prior research tells us that what distinguishes a “good” mayor from a “bad” mayor is the adoption of long-term oriented and transparent municipal fiscal policies. “Good” mayors re-allocate the municipal budget more towards capital investments (rather than current expenditures) and towards property tax, which is more transparent than a surcharge income tax. However, “good” mayors are not always re-elected. In this study, we argue that social capital might be a key reason. In a context with low social capital, municipal long-run fiscal strategy might not be rewarded.

Social capital generally refers to elements of cooperation, reciprocity and mutual trust regulating relations among members of a community. It is generally expressed through the presence of civically engaged citizens preferring leaders and governments that show credible commitments in taking good care of public resources, in acting efficiently and fairly and that adopt long- rather than short-run political economic strategies.

In this study, we look at the Italian context, as this is characterised by a pronounced economic regional disparity between the southern regions recording low economic growth and high unemployment and the more economically advanced northern regions. Italy is also a country with a large disparity of social capital endowment across regions and municipalities for several institutional and historical reasons (Putnam 1993).

Since the late 1990s, Italy has implemented two significant reforms aiming to bring local public institutions closer to the citizens’ needs and preferences: an electoral reform to appoint local governments and mayors and a fiscal reform towards a more federalist system. These changes have been pursued by economically wealthy regions seeking greater autonomy. They were also advocated as remedies to stimulate those administrations in regions that are less developed and efficient.

We test whether the probability of “good” mayors being rewarded, i.e. re-elected, is influenced by the level of social capital endowment existing in the municipality. We investigate this empirically in 6,000 Italian municipalities over the period 2003-2012. We consider the structural dimension of social capital as one referring to the individual’s involvement in associational activities and social networks. This dimension captures citizens’ prosocial behaviour and individuals’ attitude towards planning capacity and forward-looking decision making

Our results show that “good” mayors are more likely to be re-elected in contexts with more social capital. One can speculate that social capital may favour the reallocation of the municipal fiscal budget towards public investment vis-à-vis current expenditures and towards property tax vis-à-vis surcharge income tax, thus enhancing the efficiency and transparency of local public policy.

What does this mean for policy makers?

These results raise important reflections on the implementations of public policies promoting decentralization.

Fiscal federalism theory claims that decentralization improves the ability of local institutions to tailor specific policies aiming to meet citizens’ demands (e.g., DiazSerrano and Rodríguez-Pose, 2015). This gets reflected in the citizens’ satisfaction (e.g. Espasa et al., 2017; Filippetti and Sacchi, 2016). This study qualifies these results, showing that decentralization works relatively well in the presence of high levels of social capital. In social contexts where individuals value forward-looking and transparent fiscal policies, decentralization promotes better public policies and benefits public sector financial performance.

However, this study also advocates that decentralization policies should be coupled with initiatives to improve the capacity of local institutions to stimulate the accumulation of social capital. This could be pursued through two complementary strategies. Firstly, by employing programmes that favour the capacity-building of civic associations, including organizations for environmental, human, democratic rights. Secondly, by enabling these associations to be more involved in local governance. This can be achieved by providing local associations access to formal and informal avenues for participation, engagement and closer monitoring of local public decision-making process.

This blog is based on the following research paper:

Batinti, A. Andriani, L and Filippetti, A (2019) Local Government Fiscal Policy, Social Capital and Electoral Payoff: Evidence across Italian Municipalities. Kyklos 72(4): 503-526

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Austerity – it can really drive you Wilde…

Dr Sue Konzelmann, author of Austerity, discusses the long-term impact of a policy that places price before value.

Over the last decade, most of us have been on the receiving end of innumerable attempts to justify continued austerity in the UK, all of which have had one thing in common – they focus purely on money. There has been much talk of public deficits and debt – although at times, even our prime ministers have confused one with the other. The impression you get is that everything has a price; and when it comes to austerity, that’s all that matters. In the words of Oscar Wilde’s Lord Darlington, a cynic is “a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

There has been a fair amount of cynicism in discussions about austerity. For example, the value of spending over £136bn in public funds bailing out the banks following the 2008 financial crisis would be questionable enough in itself, without then using it as an excuse to deprive so many tax payers of essential government support services – especially since, as described in my new book, Austerity, the case of Iceland had clearly shown that there was a viable policy alternative to austerity. But whilst it all came down to cash at Westminster, the vast majority of us were losing essential public services that we use, value and, in many cases, depend upon.

If this continues, our society will soon begin to unravel at an even more alarming rate, as we cut the ties that bind it together. Cuts to local authority spending have already had a drastic effect on the level and effectiveness of social services, whilst you hear a lot on the TV – on a daily basis – about the devastating effects of cuts to the police and emergency services.

The corrosive effects of multiple cuts, acting together, became all too clear whilst filming a video about austerity at the Euston food bank – but that’s something you hear a lot less about in the news.

Perhaps counterintuitively, the vast majority of people who have been forced to use the food bank since it was set up in 2010 are actually in work. But the government’s attempts to save money through changes in the benefit system, like Universal Credit, has meant that people claiming it would not get a payment for up to five weeks. How many of us would be comfortable about missing a month’s salary – or more? Not many, I suspect.

It also turns out that in order to avoid homelessness, many Euston food bank users are choosing to pay their rent, rather than buy food. This is probably rather less surprising, given that the average UK household income is around £28,000 – and renting a two bed flat anywhere in that part of London will cost around £2,000 a month. Cuts to social care have also resulted in rising homelessness – and another source of people reliant on food banks.

Austerity, as a single policy, is a very blunt instrument, that has focused on price, rather than value. As a result, it has critically impacted many inter-related policy areas. Undoing its damage will therefore mean not only sharply revising policies in such areas of affordable housing, employment, health, education and social services; it will also require changes in benefit structures and delivery – to ensure that they work together as seamlessly as possible.

In a world where it is, for some unknown reason, apparently impossible to integrate such obviously linked services as the NHS and social care, this vision might seem ambitious. It shouldn’t be. In the words of Oscar Wilde’s Lord Darlington once again, “we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

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What if Cameron’s austerity had been “harder and faster”?

Dr Sue Konzelmann from the Department of Management assesses the potential impact deeper cuts would have had on the UK in the wake of the Recession.

David Cameron’s recent description of the government’s management of the Brexit process could equally well have been applied to his government’s programme of austerity, which started in 2010 – and for most of us, is still rumbling on.

After almost a decade of austerity, during which growth has sputtered, poverty has risen and reliance on food banks has ballooned, the fiscal deficit is now almost gone. Something to celebrate? Well, it might have been, had public debt not continued to increase significantly. This is because the only way to reduce public debt is to run a significant and sustained fiscal surplus. And there is still no sign of that.

But Cameron has form when it comes to confusing a fiscal deficit with national debt. Back in 2013, Andrew Dilnot, then head of the UK Statistics Authority, found it necessary to publicly rebuke him for claiming that his government was “paying down Britain’s debts”. At the time of course, national debt was still rising strongly.

Nonetheless, Cameron now claims that things might have gone better, had he implemented his austerity plan “faster and harder”, during the “window of permission” following the 2010 election. Is he right?

“Cameron’s programme of austerity was misguided in the first place.”

In my new book, Austerity, the case study of the UK following the 2008 financial crisis strongly suggests otherwise. The period following that crisis is now often referred to as the “Great Recession” – the definition of recession being two or more successive quarters of zero or negative GDP growth. We all know that recessions usually result in higher unemployment-related social costs, as well as reduced government tax receipts. This double whammy means that an increased fiscal deficit – and therefore public debt – is pretty much inevitable during a recession. Especially if you’ve also just spent billions bailing out the banks.

Cameron’s programme of austerity was therefore misguided in the first place. Since it only targeted government spending, it simply reduced the size of the economy further. The idea that a contraction in public spending could be more than replaced by private investment and enterprise – so-called “expansionary fiscal contraction” – is at best highly controversial. In our new book, Rethinking Britain: Policy Ideas for the Many, we describe is as “the economic equivalent of Big Foot; some economists claim to have seen it, but none have been able to prove that it actually exists”. A forlorn hope then.

Cameron’s austerity was implemented when the economy was slowly beginning to grow; but the recovery was not yet strong enough to withstand its dampening effects. Policy should instead have focused on encouraging growth, which would, in turn, have reduced social costs and increased tax revenues – both of which help to reduce the fiscal deficit and – if a sustained surplus is created – public debt as well. But with a fragile economy, like the UK’s in 2010, austerity inhibited growth, with predictable results; and growth has never been stellar since. But even so, make no mistake: It isn’t austerity that reduced the deficit; it’s what little growth we’ve had. Imagine where we could have been by now had policy priorities in 2010 focused on encouraging growth, rather than killing it off.

“In economic terms, the results of “harder and faster” austerity would probably have been even more unhelpful than what actually happened.”

And what are the likely effects of “harder and faster” austerity? Deeper and more abrupt cuts in government spending would have shrunk the economy more drastically and immediately – producing a deeper recession in the process. This, in turn, would have increased social costs and reduced tax receipts “harder and faster” as well. The knock-on effect would have been a sharp rise in both the government’s deficit and debt. And it is very hard to see where the growth to lift the economy out of such a deep recession would have come from, without some kind of stimulus. In other words, in economic terms, the result of “harder and faster” austerity would probably have been even more unhelpful than what actually happened.

In social terms, the probable effect of deeper and more immediate cuts is harder to assess. Cameron’s austerity programme has – in spite of claims to the contrary – resulted in growing poverty and inequality, increased homelessness, worsening crime and reduced public services. And this has contributed to a sharp increase in the number of people who have had enough of austerity. Since many of these people were looking for some means of getting back at Cameron’s government, offering them the vote on EU membership in the middle of his austerity programme, was clearly a high-risk strategy as well. All of this has resulted in a radically changed political configuration in Britain.

It’s hard to see what’s so great about eliminating the fiscal deficit, if in the process public debt has vastly increased and social outcomes for most have sharply deteriorated. Not only has austerity not worked, it’s done immense damage to Britain. We’ve had nearly ten years of austerity, and over three years of Brexit wrangling, with apparently no end in sight for either. Surely, developing policies to fix the all too obvious problems in our economy and society, would be far more productive that crowing about a reduced deficit?

The only crumb of comfort in all this is that given Cameron’s recent comments about wishing he’d imposed austerity “harder and faster” in 2010, things might have turned out much worse.

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