Policy-Making and British Politics

Abstract

Does British politics demonstrate a stable pattern of issue processing, rather like the incremental model, or is it characterised by something more like the rare but substantial fits and starts of punctuated equilibrium? Do its institutions promote stability or change—or both? Surprisingly, there is no clear answer to these questions from studies of British politics. No single dominant narrative about the operation of British political institutions prevails; and several have emerged depending on the particular literature and approach to study. One of the key junctures is between scholars who suggest that British politics reflects a strong pattern of continuity and inertia and those who emphasise the frequency of large changes and recurrent reversals in public policy. We set out the main lines of this debate in the section below, but they are preludes to our claim that data on the policy agenda of British government provide potential answers to these questions. In subsequent chapters we offer empirical evidence about whether governments did indeed maintain similar sets of policy topics over time, or whether they tended to change course and used the discretion of office to make large changes to public priorities.