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This study explores the role of the welfare state in reducing young people not being in education, employment, or training (NEET)s across 15 European countries. Using data from the Survey of Adult Skills in the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) in combination with the Social Expenditure Database, we conducted cross-national analysis to reveal whether the increase in public social spending moderates the risk of being NEET at a young adult age, especially for socially disadvantaged young people. Our results highlighted that the rise of one percentage point of public social spending per gross domestic product, including social expenditure on education, active labor market, and unemployment, is significantly associated with decreasing the odds of being NEET. Furthermore, these social expenditures appeared to lower the NEET risk given socially disadvantaged backgrounds suggesting that young people with low educational levels, whose parents have low educational attainment levels, non-immigrant families, and females are likely to benefit given the robust social protection system. These findings suggest that public social spending may be an effective investment in promoting the social involvement of young people from socially disadvantaged background.

In the policy period following the Lisbon Strategy of 2000, European governments increasingly regard universities, and the research they produce, as key to enhancing economic performance. With this heightened respect for the value of university-based research, comes an impatience to see returns on the public investments made. We analyze how policy is being used to influence the academic research process through the evaluations and funding allocation that accompany public funding. This paper features examples from the European Union and recent policy developments in two nation states to investigate how policy seeks to enhance the non-academic impacts of academic research.

The aim of this article is to discuss ways in which we as educators of public managers can help our students deal effectively with the challenges thrown up by the sweeping cuts in public services arising as a consequence of the fiscal crisis brought about by the failure of the banks. While our focus is on the UK, we feel that the issues raised have relevance across Europe. Our argument is that by developing a reflexive pedagogical practice we will enable our students to be proactive (agentic), and in accordance with ethical and professional values, to respond to the dilemmas they face arising out of unprecedented public expenditure cuts. We begin by discussing the overall political context which forms the backdrop to the current crisis in public services and its implications. This is followed by a discussion about the pedagogic debate concerning "reflexivity" and the potential role it has in a public management education strategy. A pedagogy for reflexivity needs to be based in an ontology that believes in the efficacy of open, critical and democratic dialogue, and the facilitation of learning in interactional and relational environments. A range of learning and inquiry processes may hold these characteristics, e.g. collaborative inquiry groups, participatory action research. However, we proceed by describing our experience of enabling senior local government managers to work "reflexively" in learning sets and identify key issues emerging for them as they grapple with the impact of the fiscal crisis. In reflecting on this experience we offer some general insights about the role of "reflexivity" in the education of public managers.

The UK higher education community is well served for news and policy discourse by the weekly "Times Higher Education" ("THE"). "THE" also provides a window into the conduct of this community. Concern about the contribution of research to the wider society beyond academe has risen along with its scale and cost. Views became polarized about the possibility and desirability of measuring 'impact' as a basis for allocating funds for research. The "impact debate" is entangled with efforts to assess the quality of research, and thus in turn with the recent rapid rise to prominence and influence of competitive worldwide rankings of universities, so far informed principally by research performance. Within this wider setting, the paper concentrates on the nature and effect of public controversy about impact in the UK, as expressed in "THE" over a two-year period. The author's main interest is in the contribution of universities to balanced social and economic development, nationally and especially regionally. It is proposed that the defensive positions taken by some opponents of impact assessment may damage universities' capacity to behave as responsible regional citizens, and weaken the wider community's support for universities that is needed for their public funding, helping to precipitate what critics fear. (Contains 9 notes.)

In November 2010, the British Government, modifying one of the proposals in the Browne Report published in October, decided to allow English universities to charge tuition fees of up to 9,000 British Pounds, while removing almost all the public funding previously provided in the form of a block grant. This had consequences the Government should perhaps have foreseen. HEIs, unsure whether they could remain financially viable if they did not, went for the highest fee allowed. The consequence is that the new system could cost the taxpayer more in providing loans for students at this level than the continuance of direct public funding would have done. Policy was developed to reduce this cost, and one of the ideas which emerged was to allow more providers into the system, including private providers. This has prompted discussion of the resulting value for money, for students and for taxpayers, and then of the meaning of "value", and then of the need to protect the quality of the courses on offer and the "value" of the resulting qualifications. A number of changes seem likely to be necessary in consequence, among them the revision of the rules for granting degree-awarding powers and university title to private providers both profit-making and non-profit-making. This article explores the case for and against these changes.

How should educational research be contracted? And is there anything wrong with the way that public funding of educational research is currently administered? We endeavour to answer these questions by appeal to the work of two of the most prominent philosophers of science of the twentieth century, namely Popper and Kuhn. Although their normative views of science are radically different, we show that they would nonetheless agree on a number of key rules concerning the extent to which scientific practice should be influenced "from the outside". We then show that these rules are often broken in the way that research is publicly funded in the UK. (Contains 28 notes and 1 figure.)

Both main UK political parties lend enthusiastic public support to academies, in the name of supporting the nation's poorest pupils. But Gordon Brown's Labour is, in reality, unsure about this undemocratic model while the Tories may well in the future exploit academy "independence" for retrograde ends. Two contemporary case studies from London, in Camden and Pimlico, show the inherent dangers of this controversial national programme; they represent a blow to a truly modernised comprehensive model and give too much power to private interests. The private sector is keen to get involved for its own, often defensive, reasons. Meanwhile, Brown's Government has little time left to make truly substantive changes to our education system that will really benefit those that need it most.

Investigates the relationship between political preferences and the privatization of education in the United Kingdom. Finds that parents with children in school and individuals with higher tax liabilities favor privatization; those working in education oppose privatization. (Contains 5 tables and 29 references.)(PKP)

Adult learning happens in many places and forms, and is paid for by a complex mix of public, employer and private funds. National Institute of Adult Continuing Education's recent survey of public attitudes to paying for lifelong learning shows clearly that people have not convinced the general public that adult learning deserves more public support. The reasons are complex, but include the fact that the "system" is over-complicated, difficult to understand, that its benefits are not widely understood, and that it is widely perceived, for reasons of education, class or occupation. The author believes that a funding system that trusts individuals and employers to make wise decisions about their own learning needs is needed. Such a funding system is not only fairer, it also ensures people get better value for the money they spend on learning. In this article, the author proposes a rebalancing of power to decide what to learn, and how and when, between individuals, employers and government, with a significant proportion of funding that ought to be managed locally and by individuals.

"Who benefits from adult learning?" was the question explored at a joint WEA/NIACE conference in Coventry last autumn. The last decade has seen significant increases in the resources allocated to further education in the UK. Latest figures show 1.4 million public funded places on adult education classes have been lost in the last two years. For those still wanting to learn as adults there tends to be less choice, with employers increasingly in the driving seat, and public funding focused on "economically valuable skills" and qualifications. For many adult learners the motivation to learn stems from a desire to help their families, get involved in cultural activities, improve confidence, develop broad-based employability skills, or help out in their communities. What the WEA/NIACE conference sought to do was to bring to life debates about public value in adult learning through a focus on practical examples of public value in action. The 12 case studies featured at the conference were all chosen because they illustrated not only the impact of learning on individuals but also the wider social benefits that learning can have. This article presents a small selection of the case studies profiled at the conference.

In her 2024 Mais lecture, soon‐to‐be chancellor Rachel Reeves made the case for prioritising national economic security over the pursuit of ‘hyperglobalisation’. She put national economic productivity improvements at the heart of Labour's political‐economic strategy, reflecting the emergence of a dual consensus on economic government that has developed independently of the Labour Party in recent years. Reeves has recognised that this offers space for the pursuit of a moderate social democratic agenda, but the political challenge for the Labour government will be to maintain public support until its gradualist growth policies begin to take effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large technical systems (LTS) are socially structuring, reconfiguring governance practices and social norms. In this article, socio-technical dynamics that influenced the emergence of UK urban tramways, as examples of local LTS, are investigated, considering the role of dominant discourses in normalizing new systems. It examines how the 1870 Tramways Act attempted to adjudicate between competing interests, which shaped the context for new tramway routes. The concept of system builders is used to explain how new projects recruit public support. This case identifies constraints faced by system builders and indicates that their interaction with prevailing socio-political contexts impacts the system development and stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research shows that information cues influence public opinion on international cooperation, yet it is unclear whether all cues are equally effective in the context of a global crisis. This paper sheds light on this issue by analysing how frames in public discourse influence support for multilateral vaccine cooperation during Covid‐19. Building on research on in‐group favouritism, decision‐making under uncertainty, and public support for multilateralism, the paper argues that frames emphasizing vaccine nationalism are more potent than those emphasizing international cooperation and that nationalist political identities moderate these framing effects. An original survey experiment in the United Kingdom confirms this argument and shows that public support for multilateralism is substantial but vulnerable. A vaccine nationalism frame reduces support for multilateralism, while an international cooperation frame has no effect. Moreover, 'Brexit identities' moderate this framing effect, with 'Leavers' being more susceptible to the detrimental effect of the vaccine nationalism frame than 'Remainers'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multistakeholder partnerships (MSPs) in global environmental governance are either praised for their problem-solving capacities and inclusion of various societal actors or criticized for their limited accountability and corporate dominance. Despite the lively scholarly debate and the continued promotion of MSPs by international organizations and governments, knowledge about how environmental MSPs are perceived by the public is very limited. Understanding the sources of public support for MSPs is important, given its crucial role in MSPs' abilities to secure resources and achieve their goals. In this article, we evaluate whether and how institutional features of MSPs influence citizens' legitimacy beliefs. Building on previous studies, we theorize which institutional dimensions of MSPs matter for citizens' level of support. We conduct population-based survey experiments in Brazil, the United Kingdom, and the United States, encompassing more than 6,000 respondents. The results from the survey experiments have substantive implications for our understanding of the role of MSPs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses data from six rounds of the European Social Survey (ESS), between 2004 and 2016, to examine attitudes towards European integration across countries. Using both individual responses and country-level variables, we analyse factors influencing Euroscepticism; how these factors are changing over time; and whether they may signal a latent potential for Brexit-like outcomes in different countries. Controlling for a unique combination of demographic, political and macroeconomic factors, we find individuals with higher levels of income and education, and those with more left-leaning political views to be more supportive of European integration, while those who are older and right-leaning to be less supportive. Using predicted values from our empirical analysis, we find median voters' attitudes diverging across European countries over time, with an increasing number of countries moving closer to the threshold values observed among voters in the United Kingdom in 2016. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the UK, claims are often made that public support for animal research is stronger when such use is categorised as for medical purposes. Drawing on a qualitative analysis of writing from the Mass Observation Project, a national writing project documenting everyday life in Britain, this paper suggests that the necessity of using animals for medical research is not a given but understood relationally through interactions with inherent vulnerability. This paper stresses the ubiquity of ambivalence towards uses of animals for medical research, complicating what is meant by claims that such use is 'acceptable', and suggests that science-society dialogues on animal research should accommodate different modes of thinking about health. In demonstrating how understandings of health are bound up with ethical obligations to care for both human and non-human others, this paper reinforces the importance of interspecies relations in health and illness and in the socio-ethical dimensions of biomedicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research has begun to investigate if climate fiction, or cli-fi, can increase people's support for pro-climate initiatives. Emerging evidence focuses on whether cli-fi stories affect people's self-reported emotions, attitudes, and intentions. Few studies, however, examine the effect of such stories on revealed behavior, and whether the cli-fi story medium, i.e., whether stories are presented in text, audio, or audio-visual format, matters. We investigate the causal effect of cli-fi stories, and the medium through which they are communicated (textual, audio, or audio-visual) on self-reported support for climate policy, individual and collective action intentions, and a revealed measure of charitable donations. In a pre-registered online experiment (n = 1,085 UK adults), participants were randomly assigned to one of 5 conditions - to read scientific information about climate change (scientific information condition), read a story unrelated to the environment (control), read a cli-fi story in which a protagonist took intentional pro-environmental actions (fiction text), listen to the same cli-fi story in audio format (fiction audio), or watch an animation of the cli-fi story (fiction video). When comparing the fiction-text, fact-text, and control conditions, we found that cli-fi stories are not always more effective than alternative climate communications: participants in the fact-text condition reported higher support for climate policies, and intentions of taking individual environmental actions, and negative feelings of sadness, disappointment, and guilt, compared to the text-based control and clifi text condition. When comparing the cli-fi media format, we found that cli-fi videos were most effective in increasing pro-environmental charitable donations in an incentivized choice task, and self-reported feelings of happiness, hope, and inspiration. The findings show that scientific information about the climate and climate-fiction have an important place in the climate communications toolkit and can offer distinct pathways to enhance support for policy and behavioral change. Communicators seeking to inspire individual pro-environmental actions can consider telling cli-fi stories in video, which may be more compelling. And communicators seeking to enhance public support for societal changes, via climate policies, may benefit from disseminating scientific information about climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decarbonization policies require public support to be implemented and to remain in legislation. Examinations of public support for climate policies tend to focus on a small number of policy instruments and/or use hypothetical instead of real policy proposals. Here, we address these criticisms by examining public support across four distinct policy instruments – command-and-control, market-based, information-based, and voluntary – using sixteen policy proposals by UK political parties and government institutions. In addition to assessing UK national policy support, we also explore regional differences. Using a representative sample of the UK population (N = 1,911), we find that, at a national level, individuals preferred instruments shown to be less effective in reaching net-zero: information-based and voluntary policies. Our results indicate that the extent to which individuals believe in the free market, their environmental worldviews and political party support as well as their age are all correlated with policy support. We find stark regional differences where, compared to individuals living in Greater London, those living in the remainder of the country were 32% and 30% less likely to support command-and-control and market-based policies, respectively (among other regional differences). Regional variations in free-market beliefs and population density partly explain differences in policy support. We propose policymakers focus on place-based initiatives to increase support for decarbonization policies that are more effective in reaching net-zero and on improving the perception of market-based and command-and-control policies through positive framing and policy bundles. The majority of the UK public supports all climate policy instruments (command-and-control, market-based, information-based, and voluntary) regardless of their stringency. More stringent decarbonization policies (command-and-control and market-based instruments) received less public support compared to more lenient policies (information-based and voluntary). Population density as a structural factor helps to explain regional variation and points to the crucial role of improving public infrastructure, particularly in more rural areas. Free-market beliefs are associated with regional and individual variations in support and stress the need for overcoming ideological barriers. Income was found to influence support for less stringent (e.g. information-based) instruments, but was not associated with support for regulatory and market-based instruments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Achieving ambitious carbon reduction targets requires transformative change to society, with behaviour change playing an important role. Climate change mitigation ('net zero') policies are needed to accelerate and support such behaviour change. This study examined factors and framing effects in public support for net zero policies in the United Kingdom (UK), making use of a large probability sample (ntotal = 5,665) survey conducted in August 2021. It found that net zero policies are widely supported, with only taxes on red meat and dairy products being supported by less than half of the UK public. Climate worry and perceived fairness were the strongest and most consistent predictors of policy support for net zero policies. The results further suggest that support for net zero policies can be increased by emphasising the co-benefits of the policies, in particular where they are beneficial for health. However, the framing effects were very small. In contrast, public support for net zero policies is lower when potential lifestyle and financial costs are mentioned. This suggests that perceived fairness of the distribution of costs and lifestyle implications of policies are crucial for building and maintaining support for net zero. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy entrepreneurship theory seeks to explain how actors, institutions, actions and interactions influence policy makers and policy outcomes; however, the role of citizens in this process remains largely unarticulated. Adopting a conception of policy entrepreneurship as a (distributed) pattern of agency rather than the actions of an individual, we analyse the development of local government climate emergency declarations (CEDs) (many of which visibly involved citizen advocacy). This analysis expands on the role of citizens in policy change and provides evidence of how citizen entrepreneurs interact collaboratively with more traditional forms of policy elites, in this case local elected representatives. Since 2018 hundreds of local governments in the United Kingdom (UK) have issued CEDs in a surge of expressions of local climate ambition. Whilst CEDs have attracted attention from scholars, the underlying dynamics and politics which drove the adoption of these policies, including the role played by citizens, remain unexplored in the literature. Interviews with councillors, council officers, and citizens reveal that citizens carry out a range of activities related to policy entrepreneurship, including problem framing, identifying solutions, networking and building coalitions, and seeking attention and opportunities. We find that they carry out these activities collectively with other citizens and collaboratively with elected representatives; whilst precise coalition‐internal dynamics vary, citizens frequently exploit opportunities to demonstrate the strength and breadth of public support for their cause. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a policy review that examines the governance of surveillance cameras in the UK. It discusses the proposed abolition of the Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner (BSCC) and the potential consequences of this change. The use of surveillance cameras, particularly with face recognition technology, is controversial due to concerns about accuracy, racial bias, and public support. The review emphasizes the importance of oversight and ethical practices in the use of surveillance cameras and raises concerns about the future governance of these technologies in the UK. The authors argue that the Data Protection and Digital Information (DPDI) Bill fails to adequately address the governance and oversight of surveillance cameras and express concerns about potential harm and the need for citizen safeguards. The final report will be published by the Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner. [Extracted from the article]

The central objective of democratic governance of intelligence is, through debate and law, to establish public confidence that the agencies work efficiently, effectively and properly. Oversight of intelligence can be seen as a contest between agencies, government and overseers for the control of information. The four interacting dimensions of information control are secrecy, gathering, evaluation and persuasion. This article assesses the oversight performance of the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) through the prism of information control in investigating the allegations of UK involvement in torture since 2001. Operating within an overall context of executive dominance, these dimensions constitute a series of filters including what officers tell their managers, what the agencies record, what they tell ministers, what they tell oversight bodies and, finally, what the ISC reports to the public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An extensive debate has emerged in recent years about the relative merits of behavioral policy instruments (nudges) aimed at changing individual behavior without coercion. In this article, we examine public support for non‐deliberative nudges and deliberative nudges and compare them to attitudes toward top‐down regulation and free choice/libertarian options. We also examine whether support for both types of nudges is associated with perceptions of fairness and efficacy. We test these expectations with a survey experiment with 1706 UK adult respondents (representative of the population on age, gender, and location) in two policy areas (retirement savings and carbon offsets for airline passengers). We find higher levels of public support for both nudge policy options compared to top‐down regulation. Support for nudges is associated with the perceived fairness of nudges more than their efficacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heavy policing remains 'a chronic feature of public order operations' (Waddington PAJ (1994) Liberty and Order: Public Order Policing in a Capital City. London: UCL Press), both in the form of officer numbers and in the proportionality of tactics employed. This paper argues that at the heart of this lies the assessment of threat and risk and how police commanders perceive, predict and manage the potential for disorder. It reports on the findings of a mixed-methods study, combining data from observations of three separate public order events, with in-depth interviews of seven high-level, police public order commanders from five different UK police forces. Analysis suggests that commanders construe 'risk' in very broad terms, seeking to mitigate not only physical harm but also abstract consequences such as reputational damage and loss of public confidence. Structured models central to the task of threat and risk assessment give the appearance of a quantitative and objective process. However, the actual appraisal of threat and risk, both before and during public order operations, is almost entirely heuristic. Furthermore, the analysis suggests commanders' decision-making is acutely affected by the pressure of accountability. It is argued that at a tacit level, their threat and risk assessments reflect this and a direct consequence is the deployment of additional police resources. At a time when the police service is under intense pressure to do more with less, this paper discusses how refining the assessment of threat and risk may prove to be a critical factor in the delivery of cost effective and proportionate public order policing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Driverless cars are predicted to dramatically reduce collisions and casualties on the roads. However, there has been controversy about how they should be programmed to respond in the event of an unavoidable collision. Should they aim to save the most lives, prioritise the lives of pedestrians, or occupants of the vehicle? Some have argued that driverless cars should all be programmed to minimise total casualties. While this would appear to have wide international public support, previous work has also suggested regional variation and public reluctance to purchase driverless cars with such a mandated ethical setting. The possibility that algorithms designed to minimise collision fatalities would lead to reduced consumer uptake of driverless cars and thereby to higher overall road deaths, represents a potential "utility paradox". To investigate this paradox further, we examined the views of the general public about driverless cars in two online surveys in the UK and Japan, examining the influence of choice of a "personal ethical setting" as well as of framing on hypothetical purchase decisions. The personal ethical setting would allow respondents to choose between a programme which would save the most lives, save occupants or save pedestrians. We found striking differences between UK and Japanese respondents. While a majority of UK respondents wished to buy driverless cars that prioritise the most lives or their family members' lives, Japanese survey participants preferred to save pedestrians. We observed reduced willingness to purchase driverless cars with a mandated ethical setting (compared to offering choice) in both countries. It appears that the public values relevant to programming of driverless cars differ between UK and Japan. The highest uptake of driverless cars in both countries can be achieved by providing a personal ethical setting. Since uptake of driverless cars (rather than specific algorithm used) is potentially the biggest factor in reducing in traffic related accidents, providing some choice of ethical settings may be optimal for driverless cars according to a range of plausible ethical theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a widespread belief that the higher the level of subsidies, the better the performance of film industries (both in quantity and quality). This article focuses on film quality—evaluated by audiences and critics—and scrutinizes this assumption through four selected countries—France, Korea, UK, and US. The main findings of this article are summarized through two points. First, despite the Korean film industry receiving the lowest level of public support, its film quality is higher than that of other selected countries. Second, the impact of subsidies on film quality turns out to be positive for the French, UK, and US films while it is negative or nil for Korean films. Although these results reflect partly differences in the background of each film industry and its public support in the four countries, they suggest that the effectiveness of subsidies and enhancement of film quality can be best achieved by better designing the subsidy schemes—not by increasing their amount. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public opinion on complex policy questions is shaped by the ways in which elites simplify the issues. Given the prevalence of metaphor and analogy as tools for cognitive problem solving, the deployment of analogies is often proposed as a tool for this kind of influence. For instance, a prominent explanation for the acceptance of austerity is that voters understand government deficits through an analogy to household borrowing. Indeed, there are theoretical reasons to think the household finance analogy represents a most likely case for the causal influence of analogical reasoning on policy preferences. This article examines this best-case scenario using original survey data from the United Kingdom. It reports observational and experimental analyses that find no evidence of causation running from the household analogy to preferences over the government budget. Rather, endorsement of the analogy is invoked ex post to justify support for fiscal consolidation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars continue to debate whether public opinion in democracies influences the foreign policy preferences of their leaders. We intervene into this literature through a survey experiment in which we asked 101 British members of Parliament (MPs) for their views about the UK military presence in the South China Sea. Using random assignment, some of the MPs received information from a public opinion poll about this issue. MPs who received the polling information, compared with those who did not, voiced opinions closer to those of the public. This finding advances the state of knowledge because we uncover causally identified evidence and employ a realistic research design (we surveyed policy makers of a global power using real public opinion data about an active policy issue). Our study suggests that leaders respond to public opinion, which has implications for theories about democratic responsiveness and the impact of domestic audiences on foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many supporters of democratic reform in the UK propose both a change in the electoral system to proportional representation (PR) and a shift to a formal (codified and entrenched) constitution. In principle, these two proposals are deeply complementary. There is, however, also a potential tension between them. Specifically, if a future UK government were to treat PR as a matter of ordinary legislation, this would conflict with the democratic constitutionalist principle that major constitutional changes require a more direct and/or robust test of public support, in addition to parliamentary approval—such as in a confirmatory referendum. The article discusses seven possible approaches by which a future progressive Parliament might advance PR. It assesses their strengths and weaknesses with an eye on this tension and other factors. It concludes that the emerging politics around this tension underscores the need for a formal constitution to prevent the UK's constitutional politics becoming subordinated to partisan conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the international literature, small towns are most likely to reorient following structural change if they are rich in natural or built amenity, accessible to large urban areas and have local capacity for change. However, not all places have these characteristics. Focusing on places less blessed with these features, this paper develops a conceptualisation that extends beyond these simplistic empirical regularities/characteristics and enhances understanding of the processes underlying small town change. Drawing on two cases from both the UK and New Zealand, key drivers for small town reorientation are explored, their meaning illustrated in terms of the likelihood of reorientation of the towns' development trajectory and the key policy choices emerging are highlighted. Whilst small town reorientation is inherently unpredictable, positive forces for change are likely to occur within most small towns. Informed by the adaptive cycle model and how this links to observed case realities, the findings suggest the need for an emergent strategic approach that focuses on supporting a local rediscovery/re-imagination of potential, local adaptive processes of emergence and connectivity as it emerges. Consistent with recent research into placeleadership and place-based revival, there is a need for public support to encourage positive local activity and the development of policies that are flexible to the changing place-based opportunities/synergies that emerge. • Small town reorientation is most likely when they are rich in amenity, accessible and strong local capacity. • There is a need to conceptualise beyond these simplistic empirical regularities/characteristics, which this paper does through exploring the processes underlying small town change. • The paper explores the value of using complex adaptive systems to help explain the transitions which small towns experience. • This conception and empirical evidence supports a flexible emergent strategic approach. • Policies need to be more supportive to place-based opportunities/synergies as they emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pressures on urban local authorities to deliver mobility strategies highlight both their need and ability to connect problems and solutions, and then successfully implement the schemes. These difficulties are compounded by other distinctive pressures, from both above and below. From above there can be pressures from national government to deliver strategies, but at the same time not necessarily be provided with the necessary financial and political resources. From below, there can be an att raction towards innovators who can provide strategies at apparently little or no cost to the public sector. These relationships can be unpredictable and unstable, while the technologies themselves can display weaknesses, and be subject to change. The dynamics of the delivery of micromobility can therefore offer strong challenges to urban local authorities in constructing stable networks, mobilizing public support for their actions, and in linking in with other transport services. The two case studies selected here cover the development of bicycle hire in the UK, with particular reference to dockless bicycle hire. Even when the local authorities have active intentions to oversee successful innovations, they are unlikely to succeed without the stronger involvement of central government, including the necessary statutory powers, together with adequate financial resources and associated expertise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During COVID-19, various public institutions tried to shape citizens' behaviour to slow the spread of the pandemic. How did their authority affect citizens' support of public measures taken to combat the spread of COVID-19? The article makes two contributions. First, it presents a novel conceptualisation of authority as a source heuristic. Second, it analyses the authority of four types of public institutions (health ministries, universities, public health agencies, the WHO) in two countries (Germany and the UK), drawing on novel data from a survey experiment conducted in May 2020. On average, institutional endorsements seem to have mattered little. However, there is an observable polarisation effect where citizens who ascribe much expertise to public institutions support COVID-19 measures more than the control group. Furthermore, those who ascribe little expertise support them less than the control group. Finally, neither perception of biases nor exposure to institutions in public debates seems consistently to affect their authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2021, the United Kingdom's CMA (Competition and Markets Authority) - like other competition agencies worldwide - faces a future where competition law enforcement and policy are very different from what we have been used to for decades. Quite apart from its new post-Brexit functions (taking on cross-border merger and cartel cases that would previously have been reserved to the European Commission), the CMA is having to deal with a panoply of new challenges. First, the Covid-19 pandemic, which has touched every aspect of people's lives, has inevitably had an impact - changing external priorities, and changing the way the authorities deal with them. Second, there are the effects of digitalisation of the economy which, unlike the worst of the pandemic, are likely to be long-lasting: immense benefits for competition and consumers, but also major new issues in competition enforcement, which seem different in scale, and perhaps different in kind, from those thrown up by earlier waves of technological change. Third, and less visible but perhaps most fundamental, there are questions about the ability to command public legitimacy and support in a world where market competition is increasingly questioned as a solution to economic problems. This article discusses ways of dealing with these challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there has been much interest in British public opinion on Brexit, much less is known about how EU‐27 Europeans view the Brexit negotiations. This is surprising, because Brexit confronts the EU‐27 with difficult choices. Whereas accommodating the UK carries the risk of encouraging further countriesto leave the EU, an uncompromising negotiation stance increases the economic and social costs of Brexit. Using original survey data from 39,000 respondents in all EU‐27 countries collected between the start of the Brexit negotiations and December 2018, this article shows that exposure to the economic risks of Brexit makes respondents more willing to accommodate the UK, whereas a positive opinion of the EU decreases their willingness to compromise. Moreover, many Europeans face an accommodation dilemma that moderates these preferences. Overall, the EU‐27 public unsentimentally supports a Brexit negotiation line that safeguards their own interests best. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To what extent does the public support the use of cyber weapons? We propose that public exposure to the destructive potential of cyber-attacks will dispel the clear cross-national preference for cyber strikes. To test this, we conducted two survey experiments (n = 2,585) that examine support for cyber versus conventional military strikes in the United States, United Kingdom, and Israel. In study 1, we exposed respondents to television news reports depicting various forms of terror attacks, and then measured the subsequent support for retaliatory options. Findings indicate that the high public support for deploying cyber weapons dissipated entirely among respondents exposed to lethal cyber-attacks. In study 2, we probed this vanishing support, finding that exposure to destructive cyber-attacks undercuts the perception of cyber as a less lethal domain, therefore diminishing its appeal. We conclude by discussing how the fragile public preference for cyber weapons encourages military escalation in the short-term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]