STATECRAFT

Jul 25 2024 23 ep. 24 mins 15

STATECRAFT Podcast artwork

STATECRAFT is about everything to do with creating, maintaining and adapting States and Governments. Internally and externally. Produced by Colin Talbot, Professor of Government (emeritus) at the University of Manchester, UK. TWITTER: @colinrtalbot EMAIL: [email protected]

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PRACTICAL INNOVATION IN GOVERNMENT - with Alan Robinson and Dean Schroeder

Jul 25 2024 43 mins

Alan Robinson and Dean Schroeder studied 70 public organisations in 5 countries, interviewing over a thousand people, for this book. It shows how bottom-up driven innovation can achieve truly remarkable results - for small extra investment. Something surely of interest to the incoming British Labour Government - in fact any government. Listen to my fascinating discussion with them

BRIDGEBUILDING - how Government can transcend boundaries to solve big problems. With William Eggers and Donald Kettl

Jun 09 2023 40 mins

William Eggers and Don Kettle's new book 'BRIDGEBUILDERS' isn't the first to address the issue of how Governments can 'catalyse' problem solving on the big issues. But it's a great updating, and refining, of the issues, methods and pitfalls of 'Bridgebuilding'. With lots of fascinating examples. A worthy successor to 'Reinventing Government' (Osborne and Gaebler 1992) which three d

STATECRAFT FOR SUPERSTATES? - with Alasdair Roberts

Mar 02 2023 34 mins

The advertising for Al Roberts new book SUPERSTATES says "In this century, the world will conduct an extraordinary experiment in government. In 2050, forty percent of the planet's population will live in just four places: India, China, the European Union, and the United States. These are superstates – polities that are distinguished from normal countries by expansiveness, populat

HOW TO RULE? The Arts of Government from Antiquity to the Present - with Grant Duncan

Feb 24 2023 35 mins

There are not many* attempts to write a full, global, history of Government since its inception 4-5 millennia ago. Grant Duncan has written one which doesn't cover everything - but focuses instead on the ideas (and realities) of government from a more global perspective - starting with historical Chinese thought and practice. I hope our discussions captures some of his ideas - but

THE RETURN OF THE STATE - discussion with Graeme Garrard about his ideas around the "Public Interest State"

Jan 26 2023 37 mins

Graeme Garrad argues that for the past 40 years some governments have tried to 'roll back the frontiers of the state'. Although they succeeded in a lot of economic areas, they were much less successful at reducing the welfare state. Now Graeme sees the possible emergence of what he calls the "Public Interest State". Join us for a fascinating discussion. Graeme Garrard, THE RETURN O

STATES AND WELFARE STATES - discussion with Paul Spicker about his new book from Policy Press

Jan 12 2023 35 mins

Traditional debates in political science about states and governments have focussed on fairly abstract definitions, usually starting from Max Weber's definition of the state as a “human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.” Paul suggests this is clearly inadequate to discussing modern states and in a

UK Government(s) and Covid

Nov 11 2022 12 mins

In this short (12 min) episode I discuss how the UK Governments - plural - handled Covid. And especially how the Whitehall Government did - or mostly did not- coordinate with other tiers of Government Of which there are many more than you would think. This is part of my project to promote serious discussion around what is known as "multi-level governance" in the UK and beyond. This

BUURTZORG - a revolutionary way of delivering human services? With Brendan Martin

Nov 10 2022 34 mins

BUURTZORG is an innovative method for organising the delivery of human services. Starting in community nursing in the Netherlands, it has captured the majority of providing community nursing services there. In this initial exploration, I talk to Brendan Martin about the Buurtzorg philosophy and practice.

STATECRAFT -Introduction to series 2

Nov 09 2022 3 mins

Sorry for the long delay since the end of series 1. I've been ill. But STATECRAFT is back. And in this short intro I'll explain what I'm trying to do with the series. The first full episode - looking at the BUURTZORG method of organising the very topical issue of community nursing - will be appearing very soon (it's already recorded).

Westminster vs Whitehall: Two competing views of the UK Constitution - with David Howarth

Jul 13 2022 26 mins

Prof David Howarth (Cambridge), explains his views on how the UK has not one but two 'constitutions' - in competition but also co-existing. You can read a short introduction to David's ideas here. David, like me, has background in local government before he became an MP. He, like me, was always struck by the differences in the way local and central government work. Unlike me, he is