STATECRAFT
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: colin.talbot@manchester.ac.uk
Episodes
23 episodes
PRACTICAL INNOVATION IN GOVERNMENT - with Alan Robinson and Dean Schroeder
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 investme...
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Season 3
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Episode 1
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43:45
BRIDGEBUILDING - how Government can transcend boundaries to solve big problems. With William Eggers and Donald Kettl
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 pi...
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Season 2
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Episode 8
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40:16
STATECRAFT FOR SUPERSTATES? - with Alasdair Roberts
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...
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Season 2
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Episode 7
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34:48
HOW TO RULE? The Arts of Government from Antiquity to the Present - with Grant Duncan
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 governme...
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Season 2
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Episode 6
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35:37
THE RETURN OF THE STATE - discussion with Graeme Garrard about his ideas around the "Public Interest State"
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 ...
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Season 2
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Episode 5
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37:07
STATES AND WELFARE STATES - discussion with Paul Spicker about his new book from Policy Press
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 l...
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Season 2
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Episode 4
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35:47
UK Government(s) and Covid
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...
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Season 2
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Episode 3
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12:03
BUURTZORG - a revolutionary way of delivering human services? With Brendan Martin
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...
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Season 2
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Episode 2
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34:59
STATECRAFT -Introduction to series 2
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 ...
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Season 2
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Episode 1
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3:43
Westminster vs Whitehall: Two competing views of the UK Constitution - with David Howarth
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
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Season 1
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Episode 13
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26:51
DIVERSITY IN THE CIVIL SERVICE - Whitehall Watching June 2022
This episode is a panel discussion about diversity in Whitehall. Both the diversity of civil service jobs and of civil service people.It is one of our regular special episodes of the podcast with a panel of experts discussing deve...
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Season 1
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Episode 12
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37:32
CHUMS - how a tiny caste of Oxford Tories took over the UK - with Simon Kuper
Simon Kuper's new book examines the small group of mainly Eton, and definitely mostly Oxford, Tories took over the UK.Simon's book delves into the combination of public school, Oxford and especially the Oxford Union shaped this group an...
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Season 1
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Episode 11
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13:01
WHITEHALL WATCHING (May 2022)
This is the first of a regular monthly "WHITEHALL WATCHING" sessions.The team for this episode is Sonia Khan (former civil servant and special adviser); Philip Rycroft (former Permanent Secretary); and Suzannah Brecknell (Editor of Civi...
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Season 1
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Episode 10
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44:15
THE ROLE OF UNIVERSITIES IN LEVELLING UP? with Jonathan Grant and Andy Westwood
Universities were hardly mentioned in the Levelling Up white paper published by the government earlier this year.Jonathan Grant and Andy Westwood addressed this gap
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Season 1
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Episode 9
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26:19
UK ELECTIONS - 5 MAY 2022 - a quick 5 min background explainer by me
A lot of political commentary in the media assumes a certain basic knowledge of what's happening in elections. Sometimes I wonder if the media folk know themselves?Anyway, here is my simple, 5 minute, explainer of what the elections are...
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Season 1
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Episode 8
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4:36
FAILURES OF STATE - the inside story of Britain's battle with Coronavirus, with George Arbuthnott
George Arbuthnott and his colleague Jonathan Calvert, both of the The Sunday Times 'Insight Team', have written one of the most detailed accounts of the Coronavirus pandemic in the UK: FAILURES OF STATE (Mudlark press).In this discussio...
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Season 1
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Episode 7
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28:20
ADULT SOCIAL CARE: CLIENTS, CONSUMERS OR CITIZENS with Prof Bob Hudson
Adult social care has gone through several transformations since 1945. Bob Hudson's book CLIENTS, CONSUMERS OR CITIZENS (2021, Policy Press) analyses the last 40 years of the privatisation of adult social care provision.Before the turn ...
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Season 1
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Episode 6
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18:55
HELD IN CONTEMPT - What's wrong with the House of Commons - with Hannah White
To say the House of Commons is in something of a crisis would be an understatement. Dozen's of MPs accused of misbehaving, the Prime Minister being investigated for lying to the House and one MP even accused of watching porn in the Commons Cham...
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Season 1
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Episode 5
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24:13
ALL ORGANIZATIONS ARE PUBLIC with Professor Barry Bozeman
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson reportedly threatened to "privatise the arse off" the Passport Agency recently for delivery failures at a Cabinet meeting on 26 April 2022.Which is somewhat ironic as many of the Passport Agency's ...
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Season 1
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Episode 4
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13:21
Why #PartyGate matters - with Pippa Catterall
Prof Pippa Catterall of University of Westminster talks to Colin Talbot about Partygate's wider context. Read her LSE blog here: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/why-partygate-matters/
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Season 1
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Episode 3
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16:38
Why podcast? Two academics discuss why we've both recently set up podcasts
Tudor Rickards and I are both retired (emeritus) professors from the University of Manchester. About a decade and a half ago we were amongst the first academics at Manchester to start blogging - entirely by coincidence. Fifteen or so years late...
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Season 1
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Episode 2
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11:26