paul davis - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by paul davis

World Sustainability Series, 2014

Local Government Studies, 2001

This article argues that the development of British credit unions is being held back by the uncle... more This article argues that the development of British credit unions is being held back by the unclear objectives and performance measures set by different external stakeholders. Credit unions are particularly vulnerable to contradictory accountability requirements, because they can serve a number of different socio-economic purposes. They may therefore face multiple lines of managerial and political accountability in a situation where they remain highly dependent on external stakeholders for funding. Survey evidence shows that the ...

Benchmarking for Quality Management & Technology, 1998

This article provides an overview of the current state of play of benchmarking in local governmen... more This article provides an overview of the current state of play of benchmarking in local government in the UK. It traces a trajectory of development for local authorities that diverges from that of the corporate private sector, in terms of the importance of external political drivers. A number of key constraints are identified that are together blocking the further development of benchmarking in the sector. These include a lack of awareness of potential scope; problems in securing needed skills; satisficing and low aspiration levels reducing the potential gain from benchmarking; and a marked lack of formal evaluation. Notwithstanding recent growth, a legitimate degree of scepticism remains in many local authorities as to the public value to be derived from benchmarking.

International Journal of Public Sector Management, 1999

Abstract: This article sets out the main conclusions of a research project into how UK local auth... more Abstract: This article sets out the main conclusions of a research project into how UK local authorities are managing within limited resources (MLR). Frameworks are developed to aid authorities to plan their approaches to MLR and to situate what they have already done and what they plan to do within a wider portfolio of tactics and strategies. An evaluation is made of how well local government is learning its way through to getting “more from less” and of what local authority support agencies need to do to help authorities to accelerate their ...

This Paper argues that a key task in understanding crisis situations lies in how their general ma... more This Paper argues that a key task in understanding crisis situations lies in how their general manifestations penetrate into and affect individual enterprises. One transmission mechanism for moving crisis around is studied here: uncertainty based on incomplete propositions (enthymemes). The challenges posed by incompletely specified commerce are traced, using Latourian tools of relational materiality. Conventional approaches to enterprise planning born of strategic management theory may be a barrier to dealing with the incomplete, but ...

Local Government Management Board, 1998

Made to measure: Evaluation in practice in local government. Ian Sanderson,Tony Bovaird, Paul Dav... more Made to measure: Evaluation in practice in local government. Ian Sanderson,Tony Bovaird, Paul Davis, Steve Martin, Anne Foreman, M Storey London: Local Government Management Board, 1998.

More for Less: Practical Coping Strategies for Managing Limited Resources. AG Bovaird, Paul Davis... more More for Less: Practical Coping Strategies for Managing Limited Resources. AG Bovaird, Paul Davis, Julie Green, Local Government Management Board Local Government Board, 1997.

This article sets out the main conclusions of a research project into how UK local authorities ar... more This article sets out the main conclusions of a research project into how UK local authorities are managing within limited resources (MLR). Frameworks are developed to aid authorities to plan their approaches to MLR and to situate what they have already done and what they plan to do within a wider portfolio of tactics and strategies. An evaluation is made of how well local government is learning its way through to getting “more from less” and of what local authority support agencies need to do to help authorities to accelerate their learning. Finally, the authors argue that existing learning systems like benchmarking and quality management, while developing rapidly in local government, need further, significant refinement if the costs and benefits of resource management strategies are to be systematically evaluated.

This Article explores language in Local Economic Development. It explores problems in defining th... more This Article explores language in Local Economic Development. It explores problems in defining this field and problems in reaching a settled definition. It then evaluates associations between keywords and the potential of tag-clouds in tracking changes in common terms. The field is seen as context-sensitive and high-fashion and its words undergo rapid turnover. A politics of linguistic associating is visible in these shifts. These controversies invite stronger use of language techniques than just association. The Article therefore analyses stronger types of rhetorical and logical argumentation, based on a politics of inferring.. No matter how competently done, though, the narrative turn may not suffice to persuade. The Article concludes with hints about what a radically different (material) turn deliberately mixing words and non-human things might look like. It notes the availability of political weapons - both material and narrative alike –to critical as well as dominant forces alike.

This Paper uses pragmatist thinking to reconsider the status of utopian projects. The argument be... more This Paper uses pragmatist thinking to reconsider the status of utopian projects. The argument begins by noting the defensive attitudes of many utopian advocates. This defensiveness appears due to two sentiments: that many political movements remain hostile to utopias; and that the capacity of societies to generate new utopias may be declining. Focussing on the latter assertion, the argument notes that many utopias remain uncounted, so how is falling generative capacity to be gauged? It is asserted instead that the capacity of societies to generate new utopias remains undimmed - but this creativity is often overlooked. Therefore, both the mechanisms through which utopian production is done, and the qualities of the utopias themselves need further deciphering if their potential is to be harnessed.

This argument builds on Gardiner’s (2004) idea of everyday utopianism, reinterpreted using the network pragmatism associated with Latour (1999). Through this lens, two examples of the playing out of everyday utopias are explored. These relate to ongoing extensions of democratic representation to non-humans; and to increasingly assertive claims to moral conduct in making war through autonomising machines. Reflecting on these examples, four qualification requirements for a network pragmatist reading of everyday utopias are generated and contrasted with conventional utopias. These qualifications relate to: grandeur, reflexivity, normalisation and extensionism. Taken together, these qualification requirements may function as a specific test for utopias to counter ubiquitous market tests and support a specifically utopian ontological politics.

University students who live in privately rented houses account for nearly 42% of the student pop... more University students who live in privately rented houses account for nearly 42% of the student population in the UK, the majority live in relatively old housing stock which is energy inefficient requiring infrastructure improvements to make them more thermally efficient. The student landlord market is a stand-alone sector with some specific challenges including the high turnover of tenants and issues around who pays for the fuel bill. This project described and critiqued in this paper is specifically focused on a set of guiding interventions designed to help undergraduate students to save energy at home by changing their behaviour, alongside encouraging property owners to make infrastructure improvements.
This paper presents a case study on University of Worcester Students’ Union’s (WSU) behaviour change project funded through the Higher Education Funding Council England (HEFCE)’s Student Green Fund (SGF). It aims to develop a cost effective model to assist university students to learn and develop energy saving behaviours. Competition on a bespoke student facing software platform, regular incentives and easy to understand reports are part of a multidimensional approach to this intended behaviour change. The overall goal of the programme design is to identify best or most effective practice and develop opportunities to engage with wider employability and academic skills in a number of disciplines. This project runs for two years from October 2013 in Worcester, UK with Birmingham Guild of Students a partner in year two to test the potential for replication of the same model elsewhere.

The United Nations’ ‘Principles of Responsible Management Education’ (PRME) initiative is under-t... more The United Nations’ ‘Principles of Responsible Management Education’ (PRME) initiative is under-theorised, a worsening problem as it moves into more difficult times. This Essay argues that there are missing links between its design and the development of appropriate responses in signatory business schools. The enigmatic nature of PRME's Principles compounds this situating puzzle, as the morals it tries to justify remain opaque to schools.. Using actor-network theory, this Essay identifies the missing ontologies and within-school conflicts that more effectively problematise it. The practical ethics that ontological conflicts generate are examined, recognising PRME's own ethical silence. It is likely that PRME will practically invisibilise against a changing policy background, populated by many alternative and competing projects. The settled assumptions underpinning this invisibilising necessitate the use of disclosive ethics to reopen past settlements and permit a more robust justification of PRME when it is called to account. The Essay ends, therefore, by considering possible ways for PRME advocates to strengthen their positions in political trials to come.

This Article argues that a key task in theorising crisis situations is to understand how their ge... more This Article argues that a key task in theorising crisis situations is to understand how their general effects penetrate into and disrupt individual enterprises. One way in which crisis enters the enterprise is proposed here: through uncertainty based on incomplete propositions (enthymemes). The challenges posed to enterprises by incompletely specified commerce are traced, using Latourian tools of relational materiality. Those enterprises that are wedded to conventional strategic management based approaches to control are likely to find incompleteness especially puzzling. Conflict ensues.

The American Review of Public Administration, Jan 1, 2009

Public values are moving from a research concern to policy discourse and management practice. The... more Public values are moving from a research concern to policy discourse and management practice. There are, though, different readings of what public values actually mean. Reflection suggests two distinct strands of thinking: a generative strand that sees public value emerging from processes of public debate; and an institutional interpretation that views public values as the attributes of government producers. Neither perspective seems to offer a persuasive account of how the public gains from strengthened public values. Key propositions on values are generated from comparison of influential texts. A provisional framework is presented of the values base of public institutions and the loosely coupled public propositions flowing from these values. Value propositions issue from different governing contexts, which are grouped into policy frames that then compete with other problem frames for citizens' cognitive resources. Vital democratic commitments to pluralism require public values to be distributed in competition with other, respected, frames.

Public Administration, Jan 1, 2011

There has been a resurgence of interest in values in recent public administration research, based... more There has been a resurgence of interest in values in recent public administration research, based on two distinct arguments. For different reasons, neither approach is likely to secure a robust normative basis for public endeavours. These reasons are assessed, using an alternative body of theory rooted in contemporary social theory that we term, 'new pragmatism'. New pragmatic ideas are deployed to critique the divorce of values from facts; the abstraction of values from concrete situations; the anthropocentric foundation to social choice; the poorly developed understanding of the process of governance, with its inherent pluralism; and the seeming reluctance to articulate principles of political discourse.

Public Performance & Management Review, Jan 1, 2011

This Article evaluates the English Audit Commission (AC) in its recent regulatory relations with ... more This Article evaluates the English Audit Commission (AC) in its recent regulatory relations with local government. Its Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) initiative was central in defining this relationship and is taken as the key policy object here. The appraisal explores the AC"s performance in its own positivistic terms. This means focusing on the behavioural and cultural theories, institutional assumptions and rational presumptions underpinning CPA measurement. Using these three yardsticks, the overall consequences of CPA"s eight judgmental years on the local government polity are traced. Noting the tenacity of positivist thinking in English government, the argument examines two counter-factual regulatory possibilities. These are based on the diverging readings provided by interpretivism and relational materiality.

This is the first instalment of three short articles that tells an old story of the crises facing... more This is the first instalment of three short articles that tells an old story of the crises facing local governments in Western Europe in new ways. In this instalment, I engage in some highly selective historical re-creation. The goal in doing this is not precision or the generation of new numbers. Others are doing that task with far greater diligence.

This is the second instalment of three articles that provide some new ideas about the current cri... more This is the second instalment of three articles that provide some new ideas about the current crises facing local governments in Europe. There is no other issue that preoccupies policymakers and the various publics alike as this one, of course. Working out what to do with it is proving quite another, quite insuperable matter. That is the task that this instalment begins to think about. What can and should local governments do to play their part in resolving crisis?