A few months ago I wrote an interminably long blog piece about how now fairly obscure Argentine and French political philosophers had dealt an inadvertent blow to the Left in the UK. You really had to be there.
This brought some (e-mailed) commentary from aver nice academic of things to do with political philosophy, who said a) it was interminably long and took about a week to get to the point; b) it was nevertheless quite interesting, and provided evidence that I am not a totally numpty on such matters.
I accepted the first point with equanimity, cognisant of my perpetual tendency to long windedness; at the second point I glowed with the transient pride of someone who’s only fairly recently discovered proper books and how to decide if they’re any good or not, but who’s then usually got to pick the kids up from school, or go canvassing, or earn a living writing stuff for other people.
I can’t remember how it came about from there, but now I’ve ended up being invited to write then deliver a paper at a real academic conference, the subject of which is something to do with the relationship between academia and public service delivery. At least I think it is. I had a flyer about it somewhere.
I’ve now been reminded of what I said I’d do, so it’s time to panic appropriately and ask anyone and everyone for help, assuming I’ve not missed the deadline.
So here’s the outline of my paper. Please help out by filling in the blanks, providing appropriate clever references, and generally doing all the work for me.
Working title: Does understanding political theory REALLY public help politicians and public servants do what they do, and change what they want to change.
Introduction
Ladies, gentlemen, fellow tremendously clever boffins, I am delighted to be here to speak to you today on the important matter of whether and understanding political theory REALLY public help politicians and political activists do what they do?
My answer to the question will be a rather long-winded ‘yes’.
2. Main bit
I will prove I am right by analysing in a clever way blog posts I have written over the last year or so, which I would not have written if I had not started reading loads of books, and from there provide evidence of how my actions in respect of my position as raving opposition councillor have been changed – I would contend for the better – by a better understanding of how power is played out in the institutions of capitalist state.
That is, I will set out primarily how my understanding of both the concept and the actuality of hegemonic processes as they occur have in fact enabled me to provide more effective opposition to those processes than I would otherwise have done.
My main posts for reference here will be:
1) My long one on how my local authority has, while in reality delivering poor services and failing to take responsibility for the ‘quality of life’ brief accorded to it at a formal level by the national state, been able to use its institutional muscle to portray itself as an ‘excellent’ authority;
2) Other shorter posts (to be determined) on how my local authority has, in general, been able to focus its energies and resources on populist measures while ignoring growing inequalities in provision, whilst displaying a veneer of commitment to ‘excellence’ (itself a managerialist phrase deployed as a means of ‘covering tracks’).
Further I will set out how a clearer understanding than I had even two years ago of the need to acknowledge the primacy of the working class in the struggle against the hegemonic processes of capitalism as they played out in and around the local authority scene in which I have chosen to engage politically.
However, I will also set out some of the constraints I have met in seeking to translate into terms of political action my new theoretical understanding of how, for example social power is played out.
These constraints, I will contend, are largely related to the legal-institutional framework within which I am ‘bound’ to act within my position in local government, but there is also an interface here with the personal constraints I feel in respect of challenging those institutional constraints.
I will continue by comparing two instances of ‘local councillor revolt against the institutional norms of the day (The Poplar Councillors in 1921 in view of Stropy’s new book, and Liverpool Militant in the 1980s), before going on to assess the chances for any similar occurrences in the local government environment of the late 21st century, an environment which is very largely a product of 30 years of ‘depoliticisation’ and ‘managerialism’.
I will then return to the main conference theme seek, to address the actual impact, upon our capacity to challenge and change institutions, of the ’personal mpowerment’ I and other mature practitioners like me gain through engagement with the opportunities of higher education.
I will argue that this is not just a question of how poltiicians like me can use learning to change institutions for the better, but is also of relevance to public service officers, who also face institutional and power constraints. Here I will draw on this challenging article about the reality of translating rhetoric into action with higher education itself.
Finally, I will address the question of how an understanding of these power and institutional constraints facing practitioners, and the need to make these explicit and analysed as part of th learning process, might make the ‘knowledge transfer’ aims of higher education institutions more achievable in ‘the real world’.
Right, you get the drift? Comments, of no less than 1,000 words and set out in a way in which I can easily cut and paste straight into the paper without acknowledging the source, are very welcome.
Hi
Its not my new book. We are a group blog , its Janine’s book.
[...] Cotterill will be writing a paper himself on the usefulness of political theory to the practice of politics at local government level, and I look forward to reading it. Yet that was a result of a one-in-a-thousand chance meeting on a [...]