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R. A. W. Rhodes
Alma mater	University of Essex, Oxford University
School	Interpretive Political Science
Main interests	Public policy, Political Institutions; Governance, Core executive, Policy networks, and Public administration
Notable ideas	Decentred theory of governance

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R. A. W. Rhodes

R.A.W. Rhodes is a Professor of Political Science. He was born in the West Riding of Yorkshire, in a town called Bradford. He was educated at a Moravian church school before working as a clerk. After studying at night school, he took a bachelor's degree at Bradford University. He also holds a postgraduate B.Litt from Oxford University and a doctorate from Essex University. He emigrated from the UK to Australia in 2003.

Rhodes currently holds a joint appointment as Professor of Government in the School of Government at the University of Tasmania, Australia, and as Distinguished Professor of Political Science in the Political Science Program at the Australian National University. He is also Professor Emeritus, University of Newcastle (UK). He is the former Director of the UK Economic and Social Research Council’s ‘Whitehall Programme’ (1994-1999); and of the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University (2007-8). He is Treasurer of the Australasian Political Studies Association, life Vice-President of the Political Studies Association of the United Kingdom, and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in both Australia and Britain. He was editor of Public Administration, 1986-2011.

Research

Rhodes developed several influential ideas.

Differentiated polity

The idea that British government should be seen as a fragmented or differentiated polity rather than a unitary state has been hugely influential and widely debated. The idea ‘may be becoming the new orthodoxy’.

Core executive

With Patrick Dunleavy, Rhodes argued the conventional debate about the British executive, with its focus on the relative power of the prime minister and cabinet was too limited. The core functions of the British executive are to pull together and integrate central government policies and to act as final arbiters of conflicts between different elements of the government machine. These functions can be carried out by institutions other than prime minister and cabinet; for example, the Treasury and the Cabinet Office. By defining the core executive in functional terms, the key questions become: ‘who does what?’ and ‘who has what resources?’.

Policy networks

Rhodes pioneered the analysis of policy networks in British government. The term refers to sets of formal and informal institutional linkages between governmental and other actors structured around shared interests in public policymaking and implementation. These institutions are interdependent. Policies emerge from the bargaining between the networks’ members. The other actors commonly include the professions, trade unions and big business. Central departments need their co-operation because British government rarely delivers services itself. It uses other bodies. Also, there are too many groups to consult so government must aggregate interests. It needs the ‘legitimated’ spokespeople for that policy area. The groups need the money and legislative authority that only government can provide.

Governance

The term refers to: a new process of governing; or a changed condition of ordered rule; or the new method by which society is governed. Rhodes applied the idea to public administration and public policy to refer the changing boundaries between public, private and voluntary sectors. For many policy arenas, these sectors are interdependent, so decisions are a product of their game-like interactions, rooted in trust and regulated by rules of the game negotiated and agreed by the participants. Such networks have significant degree of autonomy from the state - they are self-organising - although the state can indirectly and imperfectly steer them. In sum, governance refers to governing with and through networks; to network steering. The arguments that there had been a shift from ‘government to governance’, that it was the mix of bureaucracy, markets and networks that mattered, and a consequent ‘hollowing out of the state’ are now referred to, and debated, as the ‘the Anglo-governance school’ . Rhodes wrote the foundational texts of this school.

Interpretive political science

'Mark Bevir and R. A. W. Rhodes are the authors of Interpreting British Governance (2003) and Governance Stories (2006). They argue that political science must necessarily be an interpretive art. This is because they hold that the starting point of enquiry must be to unpack the meanings, beliefs, and preferences of actors in order to then make sense of understanding actions, practices, and institutions. Political science is therefore an interpretative discipline underpinned by hermeneutic philosophy rather than positivism: there is no ‘science’ of politics, instead all explanations, including those that deploy statistics and models, are best conceived as narratives. Bevir and Rhodes thus provide an elaborate philosophical foundation for a decentred theory of governance woven together by the notions of beliefs, traditions and dilemmas. 'It follows that the role of political scientists is to use (1) ethnography to uncover people’s beliefs and preferences, and (2) history to uncover traditions as they develop in response to dilemmas. The product is a story of other people’s constructions of what they are doing, which provides actors’ views on changes in government, the economy, and society. So, for example, a political scientist may select a part of the governance process, and then explain it by unpicking various political traditions and how actors within these traditions encounter and act to resolve dilemmas. Governance is thus understood as the contingent and unintended outcome of competing narratives of governance.’(Encyclopedia of Governance, pp.194–195)

A decentred theory of governance

'For Bevir and Rhodes, decentered theory revolves around the idea of situated agency: institutions, practices or socialisation cannot determine how people behave, so any course of action is a contingent individual choice. People’s actions are explained by their beliefs (or meanings or desires); any one belief is interpreted in the context of the wider web of a person’s beliefs; and these beliefs are explained by traditions and modified by dilemmas. A tradition (or episteme or paradigm) is the set of theories against the background of which a person comes to hold beliefs and perform actions. It is a first influence upon people – a set of beliefs that they inherit and then transform in response to encounters with "dilemmas" (or problems or anomalies). A dilemma arises whenever novel circumstances generate a new belief that forces people to question their previously held beliefs. Change occurs through encountering such dilemmas: while individual responses to dilemmas are grounded in traditions, they then modify just those traditions.' (Encyclopedia of Governance, pp.194–195)

Selected Books

Bevir, M. and Rhodes, R. A. W. Interpreting British Governance. (London: Routledge 2003).

Books 1-3 are a trilogy introducing the ‘interpretive turn’ to studying British government. Discussed in a symposium in British Journal of Politics and International Relation 6 (2) 2004: 129-64.

Bevir, M. and Rhodes, R. A. W. Governance Stories (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2006).

The Australian Political Studies Association (APSA) graded all publishers. Routledge were ranked A. The book was the subject of a symposium in Political Studies Review 6(2) 2008: 143-177.

Bevir, M. and Rhodes, R. A. W. The State as Cultural Practice. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).

OUP is ranked A* by APSA. OUP is the top political science publisher in the UK.

Rhodes, R. A. W., J. Wanna and P. Weller, Comparing Westminster. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

OUP is ranked A*. Book was ARC funded (DP0811920, 2002-4). It applies the Bevir and Rhodes approach. It is the first post-war comparative study of the Westminster tradition.

Rhodes, R. A. W. Everyday life at the top (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Accepted January, forthcoming September).

OUP is ranked A*. The book completed the decade long interpretive project. It applied the Bevir and Rhodes approach (above). It is the first political anthropology of British government.

Rhodes, R. A. W. (Ed.), Transforming British Government. Volume 1. Changing Institutions. Volume 2. Changing Roles and Relationships. (London: Macmillan, 2000).

The ESRC evaluation praised this original research as ‘a source of provocative ideas’ and ‘stimulating antidote’ while the ideas on governance provided ‘a cogent and widely recognised framework.’

Rhodes, R. A. W. Understanding Governance. (Buckingham and Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1997. Reprinted 1999).

It is the top-cited book by a political scientist working in Australia (REPP, ANU). It also has 2354 Google cites. It is the foundational text for ‘the Anglo-governance school’.

Rhodes, R. A. W. and D. Marsh (Eds.), Policy networks in British government (Oxford Clarendon Press, 1992).

A foundational text from an A* publisher with 863 Google cites. Based on original research by the editors, their postgraduate students and junior colleagues.

Rhodes, R. A. W. Beyond Westminster and Whitehall: The Sub-Central Governments of Britain. (London and Winchester, Mass: Unwin-Hyman/Allen & Unwin, 1988; corrected edition with new Preface and bibliographical addendum, London: Routledge, 1992. Digital edition 2003).

Still in print after 22 years and never been out of print. It introduced the ‘the new orthodoxy’ of Britain as ‘differentiated polity’, a standard discussion topic in text books.

Rhodes, R. A. W. Control and Power in Central-Local Government Relationships. (Aldershot and Brookfield, Vermont: Ashgate, 1999).

Originally published in 1981, reprinted 1983 and 1986, Japanese translation, 1987, reprinted with a new preface and three additional chapters 1999. It was the source ‘Rhodes model’ of intergovernmental relations, again a textbook staple.

External Links

Australian Who's Who link

Australian National University staff page here

Extended list of publications for R. A. W. Rhodes