Having read Andy Coverdale’s excellent post on Music to Survive a PhD, I decided it was time to roll up the shutters on my own PhD blog and document the contents of my headphones as I was writing up this Summer. Like Andy, I cannot listen to lyrics while writing. Sometimes, if things are getting particularly tricky, all music has to go off in order to think. However, in the main music was a helpful way of blocking out the rest of the (shared) office and acting as a signal to myself that it was time for me to work. And there were also the very early morning bus rides to the office where I needed getting going for the day, hence:

Beyonce – 4 

This was the album I listened to more than anything else this year. If, like me, you never paid that much attention to Beyonce before, you should really check this album out, it’s one of the best albums in years. Very strong songs all the way through, and her singing – my god, her voice is incredible. Too good to write to, but great for maintaining sanity when faced with another day of trying to keep up with the writing schedule

Anything by Theo Parrish 

Parrish is generally groove-based enough for my brain to latch on to, while not being dancefloor enough to distrct me from the job in hand, Also, I have been listening to him for a long time, so there is enough familiarity with the music for me not to have to concentrate too hard. Like driving a fmiliar stretch of motorway and subconsciosuly knowing which junction to leave at. So for me, his music was instrumental in helping me write. For you, it’s worth listening because he makes otherworldly house music like no-one else. Lots of imitators – no equals.

Hugo Capablanca – Beats In Space Hallowwen 2011 special

http://www.beatsinspace.net/playlists/492 (free download)

One-off studio session orchestrated by Capablanca which has never been released. Psych-Krautrock vibe which manages to sound really fresh despite being an overcrowded genre. Listened to this a lot while writing. The pulsing effects and shards of melody work really well for me – would like to hear more from this man.

Legowelt – The Teac Life

Here is an artist that never reallygot on my radar until the release of this album. A blisfully melodic soup of techno unwinding over two hours, this was the only album I listened to while working and commuting. Glorious. What is more, the album was released as a free download – pick it up here.

Rustie – Glass Swords

If Legowelt took full advantage of the extended album lengths available to artists in the download era, Rustie turned the other way, issuing a series of 7-inch length missiles that sounded like techno/R&B cut-and-shut jobs given a progrock-synth respray. This was fantastic for propelling me through mundane tasks such as proof reading or bibliography-checking, although I eventually found the beats too busy not to be distracting. Amazing music though. 

My Last FM stats were very helpful in jogging my memory for this post. You can see a lot more of the stuff I have been listening to at http://www.last.fm/user/WarrenPearce/charts 

This afternoon I submitted my thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. It’s called “The meanings of climate change policy: implementing carbon reduction in the East Midlands”.

I am very happy about this news.

The last four weeks have been very busy, and I’m now pretty tired. I’m also starting a new job on Monday (still at University of Nottingham). But I will post more about that next week. Until then, thanks to everyone who has provided me with support and inspiration over the last three years.

I am referencing the above letter in my thesis (handing in Friday!). Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Harvard APA guide isn't too hot on how to reference Lords. As a result, I am not sure how to reference the letter. Maybe like this?

Deben, Lord, Kennedy, D., King, J., Fankhauser, S., Hoskins, B., Krebs, Lord, May, Lord, and Skea, J. (2012, September 13). The need for a carbon intensity target in the power sector. Letter to Rt Hon Edward Davey MP.

Lord Deben, Kennedy, D., King, J., Fankhauser, S., Hoskins, B., Lord Krebs, Lord May, and Skea, J. (2012, September 13).?The need for a carbon intensity target in the power sector. Letter to Rt Hon Edward Davey MP.

Blog post to follow…

Lucky to be attending an event called “Education for the Crisis” at De Montfort University later this month, which seeks to find a way forward for education in light of the crises and disruptions of the early 21st century. Thinking about these ideas, I’ve written down an idea that’s been rattling around my head for a while, essentially how those opposing capitalism and the cuts are overlooking the environmental and resource crises which are intertwined with the degradation of capitalism, and how it’s hard to argue against cuts when we all need to survive with *less* in the future.

This is a rough draft. If the words within it mean anything to you at all, please leave a comment below:

When we think about education and the crisis, we might think about what the former might say about capitalism. When capitalism becomes the subject of discussion, thoughts may turn to the swirl of street protests over the last two years. While some of this action has been unfocused (sometimes, deliberately so), a common thread through much of these actions has been resistance to cuts in services and funding by the Coalition Government. These ideas come together for many on the left, who argue both against the cuts and against capitalism. But this position fails to take into account the environmental and resource aspects of the crisis.

In common with other Western countries, the UK derived its wealth from its position at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution combined with the advantages of colonial power. This wealth came through the use of a disproportionate share of the world’s natural resources, with environmental consequences across space and time. Consequently, the West can afford (once comfortably, now less so) annual welfare budgets which cost more than the total GDP of most countries.

If all the world’s countries consumed resources at the same rates as the West, we would need well in excess of the one planet’s resources we have at our disposal. This implies an urgent need to reduce our own consumption. This in turn implies a reduction in (material) wealth and the tax base, and with them the ability to support the existing scale of the welfare state. We can argue that cuts are uneven and unfair (in particular those aimed at the disabled) or that we could reduce spending in other areas of government (e.g. defence, international development), but if the pie gets smaller then so do the slices within it. To deny this is in fact an acceptance of the West continuing to consume a disproportionate share of natural resources in order to prop up GDP, and with it the welfare state papering over the ever-widening cracks.

As a result the environmental and economic crises throw notions of social justice into sharper focus. Squeezing the total national wealth threatens escalating poverty without more radical redistributive measures. But it also highlights the folly of ‘business-as-usual’ and defending the status quo, no matter what side of the political argument we come from.

What does this mean for education? Well, I think we need to find out. Not because I want to zero in on the welfare state, it is just an example of how the crisis cuts across the old left-right spectrum and needs to challenge our thinking on the institutions cherished within our political traditions. We need to fight for the goals of the present, not to protect the symbols of past struggles…

Seen lots of linking to this Atlantic piece on the Modern Language Association’s new guidance for citing a tweet, and felt moved to respond as I think the advice could be much better. I use Harvard APA rather than MLA, but whatever referencing system you use, the object of the exercise must be to enable your reader to cross-reference your source material for themsleves. MLA’s proposal falls short on this score:

Last Name, First Name. (User name). “The tweet in its entirety”. Date, Time. Tweet.

In his Atlantic piece, Alexis Madrigal describes the decision to omit the unique URL of the tweet as “curious”, relying instead on a timestamp based on the timezone of the reader, not the author of the tweet. I’d say it’s more than curious, it’s just plain *wrong*.

Trying to guess the timezone of the paper’s author and cross-reference it to an old tweet, especially, if the tweeter is prolific, would be a thankless task. While I’m sure Twitter addicts (myself included) would love to have their social media of choice further validated by a bespoke referencing method, it really is surplus to requirements.

Let’s go back to basics and use the Harvard APA method for citing a web page:

Name of author (Year of publication). Title of website based article. Retrieved date accessed, from web address.

Here we gain two vital pieces of information. Firstly, the unique URL for the tweet which offers a one-click check of the source material for the reader, rather than having trawling through old Twitter timelines until getting back to the date of the tweet. Secondly, we know the date it was retrieved by the paper’s author. This could be important if a tweet was deleted subsequent to its retrieval (a good academic author should keep an archive of retrieved web material as content often moves/changes/vanishes).

Also, note the information we gain by using the title of the page (i.e. the title displayed at the very top of the browser window and in the tab). This always takes the format: ‘Twitter / username: first few words of tweet…’. So for this tweet:

Telegraph readers will be choking on their Grape Nuts. Greatest story/photo clash ever? #tomorrowspaperstoday yfrog.com/kgm5amej

— Warren Pearce (@WarrenPearce) March 1, 2012

The reference appears as follows:

Pearce, W. (2012, March 1). Twitter / @WarrenPearce: Telegraph readers will be … . Retrieved March 6, 2012 from https://twitter.com/#!/WarrenPearce/status/175346628666994688

The reader can still identify the material as a tweet, as well as the user name, and we add in a straight-to-the source URL. This provides greater clarity than the MLA’s proposal while maintaining the format already in use for web material.

Although of course you may feel differently. If there are any improvements to be made, do let me know…

The end of January saw a supervision session for the second of three (planned) data chapters, which went pretty well. Even though I wrote 3-4,000w less than intended for both chapters, I’ve submitted both on time. It was very tempting to try and postpone the deadline and subsequent supervision by a week, but I am coming to believe that time is a more important variable in the writing-up process than word count. Three reasons for this:

1. It’s important to get timely advice on draft chapters – no point postponing to write more words only to find that your supervisors think you’ve gone off track. It’s much easier (both practically and psychologically) to add a few thousand words to an academically sound draft than rewriting the bulk of a longer draft that has run into the sand.
2. Sticking to deadlines lends you the air of competence – professionalism, even! Slipping deadlines are all too common in doctoral studies – why not surprise your supervisors by sticking to yours? Apart from avoiding the time-suck of rearranging supervision meetings,  your supervisors will be providing you with a reference (or maybe even interviewing you) for a job somewhere down the line. Proving to them you can carry off a big project on time can only be good news.
3. You are not only proving yourself to others, you are proving to you that you can stick to your timetable. The days leading up to the deadline are hard hard hard. For me, it doesn’t seem to matter when I start writing, I always have ’000s of words to get done in the last week. The temptation to postpone is immense. But my strong advice is to hand in on time, even if your submission is not quite what you were planning, for imposing some mastery over time during the writing up will give you some much needed self-confidence on the rock road to your doctorate.

Time is a pretty malleable concept within the PhD. Traditionally, students seem to take well over the idealised three year duration. The PhD is certainly a project that requires more work than any other in a student’s academic career. Naturally, you want to get it right, but I strongly believe it needs to get done on time. Practically speaking, I know too many people who have gone into their fourth year and suddenly hit ‘the wall’ just when they thought they were on the home straight. Often, they’ve needed to take new jobs after the PhD funding has run out. Sometimes, the sheer length of time working on one topic has taken its toll, intellectual fatigue setting in.

But the big one for me is: how long do I really want to spend doing one thing? There’s a lot of stuff in this world that needs fixing. Maybe my PhD will help with a very small part of that, maybe it won’t. Whichever it is, I’m unconvinced that spending an extra 6 months, 12 months, 18 months writing and re-writing will improve it enough to make the extra time worthwhile. Even if you could *guarantee* that such an extension would improve your thesis, you may well gain in the long run by instilling some temporal self-discipline.

I’ve written and delivered a two-hour session on Interpretive Policy Analysis (IPA) to both undergrad and postgrad students at University of Nottingham this semester. The first hour introduces the topic, looking at three aspects:

1. What difference does IPA make?
2. Why do we do IPA?
3. What are the problems of using IPA?

The lecture is based around the work of Yanow (1996; 2000) and Bevir and Rhodes (2006). The synopsis should be treated as lecture notes; they are not suitable for citation in essays.

While being highly recommended, if the books by Yanow and Bevir and Rhodes prove difficult to obtain, there are plenty of other excellent journal articles and conference papers, available online, in the bibliography below. Yanow (1992) is particularly good on the importance of metaphors in policy analysis.

Below the fold you can find the lecture synopsis, workshop materials and the bibliography.

1) What difference does IPA make?

The nineteenth and early twentieth century saw the application of scientific method to social science. When conducting research, this means collecting and analysing data in a manner which is repeatable in different circumstances, allowing the researcher to remain neutral and provide an objective view of a policy issue. This method enables research results to be comparable across cases and general principles or laws to be derived and applied to other cases.

The implication is that we can know the human world in the same way as we know the physical world, that we can understand the relationship between atomic particles in the same way as the relationship between actors in the policy process. In the physical world, if an apple falls from a tree, it does so in the same way in Nottingham or Nairobi. Can we predict how policy actors will behave in Nottingham and Nairobi, as determined by generalised principles or models in the policy literature?

Interpretative analysis recognises the differences between the physical and human (social) world as subjects of knowledge.

(adapted from Yanow, 2000, p.6)

Knowledge provides our own lens through which we see the world. We all have a different lens through which we make sense of the world around us; no one person’s set of circumstances is the same as another’s. The camera set-up in the ‘Making of Matrix’ video is a useful metaphor for this (the relevant passage is from 7m42s onwards):

Rather than the researcher looking through one ‘objective’ lens, they put themselves in the shoes of different communities within society to discover how they interpret a policy issue. The recognition of multiple voices may imply a more collaborative research approach and be less prescriptive about which views are ‘right’ or ‘wrong’.

Climatologists see climate change as a scientific issue, we know the world is very likely to warm up dangerously due to increased greenhous gas emissions from human activity. Republican candidates in the current US presidential election attach very different meanings to the issue. For them, scientists are fabricating results in order to gain research funding, and extreme green/socialist groups are using climate change as a Trojan horse for the introduction of higher taxes and greater state interviention into US public policy. We can come to conclusions about which views are the most legtimate, but we should not overlook that such different meanings and interpretations exist.

2) Why should we do IPA?

a) Epistemology

Actors interpret their situation through their own personal lens. Categorising people (e.g. by class, ethnic background, physical location) and then attempting to ‘read off’ their beliefs and behaviour from those categories is not a very fruitful way to analyse policy. It neglects the importance of local knowledge which can only be gained through much more in-depth research into people’s beliefs in order to find what meaning they place in a particular issue. This meaning may not be easily explained through ‘rational’ analysis. Yanow’s study of new Israeli community centres found that those living near the centres though they had been a great success, despite the policy having failed when measured against the initial aims of the policy. Yanow found that the community centres were an expression of cultural identity rather than….

b) Practise

Humans communicate meaning through story-telling, not through the abstract models and principles often found in the policy literature. The psychology literature demonstrates that humans have an innate dispensation to communicate through stories as we know it’s the most effective means of transferring information. Essentially, story structure allows us to mentally simulate situations in a way that abstract explanations do not. This has implications for both the methods we use to conduct research and the way results are presented.

3) What are the problems of using IPA?

a) Description, not explanation?

By moving away from producing generalised findings is public policy left only with (rich) descriptions of individual policy issues which leave the scholar saying “so what?!”

There are no comprehensive accounts of governance in the interpretive approach. Instead, researchers can look for Wittgenstein’s ‘family resemblances’ between policy issues or actors (Bevir and Rhodes, 2006, pp.167-8). Similarities can be identified between members of a family (e.g. eyes, nose, height) without using those similarities to explain behaviour. For example, a shift in governance from hierarchy to market to networks has been observed across public policy in recent years but does not manifest itself in a homogenous way across different policy areas.

The interpretive policy literature refers to traditions and dilemmas as broad categories within which we can analyse policy (Bevir and Rhodes, 2006; Bevir and Richards, 2009a). Actors draw on traditions of behaviour, manifested in their own store of knowledge, to make decisions when confronted by dilemmas.

b) The practise/advice paradox.

Although we know the reasons policy-makers communicate through stories in their everyday practise, using stories as the basis for policy analysis may prove unpalatable for practitioners. Roe (1994) collects stories from various stakeholders in a pollution problem and uses his own interpretation to come up with a ‘meta-narrative’ which serves to provide advice to policy makers about what to do. Roe’s funding to continue this means of analysis was unexpectedly stopped shortly after the first report was delivered. without being sure of the reasons for this, Roe reflects that the language of narratives and meta-narratives that he used in his analysis may have been offputting for policy analysts used to more traditional models and toolkits. Ironically, Roe’s advice was ultimately heeded and was successful in tackling the problem. So a proven method of approaching policy analysis may be difficult to carry out on the ground due to cultural resistance. Roe suggests getting round this by writing up results in different ways for different audiences.

WORKSHOP

In the second hour, students discuss the different meanings that stakeholder groups might put on the extension of Nottingham’s tram system – something that has this year impacted directly on any students driving to campus through the Workplace Parking Levy.

There is an excellent BBC webpage which looks at people’s tram stories from around the city and beyond, as well as experiences of people living in Perth, Australia which introduced a parking levy in 1999. These were used as a springboard for assessing the very different criteria by which stakeholders would assess the tram extension policy.

There are more resources and press stories about the Nottingham tram extension at https://pinboard.in/u:warrenpearce/t:interpretiveresources/

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bevir, M. & Rhodes, R.A.W. (2006a). Interpretive approaches to British government and politics. British Politics, 29(1), 84-112.

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

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

Bevir, M. & Rhodes, R.A.W. (2008). The differentiated polity as narrative. British Journal of Politics & International Relations, 10(4), 729-734.

Bevir, M. & Richards, D. (2009a). Decentring policy networks: a theoretical agenda. Public Administration, 87(1), 3-14.

Bevir, M. & Richards, D. (2009b). Decentring policy networks: lessons and prospects. Public Administration, 87(1), 132-141.

Davies, J.S. (2009). The limits of joined-up government: towards a political analysis. Public Administration, 87(1), 80-96.

Dodge, J., Ospina, S.M. & Foldy, E.G. (2005). Integrating rigor and relevance in public administration scholarship: the contribution of narrative inquiry. Public Administration Review, 65(3), 286-300.

Durose, C. (2007). Beyond ‘street-level’ bureaucrats: re-interpreting the role of front line public sector workers. Critical Policy Analysis, 1(2), 217-234.

Durose, C. (2009). Front-line workers and ‘local knowledge’:  neighbourhood stories in contemporary local governance. Public Administration, 87(1), 35-49.

Finlayson, A., Dowding, K. Hay, C. Bevir, M. & Rhodes, R.A.W. (2004) The interpretive approach in political science: a symposium. British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 6(1), 129-164.

Gains, F. (2009). Narratives and dilemmas of local bureaucratic elites: Whitehall at the coal face? Public Administration, 87(1), 50-64.

Gains, F. & Clarke, K. (2007). Constructing delivery: implementation as an interpreted process. Critical Policy Analysis, 1(2),133–8.

Gordon, R., Kornberger, M. & Clegg, S.R. (2009). Power, rationality and legitimacy in public organiszations. Public Administration, 87(1), 15-34.

Hodgett, S. & Deneulin, S. (2009). On the use of narratives for assessing development policy. Public Administration, 87(1), 65-79.

Marsh, D. (2008). Understanding British government: analysing competing models. British Journal of Politics & International Relations, 10(2), 251-268.

Morgan, G. (1993). Imaginization. London: Sage.

Needham, C. (2009). Policing with a smile: narratives of consumerism in New Labour’s criminal justice policy. Public Administration, 87(1), 97-116.

Ospina, S.M. & Dodge, J. (2005). It’s about time: catching method up to meaning—the usefulness of narrative inquiry in public administration research. Public Administration Review, 65(2), 143-157.

Ospina, S.M. & Dodge, J. (2005). Narrative inquiry and the search for connectedness: practitioners and academics developing public administration scholarship. Public Administration Review, 65(4), 409-423.

Rein, M. (1976). Social Science and Public Policy. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Roe, E.M. (1994). Narrative Policy Analysis: Theory and Practice. Durham, NC : Duke University Press

Stivers, C. (2008). Governance’s new spectacles. Public Administration Review, 68(5), 941-3.

Vickers, G. (1995). The Art of Judgement, Centenary Edition. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Yanow, D. (1992). Supermarkets and culture clash: the epistemological role of metaphors in administrative practice. The American Review of Public Administration, 22(2), 89-109. (download link)

Yanow, D. (1993). The communication of policy meanings: implementation as interpretation and text. Policy Sciences, 26(1), 41-61.

Yanow, D. (1996). How Does A Policy Mean? Interpreting Policy and Organizational Actions. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press

Yanow, D. (2000). Conducting Interpretive Policy Analysis. Thousand Oaks, California: Sag