Helen Sullivan
Biographic Data
| ID | 341165 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Helen Sullivan |
| GIVEN NAMES | Helen |
| FAMILY NAME | Sullivan |
| SIGNATURE | SULLIVAN H |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of the West of England |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8087-7432 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 66 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 775 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 65 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1939 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 15 |
Cultural pluralism and inclusive urban revitalisation
Expanding Superdiversity in Australian Cities and Regional Towns
This paper presents a novel methodology to measure “superdiversity” (Vertovec Citation2007) in urban Australia, focusing on birthplace, language, and religion between 2011 and 2021. It characterises large Australian cities by their levels of superdiversity and examines whether these levels were stable, growing, or diminishing. The study also explores links between levels of diversity and gentrification risk, finding that superdiverse communities …
Collaborating in future states—Contextual instability, paradigmatic remaking, and public policy
Collaboration is ubiquitous in public policy life, with its presence and profile determined by prevailing governance conditions. Commitments to globalisation and marketisation in the latter part of the 20th century marked the onset of an era defined by collaboration, between and across tiers and spheres of government, with non‐state actors, and through market and network instruments. Current contextual instability poses questions for dominant pub…
Roundtable
Global recognition that there are universal human rights and that governments have a duty to respect them, was one of the most important developments of the 20th century. In this century, though, human rights are challenged in many places. What role do scholars and practitioners in public administration play in protecting human rights? This question has not received adequate attention in the field. In this roundtable, nine scholars explore the di…
Countering Corporate Power Through Social Control
This paper interrogates the capacity for social control to act as a complement and alternative to the law in controlling corporate harm. Social control can manifest as demands that businesses obtain a social, not just a legal, licence to operate which can provide an avenue for communities to reject or shape company operations. Drawing on parallels with the ambiguities that hinder the criminalization of business conduct, this paper shows how the s…
Playing by the rules? How community actors use experts and evidence to oppose coal seam gas activity in Australia
Evidence-Based Policy Making advocates for greater attention to evidence, and particularly technical evidence and expertise, in developing policy. This pervasive paradigm presents community actors with a conundrum: how to engage in ways that are consistent with the norms and expectations of policy consultation, whilst also representing the nature and nuance of their lived experience? In this paper we explore one response to this conundrum, in whi…
Reflecting on Ajpa, 2015–2021
This short essay reflects on the evolution of the journal and the environment it operated in over the last 7 years and volumes. It is anchored to the introductory article in the first issue of the journal under the new editorial team, ‘Learning from a Distance’ (2015) authored by Brian Head, which addressed a perennial question in public administration – the nature of the relationship between policy academics and public servants and considers whe…
Implementation for impact—Measurement, partnership approaches, and storytelling
This is an introductory article to the AJPA symposium on 'Generating and demonstrating implementation impact'. It provides an overview and synthesis of key themes canvassed in the papers, which includes a focus on implementation for impact regarding measurement, partnership approaches, and storytelling
Guest editors’ introduction
This article contends that the study of UK local government, its institutions and actors, is an increasingly ‘niche’ pursuit. We argue that the field is caught in a common sense narrative that plays off local government institutional decline against widespread belief in the future democratic and progressive value of the council-to-come. Identifying persistent appeals to such deficiency narratives, we thus suggest that ‘actually existing’ local go…
Building a knowledge‐sharing system
Local Government in Australia
Public Policy in the 'Asian Century'
This volume explores the defining features, critical approaches, challenges and opportunities for public policy in the ‘Asian Century’. This is the first book to systematically analyse the key institutions and practices that comprise public policy, administration and governance to investigate how they are changing in the context of increasing Asian influence. Its authors argue that the Asian Century holds the potential to generate a paradigm shif…
Variations on a collaborative theme
Urban governance in Melbourne is a relative outlier compared to the recent experience of austerity politics in many European and North American cities, which has produced extreme programmatic reductions linked to deepening social crises, such as worsening health outcomes. Instead, the Australian experience post the global financial crisis (GFC) demonstrates the enduring normalization of fiscal conservatism and targeted social protectionism in the…
Power, Participation and Political Renewal
Contemporary interest in citizen engagement in public policy stems from a concern with the governance and quality of public service delivery, with improving the legitimacy of decision making and with articulating the claims of those previously marginalised (Barnes and Bowl 2001; Newman 2001; Sullivan and Skelcher 2002). This article discusses recent research into the diversity of sites and practices of public participation in two contrasting Engl…
Envisioning inclusive futures
Understanding the civic impact of journalism
The importance of journalism to civil society is constantly proclaimed, but empirical evidence on journalism's impact, and how this operates, is surprisingly thin. Indeed, there is confusion even about what is meant by the term “impact”. Meanwhile, the issue of the role of journalism is becoming increasingly urgent as a consequence of the rapid changes engulfing the news media, brought about by technological change and the flow-on effect to the t…
The Future of the Public Service Workforce
It has been widely suggested that public service delivery of the future will be different to that of today. Added to this, we are currently witnessing significant changes in terms of the nature of work. Taken together these developments signal that we will see transformation in terms of the role of public servants and the public service workforce. Against this background, this paper presents a dialogue on the future of the public service workforc…
Participatory Sensing, Privacy, and Trust Management for Interactive Local Government
Faced with increasing pressure regarding resources and urban infrastructure, local governments implement strategic plans with intentions of improving the quality of life for their citizens. This work explores participatory sensing (PS) and the issues associated with governance in the light of new information-gathering capabilities and technologies. These new technologies directly engage citizens in collecting data and providing contextual insight…
Practices of Freedom
The shift from government to governance has become a starting point for many studies of contemporary policy-making and democracy. Practices of Freedom takes a different approach, calling into question this dominant narrative and taking the variety, hybridity and dispersion of social and political practices as its focus of analysis. Bringing together leading scholars in democratic theory and critical policy studies, it draws upon new understanding…
Public Policy Studies and the “Asian Century”
Accountability
Individual Funding for Disability Support
A range of different countries have experimented with the concept of individualised funding and self‐directed support, particularly for long term care. With the introduction of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, individual funding looks set to be an area of future development in Australia. Individual funding is concerned with making the financial aspects of care more explicit at the level of the individual. Supporters suggest that it has t…
Situating the local in the neoliberalisation and transformation of urban governance
The local state, and more broadly the logic of the local, remains divorced from accounts of urban governance. Addressing this omission, this article examines how a focus on the local opens up new avenues of enquiry in urban governance. It first discusses the interactions of the ‘urban’ and the ‘local’, analysing the significance of both to an understanding of neoliberalism in action. It then evaluates the opportunities and challenges that emerge …
Towards a General Theory of Collaborative Performance
Much of what has been written about collaboration treats it instrumentally as a means–ends tool of improvement. However, despite considerable collaborative activity there is little evidence that clearly links collaboration to improvements in service‐user outcomes or reduced inequalities. In this article we draw on literature from critical public policy and governance studies to recast collaboration as an expression of cultural performance associa…
Puzzling Agency in Centre-Local Relations
Research Highlights and Abstract The article seeks to make a contribution in the following areas: It seeks to establish a new research agenda in centre-local relations, which builds on explanations of local practice and the political and affective dimensions of the work of officers and politicians. In so doing, it suggests that we should further dissolve the often over-determined boundaries between the centre and the local. In recasting centre-lo…
Constituting ‘the public’ in public participation
The emphasis on public participation in contemporary policy discourse has prompted the development of a wide range of forums within which dialogue takes place between citizens and officials. Often such initiatives are intended to contribute to objectives relating to social exclusion and democratic renewal. The question of ‘who takes part’ within such forums is, then, critical to an understanding of how far new types of forums can contribute to th…
Like a Horse and Carriage or a Fish on a Bicycle
Partnership and participation have co-evolved as key instruments of New Labour's agenda for the 'modernisation' and 'democratic renewal' of British local government. It is often assumed that partnerships are more inclusive than bureaucratic or market-based approaches to policy-making and service delivery. This article argues that partnership working does not in itself deliver enhanced public participation; indeed, it may be particularly difficult…
How Low Can You Go? Rationales and Challenges for Neighbourhood Governance
Associated with innovation in both democratic practice and service design, neighbourhoods are high on policy agendas across Europe. Drawing upon classic debates about size and devolution, the article identifies four distinct rationales for neighbourhood governance: civic, social, political and economic. In England, the ‘new localism’ agenda gets near to developing a comprehensive case for neighbourhood governance, drawing upon all four rationales…
Public Participation and Collaborative Governance
This paper draws on the findings of a study within the ESRC's Democracy and Participation Programme. It explores the processes of participation within deliberative forums - such as user panels, youth forums, area based committees - developed as a means of encouraging a more active, participating mode of citizenship and of improving welfare services by making them more responsive to users. Our findings open up a number of issues about constraints …
Working Across Boundaries
New forms of local accountability
English The transformation of many western liberal democracies in the late 20th century has had important implications for the practice of public accountability, compounding the problem of ‘many hands’. This article considers developments in academic debate and discusses how traditional modes of vertical accountability can be augmented by new horizontal mechanisms. New Labour’s approach to local ‘modernisation’ in England is examined, including, …
Situating the local in the neoliberalisation and transformation of urban governance
The local state, and more broadly the logic of the local, remains divorced from accounts of urban governance. Addressing this omission, this article examines how a focus on the local opens up new avenues of enquiry in urban governance. It first discusses the interactions of the ‘urban’ and the ‘local’, analysing the significance of both to an understanding of neoliberalism in action. It then evaluates the opportunities and challenges that emerge …
Truth’ junkies
This article explores the relationships of policy makers and academic evaluators with each other and with evaluation over the life of the United Kingdom's (UK) New Labour. Drawing on experience of central government-funded evaluations and employing insights from governance and governmentality theories, it illustrates how the idea of evaluation as a source of ‘truth’ was valorised by policy makers as a means of dealing with emergent doubt, delinea…
Interpreting 'community leadership' in English local government
English In 1997 community leadership was placed at the heart of local government reform. However, despite policy commitments, its manifestation remains limited. This article explores why, beginning from a position that the term ‘community leadership’ is an elastic one containing multiple meanings. Informed by the interpretivism advocated by Bevir and Rhodes, four interpretations of community leadership are identified and discussed. Each is rooted…
Recent research
The contemporary emphasis on public participation in policy making derives both from concerns to increase the legitimacy of public decision making and to develop more dialogic forms of governance, and from more 'bottom-up' action intended to ensure that the voices of those excluded from policy making are heard. This has resulted in diverse forms of participative practice, including forums in which social movement organizations meet officials, and…
Evidence, Understanding and Complexity
This article discusses the challenges associated with the evaluation of complex policy initiatives, focusing on one element of the national evaluation of Health Action Zones in England: Building Capacity for Collaboration. It describes the multiple dimensions of complexity that characterize HAZs and considers the limitations of the Theory of Change approach in encompassing the diverse change processes that HAZs seek to promote. Drawing on social …
Towards a General Theory of Collaborative Performance
Much of what has been written about collaboration treats it instrumentally as a means–ends tool of improvement. However, despite considerable collaborative activity there is little evidence that clearly links collaboration to improvements in service‐user outcomes or reduced inequalities. In this article we draw on literature from critical public policy and governance studies to recast collaboration as an expression of cultural performance associa…
Modernisation, Democratisation and Community Governance
This article examines the New Labour agenda for the governance of localities, focusing on three central themes: community leadership, improving the management of public services and building social capital. Potential areas of policy tension and conflict are identified between these themes. The different forms of Community Governance are outlined and their coverage of the three themes described. This helps to elaborate and explain the tensions tha…
Central-Local Relations in an Era of Multi-Level Governance
The election of a 'New Labour' UK government in 1997 promised a new era of central-local relations facilitated by a programme of local government reform which recognised local government's 'community leadership' role. Other aspects of the agenda supported the development of multi-level governance, for example, the establishment of sub-national institutions such as the Scottish Parliament and the promotion of neighbourhoods as key sites for action…
The three challenges of community leadership
The ongoing reform of UK local government emphasises the development of local authorities as ‘community leaders’. Both the definition of the term, and local government's fitness for the role are, however, contested. Previous research suggests that to fulfil this role local government will have to meet three challenges: engage citizens in the determination of community priorities, provide strategic leadership and develop the collaborative potentia…
Building Collaborative Capacity through `Theories of Change
In the UK a great deal of attention is currently focused on the potential of the `theories of change' approach to evaluating complex public policy interventions. However, there is still relatively little empirical material describing its application. This article discusses the use of `theories of change' in the national evaluation of English Health Action Zones (HAZs). It locates `theories of change' within the wider context of evaluation approac…
Individual Funding for Disability Support
A range of different countries have experimented with the concept of individualised funding and self‐directed support, particularly for long term care. With the introduction of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, individual funding looks set to be an area of future development in Australia. Individual funding is concerned with making the financial aspects of care more explicit at the level of the individual. Supporters suggest that it has t…
Guest editors’ introduction
This article contends that the study of UK local government, its institutions and actors, is an increasingly ‘niche’ pursuit. We argue that the field is caught in a common sense narrative that plays off local government institutional decline against widespread belief in the future democratic and progressive value of the council-to-come. Identifying persistent appeals to such deficiency narratives, we thus suggest that ‘actually existing’ local go…
Localities, leadership and neoliberalization
This article foregrounds leadership, specifically 'local political leadership' as a neglected but significant element of local governance and neoliberalization. Drawing on distinct literatures – on neoliberalism, leadership and governance – we offer an analysis of the key theories influencing academic, policy and political prescriptions for local political leadership. We then consider how local leadership manifests itself in divergent local conte…
Faces of integration
A wide ranging discussion exposes the complex interplay and dynamics between structural factors and the manner in which they enable or constrain integration, and individual actors realising their potential agency through leadership, professionalism and boundary spanning to influence outcomes. The importance of structure and agency complementing each other to determine effective integration is emphasised, together with the scope that is available …
Who Owns the Theory of Change
Policy evaluations in the UK have increasingly espoused a ‘Theories of Change’ (ToC) approach, drawing on North American experiences. Features of ToC include the expectation that all affected stakeholders will be involved in developing, agreeing, monitoring and evaluating a relevant theory for the proposed intervention, and the assumption that widespread stakeholder involvement will extend ownership of the intervention to achieve ‘total ownership…
Collaborative Capacity and Strategies in Area‐based Initiatives
Despite considerable evaluator investment in examining partnership activity in UK public policy initiatives, little attention has been paid to the role of strategy in supporting the generation and harnessing of the resources necessary to collaborate effectively. This paper focuses on one of the first New Labour initiatives – Health Action Zones (HAZ) – and draws on national evaluation findings to delineate local strategies, assess their applicati…
Explaining the Democratic Anchorage of Governance Networks
Advances in understanding the democratic anchorage of governance networks require carefully designed and contextually grounded empirical analysis that take into account contextual factors. The article uses a conjectural framework to study the impact of the national democratic milieu on the relationship between network governance and representative institutions in four European countries: the United Kingdom, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Denma…
Discursive Arenas
This article is based on empirical research into public participation in two English cities. It discusses issues related to motivations to take part in public participation initiatives and the way in which individual and collective identities may be constructed through participation. Drawing on social movement theory it emphasises the importance both of networks and values in prompting participation and it illustrates this with examples drawn fro…
Promoting Social Change
When New Labour came to power in the UK in 1997 it brought with it a strong commitment to reducing inequality and social exclusion. One strand of its strategy involved a focus on area-based initiatives to reduce the effects of persistent disadvantage. Health Action Zones (HAZs) were the first example of this type of intervention, and their focus on community-based initiatives to tackle the wider social determinants of health inequalities excited …
Early American Democratic Theory and Orestes Brownson
Growth of Aboriginal infants in the first year of life in remote communities in north-west Australia
Growth in the first year of life was studied prospectively, at monthly intervals, in 49 Aboriginal babies born into 6 remote communities in the tropical north-west of Australia. Birthweights, on average, were slightly lower than international (NCHS) reference values but growth velocity in the first 3 months of life exceeded international reference values. After that, growth rates in Aboriginal infants slowed and their attained weights and lengths…
Growth of remote Australian Aborigines from birth to two years
Lengths and weights have been measured every month from birth to two years of age in 48 Aboriginal children born into six remote communities in the Kimberley region in the far north of Western Australia. Birthweights, on average, were slightly less than international reference values but growth rates in the first 3 months of life exceeded those reference values. However, between 3 and 6 months of age rates of weight gain and linear growth fell be…
The Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI)
The Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI): The Complete Archive Guide— CD-ROM Version. Ed. Klaus W. Waschik and Natalia B. Volkova. Munich: K. G. Saur Verlag, 1996. Lotman-Institute of Russian and Soviet Culture (Bochum, Germany) and the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (Moscow). CD-ROM for Windows 3.1 or Windows 95, min. 4 MB RAM. Explanatory information and labels in English, German, and Russian. DM 980.00. - Volume 56 …
Evaluating Web Tools
Developing the representational role of elected members
This article focuses on the developing representational role of elected members in Birmingham as part of the wider modernisation agenda. It describes and analyses ‘Local Involvement, Local Action’, a local authority initiative to enhance democratic participation that was set up just prior to the publication of new political management arrangements. This initiative is typical of many local authority approaches, combining a desire to enhance the co…
Modernisation, Democratisation and Community Governance
This article examines the New Labour agenda for the governance of localities, focusing on three central themes: community leadership, improving the management of public services and building social capital. Potential areas of policy tension and conflict are identified between these themes. The different forms of Community Governance are outlined and their coverage of the three themes described. This helps to elaborate and explain the tensions tha…
Maximising the Contribution of Neighbourhoods - The Role of Community Governance
Neighbourhoods in the UK are set to play an increasingly important role as one element of an emergent multi-level system of governance. The focus on neighbourhoods is important because it is at this level that key concerns about the role of the state and the health of democracy are most intimately played out. The Social Exclusion Unit of the UK Government has put forward proposals outlining the potential role and contribution of neighbourhoods to…
Working Across Boundaries
Building Collaborative Capacity through `Theories of Change
In the UK a great deal of attention is currently focused on the potential of the `theories of change' approach to evaluating complex public policy interventions. However, there is still relatively little empirical material describing its application. This article discusses the use of `theories of change' in the national evaluation of English Health Action Zones (HAZs). It locates `theories of change' within the wider context of evaluation approac…
Health Action Zones
New Labour has placed partnership across sectors, and with users and communities, at the core of its approach to achieving change. Health Action Zones (HAZs), as one of the earliest and most ambitious of New Labour's initiatives, reflect this focus and their experience offers useful insights for developing such ways of working in future. Research by the national HAZ evaluation team suggests that the ability and willingness of partner agencies to …
Evidence, Understanding and Complexity
This article discusses the challenges associated with the evaluation of complex policy initiatives, focusing on one element of the national evaluation of Health Action Zones in England: Building Capacity for Collaboration. It describes the multiple dimensions of complexity that characterize HAZs and considers the limitations of the Theory of Change approach in encompassing the diverse change processes that HAZs seek to promote. Drawing on social …
Working Across Boundaries
Constituting ‘the public’ in public participation
The emphasis on public participation in contemporary policy discourse has prompted the development of a wide range of forums within which dialogue takes place between citizens and officials. Often such initiatives are intended to contribute to objectives relating to social exclusion and democratic renewal. The question of ‘who takes part’ within such forums is, then, critical to an understanding of how far new types of forums can contribute to th…
New forms of local accountability
English The transformation of many western liberal democracies in the late 20th century has had important implications for the practice of public accountability, compounding the problem of ‘many hands’. This article considers developments in academic debate and discusses how traditional modes of vertical accountability can be augmented by new horizontal mechanisms. New Labour’s approach to local ‘modernisation’ in England is examined, including, …
Power, Participation and Political Renewal
Contemporary interest in citizen engagement in public policy stems from a concern with the governance and quality of public service delivery, with improving the legitimacy of decision making and witharticulating the claims of those previously marginalised (Barnes and Bowl 2001; Newman 2001; Sullivan and Skelcher 2002). This article discusses recent research into the diversity of sites and practices of public participation in two contrasting Engli…
Like a Horse and Carriage or a Fish on a Bicycle
Partnership and participation have co-evolved as key instruments of New Labour's agenda for the 'modernisation' and 'democratic renewal' of British local government. It is often assumed that partnerships are more inclusive than bureaucratic or market-based approaches to policy-making and service delivery. This article argues that partnership working does not in itself deliver enhanced public participation; indeed, it may be particularly difficult…
Central-Local Relations in an Era of Multi-Level Governance
The election of a 'New Labour' UK government in 1997 promised a new era of central-local relations facilitated by a programme of local government reform which recognised local government's 'community leadership' role. Other aspects of the agenda supported the development of multi-level governance, for example, the establishment of sub-national institutions such as the Scottish Parliament and the promotion of neighbourhoods as key sites for action…
Recent research
The contemporary emphasis on public participation in policy making derives both from concerns to increase the legitimacy of public decision making and to develop more dialogic forms of governance, and from more 'bottom-up' action intended to ensure that the voices of those excluded from policy making are heard. This has resulted in diverse forms of participative practice, including forums in which social movement organizations meet officials, and…
In the eye of the beholder
Public Participation and Collaborative Governance
This paper draws on the findings of a study within the ESRC's Democracy and Participation Programme. It explores the processes of participation within deliberative forums - such as user panels, youth forums, area based committees - developed as a means of encouraging a more active, participating mode of citizenship and of improving welfare services by making them more responsive to users. Our findings open up a number of issues about constraints …
Stretched to the limit? The impact of Local Public Service Agreements on service improvement and central – local relations
Local Public Service Agreements (LPSAs) are one of a number of policy instruments introduced by New Labour to facilitate service improvement in local government. Situating LPSAs in debates about central – local relationships, this paper examines their impact to date. It compares the expectations of LPSAs amongst central and local stakeholders, delineates the experiences of each in attempting to work in a new way, identifies those aspects of the L…
Is Enabling Enough? Tensions and Dilemmas in New Labour's Strategies for Joining-up Local Governance
Central to New Labour's ambition to transform public policy and public services was the development of joined-up government'. This article considers the experience of joining-up' at the local level, through one programme of reform, the ‘local government modernisation agenda’ (LGMA). Drawing on published research from evaluations of the LGMA this article argues that three key strategies for joining-up' locally are evident in the policies of the LG…
Promoting Social Change
When New Labour came to power in the UK in 1997 it brought with it a strong commitment to reducing inequality and social exclusion. One strand of its strategy involved a focus on area-based initiatives to reduce the effects of persistent disadvantage. Health Action Zones (HAZs) were the first example of this type of intervention, and their focus on community-based initiatives to tackle the wider social determinants of health inequalities excited …
Who Owns the Theory of Change
Policy evaluations in the UK have increasingly espoused a ‘Theories of Change’ (ToC) approach, drawing on North American experiences. Features of ToC include the expectation that all affected stakeholders will be involved in developing, agreeing, monitoring and evaluating a relevant theory for the proposed intervention, and the assumption that widespread stakeholder involvement will extend ownership of the intervention to achieve ‘total ownership…
Political science (58 works) · Sociology (48 works) · Law (39 works) · Public Administration (38 works) · Public relations (33 works) · Public Administration (31 works) · Law (30 works) · Politics (28 works) · Public Policy and Administration Research (26 works) · Economics (25 works)