Dennis Kavanagh
Biographic Data
| ID | 346499 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Dennis Kavanagh |
| GIVEN NAMES | Dennis |
| FAMILY NAME | Kavanagh |
| SIGNATURE | KAVANAGH D |
| AFFILIATIONS | University College Dublin |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7718-2303 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 62 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 502 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 61 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1967 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
The dynamic imaginaries of the Ethereum project
This paper inquires into the dynamic imaginaries of the Ethereum project. We present Ethereum as animated by three such imaginaries: the world computer (technical), productive money (economic) and public goods (political). We examine how these imaginaries are materialized, carried forward and evolve through the Ethereum ecosystem, focusing on how Ethereum's prefigurative logic underpins this dynamism. In our analysis, we pay particular attention …
Brexit and the 2019 General Election
The article examines two different interpretations of the British general election in 2019. One claims that electoral behaviour was largely driven by views about whether the UK should deliver on the vote of the 2016 referendum to leave the EU. Another claims that while such views counted for some voters the real significance of the result was to reinforce electoral trends that had been at work for some years. In the longer run the second interpre…
Are we living in a time of particularly rapid social change? And how might we know
In an editorial for this journal a decade ago, then-Editor-in-Chief Fred Phillips asserted that social change was proceeding at hyper-speed and, moreover, that it had consequently come to outpace technological change. This paper submits these claims to empirical assay. In so doing, we address the myriad problems attendant upon determining and interpreting the sort of data that might support us in our cause. Notwithstanding the innumerable caveats…
From performativity to normativity: The Gaelic Athletic Association as a case in point
This paper is a conversation between a management academic and a practitioner from the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), the largest sporting and cultural organisation in Ireland. The GAA is an alternative organisation in that it (a) has a particular understanding of ‘management’, (b) emphasises place and community, (c) prohibits a market for players; (d) is volunteer-led; (e) operates on democratic principles; and (f) is concerned with more tha…
Cryptocurrencies and the emergence of blockocracy
Blockocracies are a coherent, distinctive and novel organizational form bound by a collective ledger and a cryptocurrency. We frame our analysis of blockocracies against Weber’s enduring description of bureaucracy, identifying those features of Weberian bureaucracies that are present, absent or marginalized in blockocracies. In contrast to bureaucracy’s monocratic authority structure, authority in blockocracies is centered on four distinct layers…
The Bitcoin game: Ethno-resonance as method
The global financial crisis and the contemporaneous emergence of the digital currency Bitcoin invite us to think about money and how it often functions almost imperceptibly in society. In this article, we show that Bitcoin is a ‘new object of concern’ that also compels us to reimagine ethnography in a digital age. We present a method, which we term ethno-resonance, that is both a reaction to the conditions presented by the Bitcoin phenomenon and …
Religion, organization and company law – a case study of a Quaker business
This paper examines the effect of changes in corporate law in the mid-nineteenth century – incorporation and limited liability – on the ownership, control and socio-economic objectives of a Quaker family firm between 1841 and 1972. The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) were well-known for adhering to internalized quasi-legal rules and self-governance, and had a strong reputation, which persists today, for trust, integrity and honesty in all …
Carnival in the global village: Re-imagining information infrastructures
Infrastructures are typically seen as boring and serious, and are routinely depicted using metaphors from transportation. We argue that the carnival is a fruitful metaphor for understanding emerging information infrastructures, as the information age is also the age of the carnival. We distinguish between the ubiquitous or distal carnival and its particular manifestations – the proximate carnival – both of which are characterized by play, anarchy…
Scientific Management
Scientific management is a set of techniques and ideology of an organization that seeks to increase the efficiency of operations through systematically identifying and addressing problems in the production process. It was probably the first coherent theory of management and has been of central importance to the field since it emerged in the late nineteenth century.
Myth and the market: An introduction
Author has checked copyright
British General Election Of 2015
This extract is taken from the author's original manuscript and has not been edited. The definitive, published, version of record is available here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9781137366115. It has been reproduced with with permission of Palgrave Macmillan
Finance past, finance future: A brief exploration of the evolution of financial practices
As we work our way through the latest financial crisis, politicians seem both powerless to act convincingly and unable to craft from the welter of diverse and antagonistic narratives a coherent and convincing vision of the future. In this article, we argue that a temporal lens brings clarity to such confusion, and that thinking in terms of time and reflecting on privileged temporal structures helps to highlight underlying assumptions and distingu…
Problematizing practice: MacIntyre and management
Alasdair MacIntyre’s distinction between institutions and practices helps illuminate how powerful institutional forces frame and constrain the practice of organizational research as well as the output and positioning of scholarly journals like Organization. Yet his conceptual frame is limited, not least because it is unclear whether the activity of managing is, or is not, a practice. This article builds on MacIntyre’s ideas by incorporating Arist…
Blair Effect, 2001-15
Institutional Heterogeneity and Change: The University as Fool
While institutional theory has focused on the effect of institutions on individual organizations, this article addresses the relationships between institutions. Using a case history approach, it examines the relationship of one institution, the University, within an institutional complex. The study suggests that the University acts and has a role akin to the Fool in the medieval royal court. The Fool is embedded in a multiplicity of loyal yet ago…
Civic Life Online: Learning How Digital Media Can Engage Youth
The relationship of participation in online communities to civic and political engagement.Young people today have grown up living substantial portions of their lives online, seeking entertainment, social relationships, and a place to express themselves. It is clear that participation in online communities is important for many young people, but less clear how this translates into civic or political engagement. This volume examines the relationshi…
Dance-work: Images of Organization in Irish Dance
The Irish economic boom, commonly known as the Celtic Tiger, provides an interesting and unique opportunity to explore the relationship between the profound shifts in the organization of working life and in the production and consumption of culture. In this paper, we confine our inquiry into the relationship with one aspect of popular culture, namely dance, focusing on the phenomenon of Riverdance which emerged contemporaneously with the Celtic T…
Running to Stand Still: Late Modernity's Acceleration Fixation
That we live in a time of unprecedented and ever-increasing change is both a shibboleth of our age and the more-or-less explicit justification for all manner of “strategic” actions. The seldom, if ever, questioned assumption is that our now is more ephemeral, more evanescent, than any that preceded it. In this essay, we subject this assumption to some critical scrutiny, utilizing a range of empirical detail. In the face of this assay we find the …
The Blair Effect 2001–5
Tony Blair's strong start to his third term, with his role in capturing the Olympic Games for Britain, his statesman-like handling of the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on London, his promise of a new start to the European Union and his leadership of the G8 summit at Gleneagles, has brought his relatively lacklustre second term into sharp relief. The second term should have been the time when New Labour fulfilled its manifesto promises. So wh…
Ocularcentrism and its Others: A Framework for Metatheoretical Analysis
There is a contemporary scepticism towards vision-based metaphors in management and organization studies that reflects a more general pattern across the social sciences. In short, there has been a shift away from ocularcentrism. This shift provides a useful basis for metatheoretical analysis of the philosophical discourse that informs organizational analysis. The article begins by briefly discussing the vision-generated, vision-centred interpreta…
Organization as containment of acquisitive mimetic rivalry: The contribution of renŕe girard
This paper considers relations between violence and organization as seen through the lens moulded by Rene Girard. This is because more than any other writer of his generation Girard postulates the primacy of violence in his sociological theorising. In this paper we first outline Girard's theory. Next we discuss this in relation to Freudian theories of organization. We then draw out some of the implications of his theory for the understanding of t…
Dancing with discrimination: Managing stigma and identity
Fans are a group that are stigmatized and discredited, at least to some degree, by their 'deviant' and common form of symbolic consumption. At stake in the process of stigmatization is the very identity of the individual fan, and their symbolic and emotional well‐being. This paper reports on an empirical study of one particular group of fans—Star Trek fans (or 'Trekkies')—and explores the complex identity issues articulated by them as they 'manag…
British Political Science in the Inter-War Years: The Emergence of the Founding Fathers
In the inter-war years a number of scholars studied and wrote about British politics in a way that marks them out as founding fathers of the discipline. The writers were academics, confined to a few universities, and did not regard themselves as political scientists. The article analyses two outlooks—collectivism and pluralism—which emerged to challenge the Westminster model. Many present features of a ‘British approach’ are evident in the work a…
Prime Ministers, Ministers and Civil Servants in Britain
This paper examines a variety of recent challenges to the British political system and assesses the impact on the two key political elites in Britain - ministers and civil servants. It analyses their response to these challenges and argues that both ministers and civil servants have been adept at pursuing a public strategy of greater openness, inclusivity and flexibility, while privately remaining a homogenous elite with a tight hold on power. Th…
Art, Work and Art Work
This paper introduces a novel method for investigating the interfaces between art work and managerial work in the creative industries. The method, which we are calling dispraxis , seeks to transcend the traditional divisions between the academic world and the world of practice. This particular dispraxis is a structured, iterative dialogue between an academic, a manager, and an artist on the themes identified in the call for papers. In this dispra…
The Third Age of Political Communication: Influences and Features
This article identifies key changes in society and the media that have shaped political communication in many democracies over the postwar period. Three distinct ages are described. In the first, much political communication was subordinate to relatively strong and stable political institutions and beliefs. In the second, faced with a more mobile electorate, the parties increasingly "professionalized" and adapted their communications to the news …
The Politics of Manifestos
Journal Article THE POLITICS OF MANIFESTOS Get access Dennis Kavanagh Dennis Kavanagh Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Parliamentary Affairs, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1, Winter 1981, Pages 7–27, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.pa.a054190 Published: 01 January 1981
The Deferential English: A Comparative Critique
ALL POLITICAL CULTURES ARE MIXED AND CHANGING. WHAT IS interesting in the English case, however, is the way in which a veritable army of scholars has seized on the deferential component. Other features in the overall cultural pattern have been neglected. This paper is devoted to an examination of the concept of deference as it is applied to English politics. In particular it will focus on the different meanings that the concept has assumed in the…
Why Political Science Needs History
This paper examines the changing relationship between the study of history and the study of political science. It reviews the tensions which produced a divorce between the two subjects, particularly in the United States when behavioural political science was dominant. It then examines five areas in which history has enriched the study of politics: as a source of material; as a demonstration of the links between the present and the past; as a body…
The Monarchy in Contemporary Political Culture
The dynamic imaginaries of the Ethereum project
This paper inquires into the dynamic imaginaries of the Ethereum project. We present Ethereum as animated by three such imaginaries: the world computer (technical), productive money (economic) and public goods (political). We examine how these imaginaries are materialized, carried forward and evolve through the Ethereum ecosystem, focusing on how Ethereum's prefigurative logic underpins this dynamism. In our analysis, we pay particular attention …
Ocularcentrism and its Others: A Framework for Metatheoretical Analysis
There is a contemporary scepticism towards vision-based metaphors in management and organization studies that reflects a more general pattern across the social sciences. In short, there has been a shift away from ocularcentrism. This shift provides a useful basis for metatheoretical analysis of the philosophical discourse that informs organizational analysis. The article begins by briefly discussing the vision-generated, vision-centred interpreta…
The Labour Campaign
Journal Article The Labour Campaign Get access DENNIS KAVANAGH DENNIS KAVANAGH Professor of Politics *Liverpool University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Parliamentary Affairs, Volume 50, Issue 4, October 1997, Pages 533–541, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.pa.a028753 Published: 01 October 1997
British Party Conferences and the Political Rhetoric of the 1990s
THERE ARE CERTAIN PREDICTABLE HIGH POINTS IN THE political calendar. Local elections, the Queen's speech and the Budget are pencilled in at each party's headquarters and the media devote acres of newsprint and hours of broadcasting time to each. Yet none of these compare in duration to the season of party conferences, which last for the best part of a month. For political commentators and activists they are the political equivalent of an Olympic …
The Postwar Consensus
The Postwar Consensus Get access DENNIS KAVANAGH DENNIS KAVANAGH Nottingham University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Twentieth Century British History, Volume 3, Issue 2, 1992, Pages 175–190, https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/3.2.175 Published: 01 January 1992
Prime Ministers, Ministers and Civil Servants in Britain
This paper examines a variety of recent challenges to the British political system and assesses the impact on the two key political elites in Britain - ministers and civil servants. It analyses their response to these challenges and argues that both ministers and civil servants have been adept at pursuing a public strategy of greater openness, inclusivity and flexibility, while privately remaining a homogenous elite with a tight hold on power. Th…
New Campaign Communications: Consequences for British Political Parties
This article explores the ways in which British election campaigns and parties have changed as a result of new technology and party recruitment from advertising agencies, pollsters, and public relations advisers. The emerging model is sometimes termed an Americanization of British politics. This article draws on interviews to report on the relations and tensions between politicians and the outsider advisers, discusses the extent to which the part…
An American Science of British Politics
This chapter attempts to review certain salient themes in the substantive literature on British politics by American political scientists. More diffidently, it also suggests some reasons for these American perceptions. It is as well to be clear that the paper does not cover certain areas. It does not compare American and British politics or discuss the extent to which one system has tried to learn or copy from the other. I have also left aside th…
British Political Science in the Inter-War Years: The Emergence of the Founding Fathers
In the inter-war years a number of scholars studied and wrote about British politics in a way that marks them out as founding fathers of the discipline. The writers were academics, confined to a few universities, and did not regard themselves as political scientists. The article analyses two outlooks—collectivism and pluralism—which emerged to challenge the Westminster model. Many present features of a ‘British approach’ are evident in the work a…
How we vote now
Power in British political parties: Iron law or special pleading
This article analyses the claims advanced by Robert McKenzie about the distribution of power in British political parties. It considers McKenzie's mode of analysis (with particular reference to Labour), his definition of terms, selection of evidence and interpretation of it. The major argument is that McKenzie over‐generalised from the events of the 1950s and 1960s and that subsequent events have severely undermined his thesis
Allegiance Among English Children: A Dissent
England has long been fertile ground for scholars (usually American) concerned to locate the antecedents of stable and democratic government. More often than not they have stressed a particular configuration of attitudes as a basic support for such government. Evaluation of the consequences for the political system of these attitudes has frequently proceeded along very inferential and impressionistic lines, and has resulted in a benign view of th…
Private Opinion Polls and Campaign Strategy
Journal Article Private Opinion Polls and Campaign Strategy Get access DENNIS KAVANAGH DENNIS KAVANAGH Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Parliamentary Affairs, Volume 45, Issue 4, October 1992, Pages 518–527, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.pa.a052380 Published: 01 October 1992
Dancing with discrimination: Managing stigma and identity
Fans are a group that are stigmatized and discredited, at least to some degree, by their 'deviant' and common form of symbolic consumption. At stake in the process of stigmatization is the very identity of the individual fan, and their symbolic and emotional well‐being. This paper reports on an empirical study of one particular group of fans—Star Trek fans (or 'Trekkies')—and explores the complex identity issues articulated by them as they 'manag…
Changes in the Political Class and its Culture
Journal Article Changes in the Political Class and its Culture Get access DENNIS KAVANAGH DENNIS KAVANAGH Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Parliamentary Affairs, Volume 45, Issue 1, January 1992, Pages 18–32, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.pa.a052340 Published: 01 January 1992
Whatever Happened to Consensus Politics
The term ‘consensus politics' has frequently been used to describe post-war British politics. More recently it appears to have been overtaken by ‘the end of consensus polities’. The first part of this paper examines the different meanings of consensus in British politics, and analyses the concept with reference to the mixed economy and welfare. The second part examines the salient features of the consensus and how they emerged. The third section …
Cryptocurrencies and the emergence of blockocracy
Blockocracies are a coherent, distinctive and novel organizational form bound by a collective ledger and a cryptocurrency. We frame our analysis of blockocracies against Weber’s enduring description of bureaucracy, identifying those features of Weberian bureaucracies that are present, absent or marginalized in blockocracies. In contrast to bureaucracy’s monocratic authority structure, authority in blockocracies is centered on four distinct layers…
Religion, organization and company law – a case study of a Quaker business
This paper examines the effect of changes in corporate law in the mid-nineteenth century – incorporation and limited liability – on the ownership, control and socio-economic objectives of a Quaker family firm between 1841 and 1972. The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) were well-known for adhering to internalized quasi-legal rules and self-governance, and had a strong reputation, which persists today, for trust, integrity and honesty in all …
Running to Stand Still: Late Modernity's Acceleration Fixation
That we live in a time of unprecedented and ever-increasing change is both a shibboleth of our age and the more-or-less explicit justification for all manner of “strategic” actions. The seldom, if ever, questioned assumption is that our now is more ephemeral, more evanescent, than any that preceded it. In this essay, we subject this assumption to some critical scrutiny, utilizing a range of empirical detail. In the face of this assay we find the …
Power in the parties: R. T. Mckenzie and after
The Orientations of Community Leaders to Parliamentary Candidates
The Deferential English: A Comparative Critique
ALL POLITICAL CULTURES ARE MIXED AND CHANGING. WHAT IS interesting in the English case, however, is the way in which a veritable army of scholars has seized on the deferential component. Other features in the overall cultural pattern have been neglected. This paper is devoted to an examination of the concept of deference as it is applied to English politics. In particular it will focus on the different meanings that the concept has assumed in the…
Allegiance Among English Children: A Dissent
England has long been fertile ground for scholars (usually American) concerned to locate the antecedents of stable and democratic government. More often than not they have stressed a particular configuration of attitudes as a basic support for such government. Evaluation of the consequences for the political system of these attitudes has frequently proceeded along very inferential and impressionistic lines, and has resulted in a benign view of th…
Economy, Society and Minority Groups
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MNC and Politics
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
An American Science of British Politics
This chapter attempts to review certain salient themes in the substantive literature on British politics by American political scientists. More diffidently, it also suggests some reasons for these American perceptions. It is as well to be clear that the paper does not cover certain areas. It does not compare American and British politics or discuss the extent to which one system has tried to learn or copy from the other. I have also left aside th…
Beyond Autonomy? The Politics of Corporations
IN RECENT YEARS THERE HAS BEEN A FORMIDABLE GROWTH OF literature on the political and other implications of business corporations. Much of the writing on the corporations has been of an alarmist nature. We are usually referred to the growth of an impressive economic (and, by implication, political) power of the corporations, the lack of effective democratic control on their activities, and the consequent need to establish a more effective set of …
Heroic’ and ‘Routine’ Leaders
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The Monarchy in Contemporary Political Culture
New Bottles for New Wines: Ghanging Assumptions About British Politics
NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINES: GHANGING ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT BRITISH POLITICS Dennis Kavanagh Dennis Kavanagh Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Parliamentary Affairs, Volume XXXI, Issue 1, Winter 1978, Pages 6–21, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.pa.a054243 Published: 01 January 1978
Prime Ministers
Journal Article PRIME MINISTERS Get access Dennis Kavanagh Dennis Kavanagh Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Parliamentary Affairs, Volume 32, Issue 1, 1979, Pages 107–108, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.pa.a051763 Published: 01 January 1979
The Politics of Manifestos
Journal Article THE POLITICS OF MANIFESTOS Get access Dennis Kavanagh Dennis Kavanagh Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Parliamentary Affairs, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1, Winter 1981, Pages 7–27, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.pa.a054190 Published: 01 January 1981
On writing contemporary electoral history
Election Campaigns and Opinion Polls: British Political Parties and the Use of Private Polls
Journal Article ELECTION CAMPAIGNS AND OPINION POLLS: BRITISH POLITICAL PARTIES AND THE USE OF PRIVATE POLLS Get access Dennis Kavanagh Dennis Kavanagh Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Parliamentary Affairs, Volume XXXV, Issue 3, Summer 1982, Pages 267–281, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.pa.a054322 Published: 01 July 1982
Power in British political parties: Iron law or special pleading
This article analyses the claims advanced by Robert McKenzie about the distribution of power in British political parties. It considers McKenzie's mode of analysis (with particular reference to Labour), his definition of terms, selection of evidence and interpretation of it. The major argument is that McKenzie over‐generalised from the events of the 1950s and 1960s and that subsequent events have severely undermined his thesis
Whatever Happened to Consensus Politics
The term ‘consensus politics' has frequently been used to describe post-war British politics. More recently it appears to have been overtaken by ‘the end of consensus polities’. The first part of this paper examines the different meanings of consensus in British politics, and analyses the concept with reference to the mixed economy and welfare. The second part examines the salient features of the consensus and how they emerged. The third section …
British Politics
P. Cosgrave, Thatcher: the First Term (London, The Bodley Head, 1985) A. King (ed.), The British Prime Minister (second edition) (London, Macmillan, 1985) A. Ranney (ed.) Britain at the Polls 1983 (Durham, N.C., Duke University Press, 1985) D. S. Bell (ed.), The Conservative Government 1979–84: an Interim Report (London, Croom Helm, 1985 S. Fothergill and J. Vincent, The State of the Nation (London, Pan, 1985 Philip Norton (ed.), Parliament in th…
How we vote now
Thatcher's Third Term
THATCHER'S THIRD TERM Get access Dennis Kavanagh Dennis Kavanagh Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Parliamentary Affairs, Volume 41, Issue 1, January 1988, Pages 1–12, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.pa.a052127 Published: 01 January 1988
Their masters' voices: Political speeches
Harold Macmillan: 1957–1986, By Alistair Horne
Why Political Science Needs History
This paper examines the changing relationship between the study of history and the study of political science. It reviews the tensions which produced a divorce between the two subjects, particularly in the United States when behavioural political science was dominant. It then examines five areas in which history has enriched the study of politics: as a source of material; as a demonstration of the links between the present and the past; as a body…
Electoral politics
"Elections are universal methods of political choice and decision-making. This book offers original essays on key topics for every student of the subject." "Focusing particularly on Britain and the United States, the contributions examine the behaviour of voters, the elite and the electorate, the changing impact of the mass media, pacts, proportional representation, election systems and rules, and the policy consequences of elections." "The contr…
The British General Election of 1992
The Postwar Consensus
The Postwar Consensus Get access DENNIS KAVANAGH DENNIS KAVANAGH Nottingham University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Twentieth Century British History, Volume 3, Issue 2, 1992, Pages 175–190, https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/3.2.175 Published: 01 January 1992
Political science (51 works) · Sociology (49 works) · Law (41 works) · Politics (35 works) · Law (32 works) · Political economy (21 works) · Philosophy (18 works) · Political and Economic history of UK and US (18 works) · Economics (16 works) · Media studies (16 works)