Ben Worthy
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 4128025 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Ben Worthy |
| PRENOMES | Ben |
| SOBRENOME | Worthy |
| ASSINATURA | BEN WORTHY |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Birkbeck, University of London |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6843-4097 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 29 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 333 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 28 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 1 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2010 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 9 |
London Calling? The Mayor of London at 25
As the London mayoralty passes its twenty‐five‐year anniversary, has it been a success? Despite a global platform, the office was originally seen as underpowered, trapped between central government above and the boroughs below. Opinion is now divided as to whether the office offers a chance to generate spectacles or has the power to enact real change. In this article, we assess these positions, finding that the Mayor of London has succeeded again…
Watching the wheels
Accountability, analysis and avoidance
The ‘electoral presidentialization’ of Silvio Berlusconi and Boris Johnson
This article tests Poguntke and Webb’s theory of ‘electoral presidentialization’ through a comparison of Silvio Berlusconi and Boris Johnson. Johnson and Berlusconi stand as particular examples of ‘electoral presidentialization’, where dominance lies in power as an election ‘winner’ and ‘mediatised leader’. This approach is highly contingent and reliant on continuous validation, and, as a result, both leaders failed to translate electoral ‘autono…
Cleaning Up UK Politics
The UK has a fragmented, partial and weak system of lobbying regulation. The system creates a self-reinforcing cycle of ‘exposure’ and worsening public attitudes. In order to make the case for reform and indicate possible paths, this article reviews the system’s faults and weaknesses and then analyses how the lack of political will for reform in Westminster has contributed to a transparency and integrity regime which falls below international sta…
More open, more democratic or better at hiding? Two decades of local government transparency in the UK
Remind you of anyone? Comparing the gendered heroic leadership of Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May
Exploring FOI publicity patterns
Will Truss's Time end in Failure? Assessing the Prospects of the latest ‘Takeover’ Prime Minister
In September 2022, Elizabeth Truss became the third Prime Minister in a row to take office directly as a result of a party leadership election. My study of takeovers between 1916 and 2016 found they have a shorter time in office than those who are elected, because they inherit deep crisis and divided parties. They also face the dilemma of whether, and when, to call a general election
Dominance, defence and diminishing returns’? Theresa May’s Leadership Capital July 2016–July 2018
Fact Checking and Information in the Age of Covid
The Covid‐19 pandemic has revealed and accelerated an information crisis as well as a health one. What we discover about Covid 19, how it spreads, to whom and why and how best to mitigate it—all depend on information. The essays in this special section, which this article introduces, explore the importance of information and the fundamental role of fact checkers in understanding how information flows, why mistakes are made, and how to counteract …
Do freedom of information laws increase transparency of government? A replication of a field experiment
Transparency and responsiveness are core values of democratic governments, yet do Freedom of Information Laws - one of the legal basis for such values - actually help to increase these values? This paper reports a replication of a field experiment testing for the responsiveness of public authorities by Worthy et al (2016) in the United Kingdom. We sent 390 information requests to Dutch local government bodies, half of which were framed as officia…
Secrecy and Leadership
Openness is essential for democratic leadership. It represents a moral commitment and an instrument for increasing trust and legitimacy. However, secrecy can still aid leaders by safeguarding their power and policies or preserving their reputation. This article examines Theresa May’s attempted use of secrecy around the UK–EU Brexit negotiations to protect her power, policy, and reputation between 2016 and 2019. While this approach appeared succes…
Rebels Leading London
The Information-Gathering Matrix
Scholarship on transparency and freedom of information (FOI) conveys an overwhelmingly “political” narrative. Most uses of FOI, however, are private and nonpolitical in nature. This article explores the gap between the literature and empirical reality by means of an “Information-Gathering Matrix,” a framework for conceptualizing the motivations, uses, and impacts associated with FOI. Following a broad literature review, case studies illustrate th…
Assessing Government Transparency
How can we evaluate government transparency arrangements? While the complexity and contextuality of the values at stake defy straightforward measurement, this article provides an interpretative framework to guide and structure assessments of government transparency. In this framework, we discern criteria clusters for political transparency—democracy, the constitutional state, and social learning capacity—and for administrative transparency—econom…
The Leadership Capital Index
This edited book will make an important, timely, and innovative contribution to the now flourishing academic discipline of political leadership studies. We have developed a conceptual framework of leadership capital and a diagnostic tool—the Leadership Capital Index (LCI)—to measure and evaluate the fluctuating nature of leadership capital. Differing amounts of leadership capital, a combination of skills, relations, and reputation, allow leaders …
The politics of freedom of information
Why do governments pass freedom of information laws? The symbolic power and force surrounding FOI makes it appealing as an electoral promise but hard to disengage from once in power. However, behind closed doors compromises and manoeuvres ensure that bold policies are seriously weakened before they reach the statute book. The politics of freedom of information examines how Tony Blair's government proposed a radical FOI law only to back down in fe…
Leadership Capital
The Leadership Capital Index utilizes the conceptual terminology of Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory. This chapter presents the groundwork for the LCI as it clarifies Bourdieu’s key concepts and traces the evolution from political capital to leadership capital. With an overview of Bourdieu’s three core concepts of economic, cultural, and social capital, plus the more elusive symbolic capital, the chapter assists with an appreciation of the analytic…
The Politics of Freedom of Information
Why do governments pass freedom of information laws? The symbolic power and force surrounding FOI makes it appealing as an electoral promise but hard to disengage from once in power. However, behind closed doors compromises and manoeuvres ensure that bold policies are seriously weakened before they reach the statute book. The politics of freedom of information examines how Tony Blair's government proposed a radical FOI law only to back down in fe…
Disruptive, Dynamic and Democratic? Ten Years of FOI in the UK
The UK's FOI Act came into force in 2005. Three linked research projects were conducted to evaluate its overall impact and assess to what extent FOI has met its objectives across central and local government and Parliament. They conclude that FOI has met its ‘core’ objectives, making central government more transparent and accountable. However, it has not improved decision-making, public understanding, participation or trust. Nor has FOI signific…
Ending in Failure? The Performance of ‘Takeover’ Prime Ministers 1916–2016
When Theresa May became Prime Minister in July 2016, she joined a list of eleven previous UK takeover leaders in the past 100 years. While the popular image is of Prime Ministers arriving in power after a general election victory, more than half of the Prime Ministers who governed since 1916 have acceded as ‘takeover leaders’ through an internal party process. This article analyses how such takeover leaders perform, concluding that May is likely …
Transparency at the Parish Pump
How effective are systems of transparency, such as Freedom of Information (FOI) requests? The ambitious aims of FOI laws hinge on whether requests produce the desired information for the citizens or groups that use them. The question is whether such legally mandated requests work better than more informal mechanisms. Despite the high hopes of advocates, organizational routines, lack of awareness or resistance may limit legal access and public bod…
The Impact of Open Data in the Uk
This article examines the democratic impact of the UK coalition government's Transparency Agenda, focusing on the publication of all local government spending over £500 by councils in England. It looks at whether the new data have driven increased democratic accountability, public participation, and information transmission. The evidence suggests that the local government spending data have driven some accountability. However, rather than forging…
Assessing the Authority of Political Office-Holders
This article argues that the extent to which political office-holders can effectively attain and wield authority is a function of the stock of leadership capital. Drawing on the concept of political capital, the article defines leadership capital as aggregate authority composed of three dimensions: skills, relations and reputation of a leader. Leadership capital ebbs and flows over time within a trajectory of acquisition, expenditure and inevitab…
More Open but Not More Trusted? The Effect of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 on the United Kingdom Central Government
This article examines the impact of Britain's Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2000 on British central government. The article identifies six objectives for FOI in the United Kingdom and then examines to what extent FOI has met them, briefly comparing the United Kingdom with similar legislation in Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. It concludes that FOI has achieved the core objectives of increasing transparency and accountability, thou…
Assessing the performance of freedom of information
Transparency at the Parish Pump
How effective are systems of transparency, such as Freedom of Information (FOI) requests? The ambitious aims of FOI laws hinge on whether requests produce the desired information for the citizens or groups that use them. The question is whether such legally mandated requests work better than more informal mechanisms. Despite the high hopes of advocates, organizational routines, lack of awareness or resistance may limit legal access and public bod…
Assessing the Authority of Political Office-Holders
This article argues that the extent to which political office-holders can effectively attain and wield authority is a function of the stock of leadership capital. Drawing on the concept of political capital, the article defines leadership capital as aggregate authority composed of three dimensions: skills, relations and reputation of a leader. Leadership capital ebbs and flows over time within a trajectory of acquisition, expenditure and inevitab…
The Impact of Open Data in the Uk
This article examines the democratic impact of the UK coalition government's Transparency Agenda, focusing on the publication of all local government spending over £500 by councils in England. It looks at whether the new data have driven increased democratic accountability, public participation, and information transmission. The evidence suggests that the local government spending data have driven some accountability. However, rather than forging…
Some are More Open than Others”
This article examines the impact of freedom of information (FOI) on English local government and compares it with UK central government. It asks whether FOI has increased transparency and accountability and improved decision-making, public understanding, participation or trust. It also looks at whether FOI has affected local leadership, service delivery and partnership work. FOI has not had a “transformative” impact on local government. Local aut…
Ending in Failure? The Performance of ‘Takeover’ Prime Ministers 1916–2016
When Theresa May became Prime Minister in July 2016, she joined a list of eleven previous UK takeover leaders in the past 100 years. While the popular image is of Prime Ministers arriving in power after a general election victory, more than half of the Prime Ministers who governed since 1916 have acceded as ‘takeover leaders’ through an internal party process. This article analyses how such takeover leaders perform, concluding that May is likely …
Disruptive, Dynamic and Democratic? Ten Years of FOI in the UK
The UK's FOI Act came into force in 2005. Three linked research projects were conducted to evaluate its overall impact and assess to what extent FOI has met its objectives across central and local government and Parliament. They conclude that FOI has met its ‘core’ objectives, making central government more transparent and accountable. However, it has not improved decision-making, public understanding, participation or trust. Nor has FOI signific…
Assessing Government Transparency
How can we evaluate government transparency arrangements? While the complexity and contextuality of the values at stake defy straightforward measurement, this article provides an interpretative framework to guide and structure assessments of government transparency. In this framework, we discern criteria clusters for political transparency—democracy, the constitutional state, and social learning capacity—and for administrative transparency—econom…
The Information-Gathering Matrix
Scholarship on transparency and freedom of information (FOI) conveys an overwhelmingly “political” narrative. Most uses of FOI, however, are private and nonpolitical in nature. This article explores the gap between the literature and empirical reality by means of an “Information-Gathering Matrix,” a framework for conceptualizing the motivations, uses, and impacts associated with FOI. Following a broad literature review, case studies illustrate th…
The Politics of Freedom of Information
Why do governments pass freedom of information laws? The symbolic power and force surrounding FOI makes it appealing as an electoral promise but hard to disengage from once in power. However, behind closed doors compromises and manoeuvres ensure that bold policies are seriously weakened before they reach the statute book. The politics of freedom of information examines how Tony Blair's government proposed a radical FOI law only to back down in fe…
Cleaning Up UK Politics
The UK has a fragmented, partial and weak system of lobbying regulation. The system creates a self-reinforcing cycle of ‘exposure’ and worsening public attitudes. In order to make the case for reform and indicate possible paths, this article reviews the system’s faults and weaknesses and then analyses how the lack of political will for reform in Westminster has contributed to a transparency and integrity regime which falls below international sta…
Exploring FOI publicity patterns
Dominance, defence and diminishing returns’? Theresa May’s Leadership Capital July 2016–July 2018
Secrecy and Leadership
Openness is essential for democratic leadership. It represents a moral commitment and an instrument for increasing trust and legitimacy. However, secrecy can still aid leaders by safeguarding their power and policies or preserving their reputation. This article examines Theresa May’s attempted use of secrecy around the UK–EU Brexit negotiations to protect her power, policy, and reputation between 2016 and 2019. While this approach appeared succes…
Accountability, analysis and avoidance
More open, more democratic or better at hiding? Two decades of local government transparency in the UK
The ‘electoral presidentialization’ of Silvio Berlusconi and Boris Johnson
This article tests Poguntke and Webb’s theory of ‘electoral presidentialization’ through a comparison of Silvio Berlusconi and Boris Johnson. Johnson and Berlusconi stand as particular examples of ‘electoral presidentialization’, where dominance lies in power as an election ‘winner’ and ‘mediatised leader’. This approach is highly contingent and reliant on continuous validation, and, as a result, both leaders failed to translate electoral ‘autono…
Fact Checking and Information in the Age of Covid
The Covid‐19 pandemic has revealed and accelerated an information crisis as well as a health one. What we discover about Covid 19, how it spreads, to whom and why and how best to mitigate it—all depend on information. The essays in this special section, which this article introduces, explore the importance of information and the fundamental role of fact checkers in understanding how information flows, why mistakes are made, and how to counteract …
Rebels Leading London
The Impact of the Freedom of Information Act on Central Government in the UK
Based on interviews with officials, requesters and journalists, as well as a survey of FOI requesters and a study of stories in the national media, this book offers a unique insight into how the Freed
Assessing the performance of freedom of information
More Open but Not More Trusted? The Effect of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 on the United Kingdom Central Government
This article examines the impact of Britain's Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2000 on British central government. The article identifies six objectives for FOI in the United Kingdom and then examines to what extent FOI has met them, briefly comparing the United Kingdom with similar legislation in Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. It concludes that FOI has achieved the core objectives of increasing transparency and accountability, thou…
Some are More Open than Others”
This article examines the impact of freedom of information (FOI) on English local government and compares it with UK central government. It asks whether FOI has increased transparency and accountability and improved decision-making, public understanding, participation or trust. It also looks at whether FOI has affected local leadership, service delivery and partnership work. FOI has not had a “transformative” impact on local government. Local aut…
Assessing the Authority of Political Office-Holders
This article argues that the extent to which political office-holders can effectively attain and wield authority is a function of the stock of leadership capital. Drawing on the concept of political capital, the article defines leadership capital as aggregate authority composed of three dimensions: skills, relations and reputation of a leader. Leadership capital ebbs and flows over time within a trajectory of acquisition, expenditure and inevitab…
The Impact of Open Data in the Uk
This article examines the democratic impact of the UK coalition government's Transparency Agenda, focusing on the publication of all local government spending over £500 by councils in England. It looks at whether the new data have driven increased democratic accountability, public participation, and information transmission. The evidence suggests that the local government spending data have driven some accountability. However, rather than forging…
Ending in Failure? The Performance of ‘Takeover’ Prime Ministers 1916–2016
When Theresa May became Prime Minister in July 2016, she joined a list of eleven previous UK takeover leaders in the past 100 years. While the popular image is of Prime Ministers arriving in power after a general election victory, more than half of the Prime Ministers who governed since 1916 have acceded as ‘takeover leaders’ through an internal party process. This article analyses how such takeover leaders perform, concluding that May is likely …
Transparency at the Parish Pump
How effective are systems of transparency, such as Freedom of Information (FOI) requests? The ambitious aims of FOI laws hinge on whether requests produce the desired information for the citizens or groups that use them. The question is whether such legally mandated requests work better than more informal mechanisms. Despite the high hopes of advocates, organizational routines, lack of awareness or resistance may limit legal access and public bod…
The Leadership Capital Index
This edited book will make an important, timely, and innovative contribution to the now flourishing academic discipline of political leadership studies. We have developed a conceptual framework of leadership capital and a diagnostic tool—the Leadership Capital Index (LCI)—to measure and evaluate the fluctuating nature of leadership capital. Differing amounts of leadership capital, a combination of skills, relations, and reputation, allow leaders …
The politics of freedom of information
Why do governments pass freedom of information laws? The symbolic power and force surrounding FOI makes it appealing as an electoral promise but hard to disengage from once in power. However, behind closed doors compromises and manoeuvres ensure that bold policies are seriously weakened before they reach the statute book. The politics of freedom of information examines how Tony Blair's government proposed a radical FOI law only to back down in fe…
Leadership Capital
The Leadership Capital Index utilizes the conceptual terminology of Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory. This chapter presents the groundwork for the LCI as it clarifies Bourdieu’s key concepts and traces the evolution from political capital to leadership capital. With an overview of Bourdieu’s three core concepts of economic, cultural, and social capital, plus the more elusive symbolic capital, the chapter assists with an appreciation of the analytic…
The Politics of Freedom of Information
Why do governments pass freedom of information laws? The symbolic power and force surrounding FOI makes it appealing as an electoral promise but hard to disengage from once in power. However, behind closed doors compromises and manoeuvres ensure that bold policies are seriously weakened before they reach the statute book. The politics of freedom of information examines how Tony Blair's government proposed a radical FOI law only to back down in fe…
Disruptive, Dynamic and Democratic? Ten Years of FOI in the UK
The UK's FOI Act came into force in 2005. Three linked research projects were conducted to evaluate its overall impact and assess to what extent FOI has met its objectives across central and local government and Parliament. They conclude that FOI has met its ‘core’ objectives, making central government more transparent and accountable. However, it has not improved decision-making, public understanding, participation or trust. Nor has FOI signific…
Rebels Leading London
The Information-Gathering Matrix
Scholarship on transparency and freedom of information (FOI) conveys an overwhelmingly “political” narrative. Most uses of FOI, however, are private and nonpolitical in nature. This article explores the gap between the literature and empirical reality by means of an “Information-Gathering Matrix,” a framework for conceptualizing the motivations, uses, and impacts associated with FOI. Following a broad literature review, case studies illustrate th…
Assessing Government Transparency
How can we evaluate government transparency arrangements? While the complexity and contextuality of the values at stake defy straightforward measurement, this article provides an interpretative framework to guide and structure assessments of government transparency. In this framework, we discern criteria clusters for political transparency—democracy, the constitutional state, and social learning capacity—and for administrative transparency—econom…
Do freedom of information laws increase transparency of government? A replication of a field experiment
Transparency and responsiveness are core values of democratic governments, yet do Freedom of Information Laws - one of the legal basis for such values - actually help to increase these values? This paper reports a replication of a field experiment testing for the responsiveness of public authorities by Worthy et al (2016) in the United Kingdom. We sent 390 information requests to Dutch local government bodies, half of which were framed as officia…
Secrecy and Leadership
Openness is essential for democratic leadership. It represents a moral commitment and an instrument for increasing trust and legitimacy. However, secrecy can still aid leaders by safeguarding their power and policies or preserving their reputation. This article examines Theresa May’s attempted use of secrecy around the UK–EU Brexit negotiations to protect her power, policy, and reputation between 2016 and 2019. While this approach appeared succes…
Dominance, defence and diminishing returns’? Theresa May’s Leadership Capital July 2016–July 2018
Fact Checking and Information in the Age of Covid
The Covid‐19 pandemic has revealed and accelerated an information crisis as well as a health one. What we discover about Covid 19, how it spreads, to whom and why and how best to mitigate it—all depend on information. The essays in this special section, which this article introduces, explore the importance of information and the fundamental role of fact checkers in understanding how information flows, why mistakes are made, and how to counteract …
Exploring FOI publicity patterns
Will Truss's Time end in Failure? Assessing the Prospects of the latest ‘Takeover’ Prime Minister
In September 2022, Elizabeth Truss became the third Prime Minister in a row to take office directly as a result of a party leadership election. My study of takeovers between 1916 and 2016 found they have a shorter time in office than those who are elected, because they inherit deep crisis and divided parties. They also face the dilemma of whether, and when, to call a general election
Remind you of anyone? Comparing the gendered heroic leadership of Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May
The ‘electoral presidentialization’ of Silvio Berlusconi and Boris Johnson
This article tests Poguntke and Webb’s theory of ‘electoral presidentialization’ through a comparison of Silvio Berlusconi and Boris Johnson. Johnson and Berlusconi stand as particular examples of ‘electoral presidentialization’, where dominance lies in power as an election ‘winner’ and ‘mediatised leader’. This approach is highly contingent and reliant on continuous validation, and, as a result, both leaders failed to translate electoral ‘autono…
Cleaning Up UK Politics
The UK has a fragmented, partial and weak system of lobbying regulation. The system creates a self-reinforcing cycle of ‘exposure’ and worsening public attitudes. In order to make the case for reform and indicate possible paths, this article reviews the system’s faults and weaknesses and then analyses how the lack of political will for reform in Westminster has contributed to a transparency and integrity regime which falls below international sta…
Political science (27 obras) · Law (24 obras) · Politics (23 obras) · Law (20 obras) · Sociology (17 obras) · Public Administration (14 obras) · Public Administration (12 obras) · Economics (11 obras) · Public Policy and Administration Research (11 obras) · Freedom of information (10 obras)