How can experts help governments think?: inaugural lecture

ABSTRACT

Britain’s exit from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992 and the Second Iraq War in 2003 are two infamous examples of disastrous policy, but governments blunder all the time – whatever party is in power. Infrastructure projects overrun. The aims and techniques of different departments clash. Scandals erupt among officials and politicians. Controversies stymie attempts at agreement and consensus. But why exactly do these failures happen? Are they more or less widespread than in the private sector? And can studying British governments’ decision-making across the twentieth century improve it in the future? In his May 2018 inaugural lecture, Professor O'Hara recommended a slow, deliberative, transparent, democratic and above all humble and sensitive approach in order to avoid another Black Wednesday or ruinous war – an approach in contrast to the populist tone of much recent debate.

KEYWORDS:

• Policymaking
• populism
• governance
• evidence
• devolution

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Glen O’Hara is Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at Oxford Brookes University. He is primarily interested in British central governments’ economic and social policies, focusing especially on the period since the First World War, and has written and edited a number of books on this subject. These include Governing Post-War Britain: The Paradoxes of Progress (2012) and The Politics of Water in Post-War Britain (2017). He writes regularly on current affairs for a range of periodicals and blogs, including his own blog at ‘Public Policy and the Past’. He tweets as @gsoh31.

Notes

1 Delivered at Oxford Brookes University on 9 May 2018. This version differs in some respects from the lecture as actually given. The latter can be watched, with the full range of slides, at: https://lecturecapture.brookes.ac.uk/Mediasite/Play/66c1f45d3ef14173845b0f1cd1789f911d.

2 History Today was a regular sketch featuring David Baddiel and Rob Newman caricaturing Oxbridge like old white male academic experts by having their scholarly debate degenerate quickly into playground insults. It appeared first in the Mary Whitehouse Experience and subsequently in the spin-off Baddiel and Newman In Pieces. It ran sporadically on both BBC Radio and television from 1989 until 1993. For a sample see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UMedd03JCA.