Open research questions in Political and Economic history of UK and US
142 gap statements mined from Political and Economic history of UK and US papers in our 4.5M-paper local library, which holds 1,260 papers on the topic — drawn mostly from each paper's own stated research gap, future-work, challenge and limitation notes, and its abstract. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one.
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What the literature leaves open
The evolution of the austere state presents challenges to operating as democratic professionals and has made their freedom to act to meet the needs of citizens more limited. The carceral state is one of the most difficult forms of the state for which to advocate a democratic professional perspective.
How Democratic Professionals Can Contribute to Democracy: Reflections on John Boswell, How Citizens Encounter the Democratic State · 2026 · DOIMore needs to be understood about the changes taking place in the different forms of the state and their implications for democracy. The use of meta-ethnography is an important contribution to future research for public policy and administration.
How Democratic Professionals Can Contribute to Democracy: Reflections on John Boswell, How Citizens Encounter the Democratic State · 2026 · DOIThis article examines an understudied chapter in the history of British socialist thought: the consumer-based socialism theorized by the Fabian and Labour Party advisor Leonard Woolf between 1913 and 1920.
Participatory Democracy and the British Utopian Tradition: Leonard Woolf's Co-operative Commonwealth in Historical Perspective · 2024 · DOIArnold Schwarzenegger’s electoral triumph in the 2003 California Recall should be explored through an analysis of his mobilization of the Terminator persona.
From the Silver Screen to the Recall Ballot: Schwarzenegger as Terminator and Politician · 2010 · DOIThe gap between the state's need for revenues and capital's ability to enjoy unhampered production for value. The lack of understanding of the effects of privatisation on the fiscal crisis of the state.
There is a gap in understanding the secretary's experience and relationships with managers. The paper aims to study the secretary's role and relationships.
Future research could explore the political relationship between the executive and backbenchers in more depth. Future research could examine the practices of government departments and their reporting to Parliament.
Book Review: Whitehall and Westminster — Government Informs Parliament: The Changing Scene · 1986 · DOIThe book does not deliver a thorough political analysis of the relationship between Whitehall and Westminster. The book's discussion of the political relationship between the executive and backbenchers is limited.
Book Review: Whitehall and Westminster — Government Informs Parliament: The Changing Scene · 1986 · DOIFurther research could analyze the effect of the diminishing political influence of the elderly. Further research could analyze the development of the preferences of other social groups.
The paper amends Aaron's original 1966 formulation to address this gap.
Future research could explore the long-term consequences of the Thatcher government's policies. Further analysis could examine the impact of privatization on the nationalized industries.
The paper identifies the challenge of balancing the need to exercise the power of dismissal with the potential costs and consequences. The study notes the challenge of navigating the complexities of prime-ministerial power. The research highlights the challenge of understanding the paradoxes surrounding the power of dismissal.
The study notes that existing research has not fully explored the factors that influence the exercise of this power.
The issue of race is not a major issue on the British policy agenda despite the 1981 urban disturbances. There is a lack of understanding of the political participation of blacks and the role of race in the political process.
The potential incompatibility of the needs of victims and offenders. The challenge of satisfying incompatible needs.
The limited activity in governmental relations may be a challenge for the associations. The paper touches on the challenge of representing the interests of different types of institutions, such as graduate education and undergraduate education.
The associations' limited activity in governmental relations may be a gap in their ability to influence legislation.
The party's internal dissensions limited their legislative record. The party's precarious parliamentary position made it difficult to pass legislation. The obstructionism of the House of Lords was a challenge to the party's legislative efforts.
The Liberal ministries of Gladstone and Lord Rosebery are often overlooked in the annals of late Victorian Liberalism. There is a need to analyze the party's achievements and failures during this time.
The curious insensitivity with which the Complete Suffragists allegedly treated Lovett remains to be explained. As Christian Philanthropists they reasoned from different premises and could not assess themselves by the same criteria as the ‘trading politicians’ whom they so heartily despised.
Personality in Politics: The National Complete Suffrage Union and Pressure Group Politics in Early Victorian Britain · 1983 · DOIThe core argument of the article is that the more recent efforts of the Johnson administration to transform the state and undermine the PBS were scarcely original.
Destroying one Public Service Bargain Without Making Another: A Comment on Lowe and Pemberton, The Official History of the British Civil Service, Volume II: 1982–1997 · 2021 · DOIThe authors argue that corruption has not been properly comprehended within a broader understanding of the character of political and economic life in Africa.
The paper notes that prior work, such as Marxist predictions, has failed to account for this relationship.
Andrew Shonfield. The Use of Public Power, edited and introduced by Zuzanna Shonfield. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982. Andrew Shonfield. In Defense of the Mixed Economy, edited by Zuzanna Shonfield. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984 · 1985 · DOIThe paper identifies a gap in the current system of ministerial appointments. The paper argues that the current system leads to a short-term approach to policy-making.
At the same time, in identifying the consumer rather than the producer as the means and ends of social change, Woolf's proposals for a socialist commonwealth emerge as an alternative to most socialist thought, a rarely examined case in a British politics of consumption which, as Matthew Hilton has shown, has traditionally offered itself as a “middle” or “third way” solution to a party political system dominated…
Participatory Democracy and the British Utopian Tradition: Leonard Woolf's Co-operative Commonwealth in Historical Perspective · 2024 · DOI
Most-cited papers in Political and Economic history of UK and US
- MPs for Sale? Returns to Office in Postwar British Politics · American Political Science Review · 2009 · 251 citations
- Presidential Administration · Harvard Law Review · 2001 · 233 citations
- Testing the Mandate Model in Britain and the United States: Evidence from the Reagan and Thatcher Eras · British Journal of Political Science · 1996 · 166 citations
- Electoral business cycle in industrial democracies · European Journal of Political Economy · 1993 · 136 citations
- The Rise of the Career Politician in Britain — And its Consequences · British Journal of Political Science · 1981 · 119 citations
- Government Popularity and the Falklands War: A Reassessment · British Journal of Political Science · 1987 · 115 citations
- Neoliberalism, New Public Management and the human service professions · Journal of sociology · 2009 · 107 citations
- Andrew Shonfield. The Use of Public Power, edited and introduced by Zuzanna Shonfield. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982. Andrew Shonfield. In Defense of the Mixed Economy, edited by Zuzanna Shonfield. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984 · Politics & Society · 1985 · 106 citations
- The Power of Prime Ministers: Results of an Expert Survey · International Political Science Review · 2007 · 99 citations
- Voting for Ford: Industrial Democracy and the Control of Labour · Capital & Class · 1980 · 98 citations
Most recent work
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- Leeds Symposium 1989 · Petits Propos Culinaires · 2026
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