The advertising for Al Roberts new book SUPERSTATES says"In this century, the world will conduct an extraordinary experiment in government. In 2050, forty percent of the planet's population will live in just four places: India, China, the European Union, and the United States. These are superstates – polities that are distinguished from normal countries by expansiveness, population, diversity, and complexity."In this episode of STATECRAFT Al and I discuss his latest book. What are 'superstates'? How do the different from empires? Was the USSR a superstate? All this and more in our discussion. Enjoy - I did!SUPERSTATES is published by Polity Press

There are not many* attempts to write a full, global, history of Government since its inception 4-5 millennia ago.Grant Duncan has written one which doesn't cover everything - but focuses instead on the ideas (and realities) of government from a more global perspective - starting with historical Chinese thought and practice.I hope our discussions captures some of his ideas - but it's worth reading the book!*The two biggest attempts are Samuel Finer's 'The History of Government' (3 volumes) and more recently Francis Fukuyama's two books on 'Political Order'. Grant has packed his survey into one volume.

Graeme Garrad argues that for the past 40 years some governments have tried to 'roll back the frontiers of the state'. Although they succeeded in a lot of economic areas, they were much less successful at reducing the welfare state.Now Graeme sees the possible emergence of what he calls the "Public Interest State". Join us for a fascinating discussion.Graeme Garrard, THE RETURN OF THE STATE, Yale University Press, 2022.

Traditional debates in political science about states and governments have focussed on fairly abstract definitions, usually starting from Max Weber's definition of the state as a “human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.”Paul suggests this is clearly inadequate to discussing modern states and in any case is a simplification of what Weber actually said.Join us for what was, for me anyway, a fascinating discussion with one of the UK's top public policy academics.https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/states-and-welfare-states

In this short (12 min) episode I discuss how the UK Governments - plural - handled Covid. And especially how the Whitehall Government did - or mostly did not- coordinate with other tiers of Government Of which there are many more than you would think.This is part of my project to promote serious discussion around what is known as "multi-level governance" in the UK and beyond.This talk was given as part on an online forum called "World Wide Wednesday" organised by Mary Gregory up on Merseyside.

BUURTZORG is an innovative method for organising the delivery of human services. Starting in community nursing in the Netherlands, it has captured the majority of providing community nursing services there.In this initial exploration, I talk to Brendan Martin about the Buurtzorg philosophy and practice.

Sorry for the long delay since the end of series 1. I've been ill.But STATECRAFT  is back. And in this short intro I'll explain what I'm trying to do with the series.The first full episode - looking at the BUURTZORG method of organising the very topical issue of community nursing - will be appearing very soon (it's already recorded).

Prof David Howarth (Cambridge), explains his views on how the UK has not one but two 'constitutions' - in competition but also co-existing.You can read a short introduction to David's ideas here.David, like me, has  background in local government before he became an MP. He, like me, was always struck by the differences in the way local and central government work. Unlike me, he is a legal expert and his work on the Constitution is fascinating.I hope you find our conversation useful. If you want to contact me about this or any other episodes I am on colin.talbot@manchester.ac.uk and on twitter as @colinrtalbot

This episode is a panel discussion about diversity in Whitehall. Both the diversity of civil service jobs and of civil service people.It is one of our regular special  episodes of the podcast with a panel of experts discussing developments in the Civil Service.This month the discussions is chaired by Jess Bowie, Co-Editor of Civil Service World.She is talking to Sonia Kahn who was SPAD (Special Adviser) and a civil servant. An Philip Rycroft who was previously a Permanent Secretary.Unfortunately due to a personal issue I had to duck out of this discussion at the last moment. Jess was already going to chair anyway, so she valiantly took over and ran this session, brilliantly I might add. ENJOY.

Simon Kuper's new book examines the small group of mainly Eton, and definitely mostly Oxford, Tories took over the UK.Simon's book delves into the combination of public school, Oxford and especially the Oxford Union shaped this group and how they found their cause - Brexit. Which was, for them, about their right to rule.Simon's book is published by Profile Books (2022) and is a fascinating read.

This is the first of a regular monthly "WHITEHALL WATCHING" sessions.The team for this episode is Sonia Khan (former civil servant and special adviser); Philip Rycroft (former Permanent Secretary); and Suzannah Brecknell (Editor of Civil Service World).In this episode we discuss the roles of Ministers, Civil Servants, SPADS and experts. Including reflections from Sonia and Philip on their experiences.And of course the announcement that the Government intends to cut 91,000 civil service jobs - 1 in 5 and back to 2016 levels.

Universities were hardly mentioned in the Levelling Up white paper published by the government earlier this year.Jonathan Grant and Andy Westwood addressed this gap in a paper they wrote for the Bennet Institute at Cambridge University.I talked to them about their concerns and ideas.Jonathan also published a book last year (2021) about the role of Universities: The New Power University. Pearson.

A lot of political commentary in the media assumes a certain basic knowledge of what's happening in elections. Sometimes I wonder if the media folk know themselves?Anyway, here is my simple, 5 minute, explainer of what the elections are. Let me know if you think its been useful.

George Arbuthnott and his colleague Jonathan Calvert, both of the The Sunday Times 'Insight Team', have written one of the most detailed accounts of the Coronavirus pandemic in the UK: FAILURES OF STATE (Mudlark press).In this discussion George details some of the terrible mistakes made by the Johnson Government over the past two years, which led to the worst death toll and the worst economic consequences of any country in Europe.Some of the results of their investigations are truly shocking. So it is worth listening to the whole of this slightly longer episode of RED TEAM. But you might need a stiff drink to hand.(And sorry about the odd bark on the sound track - that was my dog Rory trying to get in on the act.)

Adult social care has gone through several transformations since 1945. Bob Hudson's book CLIENTS, CONSUMERS OR CITIZENS (2021, Policy Press) analyses the last 40 years of the privatisation of adult social care provision.Before the turn to markets in the 1980s, provision had for a brief period been more like other welfare state services, but soon bagged to change under the Thatcher government.Bob, who is now retired and a Visiting Professor in Public Policy at the University of Kent, was there throughout the momentous changes. His thoughtful and accessible book is well worth reading. Here's our discussion.

To say the House of Commons is in something of a crisis would be an understatement. Dozen's of MPs accused of misbehaving, the Prime Minister being investigated for lying to the House and one MP even accused of watching porn in the Commons Chamber.Dr Hannah White's new book couldn't be more timely. So I talked to her about it. This episode is a little longer, but worth it.Hannah is Deputy Director of the Institute of Government. Before that she ran the Committee on Standards in Public Life and before that she was a Clark in Parliament. So she is extremely well placed to offer this penetrating analysis of what's wrong, and how to fix it.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson reportedly threatened to "privatise the arse off" the Passport Agency recently for delivery failures at a Cabinet meeting on 26 April 2022.Which is somewhat ironic as many of the Passport Agency's functions are already outsourced to private providers.This is a reminder that debates are often driven more by ideology than pragmatic analysis of the facts. 1in 1987 Prof Barry Bozeman published a fascinating book entitled "All Organizations Are Public" which examined the complexities of organisational status. I am talked to him one eve of his retirement for RED TEAM.

Prof Pippa Catterall of University of Westminster talks to Colin Talbot about Partygate's wider context. Read her LSE blog here: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/why-partygate-matters/

Tudor Rickards and I are both retired (emeritus) professors from the University of Manchester. About a decade and a half ago we were amongst the first academics at Manchester to start blogging - entirely by coincidence. Fifteen or so years later we have also both just started podcasting - also completely independently.We thought it might be worth having a chat about why we both decided to podcast. Enjoy.

This episode explores the various ways by which Prime Minister Boris Johnson might be held to account for the lockdown busting 'events' in Downing St.