The Library
Dirty hands & clean heels : 21 days of political leadership in the UK
Tools
Grint, Keith (2016) Dirty hands & clean heels : 21 days of political leadership in the UK. Leadership, 12 (5). pp. 564-580. ISSN 1742-7150.
|
PDF
WRAP-dirty-hands-clean-heels-Grint-2016.pdf - Accepted Version - Requires a PDF viewer. Download (931Kb) | Preview |
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1177/1742715016669477
Abstract
The paper discusses 21 days of political leadership in the UK following the EU referendum, the publication of the Chilcot Report on the Iraq War, and the appointment of a new cabinet by the new Prime Minister, Theresa May. It begins by modelling four possible approaches to political decision-making by taking into account the intent of the decision-maker, their acceptance or avoidance of responsibility, and the nature of the consequences. It suggests that ‘Dirty Hands’ exists when the decision-maker recognizes the deleterious consequences of what they deem to be necessary action – and intends to engender these – but takes responsibility. ‘Clean Heels’ embodies a decision where the decision-maker recognizes the consequences might be deleterious and intends them to be so, but avoids all responsibility. Mea Culpa describes a decision-maker who did not intend deleterious consequences but having seen them occur takes responsibility. Finally, the Spectator is someone who has no intention of making any difference to anything and thus takes no responsibility, but often plays a destructively critical role from the sidelines. This heuristic – and it is no more than a heuristic – is then illustrated by considering the actions of four decision-makers during this period: Boris Johnson, Tony Blair, Nigel Farage, and Theresa May.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Subjects: | J Political Science > JC Political theory | ||||||||
Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Warwick Business School | ||||||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Political leadership, Johnson, Boris, Blair, Tony, 1953-, Farage, Nigel, 1964-, May, Theresa, 1956- | ||||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Leadership | ||||||||
Publisher: | Sage | ||||||||
ISSN: | 1742-7150 | ||||||||
Official Date: | 1 November 2016 | ||||||||
Dates: |
|
||||||||
Volume: | 12 | ||||||||
Number: | 5 | ||||||||
Page Range: | pp. 564-580 | ||||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 20 October 2016 | ||||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 18 May 2017 |
Request changes or add full text files to a record
Repository staff actions (login required)
View Item |
Downloads
Downloads per month over past year