Introduction: governing with feeling

Jessica Pykett, Eleanor Jupp, Fiona M. Smith

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

7 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

A ‘more human’ government? In May 2015, following a return to power of a right-wing Conservative UK government, and resultant despair from the UK left about the failures of its political imagination, a new arrival appeared on the bookstands of popular political non-fiction. Entitled More human: designing a world where people come first (Hilton et al., 2015), the book is written by a former adviser to the current British Prime Minister David Cameron, and is a call to both the left and the right to radically rethink government, politics and policy. The book opens with an anecdote about the treatment of a family on a budget airline flight that frames the rhetorical question: ‘Why can’t we just treat each other with kindness and decency, like human beings?’ (p. 2). What follows is an exploration of what this might mean across strands of government, business, education, urban planning, the food industry and more, with key themes of the need for more ‘empathy’ and care, smaller-scale and thus closer government, and less ‘bureaucracy’.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationEmotional states
Subtitle of host publicationsites and spaces of affective governance
EditorsEleanor Jupp, Jessica Pykett, Fiona M. Smith
Place of PublicationLondon
PublisherTaylor & Francis
Chapter1
Pages1-18
Number of pages18
ISBN (Electronic)9781317144588
ISBN (Print)9781472454058
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 4 Oct 2016

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Earth and Planetary Sciences

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