Table of Contents

List of Contributors List of Tables List of Figures Introducing the Core Executive; R.A.W. Rhodes PART 1: SURVEYING THE FIELD From Prime Ministerial Power to Core Executive; R.A.W. Rhodes Central Government Departments and the Policy Process; M. Smith, D. Marsh & D. Richards PART 2: INTERPRETING HISTORY Relations Between Prime Minister and Cabinet: From Wilson to Thatcher; S. James The Downfall of Margaret Thatcher; G.W. Jones Interpreting the Fall of Margaret Thatcher: Power-dependence and the Core Executive; M.J. Smith The Cabinet Office and Co-ordination of 1979-87; A. Seldon The Ethos of the Cabinet Office: A Comment on the Testimony of Officials; M. Lee Ministerial Responsibility and the Theory of the British State; A. Beattie PART 3: EMPIRICAL STUDIES Reinterpreting the Westland Affair: Theories of the State and Core Executive Decision Making; P. Dunleavy Core Executive Decision Making on High Technology Issues: The Case of the Alvey Report; L. Keliher Joining the ERM: Analysing a Core Executive Policy Disaster; H. Thompson Leaders, Politics and Institutional Change: The Decline of Prime Ministerial Accountability to the House of Commons, 1868-1990; P. Dunleavy & G.W. Jones with J. Burnham, R. Elgie & P. Fysh Estimating the Distribution of Influence in Cabinet Committees under Major; P. Dunleavy Guide to Further Reading; R.A.W. Rhodes References Author Index Subject Index.

About the Author

R.A.W. RHODES is Professor of Politics at the University of Newcastle Upn Tyne. He is currently Chair of the Economic and Social Research Council's research inititive on Local Governance, and Director of the ESRC's Whitehall Research Programme. His recent publications include Beyond Westminster and Whitehall and the edited collections Implementing Thatcherite Policies: Audit of an Era and Policy Networks in British Government. PATRICK DUNLEAVY is Professor of Government at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His previous publications include Democracy, Bureaucracy and Public Choice and Theories of the State. He has been co-editor of Developments in British Politics since the first edition in 1983.