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Bristol City Council has received national and international recognition for its local e‐democracy work. This paper seeks to tell the story of three phases of development of local e‐democracy in Bristol. In summarising findings from the national evaluation of the Local E‐democracy Project, the paper also aims to consider stage four – where Bristol's e‐democracy programme is headed next.

Bristol acted as a lead authority on the evaluation of the Local E‐democracy National Project. This was a large multi‐method academic study, which set out to examine the aspirations and experiences of a variety of “actors” involved in more than 20 e‐democracy pilot projects across England. Professors Stephen Coleman of the Oxford Internet Institute and Ann Macintosh of the International Tele‐democracy Centre at Napier University undertook the evaluation, working with Bristol City Council as part of an E‐democracy Experts Group.

Findings from the national evaluation have been published in reports covering “top‐down” (authority‐led) and “ground‐up” (community‐led) approaches to local e‐democracy. This paper applies evaluation findings to Bristol City Council's experiences. It highlights how authorities can use e‐democracy to move between information sharing and consultation and then to creating space and conditions for ground‐up participation.

The paper focuses on common themes, rather than an in‐depth account of all of the national evaluation findings as they relate to each project that was considered. As a case study, this paper concerns the particular experiences of Bristol City Council.

The study offers insight aimed at local authority e‐democracy practitioners.

Over the past five years, Bristol City Council has accumulated considerable practical experience of local e‐democracy. The authority has benefited from a close association with leading academic experts, leaving it perhaps uniquely positioned to share learning from critical self‐reflection.

The Local Government Act (2000) introduced new Overview and Scrutiny Committees, composed of elected non‐executive councillors, that can respond to proposals from the NHS for changes in services and also set their own agendas for more detailed scrutiny, including of the NHS. Limited capacity has meant that the focus of scrutiny has often been on statutory consultations from the NHS, service provision, NHS organisations and only occasionally on wider issues. However, it is commissioning that is officially seen as the main vehicle for shaping NHS services, so health scrutiny ought logically to address itself more to commissioning than to investigating providers. Practice‐based Commissioning (PBC) was introduced in 2004 with the aim of engaging front‐line clinicians in commissioning health care, though most such commissioning is being undertaken by groups of practices joining together to form consortia, rather than by individual GPs. In principle, this makes it more practicable for health scrutiny to include PBC, but consortia are not statutory bodies and cannot be compelled to participate. We suggest ways in which this omission might be addressed.

With the recent publication of The Engagement Cycle (DH, 2009a), exploring the issues surrounding patient and public involvement (PPI) in World Class Commissioning, it seems timely to look at how this type of involvement/engagement has developed in recent years. Set against official rhetoric that emphasises the importance of PPI in the NHS, this paper is informed by evidence emerging from a three‐year research project into the development of practice‐based commissioning conducted at Manchester University. It is suggested that commissioners (primary care trusts and practice‐based commissioners) need to think deeply about the meaning of public involvement in their context, while at national level strategies should be flexible enough to allow a diversity of approaches which may ultimately allow PPI to flourish.

War is undoubtedly a dirty business, usually entailing massive destruction and loss of life on both sides. In an attempt to limit this inevitable death and destruction, philosophers have argued that belligerents must following certain principles in the conduct of warfare; namely, the principles of discrimination (that only legitimate military targets may be attacked) and of proportionality (that the damage done in attacking such targets must not be out of proportion to the military value of the target). These principles have come to be enshrined in International Law through a range of treaties, which are collectively known in military circles as the International Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC).

The essential idea at the heart of Michael Walzer’s supreme emergency argument, or as Brian Orend calls it, the supreme emergency exemption, is that desperate times call for desperate measures. If the situation is dire enough, and the consequences faced are serious enough, then it will be justifiable to act in ways which would normally be prohibited. In concrete terms, what this means is that during a time of war, a state can in some circumstances ignore the usual rules of warfare (i.e. the principles of discrimination and proportionality). Walzer claims this is justified if and only if the following conditions are met: the state is the victim of aggression, the state is about to be militarily defeated, and that the consequences of defeat will be catastrophic (i.e. would include extreme and widespread violations of fundamental human rights). In other words, when faced with a supreme emergency one is justified in engaging in widespread violations of the rights of some people (people to whom one only has a general duty) in order to prevent widespread violations of the rights of others (people to whom one has a specific duty).

In this paper I argue that the ‘rules’ which must be applied in order for widespread rights-violations to be considered justified are actually well understood, and that supreme emergency is not an unusual situation for which new rules must be considered, but simply an important specific example of such a situation. Essentially I argue that one must dirty one’s hands in war, but that there is no need for one’s hands to get any dirtier in a situation of supreme emergency.

This paper provides a novel framework for considering a much-debated question within military ethical fields, using insights from two of the major proponents of contemporary military ethics.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the initial outcomes of a mentoring program designed to increase the advancement prospects of racialized teachers to vice principal positions within a Canadian school district.

This program assessment documents evidence that challenges current school leadership paradigms rooted in western dominance and suggests new approaches to leadership informed by research on diversity, equity, and identity.

Survey data from 32 participants (13 mentors and 19 mentees) from Canada’s second largest school district were analyzed thematically and showed that racialized mentees generally rated their satisfaction with the program lower than did mentors (both racialized and non-racialized), particularly as it relates to feelings of inclusion and in the program’s potential to influence the recruitment and advancement of racialized employees in the district.

The findings are limited to a single mentoring program for aspiring racialized leaders within a single, large school district but reinforce similar findings from research conducted in another large Canadian urban center, the USA and UK, and are of interest in other educational contexts where leaders from diverse backgrounds are underrepresented.

The paper reinforces findings from the small number of studies on targeted leadership mentoring for specific populations. While the findings support the practice of mentoring for leaders, the authors challenge the culture-free leadership paradigm that permeates Western education literature and question its role as an underlying barrier for aspiring racialized leaders in schools.

Parliaments, as representative institutions, serve as communication channels between the public and the process of governance. The purpose of this paper is to consider the way in which this relationship has been conceptualised and various predictions about how it might change in the age of digital interactivity.

Findings from a survey of officials from 44 European parliamentary chambers are presented, together with findings from surveys of participants in several UK online parliamentary consultations.

The survey of European parliamentary officials suggests that digital information/communication technologies are being used widely, but that there is limited use of interactive features which allow citizens to comment and deliberate on policy issues. The surveys of participants in online consultations run by the British Parliament suggest that they might increase citizens' efficacy, although this might only be a short‐term effect.

The European parliamentary survey was conducted in 2003, since when some parliamentary web sites and information systems have been developed.

The paper considers the consequences of digital interactivity for parliamentary representation, combining conceptual and empirical perspectives.

The survey of European parliamentary officials gathered data from 44 parliamentary chambers, making it one of the most extensive European surveys of its kind. The surveys conducted before and after participants took part in UK parliamentary consultations were the first ever to explore the experience and attitudes of such a group.

The purpose of this paper is to present a discussion and analysis of various assumptions and observations about the significance of blogging by politicians, particularly in relation to theories of representation and the public sphere, informed with an empirical study of the practice of politicians' blogs on the Read My Day platform (www.readmyday.co.uk).

Relevant literature was reviewed to set the scene for an original analysis of politicians' blog posts on Read My Day. These posts were examined via content analysis to systematically catalogue the information politicians disclosed about themselves and to uncover political themes that were featured. A total of 12 politicians who blogged on this platform were subsequently interviewed about their online activities.

The councillors used the Read My Day platform to discuss local political issues but also posted some personal information about the bloggers, indicative of a broad understanding of representation. Councillors generally refrained from attacking other political parties and saw it as a tool of representation and not campaigning. However, there was evidence that councillors got into political trouble because of their blog, even though many said they self‐censored themselves. This suggests that bloggers are not merely reciting political spin. While no precise “hits” data were used, the blogging politicians did not feel that their posts were widely read. This was partly explained by bloggers failing to exploit the interactivity that the medium affords.

This paper provides new data on political blogging based on a theoretically‐informed analysis of blog posts and interviews with blogging politicians in the UK.

The aim of this paper is to discuss the views of black and ethnic minority school leaders about the Investing in Diversity program, a black‐led program developed in 2004 to address the underrepresentation of black leaders in the London schools. Major themes are identified from interviews with black and South Asian women graduates of the program and recommendations made for leadership development strategies to help aspiring and current black and global majority headteachers “bring who they are” to their leadership.

Qualitative case study data about the Investing in Diversity program include document analysis of curriculum modules and participant observation of the weekend residential, survey satisfaction data from several cohorts, and face‐to‐face interviews with a purposive sample of seven headteachers from African Caribbean, African, and South Asian backgrounds who completed the Investing in Diversity program six‐seven years ago. These semi‐structured individual interviews were conducted in the spring of 2012 during an all‐day visit to their schools and focused on barriers and supports in their career path, approach to leadership, and their views on their leadership preparation.

Participants identified black and ethnic minority headteachers as role models, the importance of mentoring and informal networks, and opportunities to lead as supports to their career path to headship. Many of their long‐term informal networks were established with other BME colleagues who attended Investing in Diversity. Barriers included subtle (and not so subtle) discrimination from parents, teachers, and administrators for some of the participants.

Observational studies and interview studies, which included a bigger sample of black and ethnic minority headteachers, would extend this research.

This study provides suggestions for schools and local authorities about leadership preparation strategies that make a difference for aspiring BME leaders.

There is a paucity of research on the views of British BME headteachers. This study adds to the research base on BME leadership development in Britain and contributes to international research on self‐defined black leadership perspectives.

This chapter explores a common, but typically overlooked urban practice: smoking outside the workplace. This activity is analysed as an attempt to create marginal spaces of brief retreat from the acceleration and agitation of the workplace. By talking to smokers about what drives them into the street, and capturing smokers photographically, we discover that these people are seeking moments of breakaway from the dominating involvement of the commercial city. The practices we observe in this chapter are typical of what Erving Goffman refers to as ‘away’ activities: strategies for briefly escaping from the absorption of all-consuming social situations. We conclude by asking whether these urban pauses could be stretched to a point where they challenge the compulsion of the overwrought rhythmic order of the capitalist city.