While some 40 per cent of the students undertaking political science degrees in the UK are women, about three-quarters of those teaching them are men. This article examines why female undergraduates are less likely to go into graduate work in politics, utilising focus groups conducted with groups of male and female students and interviews with the female students in four large UK universities. The research identifies eight key factors that impacted upon our respondents' decisions to undertake further study. The first four affected both men and women, although there were subtle, yet important, differences in how the women spoke about these issues, and can be somewhat loosely categorised as: money; making a difference; lack of information; and self-confidence. The other four factors influenced the women's, but not the men's, views about graduate work and the profession: stereotyping; role models; family commitments, and time constraints. On the basis of our research, we suggest how national political science associations and individual departments might increase the number of women undertaking graduate work.

The second winner of the Richardson Lifetime Achievement Award (in 2004) was Professor Erich Weede from the University of Bonn, Germany. The prize, which is sponsored by two sections of the European Consortium of Political Research (ECPR), goes tri-annually to a political scientist who made major contributions to peace and conflict research in the tradition of Lewis Frye Richardson (1881–1953), a British meteorologist and pioneering scientific analyst of international war. This essay summarises some of the most important insights of the present award holder.

Tolerance is a key concept in contemporary political theory and practice. Clearly, it is linked to such difficult classical questions as rights, freedom, state neutrality, the role of autonomy in liberalism, the limits of toleration, etc. However, nowadays, the concept of tolerance also cuts across several important political issues: multiculturalism, pluralism, the ‘rights’ of cultures, interculturalism, reflexivity and dialogue as foundations of democracy, etc. This paper analyses the concept and explores its theoretical difficulties.

Use of the web by political parties and candidates as well as the general public is expanding. However, so far, little serious systematic analysis has taken place to examine the spread of the practice and particularly its consequences for electoral outcomes and voter attitudes. In this article, we identify some of the key reasons for the lack of attention to the ‘cause-and-effect’ questions about Web campaigning and highlight the empirical and theoretical reasons why academic study needs to do more to incorporate it into conventional election studies. We conclude by offering some guidelines for developing the tools and data that are needed for more ‘joined-up’ study of the subject to take place.

Often overlooked by political scientists, Foucault's later work on ‘governmentality’ has much to offer political analysis. This paper does three things. First, it highlights three different meanings that Foucault and others give to this term. Second, it reviews some of the key debates – such as the nature of liberal governance – surrounding studies of governmentality. Finally, it illustrates the analytical promise of a governmentality perspective through a short discussion of recent developments in European governance.

Governance networks have gained increasing prominence in the wake of the many reports of government and market failure. Drawing on the burgeoning literature, we first define governance networks and then briefly assess their merits and problems. The key claim is that we are now seeing the development of a second generation of governance network research that focuses on new and yet unanswered questions about the prospects of network-based coordination across different levels of governance: the meta-governance of self-regulating networks; the role of discourse in relation to governance networks, and the democratic problems and potentials of network governance. In answering these important questions we can draw on different theoretical approaches to network governance, and these are briefly delineated.

This article begins by describing the major characteristics and the origins of multi-level governance (MLG). It then discusses the alleged novelty of MLG practices, whether MLG achieves its goals in terms of policy efficiency and acceptance, and the possible consequences of governance networks for the democratic quality of political decisions. In relation to these matters, it concludes that there is a gap between the intensity of theoretical debate and a lack of systematic empirical research. It thus seeks to provide some indications about promising avenues for ‘second generation’ research that would allow us to give more substantial answers to controversial questions concerning MLG.

If most decision-making processes aimed at solving societal problems have a network-like character, then a key question is how to deal with networks so that they can achieve valuable solutions to societal problems. Managing networks differs considerably from the management advice contained in organisation textbooks, and there is a large and growing literature on how to manage complex processes in networks. After a short discussion of the emergence and characteristics of networks, the article focuses both on strategies to manage processes within networks – here called ‘process management’ – and on attempts to change the characteristics of networks – here called ‘strategies of institutional design’. Finally, we consider the effects of network management and the evaluation of management strategies, and discuss some future research questions.

Governance networks typically function in the absence of clearly defined constitutional rules. Network actors, therefore, have to develop a common understanding of the problem as well as build a basis for mutual trust. We suggest that discourse-analytical and dramaturgical concepts can be helpful instruments to analyse these dynamics of trust building in governance networks.

Governance networks play a central role in the production of public policy. While governance network theorists have discussed and analysed their importance for governance efficiency they have not given the same amount of attention to the democratic implications of governance networks. It is not possible to make a meaningful assessment of the democratic problems and potentials on the basis of a traditional liberal approach to democracy. What is called for is the development of a post-liberal model for the democratic anchorage of governance networks that combines representative democracy with other forms of democratic anchorage.

This article examines the relationship between ‘business’ and ‘politics’ and sets out some arguments to show the relevance of politics to business studies. It then reports some research findings on the nature of business studies curricula and the perceptions of academics and students on the relevance of politics at undergraduate and postgraduate levels from a survey of UK universities.