Those tempted to pick up this volume and read a straightforward and unambiguous analysis of British governance in the modern era should consider the following: By the seventh page of the introductory chapter, the authors are engaged in a discussion of the contributions of Michel Foucault to postmodern and interpretive theory (giant, by the way), while narry a drop of ink has been spilled about either Britain or governance. In fact, this book will be of interest to many political scientists who are less than interested in the substantive case, but who are engaged in reflections about the epistemological characteristics of modern political science and the ontological claims that it makes. Interpreting British Governance is a fascinating entry into the debates that are raging in our profession, and it stakes out a clear set of claims in unequivocal terms.

The book marries the career interests of the two authors. R. A. W Rhodes is a familiar name to students of British politics and public administration, and has produced an impressive body of work that, read as a whole, promotes a rather agent-centric understanding of the British political system. Mark Bevir is a normative theorist and self-declared critic of positivism, who has written about the epistemology of the social sciences, most notably in The Logic of the History of Ideas (1999). Together, they have set out with the goal to “ask, after Coleridge, ‘what is the meaning of it,’ where ‘it’ is British governance” (p. 2). Rejecting theoretical approaches more widely used in comparative politics (behavioral, institutional, etc.), they adopt “an anti-foundational epistemology and an interpretive approach to understand changes in British government” (p. 2).

The argument of the book is that the meanings (for they are plural) of the British system of governance are actually contained in the multiple traditions of politics in that country. From these traditions, narratives can be woven that encapsulate the contextual frame in which agents are embedded. Indeed, the “anti-foundational epistemology” of the authors lead them to claim the superiority of the concept of the narrative over that of institutions; for example, what countless students of comparative politics have dutifully learned and digested as the Westminster Model of parliamentary government is, in fact, we learn, “a set of ideas that bear strong family resemblances” (p. 25). Just as the narratives of governance are derived from tradition, so too, it appears, can those traditions be inferred from the narratives themselves. The salient traditions for our purposes are Tory, Liberal, Whig, and Socialist, and each spawns different narratives with which agents are infused and which structure their belief systems. As befits the interests of the authors, most of the substantive focus on governance is on the civil service and local government reform.

Ultimately, they make four claims about the superiority of their approach. First, they argue, it is a more complex and more dynamic portrayal of parliamentary government than is to be found in the standard account of the Westminster Model. Second, it frees individuals from the theoretical cage of the institution. Third, it opens up new research agendas for political scientists, while finally, it identifies key theoretical issues such as the pluralizing of decision making.

Taking these claims in reverse order, most students of British politics would strenuously object that other approaches and works have attained the level of claims three and four. Indeed, if the success of any book were to be judged solely on whether it had achieved these objectives, I would hazard that it would be a very modest, though not trivial, contribution at best. The second claim, of course, is one that is part of the most fiercely contested terrain in the study of politics, one that has pitted interpretivist against interpretivist, rational choice theorist against rational choice theorist, and so on. It will probably not endear the authors to many committed institutionalists when they dismiss the New Institutional version of agency as an “unacceptable suggestion” (pp. 198–99), or path dependency as an “unhelpful phrase” (p. 199). Nonetheless, I doubt that this volume will convince many institutionalists of the incorrectness of their position.

So what about the first claim? Are we really to accept that the authors have laid the static, unitary gremlins of the Westminster Model to rest and have given us a new and exciting postmodern lens through which we can understand British governance? The biggest value of the book is indeed that it gives a much more complex and nuanced version of the distribution of power in the British system, and that it persuasively argues that narrative views of power are rooted in old traditions. Yet I fear that the dragon that is being slain is really more akin to the Wizard of Oz, a tired and sad caricature. For example, the authors portray (accurately, I think) devolution as one of the most profound reforms of the recent era (p. 59), and seem to triumphantly claim that this demonstrates how the unitary Westminster Model (and by implication, institutionalism) is ill adapted to explaining British governance. Yet reading this carefully, nowhere did I find an explanation of how narratives can explain this momentous shift in British political institutions.

Indeed, for all its ambition, Interpreting British Governance is finally rather unsatisfying. One does not have to be an irredentist institutionalist to wish for a stronger and more compelling link to be drawn between the images and narratives held by agents and aggregate and institutional outcomes. Scottish and Welsh readers of this review irked by my comment about the slaying of the dragon will be even more dismayed to find the scant attention paid to their nations in a book that promotes as a virtue its portrayal of the pluralization of power. To this reviewer, the book could be portrayed as much about political culture as anything else.

Ultimately, the book has much to commend it. Those engaged in the battle against the perceived stranglehold that positivism has upon our profession will be delighted by it and will no doubt embrace it as an exemplar of antifoundational scholarship. Those more schooled in the positivist tradition will, I fear, be singularly unimpressed with the claims made of epistemological superiority. All who care about such matters should read it and be the judge for themselves. The authors are to be commended for a sharp polemic written with wisdom and authority; now let the debate be enjoined.