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Decent Work in Scotland, an Agenda-Setting Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 November 2019

HARTWIG PAUTZ Open the ORCID record for HARTWIG PAUTZ [Opens in a new window] ,
SALLY A. WRIGHT  and
CHIK COLLINS
HARTWIG PAUTZ
Affiliation:
Lecturer in Social Sciences, University of the West of Scotland, School of Education & Social Sciences, Paisley PA1 2BE, UK email: [email protected]
SALLY A. WRIGHT
Affiliation:
Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Employment Research, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK email: [email protected]
CHIK COLLINS
Affiliation:
Rector of the University of the Faroe Islands, J. C. Svabos gøta 14, P.O. Box 272, 100 Tórshavn, Faroe Islands; Visiting Professor of Applied Social Science at the University of the West of Scotland, School of Education & Social Sciences, Paisley PA1 2BE, UK email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article uses John Kingdon’s multiple streams framework as an analytical tool to consider how the policy issue of ‘job quality’, in the guises of ‘decent work’ and ‘fair work’, developed a ‘career’ in Scotland between 2013 and 2017. The aim is to understand why, despite the efforts of a variety of policy entrepreneurs and the openness of the Scottish Government to this policy problem, job quality did not arrive on the Scottish Government’s decision agenda. The article finds that the crucial ‘policy window’ did not open due to the 2016 ‘Brexit’ decision dramatically changing the political landscape.

The article demonstrates the applicability of Kingdon’s framework for agenda-setting analysis in a parliamentary environment and constitutes a rare application of the framework to a ‘live’ policy issue.

The authors were involved in a research and advocacy project on ‘decent work’ that was undertaken in Scotland during 2015 and 2016 and therefore were amongst the policy entrepreneurs seeking to place job quality on the Scottish Government’s agenda.

Keywords

job qualitydecent workfair workagenda-settingmultiple streams frameworkScotlandBrexit
Type
Article
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , January 2021 , pp. 40 - 58
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2019

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