Despite their prevalence and longevity in many forms of social organization, most research on formal meetings suggests that they do not fulfil the instrumental purposes (e.g. setting strategy) that their constitutions propose. A three-year study of the Joint Commissioning Board for mental health in Somerset, UK, revealed that it was no exception. However, many of the participants on the Board suggested that it fulfilled important purposes that drew attention to its role as ritual. This paper examines the role of the Board in the light of the literature on ritual--in particular the work of the neo-Durkheimian tradition flowing from the work of Douglas--and locates the importance of the meeting in the formation of social solidarity. This theoretical perspective illuminates issues around classification and language which explain the disempowerment felt by some members of the Board. Finally, this paper identifies the challenges in engaging a broader range of stakeholders (including users and carers) in these rituals.

The notion that leadership involves performance is not new, but there has been little detailed exploration of the implications of theories of performance for contemporary leadership practice. This article differentiates between leadership 'is' performance and leadership 'as' performance as one means of investigating contemporary leadership. We suggest that this distinction allows for more sustainable accounts of the relationships between leaders, followers and the institutional settings within which they are generated and, consequently, the spaces in which there is potential for change to occur. The article argues that such insights may be made by combining ideas derived from writers on performance studies and performativity with new-institutionalist theory, the latter emphasising the crucial role of context in shaping the behaviour of leaders, so that their agency is always situated in specific settings.

What is political judgement? Why do politicians exhibit such contrasting thought styles in making decisions, even when they agree ideologically? What happens when governments with contrasting thought styles have to deal with each other? In this book Perri 6 presents a fresh, rigorous explanatory theory of judgement, its varieties and its consequences, drawing upon Durkheim and Douglas. He argues that policy makers will understand - and misunderstand - their problems and choices in ways that reproduce their own social organisation. This theory is developed by using the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 as an extended case study, examining the decision-making of the Kennedy, Castro and Khrushchev regimes. Explaining Political Judgement is the first comprehensive study to show what a neo-Durkheimian institutional approach can offer to political science and to the social sciences generally.

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Discussion of ‘governance’ has become commonplace in health and social care in recent years, and ‘good governance’ seems to be seen in some quarters as offering potential answers to some of the complex challenges facing public services. Drawing on evidence from both the private and public sectors on governance, this short paper explores three key interrelated questions: What do we mean by governance (and how does it differ from management)? What is the evidence on governance? What can good governance do? It concludes with some reflections on the key messages for governance in health and social care. In so doing, it draws on material from the Integrated Care Network paper on governance and partnerships written by two of the authors (ICN, 2004) and an ESRC‐funded study of these issues by another (Skelcher & Mathur, 2004).