I'm uncomfortable with the proposal for plenary speakers, and I've taken a
moment to work out what my reservations are. There are, I think, three main
criteria to consider:
a) relevance to the conference theme;
b) prestige and status;
c) presentational skills and entertainment value. We have had some
wonderful set-piece debates in the past - the one that sticks in my mind was
between Jonathan Bradshaw and John Kay.
The second criterion may sound odd, and I had better explain. There are two
factors to bear in mind. One is that the plenary position conveys
considerable status in the subject. The UK leads the world in Social
Policy, and that makes the SPA conference the leading conference of its
type. That's why we get people coming from Japan, Australia, the US and the
like - or at least, why we have had them in previous years. The second is
that conference speakers are important as an advertisement for the
conference. Many people have to go with the flyer to their Heads of
Department and say why they want to go to this conference. It's easier to
justify this if you're going to hear and meet the best people in your field.
What sort of speaker does this imply? Given the nature of the conference,
we should be looking at high-level writers and practitioners. Among
international academics, we might be looking to the likes of Gosta
Esping-Andersen or William Julius Wilson. If we're looking at
practitioners of high prestige, we should be thinking about the likes of
Mary Robinson or Vasso Papandreou. In our home-grown batch of
scholar/practitioners, we might consider David Donnison, Clare Callender,
Nick Barr or Howard Glennerster. UK debates might include the likes of
Malcolm Wicks or Frank Field against some of their former associates. One
other name sticks out among people who write on social policy and its
application to practice, and that's Bill Jordan.
In the proposed batch, Will Hutton seems to be there because he was down for
a previous conference, but didn't come to it. He can't be expected to
relate to the theme of the conference. The proposal for Marju Lauristin
seems to be there because she's a good egg and does some appropriate work.
I don't think that this is sufficient for a conference of this type.
Paul Spicker
University of Dundee
Dundee DD1 4HN
Tel: +(44) 1382 344929
Fax: +(44) 1382 344675
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