The UK BSE Crisis as a Failure of Government

This paper uses the BSE (‘mad cow disease’) crisis as a case study of the workings of the British core executive during a crisis event. Using the evidence from the Philips Inquiry, which reported on the BSE/vCJD crisis in 2000, the study analyses the patterns of decision making and the structures of institutional and resource dependence. It concludes that the lack of co‐ordination between and within institutions and what was acknowledged to be the mismanagement of expert advice raise serious questions about the executive's ability to manage serious crises. The findings concur with scholarship indicating executive fragmentation and lack of accountability. Consecutive British governments have sought to diminish the centre's responsibility for managing public policy without putting an effective alternative mechanism in place.