Between Political Folklore and National Populism: Poles Apart?

This chapter offers a wry look at the changing position of Northern Ireland in Europe. From the anomaly of ‘joining Europe’ as part of the UK in 1973 just as ‘The Troubles’ confirmed Northern Ireland as ‘a place apart’, to the twenty first century experience of peace process and the large scale influx of migrant workers from Poland and elsewhere.

Popular Writers: Women Historians, the Academic Community and National History Writing

The research for this paper formed part of the European Science Foundation project on Representations of the Past: The Writing of National Histories in Europe. Using data generated by the project, the article traces the emergence of professional academic women historians in twentieth-century European universities. It argues that the marginalisation of women historians in academia until the 1980s led women history graduates to develop research-based careers outside the university. In particular, the ambiguous attitude of academic historians towards popular history writing opened up a space for the woman author. The article analyses the careers and writings of five historians who pursued very successful careers as authors of popular history in England, France, Ireland and Scotland. They were among the first 'public' historians.

Teaching and learning technologies in Higher Education: Applied behaviour analysis and autism.

Professionals on both international and national levels who work with children with autism are expressing the need for graduate-level training in applied behaviour analysis. The implementation of effective instruction in higher education for professionals working with children with autism and their families is a complex undertaking: the learner needs to acquire an understanding of the principles and procedures of applied behaviour analysis and also adapt this knowledge to the learning prerequisites of individuals with autism. In this paper we outline some current thinking about adult education and blended learning technologies and then describe and illustrate with examples emerging possibilities of multimedia technology in the development of teaching materials. We conclude that synergies between graduate-level curriculum requirements, knowledge of adult learning, and communication technology are necessary to establish comprehensive learning environments for professionals who specialize in autism intervention.

Review: M. Dougan and E. Spaventa (eds.), Social Welfare and EU Law (Hart, 2005)

Review of edited collection.

Issue salience in regional and national party manifestoes in the UK

The study reveals the salience of particular issues in the manifestos of the main British parties for the 1997 and 2003 UK general elections, as well as the 2003 Scottish and Welsh elections, using the method introduced by the Comparative Manifesto Project (CMP) and a modified list of issue categories to reflect the division of government competences between the central and regional governments. Ideological and social base of a party, as well as the delimitation of government competences, are found to be important determinants of issue salience. A more consensual institutional design of the regional government in Scotland and Wales seems to have conditioned larger differences among the issue profiles of parties competing in regional elections, in comparison with general elections. With the institutionalisation of devolution, however, we observe an increase in the similarity of the issue profiles of the same parties in general and in Scottish and Welsh elections, as well as among different parties competing in the same regional elections. © 2005 Taylor & Francis.

ARTICLE: Property and the Definition of Slavery

Currently there is no clear understanding of the meaning of ‘slavery’ in modern international law. While generally it is accepted that the
authoritative definition of slavery is provided by Article 1 of the Slavery Convention 1926, in recent times slavery has been understood in such a wide variety of ways that effectively it is a meaningless term. This paper reflects on this interpretation problem and aims to redress this balance by reclaiming the core meaning of the legal definition. It applies property law perspectives to explain the conception of ownership invoked by Article 1, to argue that it remains relevant and to explore how it might be applied in identifying modern cases of slavery.