The EU economic and social model in the global crisis: Interdisciplinary perspectives:Interdisciplinary perspectives

This book addresses the viability of the EU economic and social model within and after the global economic crisis. It identifies four key issues which warrant further discussion: (1) the asymmetry of the legal and policy framework of the euro and potential recalibration; (2) substantive tensions between the EU 'economic constitution' and its normative aim of social justice and impacts on national policy; (3) the role of civil society, including the two sides of industry in overcoming these tensions and (4) the EU's global aspirations towards the creation of a viable socio-economic model. Its chapters offer two perspectives on each of the four main issues. In drawing these debates together, the book provides a broad understanding as well as starting points for future research. Bringing together different disciplinary approaches, ranging from legal studies to political economy, sociology and macroeconomics, it is a valuable contribution to the debate on the European social model and introduces new insights by focusing on legal and political tensions, the impact of the financial crisis and other economic contexts as well as global dimensions. 

The rise of the digital citizen-stakeholder: rebalancing multistakeholder governance

The principle feature in the evolution of the internet has been its ever growing reach to include old and young, rich and poor. The internet’s ever encroaching presence has transported it from our desktop to our pocket and into our glasses. This is illustrated in the Internet Society Questionnaire on Multistakeholder Governance, which found the main factors affecting change in the Internet governance landscape were more users online from more countries and the influence of the internet over daily life. The omnipresence of the internet is self- perpetuating; its usefulness grows with every new user and every new piece of data uploaded. The advent of social media and the creation of a virtual presence for each of us, even when we are not physically present or ‘logged on’, means we are fast approaching the point where we are all connected, to everyone else, all the time. We have moved far beyond the point where governments can claim to represent our views which evolve constantly rather than being measured in electoral cycles.
The shift, which has seen citizens as creators of content rather than consumers of it, has undermined the centralist view of democracy and created an environment of wiki democracy or crowd sourced democracy. This is at the heart of what is generally known as Web 2.0, and widely considered to be a positive, democratising force. However, we argue, there are worrying elements here too. Government does not always deliver on the promise of the networked society as it involves citizens and others in the process of government. Also a number of key internet companies have emerged as powerful intermediaries harnessing the efforts of the many, and re- using and re-selling the products and data of content providers in the Web 2.0 environment. A discourse about openness and transparency has been offered as a democratising rationale but much of this masks an uneven relationship where the value of online activity flows not to the creators of content but to those who own the channels of communication and the metadata that they produce.
In this context the state is just one stakeholder in the mix of influencers and opinion formers impacting on our behaviours, and indeed our ideas of what is public. The question of what it means to create or own something, and how all these new relationships to be ordered and governed are subject to fundamental change. While government can often appear slow, unwieldy and even irrelevant in much of this context, there remains a need for some sort of political control to deal with the challenges that technology creates but cannot by itself control. In order for the internet to continue to evolve successfully both technically and socially it is critical that the multistakeholder nature of internet governance be understood and acknowledged, and perhaps to an extent, re- balanced. Stakeholders can no longer be classified in the broad headings of government, private sector and civil society, and their roles seen as some sort of benign and open co-production. Each user of the internet has a stake in its efficacy and each by their presence and participation is contributing to the experience, positive or negative of other users as well as to the commercial success or otherwise of various online service providers. However stakeholders have neither an equal role nor an equal share. The unequal relationship between the providers of content and those who simple package up and transmit that content - while harvesting the valuable data thus produced - needs to be addressed. Arguably this suggests a role for government that involves it moving beyond simply celebrating and facilitating the on- going technological revolution. This paper reviews the shifting landscape of stakeholders and their contribution to the efficacy of the internet. It will look to critically evaluate the primacy of the individual as the key stakeholder and their supposed developing empowerment within the ever growing sea of data. It also looks at the role of individuals in wider governance roles. Governments in a number of jurisdictions have sought to engage, consult or empower citizens through technology but in general these attempts have had little appeal. Citizens have been too busy engaging, consulting and empowering each other to pay much attention to what their governments are up to. George Orwell’s view of the future has not come to pass; in fact the internet has insured the opposite scenario has come to pass. There is no big brother but we are all looking over each other’s shoulder all the time, while at the same time a number of big corporations are capturing and selling all this collective endeavour back to us.

European Union Non-Discrimination Law: Comparative Perspectives on Multidimensional Equality Law

EU equality law is multidimensional in being based on different rationales and concepts. Consequently, the concept of discrimination has become fragmented, with different instruments envisaging different scopes of protection. This raises questions as to the ability of EU law to address the situation of persons excluded on a number of grounds. This edited collection addresses the increasing complexity of European Equality Law from jurisprudential, sociological and political science perspectives. Internationally renowned researchers from Scandinavian, Continental and Central European countries and Britain analyse consequences of multiplying discrimination grounds within EU equality law, considering its multidimensionality and intersectionality. The contributors to the volume theorise the move from formal to substantive equality law and its interrelation to new forms of governance, demonstrating the specific combination of non-discrimination law with welfare state models which reveal the global implications of the European Union. The book will be of interest to academics and policy makers all over the world, in particular to those researching and studying law, political sciences and sociology with an interest in human rights, non discrimination law, contract and employment law or European studies.

Old truths and new politics:Does truth commission 'publicness' impact democratization?

This article analyzes the relationship between truth and politics by asking whether the 'publicness' of a truth commission - defined by whether it has public hearings, releases a public report, and names perpetrators - contributes to democratization. The article reviews scholarship relevant to the potential democratizing effects of truth commissions and derives mechanisms that help explain this relationship. Work from the transitional justice field as well as democratization and political transition more generally is considered. Using a newly-constructed Truth Commission Publicness Dataset (TCPD), the analysis finds that even after statistically controlling for initial levels of democracy, democratic trends in the years prior to a commission, level of wealth, amnesties and/or trials, the influence of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and different cutoff points for measuring democratization across a number of models, more publicness predicts higher levels of democracy years after the commission has finished its work. The more public a truth commission is, the more it will contribute to democratization. The finding that more public truth commissions are associated with higher levels of democratization indicates particular strategies that policymakers, donors, and civil society activists may take to improve prospects for democracy in a country planning a truth commission in the wake of violence and/or government abuse. © The Author(s) 2012.

The Sociology of Children, Childhood and Generation

Outlining sociology’s distinctive contribution to childhood studies and our understanding of contemporary children and childhood, The Sociology of Children provides a thought provoking and comprehensive account of the connections between the macro worlds of childhood and the micro worlds of children’s everyday lives.

Examining children’s involvement in areas such as the labour market, family life, education, play and leisure, the book provides an effective balance between understanding childhood as a structural phenomenon, and recognising children as meaning makers actively involved in constructing, co-constructing and reconstructing their everyday lives.

Through the concept of 'generagency' Madeleine Leonard offers a model for examining and illuminating how structure and agency are activated within interdependent relationships influenced by generational positioning. This framework provides a conceptual tool for thinking about the continuities, challenges and changes that impact on how childhood is lived and experienced.

Long-Term Imprisonment in Northern Ireland:Psychological or Political Survival?

The chapter reviews the literature on the affects of long-term imprisonment with a focus on concepts of psychological survival, learned helplessness and institutionalization. It then discusses trends in imprisonment in Northern Ireland and the exceptionally high proportion of prisoners serving life sentences. Through interviews with prisoners and their relatives, a critique of the literature is made in terms of the failure to take account of cases of collective prisoner organization and strong political motivation.

Beyond Criminal Justice: An anthology of abolitionist papers presented to conferences of the European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control over the past decade

Beyond Criminal Justice presents a vision of a future without brutal, authoritarian and repressive penal regimes. Many of the papers brought together here have been unavailable for more than two decades. Their republication indicates not only their continuing theoretical importance to abolitionist studies but also how they provide important insights into the nature and legitimacy of criminal processes in the here and now. Contributors highlight the human consequences of the harms of imprisonment, evidencing the hurt, injury and damage of penal incarceration across a number of different countries in Europe. Focusing on penal power and prisoner contestation to such power, the moral and political crises of imprisonment are laid bare. The contributors to Beyond Criminal Justice explore the urgent need for a coherent, rational and morally and politically sophisticated theoretical basis for penal abolitionism. Advocating a utopian imagination and at the same time practical solutions already implemented in countries around Europe - alongside grappling with controversial debates such as abolitionist responses to rape and sexual violence - the book steps outside of common sense assumptions regarding 'crime', punishment and 'criminal justice'. Beyond Criminal Justice will be of interest to students of criminology, zemiology, sociology, penology and critical legal studies as well as anyone interested in rethinking the problem of 'crime' and challenging the logic of the penal rationale.

Review of Mark F. Chingono. The State, Violence and Development. The Political Economy of War in Mozambique, 1975–1992.

Book review of: Mark F. Chingono. The State, Violence and Development. The Political Economy of War in Mozambique, 1975–1992. Avebury (Aldershot, Brookfield USA, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney), 1996. 291 pp. Foreword by Keith Hart. Tables. Appendix. Selected Bibliography. Index. £42.00. $71.95. Cloth.

Review of Protestant Churches and the Formation of Political Consciousness in Southern Mozambique (1930–1974).

Book review of Protestant Churches and the Formation of Political Consciousness in Southern Mozambique (1930–1974). By TERESA CRUZ E SILVA. Introduction by DAVID HEDGES. Basel: P. Schlettwein Publishing, 2001. Pp. xvii+210. CHF 48; €32 (ISBN 3-908193-09-5).

Philosophy and Political Engagement: Reflection in the Public Sphere

Do philosophers have a responsibility to their society that is distinct from their responsibility to it as citizens? This edited volume explores both what type of contribution philosophy can make and what type of reasoning is appropriate when addressing public matters now. These questions are posed by leading international scholars working in the fields of moral and political philosophy. Each contribution also investigates the central issue of how to combine critical, rational analysis with a commitment to politically relevant public engagement. The contributions to this volume analyse issues raised in practical ethics, including abortion, embryology, and assisted suicide. They consider the role of ethical commitment in the philosophical analysis of contemporary political issues, and engage with matters of public policy such as poverty, the arts, meaningful work, as well as the evidence base for policy. They also examine the normative legitimacy of power, including the use of violence.

The Promise of Peace:Revisiting the Northern Irish Model

The Northern Ireland peace process is often eulogized as a successful model of conflict transformation. Although the process exhibited many of the problems that beset other societies seeking to move from conflict to a negotiated peace (including disagreements over the functioning of institutions and the meanings of cultural symbols, unresolved issues relating to the effects of political violence on victims and survivors and society at large; and the residual presence of violent and political ‘spoiler’ groups), the resilience of political dialogue has proven remarkable.
This collection revisits the promise of ‘a truly historic opportunity for a new beginning’ a decade and a half on from the signing of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement in 1998. The book will bring together academics from across a number of disciplines, including management and organizational behaviour, law, politics, sociology, archaeology and literature.

The different contributions aim to assess what impact it has made in the legal, policy, and institutional areas it specifically targeted: political reform, human rights and equality provision, working through legacies of the past (including police reform, prisoner release and victims' rights) and the building of new relationships within the island of Ireland and between Ireland and Britain. With the emergence of first-time voters who had no direct experience of the violence the book explores what the Agreement offers for future generations.

The book is the culmination of a 12-month research project sponsored by the British Academy and Leverhulme that addressed the following aspects of the peace process:
Peace walls: The euphemistically named peace walls remain one of the most visible reminders of Northern Ireland’s divisions and they are famously the only material manifestations of the conflict that have grown in number and extent since the 1998 Agreement. They were originally placed between antagonistic neighbouring communities – often at their request – at times of heightened tensions. Research under this theme explored the lack of ongoing engagement with their continuing presences, evolving meanings and impact on the communities that reside beside them needs to be overtly addressed.
Cultural division: Cultural differences have often been seen as lying at the heart of the ‘Irish problem’. Despite this, art and artists have increasingly been seen as having the potential to develop new discourses. Research explored the following questions: What role can the arts play in re-imagining the spaces opened up by the promises of the 1998 Agreement? What implication does the confrontation with the legacies of conflict have for artistic practices? What impact do the arts have on constructions of identity, on narratives of history, and on electoral politics?
Institutional transformation: This strand of research explored the significance of the process of organizational change which followed the establishment of the 1998 on political and other public policy institutions such as the police and prison services. It suggested that the experience and lessons learned from such periods of transition have much to contribute to how Northern Ireland begins to address political polarization in other areas of public service infrastructure, chiefly around the sectarian monoliths of education and housing.
Working through the past: ‘Legacy’ issues have gained increasing prominence since 1998: issues to do with public symbolism (particularly relating to the flying of flags and parading), defining victimhood, securing victims’ rights, recovery of the ‘disappeared’, reintegrating ex- prisoners back into society, and the possibilities for truth recovery and reconciliation have all acquired salient and emotive force. Although the 1998 Agreement promised to ‘honour the dead’ through a ‘new beginning’, it is increasingly unclear as to whether an agreed narrative about the past is possible – or even worthwhile pursuing. Research under this theme looked at the complex relationship between memory, commemoration and violence; how commemorative events are performed, organized, policed and represented. It also addressed the fraught issue of how to come to terms with Northern Ireland’s divided and bloodied past.

The editors are in the process of guiding contributors to adapt their papers, which were presented to a series of workshops on the above themes, to the purposes of the book. In particular, the contributors will be guided to focus on the related aims of assessing the extent of change that has occurred and providing an assessment of what remains to be done. To that end, contributors are asked to engage directly with the questions that close the ‘Introduction’, namely: To what extent has the ‘promise’ of the 1998 Agreement been fulfilled? To what extent has the 1998 Agreement given rise to forms of exclusion? To what extent has the 1998 Agreement shaped new forms of debate, dispute and engagement? In the absence of that guidance having been sent out yet, the outlines below are, for the time being, the abstracts of their original papers.