Oltre il "Momento dell'Abolizione":Saggio in memoria di Louk Hulsman

This article is written to celebrate the fine contribution and constant optimism of Louk Hulsman to the debate about penal abolition, the rethinking of popular and political discourses on ‘crime’, and the institutionalised responses of the ‘criminal justice system’. Reflecting on his experiences of incarceration and on his critical analysis of the political economic relations of power, Louk Hulsman talked of the defining ‘moment of abolition’ – his reading of Thomas Mathiesen’s ground-breaking text, The Politics of Abolition. Having considered the key elements of Louk Hulsman’s work and its critical challenge to the criminological enterprise, the article explores the apparent political contradiction in campaigning for humane conditions while seeking abolition within the context of an ever-expanding, global prison-industrial complex.

Ulster Says Maybe: The Restructuring of Evangelical Politics in Northern Ireland

The recent electoral triumphs of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) have stimulated debate about the role of fundamentalist or ‘traditional evangelical’ Protestantism within the party and in Northern Irish politics. This paper argues that a significant restructuring of evangelical politics is taking place, one that is interest group‐centred rather than DUP‐centred. This process has been facilitated by changes in the structure of civil society. Traditional evangelical interest groups are ‘reframing’ their political projects in surprising new ways: abandoning Calvinist conceptions of church and state, using discourses of marginalisation and discrimination, and focusing on ‘moral’ issues. These subtle shifts in rhetoric constitute an acceptance of the post‐Belfast Agreement order. Rather than the tired, ‘Ulster Says No’ politics of the past, evangelicals are speaking out with a pragmatic ‘maybe’. This move parallels and reinforces the DUP’s ideological shifts, and provides an extra‐party platform for evangelicals to impact politics.

Gender and Cosmopolitanism in Europe: A Feminist Perspective

Gender and Cosmopolitanism in Europe combines a feminist critique of contemporary and prominent approaches to cosmopolitanism with an in-depth analysis of historical cosmopolitanism and the manner in which gendered symbolic boundaries of national political communities in two European countries are drawn. Exploring the work of prominent scholars of new cosmopolitanism in Britain and Germany, including Held, Habermas, Beck and Bhabha, it delivers a timely intervention into current debates on globalisation, Europeanisation and social processes of transformation in and beyond specific national societies.

A rigorous examination of the emancipatory potential of current debates surrounding cosmopolitanism in Europe, this book will be of interest to sociologist and political scientists working on questions of identity, inclusion, citizenship, globalisation, cosmopolitanism and gender.
Contents: Introduction: gendered cosmopolitanism: the scope of this book; Who belongs? Who is the Other?; Recognition, social equality and the current EU anti-discrimination policy; Kulturnation and the homogenised notion of community belonging: Jürgen Habermas's and Ulrich Beck's approaches to 'European' cosmopolitanism; Global trade, the city and commercial cosmopolitanism: David Held's and Homi K. Bhabha's approaches to new cosmopolitanism; About dead-ends, one-way streets and critical crossroads; Transversal conversations on the scope of new cosmopolitanism beyond the Eurocentric framework; Bibliography; Index.

Modulating mythology in a post-traumatic era: Murals and re-imaging in Northern Ireland.

Arguably the most ancient of the social media, wall paintings have been a persistent vehicle of cultural meaning management. The dynamics of myth markets are reflected in the sectarian murals of Northern Ireland. In this paper, we draw from consumer research literature on mythology and street art to explore the continuous revision of these wallscapes that seeks to address the enduring contradictions of civic ideology in contested political space. In particular, we focus on the use of classical, historical and pop-cultural mythologies to transform private space into public place. We examine the decommissioning of murals occurring in the wake of the Peace Accords, and speculate on the implications of the creation of a shared mythology for the future of mural painting and the state.

International Coordination in Cross-Border Bank Bail-ins: Problems and Prospects

Bail-in is quickly becoming a predominant approach to banking resolution. The EU Bank Recovery Resolution Directive and the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s single point of entry strategy envisage creditors’ recapitalisations
to resolve a failing financial institution. However, this legislation focuses on the domestic aspects of bail-in, leaving the question of how it is applied
to a cross-border banking group open. Cross-border banking resolution has been historically subject to coordination failures, which have resulted in disorderly resolutions with dangerous systemic effects. The goal of this article is to assess whether bail-in is subject to the same coordination problems that affect other resolution tools, and to discuss the logic of international legal cooperation in bail-in policies. We demonstrate that, in spite of the evident benefit in terms of fiscal sustainability, bail-in suffers from complex coordination problems which, if not addressed, might lead to regulatory arbitrage and lengthy court battles, and, ultimately, may disrupt resolutions. We argue that only a binding legal regime can address those problems. In doing so, we discuss the recent Financial Stability
Board’s proposal on cross-border recognition of resolution action, and the role of international law in promoting cooperation in banking resolution.

In the Shadows of the Old Town: Thomas Anna and 19th-century Glasgow

In 1858, a volume entitled Midnight Scenes and Social Photographs – being sketches of life in the streets, wynds and dens of the city of Glasgow was published under the pseudonym of ‘Shadow’ by Alexander Brown, a Glaswegian flâneur and reformer. Its frontispiece is an etching which depicts a theatre-like proscenium arch whose curtains have been withdrawn to reveal to the audience all the poverty, destitution and disorder that one was likely to find after dark in the insalubrious quarters of the city. At the extreme left-hand side, partly obscured by the curtain a silhouetted figure stands behind an unwieldy camera perched on a tripod. Distinctly unaffected by the mêlée, an arm is calmly raised and a finger precisely arched in the moment before the shutter is clicked and the scene committed to record. The volume, however, relies exclusively on textual descriptions to evoke the underside of the city and contains no photographs at all. Instead, the use of the word photograph in the title can be understood as a metaphor for detached scientific objectivity, a quality much celebrated by nineteenth-century reformers and investigators of social ills. As it happened, a decade after Shadow disappeared into the labyrinthine back-lands of Old Town Glasgow, he was followed there by a real photographer. In 1868, Thomas Annan was commissioned by the City Improvements Trust to take photographs of the Old Town in its last moments of existence before it was pulled down under a series of legislative acts. But perhaps paradoxically, given Shadow’s faith in the analytical properties of photography, Annan’s work seems to refute much of the material contained in Midnight Scenes and other similar tracts. Instead of the dens, shebeens, labyrinths and rowdy crowds described by Shadow, Annan’s depictions of the Old Town convey a static, calm environment, one which is often sparsely inhabited by a curious but apparently orderly population.

Taking account of the sensational tendencies of many reformists’ texts, this paper investigates the discrepancies between the two representations, focussing in particular on the constraints which operated on Annan during his commission. It argues that Annan’s compositions – which became very influential on other 19th century photographers of everyday life such as John Thomson or Jacob Riis – far from being dispassionate analytical works, emerged as a result of a matrix of factors which included: photographic and artistic precedents; Annan’s own predilections as a photographer; technological limitations; the nature of the commission from the City Improvements Trust and political climate in which it was given; the medieval urban fabric in which he had to operate; and, perhaps, most importantly, the identity of the Old Towns inhabitants themselves.

Political Socialisation

The process of political socialisation (PS) has been classically defined as the “learning of social patterns corresponding to [an individual’s] societal position as mediated through various agencies of society” (Hyman, 1959, p. 25). Distinguishing PS from other types of socialisation (e.g. ethnic, cultural), this definition still serves as the foundation for the majority of empirical research in this area, despite methodological advances and new attention to previously under researched aspects of PS. As it was assumed that PS was relatively stable throughout life, early research focused on analysing this process during early childhood (Merelman, 1986). However, more recent studies found that ideas and attitudes acquired during childhood change through emerging adulthood due to multiple factors, such as personality, maturation and past experiences (“Beyond Political Socialization,” 2014). Therefore, current research has expanded beyond the effects of the classic socialisation agents (i.e., parents, peers, school) to include other relevant factors such as overarching context and individual cognitive development. Yet, the research to date offers a fragmented perspective of the process with heterogeneous results related to PS outcomes (e.g., voting behaviour, political engagement, identities, intergroup attitudes, prejudice, discrimination, etc.). This fact highlights the need for further research from childhood through emerging adulthood that also considers a wider-range of multiple socialisation agents, the over-arching context, and a greater numbers of outcomes related PS processes.

Notions of Conflict and 'New' Citizens' Inclusion:Post-Cosmopolitan Contestations in Germany

This chapter argues that there is a gap between symbolic exclusion from the national community when it comes to the inclusion of new German citizens of Turkish or Kurdish background, and a broad claim to be a cosmopolitan society, at large. While focusing on narratives of minority key political activists in Berlin, and analysing individual stories on the background of contemporary populist xenophobic debates and hate crime of the 1990s, the chapter illustrates both, individual success and vulnerability due to institutionalised forms of anti- Muslim and anti-Turks segments in Germany.

Speech of Mr. C. G. Memminger, on the question of rechartering the bank of the state of South Carolina: delivered in the House of Representatives, December 9, 1848

This speech by Mr. Memminger offers resolutions on the issue of rechartering the bank of the state of South Carolina. The issues presented are the Bank of the State is founded on an erroneous policy, unwise for a state to engage in banking, not practical to recharter the Bank of the State and a special committee of each house should be appointed to advise how to carry out these resolutions at the next session.

The Glasgow 2014 XX Commonwealth Games and Scottish Independence: “Political Truce” or Political Truth(s)?

This paper explores the political reaction to Lord McConnell’s appeal for a political ‘truce’ in the form of a temporary halt to campaigning by all political parties and organisations involved in the debate regarding the Scottish independence referendum during the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games (BBC, 2014; McConnell, 2014). Urging both sides of the debate to cease campaigning for the two-week period of the Glasgow 2014 games, the current Labour peer and past First Minister of the Scottish Parliament cited concerns that there are “genuine concerns that the Games, and the image of Scotland, could be damaged by attempts by either side – for and against – to use the Games to promote their cause, or to use the venues for campaigning” (McConnell, 2014). Drawing upon the principles of both a critical discourse and a narrative analysis methodological approach, this paper will scrutinise the nature of the political reactions to McConnell’s proposal from a variety of perspectives on both sides of the independence referendum debate. In particular, the emphasis in the responses from both sides of the debate regarding the apolitical nature of the 2014 Games will be critiqued, drawing upon the arguments of past analyses of sporting mega-events which highlight the potential for political exploitation of such events by the host nations (e.g. Horne, 2007; Grix, 2012; Houlihan and Giulianotti, 2012; Roche, 2006). Furthermore, the findings of academic research on the political implications of hosting the Commonwealth Games will be considered (e.g. Majumdar and Mehta, 2010; Van Der Westhuizen, 2004; Macintosh and Greenhorn, 1992; Majumdar, 2011; Lockstone and Baum, 2010; Macfarlane and Herd, 1986), highlighting a number of precedents which demonstrate the numerous challenges faced in any attempts to the keep the 2014 Games free from political influence.

The Working Group on Scottish Sport and the Scottish Independence Referendum: an Unrealised Political 'Imaginary'?

In September 2014, a historic referendum on the issue of Scottish independence was held, with the potential to dissolve the political union between Scotland and the other constituent nations of the United Kingdom which had survived intact since the 1707 Act of Union. On a significantly high electoral turnout of 84.6%, the Scottish electorate opted to reject the proposals of the governing party in the devolved Scottish Parliament, the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP), to create an independent Scottish state, with 55.3% of the electorate voting ‘No’ to Scottish independence against a 44.7% ‘Yes’ vote. In the grand scheme of the Scottish independence referendum campaigns, sports policy remained a somewhat peripheral issue within the arguments forwarded by the Yes Scotland and Better Together campaigns. Nonetheless, developments such as the formation of the 'Sport for Yes' campaign sub-group, the inclusion of sport within the Scottish Government’s White Paper on Scottish independence and the establishment of the Working Group on Scottish Sport demonstrated that the potential implications of independence were still deemed significant enough to merit a degree of policy planning by the Scottish Government (Lafferty, 2014; Scottish Government, 2013; Working Group on Scottish Sport, 2013, 2014). This paper will critically consider the implications of the 'No' vote in the Scottish independence referendum for the latter of these developments, the policy proposals of the Working Group for Scottish Sport. Drawing upon the principles of critical discourse analysis, specifically the analytical framework proposed by Fairclough and Fairclough (2012), the content of this group's proposal will be examined in order to critically explore the policy for Scottish sport it envisaged for an independent Scottish state. The paper will then conclude by reflecting upon the extent to which elements of this political 'imaginary' (Fairclough and Fairclough, 2012) of Scottish sport remain a possibility for future sports policy in Scotland following the eventual 'No' vote in the referendum.