Female narratives of ‘new’ citizens’ belonging(s) and identities in Europe: case studies from the Netherlands and Britain

Public discourses on citizenship, identity and nationality, which link geographical borders and the political boundaries of a community, are infused with tensions and contradictions. This paper illustrates how these tensions are interwoven with multilayered notions of home, belonging, migration, citizenship and individual’s ‘longing just to be’, focusing on the Dutch and the British context. The narratives of a number of Dutch and British women, who either immigrated to the respective countries or were born to immigrants, illustrate how the growing rigid integration and assimilative discourses in Europe contradict an individual anchoring in national and local communities. The narratives of women participating in these studies show multilayered angles of belonging presenting an alternative to the increasing strong argument for a fixed notion of positioning and national belonging. The female ‘new’ citizens in our study tell stories of individual choices, social mobility and a sense of multiple belonging in and across different communities.

Civic engagement in a divided society: the role of Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of a university in a society emerging from decades of political violence and to show ways in which public engagement can help promote democratic practice and contribute to the strengthening of peace. Our understanding of the concept of public engagement follows the UK National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement definition:

'Public engagement describes the myriad of ways in which the activity and benefits of higher education and research can be shared with the public. Engagement is by definition a two-way process, involving interaction and listening, with the goal of generating mutual benefit .'

The case study is provided by the example of Queen's University Belfast. We will begin by examining some of the history and context of the university, then discuss the political and social context of Northern Ireland, before going on to examine some of the publicly engaged work being carried out by Queen's and consider how this might be taken forward.

Recognising difference while promoting cohesion: the role of collaborative networks in education

The chapter outlines various approaches taken to the challenge of divided societies through education systems and links this to debates on political approaches to conflict resolution in Northern Ireland. The education debate has structural and affective components, while the political debate revolves around the privileging of identity or commonality. Applying the principle of recognition and the importance of tolerance is seen to provide a range of policy options, but the evidence of education interventions in Northern Ireland does not highlight any one policy option as the most effective, nor did the end of the violent conflict produce a new consensus on a way forward. The chapter argues that a key additional element to effective practice might be provided through the promotion of shared education through collaborative networks of schools which allows for the continued operation of separate schools while promoting an integrated experience for pupils and teachers.

Irish language education and the national ideal: The dynamics of nationalism in Northern Ireland

Since the beginning of the Northern Ireland conflict in the late 1960s, Irish nationalism has been identified as a prominent force in the political culture of the state. Recent studies have suggested, however, that the ‘Nationalist’ population has become increasingly content within the new political framework created by the peace process and the aspiration for Irish unity diminished. In placing the Northern Ireland situation within the theoretical framework of nationalism, this paper will analyse how these changing priorities have been possible. Through an analysis of Irish language study in Northern Ireland's schools, the paper will examine how the political ideals espoused by the nationalist Sinn Féin Party reflected the priorities of the ‘nationalist community’. It will be contended that the relationship between the ideology and ‘the people’ is much more complex than is often allowed for and that educational inequalities are a significant contributing factor to this.

Justifying accounting change through global discourses and legitimation strategies. The case of the UK central government.

Accounting has been viewed, especially through the lens of the recent managerial reforms, as a neutral technology that, in the hands of rational managers, can support effective and efficient decision making. However, the introduction of new accounting practices can be framed in a variety of ways, from value-neutral procedures to ideologically-charged instruments. Focusing on financial accounting, budgeting and performance management changes in the UK central government, and through extensive textual analysis and interviews in three government departments, this paper investigates: how accounting changes are discussed and introduced at the political level through the use of global discourses; and what strategies organisational actors subsequently use to talk about and legitimate such discourses at different organisational levels. The results shows that in political discussions there is a consistency between the discourses (largely NPM) and the accounting-related changes that took place. The research suggests that a cocktail of legitimation strategies was used by organisational actors to construct a sense of the changes, with authorisation, often in combination with, at the very least, rationalisation strategies most widely utilised. While previous literature posits that different actors tend to use the same rhetorical sequences during periods of change, this study highlights differences at different organisational levels.

The Rising (Centenary Edition) Ireland: Easter 1916

The Easter Rising of 1916 not only destroyed much of the centre of Dublin - it changed the course of Irish history. But why did it happen? What was the role of ordinary people in this extraordinary event? What motivated them and what were their aims? These basic questions continue to divide historians of modern Ireland.

The Rising is the story of Easter 1916 from the perspective of those who made it, focusing on the experiences of rank and file revolutionaries. Fearghal McGarry makes use of a unique source that has only recently seen the light of day - a collection of over 1,700 eye-witness statements detailing the political activities of members of Sinn Féin and militant groups such as the Irish Republican Brotherhood. This collection represents one of the richest and most comprehensive oral history archives devoted to any modern revolution, providing new insights on almost every aspect of this seminal period.

The Rising shows how people from ordinary backgrounds became politicized and involved in the struggle for Irish independence. McGarry illuminates their motives, concerns, and aspirations, highlighting the importance of the Great War as a catalyst for the uprising. He concludes by exploring the Rising's revolutionary aftermath, which in time saw the creation of the independent state we see today.

Published to mark the centenary of the Easter Rising, this edition includes a new preface which reflects on the continuing importance of the Easter Rising as a symbol of Irish nationhood and which looks at the centenary commemorations in both Ireland and the UK within the wider context of the 'Decade of Centenaries.'

The politics of age in Northern Ireland

This paper examines the attempt to strengthen the political, social and policy status of aging in Northern Ireland in the context of the regions emergence from decades of ethno-religious conflict. Supported by the US based Atlantic Philanthropies, the paper shows how the NGO sector restructured, became more tactical about its use of evidence and experimented with social enterprise models to strengthen the rights of the most excluded old in the region. This change process is inevitably incomplete and not everything worked but it did create a new political landscape that placed older people at the heart of protest and advocacy about the issues that affect their daily lives.

Justice, Truth and Oral History: Legislating the Past 'From Below' in Northern Ireland

Drawing on the ‘from below’ perspective which has emerged in transitional justice scholarship and practice
over the past two decades, this article critically examines the dealing with the past debate in Northern
Ireland. The paper begins by offering an outline of the from below perspective in the context of post-conflict
or post-authoritarian societies which are struggling to come to terms with past violence and human rights
abuses. Having provided some of the legal and political background to the most recent efforts to deal with
the past in Northern Ireland, it then critically examines the relevant past-related provisions of the Stormont
House Agreement, namely the institutions which are designed to facilitate ‘justice’, truth recovery and the
establishment of an Oral History Archive. Drawing from the political science and social movement
literature on lobbying and the ways in which interests groups may seek to influence policy, the paper then
explores the efforts of the authors and others to contribute to the broader public debate, including through
drafting and circulating a ‘Model Bill’ on dealing with the past (reproduced elsewhere in this issue) as a
counterweight to the legislation which is required from the British government to implement the Stormont
House Agreement. The authors argue that the combination of technical capacity, grass-roots
credibility and ‘international-savvy’ local solutions offers a framework for praxis from below in other
contexts where activists are struggling to extend ownership of transitional justice beyond political elites.
Keywords: transitional justice; from below; dealing with the past; legislation; truth
recovery; prosecutions; oral history

Waiting for International Political Sociology: A Field Guide to Living In-Between

This paper explores the in-between positionality of International Political Sociology (IPS) and offers a field guide to help scholars, students and thinkers embrace this disposition more energetically. It makes the case for a more balanced transdisciplinarity that attends to the international, the political and the social at the same time and in equal measure. The power of this in-between approach is that it forces thinkers in IPS to constantly look at the horrors of our contemporary world without turning away. Through the ambivalent position of the ‘happy wreck’, the paper explores the need to do something about these horrors (e.g. diagnose, act, intervene) while fully acknowledging that such actions always produce new forms of violence and exclusion. To help thinkers in IPS inhabit this challenging space of inquiry more confidently, the paper makes four suggestions: (i) broadening our emotional responses to the horrors of the world; (ii) resisting resolution through non-cathartic dispositions; (iii) pursuing slow research to contest dominant rhetorics of crisis and emergency; and (iv) re-imagining shared conditions of vulnerability.

Teacher education in the United Kingdom post devolution: convergences and divergences

This paper examines the roles of research in teacher education across the four nations of the United Kingdom. Both devolution and on-going reviews of teacher education are facilitating a greater degree of cross-national divergence. England is becoming a distinct outlier, in which the locus for teacher education is moving increasingly away from Higher Education Institutions and towards an ever-growing number of school-based providers. While the idea of teaching as a research-based profession is increasingly evident in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, it seems that England, at least in respect of the political rhetoric, recent reforms and explicit definitions, is fixed on a contrastingly divergent trajectory towards the idea of teaching as a craft-based occupation, with a concomitant emphasis on a (re)turn to the practical. It is recommended that research is urgently needed to plot these divergences and to examine their consequences for teacher education, educational research and professionalism.

A Democratic Opening? The AKP and the Kurdish Left

Since its foundation, militant democratic arguments have underpinned an enforced secularism in Turkey. The 2002 election of the AKP, described as a “moderate Islamist party”, has challenged Turkey’s secular identity. In the more than twelve years since the AKP has been in power, Turkey’s political landscape has experienced significant changes, with periods of extensive democratic reforms punctuated by regression in certain areas, notably freedom of expression and the right to protest. State repressive measures coupled with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s reluctance to exit the political stage have been the focus of much commentary and analysis. This article argues, however, that under AKP rule the Kurdish issue – critical to ensuring the normalization of politics and democratization in Turkey – has been brought in from the political cold and assesses the creation and role of the HDP (Halkların Demokratik Partisi), a Kurdish political party that is endeavoring to situate itself in the mainstream of Turkey’s political landscape. We posit that the HDP can be viewed as the offspring of this “democratic opening,” a project that was meant to ensure a radical transformation of the Kurdish issue in Turkey. Through analysing the historical trajectory of both AKP and HDP and the militant democratic arguments that led to their predecessors’ exclusion from the public sphere, this article engages with the key question of the extent to which the AKP’s treatment of the Kurdish issue has provided a vehicle for broader democratisation and facilitated a reconsideration of the Kurdish question in Turkey.

The discursive construction of Portuguese national identity in the media thirty years after the 1974 revolution

Tese dout., Philosophy, Lancaster University, 2010

Role of Automated Open Source Systems in the Intelligence Analysis of a High-Level Domain Expert

The Marquess of Londonderry: Aristocracy, Power and Politics in Britain and Ireland

The decline and fall of the British aristocracy looked headlong and irreversible in the twentieth century yet many grandees tried to preserve their power, wealth and influence by every means - and with some success. There is no better example than the Seventh Marquess of Londonderry whose life from 1878 to 1949 spanned and mirrored the period. The Londonderrys had enjoyed immense wealth in land and minerals in Britain and Ireland for centuries, played leading roles in Parliament and the state, and in an earlier time the Seventh Marquess would have continued in the family tradition of patrician prominence. Drawing upon original state and family papers, N.C. Fleming places the Londonderrys in the context of the history and the political theory of aristocracy and shows the constant struggle - not without success - against marginalisation. The theme runs through Londonderry's career as Conservative MP, on the Irish Viceroy's Council, as a junior minister in Lloyd Geroge's coalition, at the Air Ministry with Trenchard - the 'father of the RAF' - and in the National Government. Perhaps an element of desperation entered in his private business ventures and with contacts with the far Right - all in sharp contrast to past family achievement.

Political Discourse Analysis, Sport and Scottish Independence: Provisional Reflections upon Fairclough and Fairclough's (2012) Analytical Framework.

This paper aims to reflect upon the potential analytical utility of the political discourse analysis framework proposed by Isabela Fairclough and Norman Fairclough (2012). This framework represents the most recent substantive development upon Norman Fairclough's past work situated within the wider school of Critical Discourse Analysis, building upon his influential position this methodological tradition. Central to this development is the additional emphasis placed upon the necessity to conceptualise all political discourse as 'argumentative' in nature, given that political actors are ultimately proposing or refuting particular courses of concrete future action. This paper will therefore apply Fairclough and Fairclough's model to provisional data derived from an ongoing doctoral thesis which considers the nature of political discourse relating to sport, the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games and Scottish independence, with an ultimate aim of critically considering the benefits and limitations of applying this analytical framework as a methodological tool within this ongoing study.