bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Security sector reform, post‑conflict reconstruction and police corruption in post-conflict states
Authors: Singh Danny
Published: May 2021

The third chapter thematically engages with the intertwined initiatives of post-conflict reconstruction, statebuilding, peacebuilding and security sector reform. A few short examples of United Nations interim administrations in Cambodia, Kosovo and East Timor are provided that reformed main state institutions from scratch. The forthcoming sections examine post-conflict policing contexts in Haiti and Iraq in order to determine some similarities and differences to Afghanistan. Some comparisons include the focus to fight an insurgency with a paramilitary police force, particularly in post-9/11 settings to conform to reshuffled counterinsurgency strategy. This has created confusion with European efforts of police training in both Iraq and Afghanistan which are at odds with paramilitary policing. The chapter will illustrate that longer-term training programmes and mentoring can help mitigate police corruption and confusion with mandates which partially worked with UN involvement in Haiti. The final part analyses several developing contexts that share high levels of police corruption, brutality and criminality.
Assessing the drivers of corruption within the Afghan police force
Authors: Singh Danny
Published: May 2021

This chapter is main analysis data. It specifically presents the empirical data collected in the field which includes interview responses on the problems with security sector reform, police reform, the rule of law and corruption. In addition, low-ranked police officer’s perceptions on corruption, recruitment, training, salaries and the cost of living are examined with responses on the survey and structured interviews conducted. All these reactions are illustrated via the theoretical framework that is based on the political, economic and cultural drivers of corruption. The political drivers reveal that meritocratic recruitment is severely tarnished from patronage, nepotism and favouritism and police officers retain loyalty to local commanders and warlords rather than the state. In addition, criminal entities have captured main parts of the state to entice political elites in illicit drug-trading which has hindered anti-corruption investigations and promoted cronyism to protect political elites from serious forms of corruption. The economic drivers show that low pay intensifies petty forms of corruption, namely bribery and roadside extortion, to supplement income. The cultural drivers infer that pride, motivation and sense of mission are lacking in the current Afghan police force and unprofessionalism is a main meaning of police corruption.
Parenthood and civic engagement
Authors: Muddiman Esther
Published: May 2021

In this chapter, Esther Muddiman draws on qualitative data from interviews with 20 parents of teenagers to explore how parenthood disrupts, complements and triggers various types of civic engagement. The chapter describes how becoming a parent can limit an individual’s ability to maintain their commitment to existing voluntary activities/associational memberships, disrupting previous ties to civil society. However, it also finds that parenthood provides new opportunities for engagement, especially via educational institutions and parental networks; and that the transition to parenthood itself can lead individuals to reflect on their own relationship to society and the values that they would like to pass on to their children: the desire to role-model ‘good citizenship’ within the family home can act as a gateway for participation in civically-minded practices.
Grandparenting and participation in civil society
Authors: Hampton Jennifer May , Muddiman Esther
Published: May 2021

In this chapter, Jennifer May Hampton and Esther Muddiman turn their attention to a lifecourse event that affects older members of the family through focusing on how becoming a grandparent both hinders and fosters civic participation.  Using a combination of panel data from the Understanding Society survey and interview data with grandparents, they show that levels of civic participation, and especially volunteering, vary according to the grandparent’s employment status. In addition to their own engagement in civil society, grandparents also play an important part in the intergenerational transmission of what might be seen as ‘civic virtues’.
Governance failure, metagovernance and its failure
Authors: Jessop Bob
Published: May 2021

This chapter addresses the discovery of 'governance' as the complex art of steering multiple agencies, institutions, and systems that are both operationally autonomous from one another and structurally coupled through various forms of reciprocal interdependence. This discovery reflects the dramatic intensification of societal complexity that flows from growing functional differentiation of institutional orders within an increasingly global society and what this implies for the widening and deepening of systemic interdependencies across various social, spatial, and temporal horizons of action. The chapter state the general links between contingent necessity, complexity, and governance and explores this in terms of semiosis, structuration, collibration; as elements in the governance of complexity.
Embedding procedural justice in policing
Authors: Hough Mike
Published: May 2021

This chapter considers approaches to embedding principles of procedural justice in policing. Leadership, with strong support from middle managers is clearly essential. One dimension to this is to convey to the workforce the practical benefits that flow from the approach: cooperation and compliance from the public, greater officer safety, fewer complaints from the public. Another important dimension to for leaders to ensure that the ethos within the force is consistent with principles of organisational justice. There must be organisational fairness within police organisations. Organisational fairness is also closely correlated with officers’ sense of self-legitimacy, or their confidence in wielding authority – and self-legitimacy is another precondition for getting the workforce to adopt principles of procedural justice. Training is another strand in the change strategy, and the results of evaluations are positive. Finally the trend towards police professionalisation may prove complementary to, and supportive of, procedural justice approaches to policing.
Ethics, justice and policing
Authors: Hough Mike
Published: May 2021

This chapter explores ethical issues that are raised by procedural justice approaches to policing. Both in individual contacts between police and public and at a societal level, problems can result from the use of low-visibility techniques for securing compliance. There is a risk that people’s choices about compliance with the law are being reshaped by stealth: their autonomy as citizens may be eroded when police officers manage them into compliance through a display of civility and respect. At a societal level, the appearance of the police as an even-handed and fair institution can serve as an ‘ideological cloak’ that hides from public view structural inequality and unfairness. The chapter argues that these risks can be mitigated if police commit to the normative foundation of procedural justice, and do not simply focus on the instrumental benefits of the approach. They need to recognise their duty to treat citizens fairly and with respect.
The education system, aspiration and loneliness
Authors: Batsleer Janet , Duggan James
Published: May 2021

The normalised pressures which the current education system places on young people, into their twenties and beyond, mean that the regular summer reporting on the exam results of particular cohorts of young people are followed by reports of an increasing incidence of mental health problems and suicidality. Beginning with young people’s discussions of aspiration during the research project,this chapter points to the fact that discussions of aspiration, achievement and failure of aspiration in educational research have not engaged with the emotional dynamic created especially for working class students leaving their families through educational mobility nor by the belief that ‘success is individual.’ The subheadings of Instrumentality and Achievement; Individualism; On (Not) Disappointing
Parents and Unhappiness as Loneliness frame the discussion.
Transitions
Authors: Batsleer Janet , Duggan James
Published: May 2021

This chapter considers specific ‘normative’ moments, including of education/work transition and what is involved in undergoing a change process in which there is a risk of loss of connection. Specifically it considers the change of schools from primary to secondary school; the sixth form; star and the experience of moving to a new town to go to University; starting work: common experiences were widely discussed during the research pointing to moments in which loneliness had been intensely felt. The experience of being left out of the system –for a variety of reasons – becoming classified as ‘NEET’- is also presented. The immersive theatre production ‘Missing’ was developed in response to this theme of an ordinary moment of transition and is introduced in this chapter.
Youth work as method
Authors: Batsleer Janet , Duggan James
Published: May 2021

This chapter considers the place of youth work projects, and of the importance of engagement, enjoyment, association and accompaniment in the life of neighbourhoods including those visited in the Loneliness Connects Us research. It highlights the work of the youth projects who were involved in the research study and the impact of the austerity on such projects. It suggests however that the commitment to ‘social action’ as a buzzword for youth work should be considered critically , as should medical models of loneliness which lend themselves to the suggestion that interventions by professionals such as social workers or youth workers are needed in order to fix the problem. Rather youth work is considered as part of a social infrastructure designed to facilitate informal learning, advocacy, mutual support and enlivening.
The uncertain business of raising citizens
Authors: Muddiman Esther , Power Sally , Taylor Chris
Published: May 2021

This chapter evaluates all of those factors that might complicate the straightforward sharing of values and practices between different family members. The family is widely regarded as a socialising agent, and parents, in particular, are seen to play a pivotal role in providing their children with a framework for interpreting and navigating the social world. However, there are manifold other events, relationships, and experiences that combine to shape an individual's perspective of, and engagement with, civil society. Drawing on survey, interview, and family tree data, the chapter considers the range of influences that participants identified, highlighting some of the things that might frustrate the intergenerational sharing of values and practices. It also looks at variation and difference within families, investigating how the bringing together of two previously unconnected families through marriage or partnership is negotiated in relation to social and political perspectives.
Keeping the faith? Secularisation, the family and civic engagement
Authors: Muddiman Esther , Power Sally , Taylor Chris
Published: May 2021

This chapter explains that it is in the area of religious practice that the uncertainties of intergenerational transmission are most clearly demonstrated. All available evidence indicates that religious affiliation is inherited from parents. However, that is only part of the story. The chapter focuses on the precariousness of religious transmission and seeks to explore: first, what family and lifecourse events appear to disrupt an inheritance of faith; and, second, what the implications are for young people's civic engagement. In addition to examining the levels and processes of the intergenerational transmission of faith (or its absence), it discusses how religious affiliation is reflected in particular kinds of associational membership, levels of volunteering, and other kinds of social activism.
Mothers, grandmothers and civic engagement
Authors: Muddiman Esther , Power Sally , Taylor Chris
Published: May 2021

This chapter assesses the central role that mothers and grandmothers play in sharing civic and pro-social values with younger generations. The data suggest that positive intergenerational relationships with female family members are associated with meaningful or mutually beneficial civic participation. Accounts from mothers and grandmothers in the study indicate that they play important roles in maintaining family closeness over time and suggest that (in)formal voluntary work is often seen as an extension of the maternal caring role. This is suggestive of a matrilineal transmission of civic values, with mothers and grandmothers as the most significant agents, and offers strong support to the arguments long made by feminist scholars for better recognition of the role of women in civil society. Here, the data portray the domestic or personal domain as a political space.
Youth citizens
Authors: Križ Katrin
Published: May 2021

This chapter describes how the study participants reported promoting participation when working with teens. There is strong evidence in the data of age serving as a symbolic boundary between a child's genuine participation (being consulted and empowered) and being consulted but not given power. The research participants in the study described their interactions with teenagers as providing participatory opportunities for them. The ways in which the study participants described their interactions with teens showed that they accepted their status as citizens. They reported listening to and consulting teens more so than younger children. They stated that they involved teens earlier and more directly in an investigation by speaking with them or meeting with them separately from their parents, by inviting them to meetings, and by communicating with them more honestly about the problems they saw in a case. While teens' participation level was reportedly higher than that of younger children, the way in which the participants perceived teens affected the degree to which workers let them participate.
The ‘witchcraft’ and ‘institutional truths’ of 21st century neoclassical belief
Authors: Pearson Gordon
Published: May 2021

The title refers to Ruskin and Galbraith critiques of neoclassical profit maximising economic modelling. The chapter explains understanding from observed reality which provides the simple truth rather than mathematical theorising which ignores reality. It briefly outlines that theorising as developed by Milton Friedman , Hayek, von Mises and others at Mont Pelerin and in particular explains and rejects the notion of shareholder primacy. Neoclassical economics has been rejected and falsified by many leading economists over the past century and a half, but persists as a belief system, the main strands of which are identified. That neoclassical belief is actively promoted by its prime beneficiaries, the components of organised money.
Resulting profound wrongs, destructions, inequalities and frauds
Authors: Pearson Gordon
Published: May 2021

Judt’s opener to ‘Ill Fares the Land’ is noted, that there is something ‘profoundly wrong with the way we live today’. That is the result of domination by neoclassical belief promoted by organised money. This chapter is not an exhaustive list of wrongs – that would take many such volumes - but examples various wrongs which demonstrate the depths and possibilities of such destructive results. They note the culture of casual dishonesty which allows the corruption of real economy organisations, the acceptance of conflicts of interest, the focus on extraction of value rather than its creation, the ready acceptance of tax evasion and energetic tax avoidance through the system of tax havens, the fraud and criminality which appears to be accepted as simply part of doing business, the gross and unjustified inequalities of wealth and income and, most important of all, ecological destructions.
Organisational systems interactions with the real economy
Authors: Pearson Gordon
Published: May 2021

The three layers of the real economy – the social-infrastructural economy, progressive-competitive economy and technological-revolutionary economy - are defined in greater detail and their distinctive roles in providing the infrastructure of everyday life in an advanced economy, the further progression and variety of a modern society, and the essential research and invention required to make the global economy fully sustainable within the essentially finite world. The finite limitations make it clear that all humanity is truly interdependent and all subject to the global climate crisis. The strategic and cultural essentials of effective innovation by organisational systems are noted as they contribute to technological revolutions, and must now contribute the necessary and urgent sustainability revolution, which will be needed to have fundamental impacts on all three layers of the real economy.
Systemic action for progression without destruction
Authors: Pearson Gordon
Published: May 2021

The global imperative is for environmental stewardship, which will need to be led by the advanced nations of the world. Action must not be delayed till global agreement has been achieved. Less developed nations will not enjoy the freedom of action enjoyed by advanced economies when they were entering their growth phase, for example, by freely burning readily available fossil fuels. Advanced economies will need to assist less developed nations through this phase of global economic development. The social-infrastructural economy needs to be rebuilt by excluding operations which exist to maximise shareholder take. The progressive-competitive economy needs to be re-established by revising effective competition and breaking up monopolies and cartels. The technological-revolutionary economy needs to be refocused on the necessary sustainability revolution. Necessary actions are proposed including restoring progressive taxation of income and wealth, restraining organised money and completely displacing neoclassical belief.
The Westminster Model as a Constitutional Archetype
Authors: Bulmer W. Elliot
Published: May 2021

This chapter defines the Westminster Model and describes its historical development, arguing that a Westminster Model constitution is most suitable for Britain's needs. It distinguishes the essential elements that define the nature, character, and identity of the Westminster Model from the particular aspects of any national constitution. It also mentions Arend Lijphart, who attempted to define the Westminster Model in terms of macro-level institutional design choices and equates it with a majoritarian understanding of democracy. The chapter looks at the constitutional systems of Australia, Barbados, Canada, India, Malta, and New Zealand that have a considerable variety of design choice on issues relating to a written constitution. It uses the six countries to define the Westminster Model as a global-imperial family of constitutional systems.
Parliament I: Functions, Powers and Composition
Authors: Bulmer W. Elliot
Published: May 2021

This chapter focuses on Westminster Model constitutions around the world that prescribe the composition of parliament, such as the manner in which members are chosen, qualifications and disqualifications for being a member, and their terms of office. It highlights the functions that a parliament is expected to perform in a Westminster Model democracy by synthesizing several classic authorities, namely Walter Bagehot's The English Constitution. It also mentions Sir Ivor Jennings' Parliament, which outlines seven main functions of parliament. The chapter explains how parliament in a Westminster Model democracy does not actively govern, but it does make and break governments. It examines the parliamentary duty to determine who will have the authority to make decisions or conditions on policy making.
Judiciary, Administration, Elections and Miscellaneous Provisions
Authors: Bulmer W. Elliot
Published: May 2021

This chapter emphasizes that a particular care must be taken by the judiciary to perform its functions properly and ensure that the mechanisms for the appointment of judges, the rules protecting their neutrality and independence, and the procedures for their removal from office are sufficiently robust. It recounts the practice in early Westminster Model constitutions wherein judicial appointments were made by the Crown and acted on the advice of the prime minister. It also examines the Ontario Judicial Appointments Board and the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board in Ireland that apply executive-centred appointment mechanisms. The chapter mentions that the Indian constitution sought to regularize the practice of informal consultations and put it upon a constitutional footing. It considers Article 124 of the Indian constitution, which states that judges of the Supreme Court are appointed by the president.
Dialogue I: Subaltern Counterpublics
Authors: Scandrett Eurig , Gilfillan Paul
Published: May 2021

The dialogue around publics took the form of an invitation to the contributors to respond to a narrative around generative themes emerging from the cases in this section, and the extent to which the problematics posed in the provocation were responded to. Whilst all contributors were invited to participate, this dialogue took the form of an extended email correspondence between Paul Gilfillan, author of ...
Case II.3: Young People, Alcohol, Dialogical Methods
Authors: Wood Emma
Published: May 2021

This chapter introduces a model of critical dialogue designed to create a brave space in which previously ignored, silent or marginalised young people can together develop a critical awareness of potentially harmful attitudes and behaviours (often accepted as normal within their social group or national culture) and be inspired to act in solidarity as allies to bring about positive social change. It focuses on a study of the AlcoLOLs project. One headteacher in this study described her typical Monday mornings as ‘picking up the pieces of family or pupil relationships’ damaged by alcohol-fuelled behaviour over weekends. The risks incurred by adolescent drinking make a significant topic on which to focus – not only because of its impact on young people’s social context, but also because alcohol use is the leading risk factor for premature death and disability worldwide for people aged 15–49 years old (...
Case III.1: Precarity as an Existential Phenomenon within a Post-industrial Labour Market
Authors: Mignot Philip , Gee Ricky
Published: May 2021

This chapter argues from a neo-Marxist perspective that precarity is an existential phenomenon, whereby economic actors experience a state of productive anxiety within a post-industrial labour market. In this sense, all who labour are positioned on a spectrum of vulnerability to precarity; a positionality that is both individuated and collective, constantly producing capital gain. Furthermore, that precarity as a state of existence provides capital with a mechanism to appropriate the commons of the life-world; that personhood is progressively given up to capital through the extensification and intensification of economic labour. In order to develop these critical points, the chapter will utilise particular examples of the precarious interrelationship between individuals and collectives within the labour market in the UK, focusing initially on the nascent labour of students in the marketised university. The examples will be drawn from case studies produced via a longitudinal research project undertaken by one of the authors (...
Case III.2: Student–Public–Sociologist: On Dialogue with our First Public, and in Widening Access to Higher Education
Authors: Johnson Karl
Published: May 2021

By some measurements, I should not be in a position where I can contribute a chapter to an academic text. I entered university as a mature, working class, first generation student from a rural background, with less than impressive school attainment and a menial employment history. Here, as an early career lecturer experiencing culture shock, imposter syndrome and struggling with my mental health at time of writing, I reflect on the impact of dialogue on the Scottish widening access agenda and of students as arguably our first and most important public....
Case III.3: Experts by Experience: Art, Identity and the Sociological Imagination
Authors: Docherty-Hughes John R. , Addington Elaine , Bradley David , Brookhouse Linda , Bunting Jenny , Cosh Lorna , Dane John , Lindsay Robert , Raffaelli Christine
Published: May 2021

This chapter offers a reflexive account of a co-produced, multisectoral, community-based project between Glasgow Open Museum (OM), Glasgow Association for Mental Health (GAMH) and Queen Margaret University (QMU). The project is framed around an accredited Public Sociology module, Identity Community & Society, in which participants explore sociological explanations of identity, community and society whilst engaging with and interpreting art and artefacts from the OM collections. We share our experiences of reaching over the chasms between the worlds of museums, mental health advocacy and higher education. Crucially, we hear from student participants, as co-authors, about the increased self-confidence and reflexive knowledge resulting from participation in the project. In interpreting different art works, participants consider a range of sociological concepts, debates and theories, that frame their interpretation of art, but also facilitate the development of a critical consciousness about social issues that they have direct experience of themselves or that impact participants’ communities....
Case III.5: Reflections on our Critical Service Learning Provision: Is it Critical or Are We Social Justice Dreamers?
Authors: Hutchings Sharon , Lewis Andrea Lyons
Published: May 2021

In 2013 we ran a small but successful service learning pilot in the department of sociology at Nottingham Trent University (NTU). Immediately following the pilot, service learning was added to our BA Sociology, BA Criminology and MA Public Sociology provision as core modules. In brief, we argue our version of service learning sits within a social justice orientation, often referred to as critical service learning. Simply put, this involves students working in partnership with our not-for-profit community on social justice issues for the purpose of social change and mutual benefit for community partners and students. These are big claims. Whether the service learning we do at NTU genuinely extends beyond the dream of social justice is at the heart of this chapter....
Racism, Brewing, and Drinking in US History
Authors: Chapman Nathaniel G. , Brunsma David L.
Published: May 2021

This chapter discusses how the search for the origins of beer and brewing in the United States has been hampered by the realities of the racial, gendered, and classed inequalities that created the United States in the first place. It integrates an overview of the deep history of beer in the US context, largely from 1587 until the end of Prohibition. Along the way, the chapter illuminates and critiques the 'origin stories' of beer. It uncovers some stories that have been long buried, asking questions that have not been adequately asked up until now. This deep history reveals some mythological stories as well as the old narratives that have served to cover up a full knowledge of race, racism, and beer, many of which the new narratives being pushed by contemporary brewers, beer lovers, and industry folks of color, though few and far between, continue to fight.
Milk-Sharing Practices
Authors: Carter Shannon K. , Reyes-Foster Beatriz M.
Published: May 2021

This chapter talks about mothers named Cassie and Thelma who spent many hours and invested significant bodily, emotional, and financial resources to engage in milk-sharing. It focuses on the practices of sharing milk that take place within the bio-communities. It also considers how milk travels from the bodies of donors to those of recipients and how this journey serves to constitute and maintain the bio-communities of practice. The chapter explains how making milk is a labour-intensive process that involves unremitting discipline and continual, sustained commitment. It talks about the labour of making milk that is obscured by popular representations that erase the work involved and the public/private distinction that relegates it to the home.
Wildlife Trafficking
Authors: Mackenzie Simon
Published: May 2021

This chapter addresses wildlife trafficking in four sections: the nature and extent of the harm; the structure of wildlife trafficking (considered in terms of source, transit and market); regulation and control; and finally a discussion about wildlife trafficking as business enterprise. Common structures and routines of wildlife trafficking are reviewed, including links between conventional and illicit trade, the networks that join up poachers, traffickers and the marketplace, and tensions between international conservation norms and the values of local populations. The CITES convention is considered along with its critics. In terms of theory, it is noted that wildlife trafficking falls within the topic interest of both green criminologists and organised crime scholars, which can lead to a variety of theoretical approaches to the subject matter. As with other chapters in the book, the final section looks to sources that reveal first-hand or interview accounts of how traffickers think about their activities, and makes the case for framing wildlife trafficking as business enterprise.
Diamond Trafficking
Authors: Mackenzie Simon
Published: May 2021

This chapter addresses diamond trafficking in four sections: the nature and extent of the harm; the structure of diamond trafficking (considered in terms of source, transit and demand); regulation and control; and finally a discussion about diamond trafficking as illicit business enterprise. The controversy around conflict diamonds is reviewed, along with the routines of mining, trafficking, refining and the marketplace. The changing nature of the international diamond market is noted, and the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme is discussed along with its critics. In the final section, we consider the symbolic nature of diamonds and the ideological work that has gone into creating this symbolism. Reports from brokers and traffickers in the diamond market are referred to in support of the proposition that diamond trafficking is framed by participants as ‘just business’.
Women and BECTU, 1991–2017
Authors: Galt Frances C.
Published: May 2021

This chapter explores the relationship between women and the Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union (BECTU) between 1991 and 2017, following the ACTT’s amalgamation with the Broadcasting and Entertainment Trades Alliance (BETA). This chapter examines the impact of amalgamation on women’s representation and union participation. Firstly, this chapter traces the deterioration of women’s structural gains in the 1990s, as BECTU’s financial crisis resulted in the abandonment of annual women’s conferences, the Women Members’ Committee was submerged into the General Equality Committee, and the Equality Officer role was diluted until it ceased to exist altogether in 1999. Secondly, this chapter examines BECTU’s renewed commitment to women’s representation in the 2000s, signalled by the reintroduction of annual women’s conferences. It argues that these conferences were integral to the union’s recruitment and retainment strategy, and so lacked the militancy of the 1980s women’s conferences. However, women’s separate self-organisation again raised the profile of women’s demands within the union and facilitated women’s activity. This chapter further explores the challenges of organising intersectional union activism during the 1990s and 2000s. Finally, the chapter reflects upon the election and activity of BECTU’s first woman president, Christine Bond (2010-2014).
Government Responsibility
Authors: Dowding Keith
Published: May 2021

The final chapter summarizes the book’s evidence. Whilst citizens can rightfully be held responsible for the choices they make from the menu of alternatives available to them, it is society, and government in particular, that sets the menu. The nature and distribution of problems in all policy areas is largely the responsibility of government. Government tries to blame citizens for its own regulatory and policy failures through the cult of personal responsibility. This chapter looks at some potential criticisms of the argument. Do we really know what the effects of government regulations are? Are some problems so difficult, or ‘wicked’, that they can never be solved? What does the argument mean for individual freedom and autonomy? Shouldn’t we want government to do less, especially as it often fails? The chapter examines the view that government should not regulate and force people but provide information and nudge them to better behaviour. It asks if that is really less paternalistic or better than regulation. It examines how far the lessons of these policy areas can be extended to other issues and offers a final word on government responsibility.
Sin, Shame and Atonement: A Challenge for Secular Redemption
Authors: Marshall Christopher D.
Published: May 2021

In expounding on wrongdoing, both criminological theory and theological reflection have been controlled by the language of guilt and punishment. Both have largely failed to factor in the role of entrenched shame in understanding and responding to human transgression, and both often display an impoverished understanding of what is involved in atoning for sin and defeating its ongoing thrall in the lives of individuals. This chapter maps out the complex ways shame functions in human experience, then considers the place of shame and honour in the biblical world. It proposes that the unique saving power ascribed to the life, death and resurrection of Christ in the New Testament, known in theological shorthand as the Atonement, includes its capacity to expose, absorb and disrupt the tyranny of shame in human experience. It suggests the gospel’s offer of spiritual regeneration provides both a paradigm for and a challenge to secular attempts to secure rehabilitation and relational renewal through the criminal justice system.
Criminology, Public Theology and Hope
Authors: Millie Andrew
Published: May 2021

This chapter draws on Christian public theology and criminology and considers hope as an alternative to the pains associated with contemporary criminal justice. The chapter draws on philosophical writings where pertinent, in particular Kantian conceptions of human dignity. Jesus’ sermon on the plain is considered that emphasised love for enemies. The implications for criminal justice are considered. The chapter then turns to the work of Paul Ricoeur who, when considering the sermon on the plain, wrote about an economy of gift. It is a logic of superabundance characterised by compassionate generosity that gives without expecting anything in return. The consequences of applying such a Christian ethical position - or as Ricoeur put it, a supra-ethical position - to secular criminal justice are discussed.
The Principles of Distributive Justice
Authors: Wienhues Anna
Published: May 2021

This chapter focuses on developing principles of distributive justice — not only looking at ecological justice but also proposing complementary principles of environmental justice. In the context of a multitude of environmental crises and in regard to considerations about distributive justice in particular, it has become apparent that the circumstance of scarcity plays an important role for the articulation of appropriate principles of justice. Based on the assumption that ecological space is (to a degree) finite, considering different scarcity scenarios becomes highly relevant in order for considerations of distributive justice to be able to make recommendations for a world shaped by scarcity, which in turn is where distributive justice becomes most salient. The chapter begins by considering the character of scarcity of ecological space and then turns to the demands of environmental and ecological justice in moderate scarcity scenarios. Based on this, it introduces a grid of different principles of justice that follow from different, more demanding, scarcity scenarios. Finally, the chapter sketches some of the theoretical space surrounding this distributive justice framework by highlighting, among other things, its links with environmental virtue ethics.
Stepping Stone or Dead End? The Ambiguities of Platform-Mediated Domestic Work under Conditions of Austerity. Comparative Landscapes of Austerity and the Gig Economy: New York and Berlin
Authors: Doorn Niels van
Published: May 2021

This chapter examines some of the ways that nationally and locally distinct conditions of neoliberal austerity shape how people come to take up work in the platform-mediated gig economies of New York City and Berlin. Focusing on gig workers' experiences with platforms providing domestic cleaning service, the chapter analyses the experience of four young platform workers and concludes that global institutional phenomena such as 'the gig economy' and 'austerity' have local platform-specific iterations as well as larger global patterns. While it is true that the gig economy's business model is predicated on austerity logics, to the extent that its two central tenets are risk offloading and continuous accounting, platform companies are also notorious for burning through massive amounts of venture capital in their quest to achieve scale. The immediate impact of this pursuit on many gig workers has been one of relative — and short-lived — splendour, as they eagerly collect sign-up bonuses and enjoy initial payouts higher than any previously received wage. Platform labour's link to austerity is thus not a straightforward matter, as it is rife with ambivalence and contradictions.
Trends in Collective Bargaining, Wage Stagnation and Income Inequality under Austerity
Authors: Cunningham Ian , James Philip
Published: May 2021

This chapter discusses the impact of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and austerity on collective bargaining and wage outcomes internationally. It adopts a perspective that sees the GFC and austerity as providing a convenient point from which to further consolidate neoliberalism's hold on society and simultaneously undermine one of the chief forms of resistance — trade unions and collective bargaining. The chapter begins by exploring trends in collective bargaining in the EU and North America (US and Canada) in the post-GFC period. In doing so, it identifies a common trajectory in nation-state policies that encompasses a shift towards identifying the GFC as a public debt crisis; the blaming of trade unions and their members (in particular public sector workers) for the crisis; and the introduction of reforms to collective bargaining and union security designed to reinforce deflationary austerity policies. The chapter then examines trends in wage growth and equality since 2008 and considers the factors influencing them and the extent to which they can be viewed as a product of the neoliberal-informed economic policies and reforms adopted in response to the crisis.
Austerity, Personalized Funding and the Degradation of Care Work: Comparing Scotland’s Self-Directed Support Policy and Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme
Authors: Baines Donna , Young Doug
Published: May 2021

This chapter examines the employment impacts of two of the most significant pieces of social policy introduced in Scotland and Australia in the past decade, namely the Social Care (Self-Directed Support) (Scotland) Act 2013 and the National Disability Insurance Scheme Act in Australia. Launched in the era of austerity, both policies have been viewed as critical human rights-engaged legislation aimed at improving the social inclusion of marginalized and vulnerable populations. Drawing on qualitative interview data in Scotland and Australia, the chapter identifies a downward spiral in wages and conditions, and increased privatization, fragmentation, precarity, and insecurity, alongside serious concerns about quality of care. The analysis shows no winners, as may be characteristic of social policy introduced in the context of austerity and neoliberalism. Instead, the private-market focus and austere funding of these new policies places the human rights of service users in a zero-sum competition with the employment rights of care workers.
Legislation: A Double‑Edged Sword in Union Resistance to Zero-Hours Work – The Case of Ireland
Authors: MacMahon Juliette , Ryan Lorraine , O’Sullivan Michelle , Lavelle Jonathan , Murphy Caroline , O’Brien Mike , Turner Tom , Gunnigle Patrick
Published: May 2021

This chapter highlights the resilience and buoyancy of neoliberal and austerity strategies and the difficulties that unions and their allies face in challenging them. It argues that austerity in Ireland ushered in a sharp rise in zero-hours work, or fragmented and variable working time arrangements that were largely exempt from protective legislation. Even though a union strategy met with victory in the form of new legislation prohibiting zero-hours contracts, employers found other means to enforce precarious and insecure employment. Closely examining the intersection of austerity and the new regulations, the chapter finds that the new legislation has further exacerbated the precariousness of many workers in the Irish context. It also served to further undermine the Standard Employment Relationship. The chapter then contends that collective bargaining has been the more effective way to curtail precarious types of work, although many precarious workers are not unionized and hence see more benefit from a fundamental reconceptualizing of the legal taxonomy of the employment relationship to more accurately reflect its fragmented, dispersed realities.
Austerity, Resistance and the Labour Movement
Authors: Blakely Helen , Davies Steve
Published: May 2021

This chapter begins with a brief outline of the challenges faced by unions in the context of austerity. It then draws on interviews undertaken as part of a research study carried out with UNI Global Union (the Global Union Federation for unions representing workers in private sector service industries) to explore new forms of unionism in the context of advanced austerity and neoliberalism. The chapter analyses three case studies (in each of Romania, the Dominican Republic and the United States) in sectors that have been hostile to unionization and that unions have traditionally found hard to organize. These unions successfully undertook activities including new forms of social movement and community-based unionism that have no immediate or obvious 'pay off', and activity that secured collective bargaining agreements and transformative increases in membership. These activities represent a broadening of union purpose and effective strategies in the face of the growing precarity, fragmented workforces, and globalization of work in the context of austerity.
Afterword: Final Word and the Path Forward – Is the Myth of Austerity Giving Way to the Myth of the Robots Taking the Jobs?
Authors: Rubery Jill
Published: May 2021

This chapter studies a new robots-are-taking-over mythology that is emerging to replace the austerity mythology that unrestrained, perfectly functioning markets are offering an alternative to state welfare systems. The austerity mythology argued that debt was the pivotal problem for governments to wrestle down, and that markets should take over responsibilities from the state, shifting responsibility to the average person to self-provide or meet all their needs through wage employment or unpaid labour. Providing a low-tax regime to businesses would incentivize them to expand employment and to entrepreneurially take new risks and offer job opportunities for all, as long as workers were not selective about wages, work, conditions, or hours. However, people are now told that robots will replace humans in most jobs and that they all will soon be unemployed. The chapter points out that the gutting of social supports and entitlements under austerity and neoliberalism means that those thrown out of work will quickly become destitute, and social unrest is likely to follow. To avoid this dire scenario, it calls for a major rethinking of social policies and employment, drawing on Nancy Fraser's gender-equity model, wherein breadwinning and care-giving responsibilities are shared across society, with the support of strong social programmes in which employment is protected and regulated in the interests of working people.
Conceptualizing Wellbeing in the Context of Migration and Youth Transitions
Authors: Chase Elaine , Allsopp Jennifer
Published: May 2021

This chapter offers a conceptual framework for rethinking wellbeing through a political economy lens in the context of migration and multiple transitions. It then considers the relevance and application of these conceptualizations of wellbeing to the lives and circumstances of unaccompanied migrant young people undergoing multiple transitions. The fact that young people on the move have unequal access to the resources they value as constitutive of their own wellbeing makes their different trajectories in the context of migration undeniably political. This means that wellbeing lends itself to a political economy analysis, something that is somewhat lacking in current work in the field. The chapter highlights the limitations of prevailing and dominant understandings of wellbeing, in particular their propensity to depoliticize it when its pursuit is fundamentally political, and to individualize it when it is inherently relational.
Identity and Belonging
Authors: Chase Elaine , Allsopp Jennifer
Published: May 2021

This chapter explores identity and belonging as central tenets to young people's subjective wellbeing. The two were found to be closely intertwined, intrinsically linked with a sense of being part of the social, religious, economic, and political spheres of the communities in which they lived. While seeking to belong in their new homes, young people from all countries simultaneously maintained a sense of duty to 'give back' to their home countries. For some this was in real time through remittances or other forms of transnational support, while others imagined futures in which they would be in a position to help rebuild communities as doctors, nurses, pharmacists, lawyers, or business investors. The chapter then explores how cultivating and maintaining a sense of identity was often experienced as a temporal process of becoming different to how one was before, and the subsequent impact this has on their ideas of belonging. As in previous chapters, it juxtaposes young people's subjective ideas with those contained within political and policy discourses about where young people should belong.