bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Respectability, Sex, and Status
Authors: SHEPARD ALEXANDRA
Published: January 2010

This chapter revisits debates about the gendered components of reputation in early modern England in order to question the extent to which male and female honour was incommensurable in line with the sexual double standard. The defamation litigation heard by the Cambridge University courts provides a good case study, since their jurisdiction was far broader than that of the church courts, which have been the previous focus of historians' debates on this issue. While the insults alleged in defamation suits suggest that reputation was more multifaceted for men than for women, there was nonetheless a considerable degree of overlap in their respective concerns, with the substance of suits depending on age and status as well as gender. It is also clear that male litigants were less concerned with proving their honesty in either sexual or economic terms than with disputing their social standing through various points of comparison with other men.
Credit, Provision, and Worth
Authors: SHEPARD ALEXANDRA
Published: January 2010

Focusing on debt litigation, this chapter confirms the extent to which male status was competitively gauged. Patriarchal imperatives of male provision and self-sufficient mastery were regularly invoked, demonstrating that appraisals of manhood rooted in economic independence, and heading and maintaining a household, were commonplace. However, evidence of women and children's extensive (and sometimes primary) contributions to the household economy suggests that patriarchal manhood in these terms was a privilege which many men could not afford, if not a chimera. In addition, from the late sixteenth century, increasing numbers of men and women were either excluded from householding positions or chose to adopt alternative family strategies. For these men and women patriarchal behavioural codes were irrelevant, except as the substance of social critiques levelled by their ‘betters’, suggesting the emergence of deepening fissures between concepts of manhood along class lines.
Judicial Deliberations
Authors: Lasser Mitchel de S.-O.-l'E.
Published: January 2010

This book compares how and why the European Court of Justice, the French Cour de cassation, and the United States Supreme Court offer different approaches for generating judicial accountability and control, judicial debate and deliberation, and ultimately judicial legitimacy. Examining the judicial argumentation of the U.S. Supreme Court and the French Cour de cassation, the book first reorders the traditional comparative understanding of the difference between French civil law and American common law judicial decision-making. It then uses this analysis to offer the first detailed comparative examination of the interpretive practice of the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The book shows that the judicial system of France rests on a particularly unified institutional and ideological framework founded on explicitly republican notions of meritocracy and managerial expertise. Law-making per se may be limited to the legislature, but significant judicial normative administration is entrusted to state selected, trained, and sanctioned elites who are policed internally through hierarchical institutional structures. The American judicial system, by contrast, employs a more participatory and democratic approach that reflects a more populist vision and generates its legitimacy primarily by argumentative means. American judges engage in extensive debates that subject them to public scrutiny and control. The ECJ hovers delicately between the institutional/argumentative and republican/democratic extremes. On the one hand, the ECJ reproduces the hierarchical French discursive structure on which it was originally patterned. On the other, it transposes this structure into a transnational context of fractured political and legal assumptions.
The American Unification
Authors: Lasser Mitchel de S.-O.-l’E.
Published: January 2010

By looking at the decisions of the United States Supreme Court, this chapter argues that what characterises American judicial discourse is precisely the fact it integrates its formalist and its policy-oriented discourses in a single discursive space: the judicial opinion. This characteristic American discursive integration is illustrated by analysing two particularly clear and recurrent series of examples: Supreme Court decisions that establish and apply multi-pronged judicial tests, and those that engage in ‘plain meaning’ judicial debates. This chapter examines the discursive mechanisms by which American judicial argument integrates or fuses its more formalist and its more policy-oriented discourses in the single space of the judicial opinion, and presents the significant argumentative tensions and distrust that are produced by this somewhat forced discursive coexistence. U.S. Supreme Court opinions almost never use either the term ‘formalism’ or the term ‘policy’ except to denounce them as inappropriate modes of judicial interpretation. American judicial discourse therefore walks a narrow argumentative tightrope: it must simultaneously promote and critique the two modes of discourse that it deploys side-by-side in its judicial opinions.
Similarity and Difference
Authors: Lasser Mitchel de S.-O.-l’E.
Published: January 2010

This chapter looks at the underlying similarities and differences in judicial argumentation between the Cour de cassation of France, the United States Supreme Court, and the European Court of Justice (ECJ). What characterises the French and ECJ judicial systems is not their formalism, but their respective bifurcation into two relatively distinct discursive spheres. For both courts, the official judicial decisions constitute magisterial discursive spheres in which the courts write collegially and offer relatively deductive forms of argument and reasoning. For both courts, conversely, the Report of the Reporting Judges and the Conclusions/Opinions of the Advocates General constitute relatively unceremonious discursive spheres in which the judicial magistrates write individually and offer relatively non-deductive and purposive forms of argument and reasoning. This chapter also looks at traditional American accounts of French civil law and American common law difference.
France: How is the Discursive Bifurcation Maintained?
Authors: Lasser Mitchel de S.-O.-l’E.
Published: January 2010

This chapter explains the functions of France's civil judicial system on the basis of a radical discursive bifurcation, one in which only public legislative pronouncements can officially make law, but in which high-ranking, state-trained and state-sanctioned jurists, judges, and attorneys are fully understood and expected to play an important collective role in the establishment and development of legal norms. It describes the operation of the high French civil judiciary as defined by a particular theory of law and legal interpretation that functions in a particularly centralised, hierarchical, and meritocratically elitist procedural context. It seeks to explain how the radical French discursive dualism/bifurcation can be maintained both practically and conceptually in good faith. The views of Mirjan Damaska, John Dawson, and John Merryman regarding institutional structure are also considered, along with the Cour de cassation and its magistrates.
The Sliding Scales
Authors: Lasser Mitchel de S.-O.-l’E.
Published: January 2010

This chapter analyses the Cour de cassation of France, the Supreme Court of the United States, and the European Court of Justice based on a couple of clear and concise comparative theses. These theses place the judicial argumentation of the three courts on sliding scales of greater or lesser interpretive formality or open-endedness, and of greater or lesser public disclosure of their controlling arguments and reasoning. Somewhere between the formalism of the official French judicial syllogism and the more pragmatic, open-ended, and purpose/policy oriented American judicial opinions are to be found the official judicial decisions of the ECJ. It seems to make more sense to classify ECJ decisions as more formalist than U.S. Supreme Court decisions, and this for one primary reason. Despite the fact that divisive interpretive disagreement lies visible on or just below the surface of the ECJ decision, the ECJ's response to that disagreement remains perfectly univocal and rather deductive in form, and distinctly magisterial and authoritative in tone.
The Impact of Increasing Food Supply on Human Nutrition: Implications for Commodity Priorities in Agricultural Research and Policy
Authors: Pinstrup‐Andersen Per , de Londoño Norha Ruiz , Hoover Edward
Published: January 2010

A procedure is developed to estimate the nutritional implications of alternative commodity priorities in agricultural research and policy. The model estimates the distribution of supply increases among consumer groups, the related adjustments in total food consumption, and implications for calorie and protein nutrition. Findings from an empirical application of the model to the population of Cali, Colombia, suggest that relative increase in total nutrient supply is a poor indicator of relative nutritional impact because both nutritional waste and consumer adjustment in total food consumption are a function of the commodity from which the additional nutrients are obtained.
Can simple be useful and reliable? Using ecological indicators to represent and compare the states of marine ecosystems
Authors: Shin Yunne-Jai , Bundy Alida , Shannon Lynne J. , Simier Monique , Coll Marta , Fulton Elizabeth A. , Link Jason S. , Jouffre Didier , Ojaveer Henn , Mackinson Steven , Heymans Johanna J. , Raid Tiit
Published: January 2010

Shin, Y-J., Bundy, A., Shannon, L. J., Simier, M., Coll, M., Fulton, E. A., Link, J. S., Jouffre, D., Ojaveer, H., Mackinson, S., Heymans, J. J., and Raid, T. 2010. Can simple be useful and reliable? Using ecological indicators to represent and compare the states of marine ecosystems. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 67: 717–731. Within the IndiSeas WG, the evaluation of exploited marine ecosystems has several steps, from simple binary categorization of ecosystems to a more-complex attempt to rank them and to evaluate their status using decision-tree analyses. With the intention of communicating scientific knowledge to the public and stakeholders, focus is on evaluating and comparing the status of exploited marine ecosystems using a set of six ecological indicators and a simple and transparent graphic representation of ecosystem state (pie charts). A question that arose was whether it was acceptable to compare different types of marine ecosystems using a generic set of indicators. To this end, an attempt is made to provide reference levels to which ecosystems can be objectively compared. Unacceptable thresholds for each indicator are determined based on ecological expertise derived from a questionnaire distributed to a group of scientific experts. Analysis of the questionnaires revealed no significant difference in the thresholds provided for different ecosystem types, suggesting that it was reasonable to compare states directly across different types of ecosystem using the set of indicators selected.
Corporate Responsibility and Its Constituents
Authors: Goodpaster Kenneth E.
Published: January 2010

This article examines corporate responsibility, an issue that has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years. It explains that corporate responsibility can be seen in terms of relationships to various specific stakeholders and the morality of those relationships is certainly an important part of business ethics. It evaluates stockholder and stakeholder views of corporate responsibility and suggests that both views are inadequate and in need of supplementation by a comprehensive moral thinking that makes for a better model of corporate responsibility.
Just Access to Health Care and Pharmaceuticals
Authors: Menzel Paul T.
Published: January 2010

This article examines why access to health care has become a subject of interest to business and its employees, particularly in the U.S. It discusses consumer concerns about the alleged obligations of health insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies to their consumers and evaluates whether such obligations exist. It explores just access to health care and pharmaceuticals from a society-wide perspective and expresses optimism about the possibility of finding common moral ground on today's contentious issues about health care access.
Business and Human Rights: A Principle and Value‐Based Analysis
Authors: Cragg Wesley
Published: January 2010

This article aims to track and evaluate evolving views about the human rights obligations of corporations. It investigates whether corporations have direct, morally grounded human rights obligations and examines the character and scope of those obligations. It evaluates three models that dominate contemporary debates regarding our understanding of the human rights obligations of corporations and proposes a hybrid model that allocates human rights responsibilities to business organizations based upon the contexts in which a business is active.
Deception and Information Disclosure in Business and Professional Ethics
Authors: Carson Thomas L.
Published: January 2010

This article addresses the moral questions about deception and disclosure of information in the context of business and professional ethics. It contends that there are issues that are relevant and argues for the wrongness of a wide range of deceptive business and professional practices. It also suggests that even salespeople and other business and professional people who do not have fiduciary obligations also have substantial duties to offer information and give warnings. It proposes the application of Golden Rule tests for the permissibility of actions.
Informational Privacy
Authors: Spinello Richard A.
Published: January 2010

This article looks at the issues of informational privacy or data privacy. It discusses the problems brought about by the arrival of cybertechnology, which created many business opportunities but threatened personal privacy. It proposes a definition for information privacy and suggests that the restricted access/limited control theory best captures the concept of informational privacy. It argues that privacy is also a moral right and in protecting these rights, policy makers should be guided by principles of transparency and informed consent so that users can properly control access to their data.
Intellectual Property Rights
Authors: De George Richard T.
Published: January 2010

This article examines the complex notion of intellectual property rights and describes the crucial features of trademarks, patents, copyrights, and trade secrets. It evaluates three different justifications of intellectual property rights and discusses the relations of legal and ethical considerations regarding intellectual property. It concludes that although there is general moral justification for the legal protection of intellectual property rights, ethics alone does not decide the issue in many disputes about intellectual property. Ethics can only be of use whether some legislation goes so far as to be unethical but most legislation concerning copyright and patent falls into the range of the morally acceptable.
Conflicts of Interest
Authors: Norman Wayne , MacDonald Chris
Published: January 2010

This article highlights the importance of the concept of conflict of interest to our ethical thinking about business. It describes the progress made on settling various disputes regarding this concept and suggests that the next state in the development of our understanding of conflicts of interest should merge micro- and macrolevel studies with a middle realm. It outlines an agenda of empirical and normative questions that deserve attention in future research.
Environmental Ethics and Business
Authors: Newton Lisa H.
Published: January 2010

This article examines the patterns of interaction between the for-profit corporation and the natural environment and its protectors. It traces the history of concern about the environment and evaluates corporate responses to environmental regulation and other environmental initiatives. It discusses the new ethical frameworks in which the natural environment must be included and the emerging environmental agenda to be addressed in the twenty-first century.
Organizational Integrity and Moral Climates
Authors: Bowie Norman E.
Published: January 2010

This article examines organizational integrity and moral climates in business. It argues that an organization with integrity has several characteristics that distinguish it from individual integrity and that some central characteristics of individual integrity are less important for organizational integrity. It identifies the norms and values that contribute to a moral climate and considers the role of incentives as they support or inhibit organizational integrity. It also evaluates whether for-profit organizations can still have organizational integrity and remain profitable.
Moral and Political Aims of Education
Authors: Brighouse Harry
Published: January 2010

This article examines the moral and political aspects of the educational system. It describes the three categories of moral and political aims of education. The first of these is the aims goals in which goals describe the proper aims of education in the sense that they draw on ideals of what the educated person would be like and identify the values that underlie those ideals. The second is the distributive goals which describe how educational opportunities should be distributed. The final category is constraints which refer to possible disagreement about the extent to which it is permissible for the government to override the preferences of parents to achieve those goals or the degree of coercion schools can use to get children to comply with discipline.
Thinking, Reasoning, and Education
Authors: Feldman Richard
Published: January 2010

This article discusses epistemological aspects of thinking and reasoning as they are manifested in the educational context. It describes two key features that ought to be included in courses teaching the essential reasoning and thinking skills to students. The first feature concerns the nature and purpose of arguments while the second concerns the objectivity of morality. It highlights the importance of teaching students to reason on issues about moral claims and suggests that students do not discuss the so-called informal fallacies.
Why Fallibility Has Not Mattered and How It Could
Authors: Adler Jonathan E.
Published: January 2010

This article offers an account of the nature of fallibility and its educational significance based on recent work in cognitive science and epistemology. It explains that fallibilism is the dominant epistemology in education and explains that the doctrine of fallibilism is an anti-dogmatic intellectual stance or attitude. It criticizes a type of fallibility that can only maintain its antiskepticism by introducing specialized usages for “certain” and “possibility”.
Philosophy and Developmental Psychology
Authors: Matthews Gareth B.
Published: January 2010

This article questions the contributions of developmental psychology to the philosophical understanding of the various cognitive dimensions of education. It discusses Jean Piaget's theory about childhood and evaluates how philosophical thinking might fit into the Piagetian picture of cognitive development. It suggests that we should not allow developmental psychology to structure completely our conception of our children or our relationship with them. It stresses the need to get beyond a deficit conception of childhood by learning to hear what our children have to say and engaging with them in genuinely philosophical discussions.
Caring, Empathy, and Moral Education
Authors: Slote Michael
Published: January 2010

This article argues in defence of the application of an empathy-based approach to moral education. It describes the nature of care ethics as it has developed in recent years in the work of many authors and shows the relevance of empathy to care ethics and to moral education based on such ethics. It discusses Carol Gilligan's In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development and Nel Noddings recent work to highlight some ways in which the relevance of caring to moral education may be relatively independent of questions of empathy.
Kantian Moral Maturity and the Cultivation of Character
Authors: Baron Marcia W.
Published: January 2010

This article argues in favour of the application of a Kantian approach in character education. It elaborates on Fitzwilliam Darcy's concept of truth which means that to be good, it is not enough to follow good principles and to follow them from duty. It explains the compatibility of Darcy's truth with Kantian ethics and suggests that being good involves having the rights attitudes, feelings, and ways of viewing oneself and others.
Values Education
Authors: Oddie Graham
Published: January 2010

This article offers a metaphysical account of value as part of a general approach to values education. Value endorsements and their transmission are unavoidable in educational settings, as they are everywhere. The question, then, is not whether to teach values but which values to teach, in what contexts and how to teach them effectively. This article discusses the contestedness of value endorsements, the place for noncognitive value endorsements in education and the role of inculcating beliefs in education. The article also describes the rationalist and empiricist response problem of intrinsic motivation.
Curriculum and the Value of Knowledge
Authors: Carr David
Published: January 2010

This article addresses general questions concerning the extent to which, and the ways in which, the curriculum is and ought to be driven by our views of knowledge. It discusses the realization of some educational philosophers that the obvious starting point for curriculum reflection is with questions about the epistemic status of this or that form of knowledge or skill. It describes Plato's conception of knowledge and his views on education and curriculum and John Dewey's pragmatist progressivism. It also describes the implications of the key issues of curriculum theory for political philosophy and theory.
Education, Democracy, and Capitalism
Authors: Kitcher Philip
Published: January 2010

This article examines the relationships between education, democracy, and capitalism through the works of John Dewey, John Stuart Mill, and Adam Smith. It explores some basic questions that arise in developing an approach to education within our liberal democratic tradition. It suggests that that Dewey's philosophy of education has the resources to answer a challenge posed by Smith's economic analyses and that philosophers ought to embrace Dewey's reconceptualization of philosophy as the general theory of education.
Mapping Multicultural Education
Authors: Levinson Meira
Published: January 2010

This article examines issues concerning multicultural education. It argues that multicultural education has no independent identity or value beyond the various goals, practices, or content to which others attach it. The article describes the different uses and meanings of multicultural education as articulated by political and educational philosophers, educational theorists, and educational practitioners. It highlights some potential tensions among the aims, practices, and content of multicultural education and reflects on multicultural education's potential practical importance despite its conceptual incoherence.
Prejudice
Authors: Blum Lawrence
Published: January 2010

This article examines the problematic character and effects of prejudice on education and evaluates the prospects for overcoming them. It investigates the diversity of prejudices and the totalistic and selective forms of prejudice and explains theories on the causes of prejudice. It describes educational responses to prejudices via the contact hypothesis and curricular approaches and describes the ideal character of prejudice reduction as an educational goal.
Educational Authority and the Interests of Children
Authors: Reich Rob
Published: January 2010

This article investigates the moral and legal legitimacy of some varieties of educational authority, emphasizing the important but often overlooked interests of children. It argues that educational authority should be shared among not two but three parties: parents, the state, and children themselves. It considers the trilogy of independent interests in education: parental interests, state interests, and children's interests and considers how children might in practice exercise authority over their education.
Pragmatist Philosophy of Education
Authors: Curren Randall
Published: January 2010

This article considers pragmatic approaches to philosophy of education and philosophy. It distinguishes the philosophies of education advanced by pragmatists and evaluates the reliance of these philosophies on distinctively pragmatist methods or doctrines. It suggests that what the pragmatist vision of a science of ethics would seem to condemn most in the present landscape of philosophy of education is recourse to speculative philosophy that impairs the effectiveness of arguments for educational reform by burdening them with unnecessary and contested theoretical baggage, when what is needed is evidence and analysis.
Feminist Philosophy and Education
Authors: Noddings Nel
Published: January 2010

This article examines feminist approaches to the philosophy of education. It suggests that the philosophy of education should be an ideal domain for the analysis and application of feminist philosophy. It discusses John Dewey's opinion that there is a sense in which philosophy is the philosophy of education and that our schools should be mini-societies that reflect our best conception of what our larger society should be. It highlights the efforts of feminists to upgrade first generation ideas on liberal feminism.
Culture, Religion, and American Political Life
Authors: Wald Kenneth D. , Leege David C.
Published: January 2010

This article studies the role of religion in American culture and political life. It uses the concept of culture in two different ways—traditionally and in the discipline of political science—before exploring culture and religion through an alternative framework. Culture is also considered as a source of norms and identities for behavior, and tries to determine how some subcultures are mobilized on behalf of political ends. The article concludes with some thoughts on future research directions in the study of religion, culture, and politics. The concept of American civil religion is discussed as well.
Religion and American Public Opinion
Authors: Jelen Ted G.
Published: January 2010

This article focuses on the attitudes toward sexual morality and educational policy, as well as their linkages to religion. Sexual morality, otherwise known as “pelvic politics”, is first discussed. It looks at gay rights and abortion before moving on to a discussion of the partisan connection between these two issues. The second half of the article focuses on the politics of education, specifically school prayer and teaching evolution and creationism. This article shows that empirical research on the attitudes toward social issues has been productive. It has provided a lot of information about how attitudes on personal morality or attitudes toward the role of religion in public education are affected by religious affiliation, beliefs, and practices.
Religion and the U.S. Presidency
Authors: Bass Harold F. , Rozell Mark J.
Published: January 2010

This article discusses the U.S. Presidency, its subsequent research, and the insights of religion into the institution. It first examines the role of religion on the presidency and the institutional presidency. This gives some background information on the areas presidential studies routinely deal with, such as presidential selection and presidential staffing. It also discusses the faith foundations of presidential policy agendas. This article observes that mainstream presidential scholarship has not traditionally accorded it a great deal of specific interest. However, it is noted that considerations of American civil religion have routinely referenced the symbolic leadership role of the president.
Religion and American Public Policy
Authors: Koopman Douglas L.
Published: January 2010

This article discusses morality policies, starting with its history and characteristics. The next section studies research that is related to specific public policies that fall within the morality politics classification. It then evaluates the relative fit of such policies within the morality politics rubric and addresses extra public policy issues that have religious dimensions.
Antecedents
Authors: Kavanagh Dennis
Published: January 2010

This article explores British approaches in politics over three periods — pre-1914, inter-war years, and post-1945 — and describes their merits. The first period is dominated by historians and a consensus around the Whig interpretation; the second sees the emergence of a number of academic political scientists based in universities; and the final period witnesses the stresses and pressures from the expansion and specialization of the discipline. Challenges have emerged from outside the discipline, particularly from: significant recent changes in British political institutions and behaviour, dissatisfaction with the performance of British political institutions and by extension with the mindset associated with the Westminster model, and the growing tendency to study British politics as part of a European system or polity. In general, there have been trends to professionalization and positivism in British political science. But these forces have not driven out other traditions from the discipline.
The British Study Of Politics
Authors: Goodin Robert
Published: January 2010

This article provides a discussion on the British study of politics. First, it addresses the revolution of 1975. The puzzle of why big ideas do come out of Britain, but there is a reluctance to brag about them, might be explained by the simple fact that there is a live-and-let-live reluctance to try to shove one's own ideas, however big, down the throat of the profession as a whole. It is suggested that UK political science probably is not pulling its weight at the very highest levels of political science worldwide. While concentrating on providing an academic assessment of British political science, it then closes with some comments on the contribution of the profession to British public life more broadly. Much of the contribution comes through deep-background influence on public values and public culture, through media appearances and helping to shape public debates.
Behaviouralism
Authors: Johns Robert
Published: January 2010

This article first reports the three key features of (‘early’) behaviouralism, namely its philosophy of social science, commitment to observable behaviour as the dependent variable in political analysis, and the commitment to ‘scientific’ methods. It also addresses the various reasons why, and ways in which, the British experience of behaviouralism is distinctive. The notion of post-behaviouralism, supposedly a new version emerging in response to potent criticisms of the approach, is considered. While the extent of change has been overstated, the post-behaviouralist critique highlights several criteria for evaluating the behaviouralist research. The article then imposes those criteria on to behaviouralism in Britain, and picks out some of its notable contributions to the understanding of British politics. It highlights the possible ways to improve that contribution further. Behaviouralism is a political science, but it is an inexact science, and in practice behaviouralists are always less rigidly positivist, and less grand in ambition, than is often assumed.
Feminism
Authors: Randall Vicky
Published: January 2010

This article is concerned with the extent and manner in which feminism as a critical perspective has informed scholarly analyses of British politics. It starts by presenting an account of British feminism as an evolving dialogue. It evaluates the influence of feminism on the study of British politics, in comparison with its impact in other areas of social science and the humanities, and even compared with other fields of politics such as international relations. Moreover, the article explores the impact in greater detail, under the heads of normative thrust, epistemology, subject matter, concepts, and methods. It is shown that feminism as a perspective has tremendous relevance for politics and specifically British politics. It continues to inspire scholarly research into many different aspects of British politics, and indeed seems to have enjoyed a recent surge with the emergence of a new generation of scholars.
Biography
Authors: Marquand David
Published: January 2010

The association between political biography and the academic study of politics in Britain varies between the distantly tolerant and the mildly suspicious. British and American readers have shared Disraeli's assumption that the biographer's ‘life without theory’ is somehow more real. Non-academic writers have tended to follow suit. Against that background, this article tries to review the evolution of political biography, particularly in Britain, over the last century and a half. The story begins with the vast, intimidating, so-called ‘tombstone’ biographies of the Victorians and their early twentieth-century successors. There is more than a hint of Carl Schmitt's famous insight that the crucial political relationship is that of ‘friend’ to ‘enemy’, indeed that politics is about the identification of friends and enemies. Charismatic leadership is — or at least ought to be — fertile soil for political biographers.
Constitutionalism
Authors: Tomkins Adam
Published: January 2010

This article reviews the nature of the British constitution, exploring its unusual ‘unwritten’ form, and presenting an account of its main substantive components. It also addresses a range of challenges which the contemporary constitution faces and argues throughout that the constitution is currently undergoing a profound transformation from being a largely parliamentary or political constitution to being a mainly legal or juridical order in which the courts will play a markedly expanded role, unprecedented in British constitutional history. It specifically outlines ‘Europe’ and New Labour's constitutional reforms. The present time is one of rapid and in many cases significant constitutional change in Britain, change which in some instances the Blair/Brown New Labour governments either caused or contributed to but which in other instances stems from different sources not altogether within the government's control.
Judiciary
Authors: Ewing K. D.
Published: January 2010

This article argues that the story of the ‘judicialization’ of British politics is to some extent a story of paradox and contradiction, in which outstanding questions remain on each of the three issues of effectiveness, legitimacy, and accountability. The ‘concept of the rule of law’ was a source of judicial power and a source of conflict between judges and politicians throughout the twentieth century. Two examples are illustrated that show in different ways how legislation may be constrained by judicial perceptions about the rule of law, which may operate to confine the scope of the legislation, and with it the intention of parliament. The effectiveness and legitimacy of judicial review are described. Judicial power formally seems to be expanding in a number of ways. It is true that the compelling need for judicial independence creates institutional and intellectual barriers to the idea of judicial accountability.
Lobbying
Authors: Jordan Grant
Published: January 2010

This article suggests that lobbying has a functional utility within modern polyarchies. British lobbying is best seen as typically attempting to modify public policy in specialist policy debates through persuasion and information. Various types of lobbyist are discussed. The article also addresses the development of professional persuasion. Arguably the press coverage of controversies shows the ‘corruption of lobbying’ rather than that lobbying is inherently corrupt. Moreover, the content of lobbying is investigated. Ivory Tower and Insider Politics are two broad benchmarks against which lobbying may be judged. By the first benchmark lobbying is some dangerous distortion of democracy, but in the second it becomes de facto a contribution to a sort of ersatz democracy. It is noted that lobbying is less controversial in the UK political system if the processes are accepted as being based on a search for consensus by policy-makers.
Britain and America
Authors: Gamble Andrew
Published: January 2010

This article argues that the impact of Anglo-America on Britain and British politics has been profound and persistent, and that it is best understood as a transnational political space. First, it reviews the historical development of Anglo-America and the different theoretical perspectives for understanding it. It then investigates the three key aspects of the relationship — strategic, economic, and ideological — and shows how they have come to define Anglo-America. Despite the ever deeper involvement of Britain in the process of European integration, a significant part of the British political class and British public opinion is increasingly Euro-sceptic. There is still a question as to whether in the long term Anglo-America can provide a serious alternative to Europe for Britain.
After Empire
Authors: Krieger Joel
Published: January 2010

This article examines the enduring significance of Britain's imperial past for understanding various aspects of contemporary British politics. It specifically explores its effects on British national identity and its role in shaping perspectives on globalization and foreign policy, as those policies attempt to modernize and maximize the UK's continuing role in great power politics. It takes up ‘the elusive question of the effects of the end of British Empire on post-colonial Britain’. The end of empire brought new British foreign policy formulations and challenges. The challenges facing Britain after empire may be simply stated: to achieve a high degree of social and political integration that helps resolve the tension between unity and diversity; and to refocus British foreign policy and the special relationship to advance development goals and strengthen multilateral institutions that will serve enduring British interests and sustain a robust international community.
Race
Authors: Hampshire James
Published: January 2010

This article argues that Britain's race relations policy paradigm embodies the anti-racist dilemma in an especially acute way. It starts by reporting the politics of race making. British anti-racist policies recognize race, but they refuse to use it as the basis for certain kinds of preferential treatment. Race relations can be usefully analysed as a policy paradigm. The British race relations policy paradigm has several identifiable features: since the 1960s, British politicians have largely accepted race as a valid basis for social analysis and policy intervention; the form of racism that has received most policy attention has been access racism; and racism has been understood primarily in terms of colour discrimination. The focus on colour discrimination looks increasingly restrictive as anti-Muslim attitudes have developed into an important source of prejudice.
Ageing and Generational Politics
Authors: Walker Alan
Published: January 2010

This article investigates the association between ageing and politics, and emphasizes its dynamic nature. A summary of the new politics of ageing with reference to the macro- and meso/micro-levels is first provided. It also presents a discussion of the limitations of the political influence and potential influence of older people which casts doubt on the popular notion of grey power, and some reflections on the prospects for generational relations in Britain. The article is concerned with public issues rather than personal ones, even when these are political. Despite the signs of growing political participation, the article concludes that the barriers to it remain formidable and that the notion of ‘grey power’ is far-fetched.
Aid and International Development
Authors: Morrissey Oliver
Published: January 2010

This article deals with the evolution of British international development policy under the Department for International Development (DFID). It outlines the changing position of the international development agency within Whitehall and major developments in global thinking on aid and development policy. It briefly summarizes the organization of DFID as it relates to aid policy. It then covers aid allocation for poverty reduction, and emphasizes the importance of partnerships over conditionality. It finally addresses why the DFID chose certain approaches and offers a discussion of current policy statements that show economic growth and, in certain respects, suggest a shift of British development policy thinking to closer alignment with the mainstream. In the period since the DFID was established, Britain has become one of the most important and influential donors in terms of the volume of aid and aid policy and it is this that represents the international development legacy.
Protest
Authors: Doherty Brian
Published: January 2010

This article explores questions related to protest in Britain. It starts by defining protest. Protest has probably increased in Britain in recent decades. There are three main theoretical models that have been advanced to explain participation in protest. The first suggests that protest signifies a fundamental disaffection with the political system and that protesters are likely to be mainly anti-system radicals. A second model suggests that it is those with the most resources who are most likely to act politically. The third model suggests that protesters vary contextually according to the issue and the organizers. The impact of protests is discussed. Protest has certainly been a consistent feature of the development of British democracy since the early nineteenth century, and it continues to influence political culture and to shape public spheres of debate.
Immigration and Citizenship
Authors: Hansen Randall
Published: January 2010

This article presents an overview of immigration, integration, and citizenship in Britain. It starts by offering a brief history of immigration and anti-discrimination legislation in the United Kingdom and by addressing the turn from multiculturalism in the early 2000s and economic immigration. It also explores scholarly interpretations of UK immigration policy as they have evolved over the post-war period. Furthermore, it gives an institutional explanation of British immigration policy's trajectory. An institutional account avoids the over-determination of Marxist-functionalist or critical-race interpretations.
Technology and Risk
Authors: Rothstein Henry
Published: January 2010

This article looks at the character of risk politics in the UK and contemporary governmental responses. It then goes on to consider why risk has become such a significant concept for governance across policy domains and organizational settings, and it examines what this tells about the character and future of UK risk governance more generally. Moreover, the emergence of risk as an organizing principle of governance is described. The article also discusses the factors influencing the politics and governance of risks linked with scientific and technological innovation in the UK. Risk has proved valuable as a way of framing policy problems that reflexively manages the negative institutional externalities of governance itself, and in so doing has transformed problems not conventionally understood as risks into risk problems.
Marketization
Authors: Crouch Colin
Published: January 2010

This article describes the general wave of marketization in Britain. Public services are often considered to have become unresponsive to users' actual preferences. It is noted that marketization moves all assume that the public wants the services in question, but seek more choice and better quality. The tackling of perceived remoteness from the private sector is discussed. It is shown how marketization is a multifaceted strategy. It is not the same as privatization, but overlaps it. Controversy is still surrounding marketization.
Hume
Authors: Garrett Don
Published: January 2010

One of Hume's prime methodological principles is this: where philosophical confusion reigns, cognitive psychology may help to bring resolution. This article tries to approach the question of his theory of causation through two questions of Humean cognitive psychology. First, what is his theory of causal inference, particularly as it concerns necessity? Second, what is his theory of causal judgement, particularly as it concerns the deployment of concepts? The answers to these questions, it is argued, reveal that Hume has a reasonably sophisticated ‘causal sense’ theory of causal psychology that allows him to concede something to each of the following: projectivism, reductionism, and realism. He can do this without falling into a simple version of any of these epistemological/semantic/metaphysical packages.
Kant
Authors: Watkins Eric
Published: January 2010

Kant's views on causality have long been of interest to philosophers as promising an alternative to Hume's empiricist account without thereby falling back into a strictly or straightforwardly rationalist position. Slightly more specifically, Kant holds that a causal principle according to which every event has a cause, or follows according to a causal law, cannot be established through induction as a purely empirical claim, since it would then lack strict universality, or necessity. This article briefly describes the historical context in which Kant develops his account of causality, and then clarifies some central features pertaining to the meaning, justification, and presuppositions of the claims that form the heart of this account before concluding with a brief sketch of how his views on causality are incorporated into his views in physics and biology. Accordingly, the article discusses Kant's views on causality in his pre-Critical period.
Regularity Theories
Authors: Psillos Stathis
Published: January 2010

This article articulates Regularity View of Causation (RVC) with an eye to two things: first, its conceptual development; second, its basic commitments and implications for what causation is. The article has chosen to present RVC in a way that respects its historical origins and unravels the steps of its articulation in the face of objections and criticism. It is important for the explication and defence of RVC to see it as a view of causation that emerged in a certain intellectual milieu. RVC has been developed as an attempt to remove efficiency from causation and hence, to view causation not as a productive relation but as a relation of dependence among discrete events. In particular, the thought that causation is regularity is meant to oppose metaphysical views of causation that posit powers or other kinds of entity that are supposed to enforce the regularities that there are in the world or to explain the alleged necessity that there is in causation.
Counterfactual Theories
Authors: Paul L. A.
Published: January 2010

Counterfactual analyses have received a good deal of attention in recent years, resulting in a host of counterexamples and objections to the simple analysis and its descendants. The counterexamples are often complex and can seem baroque to the outsider (indeed, even to the insider), and it may be tempting to dismiss them as irrelevant or uninteresting. But while we may be able to ignore some counterexamples because the intuitions they evoke are unclear or misguided, the importance of investigating the causal relation via investigating counterexamples should not be underestimated.