Grey Power: Towards a Political Economy of Older Voters in the UK

The impact of age on voting behaviour and political outcomes has become an issue of increasing interest, particularly in the UK. Age divides in voter turnout and political preferences have led to claims that age is the ‘new class’. In this article, we contrast existing ‘cultural backlash’ and political economy explanations of the age divide in politics, and challenge the view that older people are predominantly ‘left behind’, culturally or economically. We show that older people have distinct material interests, related to housing wealth and pensions’ income, that are visible in their political preferences. We argue for the development of a new political economy of age.     

What is the Problem with High Prison Temperatures? From the Threat to Health to the Right to Comfort

In recent years, extreme heat in United States (US) jails and prisons has become a contested political issue. This article takes high prison temperatures, and prisoners’ demands for air-conditioning, as a case to reconsider established ways of thinking about the prison and punishment. Most advocates of air-conditioning focus on the health risks of exposure to extreme heat. This article, alternatively, identifies two limitations of such health-based approaches. First, they re-legitimize a standard of “humane treatment” that allows significant suffering short of a threat to health. Second, they avoid the public’s ambivalence about the suffering of incarcerated people. Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault and Lisa Guenther, I develop an alternative line of critique: problematizing the prison. Problematization seeks to illuminate the logics that channel our thinking in order to unsettle them. I argue that in the present political moment, considering prisoners’ right to comfort can have such an unsettling effect and activate intolerance of the prison.     

Smoke but No Fire? The Politics of a ‘British’ Bill of Rights

This article systematically explores the political context behind Labour and the Conservatives' new commitment to a British Bill of Rights. This is linked to conflicting incentives to resist the current trajectory towards rights constitutionalism (‘Constitutional Freeze’), to further encourage further rights constitutionalism (‘Constitutional Fire’) and to engage in largely cosmetic change (‘Constitutional Smoke’). Ultimately, the latter has proved dominant for both parties. This demonstrates the difficulty of building political momentum behind significant revision of institutional responsibility for protecting human rights in stable, democratic settings. It specifically illustrates the strong barriers which both a hegemonic policy preserving and an ‘aversive’ constitutionalising dynamic must overcome to succeed.     

Voters should not be in prison! The rights of prisoners in a democracy

In Hirst v UK, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the UK must end its blanket ban on convicted prisoners voting. In this paper I argue that the court’s reasoning undermines collective political self-determination by assuming away the essential connection between political citizenship and civil liberty in a representative democracy. I outline a democratic theory of imprisonment and argue that the democratic citizenship of imprisoned offenders is suspended not by their disenfranchisement but by their imprisonment. While many aspects of the UK’s penal practice are inconsistent with democratic self-government, the voting ban is not one of them. I conclude by outlining the numerous rights that prisoners should enjoy in a democracy.     

Learning to live with irregular migration: towards a more ambitious debate on the politics of ‘the problem’

What might be gained by learning to live with ‘the problem’ of irregular migration, rather than attempting to solve it? This article engages two senses of ‘the problem’ at stake: first, the ongoing nature of displacement and migration and second, the contested justice claims that sit behind different policy perspectives. The second sense of the problem (its political dimension) is rarely addressed explicitly in public debate. Yet direct engagement with the political dimension offers the potential to unlock debate from a polarised impasse. To make this argument, I first diagnose debate on irregular migration in terms of three archetypal positions and examine their implicit justice claims. I then argue for a more ambitious debate that pushes contending justice claims to their logical extensions. Debate of this kind requires a more coherent defence of justice claims, whether they are based in communitarian, cosmopolitan, anti-capitalist or hybrid values with respect to citizenship and political community. The article concludes with an illustration of how this approach can generate momentum for less circular, more sustainable and politically achievable policy responses. The argument is made with reference to illustrative examples from Australia and Europe but holds for a variety of contexts where ‘the problem’ is framed in similar ways.     

Missed Opportunities and New Risks: Penal Policy in England and Wales in the Past Twenty‐Five Years

This paper discusses trends in criminal justice and penal policy over the past twenty‐five years. This period has been characterised as a time of penal populism, which originated in the failure of the 1991 Criminal Justice Act, and the competition between the main political parties to be ‘tough on crime’. However, this is not the only trend to be found in penal policy. There has continued to be a strong undertow of support for rehabilitation and community penalties, including restorative justice. There has been pressure from the left as much as the right to take domestic violence, sexual offences against women and children, and hate crimes more seriously. There have been pressures to meet performance targets—which gradually transformed into calls to build the legitimacy of the justice system. Finally, there have been pressures to privatise criminal justice agencies. These various impulses have sometimes amplified and sometimes counteracted the pressures towards tough penal policy. If the period of intense penal populism ran from 1993 to 2007, inertia in the system has ensured that there have been no significant attempts to row back from tough policies, and to reassert the values of penal parsimony. Given that money has been tight since 2007 and crime has continued to fall, this must amount to a lost opportunity of significant proportions.     

How to Build a ‘Beautiful China’ in the Anthropocene. The Political Discourse and the Intellectual Debate on Ecological Civilization

The aim of this article is to contribute to the debate on global prosperity in the post-GDP world, with specific attention given to the political discourse and intellectual debate on ecological civilization in China. I will first assess the national and international implications of assuming that China as a whole is a ‘locality’. I will then focus specifically on one of the most significant political and intellectual debates in Chinese studies today, namely the social and environmental challenges linked to China’s political and socio-economic development. In this light, I will engage with the debate on the Anthropocene - the era during which humans have become an earth-altering force – and its interrelationship with the discourse on ecological civilization. In China, the term ‘ecological civilization’ appeared in the 1980s in the academic domain and was then appropriated by political discourse. This article proves that the concept of eco-civilization, in a similar way to the Anthropocene, has a significant discursive power: it allows for a shift from the binary political economy discourses of ‘growth’ versus ‘development’, and ‘socialism’ versus ‘capitalism’, to the inquiry of eco-socially sustainable prosperity. The final aim of this article is both to offer a more nuanced analysis of the relationship between the political discourse and academic debate, and to substantiate the rhetoric trope of ‘Advancing Ecological Civilization and Building a Beautiful China’.     

(Dis)qualified bodies: securitization,citizenship and ‘identity management’

This article attempts to think citizenship politics in the international security context of a post‐September 11th world. Considering specifically the introduction of biometric technologies, the article reveals the extent to which contemporary citizenship is securitized as a part of the wider post‐September 11th ‘securitization of the inside’. This securitization contributes directly to the intensification of conventional citizenship practice, as biometric technologies are employed to conceal and advance the heightened exclusionary and restrictive practices of contemporary securitized citizenship. The intensified restriction and preservation of particular rights and entitlements, vis‐à‐vis the application of biometric technologies, serves both private and public concerns over ‘securing identity’. This overall move, and the subsequent challenges to conventional notions of citizenship politics and agency, is referred to here as ‘identity management’. To then ask ‘What's left of citizenship?’ sheds light on these highly political transformations, as the restricted aspects of citizenship—that is, its continued obsession with the preservation and regulation/restriction of specific rights and entitlements—are increased, and the instrument of this escalation, biometrics, dramatically alters existing notions of political agency and ‘citizenship/asylum politics’.     

Understanding UKIP: Identity,Social Change and the Left Behind

In this article we explore the structural shifts which help explain the emergence of UKIP as a major radical‐right political force in Britain. There are two distinct, but related, aspects to this story. The first is the changes to Britain's economic and social structure that have pushed to the margins a class of voters who we describe as the ‘left behind’: older, working‐class, white voters with few educational qualifications. The second is long‐term generational changes in the values that guide British society and shape the outlook of voters. These value shifts have also left older white working‐class voters behind, as a worldview which was once seen as mainstream has become regarded as parochial and intolerant by the younger, university‐educated, more socially liberal elites who define the political consensus of twenty‐first‐century Britain. We then move to consider the political changes that have further marginalised these voters, as first Labour and then the Conservatives focused their energies on recruiting and retaining support from middle‐class, moderate swing voters. Finally, we show how UKIP has developed into an effective electoral machine which looks to win and retain the loyalties of these voters. Finally, we discuss the longer‐term implications of the radical‐right revolt, which has the potential to change the nature of party competition in Britain in the 2015 election and beyond.     

Influencing the Penal Agenda? The Justice Select Committee and ‘Transforming Justice’, 2010–15

This article assesses the policy influence of the House of Commons Justice Select Committee, established to oversee the work of the Ministry of Justice following its creation a decade ago. The committee has, from the outset, overseen many contentious policy and legislative developments in the penal field, although none so extensive as those introduced following the formation of the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government in 2010. Despite the newsworthy nature of its business, the committee has, to some extent, operated in the shadows of its high‐profile sister, the Home Affairs Select Committee, and has received surprisingly limited attention from criminologists and political scientists alike. Forming part of a wider investigation into the work of the committee, this article examines the extent to which it was able to influence penal developments during the coalition years. This period is of particular interest given that it heralded the end of the New Labour administration and welcomed the ‘fresh thinking’ of a coalition leadership keen to emphasise its progressive attitude towards law and order. While the committee was able to influence the direction of penal policy on several occasions, this mostly occurred as a result of its proactive or niche inquiries. The committee had less impact when conducting inquiries that assessed the government's flagship policy agenda, however. Such findings brought into question the ability of the committee to influence the most significant justice transformations in this era of new penal governance.     

The Politics of England

Party political interest in the so‐called ‘English Question’ has grown in recent years, due to the enmeshing of constitutional issues with a growing political and public affiliation with and expression of English national identity and culture. More recently, attention has shifted to the decentralisation of government within England. The ‘English Question’ is thus defined by two interconnected but distinctive ‘English Questions’. This article will assess whether, in seeking to find answers for these ‘English Questions’, the Conservatives and Labour are establishing a more distinctive ‘politics of England’. It will first consider the extent to which the politicisation of English identity and civic society have stimulated a more nationally framed political culture and party politics, and then assess whether constitutional reforms undertaken in Westminster, especially the introduction of EVEL, and regional devolution initiatives within England might facilitate greater party political engagement with an emergent ‘politics of England’.     

Why Right‐Leaning Populism has Grown in the Most Advanced Liberal Democracies of Europe

Immigration and new class divisions, combined with a growing anti‐elitism and political correctness, are often used as explanations for the strong gains for right‐leaning populist parties in national elections across Europe in recent years. But contrary to what we might assume, such parties have been very successful in the most developed and comprehensive welfare states, in nations—such as the Nordic countries—with the best scores on economic equality and social inclusion and long established political and judicial institutions enjoying a high degree of popular legitimacy. As argued in this article, this seems to happen because a duopoly of the centre‐left and centre‐right political establishment has kept issues such as immigration and new class divisions off the public agenda and hence paved the way for right‐leaning ‘disruptor’ populist parties with an anti‐immigration agenda in times of increasing immigration.     

The Political Foundations of the Eurocracy

This article explores the politics behind the design of EU regulatory institutions. The EU has established an extensive ‘Eurocracy’ outside of the Commission hierarchy, including over 30 European agencies and a number of networks of national regulatory authorities (NRAs). The article examines the politics of institutional choice in the EU, explaining why EU policy-makers create agencies in some policy areas, while opting for looser regulatory networks in others. It shows that the design of EU regulatory institutions – ‘the Eurocracy’ – is driven not by functional imperatives but by political considerations related to distributional conflict and the influence of supranational actors.     

An Invidious Position? The Public Dance of the Promiscuous Partisan

Public service mandarins were once largely anonymous, diligently wielding their great power behind the scenes while their political masters performed on the front stage. Things have changed. Today, civil service leaders are appearing publicly more often, in more places and to a wider range of audiences than ever before. This article examines the extent to which this decline in anonymity impacts on traditions of civil service impartiality within the Westminster system. It draws on the late Peter Aucoin's concept of ‘promiscuous partisanship’ to examine how contemporary mandarins in the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia face accusations of having compromised their impartiality by advocating for the policy agenda of the government of the day. The article argues that what has changed is not that civil service leaders have suddenly become partisan, but rather that they have become more ‘public’, allowing for perceptions of partisanship to emerge.     

The Limits to Evidence‐Based Policy: Evidence,Emotion and Criminal Justice1

While ‘evidence‐based’ or ‘rationalist’ approaches to criminal policy may appeal to technocrats, bureaucrats and a number of academics, they often fail to compete successfully with the affective approaches to law and order policies which resonate with the public and which appear to meet deep‐seated psychological needs. They also often fail to recognise that ‘policy’ and ‘politics’ are related concepts and that debates about criminal justice are played out in broader arenas than the academy, the bureau or the agency. To be successful, penal reform must take account of the emotions people feel in the face of wrongdoing. Further, successful reform must take into account changes in public ‘mood’ or emotions over time and be sensitive to different political and social cultures. This article argues that criminal justice policies are more likely to be adopted if, in addition to the gathering and presentation of evidence, they recognise and deal with the roles of emotions, symbols, faith, belief and religion in the criminal justice system. It also recognises that evidence alone is unlikely to be the major determinant of policy outcomes and that the creation and successful implementation of policy also requires extensive engagement and evidence‐based dialogue with interested and affected parties. This necessitates a different kind of modelling for evidence‐based policy processes.     

Back to the populist future?: understanding nostalgia in contemporary ideological discourse

Abstract

Nostalgia is regularly depicted as an indication of a flawed political argument or allegiance, and framed as a virus more likely to take hold in places that are ‘left behind’. Its prevalence has been linked to the rise of populism in Western politics, the vote for Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. This paper seeks to challenge the normative depiction of nostalgia as an alien presence within ‘normal’ political discourse, and critically evaluates theoretical attempts to distinguish between positive and negative forms of it. Instead, it sets out to explore some of the different affective, sentimental and ideational roles that various kinds of nostalgia practice perform, and highlights the particular importance of forms of political argument that accuse opponents of nostalgia while simultaneously employing some of its prevalent modalities and motifs. The paper finishes by exploring these themes in relation to the career and ideas of the iconoclastic and populist British politician, Enoch Powell.     

Citizenship,reproduction and the state: international marriage and human rights

The relationship between citizenship, marriage and family has often been overlooked in the social and political theory of citizenship. Intimate domestic life is associated with the private sphere, partly because reproduction itself is thought to depend on the private choices of individuals. While feminist theory has challenged this division between private and public – ‘the personal is political’ – the absence of any systematic thinking about familial relations, reproduction and citizenship is puzzling. Citizenship is a juridical status that confers political rights such as the right to carry a passport or to vote in elections. However, from a sociological point of view, we need to understand the social foundations and consequences of citizenship – however narrowly defined in legal and political terms. This article starts by noting the obvious point that the majority of us inherit citizenship at birth and in a sense we do not choose to be ‘Vietnamese’ or ‘Malaysian’ or ‘Japanese’ citizens. Although naturalisation is an important aspect of international migration and settlement, the majority of us are, as it were, born into citizenship. Therefore, the family is an important but often implicit facet of political identity and membership. In sociological language, citizenship looks like an ascribed rather than achieved status, and as a result becomes confused and infused with ethnicity. This inheritance of citizenship is odd given the fact that, at least in the West, there is a presumption, following the pronouncements of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, to think of citizenship in universal terms that are ethnically ‘blind’, but it is in fact closely connected with familial or private status. These complex relations within the nation-state are further complicated by the contemporary growth of transnational marriages and this article considers the problems of marriage, reproduction and citizenship in the context of global patterns of migration.     

The Left's New Urbanism

The idea of suburbia, or the suburban, or the suburbs, can imply a number of different things. Suburbia suggests a physical place, in general the outskirts of a city or large town; suburban can infer a certain lifestyle; and the idea of the suburbs is often used to identify a community or class of people who inhabit a specific territory. In politics, these terms can also retain various meanings in terms of geography, culture or community. Alongside the ideas of the urban or the rural, they are often used to debate questions of political strategy and shifting electoral coalitions. In this article, ideas of urban and suburban places, cultures and communities are used to consider wider debate regarding future coalitions and strategy within the modern left, specifically a renewed urban politics that can be identified. This new ‘urbanism’ suggests a geographical realignment—partly on cultural or lifestyle grounds—which is significant within an overall attempt to redefine the ‘base’ of the left in terms of class and community. This article considers these issues with reference to what historically has been described as the ‘Progressive Dilemma’.     

'Political Correctness': Pauline Hanson and the Construction of Australian Identity

In Australia there has been a great deal of discussion in recent years of something called ‘political correctness’. This term is an insidious phrase applied to academic humanists, who, it is frequently said, do not think independently but rather according to norms established by a cabal of ‘correct-thinking’ leftists. These norms are supposed to be overly sensitive to racism, sexism and the like, instead of allowing people to debate in what is supposed to be an ‘open’ manner (Said 1994:58). This article asks why Australia has witnessed a backlash against ‘political correctness’ at this point of time. Why has Hanson been able to mount a sustained attack on ‘political correctness’ and why has John Howard's response been muted? The article suggests notions of identity and difference are at the centre of the recent debate — the rhetoric has highlighted the politics of division while obsuring the issues of those marginal to the mainstream.     

Accessing the Corridors of Power: Puzzles and Pathways to Understanding Minority Representation

Three major constraints hinder cross-national comparisons: a lack of data on the immigrant origins of political candidates and elected representatives, incomplete public data on the immigrant origins of national populations or electorates, and cross-national differences in the definition of the minority population. This article addresses these methodological difficulties and the conceptual challenges of studying minority representation. Using public data for a number of West European countries and three ‘Anglo-settler’ immigration countries, it elaborates an index to evaluate representational equity and to compare women’s and minorities’ presence in national legislatures. The index reveals the limits of a ‘national models’ or simple ‘electoral rules’ framework. Future research should focus on dynamics of group mobilisation, ideological contexts and the recruitment practices of political parties.