State Power,the Politics of Debt and Confronting Neoliberal Authoritarianism

As an intellectual, economic, political and legal project, neoliberalism is not directed towards the rolling back of the state as an aim in itself. While its deregulatory tendencies, its commodification of public services and the undermining of systems of social welfare superficially suggest a generalised reduction in state power, it has been clear from the early 1980s that one of neoliberalism’s primary concerns has been the authoritarian reshaping of state power to engineer particular social outcomes, whether in criminal justice, the disciplining of organised labour, the militarisation of national territory and migration, or the extension and deepening of regimes of austerity. This article introduces the recent work of Maurizio Lazzarato, who has argued that the asymmetrical creditor-debtor relationship is now the archetype of contemporary, neoliberal social relations. Ultimately, Lazzarato’s perspective tends to exaggerate the totalising powers of finance capital and leads him to endorse a form of political voluntarism, which fails to address the role of the neoliberal state as a site for forms of authoritarianism which are not solely generated by the debt relation. As a response, it will be suggested that aspects of Nicos Poulantzas’s concept of ‘authoritarian statism’ can be used to both strengthen our understanding of the authoritarian characteristics of the neoliberal state, and to imagine possibilities for resisting its expressions of power.     

A 26plex Autosomal STR Assay to Aid Human Identity Testing*†

Abstract: A short tandem repeat multiplex assay has been successfully developed with 25 autosomal loci plus the sex‐typing locus amelogenin for a total of 26 amplified products in a single reaction. Primers for the loci were designed so that all of the amplicons present were distributed from 65 base pairs (bp) to less than 400 bp within a five‐dye chemistry design with the fifth dye reserved for the sizing standard. A multiplex design strategy was developed to overcome challenges encountered in creating this assay. The limits of the multiplex were tested, resulting in the successful amplification of a wide range of genomic DNA sample concentrations from 2 ng to as low as 100 pg with 30 cycles of PCR. The 26plex has the potential to benefit the forensic community for reference sample testing and complex relationship evaluation.     

Rail Franchises,Competition and Public Service

The use of franchises to deliver rail services has raised major problems. Franchises restrict competition in the market, whilst competitive bidding for franchises has met with difficulties, notably in relation to risk transfer and the recent use of short‐term contracts that have not been awarded competitively. Further, franchise agreements are detailed and highly stipulative and do not achieve the flexibility and opportunities for innovation originally intended. This reflects an underlying lack of trust resulting from the arrangements adopted on privatisation. By contrast, in Sweden regional services have been procured through contracts with limited risk transfer, and in Italy provision of services has been entrusted to a dominant operator with comparatively limited detailed service specifications; both seem to have been more successful. For the future in the UK, possibilities include greater use of competition, a return to public ownership, regionalisation, and the use of concessions with limited risk transfer to secure stability.     

Independence of the Court of Justice of the European Union: Unchecked Member States power after the Sharpston Affair

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) is the apex of the EU legal order, and is the supreme arbiter of EU law. For decades, it has delivered judgments, collectively shaping European integration and ‘integration through law’. It has undoubtedly been an authoritative leader in entrenching a European judicial culture, and has benefited from the cardinal principle of judicial independence enshrined in the EU Treaties, which in turn, it has insisted on being upheld as regards national courts. Questions have rarely arisen, however, about judicial independence of the CJEU. The Sharpston Affair of 2020–2021 opened the door to questioning such judicial independence. Is the CJEU at the mercy of the Member States? If so, what are the consequences for the EU legal order? This article reflects on the judicial independence of the CJEU, and offers reflections on how it can be preserved in the future.     

UK-Asian strategic alliances in the defence manufacturing industry

This paper investigates the experiences of UK defence managers in strategic alliances with partners from Asian countries. The degree of interface between partners in every strategic alliance formed by UK defence manufacturers can be related to the region and nationality of the partner. The paper highlights the important characteristics which UK defence manufacturing managers seek in alliance partners. It highlights the management differences which cause them difficulties in cross-border strategic alliances with firms in the Asia.     

Choice in a World of New School Types

As school choice options have evolved over recent years, it is important to understand what family and school factors are associated with the enrollment decisions families make. Use of restricted‐access data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study allowed us to identify household location from a nationally representative sample of students and to match households to the actual schools attended and other nearby schools. This matching is significant as previous research generally has not been able to link individual households to school enrollment decisions. Using these data, we examined the role that socioeconomic status, race, and ethnicity play in school enrollment decisions. One of our more interesting results suggests that the newest public alternative, charter schools, attracts families with higher socioeconomic status than those that traditional public schools attract. The attraction of charter schools, however, unlike traditional public schools, appears to be racially and ethnically neutral. Families do not choose a charter school because of its racial or ethnic composition, nor do race and ethnicity within a household influence its choice of charter schools. Other socioeconomic factors influencing charter school choice are more similar to factors explaining private school choice than to those factors explaining the choice of traditional public schools. The findings suggest that policies governing the design of charter schools should focus on broader socioeconomic diversity rather than race only.     

Forensic typing of autosomal SNPs with a 29 SNP-multiplex—Results of a collaborative EDNAP exercise

We report the results of an inter-laboratory exercise on typing of autosomal single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) for forensic genetic investigations in crime cases. The European DNA Profiling Group (EDNAP), a working group under the International Society for Forensic Genetics (ISFG), organised the exercise. A total of 11 European and one US forensic genetic laboratories tested a subset of a 52 SNP-multiplex PCR kit developed by the SNPforID consortium. The 52 SNP-multiplex kit amplifies 52 DNA fragments with 52 autosomal SNP loci in one multiplex PCR. The 52 SNPs are detected in two separate single base extension (SBE) multiplex reactions with 29 and 23 SNPs, respectively, using SNaPshot kit, capillary electrophoresis and multicolour fluorescence detection. For practical reasons, only the 29 SBE multiplex reaction was carried out by the participating laboratories. A total of 11 bloodstains on FTA cards including a sample of poor quality and a negative control were sent to the laboratories together with the essential reagents for the initial multiplex PCR and the multiplex SBE reaction. The total SNP locus dropout rate was 2.8% and more than 50% of the dropouts were observed with the poor quality sample. The overall rate of discrepant SNP allele assignments was 2.0%. Two laboratories reported 60% of all the discrepancies. Two laboratories reported all 29 SNP alleles in all 10 positive samples correctly. The results of the collaborative exercise were surprisingly good and demonstrate that SNP typing with SBE, capillary electrophoresis and multicolour detection methods can be developed for forensic genetics.