The Funding of Political Parties

Despite attempts over the last decade to bring an end to what has become an ‘arms race’ between political parties, party funding in the UK continues to defy resolution. Drawing on the experience of the committee charged by the last Labour administration to put party funding and electoral spending on a more sustainable footing, this article examines the issues and the main sticking points. It outlines the basis on which the negotiations were undertaken, and the main hurdles they sought to overcome. It highlights the disagreement between the parties on the definition of the central issue, the problems associated with the main funding sources for each of the parties, and the viability of state funding. It discusses why success proved elusive, but also why a solution is necessary, since in the absence of robust rules, parties and therefore the UK political system more broadly, are ‘a hostage to the next scandal’.     

What's in a Name? The Nature of the Individual in Refugee Studies

The category of refugee has been problematic for both practitionersand social scientists because it is difficult to define an objectivecategory that satisfactorily brings the real world, ethics,and theory into harmony. In recent years many critiques havebeen made of the assumptions built into the legal refugee frameworkand efforts have been made to refine the concept from multipledisciplinary perspectives. This paper examines several underlyingassumptions of these discussions, including the category offorced migration, through a discussion of the example of Salvadoransin the United States in the 1980s. One assumption has been notedbut insufficiently theorized: the centrality of the individual.The person assumed by both the refugee and human rights regimesof the United Nations is a culturally-specific construct definingthe relationship between the individual and society in a waythat precludes an adequate understanding of refugees.