Beveridge at Eighty: Learning the Right Lessons

The eightieth anniversary of the Beveridge inquiry is a timely moment to consider how the landmark report is used within contemporary UK politics. Calls for a ‘new Beveridge’ reflect a desire for a rupture with the past and the creation of a radical new welfare consensus. But this reflects a misunderstanding: Beveridge's approach was organic in nature, building on decades of experimentation, politically contested rather than consensual, and intellectually pluralist rather than moored to a single ideological worldview. The real insight Beveridge offers us today flows not from his substantive agenda—which was rooted in a particular set of historic circumstances—but as an approach to securing social reform. Successful welfare advances over the last generation have drawn on these ‘Beveridgean instincts’. Rather than calling for a new twenty-first century blueprint to be handed down from above, reformers should build on experimentation and successful incremental change, from within the UK and abroad.     

Peace in the Family is the Basis of Peace in the Country: How Women Contribute to Local Peace in Southern Kyrgyzstan

ABSTRACT

There has been a significant amount of research on peacebuilding in Central Asia in general and in Kyrgyzstan in particular. This has helped us both understand socio-political processes in the republic itself, and the shortcomings of the liberal peacebuilding framework in general. However, this work has, with rare exceptions, focused largely on male peacebuilding at either the state or international scale. Correcting that trend, this article illuminates the role of women peacebuilders in the post-conflict city of Osh. Based on ethnographic research conducted in 2016, it argues that women have a hitherto overlooked but nonetheless important ‘invisible’ role in peacebuilding.     

“What Shall We Do With It Now?”: The Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana and the Difficult Heritage of Fascism

This article uses the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana (PdCI) in the Rome suburb of EUR as a case study to explore how Italians have negotiated the “difficult heritage” of Fascism since 1945. Following Sharon Macdonald, the paper understands the term difficult heritage to refer to a historically significant past that remains materially visible through sites, buildings, artworks, monuments and other artefacts, but which is difficult to reconcile with “a positive, self-affirming contemporary identity”. The paper employs a biographical approach to reveal and analyse the post-Fascist “lives” of the PdCI, one of the most recognisable — and, in recent decades, most admired — examples of Fascist monumental architecture in Italy. With reference also to other examples of difficult Fascist heritage in Italy, and to sites associated with the difficult heritage of Nazism in Germany, the paper offers new insights into how Italy has confronted its Fascist past and places the Italian experience of difficult heritage within the broader international context.     

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.     

Peace education,militarism and neo-liberalism: conceptual reflections with empirical findings from the UK

This article explores ‘peace days’ in English schools as a form of peace education. From a historical overview of academic discussions on peace education in the US and Great Britain since the First World War, we identify three key factors important for peace education: the political context, the place in which peace days occur and pedagogical imperatives of providing a certain narrative of the sources of violence in politics. Although contemporary militarism and neoliberalism reduce the terrains for peace studies in English schools, peace days allow teachers to carve out spaces for peace education. Peace days in Benfield School, Newcastle and Comberton Village College, Cambridgeshire, are considered as case studies. We conclude with reflections on the opportunities and limitations of this approach to peace education, and on how peace educators and activists could enlarge its reach.     

Conceptions of the good,rivalry, and liberal neutrality

Liberal neutrality is assumed to pertain to rival conceptions of the good. The nature of the rivalry between conceptions of the good is pivotal to the coherence, scope and realisation of liberal neutrality. Yet, liberal theorists have said very little about rivalry. This paper attempts to fill this gap by reviewing three conceptions of rivalry: incompatibility rivalry, intra-domain rivalry and state power rivalry. I argue that state power rivalry is the morally relevant conception of rivalry, and that it has significant implications for the scope and realisation of liberal neutrality. I conclude that in the light of state power rivalry, the only feasible liberal neutral state is a very minimal one.     

Where Did All of the Fields Go?

The loss of farmland each year due to development in New York State is astounding. Yet, agriculture remains an important part of the local economy and is essential in providing local food to New York residents. Many land-use protective measures that have been put in place such as large minimal lot-size zoning and agricultural districts have failed to slow down the rate of farmland lost each year. Conservation easements are a vital protective tool, but they require lots of private and public funding. This funding is necessary in order to ensure farmland for future generations. Before it is too late, New York needs to follow the lead of states such as Pennsylvania, which has shown an overwhelming commitment to protecting vital farmland.