Canada: The Supreme Court Sets Rules for the Secession of Quebec

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in 1998 that neither the Canadianconstitution nor international law allows Quebec to secede fromCanada unilaterally. Secession would require amending the constitution.However, if a clear majority of Quebecers unambiguously optsfor secession, the federal government and the other provinceswould have a constitutional duty to negotiate. This is an obligationthat the court declared to be implicit in four principles that"inform and sustain the constitutional text"—federalism,democracy, constitutionalism and the rule of law, and respectfor minorities. The same set of principles would govern thenegotiations themselves. Accordingly, Quebec could not dictatethe terms of secession, and one cannot assume that agreementwould be reached. If negotiations fail, and Quebec declaresindependence unilaterally, the international community wouldhave to decide whether Quebec's action was legitimate.     

The Institutional Basis of Secessionist Politics: Federalism and Secession in the United States

According to the literature on secession, the most importantdeterminant of secessionist sentiment is a high level of grievanceexperienced by the would-be secessionist group. However, therationale behind using secession (as opposed to another strategy)as a grievance-amelioration strategy remains almost completelyunexplained. This article contends that the institutional settingin which political conflict and grievance are experienced playsa crucial role in whether secession is conceived of as a viableoption. This contention is tested by examining the institutionalenvironment of federalism and the role it played in secessionin the United States in 1860 and 1861. The United States wasuniquely vulnerable to secessionist pressures—as are allfederal states, potentially—because of institutional structuresthat gave constituent states a high level of institutional authorityand capacity; this, in turn, contributed to a discourse of states'rights that included the contested right to secede.     

Federalization with a Constitutional Guarantee to Secession: Controversies,Paradoxes and Imponderables in Ethiopia

Ethiopia's federal design has a number of anomalies interesting for comparative federalism. The explicit right to secede provided to member states has become, however, real political dynamite in the country. This article deals with this right, its constitutionalization, its constitutional and ideological underpinnings, and its practical impacts on federal construction in the country for the last two decades. It challenges the political expediency views on its constitutionalization and argues that the inclusion of the right in the federal constitution is motivated by ideological reasons. By having a look at the powers member states are provided by this ‘generous' constitution, it reveals its staggering paradoxes. As far as the practical impacts of the right are concerned, the hefty controversy the constitutionalization of the right has continued creating in the country, the article argues, is a significant federal nuisance.     

‘A Nation Reborn’: Right to Law and Right to Life in The Purge Franchise

ABSTRACT

Popular culture matters for helping make sense of our political lives. This article addresses the value of dystopian horror films in challenging narratives about the state. It is situated within broader understandings of popular culture and politics, and specifically within narrative understandings of the state as a performative body. It presents The Purge film franchise as an example of such a challenge to state narratives, and argues that through its distortion of dominant state narratives, the franchise reveals and challenges the intersections of economic and racial inequality in the neoliberal United States. It examines in particular the emergency broadcast featured in all four films, which positions citizens in a relationship with law and life where the right to law conflates the right to life, and argues that the films present an understanding of vulnerability and abandonment that are in some ways already present in the state. It concludes by questioning what, if any, the capacities are for resistance.     

The House of Lords: A Deliberative Democratic Defence

This article defends the idea of an appointed House of Lords using deliberative democratic theory. The analysis suggests that while one might well think that current appointment procedures leave much to be desired, a reformed but still appointed House of Lords would be better at maximising the deliberative democratic qualities of inclusiveness and the scrutiny of arguments than a fully elected one; indeed, that election might do actual damage. It suggests that the debate thus far has been focused too narrowly on an outdated account of democracy, and too narrowly on the peculiarities of the House of Lords in isolation from its institutional context.     

The problem of Defence Intelligence

Abstract

The following article argues that defence intelligence in general, and Britain’s Defence Intelligence (DI) organization in particular, represents an area in intelligence studies that is significantly under-investigated. It makes the case that the significance of understanding defence intelligence and DI lies not only in a general lack of illumination but also because DI is subject to and prompts a range of difficulties and challenges that are either especially acute in the defence context or have ramifications for the wider intelligence community that remain to be fully appreciated. Particular attention is given to DI’s remit being divided between Ministry of Defence and national requirements, problems of fixed-sum resourcing an intelligence function with national responsibilities that is subordinate to Departmental spending structures and priorities, fraught positioning of defence intelligence in Departmental line management and, finally, a chronic lack of public or official interest or scrutiny. The article concludes that the UK’s experience has echoes elsewhere, notably in the US, and that wider international study of defence intelligence is both long overdue and may have implications for understanding of national and wider intelligence institutions and processes.     

The Evolving Right to Travel: Saenz v. Roe

Although the 1996 federal welfare-reform law shifted more authorityfor welfare policy to the states-including authority to providelower benefits to new state-residents than to longer term residents-theU. S. Supreme Court's decision in Saenz v. Roe delineates alimit on that authority, namely, that states cannot discriminateagainst citizens based on their length of in-state residency.The Court's reliance on the Fourteenth Amendment's privilegesor immunities clause in Saenz, while surprising after its longdormancy, is not a departure from prior precedent. What remainsto be seen is whether states will attempt to avoid the decision'simplications by adopting new variations on residency laws, andwhether the revival of the privileges or immunities clause willlead to a rearticulalion of individual civil rights, based ona new understanding of national citizenship.     

The cult of the victim: an analysis of the collective identity of the English Defence League

Since its creation in 2009 the English Defence League has become the largest street-based social movement in contemporary Britain. Its demonstrations have led to violence and community tensions in town and city centres throughout the country. While these street demonstrations have attracted some attention in academia, as of yet there has been no attempt to analyse the statements of the EDL as an organization. Oaten analyses the EDL's outgoing communicative transmissions and argues that the EDL as a movement is based on a sense of collective victimhood. By drawing on conceptions of collective victimhood from post-conflict studies, he suggests that only by understanding the EDL's collective victimhood can we understand its anti-Muslim and anti-establishment stance. His article stresses that collective victimhood is a zero sum identity, and highlights the fact that, as such, the EDL and its members continuously seek to portray themselves as the ‘true’ victims of abuse by government and British Muslims. Oaten concludes, in light of EDL leader Tommy Robinson's departure, by looking at the potential future trajectories of the EDL. He argues that, despite the fact that Robinson was central to the movement's collective victimhood frame of reference, the EDL continues to utilize the collective victimhood narrative in order to explain Robinson's departure. This suggests that collective victimhood had become a powerful category of self-identification for the movement, and that the movement can continue without Robinson.     

The Right to Have Rights as a Right to Enter: Addressing a Lacuna in the International Refugee Protection Regime

This paper draws upon Hannah Arendt's idea of the 'right to have rights' to critique the current protection gap faced by refugees today. While refugees are protected from refoulement once they make it to the jurisdiction or territory of a state, they face an ever-increasing array of non-entrée policies designed to stymie access to state territory. Without being able to enter a state capable of securing their claims to safety and dignity, refugees cannot achieve the rights which ought to be afforded to them under international law. Drawing upon both legal theory and political philosophy, this paper argues that refugees today, just as the stateless in Arendt’s time, must be afforded the ‘right to have rights’, understood as a right to enter state territory.     

Introduction: In Defence of Politics

In a world that is increasingly dominated by literary hyperbole there can be no doubt that Bernard Crick's In Defence of Politics remains a classic text. Classic not just in the sense that it provides a masterly account of the essence, meaning and fragility of democratic politics but classic in the sense that it is written with a style, verve and passion that is rarely found within political science. If the test of pretensions to ‘a classic’ status is that a book defies the passage of time in terms of significance and argument then Crick's Defence would also make the grade for the simple fact that its arguments remain arguably far more important today than they were when they were first published exactly fifty years ago. This article reflects on the contemporary significance of Crick's Defence by defending politics against an updated set of adversaries in the form of: public expectations, marketisation, depoliticisation, the media, and crises before locating the book within the contours of current debates about public disengagement, the rise of ‘disaffected democrats’ and questions concerning the future and relevance of political science.