Reluctant Appeaser: Douglas Hailsham and the German Problem 1932–1938

This article considers the ministerial career of Douglas Hogg, first Viscount Hailsham, during the 1930s and, in particular, his attitude towards the appeasement of Germany. Although Hailsham was a leading Conservative in the inter-war period and held key posts during the 1930s, his role in Britain's policy of appeasement has been overlooked. He was consistently wary of the Nazi menace and as Secretary of State for War from 1931–1935 he urged a firm line towards Hitler's Germany. As the decade progressed, however, the inescapable realities of Britain's international predicament drove Hailsham to support the government's appeasement policy, at least until September 1938. Although he forecast the near inevitability of the Second World War, he could not devise a viable alternative to the appeasement of Germany. Hailsham's experience thus offers a significant addition to the historiography of appeasement and to understanding the distinctions between “appeasers” and “anti-appeasers.”     

How best to open up local democracy? A randomised experiment to encourage contested elections and greater representativeness in English parish councils

Interventions aimed at increasing the supply and representativeness of elected officials range from facilitative to the formally authorised. This paper reports on a field experiment aimed at testing the effect of facilitative approaches at the local level based on a collaboration between parish councils and the research team. We randomly allocated 818 parish council clerks across five counties in Southern England, either to receive information and the opportunity for member training for recruitment, or not to receive this contact. We investigated the effect of this intervention on political recruitment. Despite evidence of an effect on use of social media, our results suggest that there are significant institutional and structural barriers to participation in local politics that cannot easily be overcome using facilitative measures.     

War,Aggression and Self‐Defence

In the 56 years of multinational oil corporations’ operations in Nigeria, issues relating to corporate responsibility and accountability have posed a great challenge in institutionalising robust environmental management standards, and getting the MNCs to account. In spite of the developments in the area of environmental management and law, victims of environmental degradation traceable to and associated with oil and gas activities in the Niger-Delta face a great many uncertainties in their quest for justice. This article examines the issues relating to corporate accountability in the Nigerian oil and gas sector, and the components of the uncertainties sustaining them.     

Public interest law revisited 1

This article undertakes a detailed examination of the practical desirability and legal validity of arbitration clauses under the Nigerian legal regime. This involves navigating through provisions of the relevant Rent Control and Recovery of Premises Law. Areas of incompatibility (including those bordering on jurisdiction, penal provisions and enforcement of awards) between the latter law and arbitration clauses are then discussed. Finally, recommendations are made to the effect that the Rent Control and Recovery of Premises Law should be amended.     

Against the Current: Social Pathways and the Pursuit of Enduring Change

Radical innovations and practices frequentlyfind themselves in an inhospitable environment,struggling against the gravitational force ofdominant norms, practices and relations. Thispaper explores the problems radical changeconfronts in its attempts to become sustainable.Against the postmodern valorisation of thetransient and ephemeral, the paper argues forthe importance of routinisation and repetitionin the process of creating and sustainingchange. A metaphor of social pathways isdeveloped to explore how new routines arecreated through de jure (governance) andde facto (usage) means. The paper arguesthat, in contrast to governance, the emergentdurability generated by usage enables routinesto outlive their conditions of existence.At the same time, routines at odds with theirsocial and institutional environment tend overtime to disappear. The second half of the paperdraws on four British attempts to introduce newpathways: lesbian and gay local governmentinitiatives, Conservative education reforms,Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp and LocalExchange Trading Systems (LETS). Through theseexamples, the paper reflects on attempts tocreate more conducive environments, and some ofthe difficulties this generates.