The impact of cuts in legal aid funding on charities

This article focusses on the specific impact of the cuts in legal aid funding on the charitable sector. The sector plays a significant role in advice giving. Some charities have the provision of legal advice as their sole purpose, whilst the work of other charities includes the giving of legal advice. Funding comes via a number of sources including legal aid, local authorities and charitable trusts. Whilst this volume highlights the legal aid reforms that will lead to significant cuts in funding, this article notes that charitable providers of legal advice have also suffered major cuts from their other traditional funding sources. Against this background, the article considers the serious and often unforeseen consequences for charities of the legal aid reforms, which go far beyond the impact on the high street law firm and access to justice for claimants.     

Death From Butane Inhalation Abuse in Teenagers: Two New Case Studies and Review of the Literature

The ready availability of butane makes butane abuse frequent. Fatalities are rare. This study presents two cases of death by butane overdose. The postmortem analyses were carried out using headspace gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. It revealed femoral blood butane concentrations of 18 and 22 mg/L, respectively, as well as specific combinations of adjuvants in each victim. In one of the victims, brain and fatty tissue also contained butane, pointing to chronic consumption. The originality of this study is to show that the identification of specific combinations of adjuvants can be helpful for identifying the brand of deodorant used. Also, sampling the skin and mucosa can help identify the method of drug delivery. The histological examination documented both the direct toxic effect of the gas on the respiratory mucosa and signs of chronic abuse. Volatile substance intoxications should be systematically considered in case of sudden death in a teenager.     

Teen Motherhood and Pregnancy Prototypes: The Role of Social Context in Changing Young African American Mothers’ Risk Images and Contraceptive Expectations

Despite the declining rate of teen pregnancies in the United States, academic and public health experts have expressed concern over the still relatively high rate of rapid repeat pregnancies among adolescents, particularly among minority youth. Using a sample of over 300 African American female adolescents, the current study used insights from the prototype/willingness model of adolescent risk behavior to explore this risk. More specifically, it assessed the relationship between entry into unwed motherhood during mid-to-late adolescence and changes in prototypes of unmarried pregnant teens. Further, it explored the extent to which these changing prototypes accounted for young mothers’ later contraceptive expectations. We tested the possibility that social images were affected not only by personal experience (the birth of a child) but also by the family and community context in which this experience took place. The findings show that the early entrance into teen motherhood was associated with a shift toward more favorable prototypes of unwed pregnant teens, but that this was only the case for young mothers in disadvantaged contexts. Given this, prototype changes helped to explain the link between teen motherhood and contraceptive expectations only for those in disadvantaged contexts. We discuss these findings in terms of their practical and theoretical implications.     

Ordinary Singapore: The Decline of Singapore Exceptionalism

For decades Singapore’s ruling elite has sought to legitimate its rule by claiming to be a talented and competent elite that has made Singapore an exception among its neighbours – an exemplar of success and progress in a sea of mediocrity. In this article it is contended that this basis of legitimation has been irreversibly damaged. In essence, it is suggested that the governing People’s Action Party has lost control of the national narrative, and its achievements are increasingly regarded as being “ordinary” by the electorate. The mystique of exceptionalism, which was the basis on which the government was widely presumed to be above the need for close scrutiny and accountability, has collapsed. This collapse has substantially levelled the political playing field, at least in terms of expectations and assumptions. The government can and probably will continue to win elections and rule through its control of the instruments of institutional power, but the genie of scepticism and accountability has been released from its bottle, and it is hard to see how it can be put back in. This fundamentally changes the condition of Singapore politics: the narrative of exceptionalism is dead and the Singapore elite finds itself struggling to cope in a new and critical political environment.     

Enhancing Delivery and Assessment: A Case Study in Module Redesign for Improved Transition Into Higher Education

Understanding student transition into higher education is an important aspect of module design, linking content, delivery, and assessment with a student’s prior educational experience and knowledge bases. However, reflections on how modules designed choices are, generally, not widely disseminated. Here, we document the reflections of a junior lecturer responsible for redesigning a Level-4 Political Systems module and analyze the intentions of change via a transition pedagogy perspective, presenting a program renewal that establishes connected curriculum as an enabling infrastructure for students to actively engage with learning. First-year experience is considered as a major impacting factor of a student’s subsequent success on a program of higher education and the diversification of student cohorts requires teaching staff to consider a wider number of intersectional factors that may impact on a student’s opportunity to succeed in their studies. With a focus on simulations and active-learning, by providing examples of the thinking behind the resultant activities and assessment realignment we hope to provide an example of how a transition approach to a first-year module can be explored.     

ISIL's Execution Videos: Audience Segmentation and Terrorist Communication in the Digital Age

ABSTRACT

This article offers a bottom-up understanding of the media strategy employed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) as it relates to the production and dissemination of its hostage execution videos. Through an empirical analysis of sixty-two videos of executions produced by ISIL in the year following its establishment as the “Islamic State” in 2014, this study examines the videos as a major component of ISIL's media strategy. Through these media products, ISIL seeks to spread a political message aimed at both local and global, ingroup and outgroup consumption through audience segmentation, while striving to influence both local and global audiences through the use and production of graphic violence. This article also discusses the strategy governing the production and release of ISIL's execution videos; how it relies on the global media to transmit its intertwined political and religious agenda in the digital media age.     

Singapore: The Limits of a Technocratic Approach to Health Care

Being a tiny, easily managed polity run by Western-educated technocrats, Singapore is an ideal laboratory for those who believe that there is a “logical” answer to the problem of health-care funding in economically advanced societies. Certainly the ruling elite in this not-very-democratic country is convinced that Singapore is the epitome of a rational, technocratic state in which rule is based on supposedly impartial, objective criteria. The government's achievements in the delivery of health care are at the forefront of its showcase of technocratic achievements. This article uses the Singapore government's innovations in health-care funding as a case study to explore and test the limitations of trying to apply purist technocratic premises and methodologies to governance. The limitations it uncovers raise the question of whether a technocratic approach to governance can ever deliver the promised results and suggests that the attraction of “technocracy” is a chimera.