Being Strategic in Partnership – Interpreting Local Knowledge of Modern Local Government

Broad and international literature exists on networked governance which has both described and informed recent transformations in local government. Reforms in the UK have led to the development of strategic partnerships to join up services and solve wicked issues. In Scotland, these are referred to as Community Planning Partnerships. Evidence from numerous studies has highlighted the partial nature of this transformation, particularly around community engagement, with some of the pioneers of this work now questioning earlier assumptions. This article presents an interpretive policy analysis of strategic partnership in Scotland to add three themes to this literature. First, to demonstrate the historical contingency of ‘joined-up government’; second, to explore the practices and meanings used by policy actors to understand ‘strategic’ and ‘partnerships’. Finally, the article problematises strategic partnership working, suggesting that in and of itself it creates effective barriers to community empowerment and even engagement.     

Another white elephant? Youth councils as democratic structures

UK society has probably never witnessed the kind of activism now emerging to tackle the roots of age-based discrimination and inequality. Everyone appears to be consulting and listening to children. The most favoured response by statutory and voluntary agencies for encouraging children and young people's participation has been the setting up of youth councils. This paper considers the extent to which youth councils enable participatory citizenship and democratic participation. In so doing, the commonplace suggestion that young people exhibit a lack of enthusiasm for involvement in ‘political’ matters and issues of local representation is challenged. The concept of active citizenship is mobilised to highlight particular ethical and methodo logical issues that need to be addressed at a local level if successful partner ship working that includes young people is to be achieved.     

Russia and Cuba: “doomed” comrades?

In 1991 Vitaly Churkin, a Soviet Minister for Foreign Economic Cooperation, stated that economic links between Russia and Cuba were “doomed” to continue. This gave a very negative impression of the relationship, but quickly he appeared to be incorrect because by the end of 1992 little seemed to remain of the 30-year relationship. However, as the 1990s progressed, the relationship continued to function and then improve. Fundamental to this were the principles of the realist paradigm of International Relations, which has been vital since the relationship’s inception in the aftermath of the Cuban Revolution, in conjunction with a long-term legacy. The outcome is that Russia and Cuba are indeed “doomed” comrades.     

Existential Terrorism: Civil Society and its Enemies

This paper explores the attitude of contemporary terrorism towards civil society, the intermediate realm between the family and the state that accommodates the free play of economic and cultural forces and individual and group interests. Terrorism now targets not only people and institutions that operate within civil society but civil society itself, i.e., terrorism increasingly targets the very possibility of an autonomous realm of everyday life. This tendency is found in the Islamism of Al‐Qaeda, but also in any group that adheres to the “Augustinian paradigm” of civil society that arose in the West and dominates radical ideologies. An exploration of this situation illuminates both the nature and tactics of contemporary terrorism and the role of civil society itself.     

False Starts,Wrong Turns and Dead Ends: Reflections on Recent Developments in Criminology

The nature and direction of criminology has changed significantly over the past two decades. The subject area has also grown exponentially and become more diverse. New fields of inquiry are opening up as new issues are added to the criminological agenda. However, at the same time there are some unwelcome developments in the discipline that impact on the orientation of the subject and which detract from its overall viability and standing. The aim of this paper is to identify these unwelcome trends in order to contribute to the development of a more critical and coherent criminology.