Embedding employability skills for the legal professionals of the future

This article provides a case study on embedding employability skills into law courses at one higher education institution. The aim of the project was to further embed employability skills within curriculum delivery as part of a holistic student skills development strategy. The authors used the four-stage process, suggested by the Higher Education Academy’s Framework on Embedding Employability in Higher Education to design the project: defining employability, reviewing and mapping current employability skills, prioritising actions and measuring impact. The authors draw out three ways in which the project has wider potential relevance. From an educational theory perspective, the project represents a way to embed employability skills in a Framework for Higher Education Qualifications level appropriate way, through reference to Biggs’ taxonomy of learning. For higher education institutions, the project is particularly topical in light of the rapidly changing regulatory landscape that is becoming increasingly skills focused in nature. It is suggested that embedding employability in law courses now will assist future institutional engagement with the potentially new route to qualifying as a solicitor through the Solicitors Qualifying Examination. Individual law teachers also reported benefits to embedding employability skills in tutorial sessions from a classroom management perspective.     

DEVOLUTION,GOVERNANCE AND THE PEACE PROCESS

Devolution and the associated mechanisms of governance—a power-sharing Executive, elected assembly, cross-border bodies, a reformed system of public administration and civic engagement —are a part of the wider mosaic of peace-building. Their implementation is an attempt to institutionalize stability and copper-fasten a political settlement. This article outlines the changing governmental arrangements existing within Northern Ireland, as it has shifted tentatively away from direct rule. It maps the wider public sector in Northern Ireland, including civil administration (chiefly the Northern Ireland Civil Service), an extended mosaic of nondepartmental public bodies (NDPBs) and other public agencies that, together with local government, form a complex, multi-layered, subregional governance. Our contention is that the manner in which the administration of Northern Ireland has been conducted yields fruitful insights into issues of territorial management in other areas afflicted by intractable constitutional wrangles and attendant violence. In short, an agreed system of governance is integral to the transition from conflict to peace (or at least stability) and, in the case of Northern Ireland, was central to the substance of the Belfast Agreement, characterized by a power-sharing Executive.     

Dealing with sectoral corruption in Bangladesh: Developing citizen involvement

Bangladesh has had a troubled political history since gaining independence in 1971 and is also beleaguered by poverty and natural environmental disasters. In particular however, corruption is blighting its prospects for economic growth, undermining the rule of law and damaging the legitimacy of the political process. This article adopts a sectoral approach to the study of corruption by examining people's experiences of using health and education services in Bangladesh through a large scale quantitative survey. It also presents case study research which assesses the impact of anti‐corruption work by Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) in the areas of health and education. The article concludes that: the poorest in Bangladesh are most penalised by corruption; there are significant benefits for health and education service users resulting from TIB's interventions and there is a need for committed political leadership if ongoing efforts to tackle corruption are to be effective and sustainable. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Procedural justice and the judge–probationer relationship in a co-occurring disorders court

Although a considerable amount of research has been conducted on treatment-based courts, there is little quantitative evidence that describes the relationship between the judge and the probationer. The present study examines perceptions of the judge–probationer relationship (JPR), procedural justice, and outcome satisfaction within a co-occurring disorders court (CODC) in Orange County, California. Based on interview and survey data from a sample of probationers within the CODC (n = 24), this article argues that perceptions of procedural justice are linked to perceptions of relationship quality between the judge and probationer. Analysis of the data found that probationers in the CODC have very positive views of their relationships with the judge, and elements of relationship quality are significantly linked with perceptions of procedural justice. Procedural justice is also a predictor of satisfaction with outcome in this sample. The results show promise that procedural justice and the quality of the judge–probationer relationship can positively affect probationers with co-occurring disorders in specialty courts.     

Civilizing interventions? Race,war and international law

Over the past decade there has been an explosion in literature on imperialism and international law. This scholarship has focused on the use of force, especially humanitarian intervention and the war on terror. These accounts foreground the issue of race, arguing that these legal arguments reproduce the dynamic of the civilising mission. This article argues that such analyses miss some key elements. Contemporary interventions must be counterposed to the First Iraq War, which was enabled through the uncontroversial authorization of the Security Council. Humanitarian intervention and the war on terror emerged in reaction to the fear that other states would veto Security Council resolutions. Consequently, the ‘racial’ discourse around intervention cannot simply be read as ‘othering’ the peripheries, but was also a response to inter-imperialist rivalry. The article then advances a conception of the arguments as an attempt to articulate hegemonic coalitions against emerging rivalries, and reads racialization in this light.     

Social networks and the study of relations: networks as method,metaphor and form

Abstract

Networks have recently become fashionable in social analysis but most of the new network approaches have paid scant attention to the long history of reflections upon the potential of networks as an analytical device in the social sciences. In this paper we chart the developments in networking thinking in two disciplinary areas – social network analysis and social anthropology – in order to highlight the enduring difficulties and problems with network thinking as well as its potential. The first half of the paper explores the uses of network approaches over the past fifty years, situating theoretical and methodological questions in their broader disciplinary contexts. The authors then show how emerging issues from both bodies of work offer the promise of new kinds of networking thinking.     

Design determinism,post-meltdown: urban planners and the search for policy relevance

This commentary explores the roles of planning and urban design in contemporary US urbanization following the global financial crisis in Fall 2008. We focus on the tendency to discuss the planning profession in recovery metaphors – a perspective that has been emphasized in establishing how the profession's past and future relevance may be asserted. In the recent past the planning profession has sought to recover its standing and policy relevance through its contributions to real estate development. In doing so, the profession has gravitated toward design and determinism in order to satisfy pluralist demands within the loosely regulated political economy of neoliberal urban growth. But while design determinism offered numerous practical advantages to the planning profession for the short term, it also served to preclude the profession from engaging with social justice, the social construction of place, and civil society.