UK Government Policy,Credit Unions,and Payday Loans

This article outlines how successive UK governments’ policies first created a three-tier system of credit unions and then posited credit unions as alternatives to payday lenders. The three-tier framework is used for an analysis of loans offered on credit union websites. The findings indicate that while the first two tiers of credit unions now offer loans to people who have not saved with them previously, they do so in ways consistent with credit unions’ original character, rather than in ways that replicate commercial payday loans. The other tier of credit unions appears unable to offer such loans.     

The re‐equilibration of democracy in inter‐war Ireland

This article examines the process of democratic stabilization in inter‐war Ireland. The Irish case is a classic example of what Linz calls re‐equilibration. Re‐equilibration is a political process that, following a crisis which has seriously endangered democratic institutions, results in their continued existence at the same or higher levels of effectiveness and legitimacy. The contention of the article is that the Fianna Fáil party's transformation of the democratic institutions of the Irish Free State in the 1930s constituted a case of democratic re‐equilibration, whereby the institutions of independent Ireland were given a greater degree of effectiveness and legitimacy. Indeed, since the main Irish parties had only recently been involved in a civil war, the Irish example could well be the classic case of re‐equilibration this century. The analysis of democratic re‐equilibration between 1922 and 1937 focuses on the Fianna Fáil party's transformation from being a semi‐loyal opposition party to being a party of government, emphasizing the impact on those political actors who remained hostile to the existence of the Free State.     

Sex offender programmes: New technology coping with old ethics

Abstract

Sex offender treatment programmes offer new technologies for dealing with a serious social problem but demand the sacrifice of many traditional principles of mental health ethics, such as the therapist's obligation to give primacy to the client's interest and the therapist's duties to maintain confidentiality, use non-coercive treatment and offer a choice of therapies in all but exceptional circumstances. Recognizing that such programmes are, in fact, a form of punishment enables the formulation of more consistent and practical ethical guidelines for therapists attempting interventions with sex offenders. An example of how such guidelines could be developed uses a consequentialist justification for punishment which targets the protection of human rights, rather than crime prevention, as its goal.     

“When perhaps the real problem is money itself!”: the practical materiality of Bitcoin

This paper investigates the semiotics of Bitcoin, an electronic cash system that uses decentralized networking to enable irreversible payments. For enthusiasts, Bitcoin provides an alternative to currencies and payment systems that are seen to threaten users' privacy, limit personal liberty, and undermine the value of money through state and corporate oversight. Bitcoin's promise lies in its apparent capacity to resolve these concerns not through regulatory institutions or interpersonal trust, but through its cryptographic protocols. We characterize this semiotics as a “practical materialism” and suggest it replays debates about privacy, labor, and value.