The European Union as an opportunity: structures and uses of European soft law in French,Austrian and Irish eHealth policies

Abstract

Does European soft law matter? In order to answer this question, the article investigates the processes through which the European Union (EU) affects domestic politics and policies in the eHealth sector in France, Austria and Ireland. More precisely, it shows how the hardening of EU soft law creates a new rationale for the use of European instruments by domestic actors, thus expanding their strategic opportunities for policy making at the national level. Despite the empirical diversity of the cases, similar patterns of variation in Europeanisation mechanisms emerge over time, and the data show how the varying structure of European soft instruments (i.e. their degrees of ‘hardness’) accounts for these changes. This comparative analysis includes multiple process-tracing cases of eHealth public policy making in France, Austria and Ireland in which Europeanisation processes are at work.     

The pedagogy of legal reasoning: democracy,discourse and community

Learning legal reasoning is a central part of any undergraduate law degree and remains a threshold concept: one which is vital for any law student to grasp, but which is often difficult to explain. It is a form of reasoning which is very distinctive to the discipline. This article explores the applicability of learning theories typically used to ground pedagogy in higher education to the specific task of teaching legal reasoning. Constructivist or experiential theories of learning are widely used in higher education, but they need to be used with a clear focus on the specific nature of legal reasoning, which does not fit neatly within the assumptions about learning which underpin many constructivist approaches. Situated learning theories, which place emphasis on the role of the community in constructing knowledge, can also be of value. However, steps need to be taken to avoid replicating the hierarchy of the legal community within educational communities. Overall, the pedagogy of legal reasoning needs to pay attention to the specific nature of legal reasoning, to enable students to access the discourse of the legal community to use as a model, and to take students seriously as members of that community.     

Trace analysis of urea nitrate by liquid chromatography-UV/fluorescence

In this paper we have adapted a technique, previously used to determine the presence of urea in aqueous samples of wine and urine, to detect trace levels of urea nitrate explosives. The procedure involves the reaction of the uronium ion (protonated urea) with a fluorophore, xanthydrol. By modification of the procedure to utilize non-aqueous reagents, in neutral conditions, it can be made specific to the presence of the urea nitrate ion pair. The procedure includes selective detection of derivatization products by UV and fluorescence following separation by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). Analytical method development included optimization of HPLC conditions (solvent, gradient), UV and fluorescence wavelengths, and derivatization parameters (xanthydrol amount, reaction times, temperature). The extraction of urea nitrate from surfaces was also investigated and optimized. For best quantification, it was shown that an internal standard was required; this resulted in a quantification limit around 0.17mM (21mg/L). The entire procedure could be performed in less than 30min per sample and potential interferences such as ammonium, nitrate, and urea did not produce a response under standard conditions.     

Contesting the ‘Active’ in active citizenship: youth activism in Cape Town,South Africa

ABSTRACT

In post-apartheid South Africa, efforts to encourage practices of citizenship and new citizens who will act in ways that support communities and the nation are promoted by government policies and networks of international organizations, civil society groups, and NGOs. In this paper, we analyse the pedagogy of citizenship that is common in these efforts and the role of ‘active citizenship’ within it. Relying on interviews with leaders of NGOs and activist groups and on participatory research with six organizations, we examine the ways in which different meanings and aspects of active citizenship are mobilized. Active citizenship is often dismissed depoliticizing citizenship and dampening dissent. The activists we interviewed and with whom we worked, however, challenge that critique. A central issue in our analysis are competing views as to whether active citizenship should be evaluated in terms of ‘effectiveness’ or ‘disruption.’ While some agents might incline toward effective and incremental change, many youth activists understand active citizenship as a tool that enables radical, disruptive acts capable of decolonizing South African society. Their use of active citizenship points to the need to avoid conflating citizenship with particular political goals and to not assume that active citizenship is necessarily and unequivocally enrolled in post-political consensus.     

Intimate Encounters with the State in Post-War Luanda,Angola

Abstract

Since the end of the war in 2002, Luanda has become an iconic site of urban transformation in the context of a particularly entrenched oligarchic regime. In practice however, urban dwellers are often confronted with a ‘deregulated system’ that fails to advance a coherent developmental agenda. The paper narrates the trajectory of a family forcibly removed from the old city to the periphery. It shows how city-dwellers experience the control of the party-state through a series of encounters with authority across the city. Questioning the intentionality of a state that appears at the same time omnipotent and elusive, openly violent and subtly hegemonic, the paper reveals the fine mechanisms through which consent is fabricated in the intimacy of the family.     

Attachment and the Development of Depressive Symptoms in Adolescence: The Role of Regulating Positive and Negative Affect

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Although widely accepted, attachment theory’s hypothesis that insecure attachment is associated with the development of depressive symptoms through emotion...     

Correction to: Feminist Judgments Projects at the Intersection

Feminist Legal Studies - In the original publication of the article, errors in the production stages resulted in Vanessa Munro being listed as sole author.