Britain's coalition government and EU defence cooperation: undermining British interests

The formation of a coalition government by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, combined with the need for important cuts to Britain's armed forces has raised significant uncertainties about Britain's attitude to defence cooperation within the European Union. Since taking office the coalition, while grappling with the implications of Britain's fiscal challenges, has shown an unprecedented interest in strengthening bilateral defence collaborations with certain European partners, not least France. However, budgetary constraints have not induced stronger support for defence cooperation at the EU level. On the contrary, under the new government, Britain has accelerated its withdrawal from the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). This article assesses the approach of the coalition to the CSDP. It argues that, from the perspective of British interests, the need for EU defence cooperation has increased over the last decade and that the UK's further withdrawal from EU efforts is having a negative impact. The coalition is undermining a framework which has demonstrated the ability to improve, albeit modestly, the military capabilities of other European countries. In addition, by sidelining the EU at a time when the UK is forced to resort more extensively to cost‐saving synergies in developing and maintaining its own armed forces, David Cameron's government is depriving itself of the use of potentially helpful EU agencies and initiatives—which the UK itself helped set up. Against the background of deteriorating European military capabilities and shifts in US priorities, the article considers what drove Britain to support EU defence cooperation over a decade ago and how those pressures have since strengthened. It traces Britain's increasing neglect of the CSDP across the same period, the underlying reasons for this, and how the coalition's current stance of disengagement is damaging Britain's interests.     

Multi-actor Initiatives after Rana Plaza: Factory Managers’ Views

The Rana Plaza factory disaster in April 2013, which resulted in the death of a large number of factory workers and injured many more in Bangladesh's ready-made garment industry, highlighted the sustained failure of the government of Bangladesh to address safety in the workplace. In the wake of the tragedy two significant transnational governance initiatives emerged — the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh (hereafter the Accord) and the Alliance for Bangladesh Workers’ Safety (hereafter the Alliance). For the first time, different key stakeholders worked together to address fire, electrical and structural safety of factory buildings. This study analyses the perceptions of factory managers in Bangladesh regarding the Accord and Alliance agreements. The article argues that although there have been significant breakthroughs in terms of developing a culture of safety adhered to by the government and entrepreneurs, the suppliers have encountered difficulties in implementing these initiatives. The limited support from buyers has posed a major challenge for the sustainability of these two multi-stakeholder agreements.     

Firing up craft capital: the renaissance of craft and craft policy in the United Kingdom

Crafts have recently been experiencing a renaissance. This revitalization sees craft increasingly recognised as a growing industrial sector with benefits linked to educational, cultural and economic development policy agendas. This paper engages with policy debates around the place of craft in the United Kingdom from 2010. Drawing on craft sector perspectives and UK government policy initiatives it situates the disciplines and practices of craft within their institutional support networks, organizational contexts and draws attention to the role of individuals in driving agendas. The paper focuses on the national facing crafts development organizations, the UK Crafts Council and the UK Heritage Crafts Association, alongside recent policy discussion emerging from the UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Recognizing that the legacies of past practice often inform contemporary agendas, the paper explores how the advocacy of craft in the recent past has shaped the place and positioning of craft in contemporary UK politics.     

从法国档案审视清末国家认同的重建——以“苏报案”交涉为例

甲午战争后,清政府遭遇了自太平天国运动以来最为严重的一场国家信任危机。为了重塑其政治权威,清政府采取了比以往更为积极的举措,围绕"苏报案"与列强的"争锋相对"正是这一心态的典型体现。本文通过对法国外交部馆藏《1903-1904年"苏报事件"》档案的解读,借助跨文化视角实现对"苏报案"的历史重构,以期对清政府希图通过融入当时国际体系以重建国家认同这一设想的审视,从中可以得出一个结论,即国家独立是重建国家认同的首要条件。     

The Politics of Connectivity: The Role of Big Business in UK Education Technology Policy

Since 1997, the United Kingdom (UK) government has embarked upon a series of education policy initiatives based around the increased role of private interests in both policy formulation and implementation. This article takes a detailed look at private sector involvement in education policymaking and implementation using the current "National Grid for Learning" (NGfL) technology policy drive as a contemporary form. Based on a series of in-depth interviews with key public and private actors in the NGfL the article covers the role of business in the origins, policy formation, and eventual implementation of the initiative. It concludes by discussing the function big business can be said to be playing in UK education policy and the bearing this may have on the long-term sustainability and effectiveness of such policies.     

身似断云零落——20世纪初期新加坡的妹仔

随着华人向新加坡移民的增多,妹仔也成为新加坡华人社会之一特殊群体。论文以社会性别为研究视角,在梳理妹仔研究现状和妹仔习俗流变的基础上,探究20世纪初期新加坡华人妹仔在社会转型过程中的历史境遇,进而解析中西文明冲突与交融背景下性别、阶级、种族等多重因素在政治、经济和社会层面的纠合。在近代社会新陈代谢的过程中,政府颁布废婢法令,妹仔习俗逐渐走向衰落。妹仔习俗作为内嵌于东方传统父权制社会形态的元素,在西方文明东渐的殖民背景下,不可避免地成为中西文明冲突与融合的一个角力点。     

Brexit or Bremain: what future for the UK's European diplomatic strategy?

A major public debate on the costs and benefits of the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union is presently under way. The outcome of the referendum on 23 June 2016 will be a pivotal moment in determining whether the EU has a future as a component of the UK's European diplomatic strategy or whether there is a major recalibration of how the UK relates to Europe and more widely of its role within international relations. Since accession to the European Economic Community the UK has evolved an uncodified, multipronged European diplomatic strategy. This has involved the UK seeking to reinforce its approach of shaping the security of the continent, preserving a leading diplomatic role for the UK in managing the international relations of Europe, and to maximize British trade and investment opportunities through a broadening and deepening of Europe as an economically liberal part of the global political economy. Since accession the UK's European diplomatic strategy has also been to use membership of the EU to facilitate the enhancement of its international influence, primarily as a vehicle for leveraging and amplifying broader national foreign and security policy objectives. The strategy has been consistent irrespective of which party has formed the government in the UK. Increasing domestic political difficulties with the process of European integration have now directly impacted on this European strategy with a referendum commitment. Whether a vote for a Brexit or a Bremain, the UK will be confronted with challenges for its future European strategy.     

Devolution and Parliamentary Representation: The Case of the Scotland and Wales Bill, 1976–7

For as long as devolution has been debated in the UK, there has been fierce discussion as to the representation of the would‐be affected areas at Westminster. That this has been the case is a consequence of Westminster's dual remit as both a state‐wide and a sub‐state legislature. While this dual remit was relatively straightforward when applied to all nations of the UK, it does, however, raise serious questions about the equality of MPs at Westminster in the face of asymmetric devolution that would carve out parliament's remit in some, but not all, parts of the UK. These questions bedevilled Gladstone's Irish Home Rule Bills in the late 19th century and have been a recurrent feature of debate following New Labour's devolution programme in the late 1990s, culminating in the adoption of a system of ‘English Votes for English Laws’ by the house of commons in October 2015. This article looks at this issue through the lens of the ill‐fated Scotland and Wales Bill introduced by the Callaghan government in 1976. It explores the roots of the bill and how, and why, the idea of referring the question of territorial representation, post‐devolution, to a Speaker's conference, came to secure the initial support of cabinet as the best answer to this problem, and why the government swiftly changed its mind. Parliamentary statecraft considerations served to push a Speaker's conference onto the institutional agenda, before ultimately dooming it to failure.     

LEGISLATION AND REALITY: THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE FOR SANITATION AND HOUSING QUALITY IN URBAN WORKERS’ HOUSING IN THE ANCOATS AREA OF MANCHESTER BETWEEN 1800 AND 1950

Abstract

This paper will look at some of the excavated material for British urban workers’ housing, built and occupied during the period 1800 to 1950 in the Ancoats area of Manchester: Ancoats was notorious amongst contemporary writers and campaigners for its poor quality and overcrowded housing. This archaeological evidence has emerged as a result of developer-funded excavations and represents part of a growing body of data collected since 1990 from within many of the great industrial cities of Britain (Glasgow, London and Manchester), as well as excavations in the numerous smaller industrial manufacturing towns of the UK. In this study particular attention is given to the impact of national legislation, private acts and local by-laws aimed at improving industrialised living conditions and the build quality of 19th-century workers’ housing occupied into the 20th century. Using excavated examples from more than 50 houses within Ancoats, it will be argued that archaeology can provide a distinctive and unique view of urban domestic life in the 19th and first half of the 20th century, whilst demonstrating continuity in occupation patterns during this period. The evidence for urbanised, industrial living also compliments the more extensive archaeological studies of manufacturing industry from the period.     

Self-Organization in Urban Regeneration: A Two-Case Comparative Research

Urban regeneration processes in which local stakeholders take the lead are interesting for realizing tailor made and sustainable urban regeneration, but are also faced with serious difficulties. We use the concept of self-organization from complexity theory to examine the relationship between local stakeholders’ initiatives and vital urban regeneration processes. We conducted a two-case comparative research, Caterham Barracks and Broad Street Business Improvement Districts Birmingham (UK), in which local stakeholders take the lead. We analyse the evolution of these regeneration processes by using two different manifestations of self-organization: autopoietic and dissipative self-organization. We found that a balanced interplay between autopoietic and dissipative self-organization of local stakeholders is important for vital urban regeneration processes to establish. We elaborate four explanatory conditions for this interplay. These conditions provide at the one hand stability and identity development, but also the needed connections with established actors and institutions around urban regeneration and flexibility to adjust to evolving demands during the process of regeneration. However, consolidation of such initiatives does mean a challenge for existing structures for the government, market and society that will need to adapt and change their roles to new governance realities. In this way self-organizing processes become meaningful in the regeneration of urban areas.     

Fifty shades of purple? A risk‐sharing approach to the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review

The next Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) will be held in 2015. With unfinished business from its 2010 predecessor, and with no sign that UK national strategy is about to escape the grip of austerity, the 2015 SDSR is set to be more complex and contentious than the government might have hoped. There is a possibility that the review will, yet again, see the three armed services struggle against each other to secure the largest slice of a diminishing cake. The review might also be captured by a fruitless discussion of ‘grand strategy’. SDSR 2015 must avoid both of these distractions. There are four principal concerns arising from SDSR 2010: the feasibility of the Future Force 2020 plan; various capability gaps that must be managed; inconsistencies in the national strategic planning framework; and unresolved concerns about the relationship between society, armed forces and government in the UK. In response to these concerns, the authors argue for a risk‐sharing approach to the SDSR, embracing the widest conceivable range of stakeholders in national strategy: the armed services; government departments and agencies; industry; civil society; and allies and partners. In UK military circles, inter‐service cooperation is known as ‘jointery’ and is denoted by a certain shade of purple. The effect of austerity is to constrain national strategy, just as the international security environment makes ever more demands upon it. In these circumstances, strategic options must be generated by joint collaboration, denoted by as many shades of purple as appropriate.     

'Professionalising' Participation: From Rhetoric to Practice

Local government is increasingly seeking to encourage young people's participation in local government planning and decision-making. This paper examines the relationship between professionals in local government and the young people who are the focus of local government participatory initiatives. We argue that whilst the move towards developing participation initiatives is welcome, there is a need to adopt a process of critical reflection with regard to these initiatives. The case of one New Zealand city is examined where young people express their views on the effectiveness or otherwise of their council's participation initiatives. Our findings suggest that whilst well intentioned these initiatives have had limited success in facilitating meaningful participation and perhaps the participation process as currently practised is in urgent need of review.     

UK cyber security and critical national infrastructure protection

This article is intended to aid the UK government in protecting the UK from cyber attacks on its Critical National Infrastructure. With a National Cyber Security Centre now being established and an updated National Cyber Security Strategy due in 2016, it is vital for the UK government to take the right approach. This article seeks to inform this approach by outlining the scope of the problems Britain faces and what action the UK government is taking to combat these threats. In doing so, it offers a series of recommendations designed to further help mitigate these threats, drive up cyber resiliency and aid recovery plans should they be required. It argues that complete engagement and partnership with private sector owner–operators of Critical National Infrastructure are vital to the success of the government's National Cyber Security Strategy. It makes the case that for cyber resiliency to be fully effective, action is needed at national and global levels requiring states and private industry better to comprehend the threat environment and the risks facing Critical National Infrastructure from cyber attacks and those responsible for them. These are problems for all developed and developing states.     

A Question of Access: Education Needs of Undocumented Children in Malaysia

In 2002, the Government of Malaysia amended the Education Act of 1996 (Act 550) to, in effect, limit access to free education to Malaysian citizens. This means that children of foreigners who do not have proper documentation but reside in Malaysia cannot attend government schools. Those affected are the children of foreign workers, asylum seekers and refugees. This paper attempts to outline the background to the education needs of Filipino children and map out existing initiatives by non-government organisations to mitigate the problems of illiteracy and poverty. It also attempts to describe the aspirations of these children in terms of education. The first section discusses the circumstances behind being undocumented in East Malaysia, while the second section describes existing local non-government organisation initiatives and the challenges such organisations face in providing free education to undocumented children. The findings are drawn from two fieldwork sessions, conducted in 2006–07 and 2013–14. Both research sessions used observation, semi-structured interviews and focus-group discussions (FGD) with children aged 7–17 years in Sabah, Malaysia. This study finds that children are in a desperate situation as a result of being denied an education. While there are non-formal learning centres available in their communities, these local initiatives are insufficient to provide a clear path to education in towns and rural villages.     

'Euroscepticism', Political Agendas and Spatial Planning: British National and Regional Planning Policy in Uncertain Times

Over the last 10 years, European Union interest in planning has increased significantly. Although land use planning remains a function of each member state, the legal obligations imposed by the EU in the fields of environmental law, structural funds, the Common Agricultural Policy, and Trans-European Transport Networks, have all impacted upon the context of the operation of the British planning process. Many of the EU initiatives have had to be transposed into domestic legislation, while others form an important-if oft-times uncertain-framework for British policy-makers. This paper examines the relationship between the European Union's policies and initiatives as they have potentially impacted upon the British planning system and the contents of Britain's national and regional planning policy guidance to local planning authorities in the assessment period 1988-1997. But the Conservative governments adopted a 'Eurosceptic' approach to their relations with Europe and, as demonstrated within this paper, also towards spatial planning issues that caused uncertainty in practice. The research indicates that although the EU has impacted upon British planning, particularly at the local level of government, this has not been reflected at the national and regional levels in planning policy documentation, mainly because of the 'Eurosceptic' attitude of the government. Policy-makers at both the national and regional levels in England, Scotland and Wales are now recognizing the need, however, to keep apace with changes occurring simultaneously with regard to enhanced European integration, and the approach of the Blair government since 1997 has re-focused the relationship between the EU and UK over spatial planning.     

Britain,the United Arab Emirates and the defence of the Gulf revisited

This article investigates the deepening of the UK's security and defence arrangements with the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In recent years there has been a flurry of diplomatic activity indicating far closer engagement between London and Abu Dhabi. Rather than being an innovative initiative of the Cameron government, the interaction has deeper roots, with this article uncovering the importance of the relatively unknown Defence Cooperation Agreement (DCA) of 1996, signed by the Major government. Furthermore, the UK‐UAE defence relationship is shown to have endured beyond the infamous UK withdrawal from ‘east of Suez’ in 1971. The current engagement is, however, more intense and potentially far‐reaching than it had been in recent decades, with the defence sector being placed at the forefront of UK efforts to bolster the relationship with the oil‐rich Gulf emirate. Using official statements from London and Abu Dhabi, this article suggests that the UK‐UAE relationship has always remained intact, although it lost focus following the end of the Major government until the refocusing on the Gulf by the Cameron government. The article concludes with an assessment of the expectations of the UAE, and the strategic drivers underpinning UK policy.     

Substituting for Families? Schools and Social Reproduction in AIDS‐affected Lesotho

Abstract: Families, the state and employers all have a broad if differentiated interest in securing the daily and generational reproduction of society. Whereas in Western countries, the past two decades have witnessed a progressive displacement of responsibility for social reproduction from the state to families, in southern Africa, day‐to‐day social reproduction has always remained overwhelmingly the preserve of families. Today, however, the AIDS pandemic is radically transforming family life for many children, and prompting concerns (arguably a moral panic) about the potential breakdown of social reproduction. Even in Africa, schools have long supplemented families in delivering generational reproduction, albeit geared around the transfer of “factual” knowledge and with a narrow focus on preparing new generations of workers. In light of the AIDS pandemic, a number of commentators have suggested ways in which schools could further substitute for the diminishing capacities of families. Based on interviews with decision‐makers and analysis of policy documents, I explore a number of interventions being enacted in Lesotho's schools. I argue that such initiatives remain small in scale and often justified in relation to retaining children in school. In practice both government and employers remain more interested in the generational reproduction of workers than in daily reproduction. If the welfare needs of AIDS‐affected children are to be met through schooling, there is a need for the education sector's role to be understood in relation to an ethics of care, rather than the functionalist production of a future workforce.     

Who's making UK foreign policy?

The war in Iraq has intensified a debate about the extent to which Tony Blair's style of government is presidential, secretive, ad hoc, informal and susceptible to groupthink. But who is really making UK foreign policy? This article suggests that there is no simple or singular answer since the government simultaneously pursues multiple foreign policies involving different combinations of institutions, actors and external pressures. It then discusses New Labour's impact upon the four interrelated phases of the foreign policy process: formulation, interpretation, implementation and presentation. The author suggests that Blair's government has found it difficult to implement many of its foreign policy initiatives and has relied instead upon three ‘big ideas’, namely, multilateralism, Atlanticism and neo‐liberalism. To date, it has failed to resolve the practical tensions between these three commitments. The final section explores how the demand for open and accountable government has increased the importance attached to the presentation of foreign policy. This, in turn, has increased the importance of the news media as a battlefield on which the struggle for hearts and minds is taking place. Ironically, the government's unparalleled attempts to sell its foreign policies (both at home and abroad) has opened the policy process up to levels of scrutiny that it may not be able to withstand.     

Paradigm Shift or Business as Usual? Workers’ Views on Multi-stakeholder Initiatives in Bangladesh

The scale of the tragedy at Rana Plaza in Bangladesh, in which more than 1,000 garment factory workers died when the building collapsed in April 2013, galvanized a range of stakeholders to take action to prevent future disasters and to acknowledge that business as usual was not an option. Prominent in these efforts were the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh (hereafter the Accord) and the Alliance for Bangladesh Workers’ Safety (hereafter the Alliance), two multi-stakeholder agreements that brought global buyers together in a coordinated effort to improve health and safety conditions in the ready-made garment industry. These agreements represented a move away from the buyer-driven, compliance-based model, which hitherto dominated corporate social responsibility initiatives, to a new cooperation-based approach. The Accord in particular, which included global union federations and their local union partners as signatories and held global firms legally accountable, was described as a ‘paradigm shift’ with the potential to improve industrial democracy in Bangladesh. This article is concerned with the experiences and perceptions of workers in the Bangladesh garment industry regarding these new initiatives. It uses a purposively designed survey to explore the extent to which these initiatives brought about improvements in wages and working conditions in the garment industry, to identify where change was slowest or absent and to ask whether the initiatives did indeed represent a paradigm shift in efforts to enforce the rights of workers.     

Rooflessness in London

Rooflessness in London emerged as a media issue and political problem during the 1980s. While "rough sleeping" undoubtedly increased, numbers are hard to quantify because studies are unreliable, use different categories, and people seamlessly drift from one category to another. This article analyzes the causes of rooflessness in London, focusing on central government policy change at a time when London, atypically among major cities, had no overarching metropolitan government. The creation of multiple quasi-governmental agencies and charities whose responsibilities for homelessness overlap does not help coordination. Many short-term initiatives have been attempted, but solving rooflessness may require more radical changes if endemic homelessness is not to be the condition of the post-welfare state.