Contested Regulatory Practice and the Implementation of Food Policy: Exploring the Local and National Interface

There is growing geographical interest in the nature of the 'real' regulation of the food system. The food 'scares' of the late 1980s in the UK encouraged new legislation relating to food hygiene and safety. Its local implementation created tensions which were exacerbated by the legislative consequences of the Single European Market. In response, national-level regulatory adjustments followed, which introduced new codes of practice and techniques of hazard analysis for implementation at the local level. The result was a consolidation of a system of food regulation that can be applied differentially across the 'tiers' of retailing. This paper explores the regulatory contentions of the early 1990s in the food policy arena and the nature of food regulation at the local level. It advances our understanding of the 'construction' of food quality and safety within the UK. Moreover, we argue that its depiction of the dialectical response between policy formulation and implementation confirms the need for local, as well as national level, exploration of the nature of the contemporary state.     

‘Together apart’ or ‘apart together’? – middle-class parents’ choice of playgrounds and playground interactions in socially diverse neighbourhoods

Taking an everyday life setting, namely playgrounds, as a starting point, the paper foregrounds a nuanced analysis of the internal differentiations of the middle class’s positioning in regard to social diversity. In so doing, the paper contributes to debates on contemporary segregation research, (dis-)affiliation of the middle classes in inner-city diverse neighbourhoods and geographies of encounter. Empirical findings are based on an analysis of the narratives and daily spatial routines of middle-class parents in three inner-city neighbourhoods in a major German town. The findings contradict the conventional wisdom that middle-class parents would always seek a socially homogeneous environment in which to raise their children and show the presence of a middle-class fraction with a collective orientation. The analysis highlights the need for a closer look at playgrounds as a setting for cross-social interaction and, in terms of micro-level politics, a setting to promote diverse and inclusive neighbourhoods.     

A Pocket Borough? Reformed Politics in Ripon, 1832–67

This article examines the political history of the parliamentary borough of Ripon between the Great Reform Act of 1832 and the Second Reform Act of 1867. It challenges the notion that Ripon remained a ‘pocket borough’ during this era; rather, the Reform Act rendered Ripon's politics much more open, vibrant and participatory than they had been during the ‘unreformed’ era. In demonstrating this, the article calls into question the alleged prevalence of ‘pocket boroughs’ in the reformed era.     

The Bang Beggars of Derry city: borough policing in Londonderry,c.1832–70

Was Derry's independent city police force wholly inadequate, was it just inefficient for the suppression of riots; or was it the demonstration of politico-religious partisanship that ensured the force's abolition in 1870? This paper will attempt to explore and answer these three questions. It will also look at the borough force in some detail, examining issues with regard to the force's pay, discipline, its duties and conditions of service. It will not attempt to analyse Derry's nineteenth-century riots or the political and sectarian issues surrounding these riots, except where aspects of these directly affected the borough police.     

基于地方依恋反思旧城更新语境下的失所现象——以天津西沽南拆除计划为例

旧城更新语境下的失所现象不仅是地理维度的人口移动,还有环境剧变对个人、家庭和社区带来的深层社会心理冲击。以天津西沽南拆除为例,基于问卷调查和访谈考察了历史街区原住民的地方依恋现状及其形成机制。结果显示原住民与该地方在功能、象征、情感、社会等方面均存在依恋关系,其形成机制中的关键性因素包括家庭历史延续、日常亲切经验、邻里支持网络,以及时间和记忆的媒介作用。据此认为,旧城更新需警惕社会—空间重构对原住民造成的物质与非物质性地方剥夺,并利用人地纽带提升城市遗产的社会价值。     

A Tale of Two Poll Books – Wareham 1702 and Dorchester 1705

The politics of Queen Anne's reign are characterised as the rage of party; Whigs and Tories contended over religion, the constitution and the succession, and foreign policy. This struggle was taken to the electorate in five elections during Anne's reign, and these raise a question concerning electors’ motivations, the answer to which remains elusive: were they acting according to principle, or reflecting the electoral interests to which they were subject? This article analyses the two surviving poll books for Dorset elections in the age of Anne, those at Wareham in 1702 and at Dorchester in 1705. It focuses principally on the voting behaviour of those engaged in the towns’ governance structures: corporation members, councils of freemen and local parishes. However, it also considers the behaviour of other categories of voter: politicians, the clergy and non-conformists. The analysis shows how electoral interest was mediated through the towns’ governing institutions and suggests that (at least in these two cases) negotiation between the parties had a greater role in the outcome than has sometimes been suggested. It also demonstrates the limits of the electoral influence of the boroughs’ elites: significant numbers of voters were simply not prepared to be led.     

Geoffrey Holmes and the Urban World of Augustan England

Urban history as a sub-discipline within history began to emerge in Britain in the 1960s and early 1970s. Attention initially focused heavily on the 19th century, but the Tudor and early Stuart town also soon attracted attention. Academic interest in the post-restoration and 18th-century urban world emerged a little more slowly, but the closing decades of the 20th century produced a mounting volume of research on the subject. Geoffrey Holmes was one of a group of post-war historians rewriting the history of Augustan Britain and re-establishing its significance in the longer-term development of the country. Though not a specialist urban historian, Holmes saw towns playing a vital part in shaping the character of the period. His research anticipated and inspired many of the facets of the rapidly-emerging historiography on the 18th-century town, intersecting with it in three particular areas. First, in demonstrating the important role played by towns, in particular as the home of four-fifths of the seats in the house of commons, in the broader political system; second, in highlighting the position of London at the hub of the Augustan world; and third in revealing the part played by towns, and especially those who inhabited them, in promoting social change at the same time as securing long-term political stability.