This book is an attempt to take stock of how some of the British Labour Party's leading interpreters have analysed their subject, deriving as they do from contrasting political, theoretical, disciplinary and methodological backgrounds. It explores their often-hidden assumptions and subjects them to critical evaluation. The book outlines five strategies such as materialist; ideational; electoral; institutional; and synthetic strategies. Materialist, ideational and electoral explanatory strategies account for Labour's ideological trajectory in factors exogenous to the party. The 'new political history' is useful in understanding Labour within a less reductive framework than either the 'high' or 'from below' approaches and in more novel terms than the Left-Right positions adopted within Labour. The book assesses the contribution made to analysis of the Labour Party and labour history by thinkers of the British New Left. New Left critiques of labourism in fact represented and continued a strand of Marxist thinking on the party that can be traced back to its inception. If Ralph Miliband's role in relation to 'Bennism' is considered in comparison to his earlier attitudes, some striking points emerge about the interaction between the analytical and subjective aspects in his interpretive framework. Miliband tried to suggest that the downfall of communism was advantageous for the Left, given the extent to which the Soviet regimes had long embarrassed Western socialists such as himself. The Nairn-Anderson theses represented an ambitious attempt to pioneer a distinctive analysis of British capitalist development, its state, society and class structure.
Although almost all of surveyed graduates (98 per cent) expressed overall satisfaction with the digital skills curriculum and teaching methods, this did not directly transform into job prospects. The generally restrictive policy and regulatory context, alongside ICT-related exclusion, undermined the potential of digital skills training to benefit refugees’ access to employment. While some benefits clearly emerged from the training, a critical evaluation of the
backdrop of a deepening marketisation of refugee-serving aid. It will then discuss the various forms of intermediation across connectivity and skill gaps in current digital livelihoods initiatives. This is followed by a critical evaluation of the limited capacity of these initiatives to negotiate and recalibrate the conditions imposed by the internet economy, including the value of labour it predetermines. Methods The research behind this
acknowledge and incorporate gender but are not reflective of their socio-cultural dynamics, thereby doing nothing to address barriers posed by or against gender norms. Gender Transformative Goes beyond simply acknowledging to critically evaluating gender dynamics in humanitarian contexts. Works towards understanding and addressing power dynamics in the society as manifested in norms, roles, and ideologies. Aims at instituting or supporting equitable systems for gender equality. Outcome Projects/Programmes that challenge ideas or systems that reproduce gender
Jordanian neighbours as clients. It does not free Syrians from the trap of informality, nor does it provide them with a stable income. Younger women who do not engage in ‘entrepreneurship at home’ complained to us that they lacked the necessary skills and could not find childcare. Critical evaluations of livelihoods programmes have led scholars to reformulate the question: instead of simply producing more formal (but potentially exploitative) jobs for refugees in host countries
with economic matters highlights their mutually instituted nature in market capitalism. The second chapter, by Andrew Sayer, provides a critical evaluation of the idea of the market as the definitive form of co-ordination and of the socially embedded nature of market processes. Sayer draws attention, first, to the multiple uses of the word ‘market’ and to the difference between the market in general and markets in particular. The inclusiveness of the market definition determines the scope of what is to be explained and how. As an exemplar, Sayer addresses the
Mobilising the concept of strategic culture, this study develops a framework for understanding developments in German security policy between 1990 and 2003. Germany's contemporary security policies are characterised by a peculiar mix of continuity and change. From abstention in the first Gulf war, to early peacekeeping missions in Bosnia in the early 1990s and a full combat role in Kosovo in 1999, the pace of change in German security policy since the end of the Cold War has been breathtaking. The extent of this change has recently, however, been questioned, as seen most vividly in Berlin's response to ‘9/11’ and its subsequent stalwart opposition to the US-led war on terrorism in Iraq in 2003. Beginning with a consideration of the notion of strategic culture, the study refines and adapts the concept to the case of Germany through a consideration of aspects of the rearmament of West Germany. It then critically evaluates the transformation of the role of the Bundeswehr up to and including the war on terrorism, together with Germany's troubled efforts to enact defence reforms, as well as the complex politics surrounding the policy of conscription. By focusing on both the ‘domestics’ of security policy decision making as well as the changing and often contradictory expectations of Germany's allies, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of the role played by Germany's particular strategic culture in shaping policy choices. It concludes by pointing to the vibrancy of Germany's strategic culture.
Setting the scene for the monograph, this short chapter outlines the importance of the study, its original approach and its timely significance: synthesising and critically evaluating the latest finds from north-western Europe as well as presenting for the first time the original forensic analysis of Manchester’s bog head ‘Worsley Man’, which forms the epicentre of the book. Taking a ‘biographical’ approach to these iconic human remains, the monograph is the first to study the whole life cycle of a bog body: from discovery to conservation, analysis and interpretation, to their exhibition and display, as well as creative ‘afterlife’ in wider cultural imagination. It argues that bog bodies are not a coherent phenomenon representing human sacrifice in later prehistory but instead represent a range of different identities, histories and ends, even if many of these are violent. Ultimately the book defends the special significance of the bog both in terms of its preservative properties and its role as a place rich in resources but animate and dangerous, in the minds of Iron Age and early Roman communities in north-western Europe.
This chapter critically evaluates characterisations of the EDL as ‘Islamophobic’. It outlines debates about how we might define and measure ‘Islamophobia’, focusing on the question of whether Islamophobia is a new, and distinct, phenomenon or consists primarily in anti-Muslim attitudes, which are adequately understood within the existing notion of cultural racism. It provides a detailed exploration of the nature and content of perceptions of, and attitudes towards, Islam among EDL activists and shows how Islam is singled out as a ‘problem’ in a way that other aspects of multicultural society are not. In order to sustain claims to non-racism, therefore, a strategic distinction between Islam and Muslims is drawn; the object of hostility, it is claimed, is Islamic doctrine or teachings not its followers as individuals or racialised groups. However, being anti-Islam does not exclude being anti-Muslim also. Drawing on observational evidence as well as interviews, the chapter demonstrates considerable slippage in distinctions between Islam and Muslims as the object of hostility as well as, especially in the context of demonstrations, the use of generalised terms of abuse towards Muslims.
ITLP_A02.QXD 18/8/03 9:53 am Page 1 2 Introduction John Callaghan, Steven Fielding and Steve Ludlam Interpreting the Labour Party is an attempt to take stock of how some of the British Labour Party’s leading interpreters have analysed their subject, deriving as they do from contrasting political, theoretical, disciplinary and methodological backgrounds. The book explores their often-hidden assumptions and subjects them to critical evaluation. In introducing this collection, we position the various chapters within a wider context and draw out some of their