This book seeks to review the state of political issues early in the twenty-first century, when New Labour is in its second term of office. As part of the updating process it became necessary to choose which political issues are important. The book includes the main issues which appear in current Advanced Level Politics syllabuses. In the case of Edexcel, which offers a specific political issues option in its A2 specification, all the specified issues have been included. The book deals with the process of constitutional and political change which are issues in themselves. It also includes material on constitutional reform (incorporating the recent development of human rights in Britain), and devolution. The book includes the global recession and other recent political developments and looks at the important issues in British politics since 1945. It examines the key issues of British politics today: economic policy, the Welfare State, law and order, environment policy, Northern Ireland, issues concerning women, European integration and the European Union, and the impact of the European Union on Britain. The book also deals with the European Union and Britain's relationship to it. Finally, it must be emphasised that Britain's relationship to the European Union is in itself a political issue which has fundamentally changed the party system.
to turn it into a political issue, which runs the risk of raising the stakes. On the other hand, by endowing the hostages with greater commercial and political value, mobilisation campaigns may serve to protect their lives and pressure those with the power to facilitate their release. British journalists have noted that the lack of information and public advocacy on behalf of aid workers David Haines and Allan Henning, who were abducted in Syria by
.), Engaging Men in the Fight against Gender Violence: Case Studies from Africa ( New York : Palgrave Macmillan ), pp. 69 – 100 . Tickner , J. A. ( 2001 ), Gendering World Politics: Issues and Approaches in the Post-Cold War Era ( New York : Columbia University Press ). Tobin
-established normative framework – the distinction between combatants and non-combatants was theorised by Enlightenment philosophers and legal experts (Grotius, Rousseau and Vatel, most notably). The safeguards granted to prisoners of war by the 1929 Convention were already a part of the 1785 Treaty of Amity and Commerce between Prussia and the United States, and long before the humanitarian conventions were formalised as such, the treatment of POWs had become a key political issue with the
but also to ‘human rights’ and ‘atrocities’ above. This is the first theme I take up: books like these are contributing to the history of what – of humanitarianism? Of human rights? Of something broader than both, like the visual culture of distant suffering? After addressing these conceptual challenges, I turn to some of the substantive contributions the books make to analysing images of suffering before concluding by reflecting on some of the perennial ethical and political issues raised by
Issues concerning women The environment 120 9 ➤ The background and origins of the environment as a political issue ➤ A review of the ways in which the environment became a more prominent issue ➤ Description and assessment of New Labour environmental policies after 1997 DEFINING THE TERM ‘ENVIRONMENT’ The term ‘environment’ is a broad one and we need first to establish which aspects are covered here. For the purposes of this chapter, we will recognise the following meanings. ● Matters concerning the physical environment, including air and water quality
Law and order 6 ➤ Review of the problem of crime in recent decades ➤ Descriptions of the various attempts which have been made to reduce crime since 1979 ➤ Analysis of different governments’ attitudes to crime ➤ Descriptions of legislation passed to deal with law and order issues ➤ Analysis of theories concerning the causes of crime ➤ Speculation as to how law and order issues may be dealt with in the future Before examining the political issue of law and order as it has unfolded since 1979, we need to define the scope of the subject. The following elements
of political issues is revealed in most of the chapters of this book. A great deal of politics is, as one ancient philosopher declared, about defining terms and then applying them to society. There is a statement at the beginning of almost every chapter, for example, that warns the reader that this or that concept is ‘contested’, ‘open to considerable debate and argument’ or ‘a difficult one to grasp
Introduction Rights appear in every plausible theory of justice and dominate contemporary political rhetoric. Critics, as a matter of course, raise two objections to this proliferation of rights talk. First, they argue that no clear justification exists for rights. As a result, every political issue can be turned into a demand for rights. This inflation of rights claims has devalued the currency of
had granted a dispensation allowing them to dissemble during all of that time. Mockery thus highlighted danger. On this definition of ‘popery’, no one was safe. Laughing at this farce relied upon being able to see through ‘popery’ as the Whigs used it. This underscores a central argument of this chapter: stereotypes here did not blinker thought but were a springboard to thinking through political issues. L’Estrange expected contesting stereotypes to be a normal part of polemical discourse. To believe