Search results

In June 2016, a clear majority of English voters chose to unilaterally take the United Kingdom out of the European Union (EU). According to many of the post-Brexit vote analyses, the single strongest motivating factor driving this vote was “immigration” in Britain, an issue which had long been the central mobilizing force of the United Kingdom Independence Party. The chapter focuses on how – following the bitter demise of multiculturalism – these Brexit related developments may now signal the end of Britain's postcolonial settlement on migration and race, the other parts of a progressive philosophy which had long been marked out as a proud British distinction from its neighbors. In successfully racializing, lumping together, and relabeling as “immigrants” three anomalous non-“immigrant” groups – asylum seekers, EU nationals, and British Muslims – UKIP leader Nigel Farage made explicit an insidious recasting of ideas of “immigration” and “integration,” emergent since the year 2000, which exhumed the ideas of Enoch Powell and threatened the status of even the most settled British minority ethnic populations – as has been seen in the Windrush scandal. Central to this has been the rejection of the postnational principle of non-discrimination by nationality, which had seen its fullest European expression in Britain during the 1990s and 2000s. The referendum on Brexit enabled an extraordinary democratic vote on the notion of “national” population and membership, in which “the People” might openly roll back the various diasporic, multinational, cosmopolitan, or human rights–based conceptions of global society which had taken root during those decades. This chapter unpacks the toxic cocktail that lays behind the forces propelling Boris Johnson to power. It also raises the question of whether Britain will provide a negative examplar to the rest of Europe on issues concerning the future of multiethnic societies.

Higher replacement rates often imply higher levels of absenteeism, yet even in generous welfare economies, employers provide sick pay in addition to the public sick pay. Using comparative population-representative workplace data for Britain and Norway, we show that close to 50% of private sector employers in both countries provide sick pay in excess of statutory sick pay. However, the level of statutory sick pay is also much higher in Norway than in Britain. In both countries, private sick pay as well as other benefits provided by employers are chosen by employers in a way that maximizes profits having accounted for different dimensions of labor costs. Several health-related privately provided benefits are often bundled. In both countries easy-to-train workers, high turnover and risky work are linked to less extensive employer provision of extended sick leave and sick pay in excess of statutory sick pay. In contrast, the presence of a trade union agreement is strongly correlated with both the provision of private sick pay and extended sick leave in Britain but not in Norway. We show that the sickness absence rate is much higher in Norway than in Britain. However, the higher level of absenteeism in Norway compared to Britain relates to the threshold for statutory sick pay in the Norwegian public sick pay legislation. When we take this difference into account, no significant difference remains.

This chapter analyzes the decision-making code of Winston Churchill in making four major decisions as the head of the British government during World War II. The study uses the Applied Decision Analysis (ADA) method. The main conclusion of this chapter is that Winston Churchill’s decision-making fits the poliheuristic theory of decision-making.

We use Cross-National Equivalent File (CNEF) data from the United States and Great Britain to investigate the association between adults’ health and the income inequality they experienced as children up to 80 years earlier. Our inequality data track shares of national income held by top income percentiles from the early 20th century. We average those data over the same early-life years and merge them to CNEF data from both countries that measure self-reported health of individuals between 1991 and 2007. Observationally, adult men and women in the United States and Great Britain less often report being in better health if inequality was higher in their first five years of life. Although the trend in inequality is similar in both countries over the past century, the empirical association between health and inequality in the United States differs substantially from the estimated relationship in Great Britain. When we control for demographic characteristics, measures of permanent income, and early-life socio-economic status, the health–inequality association remains robust only in the U.S. sample. For the British sample, the added controls drive the coefficient on inequality toward zero and statistical insignificance.

THE British Tourist Authority, which entered its second decade of operations in 1980, traces its origins to the Come To Britain Movement inaugurated in 1926 by Sir Francis Towle, the managing director of a chain of hotels. Like countless other private initiatives, before and since, this soon attracted government interest and, after a public meeting at the Mansion House in December 1928, when it was agreed that an organisation designated as the Travel Association of Great Britain and Ireland should be formed, the President of the Board of Trade announced that the government intended to ask Parliament for the sum of £5000 during the forthcoming financial year to support the association's activities. The official purposes of the new body, formally registered in April 1929, were to increase the number of visitors from overseas and to stimulate the demand for British goods and services.

This study employs Stein Rokkan's methodological approach to analyse state formation in the Greater Middle East. It develops a conceptual framework distinguishing colonial, populist and democratic pacts, suitable for analysis of state formation and nation-building through to the present period. The framework relies on historical institutionalism. The methodology, however, is Rokkan's. The initial conceptual analysis also specifies differences between European and the Middle Eastern state formation processes. It is followed by a brief and selective discussion of historical preconditions. Next, the method of plotting singular cases into conceptual-typological maps is applied to 20 cases in the Greater Middle East (including Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey). For reasons of space, the empirical analysis is limited to the colonial period (1870s to the end of World War 1). Three typologies are combined into one conceptual-typological map of this period. The vertical left-hand axis provides a composite typology that clarifies cultural-territorial preconditions. The horizontal axis specifies transformations of the region's agrarian class structures since the mid-19th century reforms. The right-hand vertical axis provides a four-layered typology of processes of external intervention. A final section presents selected comparative case reconstructions. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first time such a Rokkan-style conceptual-typological map has been constructed for a non-European region.

In an unpredictable and volatile world, more than ever before we need transformational leadership based on a paradigm of social justice, peace, and reconciliation. Instead, what we are increasingly witnessing is toxicity in the actions and behaviors of leaders and followers. Political leaders in Britain are stirring up division instead of unity and causing serious damage to the fabric of society. Immigrants are a convenient cover for politicians rather than facing up to the real causes of anger in society many of which are due to the corrosive impact of austerity imposed after the global economic crisis of 2008. The toxic political environment is inciting a war on civility.

This chapter uses Brexit, the British referendum on remaining or leaving the EU as a focal point from which to observe the failures of Britain’s political leaders in the lead up to and the execution of “the will of the people” to leave the EU. At this critical moment in the history of Britain, essential leadership characteristics including honesty, integrity, authenticity, and courage are not in evidence.

The final section of the chapter is a call to arms to everyone involved in leadership studies, conflict resolution, leadership education, scholarship, and research to address the question: How do we make an active contribution to improving the enactment of leadership and followership in fractured societies? What are our responsibilities as a multilayered community of practice? Are we really practicing what we preach in supporting diverse, inclusive leadership and followership?

Apart from some minor powers that occupied Egypt, the major ones that occupied Egypt and altered the course of its history include the Ottoman Empire, France, and Britain. The imperial powers entered Egypt because of different motives and drivers. However, none of the reasons was directed at understanding the history of Egypt, the achievements of their past rulers, and crafting a better path for future prosperity from this understanding. They exploited the Egyptian resources, built their home economy, and left Egypt as an exporter of semi-finished goods and an importer of finished goods. Three primary motives were outstanding, among others. The first was to obtain revenue through the imposition of a tax, the second was to protect their home economy by having a continuous supply of raw materials and exportation of finished goods, and the third was to protect the strategic position of Egypt on the trade route to India and other raw material suppliers. Their reluctance to leave the country led to branding some nationalists as unfriendly and preference for those considered moderate nationalists who would be satisfied with superficial power. In contrast, the real power resided in the colonial lords. The imperialists were forced out, leaving a divided country stripped of its past glory. The book chapter discussed the occupation of the colonial lords and what they achieved. The conclusion was that Egypt was not better through its occupation by the colonial lords. The country lost its root in the past, which could have been the foundation for future prosperity.

The aim of this chapter is twofold: to provide a synopsis to the background underpinning Muslim diversity in Britain and to explicate how Muslim schools in Britain are embedded into their socio-political context. The process of migration and the flow of different cultural traditions beyond their nation states’ boundaries into Britain associated with late capitalism create what Featherstone coins ‘third cultures’. The process of moving backwards or forwards between an Islamic heritage, national experiences, British socio-political cultural context and global change necessitates ‘new types of flexible personal controls, dispositions and means of orientation, in effect a new type of habitus’ (Featherstone, 1990, p. 8). Accordingly, this chapter is divided into four parts. First, it relates Muslim presence in Britain contextualizing a history of migration. Second, it discusses British Muslim demographics and diversity. Third, it places Muslim schools within a British legislative context. Finally, it discusses leadership for Muslim schooling in Britain as praxis, in the Freireian sense, involving both reflection and action. This approach places Muslim schools within a socio-political context that includes a variety of contributors beyond those who initiated them.

The current study seeks to explore ethnic diversity in Britain by investigating the strength of ethnic identity and acculturation levels of two British ethnic minority groups – Indians and African Blacks. The study also aims to examine the role of demographic characteristics in explaining the strength of ethnic identity and acculturation levels between the surveyed ethnic groups.

The study utilized a survey research design. Data was collected using a personally administered structured questionnaire from a convenience sample of 365 married ethnic members.

The results of t‐tests revealed that both Indians and African Blacks are strong ethnic identifiers and highly‐acculturated. Further results based on step‐wise regressions showed that age and income offer more explanatory power of ethnic diversity among African Blacks and Indians respectively.

The study highlights the complexity and importance of ethnicity in the development of multicultural strategies in Britain.

Research relating to ethnic diversity in Britain is relatively limited and of the very few studies available, there has been more emphasis on qualitative research approaches. This study also offers findings on ethnicity at a time when there is growth in the population of ethnic markets in Britain.