Search results

The purpose of this paper is to present a “manifesto” exploring a methodological approach to legal analysis, relying upon a morphological understanding of ideology.

The authors explore ideology within law and legal culture. They examine one such ideology – rule of law – and consider how this can shape judicial decision-making. They suggest techniques by which such influences can be identified.

The authors make four findings. First, following Freeden, ideology can be understood as a ubiquitous form of political thinking which seeks to fix the meanings of essentially contested concepts. Second, ideology in this sense forms an important part, but is distinguishable from the wider notion of legal culture. Considering ideology in law as a sub-system of legal culture can therefore be fruitful in providing a rich understanding of interpretive disagreements among the judiciary. Third, rule of law as an ideal is itself ideological, as it comprises contested concepts such as certainty, equality, stability and legality. It can be considered to constitute an internal ideology of law and it can be analysed how the concepts are de-contested in individual decisions. Finally, understanding this can help in the analysis of judgments in areas with high levels of administrative discretion and political contestation, such as planning and environmental law, as it helps us to understand how any particular judge sees the role of the court in its wider political context.

The originality of the authors’ approach lies in the drawing together of methodological techniques and understandings of ideology in, and in relation to, law.

This chapter argues that despite the proverbial claim that populism is ill-defined and has too broad a conceptual net, the literature on the subject tends to converge toward four core elements of populism that provides a conceptual and analytical unity. Furthermore, the conceptual core of populism explains why the concept has been able to encompass a wide range of populist manifestations without becoming an empty analytical shell. Also, the conceptual cores have helped provide the empirical basis that has given rise to a diverse and innovative literature that seeks to measure and compare cross-nationally populism.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the obligations imposing localism and the presumption in favour of sustainable development in English planning law.

The paper uses doctrinal analysis to examine section 38 PCPA 2004 and the NPPF to assess whether the obligations are coherent when considered as stand-alone obligations, and whether they are compatible when combined. Case law and the statutory provisions are examined to assess this. Planning theory is also examined to bring a multidisciplinary focus to the analysis.

The paper concludes that there are problems with these legal obligations when considered as stand-alone obligations. There is imprecision over the meaning of key terms; the “presumptions” established do not operate as true presumptions; and there is an ambiguity as to the hierarchy of norms and the allocation of decision-making control. When combined, the incoherence increases. It is argued that this occurs thanks to underlying disagreements in key concepts in planning theory.

This paper examines the new structures of planning law introduced under the Localism Act 2011 and the NPPF and considers how this structure works in practice. It does so from the multidisciplinary viewpoint of planning law and planning theory and links these two approaches. This is not replicated elsewhere in the literature. It considers in detail the ensuing case law, and the contradictions that appear. Again, there is little surveying the overall framework of planning law in the UK.

This article seeks to investigate the ideological visions embedded in the political formulation of the Swedish drug problem and in the bureaucratic management of the Swedish drug treatment services during the years 1960‐2000.

The empirical basis for the analysis consists mainly of parliamentary material from the Swedish Parliament (403 parliamentary bills, 66 government bills, 198 parliamentary records, 14 government letters and 159 standing committee statements) as well as archival materials produced in the application process of 73 aspiring treatment homes from the years 1960‐2001. The empirical material is partly analyzed from a theoretical understanding of political consensus as a doxa and political debate as permeated by naturalizing ideologies.

The article examines drug consumption as a political problem and its ideological undertones. It shows how drugs and drug consumption often have been subordinate in problem descriptions that have fulfilled other political purposes. Worries about politically radical youth, foreign religions or incomprehensible music have been understood as a drug problem. In the Swedish parliament the drug problem has been described in terms of capitalist class oppression, Americanism or cultural superficiality. Modernity, urbanization and industrialization have also been criticized in the name of the drug problem. In the treatment centres and within the ruling bureaucracy it was also elucidated that the drug problem was an ideological problem. The effective treatment method has been elusive, but the effective method has also played second fiddle in the choice of treatment solutions. Other values have been awarded, such as rural romanticism, Swedishness, solidarity and diligence. Individualism, Americanism and profit making have also been opposed within the ideological treatment sector. At the end of the research period such assessments however became subordinate to an overarching ideological quest to make substance abuse treatment a market among others.

A focus on the ideological content both in political discussions and bureaucratic management might enrich the understanding of both politics and bureaucracy as well as the formulation of the drug problem and the suggested solutions. Ideology is not the opposite of facts or evidence‐based solutions; ideology permeates every aspect of problem formulations and solutions. To recognize the drug issue's ideological disposition should therefore not be seen as way of avoiding discussions about the actual dilemma with drugs, it is rather an opportunity to seriously start a discussion on how to solve the problem.

The analyzing of naturalized and apparently self‐evident ideology as part of the rational argument rather than its very opposite would be useful both for further research on the topic as well as for deepening the democratic discussions on, for instance, evidence‐based methods within the drug treatment services.

Appearance has two meanings. On the one hand, appearance is about the physical qualities of a person being of certain height, weight, complexion and having a particular hair, eye and skin colour as well as choice and style of dress and attire. On the other hand, appearance has a social dimension, as those physical qualities of a person are interpreted, rated and judged, and attributed varied meanings and values across different settings. Appearances can influence the experiences of individuals in the workplace in both positive and negative ways: Positive, when they are mobilised as a resource that increases the influence and advantage of individuals on others; and negative, when individuals are discriminated or disadvantaged on the basis of their appearance. Drawing on a Bourdieusian conceptual repertoire, this chapter delves into this duality of appearance and frames appearance both as a resource (a form of carnal capital) and a source of symbolic violence. As appearance is an aspect of an individual's self-identity in the workplace, this chapter explores appearance and intersectionality across gender, ethnicity, class and sexual orientation at work. Appearance is examined as a cross cutting category of diversity as both privilege (carnal capital) and disadvantage (symbolic violence).

The purpose of this paper is to clarify how L.T. Hobhouse (1864-1929) theoretically contributed to the British New Liberalism, focusing particularly on the issue of social reform in turn-of-the-century Britain.

The question is approached in two ways: by exploring the theoretical structure of Hobhouse’s ethical theory (which can be termed an “ethics of harmony”) through a textual analysis of his rights theory and distributive theory; and by comparing that ethical theory with that of J.S. Mill, T.H. Green and J.A. Hobson so as to identify their commonalities and differences.

It is found that Hobhouse’s contribution to the New Liberalism was twofold, both of which grew out of his staunchly moralistic perspective. Hobhouse showed in his rights theory a direction towards which the morality of individuals should be developed; and provided a guideline based on a notion of justice for wealth redistribution by the state which he saw as a necessary external condition for realizing such development.

Existing literature on the British New Liberalism has paid less attention to Hobhouse than it has to T.H. Green and J.A. Hobson. Hobhouse has been relatively neglected due to a wide-spread view that his role was mainly in his expressing a typical but not necessarily original direction for the transformation of British Liberalism at the turn of the century. Against this received view, this paper demonstrates that Hobhouse made a significant contribution to the socio-political thinking of the New Liberalism by providing a distinctive ethical theory of harmony, which enabled New Liberal protagonists to address the important issue of the conceptual place of individual morality within a programme of collectivist social reform.

This paper explores how European leadership in post-war international trade negotiations has both produced and attempted to respond to systemic conditions of uncertainty. Ostry argues that the initial pre-eminence of Europe, along with the U.S., in these negotiations stimulated unforeseen responses that now challenge the ability of Europe to retain its dominant position. European leadership inadvertently contributed to mobilizing interest groups focusing on the “new issues” of trade in services, intellectual property and investment; coalitions of developing world countries; and new advocacy NGOs (non-governmental organizations), all of which seek to recast global trade policy along lines initially neither envisioned nor necessarily desired by European negotiators.