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The United Kingdom should now be understood as a counter-terrorist state, that is a state in which counter-terrorism law, policy, discourse, and operations are mainstreamed across the domains of law and government in forms that are conceptualised and designed as ‘permanent’ in at least some cases; in which non-state actors are responsibilised for counter-terrorism; and in which all persons are the subjects of counter-terrorism, although not to equal degrees. This book argues that counter-terrorism review—which it defines as the legal, political, and policy processes that consider the application and impacts of counter-terrorism law and policy in theory as well as in practice, with a view to assessing its merits and contributing towards its improvement—has the capacity to enhance accountability in the counter-terrorist state. Building on exclusive interviews with political actors and practitioners, as well as detailed empirical analysis of existing reviews—it presents the first comprehensive, critical analysis of counter-terrorism review in the United Kingdom. While this reveals substantial pockets of good practice, it also shows that the accountability enhancing potential of counter-terrorism review is limited in practice by executive domination, parliamentary limitations, persistent state secrecy, and the absence of trust in the counter-terrorist state.

A common misunderstanding of the Abortion Act 1967 is that it granted women the ‘right’ to access abortion. In reality, there is no such thing; the current provision of abortion in the United Kingdom rests on a system in which doctors, not women, are the arbiters of abortion access. In recent years, calls for the full decriminalisation of abortion have been given a vigour not seen before. For the first time, MPs and medical associations have moved to back decriminalisation, in line with the demands of pro-choice campaigners across the UK. But at the same time, opponents are mobilising to undermine public faith in both the Abortion Act and abortion providers. In doing so, they have tended to set aside the classic ‘right to life’ arguments, instead focusing on issues such as sex-selective abortion and disability rights. This book makes sense of today’s changed landscape of abortion debate by tracing the evolution of political and parliamentary discourse on abortion from the passage of the Abortion Act in the 1960s to the present. It makes the case that to understand contemporary abortion politics, it is necessary to move beyond a conceptualisation of the debate as characterised by ‘pro-choice’ versus ‘pro-life’.

Child poverty is rising across affluent western societies and how it is measured is vital to how governments act to prevent, alleviate or eliminate it. While the roots of childhood poverty are fiercely debated and contested, they are all too often misrepresented in policy and media discourses. Seeking to redress this, Treanor places children’s experiences, needs and concerns at the centre of this critical examination of the contemporary policies and political discourses surrounding poverty in childhood. She examines a broad range of structural, institutional and ideological factors common across developed nations, and their impacts, to interrogate how poverty in childhood is conceptualised and operationalised in policy and forge a radical pathway for an alternative future.

The issue of child sexual exploitation (CSE) is firmly in the public spotlight internationally and in the UK, but just how well is it understood? To date, many CSE-related services have been developed in reaction to high profile cases rather than being designed more strategically. This book breaks new ground by considering how psychosocial, feminist and geo-environmental theories, amongst others, can improve practice understanding and interventions. It makes the case for a more thoughtful approach to CSE prevention and a greater use of different theoretical perspectives in the development and delivery of strategies and interventions. The book is an essential text for students and those planning strategic interventions and practice activities in social, youth and therapeutic work with young people, as it supports understanding of how CSE arises and how to challenge the nature of the abuse.

Urban educational research, practice, and policy is preoccupied with problems, brokenness, stigma, and blame. As a result, too many people are unable to recognize the capacities and desires of children and youth growing up in working-class communities. This book offers an alternative angle of vision—animated by young people's own photographs, videos, and perspectives over time. It shows how a racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse community of young people in Worcester, Massachusetts, used cameras at different ages to capture and value the centrality of care in their lives, homes, and classrooms. The book's layered analysis of the young people's images and narratives boldly refutes biased assumptions about working-class childhoods and re-envisions schools as inclusive, imaginative, and “careful” spaces. The book challenges us to see differently and, thus, set our sights on a better future.

Current climate change policy is necessary but insufficient. This is because the basic modus operandi – presenting scientific evidence to states for them to take action - misrepresents the complex process of anthropogenic climate change. The ‘anthropo’ bit is neglected in a misconceived supply-side (carbon) interpretation. The key question is, why is there so much demand for this carbon in the first place? This book introduces a demand-side interpretation bringing cities to the fore as central players in both generating climate changes and for finding solutions. Jane Jacobs’ urban analysis is combined with William F. Ruddiman’s historical tracing of greenhouse gases to provide a new understanding and narrative of anthropogenic climate change. The conclusion is that we are locked into a path to terminal consumption, which is accelerating as a consequence of Chinese urban growth, historically unprecedented in its sheer scale. To counter this we need to harness the power of cities in new ways, to steer urban demand away from its current destructive path. This is nothing less than re-inventing the city: not mitigation (the resilient city, necessary but not sufficient), not adaptation (sustainable city, also necessary but not sufficient) but stewardship, a process of dynamic stability creating the posterity city in sync with nature.

This book brings together selected research on commissioning healthcare in the English NHS carried out by national policy research unit in commissioning and the healthcare system (PRUComm) between 2011 and 2018. PRUComm is funded by the English Department of Health’s Policy Research Programme. The bookexplores the changes to commissioning in the English NHS quasi market introduced by the Health and Social Care Act 2012 (HSCA 2012). It focuses on threemain areas: first, the development and operation of the newly formed commissioning bodies named Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) which were supposed to increase clinical engagement; secondly, technical aspects of commissioning being the use of competition and cooperation by CCGs to commission care in the HSCA 2012 regulatory context encouraging competition,and the allocation of financial risk through contracts between commissioners and providers of care (including new forms of contract such as alliances); and thirdly the reorganisation of the commissioning of public health services.The research demonstrates that the HSCA 2012 has had the effect of fragmenting commissioning responsibilities and in the process impaired good governance and strong accountability of commissioners. It shows how the use of market mechanisms has declined despite the pro competition regulatory regime of the HSCA 2012, and that more cooperative processes are used at local level to reconfigure health services. It concludes that strategic planning and monitoring of services will always be essential for the English NHS, whether the term ‘commissioning’ is used to describe these activities or not in the future.

Community archives are often viewed as repositories of knowledge and experience that are nevertheless somehow remote from the taxpayers who often fund them. However, the idea of an archive has more recently been popularized by digital resources that allow access to established archives and also permit users to create archives of their own. This book examines the changing relationship between citizens and their notions of archives. The growing number of archives, and the evolving practices associated with collecting and curating, mean that we are now in the process of remaking the very idea of the archive. Communities have been at the heart of this exciting work and their experiences are both central to our understanding of this new terrain and in challenging the traditional histories behind the control of knowledge and power. Using a wide range of case studies, this edited collection shows how community engagement and co-creation is challenging and extending the notion of the archive.

This book offers a powerful and distinctive analysis of how the politics of the UK and the lived experience of its citizens have been reframed in the first decades of the 21^st century. It does so by bringing together carefully articulated case studies with theoretically informed discussion of the relationship between austerity, Brexit and the rise of populist politics, as well as highlighting the emergence of a range of practices, institutions and politics that challenge the hegemony of austerity discourses. The book mobilises notions of agency to help understand the role of austerity (as politics and lived experience) as a fundamental cause of Brexit. Investigating the social, economic, political, and cultural constraints and opportunities arising from a person’s position in society allows us to explain the link between austerity politics and the vote for Brexit. In doing so, the book goes beyond traditional disciplinary approaches to develop more interdisciplinary engagements, based on broad understandings of cultural studies as well as drawing on insights from political science, sociology, economics, geography and law. It uses comparative material from the regions of England and from the devolved territories of the UK, and explores the profound differences of geography, generation, gender, ‘race’ and class.

The main arguments in this book reflect the politics and social climate created by austerity in the early 21^st century and provide an analytical framework for examining the notion of ‘de-professionalisation’ and how it has emerged. The centrepiece offers a part- historical narrative for understanding an evolving process (of ‘de-professionalisation) and poses a question as to whether the direction and substantive nature of this process may have been altered by austerity, or whether this should be regarded as continuity rather than any radical change. Other policy questions include whether social investment as a means of increasing productivity has played a positive role in economic regulation and investment in human capital - training and education - and social programmes. The book sets out the main theoretical frameworks used to study the work of professions, contrasting disciplinary perspectives in the context of their application to different policy fields. Perspectives on professions and professionalism, taken from disciplines such as sociology, social policy, and public administration, are set against a contemporary and contrasting paradigm, for example managerialism or collaborative professionalism, with a purpose of ingraining new ways of deepening accountability towards more collectivist values.

In the light of high-profile Supreme Court cases surrounding affirmative action, this book looks at the actors involved in the debate and what they are saying. That is, the book looks at who is setting the line of discussion in the Supreme Court by look at legal documents arguing for and against the case as well as the framing techniques they use to make their arguments noteworthy. Findings demonstrate that while supporters are made of a heterogeneous array of individuals and groups with a stake in affirmative action in higher education (e.g., students, professors, etc.), opponents are mainly represented by think tanks and other interest groups. Furthermore, this book finds that frames vary greatly between the groups, with supporters raising concern of what eliminating the policy will mean for minority students and opponents conversely arguing that such a policy is dangerous for our society and for those who merit inclusion into elite universities would not benefit from affirmative action. This book uses prominent sociological theories to put these arguments in broader contexts.

Degrees of Freedom is the first book to examine The Open University’s pioneering work with people in prison. This unique book gives voice to prisoners and ex-prisoners whose lives have been transformed by education. The first five chapters offer analysis from OU academics on the history and contexts of OU prison education. The other nine chapters are from people with first-hand experience of studying with the OU in prison. These vivid personal testimonies are supplemented by nine shorter reflective vignettes that combine to demonstrate the diversity of interest and experience among OU students in prison. Published in December 2019 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of The Open University, this book is a valuable resource for students, scholars and anyone curious to know more about prisons, education and universities. Widely regarded as one of the world’s greatest educational innovations, The Open University has developed a powerful reputation for delivering education in prisons. In doing so it fulfils an important part of its mission to promote social justice. The Open University’s work in prisons gives form and substance to its founding declaration ‘to be open to people, ideas, methods and places’. The men and women who have built this reputation by undertaking their studies in uniquely challenging circumstances have rarely had the opportunity to tell their story. This book changes that by presenting their accounts of learning inside prisons with The Open University and the effects it has had on their lives beyond prison walls.

In recent years, across Europe, North America and the Antipodes, a significant number of countries, states and regions have devised strategies that aim to end long-term homelessness and the need to sleep rough. Long considered an intractable or ‘wicked’ social problem, the notion that homelessness could be ended represents a significant sea change in conceptualising and responding to homelessness. A key driver for states, regions and municipalities to devise plans to end homelessness, and an optimism that this policy objective can be achieved, is that there is an increasing research evidence base on what works to end homelessness. This increasingly sophisticated research evidence covers both the prevention of homelessness in the first instance and the support mechanisms that can ensure sustainable exits and stable, secure accommodation for people who have experienced homelessness. This book explores these issues through a detailed comparison of the experiences of Denmark, Finland and Ireland over the past decade. From 2008 to the end of 2018, the numbers living rough and in temporary and emergency accommodation showed a decline of 72 per cent in Finland, while the number of households in emergency accommodation increased by 300 per cent in Ireland; in Denmark, the number of adults in emergency accommodation increased by 12 per cent over the shorter time period of 2009–17. The purpose of this book is to offer explanations for stark variations in these outcomes despite similar starting points.

The current era of globalization is characterized by a high degree of interconnectedness across borders and continents. This not only goes hand in hand with significant levels of international trade and foreign direct investments but also with migration, which is all too often driven by conflicts of various kinds. While various interdependencies between conflict and migration have been explored in the literature, a link that is not yet sufficiently understood relates to the interdependencies between environmental or resource-related conflicts and migration as well as the role of governance in this respect. This book strives to overcome some of these shortages in providing an interdisciplinary analysis of the interconnectedness between environmental and resource conflicts and migration. To this end, the contributions of this book address four core questions: (i) When do environmental and resource-related problems lead to conflicts and how does this create incentives for migration? How does the governance of natural resources either reduce or enhance the chances of conflicts and migration to emerge? (ii) Who leaves a country and where do migrants go? Which migration governance arrangements are at play in mediating conflicts and in directing migration flows? (iii) How do the trajectories of national, regional and international migration governance regimes look like? How effectively do they regulate environmental or resource-related migration? (iv) Which effects does migration have on possible conflict dynamics in destination countries and what is the role of governance arrangements in this respect? How do host countries participate in governance for the prevention of environmental or resource-related conflicts in countries of origin in order to reduce or prevent migration?

This comprehensive international study provides a cross-national analysis of different understandings of errors and mistakes in child protection practice and lessons to avoid and handle them, using research and knowledge from eleven countries in Europe and North America. Divided into country-specific chapters, each examines the pathways that led to mistakes, the scale of their impact, how responsibilities and responses are decided and how practice and policy subsequently changed. Considering the complexities of evolving practice contexts, this authoritative, future-oriented study is an invaluable text for practitioners, researchers and policy makers wishing to understand why child protection fails – and offers a springboard for fresh thinking about strategies to reduce future risk.

This unique study of social work provides a bold and challenging view of the subject from an anthropological perspective. Combining research and personal reflection, the book explores cultural and symbolic representations of social work, evolving identities of social work practitioners and the ways in which they and society now view one another. The book provides a history of social work and asks how we address the taken-for-granted nature of social work. The influences of the state, social policy, and public perceptions (including users of social work services) on social work are explored. It focuses on issues relating to social work education and training in the UK and, comparatively, in a few other countries, and explores views of social workers and social work students about socialisation into the profession. It looks at issues of identity for social workers and explores social work values. The book goes on to explore what social workers say about relationships and partnerships, and how they explain the significance of these concepts to social work, and moves on to consider policies and strategies underpinning social work research and evidence-based or evidence-informed practice. Further investiagtion is given to organisation, symbols and 'cultural representation', before the book concludes by reflecting on why social work and social workers continue to be relevant to society on local, national, and international levels.

This book explores questions of trade union identities and what is termed ‘niche unionism’ in the work. It exposes the inadequacy of the extant industrial relations literature in explaining both contemporary union identities and the significance of niche to union organisation. It explores the contribution of alternative bodies of literature including organisational identity theory, social identity theory and marketing. The work introduces a new approach to understanding unions’ projected identities in the form of a multidimensional framework of analysis developed from more than ten years research designed to isolate the sources of union identity. The projected identities of trade unions certified in Great Britain are examined systematically under broad headings of general, industrial/occupational, organisational and geographical unions. Four drivers to change in union identities are explored, namely, union mergers, union rebranding, new unions and union dissolutions. The work provides a brief comparative analysis of union identities in five other countries, suggesting additional sources of union identity that might be required for a more comprehensive analysis. Finally, the work explores critical questions relating to the future of union identities concerning, the primacy of general unions, the persistence of niche unions, whether general or niche unions are better placed to organise the unorganised and finally whether niche identity a barrier to expanding membership territories.

The 21st century has witnessed significant changes to the structures and policies framing Higher Education. But how do these changes in norms, values, and purpose shape the generation now coming of age? Employing a generational analysis, this book offers an original approach to the study of education. Drawing on a British Academy-funded study, comprising a policy review, semi-structured interviews and focus groups with students and with academics of different generations, and an analysis of responses to the Mass Observation Study, the book explores the qualitative dimensions of the relationship between academics and students, and examines wider issues of culture and socialisation, from tuition fees and student mental health, to social mobility and employment. The book begins with a discussion of the emergence of a ‘graduate generation’, in a context where 50 per cent of young people are encouraged to go to University, on the basis that this is a personal investment in their future careers. Subsequent chapters review the policy changes that have led to this framing of Higher Education as an increasingly individualised experience, where ‘student choice’ is operationalised as the means by which Universities are funded and held to account; historical differences in the experience of Higher Education; and the impact of these changes on the role and status of academic staff and the experience of current and prospective students.

There is an urgent need to rethink relationships between systems of government and those who are ‘governed’. This book explores ways of rethinking those relationships by bringing communities normally excluded from decision-making to centre stage to experiment with new methods of regulating for engagement. Using original, co-produced research, the book innovatively explores how we can better use a ‘bottom-up’ approach to design regulatory regimes that recognise the capabilities of communities at the margins and powerfully support the knowledge, passions and creativity of citizens. The book provides essential guidance for all those working on co-produced research to make impactful change.

This important volume steps beyond conventional legal approaches to sustainability to provide fresh insights into perhaps one of the most critical global challenges of our time. Offering analysis of sustainability at land and sea alongside trade, labour and corporate governance perspectives, this book articulates important debates about the role of law. From impacts on local societies to domestic sustainable development policies and major international goals, it considers multiple jurisdictional levels. With original, interdisciplinary research from experts in their legal fields, this is a rounded assessment of the complex interplay of law and sustainability—both as it is now and as it should be in the future.