Research

 

You will find a complete range of our monographs, muti-authored and edited works including peer-reviewed, original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the complete Bristol University Press and Policy Press archive.

Policy Press also publishes policy reviews and polemic work which aim to challenge policy and practice in certain fields. These books have a practitioner in mind and are practical, accessible in style, as well as being academically sound and referenced.
 

Books: Research

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The UK Food System and the COVID-19 Pandemic

‘Panic buying’ at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic generated enduring media images of empty supermarket shelves and calls for food rationing. The fragility of the Just-in-Time food system was seemingly exposed yet, as the pandemic progressed in the UK, there were remarkably few food shortages. This book reveals the changing patterns of food provision in the UK during that period, looking at how diets changed, and retail, processing, distribution and production businesses adapted. But beneath the apparent logistical success story, there were injustices as the more vulnerable struggled to access good quality food and some businesses received inadequate help.

The authors consider the winners and losers in a time of rapid social change, the lasting impacts on the UK food system, and lessons to be learned for a food system dependent on imports and large retailers and with a high burden of diet-related health issues.

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Direct and Indirect Consequences of War
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Drawing on the perspectives of women and children displaced from Ukraine, as well as local authority policy makers and service providers, this book provides a unique view of the direct and indirect consequences of war in Europe.

Part of the Social Determinants of Health series, this book reviews the socio-economic challenges faced by the UK and other European countries and suggests ways that these ‘wicked issues’ should be addressed. It is essential reading for local authorities, national governments and humanitarian organisations.

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Myanmar Universities’ Struggle against Authoritarianism
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In February 2021, Myanmar experienced the third coup d’état in its modern history. Unprecedented strength was displayed by Myanmar civil society as it fought back against these new authoritarian drives. Where did this strength come from?

Fearing the loss of the benefits gained in the previous decade of reforms (2011–2021), students, teachers, professors, and activists fuelled the Spring Revolution. To understand what is happening in Myanmar, this book outlines the historical efforts by Myanmar universities to advocate for a more just society and offers unique insight into the long-lasting struggle of education against authoritarianism.

By exploring Myanmar’s social and political struggles through the lens of higher education resistance, the book offers a compelling narrative about the life of the country following the latest coup d’état, an event that continues to puzzle the international community.

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Colombia’s Santos–FARC-EP Peace Process
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This book addresses the fundamental question of how, in the face of unrelenting barbary and adversity, survivors of political violence and atrocity have sought to assert agency and contest power in Colombia, as they forge a path through which to bring an end to political violence, craft the effective means through which to reckon with the past, and reconstitute their political and moral communities. The book is in part about how war is fought, what its impact is, particularly on civilians, and the means that armed groups employ in order to achieve their ends; however, more emphatically, it is also about how those who survive atrocious violence narrate and make sense of war and attempt to construct peace, and, in so doing, transform political subjectivity and reconfigure relations of power. Drawing on unique interviews, the book builds on the case of Colombia to construct a new vision of victim-centred transitional justice, which is relevant for scholars and practitioners alike.

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Becoming Enemy Friends
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Bringing concepts from critical transitional justice and peacebuilding into dialogue with education, this book examines the challenges youth and their teachers face in the post-conflict settings of Bougainville and Solomon Islands.

Youth in these places must reconcile with the violent past of their parents’ generation while also learning how to live with people once on opposing ‘sides.’ This book traces how students and their teachers form connections to the past and each other that cut through the forces that might divide them. The findings illustrate novel ways to think about the potential for education to assist post-conflict recovery.

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A New Subfield

How can feminist scholarship advance the field of foreign policy analysis to better understand contemporary foreign policy actions and challenges?

This groundbreaking book provides the state-of-the-art in the study of gender, feminisms and foreign policy. Bringing together contributors from around the world, chapters offer new analyses of foreign policy topics, including diplomacy, trade, defence, environment, peacebuilding, disinformation and development assistance. The book advances new theories, concepts and empirical knowledge for the emerging field of feminist foreign policy analysis.

The book stands as a vital resource for scholars, students and practitioners seeking to understand and respond to the multifaceted gendered dynamics of global politics.

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Natures, Futures, Politics

Bringing together contributors from Europe, North America and Australia, this book questions the purpose and outcomes of speculation in practical settings.

In the context of interrelated and complex global challenges, speculation is not just useful but necessary. The chapters in this book present a cross-disciplinary dialogue of people that are developing work in speculation and interrogates its practices and ethical and political charges. Through these discussions, the book explores the potential of speculation in addressing issues such as climate change, urban futures and new political practices.

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Biopolitics, Differentiation and Affirmative Alternatives

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is recurrently depicted as an enterprise that unites humanity in a common pursuit of a more just and sustainable world. But how is this enterprise pursued on a planet that is enormously unequal? Drawing on biopolitical theory and rich empirical data from different contexts around the world, this book explores how ESD is unpacked depending on whether people are rich or poor.

The book demonstrates how ESD is adapted to the lifestyles and living conditions of different populations. The implication of this depoliticized sensitivity to local ‘realities’, the book argues, is that inequality becomes accommodated and that different responsibilities are assigned to rich and poor. Ultimately, the book considers alternatives to this biopolitical divide.

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Challenges and Opportunities in Sub-Saharan Africa

This book provides an important lens for understanding how interlocking humanitarian crises caused by armed conflict, natural disasters, forced displacement and, more recently, a global health pandemic have adversely impacted teaching and learning.

It brings together evidence from multiple, diverse research-practice partnerships in seven countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Niger, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. The authors provide a clear account of the key academic, policy and practice questions on education in crisis contexts and consider our capacity to develop just and resilient education systems.

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Analysing Role Selection and Impact through Role Theory

International Organizations (IOs) have been at the forefront of responding to crises in the 21st century, and yet there is little comparative research on how, and how effectively, they have done this.

This book fills this gap by exploring what roles IOs take in response to global crises and to what effect. Bringing together a range of international contributors, the book examines a vast array of international and regional organizations, including the International Organization for Migration, World Health Organization, African Union and European Union. Aiming to answer key questions about IO behaviour, the book investigates these IOs’ responses to pressing issues including the global COVID-19 pandemic, the liberal order and security, and the climate crisis.

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