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 of over 1400 titles.
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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This chapter investigates the work of the Airport Commission (2012–2015). It first discerns and characterises the bundle of mechanisms, strategies, arguments and rhetorical claims at play in its discourse. It explores how the Commission deployed legitimising appeals to independent expertise; transformed the economic boosterism of aviation into the strategic advantages of connectivity; marshalled the techniques of forecasting and prediction; and redefined information-giving and transparency as forms of engagement. In particular, it demonstrates how the Commission strategically framed aviation emissions and aircraft noise to negate opposition to expansion and how its ‘performance of authority’ was embodied in the ‘reasonable’ and ‘neutral’ position of its chair, Sir Howard Davies. Politically, the Commission successfully kept the aviation issue off the national political agenda in the run-up to the 2015 general election, while also satisfying the demands of the pro-expansion Heathrow lobby, which was a programme success for the Cameron government. However, in disclosing the complex dynamics of politicisation and re-politicisation at work during the Commission’s lifespan, we conclude that ultimately it did little more than instil a temporary ‘phoney war’ in aviation policy, with the publication of its Final Report in 2015 triggering another round of ‘trench warfare’ that re-politicised aviation policy.
Chapter 12, The ‘Anti-Capitalist’ Critique, deals with critics who wish to reverse globalisation to form areas of self-governing autonomous communities which may run in parallel to post-industrial capitalism. They propose justice and democracy in place of hierarchy and authority. The emphasis is on action, the ‘here and now’, a prefigurative strategy. Discussion includes the ‘occupy’ movements whose objectives are to replace the oppressive forms of capitalism with a democratic symbiotic society based on mutualism and cooperation. Many of these tendencies adopt an ‘exit’ strategy: the objectives are either to replace globalisation with autonomous economic democratic cooperative associations or to coexist with global capitalist forces. Other movements include informal networks and ‘Twitter’ revolutions which enable mobilisation. These movements are considered expressions of social and political discontent that reveal and identify important forms of oppression. Many of these movements are limited to micro changes and present alternatives forms of coexistence to global capitalism.
This chapter explores how the operation of the Mental Capacity Act 2008 is influenced by the sociocultural environment in Singapore, and subsequently how the prevailing attitudes and cultural milieu of the local populace have shaped the interactions between P, P’s caregivers and the legal system – specifically the extent of P’s participation in proceedings. The author attempts to explore methodically by first setting out the relevant legal provisions followed by the analysis of case judgments and a discussion on current legal barriers to P’s participation in proceedings. The impact of culture milieu, through the influence of Asian values and religious views, is further explored under the theme of surrogate decision-making for P in Singapore. This chapter concludes by considering ways to further advance and support P in the decision-making process in light of the finding of a culture of surrogate decision-making in Singapore.
Policies are proposed as ‘radical humanism’ to eradicate poverty and redress inequality while vanquishing caste and untouchability. On the economic policy side, the chapter recommends intensification of cash and assets transfers and tax policy reform to reduce inequality through higher income tax progressivity, wealth, gift and inheritance taxes, increased taxes on luxuries, use of earmarked taxes for their intended purposes of education and health and tax administration reform to counter tax evasion.
It recommends cutting back bureaucratic hurdles, expanding private-public partnership in the provision of socio-economic services such as hospitals, and encouragement of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for services to the very poor.
It recommends perceptible step-up of women’s rights through proportional representation and children’s condition including health and education. It proposes a youth task force to implement compulsory social service by youth in rural and urban sectors following existing global and prior domestic experience, and proposes a framework for services by sector. It urges political reform while pointing out that caste-based politics is unlikely to serve the nation in the long run.
It traces the ongoing work at the United Nations to draw attention to financial transfers of the colonial era and strongly suggests international financial reparations to counter the ramifications of global colonialism.
This chapter presents artwork created by residents of HMP Parc as part of the Box Project, an initiative which provided individual art packs for residents during the COVID-19 pandemic. Brushes, watercolours, pencils, erasers, sketchbooks, sharpeners and ‘ideas books’ were distributed to residents undertaking art programmes pre pandemic so that they could carry on their work, albeit in isolation.
This chapter examines the history of guardianship in Australia and the role of values and participation in Australian guardianship laws. The chapter postulates that there are three generations of Australian guardianship laws, the most recent of which is specifically designed around the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The implementation of that convention has been haphazard, but the chapter argues that guardianship authorities have, in the absence of clear legislative adoption, created policy frameworks that incorporate and promote the will and preferences of the person under guardianship. This suggests that in Australia policies and guidelines are as important as formal laws for ensuring that the will and preference of people with disabilities are given paramountcy in decision making.
With contributions from an international team of experts, this collection provides a much-needed international, comparative approach to mental capacity law.
The book focuses particularly on exploring substantive commonalities and divergences in normative orientation and practical application embedded in different legal frameworks. It draws together contributions from eleven different jurisdictions across Europe, Asia and the UK and explores what productive or unproductive values and practices currently exist.
By providing a detailed comparison of how legal and ethical commitments to persons with disabilities are framed in capacity law across different national systems, the book highlights the values and practices that could lead to changes that better respect persons with disabilities in mental capacity regimes.
Global neoliberal capitalism presents the major form of economic coordination and political control in the world economy. The book distinguishes between globalisation and neoliberalism, and explains what global neoliberalism is, why it has appeal, what alternatives have been tried and why they have failed. The rise of neoliberalism is presented as a failure of 20th-century state-led economies to satisfy the aspirations of their citizens under conditions of advanced capitalism. The author provides a sociological understanding of post-industrial society on which different forms of economic and political coordination have to be predicated. He considers in detail both the strengths and weaknesses of social democracy and state socialism, and explains why and how these alternatives either disintegrated or were dismantled. He discusses developments in Great Britain, the post-socialist states of Eastern Europe and the USSR, and China. He distinguishes between globalisation and internationalism and analyses developments within states as well as the shift from a concentric geo-politics to a bi-polar world system. The author identifies key areas where embedded neoliberalism may be faulted. Replacements are considered in terms of alternative forms of capitalism and alternatives economies to capitalism. The book defines the limits and opportunities of four major challenges to global neoliberal capitalism: the reform and democratisation of global capitalist institutions; the strengthening of states against transnational interests; the reversal of globalising tendencies and the introduction of autonomous self-sustaining democratic economies; and proposals for instituting a global form of socialism. The author finally proposes something new: a system of economic and political coordination based on a combination of market socialism and state planning.
Chapter 15, The Challenge of State Capitalisms, considers state capitalism in a generic sense as an economy in which the state plays a major coordinating role in a capitalist economy. Three types of political economy in which the state has a predominant role are distinguished: state socialism, state-capitalism (with a hyphen), and state-controlled capitalism. All three present theoretical alternatives to liberal capitalism. In the light of definitions of these terms, the chapter outlines the ways scholars apply these terms to describe societies. Notably, in what sense, if any, the Soviet Union was, and contemporary China is, state capitalist. Lenin’s notion of ‘state capitalism’ as applied to Russia after the October Revolution is contrasted with later developments. Whereas earlier theoretical approaches emphasised state ownership controlled by a bureaucratic class, as a constituent factor defining state capitalism, more recent discussion has emphasised the form taken by the extraction of surplus value. The discussion highlights whether countries can move from pre-capitalism to socialism missing out the stage of capitalism. In this framework, the debate on political capitalism presented by contemporary China is distinguished from other capitalist societies.
Chapter 10, The Changing Global Class Structure and the Challenge of the Semi-Core, considers the significant shift from national to international economies and the rise and composition of a transnational political class. Governments of nation states lose powers to international organisations and to uncontrollable globalisation processes. States retain important political powers, notably over defining citizenship, raising taxes, and over military matters, including declaration of war. State sovereignty is reconstituted in the context of economics being global whereas electoral politics is focussed at the state level. The dominant classes are global, leading to the formation of a transnational social class significantly different from national capitalist classes. Changes in the economic capacity of states in the international system are illustrated by graphs showing the growth of transnational corporations (TNCs) and the increasing importance of the semi-core countries. The core capitalist states are considered to be no longer hegemonic but challenged by an ascendant semi-core led by China. Sanctions imposed on Russia and China lead to deglobalisation and to the formation of competitive regional blocs between core and semi-core. The current challenge of China presages a power transition.
