Nothing Less Than the Dignity of Man: The Eighth Amendment and State Efforts to Reinstitute Traditional Methods of Execution

While lethal injection is the predominant method of executing death row inmates in America, European export bans and pharmaceutical manufacturers’ refusal to supply execution drugs has impeded the ability of states’ departments of corrections to obtain the drugs used for lethal injections. Facing a drug shortage, several death penalty states have considered legislation to reinstate the use of electric chairs, firing squads, and gas chambers. Efforts to restore traditional methods of capital punishment raise questions about whether such methods still comply with the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments. The Supreme Court has observed that the Eighth Amendment is not static, but draws its meaning from society’s “evolving standards of decency.” To assess these evolving standards, the Court previously has looked to state laws to determine if a national consensus exists with respect to who is eligible for capital punishment and by what means states carry out death sentences. States have moved away from traditional methods of capital punishment. This trend suggests the traditional methods of capital punishment have fallen out of favor and can no longer withstand Eighth Amendment scrutiny

Trade unions and the political culture of the British Labour Party, 1931-1940.

The events surrounding the collapse of the second Labour government in the summer of 1931 represented a watershed in twentieth century British politics. They brought to a close the ‘uneasy equilibrium’ which had characterised the country’s political life since 1918, ensconcing a Conservative-dominated National government in power for the remainder of a decade marked by continuing economic uncertainty and the mounting threat of war. They also precipitated a crisis of political identity within the Labour party. Deprived of the founding generation of its leadership and with its parliamentary strength decimated, the ‘gradualist’ approach which had long characterised its politics was seemingly left in tatters. Yet Labour returned to office in 1940 as a key partner in the wartime coalition; in 1945, it secured a sweeping electoral landslide of its own, allowing it to implement much of its traditional programme. It is the contention of this thesis that the party’s recovery during the 1930s was made possible by the crucial contribution of the trade unions. With Labour’s political leadership substantially weakened after 1931, the unions assumed a pivotal role in shaping the party’s direction, to the extent that by 1940, its political culture, organisation and policy had been decisively remade. The identity which developed in these years continued to characterise Labour’s politics for a generation, through the ‘high tide’ of the 1945 Attlee government, into the 1950s and beyond. This was a hugely significant and underappreciated achievement in the context of the destruction of labour movements that attended the retreat of political democracy across much of Europe during the 1930s. This thesis seeks to investigate and understand the crucial contribution of the trade unions to this redevelopment of Labour’s political culture through an exploration of key aspects of the party’s organisation in the period 1931-1940.Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC

The security dilemma in Sino-Japanese relations

Even though economic relations between China and Japan have improved in recent decades, their security relations raise the prospect of clashes due to the perceived incompatibility of their interests, as manifested for example in territorial claims and rivalry for energy resources. This thesis analyzes the two states’ security relations using the “security-dilemma” and “constructivist theories” of international relations. The security dilemma is a condition in which states’ attempts to increase their own security, out of the mutual fear and suspicion, results a decrease in security for all. The constructivist theories suggest that the identities of actors, social norms, states’ interests and government policies are inter-linked in both domestic and international politics; each component thus shapes and then reshapes others. International relations should not be understood by merely analyzing material capacities. In order to understand the security relations between China and Japan, it is imperative to investigate the threat perceptions of various actors within both states, including the general public, the political leadership, the military, the academics and other sub-state actors. By employing the mentioned theories, it is found that the general public in both states are the key sources to consider the other as a security threat. Fear or resentment among states, which might initially be constructed by the behaviors or policies of other actors, would in turn further shape or limit other actors’ perceptions and interests. The public also put constraints on their governments’ freedom to maneuver diplomatically and to adopt policy choices, it thus affects the security relations between states. The thesis concludes that deepening interactions between people in both state and carefully conducted diplomatic behaviors, such as choice of wording in reconciliation actions and joint action by states’ leaders at symbolic occasions or locations etc, can be the key of preventing the security dilemma from escalating. As a result, in the case of Sino-Japanese relations, the security relations cannot be improved by deploying military means

The social, political and religious contexts of the late Medieval carol

This thesis examines the late medieval English carol, an important indigenous musical form that is abundant in a number of sources from the late fourteenth to the early sixteenth century, both with and without extant musical notation. Carols with musical notation have been favoured by musicologists in previous research. This thesis however, provides a new context for the study of the carol by also including a close investigation of those carols without extant musical notation; thus presenting a fuller picture of the genre than that of previous musicological studies. The carol has been somewhat neglected in terms of recent, detailed, published research, therefore this study addresses the reasons for its neglect, and reveals a broader understanding of the genre. It applies a combination of traditional and modern methodologies: empirical research, gender study and ethnomusicological research, in order to place the carol genre in clearer social, political and religious contexts and better understand its place and use in late medieval society. Through the application of these methodologies, this thesis provides an important perspective on the place of women, not only in the carols, but also within broader social and musical contexts, revealing a complex picture of their place in medieval music as subjects, performers and composers. Suggestions for the use of carols in sermons and other forms of worship are also made, and the carol’s value as a vehicle for political commentary and English nationalism in this period is demonstrated. By approaching the carol in this manner, this study takes us beyond the popular perception of it as a genre merely for the amusement of educated clerics, instead revealing an important, popular musical form that was found in all strata of society