Hearing: Temporary Filling of House of Representatives Vacancies During National Emergencies: Hearing on H.J. Res. 67

House Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Judiciary Committee hearing on legislation that would allow state governors to temporarily appoint representatives to take the place of those who have died or become incapacitated when 25 percent or more of all representatives are unable to perform their duties.https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/twentyfifth_amendment_congressional_materials/1033/thumbnail.jp

Regulating for Responsibility: Reputation and Social Media

The framework brought forward by the United Kingdom's Defamation Act 2013 underlines a traditional hierarchy of expression in which news media are viewed as high-level speech. Although of a different form, social media are a dominant means of expression. The current study explores the rationale for a more robust and forceful discussion of responsibility in speech on social media platforms. The underlying premise here is that speech should be viewed as a qualified good and that a more appropriate paradigm is one found in the phrase ‘freedom to participate’

The ‘state of exception’ and disaster education: a multilevel conceptual framework with implications for social justice

The term ‘state of exception’ has been used by Italian political theorist Giorgio Agamben to explain the ways in which emergencies, crises and disasters are used by governments to suspend legal processes. In this paper, we innovatively apply Agamben’s theory to the way in which countries prepare and educate the population for various types of emergencies. We focus on two main aspects of Agamben’s work: first, the paradoxical nature of the state of exception, as both a transient and a permanent part of governance. Second, it is a ‘liminal’ concept expressing the limits of law and where ‘law’ meets ‘not-law’. We consider the relationship between laws related to disasters and emergencies, and case studies of the ways in which three countries (England, Germany and Japan) educate their populations for crisis and disaster. In England, we consider how emergency powers have been orientated around the protection of the Critical National Infrastructure and how this has produced localised ‘states of exception’ and, relatedly, pedagogical anomalies. In Germany, we consider the way in which laws related to disaster and civil protection, and the nature of volunteering for civil protection, produce exceptional spaces for non-German bodies. In Japan, we consider the debate around the absence of emergency powers and relate this to Japanese non-exceptional disaster education for natural disasters. Applying Agamben’s work, we conclude by developing a new, multilevel empirical framework for analysing disaster education with implications for social justice

Explaining counterterrorism in the UK: Normal politics, securitized politics or performativity of the neoliberal state?

This paper seeks to explore the politics of counter terrorism in the UK. It argues that for a number of reasons, counter terrorism policy has been separated off from other policy areas and seen as securitised, exceptional or just different. The paper argues that such a separation from “normal” politics is problematic, both conceptually and empirically. It argues that much can be gained by considering counter terrorism policy through the lenses, concepts and debates which feature in other areas of British politics. The paper then examines two such lenses/debates – depoliticisation and neoliberalism. An argument is developed that counter terrorism policy is not, in the main, depoliticised, but rather overt, politicised and visible. This prominence, it is argued, is due to the ways in which neoliberalism has reduced many of the traditional roles of the state. Drawing on the work of Wacquant and Hall, the paper argues that in the absence of such traditional roles, counter terrorism offers the state an opportunity to perform its own “stateness”, to visibly display its sovereign power in a context of ever more (self-imposed) diminished powers

Intergovernmental Relations in Scotland: what was the SNP effect?

In Scotland, the formation of a minority government in 2007 by the Scottish National Party (SNP) provided the potential for profound changes in intergovernmental relations. This followed eight years of a Scottish Labour-led coalition government characterised by a low-key and informal relationship with the UK Labour government. From 1999 to 2007, discussions were conducted informally and almost entirely through political parties and executives (ministers and civil servants). Although formal mechanisms for negotiation and dispute resolution existed-including the courts, concordats and Joint Ministerial Committees-they were used rarely. The Scottish Executive also played a minimal role in EU policy-making. Yet, an ‘explosive' new era of relations between the Scottish and UK governments did not arrive in tandem with the new era of party incongruence. The aim of this article is to explore these issues by asking two main questions: why were formal mechanisms used so rarely from 1999 to 2007, and what factors produced muted rather than problematic IGR in the third parliamentary session, between 2007 and 2011

Theorizing Institutional Scandal and the Regulatory State

One by one, UK public institutions are being scandalised for corruption, immorality or incompetence and subjected to trial by media and criminal prosecution. The state?s historic response to public sector scandal ? denial and neutralisation ? has been replaced with acknowledgement and regulation in the form of the re-vamped public inquiry. Public institutions are being cut adrift and left to account in isolation for their scandalous failures. Yet the state?s attempts to distance itself from its scandalised institutions, while extending its regulatory control over them, are risky. Both the regulatory state and its public inquiries risk being consumed by the scandal they are trying to manage