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

What comes after the pandemic? A ten-point platform for foundational renewal

In the Covid-19 pandemic, the immediate concern of European citizens is with the spread of the virus and the public health crisis, with the lock downs and their economic consequences and with the response of governments. The crisis demonstrates the importance of the foundational economy. This is the part of the economy which cannot be shut down because it produces essential goods and services; and the list of key workers in each national economy provides a practical definition of what counts as foundational. But what comes after the immediate crisis is over? After the crisis, do we default back to the “same old, same old”; or can we make the case for a renewal of the foundational provision which has been neglected in the past generation. Before the crisis we developed and publicly supported the foundational economy concept; now foundational thinking is more relevant than ever to a liveable, sustainable and democratic future

Figurazioni sociali e trasfigurazioni testuali: il potere della scrittura-lettura sulla rifigurazione delle identità

La scrittura e la lettura influenzano e significano l'identità delle culture, in quanto le trasfigurazioni testuali, poetiche e, in particolare, narrative, arricchiscono le figurazioni sociali e co-modellano l'io analogo, metaforico, co-presente nell'ipseità del soggetto, la cui identità viene suggerita dalla personografia narrativa. Nel contributo vengono messi in relazione critica C. Lévi-Strauss, H.R. Jauss, N. Holland Norman, R. Girard e G. Flaubert