Rethinking network governance: new forms of analysis and the implications for IGR/MLG

Our position is that network governance can be understood as a communicative arena. Networks, then, are not defined by frequency of interactions between actors but by sharing of and contest between different clusters of ideas, theories and normative orientations (discourses) in relation to the specific context within which actors operate. A discourse comprises an ensemble of ideas, concepts and causal theories that give meaning to and reproduce ways of understanding the world (Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999). Consequently, network governance can be understood as the inherently political process through which discourses are produced, reproduced and transformed. Democratic network governance thus becomes the study of the way in which the core challenges of democratic practice are addressed – how is legitimacy awarded, by what mechanisms are decisions reached, and how is accountability enabled. Three approaches to the discursive analysis of democracy in network governance are considered - argumentation analysis, inter-subjectivity, and critical discourse analysis – and their implications for the study of intergovernmental relations and multi-level governance (IGR/MLG) are discussed. Case examples are provided. We conclude that the value for the study of MLG/IGR is to complement existing forms of analysis by opening up the communicative and ideational aspects of interactions between levels of government and other actors

Should dementia sufferers be punished for past crimes?

This paper examines whether we ought to prosecute historic offences committed by people who have subsequently developed dementia. Currently, a person with dementia might avoid conviction on the basis of their currently diminished capacity. They may be unfit to plead, for example. The problem is that advanced dementia may undermine persistence of personal identity. Once someone develops dementia, they may no longer be the person who committed the crime. If so, they would not need to be excused for their offending. They would simply not be liable. If we think persistence of personal identity is based on psychological factors – as most of us do – a person with advanced dementia will not be the same person as the one who committed the crime. They will not deserve prosecution, never mind punishment. This issue has been overlooked by legal theorists. Although much has been written on the legal significance of dementia, it has been primarily in the context of advance directives or decision-making capacity. I will argue that advanced dementia is a challenge to criminal responsibility

Iseult

Who, you may well ask, was this woman who, within the three years between 1917 and 1920, had the experience of being proposed to by W. B. Yeats, seduced by Ezra Pound, pursued by Lennox Robinson and married to Francis Stuart? In the process of editing her letters to W. B. Yeats and Ezra Pound with her granddaughter Christina Bridgwater and her mother’s granddaughter Anna MacBride White, I have had to form a picture of her life for myself, not yet complete, for there is still much to read, to discover. This essay is, then, a progress report upon one aspect of her life, her relationship with W. B. Yeats, founded upon his letters, upon her letters to him, her journals in French and English and her literary work, published and unpublished. It will give an account of her childhood, her becoming a young woman, her two years in London, and the part Yeats played in the early days of her marriage.Who, you may well ask, was this woman who, within the three years between 1917 and 1920, had the experience of being proposed to by W. B. Yeats, seduced by Ezra Pound, pursued by Lennox Robinson and married to Francis Stuart? In the process of editing her letters to W. B. Yeats and Ezra Pound with her granddaughter Christina Bridgwater and her mother’s granddaughter Anna MacBride White, I have had to form a picture of her life for myself, not yet complete, for there is still much to read, to discover. This essay is, then, a progress report upon one aspect of her life, her relationship with W. B. Yeats, founded upon his letters, upon her letters to him, her journals in French and English and her literary work, published and unpublished. It will give an account of her childhood, her becoming a young woman, her two years in London, and the part Yeats played in the early days of her marriage.&nbsp