Planning for the reuse of redundant defence estate: disposal processes, policy frameworks and development impacts

This paper reviews recent research and other literature concerning the planning and development of redundant defence estate. It concentrates on UK sources but includes reference to material from Europe and the North America were it is relevant for comparative purposes. It introduces the topic by providing a brief review of the recent restructuring of the UK defence estate and then proceeds to examine the various planning policy issues generated by this process; the policy frameworks used to guide it; comparable approaches to surplus land disposal and the appraisal of impacts; and ending the main body of the review with an analyse of the economic, social and environmental impacts of military base closure and redevelopment. It concludes that there is a significant body of work focusing on the reuse and redevelopment of redundant defence estate in the UK and abroad, but that much of this work is based on limited research or on personal experience. One particular weakness of the current literature is that it does not fully reflect the institutional difficulties posed by the disposal process and the day-to-day pressures which MOD personnel have to deal with. In doing this, it also under-emphasises the embedded cultures of individuals and professional groups who are required to operationalise the policies, procedures and practices for planning and redeveloping redundant defence estate

Victims' rights in criminal trials: prospects for participation

Victims in common law jurisdictions have traditionally been unable to participate in criminal trials for a number of structural and normative reasons. They are widely perceived as ‘private parties’ whose role should be confined to that of witnesses; and participatory rights for such third parties are rejected as a threat to the objective and public nature of the criminal justice system. However, recent years have witnessed both a major shift in attitude in relation to the role of victims within the criminal justice system and a breakdown in the public / private divide in criminal justice discourse. This article considers the standing of the victim within the criminal trial against the backdrop of such changes, and examines the arguments for a more radical course of reform that would allow victims to actively participate in criminal hearings as they are able to do in many European jurisdictions

Fora, networks and public examinations: the role and significance of public participation in the new regional plan for South East England

This paper overviews the main conceptual frameworks for understanding participatory approaches to land use planning and explores their utility in analysing the experience of a recent regional planning exercise in South East England. In particular it examines the contribution of recent ‘New Institutionalist’ ideas to our understanding of participatory processes and the implications for practice of using them to build strategies of public involvement in policy-making and implementation

Wasn\u27t it a Party?

My brother said it\u27s just withdrawal from the ecstasy. It\u27s such a high, he told me, that a normal low is so far down it\u27s like jumping off a building. Just don\u27t do it too often,he said. You might rewire your brain and your normal will never be the same again. He told me this while he helped me look for the stolen painting last weekend. When I told my landlord the painting from the second floor stairwell was ripped off the wall at a party my roommate Sandra and I had thrown, I\u27d steeled myself to hear it was irreplaceable. But he told me he thought he\u27d bought the print from a vendor outside the Met, and if I wanted to make things right, I would find a copy, buy it, hang it, and we would pretend the whole thing never happened. I\u27m relieved that at least this one problem might have a solution, so this is my second weekend getting off the subway at 86th and Lex and hiking my way over to the Met in search of a replacement for the stolen print

Think local, act local? Issues of co-ordination and integration in Local Agenda 21

The political response to the complex package of environmental problems which threaten the future of our planet has been to introduce a new agenda of environmental action based on the principles of sustainability and subsidiarity. This has been crystallised in world agreements signed at the Earth Summit in Rio. One of these, Agenda 21, calls for the governments and communities of the world to prepare action plans for their areas which can build consensus between the various stakeholder groups and feed the principles of sustainable development back into their policies and day-to-day practices. This paper explores the experience of Local Agenda 21 type processes at three levels in the South East of England: the regional, county (sub-regional) and local level. In particular it undertakes a critical appraisal of the success of these participatory and consensus-building exercises in developing an integrated and co-ordinated approach to environmental action planning. It concludes that, although much useful work has been done in raising awareness and modifying policy and practice, there are significant cultural and institutional barriers which are hindering progress

Local agenda 21 and planning practice: structural transformation or window dressing?

Local Agenda 21 seeks the meaningful involvement of a wide range of local groups and stakeholders in the formulation and implementation of public policy and a free flow of communication and discussion between them and their respective local authorities (and other areas and levels of decision-making). This paper explores the reality of this process using case study evidence from local planning practice in Liverpool (in the north of England) and Reading (in the south of the country). It concentrates on the interaction between LA21 groups and local planning authorities around the preparation of local land use plans and other policy initiatives and the day-to-day regulation of development permits. The paper builds on ‘New Institutionalist’ theory to explore the constraints and opportunities for significant transformations in social, political and economic ‘structures’ or ‘ways of doing things’ through the LA21 process. It concludes that the two cases provide evidence of mixed success in achieving such changes in established planning practices

Legalists, Visionaries, and New Names: Sectarianism and the Search for Apocalyptic Origins in Isaiah 56–66

This essay re-examines the difficult questions concerning the origins of apocalyptic literature and the rise of Jewish sectarianism. Since the publication of O. Plöger’s Theokratie und Eschatologie and P. Hanson’s The Dawn of Apocalyptic, the search for proto-apocalyptic origins in early post-exilic period sectarian conflict has generated a fair amount of debate. The most cogent and sustained response to Hanson’s and Plöger’s theories, S. Cook’s Prophecy & Apocalypticism (1995), attempted to purge the influence of “deprivation theory” from the field of biblical studies, and, more broadly, social anthropology. The present essay makes a fresh study of some central lines of thought in these works, especially as they relate to the issue of sectarianism and the social framework used for drawing exegetical conclusions. In particular, one prominent theory of the symbolic—in this case, textual—expression of sectarian groups, that of the anthropologist Mary Douglas, is applied to a series of enigmatic and highly debated texts in Trito-Isaiah in order to show the continued viability of the “sectarian” interpretation of these passages

Book Review: The Responsive Self: Personal Religion in Biblical Literature of the Neo-Babylonian and Persian Periods

In this short, engaging, and learned book, Susan Niditch takes readers into the world of sixth–fifth century BCE Judah/Yehud to understand what it might have meant for religion during this period to have become “personal.” Books like Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Job, Ecclesiastes, Psalms, Proverbs, and Zechariah, among others, take center stage as examples of the turn toward the individual’s relationship to God and the personal psychology of discrete actors in the process of figuring out their place in the world. Though biblical scholars have often correctly emphasized the “group identity” of ancient Israelites, rallying around symbols like temple, land, and king, the era under Niditch’s focus saw many fascinating expressions of a singular person, a “self” in the making, forging an autobiographical relationship to the deity. Not limited purely to biblical texts, Niditch illuminates this phenomenon through the sociological study of religion as well as archaeology. Her simple but convincing argument is that during the exilic and post-exilic periods in Israel authors turned toward complex descriptions of the self, and in doing so ushered in a new period in which religiously creative expressions of personality entered the world of “lived religion” as never before

Book Review: Poetic Heroes: Literary Commemorations of Warriors and Warrior Culture in the Early Biblical World

Mark Smith’s Poetic Heroes: Literary Commemorations of Warriors and Warrior Culture in the Early Biblical World is a tour de force of philological commentary, comparative religion, and historical reconstruction that ultimately focuses its attention on the way warriors and their concerns appear in the Hebrew Bible. After an introduction posing the question of warrior poetry’s broad cultural appeal (1–12), Smith devotes part 1 to “the literary commemoration of warriors and warrior culture” (15–47), in which he lays out a glossary of heroic terminology and literary practice in the Hebrew Bible, highlighting the problem of finding cultural reality within literary representations. Part 2 (51–67) explores “three warrior pairs in Mesopotamia, Greece, and Israel” (i.e., Gilgamesh and Enkidu, Achilles and Patroklos, and David and Jonathan) and then “gender inversion in the poetry of heroic pairs” (68–95). Part 3 undertakes a detailed study of “human and divine warriors in the Ugaritic texts” (99– 208), focusing on the Aqhat and Baal epics as well as the Rephaim texts, and part 4 arrives at “Israelite warrior poetry in the early Iron Age” (211–332), where the focus is on Judges 5 and 2 Sam. 1:19–27. The book is replete with maximal citation to the secondary literature, featuring nearly 250 pages of endnotes (333–576) as well as a detailed set of indexes