This article concerns the role of the UK Supreme Court in the devolution settlement. It starts by describing the approach adopted by the Supreme Court in relation to devolution cases, characterised by a style of reasoning strictly tied to the literal meaning of the statutory text, and an expansive understanding of the principle of parliamentary sovereignty. The article argues that the purpose of devolution is the accommodation of national pluralism: devolution institutionalises the unique plurinational nature of (...) the UK, accommodating the claims to self-government advanced by the UK’s minority nations. This has important implications for the Supreme Court: in deciding devolution cases, the Supreme Court can contribute positively or negatively to the achievement of this purpose. I maintain that the Court ought to reason and interpret the devolution statutes in a manner which promotes the accommodation of national pluralism, moving away from the current approach. The argument is illustrated with an analysis of the IndyRef2 judgment, in comparison with the Canadian Quebec Secession Reference. (shrink)

Philippe Van Parijs suggests that in culturally divided societies health care systems (and perhaps other welfare services) should be divided along regional lines. He argues that since members of homogenous societies have relatively similar needs and tastes, it is easier for them to agree on a rather comprehensive distributive scheme. This proposed reform of health care, Van Parijs argues, would be consistent with distributive justice rather than undermine it. Against Van Parijs, the paper demonstrates that this policy of devolution (...) upsets distributive justice. Devolution does so by shifting the pattern of distribution (across communities) from distribution according to need, to distribution of equal shares. The paper also argues that devolution is likely to weaken solidarity across the polity as a whole, which further undermines the attainment of distributive justice. The paper concludes that far from catering to culturally driven differences in medical preferences, distributive justice (in fact) permits disregard of such differences, and warrants enforcing a unitary pattern of consumption of medical goods (and other welfare services) across the citizenry, thus retaining a unified health care (and correspondingly, welfare) system. Key Words: devolution • health care • justice • solidarity • Van Parijs. (shrink)

What happens to the role of the physician when the day-to-day successes with acutely ill persons become less the rule? An incurable and highly communicable disease becomes widespread and assumes an intractable and tragic course independent of therapeutic interventions. What of the physician then? _The Plague_ focuses on Dr. Bernard Rieux as he struggles to offer medical care in the city of Oran. Dr. Rieux’s evolution (in reality, devolution) from therapeutic interventionist to statistical documentarian and dispenser of information is (...) carefully and believably explored. The uncomfortable choices of the modern physician dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic is similar to that of Dr. Rieux, including the absence of a cure, the limited degree of effective comfort measures, and the overwhelming numbers of sick and dying. Through comparisons with the experiences and the reactions of Dr. Rieux, we can understand the contemporary health care professional’s response to challenges created by the Covid-19 pandemic. (shrink)

Anthropological inquiry suggests that all societies classify animals and plants in similar ways. Paradoxically, in the same cultures that have seen large advances in biological science, citizenry's practical knowledge of nature has dramatically diminished. Here we describe historical, cross-cultural and developmental research on how people ordinarily conceptualize organic nature, concentrating on cognitive consequences associated with knowledge devolution. We show that results on psychological studies of categorization and reasoning from “standard populations” fail to generalize to humanity at large. Usual populations (...) have impoverished experience with nature, which yields misleading results about knowledge acquisition and the ontogenetic relationship between folkbiology and folkpsychology. We also show that groups living in the same habitat can manifest strikingly distinct behaviors, cognitions and social relations relative to it. This has novel implications for environmental decision making and management, including commons problems. (shrink)

There are a growing number of examples where naturally occurring mutations disrupt an established physiological or developmental pathway to yield a new condition that is evolutionary favored. Asexual reproduction by seed in plants, or apomixis, occurs in a diversity of taxa and has evolved from sexual ancestors. One form of apomixis, diplospory, is a multi‐step development process that is initiated when meiosis is altered to produce an unreduced rather than a reduced egg cell. Subsequent parthenogenetic development of the unreduced egg (...) yields genetically maternal progeny. While it has long been apparent from cytological data that meiosis in apomicts was malfunctional or completely bypassed, the genetic basis of the phenomenon has been a long‐standing mystery. New data from genetic analysis of Arabidopsis mutants1 in combination with more sophisticated molecular understanding of meiosis in plants indicate that a weak mutation of the gene SWI, called DYAD, interferes with sister chromatid cohesion in meiosis I, causes synapsis to fail in female meiosis and yields two unreduced cells. The new work shows that a low percentage of DYAD ovules produce functional unreduced egg cells (2n) that can be fertilized by haploid pollen (1n) to give rise to triploid (3n) progeny. While the DYAD mutants differ in some aspects from naturally occurring apomicts, the work establishes that mutation to a single gene can effectively initiate apomictic development and, furthermore, focuses efforts to isolate apomixis genes on a narrowed set of developmental events. Profitable manipulation of meiosis and recombination in agronomically important crops may be on the horizon. BioEssays 30:798–801, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Ronald Preston defended the middle axiom approach to doing Christian social ethics developed by J. H. Oldham for the 1937 ‘Life and Work’ conference. Preston argued that middle axioms continue to offer the churches a relevant ecumenical method. Middle axions has since been subject to fundamental criticism by ethicists such as Duncan Forrester. It will be argued that a case study of the Church of Scotland's contribution to the devolution debate, as part of Scottish civil society, supports Preston's defence (...) of the middle axiom approach as a relevant form of political engagement in the new context of local-global politics. (shrink)

Zimbabwe’s 2013 Constitution provides for a multi-level system of government whereby the government is constituted at national, provincial and local levels. Despite the new Constitution being relatively comprehensive about the devolution of powers to the subnational levels of government, the country is still trapped within the post-independence highly centralised unitary state design. Although the new Constitution was adopted in 2013, devolution has not yet been fully implemented in Zimbabwe. This non-implementation of the constitutional injunctions on devolution, almost (...) a decade after the promulgation of the Constitution, brings into question the country’s commitment to the devolution of powers and constitutionalism. This article critiques this state of affairs, and identifies the politico-legal factors responsible for the country’s non-implementation of the constitutional injunctions on the devolution of powers to subnational levels of government. This article’s central thesis is that the full devolution of powers is one of the significant levers of constitutional transformation in Zimbabwe. (shrink)

This essay traced the historical process by which essential elements of scientific advancement coalesced to form the system of American research universities. Initially, knowledge inspired by the scientific ethos relied on ad hoc organizations but had no grounding in educational institutions. Such a foundation emerged first in German universities and then inspired a handful of American universities. They, in turn, nurtured and incorporated a system of academic disciplines, producing a system of recognition for intellectual achievement which was incorporated into an (...) academic reward system. Universities had limited resources for advancing knowledge. After 1920, American foundations embraced the scientific ethos of advancing knowledge through basic research. Until 1945, the system of research universities was steeply hierarchical, as resources were disbursed according to academic potential and achievement. After the war, the federal provision of research funds greatly expanded the size and effectiveness of this system. The post-Sputnik explosion of all supporting resources created the mature system of American research universities and solidified a federal partnership for the advancement of knowledge. As research universities prospered, they sponsored social-behavioral subjects having social objectives. Polarization of the political environment after 2000 increasingly affected research universities and the university research system. The hegemony of the scientific ethos was progressively eroded in favor of the priority of social justice memes. When diversity was imposed on the hiring of academic personnel, it corrupted the reward system based on the scientific ethos. In 2025 the Trump Administration regarded universities as an enemy and explicitly sought to control them for its own political ends. The politicization of universities and American society, first by the Left and then by the Right, now threatens to compromise the enormous achievements of American science. (shrink)

The conceptual literature increasingly portrays corporate philanthropy (CP) as an old-fashioned and ineffective operationalization of a firm’s corporate social responsibility. In contrast, empirical research indicates that corporations of all sizes, and both in developed and emerging economies, actively practice CP. This disadvantaged status of the concept, and research, on CP, complicates the advancement of our knowledge about the topic. In a systematic review of the literature containing 122 journal articles on CP, we show that this business practice is loaded with (...) unique characteristics, strengths, and weaknesses, and both conceptual and practical challenges that require renewed attention. We identify six interrelated but distinctive research themes in the literature: concept, motives, determinants, practices, business outcomes, and social outcomes. Dividing the literature on CP into six research themes creates an insightful comprehensive map of this intellectual terrain. Moreover, we distinguish among the level at which CP is analyzed: individual, organizational, institutional, or any combination of these levels. The review reveals significant gaps in the knowledge on CP. Most importantly we find that the conceptualization is limited, the research is mostly quantitative, the effects of CP on society are severely under-researched, and there is a lack of multilevel analyses. A detailed future research agenda is offered, including specific suggestions for research designs and measurements. (shrink)

The rapid turnover of senatorial families during the Principate is a well-known phenomenon, but one which awaits satisfactory explanation. Comparative evidence shows the rate of turnover to have been unusually high. For example, the old aristocratic families of early modern Europe gave way to new at a much slower rate. Patterns of Roman property-holding and of the transmission of wealth from one generation to the next must have been closely associated with this rapid turnover. When an aristocratic family produced no (...) offspring who reached adulthood, the normal pattern of passing the bulk of the estate from one generation to the next within the family was interrupted. On the other hand, if a family produced many children, it might well become impoverished in the process of providing for all of them. Consequently, to perpetuate the family line with its status intact required careful financial and family planning. It was necessary to use or to take into account the various laws and customs regarding the family, including those regulating division of the estate among heirs, adoption, dowry and so on. (shrink)

This paper is about teaching progressive ideas where fundamentalist and conservative views are prominent among the students. I take up two questions: What should we take our task as feminist teachers to be? How should it be carried out? I explore three teaching strategies that a progressive teacher might use in a hostile conservative climate: the whole truth strategy, the dismissal strategy, and the bridge strategy. I reject the first two of these and argue that the third is most likely (...) to be effective and also best exemplifies the value of academic freedom. (shrink)

Contemporary medical education must train skilled and compassionate health care professionals who are rigorous in their approach to patient care and their pursuit of knowledge and solutions. Problem-based learning has been widely introduced, but there is no evidence that it leads to better outcomes than more traditional programs, and fundamental gaps in conceptual knowledge may result. Recently, emphasis has been placed on a solid grounding in underlying concepts combined with a systems-based approach, and ability to transfer information and solve problems. (...) Integrating traditional scientific and clinical disciplines with progressive and continuous assessment, may be a better means of achieving the combined aims of clinically relevant curriculum design, vertical integration of medical knowledge, and facilitation of the continuum of training. Being adaptable and flexible, cognisant of costs, and driven by evidence are key features of delivering medical education and contemporary medical practice. Educational research should lead to continuous improvement, but innovation without evaluation and attention to costs may create as many, or more, problems as are solved. (shrink)

The constitution of Pakistan contains wide range of provisions for the protection of labour rights. Pakistan has been bestowed with 70 labour laws along with 90 rules and regulations thereunder. In spite of these labour laws along with rules and regulations, labour force is facing multifarious challenges that posit direct threat to their legal recognised rights. In this regard this study was carried out to study the main hurdles that labour rights encountered in historical perspective. Moreover, in the wake of (...) devolution plan through 18th amendment to the constitution of Pakistan, what problems in respect of enforceability and legality have arisen? Labour laws promulgated in various Pakistani regimes have been discussed to figure out what really prevented successive governments to ensure minimum protection to labour strata of the nations. The article concludes with some recommendation that are sin-qua-non in current globalization where rights have emerged as the most sacred instruments in the hands of weaker portion of a society. (shrink)

This is a pioneering study of how multiculturalism interacts with multinationalism. Focusing specifically on post-devolution Scotland, and based on statistical analysis of over 1500 interviews, Hussain and Miller critically examine the challenges of Scotland's largest visible and invisible minorities: ethnic Pakistanis and English immigrants.

After a sustained period of relative calm, initial teacher education and training (ITET) in Wales has seen much change in recent times since devolution and all the indications are that this change agenda is likely to escalate in both the short and long term. In order to understand what has been happening in the ITET field in Wales, our paper sets out to achieve three things: first, it has contextualised the changing ITET, political, social and economic climate within Wales. (...) Second, it has presented ITET data for Wales from the onset of devolution to the present time. Thereafter, these data have been compared and contrasted. Third, we have attempted to project our findings forward, albeit in an era which is increasingly difficult to predict given both the financial climate and ?cuts? agenda. These latter aspects may result in the longer term, at best, to ITET in Wales becoming even further fragmented or reduced in numbers to, at worst, being decimated or changed forever from the more traditional scene which was apparent in both Wales and the rest of the UK since the Robbins Report aftermath in the late 1960s. (shrink)

Mushrooms are a ubiquitous and essential component in our biological environment and have been of interest to humans around the globe for millennia. Knowledge about mushrooms represents a prime example of cumulative culture, one of the key processes in human evolution. Based on a review of available research, we argue that the cognitive mechanisms of cultural transmission impact this knowledge in a twofold manner. First and foremost, they secure the accumulation of (folk-)mycological knowledge, with the principal objective to capture reliable (...) information on edibility and means for safe distinction. However, they also shape attitudes toward mushrooms, practices involved in foraging and consumption, and appraisals of edibility in distinct ways, with even regression and eventual loss of knowledge as one possible outcome. In using the domain of mushrooms as an example for expounding this dual role that culture plays during knowledge transmission, our paper contributes to theoretical debates around the cognitive and cultural mechanisms involved in human evolution. (shrink)

The 1988 Education Reform Act legislated for a statutory curriculum in state-funded schools in England and Wales. This study explores how, out of a common curriculum framework for both countries, there emerged a school curriculum that was adapted to the distinctiveness of the linguistic and cultural context in Wales. The roles of those most closely involved in policy development in Wales are examined as is the relationship between the 'national' and 'territorial' arenas of policy-making in the months leading up to (...) publication of the Education Reform Bill in November 1987. It is argued that a pragmatic approach to policy development in Wales during that period laid the foundations both for a reworking of the 1988 curriculum framework during the 1990s and for potentially more radical change following the 2002 Education Act. (shrink)

When explaining the causes of structural variations in local governance reform, regional studies scholars face a trilemma: how to avoid voluntarism that over-inflates individuals’ power to ‘heroically’ reorganize local governance regimes; how to avoid determinism that denies the prowess of local actors in the face of institutional constraints; and how to avoid constructivism that denies the separate existence of both individual actions and local institutions. The question they must answer is: if individuals are embedded in institutions that define their interests (...) and shape their cognitions, how can they ever be able to change institutions? Critical realism suggests a suitable answer to this question by seeing institutional dynamics as consisting of structures, institutions, and actions, each with a distinct existence but nevertheless irreducible to each other. The practical value of this ontology – which avoids voluntarism, determinism and constructivism – is illustrated by an English devolution case study. (shrink)

Within the field of education management studies, recent reforms promoting devolution and choice are often seen to provide exciting new opportunities. It is claimed that the 'new' education management, with its emphasis on site-based decision-making and consumer accountability, will enable headteachers and principals to 'take control' of their schools and make them more productive environments in which to work and study. However, our review of research findings from five different countries that are putting in place devolution and choice (...) policies suggests that these new opportunities are more illusory than real. Positioned between the competing demands of the state and the market, school managers are becoming increasingly isolated from colleagues and classrooms - leading to a growing divergence between the managers and the managed. The paper considers the implication of recent developments for managers in general and for women managers in particular and concludes by discussing the relationship between the personalisation of responsibility and the legitimation of crises within the state and public education. (shrink)

This article considers the major constitutional reforms which have taken place in the United Kingdom during the period of government by the Labour Party, 1997-2010. Within the context of the UK’s unwritten constitution, the article first considers how ‘constitutional’ law can be identified when compared with a written constitution, such as that of the Republic of Lithuania. The article then analyses the major reforms which have taken place since 1997, the political reasons behind them, the processes of reform and their (...) impact on the constitution. The four areas examined—reform of the House of Lords; the enactment of the Human Rights Act 1998; devolution; and the changes to the judiciary in the Constitutional Reform Act 2005—have all had a significant impact on the way in which the UK is governed. The article argues that these are all welcome developments, but that in many cases they are incomplete. In the absence of the likelihood of a future written constitution for the UK, sustained efforts by future governments are needed by to ensure that the reforms fulfil their aim of modernizing the democratic system. (shrink)

Farm-to-school (FTS) programs have garnered the attentions and energies of people in a diverse array of social locations in the food system and are serving as a sort of touchstone for many in the alternative agrifood movement. Yet, unlike other alternative agrifood initiatives, FTS programs intersect directly with the long-established institution of the welfare state, including its vestiges of New Deal farm programs and public entitlement. This paper explores how FTS is navigating the liminal terrain of public and private initiative, (...) particularly the ways in which it interfaces with neoliberalism as both a material and discursive project. It examines the political emergence of school food programs and finds that FTS is strikingly similar to traditional school programs in objectives, but differs in approach. Yet, in their efforts to fill in the gaps created by political and economic neoliberalization, FTS advocates are in essence producing neoliberal forms and practices afresh. These include those associated with contingent labor relationships, private funding sources, and the devolution of responsibility to the local, all of which have serious consequences for social equity. The paper also discusses how FTS programs are employing the rhetoric of neoliberal governmentality, including personal responsibility and individual success, consumerism, and choice. While these may be tactical choices used to secure funding in a competitive environment, they may also contribute to the normalization of neoliberalism, further circumscribing the possibilities of what can be imagined and created to solve social problems. (shrink)

In many countries and resource sectors, the state is devolving responsibility for natural resource management responsibility to ``communities'' or local user groups. However, both policymakers and researchers in this area have tended to ignore the implications of gender and other forms of intra-community power differences for the effectiveness and equity of natural resource management. In the irrigation sector, despite the rhetoric on women's participation, a review of evidence from South Asia shows that organizations often exclude women through formal or informal (...) membership rules and practices. Women may have other ways to obtain irrigation services, but even if they are effective, these other informal ways of obtaining irrigation services are typically less secure. As resource management – and rights to resources – are transferred from the state to local organizations, ensuring women's participation is essential for gender equity in control over resources. Greater involvement of women can also strengthen the effectiveness of local organizations by improving women's compliance with rules and maintenance contributions. Further detailed and comparative research is required to identify the major factors that affect women's participation and control over resources, if devolution policies are to be both equitable and sustainable. (shrink)

This chapter examines the impact of Brexit on devolved governments, with the principal focus on Scotland and Wales. It begins with consideration of the pre-Brexit position, and the nature of the devolution settlements in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. This is followed by discussion of post-Brexit changes on the devolved governments, including the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020, the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, the Internal Market Act 2020, and the Retained EU Law (...) (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023; Common Frameworks; judicial decisions; and the Sewel Convention. The chapter reveals the ways in which post-Brexit changes have undermined key assumptions of devolution, primarily by weakening local decision-making over devolved competences. The complexity of Brexit legislation has also compromised transparency, clarity, and accountability and vastly increased the complexity of the devolution process. There has been increased recourse to courts to resolve complex devolution issues that have not been resolved through the political process. (shrink)

Scottish devolution and land reform were high on the political agenda with Labour's victory at the general election in 1997. In the Highlands of Scotland, where disputes over the ownership and control of land have a long history, initiatives involving the community ownership of land were gathering pace, one of which was Orbost Estate in Skye. What began as an 'experiment' in building a new community with the intention of creating a model for land reform, by 2002 had become (...) a symbol of community opposition and heavy-handed mismanagement by bureaucrats. The conflict between local objectors and the government-funded enterprise company that bought the estate, was fought on ideological, aesthetic and bureaucratic grounds. The discourse of conflict reflected opposing understandings of the social, historical and cultural environment – values that are associated with and 'naturalised' in the landscape. Rural development is increasingly subject to rigid planning guidelines based on notions of visual landscape aesthetics and imputed historical-cultural values associated with the area's tourist industry. In the absence of strong local democratic institutions, objectors and developers arrived at an uneasy compromise after several years of dispute, through the agency of the bureaucratic planning apparatus itself. This study illustrates how the multi-faceted concept of landscape mediates cultural, social and political issues, and is continually evolving in response to aesthetic, ideological and institutional agencies. (shrink)

The return of devolution to Northern Ireland in May 2007 marks an important turning point in the Northern Ireland peace process, but there remains the issue of the “on-the-runs”—a term used to describe persons suspected of committing a range of terrorist acts during the Troubles, who were never arrested, charged, prosecuted, or tried. It is thought that the On-the-Runs want to return to Northern Ireland, but determining the conditions for their return is a difficult and controversial issue, raising legal (...) and moral concerns and causing strong and painful reactions among the victims of terrorist violence on all sides of the Northern Ireland conflict. It is also an issue that is complicated by the fact that while the Belfast Agreement of 1998 did not address expressly the situation of the On-the-Runs, it did provide for the accelerated release of a significant number of paramilitaries, both republican and loyalist, from prisons in both Ireland and Northern Ireland. This paper reviews the possible options in law for addressing the situation of the On-the-Runs, including extradition and prosecution, as well as trial and amnesty, and pardons. While the paper makes clear that the political offence exception to extradition is no longer the obstacle it once was, it also concludes that politics, rather than law, or simply the passage of time is more likely to offer the solution to the problem posed by the On-the-Runs. (shrink)

Having thought out the Enlightenment project of individualism, privacy, and autonomy to its end, Anglo-American ethical theory now finds itself unable to respond to the collapse of community in which the practices justified by this project have resulted. In the place of reasonable deliberation about the goals to be chosen and the means to them, we now, it seems, have only what MacIntyre has aptly called “interminable debate” among “rival” positions, debate in which each party merely contends with the others (...) for its own advantage. And this circumstance MacIntyre himself seems unable to escape despite his best efforts. In further elaborating Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutical reception of Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, and Hegel, and in referring simultaneously to Edmund Burke’s parallel political rhetoric, among other tradition-oriented arguments in the English language, this book seeks a recollection of shared ethical principles, a recollection which alone, it is argued, might prevent the devolution of discussion into war with words and make possible some measure of consensus, however provisional and shadowed by dissent it will be. (shrink)

Claims to self-determination are rife in world politics today. They range from Scottish and Catalonian campaigns for independence to calls for the devolution of power to regions and cities. But is self-determination meaningful or desirable in the twenty-first century, or merely a dangerous illusion? In this book, David Miller mounts a powerful defence of political self-determination. He explains why it is valuable and argues that geographic proximity alone is not enough for groups to have the capacity for self-determination: group (...) members must also identify with each other. He explores the different political forms that self-determination can take, and he suggests some realistic constraints on how it can be achieved, concluding that people exercising their collective agency is still both feasible and important. Anyone concerned by the theoretical issues raised by the various secessionist and nationalist movements around the world should read this book. (shrink)