scholarly journals Equality and Human Rights in Britain: Principles and Challenges

2011 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheila Riddell ◽  
Nick Watson

In the UK and many other European countries, there continue to be concerns about a range of social issues including the position of immigrants, the educational attainment of marginalised groups and the persistence of the gender pay gap. Increasingly, governments and NGOs assert that the promotion of equality and human rights policies are central to addressing these issues, with a view to creating societies which are both more equitable and more efficient. Over the past decade and a half, a period of economic growth followed recently by a major recession, the equality and human rights agenda enjoyed a high political profile. However, as we discuss in this review article, the social and economic optimism of the late nineties and early to mid noughties has been followed by economic retrenchment, a commitment to the shrinking of the state and the public sphere across Europe and a general move to the political right. In this article, we first review the political context which led to the rise of the equality and human rights agenda. Subsequently, we examine competing conceptualisations of equality and their operationalisation within British social policy. Finally, we assess the progress which has been made towards achieving a more equal society in the UK over recent years drawing on data gathered and analysed by the National Equality Panel (NEP, 2010).

2021 ◽  
pp. 79-94
Author(s):  
Kathleen Wellman

Although the ancient Greeks and Romans have long been appreciated as foundations for Western civilization, for these textbooks, the Greeks’ philosophy, gods, and immorality tar them as godless humanists. Nonetheless, the Greeks and the Romans allow these curricula to introduce several key social, political, and moral arguments. They assess whether ancient civilizations implemented the “family values” of the political right as it emerged in the 1970s. Thus the Greeks were commendable in excluding women from the public sphere and the Romans for their strong patriarchal families. But Rome fell when it failed to maintain family values. These textbooks disparage the Romans to downplay their influence on the American founding. Furthermore, the rise of Islam reveals the presence of Satan in the world. These curricula’s repudiation of the classical tradition reflects not only contemporary concerns of the religious right but also American anti-intellectualism.


Author(s):  
Maria José Da Silva Feitosa ◽  
Hironobu Sano

O presente estudo tem como problema de pesquisa: De que maneira a sociologia política da ação pública contribui para esclarecer as barreiras e indutores na implementação da inovação social? Para responder tal problema, esta pesquisa propõe a utilização do pentágono de políticas públicas como modelo de análise na implementação da inovação social, tendo em vista a capacidade do mesmo para análise de aspectos cognitivos dos atores, que podem contribuir para explanar a dimensão política da inovação social, a qual é tida como incógnita que demanda esclarecimento. O estudo da implementação da inovação social a partir de um modelo de análise de implementação de políticas públicas é possível porque tanto a inovação social quanto a ação pública levam em conta os quadros cognitivos decorrentes da interação e articulação de atores, aspectos subjetivos e objetivos, com foco na solução de uma questão social como a desigualdade social, a pobreza, o crime, o analfabetismo. Tanto a ação pública quanto a inovação social consideram importante a diversidade de atores e a atuação ativa destes, o empoderamento, o protagonismo dos mesmos, na busca por soluções para questões sociais. O estudo da inovação social é relevante para toda sociedade, pois é um tema que aborda questões de interesse coletivo. O presente trabalho inova na medida em que propõe que a implementação da inovação social seja analisada por meio do pentágono de políticas públicas. Palavras-Chave: Pentágono de Políticas Públicas. Inovação Social. Barreiras. Indutores. Implementação.   Abstract: The present study has the following research problem: How does the political sociology of public action contribute to clarify the barriers and dravers in the implementation of social innovation? To answer this problem, this research proposes the use of the public policies pentagon as a model of analysis in the social innovation implementation, given its ability to analyze cognitive aspects of actors, which contribute to explain the political dimension of social innovation, which is considered a unknown variable that requires clarification. The study of social innovation implementation from a model of public policy implementation analysis is possible because both social innovation and public action take into account cognitive aspects arising from the interaction and articulation of actors, subjective and objective aspects, focused on solving a social issue such as social inequality, poverty, crime, illiteracy. Both public action and social innovation consider important the diversity of actors and their active role, their empowerment, their protagonism, in the search for solutions to social issues. The social innovation study is relevant to society as a whole, as it is a topic that addresses issues of collective interest. The present study innovates in that it proposes that the implementation of social innovation be analyzed through of the public policies pentagon. Keywords: Public Policies Pentagon. Social Innovation. Barriers.  Drivers. Implementation.  


Author(s):  
Thomas Olesen

The chapter’s premise is the social contract between media and democracy, which features strongly in the professional values of Danish journalists. Media have become so central to the political process that many refer to a mediatization of politics. At the same time, research points to a crisis of journalism with declining readership, trust, and professional authority. These challenges have been set in motion at least partly by new media consumption and production patterns. The crisis of journalism prompts two questions: is it reversing the process of mediatization, and does it erode journalism’s role as democratic watchdogs in Denmark? The chapter shows that the crisis of journalism must be considered in a comparative perspective and that the Danish media system demonstrates a degree of resilience to it. It also notes, however, that traditional media have indeed lost their privileged position as organizers of the public sphere. Rather than seeing a reversal of mediatization, it makes more sense to speak of a mediatization 2.0, and rather than identifying an erosion of the media’s watchdog role, it is more accurate to say that they now share it with a host of other agents in the current hybridized media system.


2021 ◽  
Vol 03 (04) ◽  
pp. 221-231
Author(s):  
Youness HABBACH

This research aims at analysing the pragmatic prominent discourse in the public sphere, the digital sphere in particular, that reflects special changes in the society. The meant discourse has not been investigated adequately and sufficiently namely the social, the political and the digital virtual discourses which bear an effective semantic and pragmatic power on the public space and at the same time incorporate strong transformations in the values patterns. This study utilizes a pragmatic approach, since the pragmatics is a study of using language in communication, and works on analysing daily discourses using a journalistic editorial. So, what are the changes reflected by this discourse? And what are the values represented and expressed by the prevailing discourses in the public sphere?


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-27
Author(s):  
Predrag Terzić

The process of creating a modern state and forming political institutions corresponds to the process of transforming the subjects of the past into a community constituted on the principle of citizenship. The citizen becomes the foundation of the political community and the subject, which in interaction with other citizens, forms the public sphere. However, this does not mean that all members of the community have the same rights and obligations contained in the status of a citizen. Excluding certain categories of residents from the principle of citizenship raises a number of issues that delegitimize the existing order by colliding with the ideas of justice, freedom and equality. The aim of this short research is to clarify the principle of citizenship, its main manifestations and excluded subjects, as well as the causes that are at the root of the concept of exclusive citizenship. A brief presentation of the idea of multiculturalism does not intend to fully analytically explain this concept, but only to present in outline one of the ways of overcoming the issue of exclusive citizenship. In order to determine the social significance of the topic, a part of the text is dedicated to the ideas that form the basis of an exclusive understanding of citizenship, the reasons for its application and the far-reaching consequences of social tensions and unrest, which cannot be ignored.


2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 423-442 ◽  
Author(s):  
Concepción Cascajosa Virino ◽  
Vicente Rodríguez Ortega

This article deals with the use of the American television series Game of Thrones (HBO: 2011–) as part of the political discourse of the emerging political party Podemos in Spain. First, we focus on Podemos leader, Pablo Iglesias, who, in 2014, edited a book devoted to analyzing this series from a political science viewpoint. We then move on to study ideologically charged symbolic gestures and the detailed analysis of the parallelisms between Daenerys Targaryen’s revolutionary enterprise and Podemos’s bottom-to-top quest to seize power. We then scrutinize how emergent political forces that threaten the enduring hegemony of traditional parties use popular cultural artifacts to intervene in the social fabric and how they attempt to tune in with the Internet-dedicated, socially networked younger classes. This article, thus, analyzes how the relationship between politics and serialized TV fiction has morphed within the Spanish mediascape, paying special attention to the impact of participatory culture.


2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 167
Author(s):  
Dede Husni Mubarok ◽  
Alief Akbar Musaddad

When the New Order regime fell, demands or aspirations for the formalization of Islamic law in Indonesia were intensively voiced by a group of Muslims, both through the political process and in interactions in the public sphere. However, other secular and Muslim groups are worried about the formalization of Islamic law because many provisions in sharia are considered inconsistent with the pillars of democracy and human rights, such as freedom, gender equality, equality of citizenship, and tolerance. The two seemingly contradictory poles are interesting to study through etymological and terminological approaches to the terms of the Shari’ah in the correlational interpretations of the Qur’an and Sunnah texts and the dynamics of their historical meanings so that it will give birth to the image of Islamic Shari’ah which is friendly, full of peace, and respect for human rights. Therefore, Islamic law, which is flexible, elastic, tolerant, and inclusive, can substantially be applied in the midst of multicultural, multi-religious, and multi-ethnic social realities in the context of upholding democracy and respecting human rights.


Prospects ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 393-416
Author(s):  
Janice M. Coco

The Public Reception Of An Image stands as a testament to its cultural 1 and social meanings. Nevertheless, the painting Hairdresser's Window (Figure 1) by the American Realist John Sloan (1871–1951) has yet to be considered in light of its contemporary criticism. The response of Sloan's early-20th-century audience was ambivalent and thus raises questions concerning the social issues embodied in this painting. Because Hairdresser's Window contains the major motifs recurring throughout Sloan's oeuvre (for example, windows, stereotyped figures, working-class women, and the inclusion of spectators within the picture), it will be used as paradigm to explore the social relevance of his personal mode of spectatorship, a practice that had its counterpart in the public sphere and was paralleled in other works of American Realist painting.


2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher McCrudden

AbstractThis article suggests that the scope and meaning of human rights, and its relationship to religion, is anything but settled, and that this gives an opportunity to those who support a role for religion in public life to intervene. Such intervention should address four main issues. First, it should ensure that judges engage in attempting to understand religious issues from a cognitively internal viewpoint. Secondly, it should articulate a justification for freedom of religion that fully captures the core of the significance of religious belief, and the importance of the religious principles in the public sphere. Thirdly, it should ensure engagement and dialogue between the churches and others on the meaning of human dignity, given its centrality to religious and secular perspectives on rights. Lastly, the churches should consider more carefully what it means to give ‘public reasons’ in the political and cultural context, and how it can engage in the process of ‘public reasoning’ regarding human rights.


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