Digital Commons Network^™

County Monaghan Social Enterprise Strategy 2021-2025, Gerard Doyle, Tanya Lalor

Reports

No abstract provided.

Ideas, Power And Agency: Policy Actors And The Formulation Of Language-In-Education Policy For Multilingualism, Susanna Nocchi, Iker Erdocia, Mary Ruane

Articles

The processes of formulation of language policies have not been researched thoroughly. This paper aims to explore the relationship between ideas, power and agency in language policy-making and specifically with reference to the formulation of language-in-education policy for multilingualism in Ireland. Through an argumentative approach to language policy and using a discursive institutionalist framework, the paper examines data from policy documents and interviews with policy actors in the Department of Education and Skills. The paper reports on the ways in which agentive discourses are constrained and enabled by institutional structures. The analysis shows how power resulting from asymmetric internal forces …

What We Do In The Shadows: Dual Industrial Policy During The Thatcher Governments, 1979–1990, Richard Woodward, James Silverwood

Articles

Selective industrial policy in the United Kingdom is conventionally believed to have vanished prior to the global financial crisis. This article, in contrast, argues that industrial policy remained an intrinsic, if seldom acknowledged, element of neoliberal statecraft. The basis of this is a subterfuge, conceptualised here as a ‘dual industrial policy’, which we explore via an empirical focus on the Thatcher governments. Throughout this time, actions explicitly endorsed by governments as industrial policy generally corresponded with neoliberalism’s hostility to intervention. These conveniently distracted attention from a second set of policies which, although never codified by government as industrial policy, were …

Crime, Risk And Resilience In The Countryside: Governing Rural Security, Artur Pytlarz

Doctoral

A consequence of globalisation is a growing transport infrastructure which exposes rural communities to a greater risk of crime and increased insecurity. This is compounded by the withdrawal of both market and state in policing, banking, hospitals and postal services leaving rural citizens with what seems to be ontological insecurity. This project is set in Ireland but addresses global themes such as late modernity, risk and globalization and undertakes an intensive qualitative sociological study of how communities build the capacity to manage these changes. These capacities, it is hypothesised, can be found in nascent forms of local informal crime control …

Perspective Chapter: Reflections On The Future Of Higher Education In The United Kingdom, Jonathan Blackledge

Books/Book chapters

The problems being faced in the UK university sector are considered, how these problems have arisen, what needs to be done about them, and, how the future of the UK’s knowledge economy will be influenced by the strategies currently being implemented by the UK government. This is done by revisiting some examples of problems from the past, and how they were solved. This is undertaken using a framework that is characterised by the following fundamental issues: (i) educational philosophies; (ii) ethics in educational provision; (iii) knowledge economies, and; (iv) the goals of education. In this context, the chapter discusses the …

Vaccine Diplomacy Game: The Race For Soft Power, Isaac Antwi-Boasiako

Articles

This article examines the motivations and dynamics of the donors and suppliers of the covid-19 vaccines to the global south countries in the context of public diplomacy to wield soft power. Thus, it investigates how the West and East use the vaccines as a public diplomacy tool to influence public opinion in other nations or continents in order to either enhance their global image and reputation or exert some form of international influence or have new allies. The article argues that covid-19 vaccines are a soft power asset; therefore, the manufacturing nations may use them to shape their target foreign …

Festivals And The City: The Contested Geographies Of Urban Events, Andrew Smith, Guy Osborn, Bernadette Quinn

Books / Book chapters

This book explores how festivals and events affect urban places and public spaces, with a particular focus on their role in fostering inclusion. The ‘festivalisation’ of culture, politics and space in cities is often regarded as problematic, but this book examines the positive and negative ways that festivals affect cities by examining festive spaces as contested spaces. The book focuses on Western European cities, a particularly interesting context given the social and cultural pressures associated with high levels of in-migration and concerns over the commercialisation and privatisation of public spaces.

The key themes of this book are the quest for …