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This article examines John Bruce's vision of the bureaucratic archives of the British state and empire at the end of the eighteenth century. As Historiographer to the East India Company and Keeper of State Papers in the 1790s and early 1800s, Bruce used the archives of corporate and state government as sources of bureaucratic knowledge to justify and plan imperial and domestic policy. In this way, Bruce deployed a strategy of governance by the authority of "state papers," rooted in early modern political practice, across imperial and domestic government. The demise of Bruce's influence signaled the waning of this role of the archive as a technology of governance in Britain during the nineteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on four popular UK based, desi food blogs by Anjali Pathak, Hari Ghotra, Mallika Basu, and Chintal Kakaya, who are ambassadors of the global justice charity Find Your Feet's (FYF) 'Curry for Change' (CFC) campaign. Reconfiguring and challenging geographical parameters and national boundaries, the bloggers team up with FYF to help fight hunger in African and Asian rural communities. Using the Internet as a platform to create awareness about the charity, the blogs share recipes and meal plans for dinner parties hosted in honour of the charity and invite the public to fundraising events. Concerned with human rights, these bloggers affect social change by empowering individuals and communities to participate in civic engagement, and occasionally to even challenge unfair government policies/practices. The blogs' efficacy can also be measured through the funds raised, the public attention they receive from channels such as Indian food network and London Live, local/regional newspapers such as the London Evening Standard, and magazines like India's Complete Wellbeing Magazine. Food blogs that actively contribute to global justice movements cannot be seen as domestic reflections or exercises in nostalgia anymore. Referring to Habermas's notion of the public sphere and Nancy Fraser's concept of the transnational public sphere, I examine these food blogs as transnational public spheres. Based on textual analysis of blog entries related specifically to the CFC campaign and an examination of FYF's annual reviews, this paper examines how these food blogs have expanded in form and function by engaging in cyberactivism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Garland's (2000) view that both the United States and United Kingdom have fundamentally similar approaches to the prevention of crime. Whilst conceding their superficial similarity, we argue that the U.K. policy was driven by research on situational crime prevention, whilst the U.S. federal research agenda has been more supportive of policy than formative, and has invested relatively little in situational studies. We describe the ways in which U.K. research influenced policy, and consider the structural and philosophical reasons why a similar approach would be more difficult in the United States. We note, however, that the pressure on both policy makers and practitioners to deliver outcomes may lead to increasing interest in bringing the U.S. federal research agenda closer to policy development. If this happens then the U.K. experience may become more relevant in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the tensions that sometimes arise between educational researchers and policy makers. The recent history of the relationship is described and it is suggested that part of the reason for current disenchantment (on both sides) is that the two groups approach research with different expectations and priorities. Two particular examples, one from the 1970s and one from 2011, are considered in some detail, to illustrate how issues of power and control can lead to the adoption of 'political' stances that lose sight of the potential value of research. It is suggested that while issues of funding are important, researchers need to be self-critical about the quality of their research output and to identify potential growth areas for future activity. At the same time, policy makers should be less concerned about the short-term 'public relations' aspects of research and more willing to think of the longer-term benefits of good research evidence, even if it sometimes causes political sensitivities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2000, the British House of Lords and the Government have been working towards a regulatory scheme for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) in Britain, a scheme that will include āyurveda. The present paper discusses these regulatory moves by the Government, and suggests that shortcomings in the range and type of evidence taken into account by the various Government agencies will leave a legacy of difficulties for CAM practitioners and their patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the right to health care. Various expressions of this right may be distinguished. These include both individual rights and social rights which could be based upon international treaties and constitutional rights. They may be found in national health legislation and, in some cases, in jurisprudence. To analyze the consequences of limiting the right to health care, a framework for judicial review has been developed which encompasses these expressions of the right to health care. The framework was used to examine legal and health policy developments in three Western and two Eastern European countries. In Italy and the Netherlands the right to health care is protected constitutionally (but on differing legal bases) while the United Kingdom does not have a written constitution. In contrast, Hungary and Poland have for many years seen the state take responsible for the provision, administration and allocation of health care services and the right to health care was guaranteed theoretically but not in practice because of the lack of (financial) means. However, the Polish Constitution explicitly anticipates possible limitations of the right to health care. What all these countries have in common is a cost containment perspective where the future will bring even tighter limits on what resources patients may consume. Despite differences in legal structure between these countries, where they seem to converge is on the consequences of putting limitations on the right to health care. The courts in Italy, the Netherlands and the UK have formulated conditions drawn from the acceptance that this right has to be judged within the context of limited resources. It may be concluded that finding a compromise between the right to health care and cost containment policies could also be an issue, Eastern European countries will have to face in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children's wellbeing has moved from an academic field of interest to a policy and practice framework, internationally and in many countries. Children's wellbeing tends to be twinned casually with children's rights but recent Scottish legislation - the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 - has put children's rights and children's wellbeing in tension. This provides an opportunity to consider the concepts critically. The article scrutinises parliamentary debates and accompanying submissions, to reveal that children's rights arguments failed due to political concerns about litigation and a lack of evidence that children's rights improved children's lives. Children's wellbeing arguments were more successful, as children's wellbeing continues the familiar trajectory of a needs-based approach. It has additional benefits of maximising outcomes, emphasising early intervention and prevention, and statistical development. It also risks being apolitical and professionally-driven, with no minimum standards and limited recourse for children's and their families' rights and complaints. These findings raise broader questions about how to argue for children's rights in national and global contexts where children's wellbeing has ever-increasing prominence, fuelled by calls for evidence-based policy and accountability via outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is written in response to a recent report on a review of teacher education in Scotland undertaken by Graham Donaldson (2011). In particular it questions the recommendation that engaging teachers in professional enquiry and research-informed teaching is the way forward for developing the professional capabilities required of "21st Century teachers". The report reflects an increasing emphasis in the literature on school effectiveness and improvement of the need to further teachers' professional learning and a pedagogic pressure for them to adopt constructivist approaches to teaching that are based on research evidence about how children and young people learn best. Practitioner research is seen by policy makers as an important strategy for achieving these objectives. This article, based on a series of empirical studies, sets out to identify some of the issues revealed by the attempt to use practitioner research as a vehicle for affecting classroom practice within the context of a policy initiative to support the development of accomplished teaching. It argues that, if such a strategy is to be effective, it is important to conceive of it in systemic terms and to confront the challenges involved in developing the sets of networked relations that will be essential if such a strategy is to prove worthwhile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disagreement about matters of public policy concerned with moral issues is inevitable in pluralist democracies. One approach to the resolution of moral conflicts in society is the concept of deliberative democracies which emphasises the process or procedure which ultimately allows a political decision to be reached. The Republic of Ireland effectively has no legislative framework regulating human embryonic stem cell research (hESC research). This article proposes that Irish policymakers establish a procedural framework, similar to that used in other European democracies, to allow the development of appropriate regulations pertaining to hESC research in Ireland. In particular the article will consider how a three-tier model of procedural regulation has been used to achieve certainty in the area of hESC research in the United Kingdom and Germany and how this model might be applied to Ireland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Aarhus Convention, the Directive 2003/4/EC and national legislation, respectively, give citizens a right of access to environmental information as held by either public authorities or private bodies. For such information to be accessible, the body in question must have public responsibilities or functions or provide public services such as natural gas, electricity, sewerage and water services etc. The United Kingdom (UK) Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIRs) and the federal German Environmental Information Act (EIA), however, provide insufficient definitions of the private bodies in question. The parallel existence of the EIRs/EIA and Freedom of Information Acts (FOIAs) in the UK and in Germany adds further complexity to the situation. Unlike the UK implementation under which there is specific guidance which gives relatively good advice, the situation in Germany is pitiable. A more citizen-friendly solution to these problems could be the creation of a joint statute. This joint statute would provide for a comprehensive list of covered authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]