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The ongoing "massification" of higher education in the UK has generated increased demand for student housing. Some of this demand is being met by new, purpose‐built student accommodation, but much is being met through an intensification of student properties in established "student areas," and the expansion of student housing into neighbourhoods previously unaffected by high levels of student in‐migration in a process termed "studentification." Previous research indicates that the arrival of multiple student households in established residential areas creates conflict and adversely affects the non‐student population. Wishing to understand better these effects, this paper draws on focus group discussions completed with 11 diverse residents' groups based across Southampton, an English university city, which explored attitudes towards, and experiences of, studentification. Seeking a more robust theorisation of the sociospatial impacts of, and responses to, this process, the findings are considered in relation to Foucault's concept of "heterotopia." Reflecting previous findings, the residents' groups emerged as firm critics of studentification. Considered against Foucault's concept, it appeared that the "heterotopian" qualities of studentified areas formed the points of most concern. Implications for the future of studentified areas, and for the concept of heterotopia, are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent left academic work on the consequences of economic restructuring and local labour market change in old industrial cities has been important in emphasising the role of local context and contingency in the shaping of labour market outcomes. However, in such accounts agency is often limited to capital and state actors, albeit working across scales from the local upwards. There is little sense of agency for individuals and communities in the midst of economic restructuring. Instead, they are usually treated as passive victims of deeper underlying processes. In this paper, our purpose is to highlight the autonomy and agency of workers, people and communities in old industrial cities. Rather than starting from the perspective of capital, our starting point is to emphasise how those experiencing economic change forge strategies and practices for “getting by”. This leads us to call for a re-theorisation of labour agency, drawing upon the Autonomous Marxist tradition and the more recent work of Cindi Katz, in order to offer fresh insight into the agency of labour and the prospect for recovering a class politics based upon lived experience over reified abstractions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Housing figures prominently in debates about crime in Britain. It has become commonplace to comment on the increasing associations between crime and council housing. This paper explores some of the issues which link housing and crime. It argues that it is important to recognize how the social base and geography of housing have changed and to understand processes which lead to an increasing concentration in council housing of those with least choice in the housing market and fewest resources elsewhere. At the same time there is a danger in overstating the associations between crime and council housing and neglecting other associations with housing, and homelessness. In view of the associations between crime and council housing, considerable effort has been expended on developing management and other responses designed to reduce crime. The general view is that a broad approach is required in such initiatives and the limited research evidence does not suggest that housing management action alone is effective in reducing crime. The association which exists between council housing and crime requires a policy response which relates to why the most deprived sections of the community are increasingly concentrated in parts of the housing market and exposed to increased risks, and one which relates to the pattern of opportunities and choices in the housing system and not just to housing management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rewilding is an increasingly common conservation approach, aiming to restore ecosystem processes and minimise human intervention. Rewilding has the potential to profoundly change landscapes and people–nature relations. These issues prompt an ongoing debate about how and if rewilding should be done.Farmers are key stakeholders in this debate; they stand to be both affected by and influence the trajectory of rewilding initiatives developing in the United Kingdom and globally. Despite this, a comprehensive understanding of farmers' perceptions towards rewilding is lacking.Here, we focus on how members of the farming community in England perceive common rewilding scenarios (beaver release, farm‐level rewilding and landscape‐scale rewilding), and how these perceptions shape farmers' attitudinal support for rewilding practices.Using thematic analysis of semi‐structured interviews with 36 farmers and farming representatives, we show that the diversity of famers' attitudes can be understood through the prism of perceptions on five core issues: (a) the perceived need for restoration action, (b) the ecological effectiveness of rewilding, (c) rewilding's compatibility with ensuring food security, (d) rewilding's compatibility with rural lifestyles, livelihoods and economies and (e) multidimensional justice of rewilding initiatives. These issues are rooted in collective farming values, and farmers' perceptions of these issues are influenced by mental models, perceived social impacts and perceived ecological outcomes of rewilding initiatives. Diverse perceptions result in a range of attitudes, from enthusiastic support to strong opposition to different rewilding practices.We argue that the scope to increase support for rewilding varies depending on the type of underlying negative perceptions. Where the negative perceptions are based on objectively verifiable causal beliefs (mental models), opponents' minds may be changed through the provision of positive experiences, social learning, and adhering to good governance principles. However, where negative perceptions are based on values, for example, a preference for traditional rural landscapes, they are unlikely to change easily. Pursuing rewilding ambitions that clash with the values of local farmers may risk social conflicts, but accommodating these values too much may compromise rewilding's own goals. Rewilding initiatives will need dialogue and social engagement to navigate their path around this tension. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have long documented changes in knowledge regimes and power relations characteristic of state-centric drives to pacify conflicts and govern populations. But the mechanisms through which social conflicts are 'made legible' in routine policy processes - as well as the reasons why some ongoing conflicts are pacified and others are persistent - have remained less clear. I explore these issues through an analysis of the shifting analytic terrain of national-level commissions of inquiry, an historically powerful form of government organization designed to combine publicly-engaged and 'objective' explanation with recommendations for concrete policies of governance. Drawing principally on 19th and early 20th Century British Royal Commissions, I show how investigations into three fields of social conflict - involving prisoners, the working class, and colonial populations - were characterized by cyclical drives to bureaucratize conflict. Yet strikingly, only two of the three substantive fields - prisons and labor - achieved relative bureaucratic closure. Evidence from commission reports is marshaled to explain why some types of conflict have been resistant to incorporation, while others are more readily absorbed into an apparatus of governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study provides a comparative survey of policy‐making discourse in the United Kingdom and the United States from 2016 to 2020 around digital threats to democracy. Through an inductive coding process, it identifies six core ideals common in these two countries: transparency, accountability, engagement, informed public, social solidarity, and freedom of expression. Reviewing how these ideals are constructed in policy‐making documents, we find differences in each country's emphasis, inconsistencies in how some democratic ideals are evoked and promoted, conflicts between different democratic ideals, and disconnects between empirical realities of democracy and policy‐making discourse. There is a lack of clarity in what social solidarity, engagement, and freedom of expression mean and how they should be balanced; conceptions of an informed public are deeply fraught, and in tension with other ideals. We argue that policy‐making discourse is often out of step with the growing literature which suggests that political conflicts between social groups, right‐wing extremism, and antidemocratic actions increasingly taken by elites and parties are at the root of growing democratic crises. This state of policy‐making discourse has important implications for attempts to pursue regulation and suggests the need for further reflection by policymakers on the democratic ideals they are solving for. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on a conference "Peripheral Visions" to celebrate the contribution of Jeremy Holmes and 20 years of psychoanalytic studies at Exter University in Great Britain that held in March, 2018. Topics discussed include programs included in the conference such as group analysis, psycho-sociology and organizational observation; and speech delivered by Arietta Slade on the importance of humanity and compassion in psychotherapists.

This study tests the assumptions and prescriptions of the Gibbons' Review of dispute resolution in the UK. Contrary to these, the formalisation of dispute resolution has continued and is not strongly related to the level of disputes or tribunal cases nor is the use of mediation which is complementing not replacing formalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Conservative-Liberal Democrat government's policy risks turning the financial crisis into a crisis of the state. This article argues that the current trajectory of the British state risks exacerbating the very social antagonisms which it has fought so hard to contain in recent years. It contends that the crisis (2007-09) was a crisis of neoliberalism and yet, paradoxically, neoliberalism-in the form of further depoliticisation and a new politics of debt-is being re-invoked to deal with the post-apocalyptic condition of the British economy. The article suggests that the state lacks the necessary political discourse to secure popular consent and-as a result-is resorting to a more coercive form of political management; and that the effects of austerity are being offset through an increased indebtedness of the British public. Both risk igniting social conflict. In the conclusion several points are indicated for an alternative political agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to explore a new mode of river basin management in South Korea by evaluating the current river basin management system and taking lessons from the British and French cases. This research is based on literature reviews and interviews in the United Kingdom, France and South Korea. The British case emphasizes the importance of regulatory framework and limitations of public participation. The French experience epitomizes the empowerment of river basin organizations. The new system in South Korea includes an enactment of water law, a set-up of the National Water Council, the River Basin Authorities and the River Basin Committees. The new model will not be established soon but needs to take a step-by-step approach to minimize social conflicts, accommodate diverse opinions in society and satisfy a variety of demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on policy communities of Great Britain and Europe. It seems possible to formulate broad characterizations of the British and European policy processes in terms of the relationship between government and interest groups. There is a preferred type of machinery in Great Britain, reflecting normative values, which is to avoid electoral polities and public conflict in order to reach consensus or accommodation in the labyrinth of consultative machinery. This style is aptly labeled as bureaucratic accommodation.