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Understanding disabled youth activism is key for improving young disabled people's participation in politics and social change. Young disabled people require opportunities to situate historical and biographical experiences within broader socio-economic contexts. This will lead to a politicised consciousness surrounding disability, emancipation and social justice. This article presents empirical data from the first study on young disabled people's contemporary position within the UK Disabled People's Movement. It critically assesses three areas pertinent to youth activism: activist membership, social movement organisation and future considerations for activism. This allows for an exploration of how young disabled activists navigate collective action, influence activist claims and demands and understand the issues for sustaining a disabled people's social movement. The article illustrates young disabled activists' desire to disrupt their current position within the UK Disabled People's Movement and bring into focus a future where young disabled people's contributions to activism and social movements are accessible, valued and influential. The article argues that a failure to support young disabled people's participation within social movements will have an adverse impact on their political identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across four experimental studies (NStudy 1 = 466, a hypothetical movement in Bhutan, NStudy 2 = 447, a hypothetical movement in the United Kingdom, NStudy 3 = 463, a hypothetical movement in Bhutan, NStudy 4 = 460, a real movement in the United States) and an integrated data analysis, we examined when third parties (i.e., those who are not actively engaged in the movement) will support a social movement that permits the use of violence. In Studies 1–3, third parties were more willing to support violence when it was framed as having shifted to violence when nonviolence failed to achieve their goals. Mediation analyses revealed that a shift toward permitting violence reduced support to the extent that the shift created perceived moral decline in the social movement (Studies 1–3), but increased when the shift was perceived to be a last resort (Study 3). Last, we showed (Study 4) most effects disappear when third parties are told that they may be in close proximity to the violence (Study 4). These suggest third parties can and do support the use of violence as well as when and why such support is offered. Public Significance Statement: This study suggests that people may be more supportive of a historically nonviolent social movement who recently change its strategy to violence as opposed to a historically violent movement. Moreover, changing strategy from nonviolence to violence damages the moral image of the movement and leads to receiving less support from the third party observers. Policy makers and movement leaders may take into account the history of the movement and potential consequences of changing strategy from nonviolent to violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How are changing times impacting on the possibility of collective agency by actors and agencies responding to domestic violence against women in London? The struggle against the domestic abuse of women was grounded in the 1970s women's liberation movement under the rallying cry of 'the personal is the political'. Over time, the domestic violence (DV) response has become professionalised and mainstreamed, located in public sector agencies and charities, with small feminist groups challenging gender inequalities in different settings. These combined efforts are having no impact on the incidence of DV, and recent years have seen dramatic cuts in DV services. A snowball sample of 25 professionals, policy makers and activists across the DV response engaged in semi-structured interviews exploring their work experiences, particularly experiences of 'multi-sectoral collaboration', the professional instantiation of collective agency. Thematic analysis depicted an exhausted and divided sector. Nearly all informants saw DV as rooted in gender inequalities, and viewed collaborative working as essential for tackling its interlocking individual and social drivers. However, contemporary feminism was seen as completely irrelevant to the daily realities of professionals' work. The paper explores how the current economic, political and cultural contexts of interviewees' work experiences were hostile to the practice of multi-sectoral collaboration. Such contexts actively militated against collaborator solidarity, the inclusion of survivor voices and a social change orientation – preconditions for effective collective agency in tackling such a complex and multi-level social problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to experimental geographies in the context of scientific, research‐based institutions. This focus is under‐explored but increasingly under siege in a "post‐truth", "alternative facts" and "fake news" era in the US and UK. I respond to the current cultural, political and social challenges presented to institutions against this backdrop, arguing for a solution to these challenges: experimenting with institutions. The paper first outlines how experiments have recently become used in experimental geographies. The paper then applies these understandings of experiments to the context of institutions, arguing for engaging with new, key situations rather than necessarily with key "experts". The paper lastly explores one example of such experiments, termed "artist‐led institutions", and their merits for addressing the challenges outlined. I argue these artist‐led institutions demonstrate potential solutions to current institutional difficulties through expanding engagements to include more practitioners and groups rather than just "experts", as part of a turn towards recognising more forms of expertise, and their value for wider conversations. By engaging with wider groups assembled around key situations rather than "experts", artist‐led institutions open up the value of conversations as part of the process of knowledge‐making, rather than solely focusing on the production of outputs in pursuit of certified expertise characteristic of scientific, research‐based institutions. In doing so, the paper contributes to a discussion involving experimental geographies and institutions which may yet become increasingly audible in an age of uncertainty, as 21st Century challenges unfold. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the numbers of refugees and migrants moving across borders has been unprecedented, with more than 68.5 million people around the world leaving their countries as a result of persecution, conflict, violence, or human rights violations. Their journeys are perilous, crossing dangerous waters, often leading to death of family members. Upon arrival in Europe they continue to struggle, often living in detention-like conditions, unable to access basic protection and being vulnerable to traffickers. Most European governments offer emergency relief, without a common framework for legal protection or a clear vision of what statutory social services should provide. Like many other European countries, in the UK, designated social services are also limited and formal efforts to support refugees arriving in the UK remain uncoordinated, mostly provided by volunteers and non-governmental organisations. Drawing on the theoretical framework of social movements, this article offers a critique to current social work practices for refugees in the UK. Using the case of resettlement policies, it argues that sustainable social services to protect this vulnerable group could develop through the political opportunity structures created by non-governmental organisations. It concludes that community mobilisation can influence social work practice to better support the refugees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When and how do social movements form to mobilize action across national boundaries? In the context of the 2015 movement to support Syrian refugees, we develop an integrative model of transnational social movement formation shaped by pre‐existing world‐views (social dominance orientation and right‐wing authoritarianism) and social media exposure to iconic events, resulting in an emergent group consciousness ("we are", "we believe", "we feel"). Group consciousness is, in turn, the proximal predictor of solidarity with refugees. Participants were from six countries: Hungary (N = 267), Romania (N = 163), Germany (N = 190), the United Kingdom (N = 159), the United States (N = 244) and Australia (N = 344). Multi‐group structural equation models confirmed that group consciousness, shaped by individual differences and exposure to events through social media, was the proximal predictor of solidarity. The subjective meaning of group consciousness varied across samples, reflecting national differences. Results support the importance of considering individual and national differences, and group processes in understanding emergent social movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the UK, the recent flourishing of organised resistance against austerity and the dominance of the free market over all aspects of life has done little to buck an overall trend of decreasing membership in political parties and similar organisations. Few informal organisational forms on the Left have fared better. However, these diminishing structures have certain key characteristics in common and there are suggestions of alternative political forms emerging in their stead. This article argues that such periods of decomposition, far from being an indication of failure, are an important and desirable element of social movement that can and should be deliberately factored in to political organising. Building from the notion that the basis of social change is the ability to move out of existing institutions, the article explores three methodologies of decomposition that bridge the divides between mythology, poetry, and political theory: Negative Capability, Eeriness, and the surrealist game. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines left-wing ideas about social change in the 1980s. It focuses on the ‘New Times’ debates, a series of discussions held in the Communist Party of Great Britain theoretical journalMarxism Today. The journal’s key contributors contended that the profoundly transformed nature of 1980s Britain necessitated the adoption of revised political strategies. I historicise these claims by situating them within a longer tradition of British New Left analysis, and an engagement with post-1968 ‘new social movements’. I illustrate howMarxism Today’s vision of modernity was highly stylised. The journal’s iconoclastic proclamations about apprehend the most strikingly modern forms. The 1980s were thus not entirely foreclosed by the parameters imposed by socio-economic transformations—a whole range of alternative ideas were on offer in this period. That this vibrant moment would give way to more reductive political solutions in the 1990s and beyond was not inevitable. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Energised by highly visible, media-friendly issues of sexualisation and representation, new'fourth-wave'feminism must not dismiss concerns of structural inequality as relics of a previous age, argues Melissa Benn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we compare recent innovative union campaigns: the ' sans papiers' campaign in France and the 'Justice for Cleaners' campaign in the United Kingdom, both based on a sustained grass-roots mobilization of immigrant workers. Rather than focusing on the 'usual suspect' explanatory factors, such as contrasting national settings, union power structures or traditions, our cross-national comparison highlights important underlying similarities in unions' strategic responses to a growing precarious immigrant workforce. In the absence of established channels of representation, both unions decided to act like social movements fighting for social protection. Using Polanyi's framework, we view both case studies as examples of countermovements against heightened levels of global liberalization and precarious employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite losing nearly 100 seats, Labour managed to increase its percentage of women MPs in parliament due to the success of all women shortlists (AWS). However, 35 AWS candidates were defeated. So was Labour penalised where it stood AWS candidates or was any backlash symptomatic of Labour's electoral predicament or the result of being a new candidate in a seat? Here we examine whether AWS candidates fared worse than other Labour candidates in the 2010 general election. Our findings suggest that AWS candidates suffered from being new candidates. Both AWS and non-AWS candidates in Labour-held seats fared significantly better than AWS and new candidates in non-held seats. But there was no significant difference in support between AWS and new non-AWS candidates standing in incumbent seats or between AWS and new candidates in non-held Labour seats. Put simply, there was no anti-AWS effect, even after taking account of incumbency status, in the 2010 general election. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay explores the intellectual biography and diverse artistic, literary and cultural production of Jeff Nuttall – a significant, if underacknowledged, figure on the British ‘underground’ scene in the Sixties. It argues that Nuttall played an important international role as a catalyst and co-ordinator of ‘countercultural’ events and activities through his involvement with small press publications, as an early instigator of ‘happenings’ and ‘performance art’ in the UK, and as a correspondent, networker and commentator. In particular, it addresses Nuttall’s understanding that ‘imagination’ and ‘affect’ could be allied with collective possibilities for emancipatory social change, as well as liberatory personal development. Finally, it briefly considers the currency of these ideas within the context of a new articulation of how a ‘politics of possibility’ may be informed by notions of embodied and transmitted affectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the formative influence of the organizational field of religion on emerging modern forms of popular political mobilization in Britain and the United States in the early nineteenth century when a transition towards enduring campaigns of extended geographical scale occurred. The temporal ordering of mobilization activities reveals the strong presence of religious constituencies and religious organizational models in the mobilizatory sequences that first instituted a mass-produced popular politics. Two related yet analytically distinct generative effects of the religious field can be discerned. First, in both cases the transition toward modern forms of popular mobilization was driven by the religious institutionalization of organizational forms of centralized voluntarism that facilitated extensive collective action. Second, the adoption of different varieties of the same organizational forms led to important divergences. The spread in the United States of societies for moral reformation-in contrast to their non-survival in Britain-steered popular politics there towards a more moralistic framing of public issues. These findings indicate the importance of the organizational field of religion for the configuration of modern forms of popular collective action and confirm the analytical importance of religion's organizational aspects for the study of collective action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper employs a theoretical framework that combines political economy and cultural studies to uncover the forces driving the development of press freedom in early modern England, the British North America and France from the launch in 1640 of the English Short Parliament, which temporarily abolished censorship, to the French Revolution in 1789. The factors it found to be determinant were a transnational print technology, the public sphere, social movements and egalitarianism, not liberalism, the liberal ideologues and the nation-state highlighted in the dominant press-freedom theory. Going beyond the rights of commercial news media owners, which is a focus of the traditional press-freedom literature, it examines other manifestations of press freedom, including the use and ownership of the means of publication by formerly excluded groups (including women and tradesmen), publication in vernacular languages, new styles of expression (including ironic treatment of religious and political authorities), and a successful challenge to private monopolistic control over knowledge production, especially printing. This study offers a new theory of press freedom, undergirded by the claim that the production of rights occurs in the realm of social relations, which have cultural, economic and political dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an honest, reflexive account of action research with activists. Through a two year project called 'Autonomous Geographies', a team of researchers undertook case studies with three groups: self-managed social centres, tenants resisting housing privatisation, and eco-pioneers setting up a Low Impact Development. The original aim was to explore the everyday lives of activists as they attempted to resist life under capitalism and build more autonomous ways of living. The paper reflects on the messy, difficult and personally challenging research process of the project, with the failures being more instructive than the successes. By recounting this experience we provide lessons for the complex but necessary process of doing what is known as scholar activism in what we see as difficult, neo-liberal times. In particular we focus on how we can better formulate and implement strategic interventions with activists and social movements. We need to reject the false distinction between academia and wider society in conceptualisations of valid sites of struggle and knowledge production, and to find ways to research and engage collectively and politically, rather than individually. To this end, the paper offers seven principles for scholar activism that can be applied inside and outside the neo-liberal university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the history of relations between colonialism, schooling and social change in Australia, Papua New Guinea and Ireland, countries that were once part of the British Empire. It indicates that responses to schooling ranged from acceptance and tolerance, to modification and rejection, depending on the country, the issue, and the historical period. There were also differences in the historical connections in schooling between Britain itself and each country: regarding Australia, the relationship was predominantly unidirectional, from the centre to the Antipodes; in PNG British educational ideas which arrived were filtered through the Australian administration; while in Ireland, British initiatives in schooling contributed not only to social change there, but also helped produce loyal personnel to work in Britain and the colonies. Attention is also given to areas of interdependence and interconnectedness, and to illustrating how conducting such case studies is important in order to help counter alternative interpretations promoted by powerful sectors in society in the interest of reproducing their social privilege. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the impact of the mistaken view of the success of the introduction of the free-market right on British people. The success of the free-market right can be explained in several ways, according to the author, including the divisions among opponents and a lack of effective leadership at significant moments. On the other hand, he adds that the main focus of the right is typically on the combination of politicians interested in ideas, a small but dedicated group of ideologues as well as wider social movements. Furthermore, this article mentions that such argument emphasizes the first instance on a number of social changes associated with the transformation of industrial organization.

The well-documented challenges in researching the social impacts of the arts are closely related to key issues in contemporary social research and evaluation, most particularly the problem of causal attribution. The article contends that some of the most common criticisms of the evidence base for the social impact of the arts relate to the successionist model of change which underpins positivist social science research and evaluation. Illustrating this with reference to research on the arts and quality of life, the article considers the alternative generative understanding of causation that underpins theory-based evaluation (TBE) approaches, favoured recently in the UK as part of the “What Works?” agenda. While these approaches fit well with knowledge about the determinants of arts impact, the article considers whether in fact TBE approaches offer an effective strategy for understanding how and why arts engagement can result in social change. The limitations and possibilities of TBE are considered with reference to four recent UK studies of the impact of the arts on individuals which make use of them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine why and how the Trades Union Congress (TUC) - the labour movement's peak body, "think tank" and exemplar - engages in alliance building with civil movements and groups. In particular, it investigates: the rationale for such; the nature of the alliances and the extent to which they inform TUC revival efforts or a new approach to trade unionism. Design/methodology/approach- Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight senior TUC personnel. Most interviewees provided documentary evidence to elaborate on their comments. The dimensions of a thematic analysis of this and web site evidence were structured to reflect the above areas of inquiry. Findings - The findings are that: interest in the TUC and labour movement in alliance building with civil groups is building at all levels; TUC engagement with, promotion of and guidance on civil alliances is largely emergent and sporadic; notwithstanding this, certain parts of the TUC have increased its promotion of and to a lesser extent direct engagement with alliances. It also is shown that: such engagement looks likely to continue to grow as a feature of other revival strategies and there is little assessment of whether alliance building can help strengthen the British labour movement. Practical implications - The findings inform the paper's discussion of potential TUC and union revival purpose, policy and practice. Originality/value - This paper provides an in-depth empirical study of the TUC's involvement in alliance building with other social movements and groups. Policy-maker and practitioner interest in such is growing rapidly, particularly in light of the debatable effectiveness of familiar British union revival strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the relationship between activism, sociality and place. It analyses a case-study of selected social relations produced through activities related to an urban social movement - the UK network of the international Cittaslow (Slow City) movement. It specifically examines how social relationships contribute to the human agency that Cittaslow activism involves. In a recent Cultural Studies analysis of the Cittaslow movement, Wendy Parkins and Geoffrey Craig (2006) have suggested that Cittaslow 'communities' drive processes of change. Here, following social anthropologists (Creed 2006; Amit in Amit & Rapport 2002) who call for an interrogation of the concept of 'community' in its local and academic uses, I propose a different analytical route. I suggest that Cittaslow activism is better understood by analysing how agency is produced through actual local embodied social relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the importance of service users, authority, power and protest to promote mental health challenge in Great Britain. According to the author, the level of idealism and optimism may have been replaced with materialism and consumerism, but many of the issues related to inequality and rights abuses of people treated as mentally ill remains outstanding. It suggests that service users and allies to continue being activists to promote mental health.

Since the 1960s, British trade unions have developed a policy for representing the interests of part-time workers, a significant process of frame extension within a mature social movement. This article seeks to account for this change. It concludes that change was a product of the growth of feminist activism within unions, the deployment of instrumental and solidarity frames and a response to political opportunities provided by both the British state and European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws upon qualitative research carried out by the author and funded by the ESRC. One of the central aims of this research was to investigate the nature of the UK disability movement's ‘struggle’ and to evaluate critically the idea that it is a ‘new’ social movement. Consideration of the disability movement in relation to both ‘new’ social movements and to wider social movement theorising has suggested that it may not be possible to understand this movement, entirely, by using any of the existing models. This article concludes by outlining the possible starting point for a new approach to understanding the disability movement based upon forging a closer link between citizenship and social movement theory and upon a focus on the nature of engagement. Empirical evidence from the research is included in this article in the form of quotations from respondents, all of whom are/were members of organisations that are run by disabled people. All respondents' names have been removed to maintain their anonymity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers how we are to understand democratic media activism, which has recently burgeoned in Canada, the UK and the USA. What is its political significance and potential? Is it a new social movement, a new style of politics cutting across movements, or are new concepts needed? Drawing illustratively upon interviews with media activists, notably in Vancouver, we explore insights offered by social movement theory - including resource mobilization formulations and the new social movement theories of Melucci, Habermas, Cohen and Arato, and Fraser. While all these traditions offer valuable insights, media activism reveals limitations in existing conceptualizations. It has some of the characteristics of a movement, but lacks a distinct collective identity or niche within movement ecology. It may be destined to be a boundary-transgressing nodal point for other movements, articulating a coherent project for radical democracy, rather than a movement-for-itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between Self Advocacy and the disability movement in Britain in the light of social movement theory. Using the concept of 'collective identity' as it is explored in social movement theory, the analysis examines why the disability movement's promotion of a strong disabled identity may be difficult to achieve for all its constituents, particularly people with learning difficulties. Additionally the concept of symbolic production within social movement theory is used to explore how the movement uses the social model of disability as its 'collective action frame'. It is argued realignment of this frame is taking place within the movement and is reflected in debates within Disability Studies about the role of impairment. The voices of people with learning difficulties remain silent in this debate. The paper concludes by arguing for the recognition of social, psychological and cognitive difference as pre-requisite to an inclusive theory and politics of disability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the extent of acceptability of the intimate lives of non-heterosexuals in Great Britain using data from the Families of Choice Project, a research project based on interviews with non-heterosexual women and men. If people were to take a glance at the media in Great Britain in recent years they would see an explosion of images, articles and programs about and/or for lesbians, gay men and bisexuals. Radio and television programs, mainstream magazines and newspapers, as well as specialist ones, have all covered various aspects of lesbian, gay and bisexual lives. In recent years the question of intimate relationships between same sex partners, their friends, ex-lovers, families of origin and children has emerged as a predominant feature of much non-heterosexual scholarship and activism. Up until very recently Great Britain has had no legislation or public policy that explicitly recognizes the intimate relationships of non heterosexuals. The social movement of non-heterosexuals who are active in raising these issues draws many of its members from other social movements who have organized around common experiences like ethnicity disability, and gender.

The article presents information on the establishment of the Socialist Labour Party in Great Britain. By May 4, 1996, the Socialist Labour Party was launched. At a stroke this changed the politics of the British left and the possible future of the country. Even initial supporters like Militant turned against Socialist Labour when it became clear that Socialist Labour's initial core of support proposed that the new party would replace, not coagulate, previous organisational allegiances. The argument for Socialist Labour rests on the view that at the end of the twentieth century the British Labour Party is unraveling. Its leaders claim that New Labour is growing and the opinion polls put it on the verge of government. What Socialist Labour supporters are talking about is something else; they are referring to nothing less than the class character of New Labour. The formation and failure of the British Communist Party in 1920 and the similar and quicker fate of the ILP formed in 1932, would seem to confirm the arguments of those who would hang on to the British Road perspective of social change.

A study of the British Mental Health Users' Movement (MHUM) is reported based upon interviews with some of its participants. These accounts are analysed in terms of three main themes: ideology and policy; relationships between users and non-patients: and relationships between the movement and statutory and voluntary agencies. The data are discussed in relation to international comparisons and with regard to preceding opposition to traditional psychiatric theory and practice in Britain. The emergence of the MHUM is accounted for within the context of existing theoretical analyses of new social movements. Strengths and weaknesses of the movement are highlighted and prospects for its future discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article argues that the post-Fordist case is ultimately misleading as it works with an overly restrictive picture of welfare and pays insufficient attention to non-class social divisions in Great Britain. Post-Fordist ideas provide an interesting and stimulating perspective on the welfare changes of the last two decades. Their particular contribution lies in their willingness to make links and locate social policy shifts within broader narratives of social change. One hopes that the social policy community itself will respond to these challenges and turn its attention to the nature and role of welfare under conditions of globalization. However the very strength of post-Fordist and regulationist ideas is at the same time their weakness. Their ability to construct a structural dialogue premised on the workplace and accumulation process has the effect of reducing the visibility and potency of non-class interests. In this way social divisions of welfare are unjustifiably simplified and reduced. Moreover, our brief study of the education service suggests that the actual restructuring of welfare is taking place along more ambiguous lines than is allowed in the model. Many of the difficulties encountered by the post-Fordist welfare state thesis no doubt arise from its status as composite theory. In effect it combines the abstract epistemological frameworks of regulation theory with more concrete and historically grounded observations from organizational studies and economics. The result makes it far from easy to disentangle and specify precise strands of cause and effect in given situations.

Historic preservation has, to date, received relatively little attention from sociologists, usually meriting only brief mention under topics of urban gentrification or community organization. But within the context of its history and its significance in modern society, preservation emerges as a multilevel response to industrialization and related processes of social change: what gets preserved and how it is symbolically interpreted depends upon the class structure of society and the related social mapping of time and place. The folio wing comparative analysis of preservation in Great Britain and the United States demonstrates the importance of these factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a historical appraisal of lawlessness, modernity and social change, with specific reference to Great Britain. Among the many questions which impinge upon the problem of "modernity," the one most deeply rooted in popular convictions insists that the advance of civilization brings in its wake a deluge of crime and violence. Within criminological and social theory there is an impressive line of consistency which indicts "social change" as a cause of the break-up of tradition and authority. The juxtaposition of lawless modernity as against the stable traditions of the past, which uses the past as a stick with which to beat the present, is a vital political metaphor in the contemporary world. In attempting to bring some empirical clarity into these matters, the article author focuses on the social history of the preoccupation with lawlessness in Britain. The cinema--the principle symbol of cultural modernity and adulteration in the inter-war years--attracted to itself the more specific charge that it encouraged imitative crime among the young in Great Britain.

Central to the 'new politics' is the increased salience of non-material issues and a heightened concern with participation. 'New social movements' and 'new politics' parties are contingent manifestations of this new politics, which is also manifest in changed orientations toward established political parties. In most respects, the British appear no less well-disposed toward the 'new politics' than their European neighbours. Yet Britain is distinguished by the absence of either a radical ecology movement or a successful 'new politics' party. British exceptionalism is explained by institutional arrangements which constrain the environmental movement toward integration rather than opposition, and an electoral system which polarises political competition and inhibits the development of new parties. One consequence is the preservation of the Labour Party as a beneficiary of, and vehicle for, the expression of much political dissent. As a result, in Britain the 'new politics' is to an unusual degree combined with 'old politics'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the development of the labor movement in Great Britain during the 1940s. It focuses on the classic choice between explanations of the decade of reform which stress control from above and those which emphasize pressure from below: the problem of trying to relate high politics on the one hand to social and economic changes on the other. The 1940s are seen in the labor movement as a period when the people demanded and obtained a number of important decisions. It might well be argued in this kind of analysis that it was only the pressure of organized labor, which obliged British Prime Minister Arthur Neville Chamberlain to guarantee Poland in 1939, and later to declare war. On the home front the authorities found themselves increasingly dependent upon the morale and efforts of the working class. Hence, the overthrow of Chamberlain in 1940, the influence of Labor ministers in the British government, and the acquiescence of the Conservative wing of the Coalition in a program of postwar plans in which full employment, social security and a national health service were key elements.

The article presents a list of papers related to economic and social history of Great Britain and Ireland published in different journals. Some of the papers are: "Sixteenth-Century Probate Documents From Manchester," by M.J. Alexander; "The Buckinghamshire Posse Comitatus," by I.F.W. Beckett; "The Governesses: Letters from the Colonies, 1862-82," by P. Clarke; "Annals of the Labouring Poor: Social Change and Agrarian England," by K.D.M. Snell; "Systems of Land Holding Between Landowners and Farmers," by R. Stratton; "The Timing and Pattern of Technological Development in English Agriculture," by R.J. Sullivan; "Dearth and Marketing of Agricultural Produce," by W. Thwaites; "Rural Rebels in Southern England in the 1830s," by R. Wells; "The Union of 1707 and Scottish Development " by T.M. Devine and others. Some other papers are: "Studies in Late Anglo-Saxon Settlement," by M.L. Faull; "Comparative National Balance Sheets," by R.W. Goldsmiths; "The Cambridge Historical Encyclopedia of Great Britain and Ireland," by C. Haigh and the like.

Sisterhood and After: The Women's Liberation Oral History Project, illuminates the impact of women's movements in the UK in tracing the life histories of key UK-based activists and intellectuals, but it more directly eludicates the biographical consequences of activism. This, I suggest, has a different but also important value, not simply in terms of understanding the impact on the many individuals who do become life-long activists, but as a contribution to cultural memories that show how gender relations can be different and better. In this respect, oral history projects can be part of a process of feminist influence that goes beyond the more measurable aspects of campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research linking health and social capital is often cited in relation to global public health policies and programmes that mobilise local community participation in health promotion in marginalised settings. A long-standing criticism of this body of analysis and action is its inadequate attention to the power inequalities that drive poor health, often linked to macro-social forces beyond the reach of local community activism. Supplementing social capital research with attention to more ambitious and wide-ranging forms of health activism tackles this criticism. It puts the reproduction and transformation of health-relevant power inequalities at the heart of social capital research and community mobilisation strategies. We use the South African Treatment Action Campaign as a prototype for expanding understandings of social capital for health promotion. Existing social capital work currently focuses on facilitating community mobilisation to create co-operative bonding and bridging social capital (networks of solidarity within and between marginalised communities respectively), as well as linking social capital (networks uniting marginalised communities and more powerful champions). We call for an expanded focus that takes account of how these co-operative networks may serve as springboards for community involvement in adversarial social movements. In such cases, these networks of solidarity serve as launch pads for various forms of demand and protest where the marginalised and their allies confront power-holders in conflictual struggles over health-relevant social resources. We illustrate this expanded framework with two examples of collective action for mental health: the Movement for Global Mental Health and the UK Mental Health User and Survivor Movement. Both seek to use bonding, bridging and linking networks as the basis for movements to pressurise power-holders to increase access to appropriate psychiatric services, adequate welfare support and social respect and recognition for people living with mental distress. • Applied social capital research in global health often neglects power inequalities. • Including attention to social movement participation could start to address this. • Local network participation may be a launch-pad for more ambitious health activism. • The Treatment Action Campaign serves as a useful prototype of this process. • This approach puts power inequalities at the heart of social capital thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a social movement in Great Britain concerned with asylum seekers which is called the City of Sanctuary movement. The movement was created following a 1999 decision from the British government to disperse asylum seekers to several selected towns and cities. The movement gives individuals the opportunity to challenge the way that the issue of asylum seekers is debated in Great Britain and also attempts to create a welcoming environment filled with hospitality which encourages asylum seekers to make contributions to their cities and engage in local communities.

The article draws from focus group data generated for a Great Britain study of the life circumstances of lesbians, gay men and bisexuals aged 50 and above, to consider some key elements of the conceptual framework we are developing for understanding the issue of non-heterosexual ageing. The authors suggest that, to fully understand the issue, attention needs to be paid to both the specific implications that non-heterosexuality has for patterns of living, and to the broader developments in social and cultural life that have consequences for contemporary living and ageing more generally. The data demonstrate the uneven possibilities that exist for these kinds of biographies. We then consider the issue of 'negotiated relationships', and the insights that same sex couple relationships and 'chosen families' are said to provide for these. The data indicate the possibilities that are open for negotiated and chosen relationships, but also alert us to factors that limit choice and negotiation in relational life.