The real price of legitimate expectations
Dr. Alex Brown draws from his recent book to discuss whether public services should always honour their promises made. In early February 2018, the British Legal Aid Agency (LAA) agreed to provide funds to the families of people killed in the 1982 Hyde Park bombing as they pursue a civil…
British Values and Islam in Contemporary Britain
Lee Jarvis draws on AHRC-funded research with Lee Marsden and Eylem Atakav to discuss contemporary portrayals of Islam, Muslims and British values. There are, according to the Muslim Council of Britain – a non-sectarian umbrella body for over 500 Muslim organisations – around 2.7 million Muslims living in Britain today:…
Should we recognise North Korea as a nuclear power?
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un claimed in his 2018 New Year's address that "the entire mainland of the US is within the range of our nuclear weapons and the nuclear button is always on the desk of my office". How the international community should respond to this has been a…
Fire and Fury: UEA staff and students react
Michael Wolff's book 'Fire and Fury', which provides an inside story of Donald Trump's Whitehouse, set headlines around the world when it was published. A range of bombshell claims were made about how policy was made, Trump's approach to the Presidency and Donald Trump himself. A fierce debate followed. The…
Terrorist obituaries: some early research reflections
Lee Jarvis reflects on his ongoing research project on terrorist obituaries. Terrorists - or, better, those who are widely portrayed as ‘terrorist’ - are remembered in a multiplicity of ways after their death. In murals and in music, in slogans and speeches, on t-shirts and online, in fiction and in film. All…
Understanding musical copyright in the digital age
We need a more nuanced view of the practices and values associated with copying in popular music culture, write Adam Behr, Keith Negus and John Street Copyright appears in one of two guises. It is either the backdrop to arguments about plagiarism – about how ‘Blurred Lines’ was stolen from…
Scotland eyes a youthquake with online voting: here are some tips from past pilots
One achievement for 2017, as the year comes to an end, is that it has added a new word to the English language: youthquake. The idea is that previously silent and apathetic young people have awoken to exert their democratic influence on the electoral process. Despite a 401% increase in…
‘Counter-terrorism policies play an important role in shaping a national identity narrative’: Conversation with Lee Jarvis
This article is published in collaboration with the international Violence and Exiting Violence Platform (FMSH). Sylvain Antichan: Lee Jarvis, you are working on security discourses, the adoption of counter-terrorism policies and their political and social impact through the lens of the British case. After the London bomb attacks that were…
Brexit could kill the precautionary principle – here’s why it matters so much for our environment
The world is witnessing an increase in the number and severity of hurricanes, droughts, floods and famines. A significant part of this is attributable to the temperature rises and disruption to the weather systems that human industrial activity has triggered. Yet at this very moment, when the world needs new…
What’s in store for the Precautionary Principle?
Right now, the fate of the EU’s environmental principles in this country after Brexit is being debated by the House of Commons. Rupert Read sets out the prospects for the retention of the Precautionary Principle after Brexit. The current state of play The EU Withdrawal Bill is currently being debated…