Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the legacy of late colonialism

Una perspectiva que despierta cada vez mayor interés por parte de administradores públicos, políticos y analistas es el de las llamadas políticas públicas. Se trata de un camino relativamente nuevo, que permite, por una parte, observar y analizar los asuntos públicos desde un ángulo singular vinculado a la transformación de la acción gubernamental y, por otra, idear mecanismos para atender o dar respuesta a lo que se percibe como problemas de orden público. Como es sabido, los problemas públicos son complejos y multideterminados. Su análisis requiere de herramientas que van más allá de lo que comúnmente ofrecen disciplinas como la sociología, la economía, la ciencia política, la administración pública o la psicología por sí solas. De hecho, lo que busca la “ciencia de las políticas”, como la bautizó uno de sus padres fundadores, Harold Laswell (1992: 105), es integrar los conocimientos provenientes de diversas disciplinas bajo un enfoque cuyo objetivo es advertir y “solucionar” problemas. Recientemente, el académico británico Wayne Parsons se ha dado a la tarea de reunir en una sola publicación los aspectos más relevantes del conocimiento que se ha producido alrededor de las políticas públicas. Bajo el título Public Policy: An Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Policy Analysis, Parsons da cuenta de los temas y debates teóricos centrales de este enfoque, además de aportar múltiples referentes bibliográficos y detalles sobre estudios de caso que ilustran la riqueza de las políticas públicas, pues muestran no sólo cómo se aplican sino, sobre todo, qué explicaciones y respuestas pueden brindar. A ello se suma uno de los rasgos más valiosos del libro: poner en claro los dos ángulos de las políticas públicas que, con frecuencia, son ignorados en la bibliografía sobre la materia, a saber: el análisis del proceso de las políticas, por una parte y, por la otra, el análisis en y para el proceso de políticas, o, lo que es lo mismo, el uso del conocimiento y técnicas analíticas para el diseño, implementación y evaluación de las políticas públicas. Aunque ambos están intrínsecamente ligados, su especificidad determina su naturaleza y fin. Mientras el análisis del proceso de las políticas tiene fines

Public Policy: An Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Policy Analysis

The impact of freedom of contract in the 19th century extended far beyond the legal arena as an economic slogan and an ethical attitude. Atiyah traces the development and subsequent decline of the freedom of contract, depicting its effects on the law's development and the foundation of contractual obligations, as well as its broader implications for 19th century English life.

The Rise and Fall of Freedom of Contract

The ability of the parties to conclude binding agreements, and to determine the contents of these agreements, is at the very core of our market system. They are the consequence of our liberal understanding of personhood, placing individuality and autonomy as essential elements of our personality. Despite the importance of these concepts, however, the content of freedom of contract has experienced significant changes throughout the years, as more and more limitations are imposed upon it. This new understanding rests on the idea that not all parties are the same, and that there are certain matters that should not be modified by mere agreement. Our work focuses on the relation that freedom of contract (and its limitations) has with forum selection clauses, as well as whether they can be seen as abusive terms. In order to conduct this analysis, we use the case of maritime carriage contracts under bills of lading, reviewing the regulations that affect the trade, and whether changes need to be made to accommodate our new understanding.

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Freedom of contract, bargaining power & forum selection in bills of lading

We are at risk, and so what? Place attachment, environmental risk perceptions and preventive coping behaviours

It is difficult to overstate the everyday importance of home in law. Home provides the backdrop for our lives, and is often the scene or the subject of legal disputes. In addition, in recent decades there has been growing academic interest in the meaning of home, which has promoted empirical studies and theoretical exploration in wide range of disciplines. Yet, while the authenticity of home as a social, psychological, cultural and emotional phenomenon has been recognised in ither disciplines, it has not penetrated the legal domain, where the proposition that home can encapsulate meanings beyond the physical structure of the house, or the capital value it represents, continues to present conceptual difficulties. This book focuses on the competing interests of creditors who lend money against the security of the property and the occupiers who dwell in the property, in the context of possession actions. By mapping the concept of home as it has evolved in other disciplines against existing legal frameworks, Conceptualising Home examines the possibilities for developing a coherent concept of home in law.

Conceptualising Home: Theories, Laws and Policies

Available online via SciVerse ScienceDirect, or in print for a limited time only, "The International Encyclopedia of Housing and Home" is the first international reference work for housing scholars and professionals, that uses studies in economics and finance, psychology, social policy, sociology, anthropology, geography, architecture, law, and other disciplines to create an international portrait of housing in all its facets: from meanings of home at the microscale, to impacts on macro-economy. This comprehensive work is edited by distinguished housing expert Susan J. Smith, together with Marja Elsinga, Ong Seow Eng, Lorna Fox O'Mahony and Susan Wachter, and a multi-disciplinary editorial team of 20 world-class scholars in all. Working at the cutting edge of their subject, liaising with an expert editorial advisory board, and engaging with policy-makers and professionals, the editors have worked for almost five years to secure the quality, reach, relevance and coherence of this work. A broad and inclusive table of contents signals (or tesitifes to) detailed investigation of historical and theoretical material as well as in-depth analysis of current issues. This seven-volume set contains over 500 entries, listed alphabetically, but grouped into seven thematic sections including methods and approaches; economics and finance; environments; home and homelessness; institutions; policy; and welfare and well-being. Housing professionals, both academics and practitioners, will find "The International Encyclopedia of Housing and Home" useful for teaching, discovery, and research needs. International in scope, engaging with trends in every world region. The editorial board and contributors are drawn from a wide constituency, collating expertise from academics, policy makers, professionals and practitioners, and from every key center for housing research. Every entry stands alone on its merits and is accessed alphabetically, yet each is fully cross-referenced, and attached to one of seven thematic categories whose 'wholes' far exceed the sum of their parts.

International Encyclopaedia of Housing and Home

The advantages of ownership—both financial and personal—were a prominent theme in UK government policies promoting owner-occupation in the latter half of the twentieth century. More recently, the liberal discourses of the ‘ownership society’ have been conflated with the neo-liberalisation of welfare to restructure the socio-political ideology of ownership around accumulation and decumulation of housing wealth. This paper analyses findings from a new qualitative study to explore the tensions that this shift has created for owner-identities. Equity release transactions provide a prime context to explore the role of homeownership ideologies on participation in asset-based welfare: these are conceived as products that enable older owners to de-cumulate housing equity while continuing to occupy their homes and retaining the ‘badge’ of ownership. This paper focuses on the impact of housing wealth decumulation through equity release on the meanings of the owned home and to reflect on the role of feelings about o...

Asset-based Welfare, Equity Release and the Meaning of the Owned Home

Purpose – This paper aims to analyse the development and application of the conceptual framework within which housing scholars can think, talk about and advocate for “home”.Design/methodology/approach – It reflects on the theoretical progress that has been made in embedding a legal concept of home in the last decade, and identifies opportunities for this scholarship to support critical engagement with laws and policies that give content to home meanings.Findings – A key goal for the concept of home is to help us to think about problems differently, by highlighting important issues flowing from the human relationship with home; with the ways in which the idea of home is present or absent in legal responses to home issues. A focus on home meanings enables us to examine questions which are not always deemed “relevant” to legal proceedings, for example, the human, social and personal costs of displacement and dispossession. The concept of home provides the vocabulary, and the theoretical framework, for articu...

The meaning of home: from theory to practice

'Housing'– the practical provision of a roof over one's head – is experienced by users as 'home'– broadly described as housing plus the experiential elements of dwelling. Conversely, being without housing, commonly described as 'homelessness', is experienced not only as an absence of shelter but in the philosophical sense of 'ontological homelessness' and alienation from the conditions for well-being. For asylum seekers, these experiences are deliberately and explicitly excluded from official law and policy discourses. This article demonstrates how law and policy is propelled by an 'official discourse' based on the denial of housing and the avoidance of 'home' attachments, which effectively keeps the asylum seeker in a state of ontological homelessness and alienation. We reflect on this exclusion and consider how a new 'oppositional discourse' of housing and home – taking these considerations into account – might impact on the balancing exercise inherent to laws and policies concerning asylum seekers.

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Lorna Fox O'Mahony

Papers

Conceptualising Home: Theories, Laws and Policies

International Encyclopaedia of Housing and Home

Asset-based Welfare, Equity Release and the Meaning of the Owned Home

The meaning of home: from theory to practice

The Exclusion of (Failed) Asylum Seekers from Housing and Home: Towards an Oppositional Discourse