Party Autonomy and (Public Interest) Regulation have a complex relationship. This relationship does not necessarily become less complex if one reduces the topic to one area, at least not if this area is European Contract Law – as the overall framing of this book would indeed suggest. On the contrary, focusing the discussion of this relationship on European Contract Law in particular adds at least three types of complexity. First is the complexity of several levels of rule-setting and their multiple application issues (see below sections 2.2. and 4.2.). Second is the complexity of a theoretical basis and underpinning nourished by multiple traditions (comparative history of thought – which runs in parallel, at the level of theories, to what is comparative law at the level of rules, concepts and legal solutions). Finally, there is also the complexity of starting from more than one concept of private autonomy and one concept of regulation – probably more complex than within one legal tradition, for instance one national law such as German law. Indeed, and just as an example, ‘regulating contracts’ can be understood as a concept where contract law is analysed and designed mainly from an incentive perspective, steering human behaviour. In this case, one would for instance analyse such concepts as unfair contract terms law from this perspective, but also any regulation of breach of contract or very traditional private law concepts such as the theory of mistake.

After a brief note on the wave thesis, this chapter considers the main articulations of globalisation as a material structural reality. It argues that neoclassical and Marxist political economics cover this orientation, but so too do a range of ostensibly more nuanced ‘spatial’ approaches to globalisation. It then assesses a range of political economy approaches to globalisation that seek to uphold structure/agency synthesis by ‘reclaiming the state’ analytically, arguing that, unless materialism is also eschewed, agency remains beneath structure in the analytical hierarchy. The chapter also turns attention to the ‘third wave’ of globalisation theory, that is, analysis of globalisation as a discursive phenomenon conducted or inspired by Colin Hay.

This chapter argues that the SWP is the most politically marginal group studied in this book. The chapter gives insight into how far from the centre of British politics the dominant meanings of globalisation discourse have travelled. Moreover, despite Labour's rightwards shift, the SWP's discourse is born to some extent of the same ideological gene pool as its social democratic relations. As such, this contrast also enables insight into globalisation's relationship with left-wing staples such as the state. The chapter first assesses the relationship between the globalisation concept and the SWP's pre-existing commitment to Marxism. The second section looks at the party's approach to foreign economic policy, noting the impact of the financial crisis on SWP discourse in this regard. Finally, the third section looks at organisational issues such as the relationship between anti-war and anti-capitalism, and the SWP's role in and understanding of the wider transnational movement.

This introductory chapter explains the objective of this volume, which is to explore the peace and conflict resolution role of European integration by testing its somewhat vague, albeit well-established, macro-political rationale of a peace project in the practical settings of conflicts. It examines how the European Union is causally important for conflict resolution by using analytical tools specific to integration studies, drawing upon theories and frameworks explaining the modus operandi of European integration. This volume argues that European integration as a peace project cannot be explained by macro-level theories as they tend to prioritise individual aspects of the phenomenon leaving aside the potential interaction effects of these attributes. It provides case studies of conflict resolution related to the Franco-German relationship, Northern Ireland, Cyprus and Kosovo/Serbia conflict.

This chapter presents a profile of the French film director Maurice Pialat. Pialat's work inspires comparison with legendary figures such as Jean Renoir and Robert Bresson, yet he does not have the international reputation one might expect, given his gifts as a director and his importance in French cinema history. Pialat's death in 2003 inevitably situated him as a filmmaker of the 1980s, the decade in which his work began to receive serious critical attention and attracted a broader public. Yet by 1983, when A nos amours won the prestigious Prix Louis Delluc and the César for best film, he had been making films for over twenty years. Perhaps one of the most telling moments in Maurice Pialat's ongoing relationship with film and the French film-going public was the scandal at Cannes over the attribution of the Palme d'or in 1987. If the name Pialat is not without significance to the French filmgoing public, it is partly because he acquired the reputation of a singularly difficult and demanding director, who provoked and psychologically abused his actors and collaborators.

In Salvador Dali's joking aphorism, the virility of the concept of justice clashes with the grammatical gender of the word, ‘la justice’. Justice persists in the notion of a normal, adjusted, fitting, right division of sexual characters that the bearded lady contravenes. For, although she figures sexual ambiguity, in so doing she also keeps it at arm's length as freakish. This chapter explores the currency of the bearded lady in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century French literature. In particular, it examines ways in which that currency is caught up in techniques of unexpected juxtaposition and displacement associated with avant-garde movements of the period, in particular Surrealism and Dada. The avant-garde is not entirely uninvolved with ladies with whiskers. The chapter considers the bearded lady, displacement and recuperation in Guillaume Apollinaire's play Les Mamelles de Tirésias (1917). It also comments on the feminine body in Apollinaire's first published book, L'Enchanteur pourrissant (1909), and Tristan Tzara's play Le Coeur à gaz, first shown in 1921.

This chapter sums up the key findings of this study on youth patriotism in the GDR. The attitudes of young east Germans exemplify the unease that surrounds the expression of patriotic pride in contemporary Germany even though they often have little personal memory of divided Germany and none of national socialism. Individuals' personal experiences of employment, and education or military service have proved more influential in their assessment of each state than any official rhetoric or propaganda.

This chapter explores three of Jack Rosenthal's plays: The Dustbinmen, The Knowledge and London's Burning. The plot arises in The Dustbinmen and London's Burning from the nature of the job, which involves interaction with the community at large. While rubbish-collection makes for comedy, plots about firefighting are more generically mixed and tend to tragicomedy. As is customary in Rosenthal's plays, The Knowledge opens enigmatically so that information about its setting has to be pieced together by the viewer. In London's Burning, an institution rather than a character is under scrutiny; but none of these plays is primarily documentary in form. Rather, each deploys a precise and accurate backdrop of factual detail as a way of generating both character and narrative, particularly in the setting for London's Burning.