Transcripts and newspaper accounts of infanticide cases suggest that the sexually ignorant, innocent and demure woman does not necessarily reflect the experiences and motivations of ordinary Irish women. The involvement of family members in individual cases of infanticide offers insight into the role families and communities played in defining and regulating the moral and sexual behavior of their members. While all of the women presented likely experienced some degree of fear, shame or desperation in killing their newborn children, it becomes clear that newborn children were easily expendable in their efforts to protect their own and their families' reputations. The evidence in infanticide cases begs a re-evaluation of constructions of sexuality, maternity, family life and childhood that were disseminated through moralist literature and have been accepted almost uncritically by feminist and social historians.

This chapter explores how longitudinal documentary develop after they have achieved initial lift-off. The long doc work includes Michael Apted's Seven Up films, Winifred and Barbara Junge's The Children of Golzow and Swedish director Rainer Hartleb's The Children of Jordbrö. In 21 Up, almost half the film is given over to extended accounts of just four of the Seven Up subjects (Tony, Bruce, Nick and Neil). The chapter focuses on the role played by various institutions in the origination and nurturing of these projects. It discusses the developments in the working relationship of Junge with two of his subjects, Marieluise and Elke, who are the two leading female participants in The Children of Golzow. The Jordbrö Children and Living in Jordbrö put a clear marker down for all the Jordbrö films that follow in that they introduce us to the characteristic features of Hartleb's filmmaking style.

This introductory chapter first sets out the purpose of the book, which is to provide a critical analysis of the definitions of war crimes and crimes against humanity as construed in the Rome Statute and developed by the Elements of Crimes. It then discusses the origins of the International Criminal Court (ICC); default mental element for offences in the Rome Statute; and Article 21 of the Rome Statute, the law to be applied by the judges of the ICC when adjudicating cases and interpreting the definition of crimes. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.

This chapter sums up the key findings of this study on labour migration policy in Spain and Great Britain. The comparison of these two European Union members highlighted the value of comparative research on labour migration policy. It was also observed that the contemporary governance of labour migration is becoming more technical and based on economic utilitarian arguments, and this has implications in terms of our understanding of the ways political questions around immigration are changing and the ways in which expertise can play a role in the policy-making process. This chapter also discusses the usefulness of the various theoretical frameworks and potential avenues for future research.

This chapter examines a case where a group capable of representation, but not practising democratic enfranchisement of its constituency, transformed its practice. In so doing, it establishes that this process is possible, but is complicated and lengthy. It challenges scholars to take a historical perspective on group practices, looking to how potential may come to be fulfilled. It challenges the teleological element in much group scholarship — both interest group and social movement strands. Groups, via political processes within and without, are agents in the co-evolution of their democratic practices.

This chapter focuses on gentleman impostors and people who attempted to realise a noble life in order to make up for their imaginary or lost world. It analyses literary representations of gentlemen impostors and argues that they reflect a shift in meaning of the concept of gentility which created uncertainties over gentility itself, and who could be considered to qualify. The chapter also examines the cases of impostors Elizabeth Thornborough, William Morrell and William Stroud, and suggests that their experience highlights the importance of property and consumerism within the socioeconomic context of the period between the late seventeenth and mid-eighteenth centuries.

After the withdrawal of Jamaica and Trinidad from the West Indies Federation, Britain proposed a new federation of the East Caribbean with extended revenue raising powers, freedom of movement, a customs union and full internal self-government, leading to full independence. However, a series of reports on the economic and fiscal state of the islands and the levels of support and investment required for a viable federation, coupled up with withdrawals by Antigua and Grenada and the anxieties of Barbados led to the collapse of federation negotiations in late 1964. The United States on the other hand began to distribute its aid on a piecemeal basis and finally opened its doors to West Indian migrants in 1965. Finally, Barbados, under the leadership of its Prime Minister Errol Barrow, set its sight on independence and which despite its poverty and racial problems, achieved independence smoothly without any violence or political tensions.

This chapter examines the affective modalities of the dilemmas of democracy, focusing on the articulation of affect in current theoretical and popular reflections on the possibility of democracy. It analyses the conflicting affects of fear and love in the face of anti-Semitism in Poland in order to understand the crucial role that affect plays, both in xenophobic, ethno-nationalist attitudes, as well as in their proposed remedies. This chapter argues that democracy is founded not only a constitutive political paradox concerning the irreconcilability of individual freedom and collective equality but also on an affective paradox concerning the aporetic relationship between fear and love.

Norton (2000) outlined three conditions that must be met before effective parliamentary reform may proceed. The first necessary condition is a window of opportunity in which reform can take place. Second, there has to be a coherent reform agenda in place that provides a package behind which MPs might organise. Third, leadership must exist to exploit the window of opportunity and promote the reform agenda. In the summer of 1998, Charter 88 complained of the ‘disappointingly slow’ pace of reform and the ‘extremely cautious’ nature of the Modernisation Committee's recommendations. The Liaison Committee, under the chairmanship of Sir Terence Higgins, used its 1997 report on the work of the select committees as an opportunity to explore the issues in greater depth. This chapter examines effectiveness in the House of Commons since 1997, focusing on various reports prepared by the Liaison Committee, the Commission to Strengthen Parliament, and the Hansard Society Commission on Parliamentary Scrutiny. It also discusses the support of the Labour Party led by Robin Cook to institute reforms in the House of Commons.

Late in Elizabeth's reign and well into James's, some members of the elite chose to erect what they termed ‘castles’, structures superficially fortified in a style that has been labelled ‘Spenserian’ after the poet of Elizabethan chivalry, Edmund Spenser. The question posed in this chapter is whether the continued tradition of defended residences in Ireland was related to this English ‘chivalric revival’ in aristocratic architecture. Moreover, the houses built by the elite in Ireland during the Plantation Period no doubt projected power and status, but a firmer understanding of this elite depends upon whether they saw themselves as a colonial or an imperial ruling class.

Hugo Chávez has been repeatedly accused of authoritarianism, principally by opposition leaders but also by many foreign supporters of the opposition and even amongst some on the left. This chapter explores this dichotomy between democracy and authoritarianism in the Chávez government. Chávez has sometimes been compared with another Latin American president branded as both populist and authoritarian, Alberto Fujimori of Peru (1990–2001). Both presidents have been accused of authoritarianism, yet both presidents came to power through democratic means. Both presidents also based their discourse on a celebration of the ‘people’ against a corrupt and corrupting system. Both therefore raise questions about concepts of democracy and authoritarianism within the context of populism. To facilitate the comparison between Chávez and Fujimori, this chapter uses a framework based on ideas on democracy found in D. Rueschemeyer et al. and Roald Dahl, which encompasses five key policy areas generally accepted as indicative of democracy: electoral law and practice, presidential authority and institutional autonomy, human rights, media freedom and the right to information and associational autonomy.