This chapter presents two significant points. Firstly, the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) is a very significant case for demonstrating that even with the 'war on terror' on the political agenda, the asylum policy in its first phase remained within the constraints of the Geneva Convention, and actually strengthened it. Secondly, the role of the EU institutions in EU asylum and migration has been significantly underestimated. The first serious attempt to shape the EU asylum agenda was the Commission's famous 'White Paper' on the completion of the Internal Market in 1984. In 1991, the Commission took the next steps in its persuasion strategy, constructing the link to both the single market and international refugee norms. The chapter assesses the extent to which the European Commission, in both its normative and policy dimension, has been able to play the role of a supranational policy entrepreneur (SPE) with regard to the CEAS.

This chapter reflects upon the lessons learned through an experiment in pragmatic social research conducted in east London in the UK in 2015. The project drew upon the pragmatism of the Chicago School of Sociologists and the work of Ernest Burgess, Robert Park and G.H. Mead as well as the earlier work of William James and John Dewey. The E14 expedition tried to test whether, and if so, how, university researchers could work with a range of citizens to address public problems in a genuinely open way, listening to the full range of opinion and ideas. The project exposed the extent to which academic social scientists are often deaf to political opinions that are believed to be misguided, confused and/or incorrect. It also exposed the role played by the social infrastructure of pre-existing relationships, trust, shared interests and identity in underpinning and enabling effective collective action. The chapter advocates paying greater academic and political attention to the things that make public action and problem-solving possible, including being open to different ideas and beliefs, and nurturing the social relationships that enable democratic behaviour and practice.

The conclusion summarises and explains the findings of the research for this book and reflects briefly on the inter-relationships between the period analysed and the continuing European debate. It is clear that during the period which included two unsuccessful and one successful application, the long-term implications of membership did not weigh heavily with many members of the political elite. The evidence suggests that for many members of both major political parties, short-term considerations were of greater importance. There is evidence, for example, that party management was of greater concern for Wilson and Callaghan than a genuine commitment to EEC membership. The findings also show that the short-term nature of the debate stored up future problems for political parties and their leaderships, which ultimately led to Britain voting to leave the European Union.

This chapter surveys theories of death denial and analyses examples of drama and theatre from the 1950s to the 1970s that expose its potentially damaging effects on the individual and society. Plays and performance pieces discussed are Dino Buzzati’s A Clinical Case (1953), the Open Theater’s Terminal (1969–71) and two plays by Eugène Ionesco, Exit the King (1962) and Amédée (1953). The chapter situates these examples in relation to the ‘death awareness movement’, which began in the 1950s, and advocated for transparency about death and dying. The chapter argues that these pieces offer mordant social commentary by challenging prevailing orthodoxies through the presentation of absurd, theatrically arresting and sometimes morbidly funny scenarios.

This chapter examines the nature of the tests the Chinese state faces in dealing with ethnic and nationalist issues and how it deals with them. The task of identifying the ethnic make up of China was given to a commission shortly after the foundation of the People's Republic of China (PRC). For an understanding of the national question in Chinese politics, Xinjiang and Tibet are the boundary cases. As well as being geographically peripheral from a Beijing-centric view, each has rival and assertive self-identity, which challenges the core precepts of Chinese nationalism. The competing narratives of both official China and disaffected minorities are important at home and abroad but, in most cases, ethnic or national minority issues do not threaten Communist Party of China (CCP) rule.

A grounded approach was used for the author's research on Israeli-Palestinian cartoons. G. Damon's study of Arab stereotypes in political cartoons depends entirely on their appearance in mainstream American newspapers. The visual metaphor and tropes of political cartoons depend upon a reader's familiarity with historic events, cultural texts and current affairs. Like reading a stranger's diary, cartoons express the latent fears, unspoken beliefs and deep-seated concerns of a community. Cartoons use a combination of physical distortion, cultural references and visual juxtaposition to comment on current events. Even readers with extensive historical and literary knowledge must also be familiar with current events. The amount of effort needed to decipher cartoon content raises the obvious question of why bother to engage in such an arduous analysis when more accessible and less-challenging forms of political communication exist.

Jean Rhys published four novels which have female protagonists who all drink at levels beyond those regarded as socially acceptable: Quartet (1929), After Leaving Mr Mackenzie (1930), Voyage in the Dark (1934), Good Morning, Midnight (1939). These four novels present the reader with a complex of self, consciousness, and modernity, inflected by an argument that women are forced to live differently in the world from men, and therefore experience and understand the world differently from men. One of the major achievements of the novels is the way in which they render the various states of consciousness of the female protagonist in the modern capitalist world, and this chapter considers the way in which Rhys integrates questions of gender, consciousness, modernity, alcohol, and the self. Rhys’s protagonists choose their orientations as a way to define their selves and to define what is true in and about the world they inhabit. The modernist focus on alcoholic consciousness ensures a form of self-validation against a patriarchal and increasingly rationalistic society. This chapter also considers Rhys’s presentation of consciousness alongside our contemporary understanding.