Tag Archives: research

Public Engagement Awards: Dr Brendan McGeever, Professor David Feldman and Dr Ben Gidley – Facing Antisemitism: Politics, Culture, History

Leave a reply

This is the sixth in a series of blogs showcasing the Birkbeck 2020 Public Engagement Awards winners and highly commended participants. This project was announced the winner of the category ‘Transforming Culture and Public Life’.

Stop smearing Labour sign

Facing Antisemitism is a new short course taught at Birkbeck that explores the sources, development and contemporary forms of antisemitism. It is open to students, the public and organisations. In 2019 the Labour Party enrolled its key staff on the course.

This project has been shaped directly by current research: Professor David Feldman’s Boycotts Past and Present (2019, Palgrave); his forthcoming The History of the Concept of Antisemitism (Princeton University Press, 2021); his essay ‘Toward A history of the Term of Anti-Semitism’ in The American Historical Review (2019); Dr Brendan McGeever’s new work on antisemitism and the left (Antisemitism and the Russian Revolution, CUP 2019) and Dr Ben Gidley’s Turbulent Times: the British Jewish Community Today, Continuum, 2010. Additionally, the three investigators are writing articles and a new monograph based on the module.

Facing Antisemitism draws on history and the social sciences to answer questions such as: how can we recognise and define antisemitism? How does it relate to other forms of racism? How widespread is antisemitism? Where does it come from? Why does it persist?  What is the impact of antisemitism on Jews? What is the relationship between anti-racism and antisemitism?

The research underpinning this course is directly relevant to Labour because over the last four years, the Party has found itself at the centre of public controversy about the nature and significance of antisemitism. This has been unprecedented: antisemitism now sits at the centre of British political debate like never before. The subject is explosive and controversial, but one that is poorly understood. By engaging with Labour in this way, Dr McGeever, Prof. Feldman, and Dr Gidley hoped to provide key figures in the Party with the concepts and knowledge to make better judgments about antisemitism. In turn, this project provided the former with a valuable opportunity to take their research in a classroom setting to stimulate change and engender new ways of thinking about an urgent problem of our time.

Birkbeck congratulates Dr McGeever, Prof. Feldman, and Dr Gidley on their exciting project, as well as on being selected as the winners in this year’s Public Engagement Awards in the category ‘Transforming Culture and Public Life’.

Further information:

 

Share

If there is social capital, good Mayors are re-elected

Leave a reply

Are the public more likely to re-elect a mayor who invests in long-term development? Yes, if there is social capital. The Department of Management’s Dr Luca Andriani shares the results of his latest research in collaboration with colleagues Alberto Batinti and Andrea Filippetti.

If a mayor is good, she should be re-elected. Prior research tells us that what distinguishes a “good” mayor from a “bad” mayor is the adoption of long-term oriented and transparent municipal fiscal policies. “Good” mayors re-allocate the municipal budget more towards capital investments (rather than current expenditures) and towards property tax, which is more transparent than a surcharge income tax. However, “good” mayors are not always re-elected. In this study, we argue that social capital might be a key reason. In a context with low social capital, municipal long-run fiscal strategy might not be rewarded.

Social capital generally refers to elements of cooperation, reciprocity and mutual trust regulating relations among members of a community. It is generally expressed through the presence of civically engaged citizens preferring leaders and governments that show credible commitments in taking good care of public resources, in acting efficiently and fairly and that adopt long- rather than short-run political economic strategies.

In this study, we look at the Italian context, as this is characterised by a pronounced economic regional disparity between the southern regions recording low economic growth and high unemployment and the more economically advanced northern regions. Italy is also a country with a large disparity of social capital endowment across regions and municipalities for several institutional and historical reasons (Putnam 1993).

Since the late 1990s, Italy has implemented two significant reforms aiming to bring local public institutions closer to the citizens’ needs and preferences: an electoral reform to appoint local governments and mayors and a fiscal reform towards a more federalist system. These changes have been pursued by economically wealthy regions seeking greater autonomy. They were also advocated as remedies to stimulate those administrations in regions that are less developed and efficient.

We test whether the probability of “good” mayors being rewarded, i.e. re-elected, is influenced by the level of social capital endowment existing in the municipality. We investigate this empirically in 6,000 Italian municipalities over the period 2003-2012. We consider the structural dimension of social capital as one referring to the individual’s involvement in associational activities and social networks. This dimension captures citizens’ prosocial behaviour and individuals’ attitude towards planning capacity and forward-looking decision making

Our results show that “good” mayors are more likely to be re-elected in contexts with more social capital. One can speculate that social capital may favour the reallocation of the municipal fiscal budget towards public investment vis-à-vis current expenditures and towards property tax vis-à-vis surcharge income tax, thus enhancing the efficiency and transparency of local public policy.

What does this mean for policy makers?

These results raise important reflections on the implementations of public policies promoting decentralization.

Fiscal federalism theory claims that decentralization improves the ability of local institutions to tailor specific policies aiming to meet citizens’ demands (e.g., DiazSerrano and Rodríguez-Pose, 2015). This gets reflected in the citizens’ satisfaction (e.g. Espasa et al., 2017; Filippetti and Sacchi, 2016). This study qualifies these results, showing that decentralization works relatively well in the presence of high levels of social capital. In social contexts where individuals value forward-looking and transparent fiscal policies, decentralization promotes better public policies and benefits public sector financial performance.

However, this study also advocates that decentralization policies should be coupled with initiatives to improve the capacity of local institutions to stimulate the accumulation of social capital. This could be pursued through two complementary strategies. Firstly, by employing programmes that favour the capacity-building of civic associations, including organizations for environmental, human, democratic rights. Secondly, by enabling these associations to be more involved in local governance. This can be achieved by providing local associations access to formal and informal avenues for participation, engagement and closer monitoring of local public decision-making process.

This blog is based on the following research paper:

Batinti, A. Andriani, L and Filippetti, A (2019) Local Government Fiscal Policy, Social Capital and Electoral Payoff: Evidence across Italian Municipalities. Kyklos 72(4): 503-526

Further Information:

Share

Re-imagining the Youth Court

Leave a reply

Gillian Hunter from the Institute for Crime and Justice Policy Research shares findings from research conducted in collaboration with The Centre for Justice Innovation (CJI) on developing problem-solving practice in the Youth Court.

Youth courts and problem-solving justice
The number of young people coming to court has declined by 75% over the past decade due to falls in youth crime and the successful diversion of cases away from formal court proceedings. Those who do end up in courts, however, tend to be the most vulnerable and disadvantaged young people, their biographies replete with experiences of being in care, exclusion from mainstream schooling, and evidence of welfare, mental health and learning and communication needs.

Our research, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, explored youth court practice in three areas in England with a view to identifying opportunities to develop problem-solving approaches. Problem-solving justice emphasises rehabilitation; it promotes procedural fairness and respectful treatment by the court, and interventions and supervision (sometimes from a number of agencies) that are focused on outcomes and responsive to the changing circumstances of the young person. It also involves longer-term judicial monitoring to review and support compliance with the court’s sentence. There are already elements of problem-solving in how youth courts operate: there is a degree of specialism required to work in these courts; hearings should take place in adapted courtrooms where there is more emphasis on engaging with the child compared to adult court hearings; youth offending services (YOS) are specialist multiagency teams that coordinate and supervise interventions; and the guidance for sentencing young people encourages a child-focused approach which centres on rehabilitation wherever possible and warns against the unnecessary criminalisation of young people. It is clear, however, that these elements of problem-solving practice could be further developed and enhanced.

Our report, co-authored with CJI and launched on 30th June 2020 – Time to get it right – underlines the need for action rather than more words. Our research followed several high-level independent reviews of the Youth Justice System, completed since 2014, all of which have recommended aspects of problem-solving practice as a better way to address young people’s underlying needs and reduce their likelihood of future contact with the justice system. It is also widely recognised that the decline in numbers of young people going through the courts has created the necessary space for a system ‘re-boot’.

Local innovation and challenges
Despite the absence of a national strategy on youth justice, the study found local innovation and enthusiasm for changes in line with problem-solving practice, including, for example, the use of informal review hearings to support the progress of young people on community orders. This was described by one YOS worker we spoke to as helping to establish a more positive relationship between young person and court:

“Because up until then, their experience of magistrates and people dictating what happens to them, which is how they see it, is people sat on a bench who are talking to them in a particular way, who are deciding what will happen to them, who are telling them what to do and then suddenly …They have a review and they are sitting around a table with people who are genuinely taking a real interest in them, who are not being lovey-dovey. Although the setting is informal it is quietly exploratory, it is quietly challenging, but it’s all done at the young person’s pace so they’re more relaxed, they’re more engaged.”

We also encountered committed and hard-working court and YOS staff and lay and professional judiciary working in a strained system that throws up daily challenges: delays in cases reaching court; the closure of youth courts and associated loss of local expertise; court layouts that are ill-adapted to young people’s participation in hearings; children’s services that are under-funded and often absent when they need to provide support to young people in court; and shortfalls in the help that can be offered to address young people’s mental health, or communication and learning needs. “A sticking plaster” analogy was used by one magistrate we talked to, in considering how well the system is currently addressing young people’s needs.

Young People’s voices
The young people we interviewed, with recent experience of youth court, were frequently confused by court language and felt largely detached from proceedings, sometimes not fully understanding the implications of their sentence until later. However, they also told us that they appreciated when efforts were made by judiciary and others in court to explain what was happening in ways they could understand.

Time for action
Our research highlights the need for enhanced problem-solving practice in the youth court – including greater specialist knowledge and training for those working with young people as judges, magistrates and legal representatives, and further adaptations of court layouts such that they are always less formal than the equivalent for adults. There should also be better resourcing of youth justice and children’s services to ensure the young people who come before the court receive the support they need. Our research found local endeavours to introduce problem-solving in the absence of national initiatives to promote the approach and we emphasise the need for an official repository  so that learning can be shared and further innovative practice in the youth courts can be fostered.

Further information

 

Share