Reform Debate Research Articles

Trans experiences of epistemic recognition against the backdrop of the Finnish trans act reform

Gender recognition law reforms, proposing greater trans equality and agency, are pivotal moments of hope for gender minorities, but they can also result in harmful public debates. Pairing the theories of recognition and epistemic injustice, we examine trans experiences of epistemic recognition in relation to the Finnish Trans Act reform debate. Through thematic analysis of 31 semi-structured interviews with trans and non-binary individuals, we show that the denial of epistemic recognition and respect in the context of – sometimes demeaning or hostile – public debate can harm trans individuals’ social trust. This can erode their sense of safety and trust in daily social encounters but also amplify distrust towards epistemic institutions they perceive to deny their epistemic recognition. While increased media interest can provide opportunities for epistemic empowerment, trans individuals might, due to the loss of social trust, disengage with mainstream media and refrain from participating in public discourse concerning their own rights.

Donor conception, direct-to-consumer genetic testing, choices, and procedural justice: an argument for reform of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990.

In this article, using theories of procedural justice and 'slow violence', we consider potential reform of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. Our theoretical discussion is underpinned by findings from the ConnecteDNA project, exploring how people affected by donor conception experience direct-to-consumer genetic testing (DTCGT). The negative impacts of DTCGT, especially shock discoveries about the circumstances of someone's conception in adulthood, are linked to donor anonymity, and how its continued protection is experienced as a barrier to the rights and agency of donor-conceived people. We focus on two key issues relating to the donor information access process set out in section 31ZA of the 1990 Act. The first is that it excludes certain cohorts of donor-conceived people, creating inequalities of access to donor information. The second is the impact of the use of DTCGT to search for that information. We discuss what a procedurally just process of law reform would look like, concluding that, whatever (prospective) approach to donor anonymity is taken, the donor information access process should be the same for all donor-conceived people. We thus argue that, even were the status quo to be maintained, reform of the donor information access process with retrospective effect would be required.

The Prisca Theologia in the Early Reformation Debates

The paradigm of the prisca theologia, developed by Marsilio Ficino in the second half of the fifteenth century, had a huge influence throughout the early modern period. Its influence on the Reformation debates, however, has not yet been investigated. In the present article, I make an initial contribution to filling this gap. In the first part, I show that theprisca theologia was widely disseminated in the territories of the Holy Roman Empire at the beginning of the sixteenth century, including at the University of Erfurt where Martin Luther was educated. In the second half, I focus on two figures central to the Reformation debates: Johann Eck and Martin Luther. As I show, Eck had an ambivalent attitude towards theprisca theologia: on the one hand, he aimed to reconcile the scholastic tradition with the ancient doctrines of theprisci theologi; on the other hand, he distanced himself from the Hermetic and magical implications of theprisca theologia. Luther, meanwhile, developed an anti-paradigm to Ficino’s prisca theologia: he argued that the improper mixing of black and white magic was born in Persia and then developed in Egypt and Greece.

Gambling Control in a Cost‐of‐Living Crisis: An Analysis of the White Paper High Stakes: Gambling Reform for the Digital Age (2023)

This article explains the broader stakes of contemporary British gambling reform debates, via an analysis of the White Paper High Stakes: Gambling Reform for the Digital Age (2023). I lay out the context to the White Paper, and I summarise its main proposals, focusing especially on efforts to reduce the harms caused by gambling. I also offer a critical analysis of one particularly significant and contentious proposed reform: mandated affordability checks for online gambling, when losses reach certain thresholds. I suggest that these checks reflect and deepen a shared regulatory, industry, and academic faith in online gambling technologies to resolve social responsibility problems, with wider implications for consumer surveillance and public health.

Beyond Rhetoric: The European Parliament as a Workplace for Parents and Current Reform Debates

Doing justice to their families and the political mandate is especially difficult for MEPs. Parents struggle to balance family obligations and work, particularly when the children are young. They undertake extensive journeys between their home constituencies and Brussels or Strasbourg. This taxing routine is further compounded by prolonged working hours, often devoid of leisurely weekends. In combination with the absence of a comprehensive parental leave policy, these challenges disproportionately affect parents of young children, particularly mothers, influencing the diversity and representation within the European Parliament. This study critically examines the existing conditions that shape the working environment of MEPs who are parents. It explores recent endeavors to reform these conditions and the underlying obstacles that hinder the progress of these reformative initiatives. Referring to relevant documents, this study first outlines formal regulations governing parental rights in the European Parliament. We then address informal rules and recent reform proposals using insight from MEP interviews. This examination investigates how parent MEPs assess working conditions and balance competing demands. Despite expectations, the European Parliament falls short of being as family-friendly as anticipated. Nevertheless, recent times have witnessed increased attention to the topic and various reform proposals. The obstacles posed by diverse national legacies and variant conceptions of MEP mandates and statuses for reform are highlighted.

The Credit Council in the US Context

Abstract The proper role of central banks – in the US the Federal Reserve – is again up for scrutiny and criticism as the consequences of the monetary policies of the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) are fully revealed. Into the debate comes the proposal of an updated version of the Credit Council, an institution that worked alongside central banks in many European countries in the adjustment from a wartime to a peacetime economy post WWII. The renovated and reconstituted European Credit Council, as conceived by Eric Monnet of the Paris School of Economics, would participate as an aid to both the legislature and central banks in developing and monitoring monetary policy. Monnet sees additional institutional oversight to be essential as central banks confront the multifaceted challenges of escaping from GFC experimental policies and dealing with emerging challenges such as the Green Transition and social inequality. Monnet’s idea has its supporters and critics in the European context. This paper attempts to assess the utility and efficacy of the Credit Council in the US context, using: (i) the EU criticisms to anticipate and respond to likely objections from US critics; and (ii) the current Fed reform debate in the US to gauge potential fit and acceptance. The conclusion, in brief, is that the Monnet CC concept could fit well within the US context and is a potentially useful mechanism for enhancing democratic responsiveness and adding to policy legitimacy as the Fed deals with existing and imminent monetary arena challenges.

Die Gemeinsame Agrarpolitik der EU: Flaggschiff-Politik oder ewige Reformruine?

Abstract The article describes the reform path of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) since 1992. The largest share of agricultural subsidies in Germany (€7.2 billion) is granted through the CAP with significant room for manoeuvre in terms of content. Between 1992-2013, the old, protectionist CAP was to a large extent successfully transformed into a liberalised CAP. Since 2014, the CAP reform debate has increasingly focussed on the provision of public goods. The CAP is currently characterised by the idea of simultaneously achieving income and environmental targets. In the CAP’s current form, this is associated with considerable inconsistencies and weaknesses.

Den belarusiske autoritarismens seiglivethet og debatten om lokalforvaltningen

In the literature on authoritarian regimes, there is a growing recognition that authoritarianism is not necessarily a transitional phenomenon, but a form of government that is sustained by a multifaceted selection of instruments and therefore able to survive crises. In Belarus, populism and regular welfare deliveries contribute to the tenacity of the country’s authoritarianism. The sub-state level of governance is important as Belarusians’ welfare primarily is delivered at the local level. However, the local elected bodies play a minimal role, and it is in practice local departments of the central administration that make decisions locally. This manifestation of the centralism of Belarusian authoritarianism is not only challenged by the opposition in the country. Systemic publications also advocate for less central management of local politics and more power for the local, elected councils. This article presents the distinctive features of Belarusian authoritarianism and provides a detailed overview of the local level of governance in the country. The reform debate – both from the side of the regime and the opposition – is presented. The possible importance of the local level for the survival of Belarusian authoritarianism is discussed in the light of the literature on the resilience of authoritarian regimes.

Recreational cannabis policy reform-What mental health nurses need to know about minimising harm and contributing to the reform debate.

The recently rapidly evolving legal status of recreational cannabis in various countries has triggered international debate, particularly around measures required to minimise resulting harms. The present article argues that mental health nurses should have a key role in promoting safe and appropriate use of recreational cannabis, and minimising harm based on the extant evidence. The article summarises the factors driving legalisation, outlines the evident medicinal benefits of cannabis, and appraises the evidence on the negative mental health impacts associated with use. We go on to discuss research findings on the potentially deleterious mental health effects resulting from legalising recreational cannabis and strategies to minimise these harms, including directions for future research and evaluation. Further, we consider the importance of the implementation of harm minimisation measures that are context-specific, using Thailand as an example. Finally, we present the key health promotion messages that mental health nurses should aim to convey to people who use or consider using recreational cannabis. Ultimately, we aim to provide a summary of the existing evidence that mental health nurses can draw upon to promote mental health and engage with the policy reform debate.

The Anti-Reformist Stance in Investment Law

Abstract This article articulates an ‘anti-reformist’ stance toward the reform of international investment law and dispute settlement. The mainstream debates over the future of investment law are generally ‘reformist,’ in the sense that they seek to maintain the system of special legal rights afforded to a discrete class of persons defined as ‘investors’. This system of special rights amplifies investors’ power vis-à-vis other constituencies and is premised on flimsy assumptions about the investor’s vulnerability that are not borne out either in theory or in practice. Drawing on recent work in other fields, this article sketches an anti-reformist approach that asserts these fundamental challenges, even as it remains engaged in contemporary reform debates. It also discusses the near-term implications of this approach for procedural and substantive reform of investment treaties, as well as the long-range goals of an anti-reformist stance.

Isabella M. Weber: How China Escaped Shock Therapy: The Market Reform Debate

This book review follows Issabela Weber in her exploration of China's economic transformation, focusing on the influence of Central and Eastern European (CEE) experts. Weber challenges conventional Western beliefs by highlighting the historical politics of inflation in shaping China's market reform debate. She examines the interactions between Chinese academics, liberal-minded party leaders, and CEE experts who acted as intermediaries for new ideas of economic transition. By unraveling the transnational history of CEE's intellectual impact on China's economic reforms in the context of emerging neoliberal globalization, Weber offers unique insights into China's economic development within the global landscape, among other aspects.

Therapeutic Jurisprudence and Homosexual Expungement Law: Lessons from Australia and New Zealand/Aotearoa

Until recently, a historical conviction for a homosexual offence remained on an individual’s criminal record until expungement legislation was enacted to facilitate such convictions to be spent. An analysis of parliamentary debates in New Zealand/Aotearoa and across Australia highlights the aim and opinions of lawmakers in their desire to bring about a therapeutic remedy to address the ‘criminal stain’ of a conviction for a historical homosexual offence. Along with the aim to remedy the effect of a conviction, parliaments used the law reform debate as a broader therapeutic project of inclusiveness for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) communities. The success of expungement is evidenced by the passing of legislation, with most applications to expunge granted. These positive outcomes are countered by a low number of applications to expunge, a refusal by all governments to provide reparations and the use of expungement legislation to garner favour with all members of LGBTIQ communities—a move open to an accusation of government virtue signalling.

Belonging and Agrarian Labour Exchanges in Zimbabwe: Navigating Between Communal Areas and Fast Track Villagised Settlements

This article examines the nature of labour exchange between A1 farmers with people in communal areas of origin based on kinship and friendship relations. While agrarian labour in Zimbabwe has attracted considerable interest in land reform debates, limited attention has been paid to agrarian labour exchange and livelihoods based on belonging to communal areas of origin under the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP). Using a qualitative case study from Mashonaland West, Zimbabwe, I argue that belonging plays an important role in labour exchange and enabling livelihoods. This article illustrates that labour exchange in farm households still matter despite changes in land distribution and the economy. The article concludes that belonging-based labour exchange enhances agricultural production and livelihoods in a new land ownership and economic circumstances.

James Epstein and David Karr. British Jacobin Politics, Desires, and Aftermaths: Seditious Hearts.

James Epstein and David Karr have over many years produced some of the finest analyses of late eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century British radical political culture, with an emphasis on the way such culture is manifested in performance, bodily gesture, and space. In British Jacobin Politics, Desires, and Aftermaths, they bring together much of that material, alongside several new essays, to offer a wide-ranging analysis of how we might “read the stirrings of the ‘Jacobin’ heart” (1), both in the reform debate of the 1790s and in its aftermath. Epstein and Karr do not interrogate the stated aims of the players in this debate. Instead, they analyze the concept of British Jacobinism by attending to the “effervescent sense of possibility” in the affective practices and proclamations of the reform movement (1). They note that “seditious desire was inchoate, half-formed, shouted across tavern tables, muttered in private conversations, chalked on walls” (1). Such practices pose a challenge to analysis, and Epstein and Karr “accept a certain provisionality as we try to get at that which is in excess of words” (5). But they respond to this challenge through a focus on performance and on space. They explore “Jacobin” engagement with what they term “serious play,” which was a response to government restriction and repression, but which also “involved creative experimentation in modes of political action and identification” (4). And in the book’s chapters, they trace such “play” through physical spaces, “sites of articulation and feeling—the club room, lecture hall, mass outdoor meeting, theater, tavern, coffeehouse, street, chapel, courtroom, prison, convict ship, as well as the imagined space of America … and the experience of exile in New South Wales” (5–6).

A Web of Punishment: Examining Black Student Interactions With School Police in Los Angeles

The presence of armed police officers in schools has sparked considerable policy debate and demands for reform. Thus far, much of the debate has centered on an empirical analysis of school resource officers rather than school police officers and their impact on particular student populations, especially those burdened by their greater vulnerability to punitive interactions such as detention and arrest. In this article the authors show that an examination of the data reveals that interactions between students and police follow distinct patterns with respect to race and geographic space. The authors use the “sociospatial dialectic” method to explain why certain student populations are most vulnerable to negative interactions with school police within particular spatial settings. Oral history interviews with 120 Black students in a large urban public school district reveal two self-reinforcing pathways: (1) soft coercion, when care and courtesy meet preemptive criminalization to produce punitive policing, and (2) shielding, when referrals to school police officers by school personnel shift blame onto students and invite the use of punitive policing without care. These findings underscore the racialized and contextually specific nature of school policing’s social and spatial processes for Black students in low-income communities.

Bibliometric Analysis of Academic Papers Citing Dunleavy et al.’s (2006) “New Public Management Is Dead—Long Live Digital-Era Governance”: Identifying Research Clusters and Future Research Agendas

I trace the bibliometric evolution of “New Public Management Is Dead” by Dunleavy et al. to investigate how the seminal paper influenced the administrative reform debate. They suggested Digital-Era Governance as the main post-NPM idea. My bibliometric analysis discovers public value, administrative reform trajectories, and digital government as influential themes. Unlike Dunleavy et al., the literature found the managerial reform wave is not linear, reform ideas are supplementary, and NPM remains a major toolkit. Future research should focus on reintegration and need-based holism, linking digital government to administrative reform, and the negative impact of digital government on democracy.

A More Socio-Environmentally Responsive Way to Organise the Firm? A Case Study on Danish Social Enterprise Law

Abstract 517 It has been claimed that social enterprises have the capacity to counteract the negative impact that business has had on the environment, inequality and social cohesion. Yet, such claims remain largely untested – commentators have not attempted to actually apply insights from the social enterprise law context to debates within the wider field of corporate governance. A primary reason for this inconsistency is that, from a European perspective, there is a dearth of scholarship that aims to analytically model social enterprise law. This is problematic because there is not an established body of work from which commentators can draw. In turn, the scope for effectively leveraging social enterprise law within more mainstream corporate sustainability discourses is hindered. This article contributes an analytical model of Danish social enterprise law to the literature. The hope is that this case study will encourage, and equip, commentators to not only claim that social enterprise law has applicability in progressive corporate reform debates, but to also show directly how, and where, this might be so.

Prospects of Merger Review in the Digital Age: A Critical Look at the EU, the United States, and Germany

This article takes a critical look at merger law and practice in the EU, the United States, and Germany regarding data-related transactions. It focuses on the current legal standard and evaluates the recent decision practice in these jurisdictions. This includes the increasing implementation of data-related remedies, such as data access and data separation commitments, which have so far not been the focus of scholarly attention. On this basis, the article discusses the prospects of merger review within the framework of current policy reform debates. It concludes with recommendations for future legislative action in Germany and the EU. In particular, the legislature should implement a tightened and better suited merger review regime for dominant undertakings in digital markets.

China's Market Reform Debate

China's Market Reform Debate

Underrepresentation, Quotas and Quality: A dynamic argument for reform

Underrepresentation, Quotas and Quality: A dynamic argument for reform