‘The Settled Will of the Scottish People’: What is Next for Scotland's Parliaments?

Following a likely relative shift from Labour to SNP in the Scottish Parliament elections of 3 May 2007 the eight year Labour/Liberal Democratic Party coalition will come under great pressure and may be replaced by a minority administration or a Liberal Democrat/SNP coalition. While the independence issue may be sidelined, key constitutional issues will arise as a result of the Liberal Democrats' proposals featuring in Moving Towards Federalism which envisage greater legislative and taxation powers for the Scottish Parliament and a reconsideration of the devolution settlement. A number of weaknesses in the documents' proposals are identified. If it is acted upon there is the possibility of considerable resulting constitutional conflict arising which could pose considerable challenges for the future of the UK. The UK government which has actual competence on these issues has largely stayed silent on them during the campaign but may have to respond sensitively in its aftermath.     

PUTTING VIOLENCE IN ITS PLACE: THE INFLUENCE OF RACE,ETHNICITY, GENDER,AND PLACE ON THE RISK FOR VIOLENCE*

Research Summary: This research shows that non-Latino black, non-Latino white, and Latino males and females in the U.S. experience significantly different levels of stranger and non-stranger violence, and that these forms of non-lethal violence are especially pronounced in areas with high levels of socioeconomic disadvantage. Many of the differences between these groups are eliminated once community and other individual characteristics are taken into account. Policy Implications: The results suggest that victimization resources should be geographically targeted at places with high levels of poverty and single-parent families, and that the most stable institutions within these communities be drawn upon to deliver information about victimization prevention and services.     

Crossing Identitarian Lines: Women's Liberation and James Baldwin's Early Essays

Since a gender‐free society has never existed historically, feminist thinking that posits the equality of the sexes is inherently Utopian. Feminist Utopian writers, working within the traditional genre of science‐fiction, a genre particularly well‐suited to revolutionary theoretical discussions, have explored three types of feminist utopias: all‐female societies, biological androgyny, and genuinely egalitarian two‐sex societies. This essay examines examples of feminist utopias in each of these three paradigms to determine to what extent they are “abstract” (in Ernst Bloch's terminology), ie. merely wish‐fulfillment fantasies, and to what extent “concrete” and thus viable blue‐prints for future political and social organization.     

The Presidential Election of 2008*

Senators Barack Obama and John McCain each has severe problems. McCain must take his distance from the very unpopular President Bush while keeping the support of the core Republican voters, but suffers from lack of rapport with the Fundamentalist Protestants and traditionalist Catholics. In foreign policy, he is more devoted to US global hegemony (in a world which stubbornly refuses it) than the incumbent. Senator Obama knows that this is a dangerous illusion but thinks that it is unwise to say so. He supports Israel in exaggerated terms and repeats the fabrications of the war party about Iran. Obama has the difficulty of being part black and entirely intellectual, and he needs the votes of the working class men and women who are very reserved about him. McCain seeks low taxes and less government expenditure and intervention, but tens of millions of economically hard‐pressed citizens are ready to return to the ethos and practices of the New Deal. Obama promises to revive the regulatory and redistributive role of government to help them, but his reluctance to criticise the arms budget may makes him seem unrealistic. Obama's vision of the United States puts the achievement of the American Revolution in the future whereas McCain thinks of the nation as already perfected. In many respects, we have a classical conflict between left and right.     

Modernising the Monarchy: The Oaths of Office

According to laws deriving from the constitutional developments of the seventeenth century and earlier, a new monarch of the UK has to swear oaths that renounce Roman Catholicism and uphold protestantism in the UK, presbyterianism in Scotland and the privileged established status of the Church of England. If the next monarchical succession is to be as smooth as the governmental succession of 2010 these anachronistic oaths should be considered for abolition and the whole procedure should be reviewed. There remains then only one oath requiring to be administered at the coronation to which all can agree—to govern according to the law.