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"Cosmopolitanism, as an intellectual and political project, has failed. The portrayal of human rights, especially European, as evidence of cosmopolitanism in practice is misguided. Cosmopolitan theorists point to the rise of claims-making to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) among Europe's Muslims to protect their right to religious freedom, mainly concerning the hijab, as evidence of cosmopolitan justice. However, the outcomes of such claims-making show that far from signifying a cosmopolitan moment, European human rights law has failed Europe's Muslims. Human Rights, Islam and the Failure of Cosmopolitanism provides an empirical examination of claims-making and government policy in Western Europe focusing mainly on developments in the UK, Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands. A consideration of public debates and European law of conduct in the public sphere shows that cosmopolitan optimism has misjudged the magnitude of the impact claims-making among Europe's Muslims. To overcome this cul-de-sac, European Muslims should turn to a new 'politics of rights' to pursue their right to religious expression. This eye-opening book will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students studying subjects such as Sociology, Human Rights, Minority Rights, Cosmopolitanism and Ethnic and Racial Studies" --

International audience ; Innovative approaches to citizenship emerged in the 1990s. Post-national theory suggested that European minorities no longer needed national citizenship because supra-national political structures such as the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) offered them protections. Denationalized citizenship held that universal human rights were now available at the national level too as the Council of Europe's member countries had to incorporate human rights principles within their own jurisdictions. New forms of claims-making among European Muslims were cited as evidence of this trend as religious claims, especially relating to the hijab, began to made through human rights litigation. This paper demonstrates the limits of post-nationalism through a discussion of the outcomes of such claims. While European Muslims are indeed mobilizing around human rights, there is no evidence - at the level of litigation - that this has helped them to win recognition of their religious or cultural rights. This paper explores the reasons for this.

Labour Party policy developments in the 1980s have been well-documented. However, the focus has tended to be on intra-party organisation and aspects of domestic and defence policy, with Labour's policy on international issues receiving comparatively little attention. Yet, some of the most interesting debates occurred in this area. One such concern was that over the party's policy towards the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, a set of nationalist rivalries that has long been a source of dilemma for the left. This paper examines how the party's previous pro-Israeli consensus broke down during the 1980s and the processes behind the eventual policy outcome, shedding light on the wider issue of policy change.

Die Autoren gehen davon aus, dass soziale Schließung ein Resultat intentionalen wie nicht-intentionalen Handelns sein kann. Intentionale Schließungsstrategien beinhalten die Institutionalisierung von Hindernissen, wie z. B. Bildungsabschlüssen für den Zugang zu einem Beruf. Die nicht-intentionale Schließung resultiert hingegen aus unbeabsichtigten Folgen bestimmter Strategien. Die Autoren erläutern ihre These über generationelle Schließung am Beispiel der britischen Nachkriegs- oder 1960er-Generation. Sie zeigen anhand des Kapital-Modells von Pierre Bourdieu, dass es dieser Generation gelungen ist, knappe soziale Positionen mit hohem Prestige zu monopolisieren, von denen aus sie als "Gatekeeper" über verschiedene Kapitalsorten in Schlüsselbereichen der Gesellschaft soziale Schließung durchgesetzt haben. Im Hinblick auf ökonomisches Kapital ist die Nachkriegsgeneration z.B. für den Ausschluss der jüngeren Generation von Leistungen des Wohlfahrtsstaates verantwortlich, denn sie hat dafür gesorgt, dass Leistungen der sozialen Sicherung und der Beschäftigungsschutz beschnitten wurden. Dagegen war der Ausschluss der jüngeren Generation durch die Transformation einer produktions- zu einer konsumzentrierten Ökonomie eine unbeabsichtigte Konsequenz. (ICI2)

Elites have always ruled - wielding inordinate power and wealth, taking decisions that shape life for the rest. In good times the '1%' can hide their privilege, or use growing social mobility and economic prosperity as a justification. When times get tougher there's a backlash. So the first years of the twenty-first century - a time of financial crashes, oligarchy and corruption in the West; persistent poverty in the south; and rising inequality everywhere - have brought elites and 'establishments' under unprecedented fire. Yet those swept to power by this discontent are themselves a part of the elite, attacking from within and extending rather than ending its agenda. The Trump plutocracy, the entrenchment of Chinese 'communist' rule and the separatist movements now splitting Europe fit a recurrent historical pattern. 'Greedy Elites' shows how major political and social change is typically driven by renegade elite fractions, who co-opt or sideline elites' traditional enemies. Many recent analyses have chronicled elites and their excesses, bemused at their post-crisis resilience. This is the first book to combine the politics, economics, sociology and history of elite rule to present a compact, comprehensive account of who's at the top, and why we let them get there.