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Prideaux SJ. The welfare politics of Charles Murray are alive and well in the UK
Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 293–302 © 2009 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare.This article takes a historical look at the 'underclass' debate that was prominently provoked and perpetuated in Britain by the American Charles Murray. It does so because the recent protestations about gun crime, welfare dependency and lone parenthood by David Cameron and the Conservative Party have not only echoed New Labour's New Deal logic, but have also reignited an argument that furiously raged in British policy debates during the 1980s and 1990s. Despite numerous criticisms and critics questioning Murray's selection of evidence, methodology and use of anecdotal vignettes, it is still apparent that the stereotypical assumptions about a section of British society who choose not to work, live a life of crime and produce inadequately socialised illegitimate children still persist. Consequently, the article revisits these arguments so that lessons from the past can now be brought to the fore and, hopefully, taken on board academically if not politically.

In his Collège de France lectures of 1975–6, translated and published in Great Britain in 2003 as Society Must be Defended, Michel Foucault examines what he sees as the continuation of war in peacetime society, inverting Carl von Clausewitz's famous dictum that 'War is the continuation of politics with the admixture of other means' to argue the opposite, that 'politics is the continuation of war by other means'.1 In these lectures, Foucault explores the idea that even what is conventionally regarded as peacetime society is structured in all its aspects and operations by conflict, asserting that: "we have to interpret the war that is going on beneath peace; peace itself is coded war…. We really do have to become experts on battles, because the war has not ended, because preparations are still being made for the decisive battles, and because we have to win the decisive battle. In other words, the enemies who face us still pose a threat to us, and it is not some reconciliation or pacification that will allow us to bring the war to an end." (p. 51) Throughout this lecture series, Foucault tests this model of power as 'war' on a range of historical examples and social structures, looking at ideas of class, civil, and race conflict. Though he would abandon the war metaphor as a mode of analysis once the lecture series was complete, his thinking is characteristically suggestive in its speculation that war is not terminated by victories or treaties but continues to occupy a key function in peacetime.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the authors' experiences of conducting research with refugees and asylum seekers in Malaysia over multiple research projects in order to identify limitations to current procedures for receiving ethical approval for a study. It argues that the moral complexity of working with marginalized and excluded groups is not reflected in existing approaches.


Design/methodology/approach
Ensuring that research is ethical is integral to any empirical study, using any research design. Procedures for ensuring ethics have been developed by professional bodies across many academic fields, predominantly drawing on western legal frameworks and conceptions of agency. However, these procedures may not have applicability to certain cultural, social and political settings. The discussion in this paper focuses on devising ethical approaches for research participants from marginalized and excluded communities in diverse parts of the world, including those with no possibility of legal recourse.


Findings
Problems with the use of established procedures for four aspects of ethical research are identified, namely, access and gatekeepers; consent; reciprocity; and confidentiality.


Originality/value
The paper develops a framework for continuous ethical reflexivity. It argues that this framework should replace the established procedural approach to ethics, approved by an Institutional Review Board or ethics committee. Instead, the IRB should assign an ethical mentor who is jointly responsible with the researcher for ensuring research ethics through the use of the framework.

This study of the monument of Godfrey of Bouillon offers new insights to the political uses of public monuments devoted to figures from the past, modern uses and appropriations of the Middle Ages, and the role of historical culture in the creation of national identity.On 15 August 1848, a bronze equestrian statue of the crusading hero Godfrey of Bouillon (d.1100) was unveiled in the Place Royale in Brussels, Belgium's capital. Conceived and largely funded by the national government, its creation was a major element in a programme of political and cultural consolidation put into place after the Belgian Revolution (1830-1831) and the consequent establishment of the nation's independence. From the outset, the monument was designed to transmit ideas about history and nationhood, and functioned as a focal point in discussions of politics, language, religion and identity.This book sheds new light on a range of dynamics in nineteenth-century Belgium, using the statue as a prism; it investigates responses to it both home and abroad, and traces broader national interest in the commemoration of Godfrey, adopted as a national hero despite being born almost 800 years before the emergence of the state. Above all, it reveals that Belgian politics and culture in this period were profoundly shaped by a sustained interest in the Middle Ages, and by efforts to shape a historical narrative that traced Belgian nationhood back to that era, and beyond