Suchergebnisse

The area of Marxism and law has long been considered marginalised. However, hand in hand with the renaissance of Marxist theory in recent decades, neglect has finally been put to rest. As Marxists increasingly explore the connections between rights, law, democracy and capitalism, one text in particular has taken centre stage: The General Theory of Law and Marxism, published by E. B. Pashukanis in 1924. This article seeks to make three contributions to the field of Marxism and law. First, by proposing that Pashukanis's polemic is best understood as a critique of a spectrum between formalism and instrumentalism, containing both differences and similarities, it rectifies the way in which these concepts most often either have been discussed at a too general level or been defined too narrowly. Second, by addressing the conceptions of abstraction and form in the General Theory, it reconstructs the concept of the legal form according to the spirit of Pashukanis's thought to supersede the limits of the formalism–instrumentalism spectrum, despite the unevenness found in the letter of his text. Third, regarding the reconstruction of the concept of the legal form, it demonstrates how objections against Pashukanis's focus on the sphere of circulation at the cost of production, his exclusion of inequalities of race and gender, and his structuralist, consequentialist or instrumentalist biases, which reduces the space for agency, processes and the relative autonomy of politics, ideology and law, can be reconsidered and challenged.

AbstractThis article addresses the debate on structure, agency, and process in contemporary revolution theory, drawing on social movement theory and using the Haitian Revolution as an illustrative case. The article seeks to make three main contributions. Firstly, while accepting the critique against the failure of structuralist revolution theory to explain why revolutions can occur under difficult circumstances, the article proposes a structuralist solution instead of the focus on intentions and processes in contemporary revolution theory. Secondly, it brings a new angle to the emerging dialogue between the different fields that theorize social movements and revolutions, by combining Alberto Melucci's early and later approaches to social movements and temporality. Thirdly, the Meluccian approach is utilized in a case study that explores how independence from France can be understood in the Haitian Revolution, which serves to illustrate the strengths of the theoretical approach and to criticize the major accounts of independence in existing studies of the Haitian Revolution.

Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management Vol.9 Nr.2, 130 - 139

VTT Tiedotteita - Research Notes 2441 ; The study carried out within the Bioenergy Network of Excellence analyses the implementation of important EU directives and policies relating to bioenergy in Europe to identify major RD&D needs in the field. Major EU directives, commonly known as the Promotion of Renewable Electricity, Biofuels and Landfill Directives, along with the EU Emissions Trading Scheme and parts of the Common Agricultural Policy, are some of the most important drivers behind the growth of bioenergy in the EU27 today. The report compares how Germany, Finland and the Netherlands have implemented the directives, examining the policy frameworks in each country and the plans and mechanisms in place to reach national targets. A wider European perspective for each directive is then drawn out, and recommendations for RD&D actions to meet the EU directive targets or obligations in each area are outlined. The report also takes a broader look at the effects the EU Emissions Trading Scheme and the Common Agricultural Policy are having on the use of biomass in the EU with RD&D recommendations for each area. Bioenergy NoE advocates stronger communication and co-operation among various EU-wide projects and initiatives focusing on bioenergy development. Industry commitment to RD&D projects is, however, the only direct path for bringing state-of-the-art technology and products to market. Building sustainable production pathways and addressing competition with food products is crucial to developing environmentally-sound biofuels. Research in renewable electricity from biomass should prioritize development of higher efficiency power production and power-to-heat ratios in combined heat and power plants over new technology development. In the biofuels field, RD&D should prioritize the development of more sustainable, second generation biofuels. To meet landfill diversion targets, thermal conversion and energy recovery of municipal solid waste in some EU countries will have to increase. Meeting the European targets set for 2020 requires significant technology development in order to introduce a new generation of biofuels and feedstocks: this is the focus for Bioenergy NoE RD&D.