This article provides an original exploration of the self-identified populist coalition leading the Italian government between 2018 and 2019. The analysis, informed by a governmentality approach, ...starts by scrutinising the economic, social, and cultural issues framed as political “problems” by the coalition, also highlighting the tensions underlying such constructions. The second step charts how this political subject sought to address those problems by deploying an array of political technologies. From examining these two dimensions, the article then can discern the composite rationality—techno-sovereignism—that drove precariously the coalition’s art of government. Finally, the article sketches out some forms of contestation against the techno-sovereignist operations, whose significance may stretch beyond the Italian borders. Overall, although the Italian populist coalition turned out to be ephemeral, the dynamics that characterized its emergence and functioning could still be used heuristically to understand the interactions and reciprocal adjustments possibly used by right-wing and technocratic populist groups to exert political power conjointly.
This article investigates the political conditions that have enabled the development of restorative justice, in England and Wales, over the last 40 years. By applying a governmentality approach, it ...conceptualizes the emergence of restorative justice as a response to distinctive political problematics, enacted by a range of governmental technologies and driven by a combination of competing political rationalities. In so doing, the article seeks to shed light on the assemblage of ambivalent principles and values that constitute restorative justice by linking them to conflicting political contingencies. This could have implications in understanding both the fragmentary growth of restorative justice in England and Wales, and, more generally, the political roots of restorative justice policies, programmes and practices beyond the British borders.
While the criminological literature is abundant in studies on the functioning and effectiveness of restorative justice, there is a lack of engagement with policy on this subject, in spite of the ...increasing incorporation of restorative justice into policy frameworks. This paper contributes towards addressing this gap by mapping and discussing Scottish policy on restorative justice. The focus is placed on how policy frames restorative justice around certain problems, subjects and objects, reconstructing their underlying assumptions. Additionally, the paper analyses the cultural and political context within which those representations have emerged. From this perspective, it enhances the legibility of the particularly slow and fragmentary development of restorative justice in Scotland, compared to the rest of the UK. More generally, the paper provides an original (and relevant beyond British borders) case study on the interplay between cross-national and local, cultural and political factors in influencing policy change.
Drawing on Michel Foucault’s theoretical reservoir, this article conceptualizes restorative justice (RJ) as an ‘apparatus’, that is, a dynamic ensemble of elements whose emergence is related to the ...development of a distinctive political rationality (ethopolitics). This approach enables a multidimensional comprehension of RJ, since it targets both discursive and non-discursive elements, their power/knowledge relations and subjugating effects. Furthermore, the article explores possibilities for an emancipatory RJ, against the subjective entrapment that the apparatus produces, offering some practical examples. Overall, this work aims to offer a theoretically engaged and critical scrutiny of RJ by using an underexploited analytical device – the apparatus – apt to make visible unexpected dimensions of this ‘new’ frontier of western penalty. This could enhance our understanding of the emergence and possible trajectories of RJ, by identifying risks and opportunities as well as tools for disentanglement from its most problematic institutional developments.
While in some European and extra-European countries the incorporation of restorative justice into policy frameworks is a dated and widely studied phenomenon, in others it is a more recent and ...scarcely researched process. The Scottish Government is making renewed efforts to institutionalise restorative justice including the ambitious goal of making adult restorative justice available nationwide by 2023. In this article, we analyse the consequences of these recent attempts, addressing a gap in knowledge on adult restorative justice in Scotland. We gathered views from justice professionals (n = 17), involved in organising and delivering adult restorative justice, on the implementation of the policy and the future of Scottish restorative justice. Findings show that participants support expanding restorative justice services, but are sceptical about the Scottish Government’s approach. They advocate for a coordinated but locally sensitive model of restorative justice development, to some extent challenging the stark opposition between ‘purist’ and ‘maximalist’ approaches to the expansion of restorative justice. These findings generate evidence to critically assess Scottish restorative justice policy and its implementation, while drawing implications for the development of restorative justice across Europe.
The electronic monitoring (EM) of offenders is a subject that has been researched widely within criminology. Theoretical engagement with this instrument has been limited, however. The criminological ...literature, in fact, has focused primarily on empirical assessments of EM’s financial and technical aspects, as well as on the legal implications of EM and its impact on reoffending. Against this backdrop, this article provides a critical examination of EM, focussing on how policy construes this penal measure, using Scotland as an example. In addition, drawing on Foucault’s notion of governmentality, this article explores and problematizes the political logics (neoliberal, nationalist and techno-communitarian) which inform EM policy in the context of Scotland. The final section shifts the focus from exposing the political milieu within which EM policy emerges to contesting its possible effects, thereby extending the political critique of EM policy. The overarching aim is to contribute toward a nuanced political assessment of EM, while presenting directions for future engagement with this subject.
Positive stress or essential and nonessential elements can improve nutritive values (biofortification) of edible plants. In the present study, we evaluate (i) the effect of moderate salinity on ...lettuce biofortification, evaluated as nutritional bioactive compound accumulation, and (ii) the role of iodine in enhancing salt tolerance by increasing photorespiration and the content of antioxidants in lettuce. Physiological (gas exchange and chlorophyll fluorescence emission) and biochemical (photosynthetic pigment and bioactive compound) analyses were performed on lettuce plants grown under moderate salinity (50 mM NaCl alone or 50 mM NaCl in combination with iodine, KIO3). Our results show that NaCl + iodine treatment improves the nutritional value of lettuce in terms of bioactive compounds acting as antioxidants. More specifically, iodine enhances the accumulation of photosynthetic pigments and polyphenols, such as anthocyanins, under salt but does not improve the salt tolerance. Our findings indicate that iodine application under moderate salinity could be a valid strategy in plant biofortification by improving nutritional bioactive compound accumulation, thus exercising functional effects on human health.
This article seeks to provide a historical-critical framework to reconstruct and discuss how the crime victim is portrayed within theoretical literature, policy and legal documents on restorative ...justice, with an emphasis on England and Wales. It first centres on a description of the most deep-rooted and wide-ranging discourses on the victim’s characteristics within restorative justice. Once these features have been organized into an ‘ideal’ model, the article traces the conditions which fed into its development, that is, the cultural context within which this model has emerged. The overall goal is not to test the ‘ideal victim’ within restorative justice, but rather to explore how this methodological tool, within a historical and critical approach, might help to shed light on some taken-for-granted assumptions of restorative justice and their legal, policy and practical implications, thus contributing to the critical assessment of this acclaimed “new frontier” of contemporary penality.
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