Comments for The gaping silence

Comment on Cheerful tidings by Phil

Phil — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:07:08 +0000

I could say that nothing would surprise me, but it would be a lie - that *would* surprise me. Rob's referring to this HM.

Comment on Cheerful tidings by ejh

ejh — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:17:27 +0000

The queen reads this stuff?

Comment on Cheerful tidings by Rob

Rob — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:04:13 +0000

Dammit Phil, if you’ve started blogging again that means I have to start blogging again (you’re my negative benchmark).

Remember to tell me when the book is out/get someone to send HM a review copy.

Comment on No secrets left to conceal by Phil

Phil — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:24:50 +0000

Thanks, Sandy – another namesake to add to the list, and a particularly illustrious one. So we’ve got an Olympian, a surfer, a French country star, a serious Unix geek… and me.

Comment on No secrets left to conceal by Sandy MacDonald

Sandy MacDonald — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 02:14:46 +0000

I was fascinated to find out about the activities of your pallid
“Dr. Phil Edwards”. At the time I found your log, I was looking for information on a much more heroic version. So I present you, the real Dr. Phil Edwards, “Man of Bronze”: http://www.sportshall.ca/accessible/hm_profile.php?i=339
Obviously your miscreant was inspired by my hero’s association with his hero at the ‘36 Olympics!

Comment on me by papa chango

papa chango — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 12:33:28 +0000

Phil, I have just read some of your stuff on chomsky and Jock young and I found all very interseting. Not sure how you got my NAPO identity but I think I will read more. I’m a frontline probation Officer angry at what’s happened in the criminal justise system over the last 15 years.

Comment on Come write me down by Phil

Phil — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:22:40 +0000

This one will be online – it’s for the first issue of the Bulletin of Italian Studies, which Jim and Maurizio Carbone are putting together (as we speak, I think). I’m swimming a bit against the tide in this one, by trying to bring the transition model back in; more precisely, I try and rehabilitate it by giving it a bit of content, borrowing from Pridham’s “democratic consolidation” model. It works quite well, but it does mean that the starting point of the transition gets pushed back to 1946…

Comment on Come write me down by Chris Hanretty

Chris Hanretty — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:49:20 +0000

Thanks for the nice comments over @ CT. Very very good to see that someone’s tackling the issue of transition – I know Jim Newell was banging on about this at the Political Studies Association meet back in spring. I don’t like it as a term – it seems too teleological for me; I thought one could get better mileage by saying that the Italian system hasn’t found an equilibrium state, but the idea of equilibrium is perhaps even less clear… Do you post your papers online?

Comment on (I’ve) read it in books by Phil

Phil — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 21:50:55 +0000

criminologists are always and already doing some implicit legal theory insofar as they have to have some ‘concept of law’ to do their work

That’s a really useful insight. The only thing I’d add is that some seem to ground what they do in a theory of policing – coercive behaviour modification in the service of local norms – which is fundamentally neither lawlike nor law-bounded.

[Pauses to think about implications of what he's just said. Hmm.]

Comment on (I’ve) read it in books by Rob

Rob — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 20:40:39 +0000

As you are probably aware, I’m pretty sceptical about the dividing lines (especially in law) between these types of disciplines. The really obvious point of course is that criminologists are always and already doing some implicit legal theory insofar as they have to have some ‘concept of law’ to do their work. Much better then, to make this explicit.

Marxist criminology always eschewed the distinction (I have an interesting(ish) volume of Marxist criminology on my shelf that has a lot of interesting theoretical stuff going on in it). So I actually think the sort of work you’re doing is valuable.

In terms of publications perhaps you ought to think about theory journals as opposed to criminology ones? They tend to be much happier with inter-disciplinary stuff I think.