{"title":"Polanyi on crisis: The United States, fascism and ecological break-down","authors":"ROWAN ALCOCK","doi":"10.1111/jols.70039","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.70039","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article uses Karl Polanyi's understanding of the crisis inherent in liberal economics to analyse a contemporary crisis—Trump's global tariff agenda. It argues that Trump's tariff agenda conforms to Polanyi's interpretation of how the crisis of liberal economics can disintegrate into more malignant forces. However, this article argues the Trump tariff agenda is a response to a larger crisis of contemporary liberal economics—climate breakdown. The slowing of capital accumulation due to the end of ‘Cheap Nature’ gives rise to increasingly regressive strategies to maintain profits by the global hegemon. Trump's tariff agenda marks a Polanyian shift from a neo-liberal ‘disembedded’ strategy of capital accumulation, rhetorically based on market norms, to a politically ‘embedded’ strategy that Polanyi would likely see as fascist.</p>","PeriodicalId":51544,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Law and Society","volume":"53 S1","pages":"S131-S150"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jols.70039","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147668751","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Acknowledging the past in the post-truth era: Witch-hunts, lawfare and the veterans’ amnesty in Northern Ireland","authors":"KIERAN MCEVOY","doi":"10.1111/jols.70041","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.70041","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Using the amnesty introduced by the Boris Johnson government designed to protect British army veterans who served in Northern Ireland as a case study, this article examines the intersection between law, politics and the legacy of conflict. The article first offers an account of the amnesty's genesis and traces the evolution and deployment of the <i>witch-hunt</i> narrative to rationalise its introduction. Next, it explores the related claim that addressing the past in Northern Ireland was a variant of <i>lawfare</i> against the British state as part of a broader effort to rewrite the past. Finally, it explores the broader relevance of this episode to debates concerning <i>post-truth</i> discourses in transitional justice and the challenges it suggests to long held assumptions about law, truth and acknowledging the wrongs of the past in the field.</p>","PeriodicalId":51544,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Law and Society","volume":"53 S1","pages":"S42-S55"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jols.70041","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147668900","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The fire before the flames: State omissions, deregulation and the limits of the Grenfell Tower public inquiry","authors":"KHADIJAH NA'EEM","doi":"10.1111/jols.70044","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.70044","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The Grenfell Tower Public Inquiry investigated the causes of a West London residential fire that killed 72 people. Its Final Report makes some headline-grabbing criticisms about how post-2010 deregulation contributed to regulatory failures preceding the fire. Although the Final Report's criticisms are direct, they are also understated and limit the longer term role of the neoliberal project. Using the Public Inquiry's own data, this article supports the bereaved and survivors’ view that the government operationalised explicit acts of omission to sustain an inadequate testing regime of cladding materials for decades before 2010. Adopting a critical criminological lens, the motivations for doing so are not obscure, but were embedded within neoliberal structures that require interrogation if the Grenfell Tower fire is to be understood and addressed.</p>","PeriodicalId":51544,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Law and Society","volume":"53 S1","pages":"S56-S72"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jols.70044","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147668777","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Cloistered justice: The opposing trends of barricade and respective secrecy","authors":"LYDIA MORGAN","doi":"10.1111/jols.70040","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.70040","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Two recent reports illustrate contrasting trends in open justice exceptions conceptualised as respective and barricade secrecy. Respective secrecy protects the parties involved and their constitutive social ties and, as evaluation report into the Family Court Transparency Pilot indicates, has been shrinking. In contrast, barricade secrecy conceals actions and determinations of the state, and the greatly delayed government response to the Ouseley Review of Closed Material Procedures indicates its use will continue to spread. Taking seriously the demand that justice must be seen to be done, the article applies a secrecy studies lens to the dynamics of respective and barricade secrecy and argues that the friction between them conveys the vernaculars of disorder that operate in place of consistency, stability and certainty expected in democratic society.</p>","PeriodicalId":51544,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Law and Society","volume":"53 S1","pages":"S93-S112"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jols.70040","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147668782","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The unheard ‘scandal’: Covid-19 vaccine-injured people's perceptions of the national redress scheme and trust in the government in the United Kingdom","authors":"FANNI GYURKO Dr, SONIA MACLEOD Dr","doi":"10.1111/jols.70047","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.70047","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article examines 218 Covid-19 vaccine-injured people's experiences of the process of seeking redress from the UK Government's Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS). Moreover, it engages with the wider topic of how we can understand the government(s)’ role in dealing with an ‘emergency’ (the Covid-19 pandemic) and the consequent (global) health crisis. Vaccine-injured individuals and communities perceive suffering health problems after Covid-19 vaccination as a ‘tragedy’, which requires an adequate response. However, the VDPS often does not meet their expectations, which fuels the vaccine-injured community's narratives around an emerging ‘scandal’ over inadequate redress provision for those who suffered adverse effects following Covid-19 vaccines. These perceptions and meaning-making are in stark contrast to the fact that the wider population is unaffected by these issues and are generally not aware of the harms suffered or of the VDPS.</p>","PeriodicalId":51544,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Law and Society","volume":"53 S1","pages":"S151-S166"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jols.70047","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147668737","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The housing crisis goes to law","authors":"DAVE COWAN, ALEX MARSH","doi":"10.1111/jols.70046","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.70046","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper considers how constructions of a ‘housing crisis’ have impacted on judicial consideration of the rights of applicants for social housing and homelessness assistance. Drawing on Bacchi's framework for appreciating problematisations (What's the problem represented to be?) and understandings of housing crisis, we examine how crisis is translated into three elements of the passage of homelessness law: decision letters, witness statements and judgements. This can lead to narrowing of interpretations of the rights of homeless people. Even when that is not the outcome, crisis is accepted as a ‘fact’ and embedded as the context for decision-making.</p>","PeriodicalId":51544,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Law and Society","volume":"53 S1","pages":"S113-S130"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jols.70046","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147668738","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
SALLY DAY, RICHARD MOORHEAD, KAREN NOKES, REBECCA HELM
{"title":"From agnosis to accidental activism: Infinite regress and the Post Office Scandal","authors":"SALLY DAY, RICHARD MOORHEAD, KAREN NOKES, REBECCA HELM","doi":"10.1111/jols.70042","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.70042","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper explores the lived experiences of victims/survivors affected by the UK Post Office Scandal, drawing on 28 in-depth interviews and critical legal analysis. It uses the concept of ‘accidental activism’ to explore how victims, initially isolated and disempowered, became central agents of justice reform. The authors examine how institutional agnosis and legality illusions—mechanisms of ignorance-making and legal manipulation—enabled systemic harm and prolonged injustice. Despite legal victories such as the Bates litigation and the Horizon IT Inquiry, the paper highlights the cyclical nature of legal processes and logics reasserting the system-norms the victims/survivors are resisting. This is experienced as an ‘infinite’ regress of revictimisation. In mapping the transformation of personal trauma into collective resistance, we see how survivor-led activism can challenge state-corporate power and foster broader structural change but also how the system will work to protect itself.</p>","PeriodicalId":51544,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Law and Society","volume":"53 S1","pages":"S25-S41"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jols.70042","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147668750","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Political Economy of Emergency: Postcolonialism, Crisis Governance and Decolonial Alternatives","authors":"HOPE JOHNSON","doi":"10.1111/jols.70043","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.70043","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The political rhetoric surrounding the Horn of Africa is perpetually framed through narratives of crisis, tragedy and emergency. These labels, rather than simply being used to describe instability, function as tools of governance to normalise dysfunction and entrench cycles of dependency. Drawing on postcolonial frameworks, the discourse interrogates how such crisis narratives obscure and ignore structural issues. Further, this sustains and promotes external authority, often rooted in colonial narratives of the region. The exploration of case studies, Somalia and South Sudan, highlighting how international interventions, often framed as peacebuilding or humanitarian efforts, reinforce the very ‘crisis’ it aims to address. The solution to decolonise this paradigm created by western interventionist economies lies in alternatives grounded in African epistemologies of governance that centre local sovereignty. In doing so, reimagining governance beyond ‘emergency’, towards sustainable political autonomy, rooted in localised political power, emerges as the primary, if not only, viable solution.</p>","PeriodicalId":51544,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Law and Society","volume":"53 S1","pages":"S73-S92"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jols.70043","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147668739","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Dysfunctional governance: Crisis, scandal, tragedy, emergency","authors":"VICTORIA M. BASHAM, DAVE COWAN","doi":"10.1111/jols.70038","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.70038","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51544,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Law and Society","volume":"53 S1","pages":"S3-S5"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147668740","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
JAMIE M. JOHNSON, VICTORIA M. BASHAM, OWEN D. THOMAS
{"title":"Prefiguring truth: The limits of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry","authors":"JAMIE M. JOHNSON, VICTORIA M. BASHAM, OWEN D. THOMAS","doi":"10.1111/jols.70045","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.70045","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Public inquiries operate as privileged instruments of sense-making, defined by a series of epistemological and methodological commitments. The Grenfell Tower Inquiry was established to uncover the truth of the fire in which seventy-two people died. This article interrogates the truth-seeking and truth-producing practices of the Inquiry. These shape the contours of the account of the fire that it has produced, predisposing it to particular forms of explanation whilst excluding others. We describe this as a process of <i>prefiguration</i> in which the scope and form of the Inquiry circumscribes and foreshadows its findings. This invites us to see the Inquiry as productive of the social reality it seeks to describe, raising important questions about how the Inquiry operated and its role in shaping public understanding of truth, accountability and justice in the aftermath of the fire.</p>","PeriodicalId":51544,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Law and Society","volume":"53 S1","pages":"S6-S24"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jols.70045","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147668741","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}