Lotteries Improve Access

A study, involving academics from the Universities of Bristol and Cambridge, has concluded that lotteries for school admissions can improve access to elite universities. This is, as long-time readers may remember, a topic that I've previously published on.

The news coverage linked to above is only from a student newspaper, but I couldn't help thinking it interesting that, by way of balance, they include the opinion of a 2nd year undergraduate. While I'm sure there are some good arguments against lotteries, these weren't really explored - rather, the coverage seemed to exhibit false balance.

Democracy and Referenda

Here's a selection of popular pieces on democracy and referenda... Martin Gilbert applauds the Scottish independence referendum for bringing about greater engagement and participation. George Schöpflin cautions that referenda are unaccountable and may be instruments of populism, rather than democracy. Chris Prosser points out that agenda-setters are often able to manipulate referendum outcomes. Alex Hern argues that the government's use of referenda is opportunistic, rather than principled.

Southampton

I've been quiet of late. Partly due to on-going technical issues, but mostly because I've been gearing up to move to the other end of the country (again). From next week, I officially take up a new position at the University of Southampton. My new department has an active group blog, Politics Upside Down, so maybe I'll be blogging there as well as here (and occasionally elsewhere) in future.

EUDO Debate on Secession

Hot on the heels of my last bit of guest-blogging, I was recently invited to contribute to a EUDO debate on secession. You can read my contribution here and the whole debate here.

Ask the Experts: Scottish Constitution

I'm one of the experts sharing my thoughts on the draft Scottish Constitution over at the Democratic Audit today.

Attitudes to Alcohol Pricing

A new survey reveals that Scottish attitudes to minimum pricing legislation are split, with slightly more in favour than against the measure. Interestingly, "People educated to degree level were much more likely to approve of minimum pricing than those who were not". So much for the liberalising effect of higher education! (I've written on this here [subscription required].)

Love Locks and Public Nuisance Legislation

According to Mill's harm principle, the state or society may only interfere with an individual's actions in order to prevent harm to others. This is generally taken to restrict paternalistic or moralistic legislation, which raises questions about many generally-accepted laws (including those on drugs, incest, seat belts, etc).

I wasn't previously aware of the trend for couples of signify their love by attaching a lock to a bridge and throwing away the key, but apparently this has been a 'thing' since at least 2009. Moreover, enough of these 'love locks' can actually damage bridges. As reported (see article in link before last), some places, including Rome, have banned these love locks.

Is this ban consistent with the harm principle? On first sight, perhaps not: it would seem to be stretching the notion of 'harm' to suppose that they are. Admittedly, Mill does suggest that 'public decency' might provide grounds for certain restrictions, which seems to be allowing a limited place for something other than harm to justify interference. However, on further consideration, such a ban might be upheld as a protection of property rights. I wouldn't want someone attaching a lock to my fence, even if the lock didn't in any way damage the fence. Presumably, there's little reason to object to a bridge-owner saying that locks should only be attached to her bridge with her consent.

Matters are slightly more complicated when it comes to public bridges, where there is no particular owner as such. Why shouldn't members of the public attach love locks to a bridge that is (in part) theirs? I suppose, however, there is an answer to be found based on the fact that the bridge does not belong to that couple exclusively but to all members of the public. One cannot, for instance, freely block a public road, because that interferes with others using it for their own purposes. While love locks don't prevent others from crossing a bridge, they do amount to one individual (or one couple) assuming rights over public property as if it belonged to them alone.

A Real Life Wilt Chamberlain Case

In Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Robert Nozick argues that free market transactions will, if not interfered with, upset distributive patterns, such as equality. Nozick's famous example features the basketball player Wilt Chamberlain. In Nozick's example, Chamberlain signs a contract giving him 25 cents out of each ticket sold for his games, the result being that at the end of the season he is vastly richer than everyone else.

Given that few current students (especially in the UK) have heard of Wilt Chamberlain, the example is sometimes made more relevant by substituting the name of a more recent sports star, such as David Beckham or Wayne Rooney. I thought it interesting that ex-England cricketer Andy Flintoff has apparently signed a contract like Chamberlain's, giving him £1 from each ticket sold (above a certain number). It looks like a nice example to use in future.

Ballot Ordering

When voting in yesterday's European elections, I was struck by the fact that the first parties on the ballot paper were Britain First and the BNP. It seems that the Scottish Government is considering alternatives to alphabetical ordering, including random ordering.

Food Regulation

As long-time followers of this blog will know, I have an interest in potentially paternalistic regulations. It's interesting to see that there are now calls for (unhealthy) food to be regulated in the same way as tobacco. The BBC article has one expert point out that we need food, whereas we don't need tobacco. This misses the point that the main justification for regulating tobacco (e.g. the ban on smoking in public places) is that it causes harm to others. While my eating unhealthy food might cause you some harm (e.g. by setting a bad example or through costing the NHS more) these harms are indirect and uncertain.

Apologies for Lack of Posts

I realise that this blog has not been updated much of late. That's partly because, with a return to teaching for the first time in 9 months, I've been rather busy. This is compounded by the fact that for some reason (an outdated browser?) I now seem unable to post here at work. Obviously I can still blog from home, but I used to do much of my blogging from work, partly because we have metered internet at home, but mostly because it can fill in 'dead' time like empty office hours or just before a meeting. Rest assured that the blog is not intentionally dead; while updates may be less frequent, I do still intend to keep posting when I get the chance.

First-Time Compulsory Voting

The idea of first-time compulsory voting is discussed on Democratic Audit. (It's an idea that I'd previously proposed myself.) Unfortunately, the text doesn't have any links - I guess it may have been simply copied and pasted from the IPPR report, rather than being reformatted for blog publication. I'd be interested to see Andrew Adonis's thoughts on young people voting.

How to Derive Ought from Is: SNP on Alcohol Pricing

The great Scottish philosopher David Hume famously remarked that one cannot derive an ought (that is, a normative conclusion about what one should do) from an is (that is, a mere statement of fact). It seems, however, that the SNP have cracked the problem. Alcohol is cheap, therefore minimum pricing is needed. Why didn't Hume, or one of the many philosophers who've considered his problem, think of that?

A Real Life Isle of Pines

One book that I clearly remember reading during my undergraduate days is Henry Neville's The Isle of Pines, a sort-of dystopian work about an island community all descended from one European male and his four female consorts. Something along these lines is clearly possible, as shown by the example of Palmerston, part of the Cook Islands. According to this BBC feature, 59 of its 62 inhabitants are descended from William Marsters, an Englishman who settled on the island in 1863. Sounds like a remarkable place, despite some inbreeding.

I Blog on Scottish Independence at Democratic Audit

See here. (As noted at the end of the post, my piece is a summary of an article originally published in the journal Politics.) Since I submitted mine, they also published this piece on implications for Cornwall (which I would have cited, had it been published earlier).

Prisoner Voting

An interesting proposal here, from Chris Bennett and Daniel Viehoff, is that all prisoners should be allowed to vote in the final election before their release. I think it's one job for us academics to add to the options on the table for policymakers (as well as to then help choose between them) and I think this is an interesting suggestion, though I'm not sure of its practicality. As I put it in my comment: "An interesting proposal, but how do we identify the final general election before their release? Not only might their release date not be certain in advance, but also general elections (in the UK) are not held at fixed intervals but called by the government. If the next general election is in 2015, and we gave everyone due to be released by 2020 a vote in it, what would happen if there was another general election in 2017? Then some of those prisoners enfranchised in 2015 ought not to have been."

Glasgow Games Lottery

Organisers of the Glasgow Commonwealth Games have defended random ticket allocation. The reaction seems to reflect a popular ambivalence towards lotteries. I think, where more people want tickets for an event than there are tickets, a lottery is fair as a tie-breaker. The controversy, however, concerns the fact that tickets for each event were allocated entirely independently, with the consequence that some people applied for several events and won nothing, while others won multiple times. It's not clear that this is fair, because it's not clear that someone who already has tickets for one event has an equal claim on tickets for another event as someone who does not already have tickets. This isn't to say that lotteries are inherently unfair, of course, but only that we need to be careful how they are administered.

Newsnight

I was on TV tonight. Admittedly, I was only in the audience, I didn't speak, and in fact you only catch a very brief glimpse of me as the camera pans across the audience (I was sat back left), but I was at the BBC studio in Glasgow for the filming of an episode of Newsnight Scotland focused on the arts. (I believe anyone in the UK can watch for the next week here.)

I was surprised how much waiting around there was. We were told to turn up around 5:45 and certainly by 6:15, for filming to start at 7:30. I assumed we'd get some extensive briefing or something but for the most part we did nothing until around 7 (though those who had been pre-selected to ask questions may have received some further advice).

Democracy Max

The Electoral Reform Society has recently released this video-clip of events in Scotland. I was at the People's Gathering in Edinburgh - though you can only just about see me at the back, towards the left, around 2:30. There's a much clearer shot of me at one of the public events in Stirling, at 4:35 (perhaps not the most flattering shot, but you can see that I'm talking).

There was a previous video of the Edinburgh People's Gathering, using much of the same footage, but in which I am more clearly visable - albeit behind a flipchart - around 1:40-2:00 and again, standing on the right, at the very end.

Are We Being Lied To?

Apparently - according to this BBC story - a good number of buttons on pedestrian crossings do nothing, as crossings are often automated, at least part of the time. This isn't simply in response to traffic. Some stops in North London are timed to avoid Jews having to operate them on the Sabbath!

The article focuses on whether we're being lied to when buttons don't actually do anything. I'm not sure I've ever been clearly told, by someone in charge of them, that the buttons do something; the authorities need only give the instruction 'press the button and wait for the green man' which is reasonable advice, even if the button may do nothing in some cases.

I found the brief comments on jaywalking more interesting, given that I've recently been thinking about paternalism and cases like Mill's bridge-crosser. Martin Low, transport commissioner for Westminster City Council, apparently thinks that we should allow individuals to judge for themselves whether it's safe to cross.