Like a Bad Pub Quiz: The Life in the UK citizenship test

 I've posted a new report on SSRN: 

Like a Bad Pub Quiz: The "Life in the UK" Citizenship Test and New Concerns with Errors, Monitoring and Test Centre Inspections

The Life in the United Kingdom test is an essential part of British immigration and nationality law and policy. No major party proposes curtailing or ending its use for future naturalisation applications. It is a serious concern that the test remains unfit for purpose “like a bad pub quiz” with problems old and new with its design, implementation and monitoring. The test is urgently in need of significant reform. This Report reveals new factual errors, concerns with monitoring and test centre inspections. The Report makes 11 key recommendations for how the test can be improved and monitored more effectively.

Thom Brooks on British Idealism: A Bibliography

 I literally stumbled into British Idealism. I took the only political theory MA course on offer that term while a graduate student at Arizona State University called liberalism old and new. It started with Hegel, then T H Green and L T Hobhouse before ending with John Dewey. While I found the readings challenging, I found the material highly interesting as it was very different from the standard fare. 

I have always had an interest in exploring key works in the history of political thought, but what interests me most about British Idealism work is how it seeks to be relevant in communicating to us today. I've seen large parts of my work as a new wave of British Idealist thinking (with a strong interest in institutions and realism). 

Recently, I was asked to compile a list of my work that is about or touches on British Idealism. Here it is:

2003

Brooks, Thom. "T. H. Green's Theory of Punishment," History of Political Thought 24(4) (2003): 685-701.

2008

Brooks, Thom. "Was Green a Utilitarian in Practice?" Collingwood and British Idealism Studies 14(1) (2008): 5-15.

2009

Brooks, Thom. "Muirhead, Hetherington and Mackenzie" in W. Sweet (ed.), The Moral, Social and Political Philosophy of the British Idealists. Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2009, pp. 209-232.

2010

Brooks, Thom. "Punishment and British Idealism" in Jesper Ryberg and J. Angelo Corlett (ed.), Punishment and Ethics: New Perspectives. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, pp. 16-32.

2011  

Brooks, Thom. "Is Bradley a Retributivist?" History of Political Thought 32(1) (2011): 83-95.

Brooks, Thom. "What Did the British Idealists Ever Do for Us?" in T. Brooks (ed.), New Waves in Ethics. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, pp. 28-47.

Brooks, Thom. "Punishment: Political, Not Moral," New Criminal Law Review 14(3) (2011): 427-438.

Brooks, Thom. "British Idealism" in D. Pritchard (ed.), Oxford Bibliographies in Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press.

Brooks, Thom. "Punishment" in D. Pritchard (ed.), Oxford Bibliographies in Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press.

2012

Brooks, Thom. Punishment. London: Routledge, 2012.

Brooks, Thom. "Hegel and the Unified Theory of Punishment" in T. Brooks (ed.), Hegel's Philosophy of Right. Oxford: Blackwell, 2012, pp. 103-123.

Brooks, Thom. "James Seth on Natural Law and Legal Theory," Collingwood and British Idealism Studies 12(2) (2012): 115-132.

2013

Brooks, Thom. "In Defence of Political Theory: Impact and Opportunities," Political Studies Review 11(2) (2013): 209-215.

Brooks, Thom. "The Right to Be Punished," Legal Theory in China 3 (2013): 21-31.

2014

Brooks, Thom, ed. Ethical Citizenship: British Idealism and the Politics of Recognition. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

Brooks, Thom. "Ethical Citizenship and the Stakeholder Society" in T. Brooks (ed.), Ethical Citizenship: British Idealism and the Politics of Recognition. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, pp. 125-138.

Brooks, Thom. "On F. H. Bradley's 'Some Remarks on Punishment'," Ethics 125(1) (2014): 223-225.

2015

Brooks, Thom. "The Stakeholder Society and the Politics of Hope," Renewal 23 (1/2) (2015): 44-54.

Brooks, Thom. "Why Political Theory Matters" in G. Peters, J. Pierre and G. Stoker (ed.), The Relevance of Political Science. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, pp. 136-147.

Brooks, Thom. "Defending Punishment," Philosophy and Public Issues 5 (2015): 73-94.

2016

Brooks, Thom. "Justice as Stakeholding" in K. Watene and J. Drydyk (eds), Theorizing Justice. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016, pp. 111-127.

Brooks, Thom. "In Defence of Punishment and the Unified Theory of Punishment," Criminal Law and Philosophy 10(3) (2016): 629-638.

2017

Brooks, Thom. "Unlocking Morality from Criminal Law," Journal of Moral Philosophy 14(3) (2017): 339-352.

Brooks, Thom. "Hegel's Philosophy of Law" in D. Moyar (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Hegel. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 453-474.

Brooks, Thom. "Hegel on Crime and Punishment" in T. Brooks and S. Stein (eds), Hegel's Political Philosophy: On the Normative Significance of Method and System. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 202-221.

2019

Brooks, Thom. "Taking the System Seriously: Nicholson's Overturning Orthodoxy about Hegel and Punishment," Collingwood and British Idealism Studies 25(2) (2019): 315-334.

2020 

Brooks, Thom. "More Than Recognition: Why Stakeholding Matters for Reconciliation in Hegel's Philosophy of Right," Owl of Minerva 51 (2020): 59-86.

2021

Brooks, Thom. Punishment: A Critical Introduction, 2^nd edition. London: Routledge, 2021.