One of the striking things about a UK PhD in an area like law or history is how we look to a candidate to have the fundamental idea for what they want to spend four years becoming a world expert in at the start of their doing so. My doctoral idea changed significantly through the process – most notably having the timescale reduced from “mad” to merely “very challenging” – but the fundamental idea was largely the same. Colleagues supervising students working as teams in labs they supervise find this a big thing to ask of someone at the start of their research life.
So, in case you are at the stage of thinking about doctoral work in law or history, here are three topics which I think are live intellectually, interesting, ambitious, but doable in the confines of a doctoral project. I would be very pleased to supervise a suitable student in any of them but, as they say, other supervisors are available and I will not take umbrage if one of these gives you the start of an idea best pursued elsewhere!
Borders and the Crown Dependencies since Brexit and the Coronavirus Pandemic.
The Isle of Man, Jersey, and Guernsey share both islandness, and a semi-autonomous relationship with the UK. Brexit shifted the wider frame in which this relationship operated, putting a new emphasis on the Common Travel Area. More powerfully, a common response to the global Coronavirus pandemic by all three jurisdictions was to close their borders – with a rigour, and penalties, not seen elsewhere in the British Islands. In the Isle of Man for instance, details of border control were regularly debated throughout the pandemic, with border control against travellers from the UK being seen as self-evidently a concern for Tynwald. Post-pandemic, border control has been given new prominence as part of policing the Islands. How have island attitudes to their borders changed over time? How far have the Islands moved into regulatory space formerly seen as part of the “external” matters in which the UK operated for the islands? What similarities and differences do we see across the three jurisdictions? What accounts for these patterns? What are the policy challenges and opportunities insular border-mindedness pose?
Calls to public attitudes in small democracies.
One of the recognised features of small democracies is the concentration of political power in a small number of individuals, even when the number of elected officials per head is much larger than in larger democracies. Another is the intimacy of small democracies, with unmediated relationships between politicians and individual constituents the norm rather than the exception. This raises some interesting questions around calls for public consultation, particularly when unusually extensive (such as with the Manx and Jersey assisted dying legislation). What role does formal public consultation have in small democracies? How is it carried out? How far, if at all, are those outside of the small democracy excluded from the consultation? How do formal referenda – whether hard or soft – and citizens assembles fit into this landscape? Given their special characteristics, how can small democracies most effectively make use of public consultations?
The Irish influence on Manx Independence and Autonomy in the 20th century.
As an unintegrated possession of the UK crown, most obviously since the Revestment of 1765, the Isle of Man has been the potential locus of a tension between national identity and loyalty to the state. Revestment itself was seen by some as part of a broader rebalancing of the British Empire, one which could be resisted by the (distant) rebels of North America, but not by the Manx. From the late 18th century on links were drawn with experience in Ireland, both by the state, and by those opposed to it. As might be expected, 1916 merits sustained attention: UK troops were deployed at the 1916 Tynwald, and Manx nationalists of Mec Vannin obscurely, but fascinatingly, were guests marching to commemorate the Easter Rising fifty years later. How far were Manx attitudes to their constitutional position shaped by the radically changing position of Ireland throughout the 20th century? How far were UK approaches to Manx autonomy shaped by the UK experience of Ireland?
Peter Edge's Law Blog. 