Pivotal Politics,Presidential Capital,and Supreme Court Nominations

We analyze the Supreme Court nomination process in order to provide a general explanation of presidents' propensity to win confirmation battles even in the face of an ideologically hostile Senate. The analysis serves two purposes. First, we argue that employing the conventional measure of the Senate's power to constrain the president's choice of nominees–the median senator–provides an inaccurate picture of this process. In its stead we argue that the filibuster pivot (or the sixtieth most liberal or conservative senator) more accurately captures the Senate's power over the president (Krehbiel 1998). Second, we argue that even under this more stringent spatial constraint, presidents still have the ability to win most confirmation battles with the Senate. Indeed, our results indicate that presidents often overcome situations where the Senate should reject their nominees, or where it should force them to make a less desirable choice, by invoking political capital.     

Limiting Politics: Howardism,Media Rhetoric and National Cultural Commemorations

The electoral terms of the federal Coalition government under Prime Minister John Howard have been characterised by a blend of economic fundamentalism, neo-assimilationist social agendas, privatisation of infrastructure and of risk, and nostalgic politics. This is a particular Australian version of a wider neo-liberalism and, given the leadership role of the Prime Minister in this amalgam of doctrines and policies but also its considerably wider purchase, it is best designated as Howardism. To understand the successful acculturation of Howardism in the Australian body politic involves study of a range of factors. One of the least investigated, but also one of the most ubiquitous, is the role of media rhetoric. We present a selected history of recent media output and its relaying and amplification of key tropes of Howardism, focusing on three national commemorations.     

Sentimental Science: Recent Essays on the Politics of Presidential Selection

Most studies of Senate elections have used aggregate data to examine the sources of electoral success. These studies have shown that incumbency, challenger quality, and candidate spending are important sources of electoral outcomes. Yet research also suggests that issues matter in Senate elections. In this study, we show that the abortion issue was an important source of vote choice in some of the 1990 Senate elections.     

The Rhetoric of Rhetoric: A Review Essay of McCloskey's The Rhetoric of Economics

The homeostatic method, which was developed to reconstruct the number of inhabitants of a city or even a country in pre-statistical periods, has yet to receive much attention from demographic historians. Applied first to Amsterdam during the years from 1586 to 1865, the method has subsequently been used to compute the population of other places, including England from 1541 to 1871. The author reviews major schools of thought in historical demography and shows that the homeostatic method, with its emphasis on fertility regulated by marriages, logically extends some schools and is both simpler and more accurate than others. He then explains the method in detail, applying it to Dutch and English cases, and compares its estimates with those obtained through the use of other techniques.     

The Politics of Cognitive Dissonance: Spin,the Media,and Race (and Ethnicity) in the 2008 US Presidential Election

This article examines the roles of spin, the media, and race (and ethnicity) in influencing voter behavior in the 2008 US presidential election. It invokes the concept of cognitive dissonance to explain how political strategists effectively propagandize – i.e., “reinvent their candidates” and “reinvent their opponents' actual record” – in order to successfully garner votes for their candidates. In particular, it considers spin and how spin and the media are used to shape public opinion by causing voters to distrust the veracity, credentials, and records of opposing candidates and to set the policy agenda. It also discusses how race, ethnicity, gender, and policy issues were used in the 2008 US presidential election campaign, and describes the impact of “spinning” on voter behavior and the election outcome. Equally important, it discusses the implications of the Obama victory for Canadian governance in two pivotal areas: domestic race relations and direct parliamentary representation of minorities. The article closes with a brief discussion of the symbolism attributed to Barack Obama's electoral victory by both American and Canadian voters.     

The Politics of Party Leader Survival and Succession: Australia in Comparative Perspective

The processes of replacement of party leaders are well-published events in media outlets across the world's democracies, but are scarcely analysed by political scientists. In this article we examine the extent to which incumbent party leaders are able to control their own fate in the face of various types of challenges that herald a possible end to their rule. It discusses three related research questions derived from this main objective: (1) what makes incumbents quit? (2) How do incumbents respond to various types of triggers heralding a possible end to their rule? (3) To what extent does incumbent behaviour prior to and following succession affect the fortunes of their successors and their party? We draw on a four-country–eight-party data set of leadership successions between 1945 and 2005, and on findings of in-depth studies of Australian cases to show that not only do Australian leaders get challenged and replaced more frequently than do other leaders, but they are also forced to combat more internal rivalry than their counterparts elsewhere.     

孙中山关于中国政党政治模式的探索

孙中山在探索中国政党政治模式的过程中,尝试和实践了三种政党政治模式,这就是西方的两党政治模式、“一党治国”模式和国共合作治国模式。孙中山关于中国政党体制三种模式渐次否定的发展过程,既代表了他对中国政党体制的探索过程,也反映了他政治思想的发展过程。孙中山对政党体制的认识发展,与他的政党观念以及三民主义的发展都是一致的。