‘The Manager in Distress’: Reaction to the Impeachment of Henry Dundas, 1805–7

Impeachments have long since ceased to be a feature of British politics. Much scholarly attention has been given to past impeachments, particularly the unsuccessful prosecution of Warren Hastings. Little consideration, however, has been given to the last such case, the impeachment of Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, from 1805 to 1807. The Melville scandal held the interest of the country until the middle of 1806, when it was diverted by naval battles. Although generally neglected by historians of the period, the Melville affair was a significant event in the course of then‐contemporary British politics, and of wider society. Examination of the reactions to the attempted impeachment can illuminate a number of developing themes and concerns within both elite circles and in the wider political nation. These include dislike of patronage and the Pittite ‘system’, anti‐Scottish bias, and advocacy of financial and parliamentary reform. Moreover, it helped to revive the radical movement both in parliament and out of doors. While the affair may not have been as significant as the later Mrs Clarke and Queen Caroline scandals, the reactions to it were generally comparable. In fact, reactions to the attempted impeachment presaged reactions to these later events. The issues and passions stirred forth by the proceedings will be shown to have significantly contributed to the revival of a dynamic national political atmosphere which itself enabled and fuelled those reactions.     

The Speaker in the Age of Party, 1672–1715

The discussion by King Charles II and his senior advisors in 1672 of the choice of a new Speaker for the forthcoming parliamentary session reveals both the way in which the appointment was prepared and the government's considerations in the appointment. Prominent among them was the Speaker's personal influence, and his personal views on the great issue to be debated, the Declaration of Indulgence. The choice of Sir Job Charlton, and the behaviour of his successor, Sir Edward Seymour, in the chair, mark a new phase in the history of the speakership, in which Speakers are less likely to be lawyers, for whom the office was a step on the road to high legal office, and more likely to be significant political leaders with their own influence and following. After the 1688 revolution, the tendency for Speakers to be party political leaders became still more marked. Nevertheless, the country ideology espoused by several of them, including Paul Foley, Robert Harley and the tory, Sir Thomas Hanmer, provides a pedigree for the model of the impartial speakership whose invention is often attributed to Arthur Onslow.     

Piracy and the production of knowledge in the travels of William Dampier, c.1679–1688

Despite its centrality to the production of knowledge in the early modern period, the ship remains a rather marginal site in the work of historians of science. Accounts of ‘floating universities’ and ‘laboratories at sea’ abound, but little is said of the countless other ships, and their crews, involved in the production of knowledge through maritime exploration and travel. The central concern of the paper is the life and work of William Dampier (1651-1715), a seventeenth-century mariner who sailed as a pirate and authored genre-defining and well received scientific travel narratives. The thesis presented here is that the ‘way of life’ encouraged among the crews of the pirate ships aboard which Dampier travelled rendered him well-placed to gather the ‘useful’ knowledge and experiences which made his scientific name. Understanding this juxtaposition requires a focus which moves beyond the materiality of the ship, and which ultimately brings into view some of the social and epistemic geographies which took shape in and beyond the ship.     

‘Rocking the nation’: the popular culture of neo‐nationalism

The aim of this paper is to understand contemporary forms of nationalism in a socio‐political context in which neo‐nationalism has obtained a dominant role not just in politics but in public discourse and in the cultural field as well. It investigates the emergence of a particular music scene in the beginning of the 21^st century, shaped by rock bands and performers and supported by far‐right political actors, which has made the ‘national’ imagination emotionally and ideologically appealing to a considerable part of Hungarian society and first of all to young people.     

The Lost Leader: Sir Stafford Northcote and the Leadership of the Conservative Party, 1876–85*

Sir Stafford Northcote has gone down in history as a man who fell short of the ultimate achievement of being prime minister largely because of personal weakness, and lack of political virility and drive. The picture painted by Northcote's political enemies – most notably the Fourth Party – has been accepted uncritically. Yet, political motives lay behind the actions of these supporters, and their harsh black and white portrait is not illustrative of the complexity of the situation in which Northcote found himself. Although individual characteristics undoubtedly played a part in his final political failure, underlying dynamics and structural transformations in politics and political life were more significant. It was more than simply the misfortune in succeeding the exceptionally charismatic Disraeli as leader. Northcote was faced with unparalleled disruption in parliament from Irish Nationalist MPs; the starkly polarised debate on the eastern question left him detached as a moderate. His temperament was better suited to constructive government rather than to opposition. However, following general election defeat in 1880, Northcote was denied this opportunity. Equally, his position in the lower House denied him the capacity to define a clear political critique of the Liberal government. Northcote's leadership of the party reflected the changing nature of British politics as radicals, tories, Irish Nationalists and Unionists increasingly contested the consensual style more appropriate to the political world of Palmerston and the 14th earl of Derby.     

冷战后的日本共产党

本文总结了冷战后日本共产党理论路线调整的具体内容,阐释了日本共产党选举业绩的波动状况及原因,并指出日本共产党的政治在21世纪初期政党政治的演变中具有不可或缺的意义。     

Structures and Members: An Overview of The Cumann na nGaedheal Party Organisation, 1923–33

This article re‐examines Cumann na nGaedheal's approach to party organisation. Cumann na nGaedheal has been portrayed as a badly organised, ‘top‐down’ party that suffered electorally for its reluctance to match the structure and organisation of its main anti‐Treaty rival, Fianna Fáil. Moreover, the party has been caricatured as a conservative organisation with little affinity for the ideology of the Irish revolution. While recent studies have reappraised Cumann na nGaedheal's engagement with the revolutionary inheritance, while highlighting underappreciated aspects of the party's electoral innovations, its organisational structures require further scholarly attention. Closer scrutiny of Cumann na nGaedheal's organisational structures sheds further light on its fate as nationalist Ireland's first party of government and ultimately its demise as a distinct party in 1933.     

In the Long ‘Run’: Kanak Stockmen,the Cattle Frontier and Colonial Power Relations in New Caledonia, 1870–1988

ABSTRACT For more than a century, from the 1870s to the 1980s, stockmen were important intermediaries and figures of power and influence in the construction, maintenance and renewal of the colonial order in New Caledonia. Social relations between Kanak and settlers working in the cattle ‘runs’ permitted a unique form of mobility spanning the frontier. The relations developed between chiefs and cattle farmers are central to the processes by which certain administrative chieftaincies emerged in the late‐nineteenth century, and by which Kanak entered the ‘political’ sphere in the second half of the twentieth century. With reference to the locality of Koné, this article traces the political alliances fashioned between Kanak stockmen and their employers in the context of colonisation, rebellion, evangelisation, post‐war political emancipation, local development and, finally, the struggle between supporters and opponents of independence in the 1980s.     

The rediscovery of ‘the national’ in the 1990s – contexts,new cultural forms and practices in reunified Germany

This article examines how and in which societal and political contexts nationhood is expressed and symbolised in reunified Germany. This ‘rediscovery’ of nationhood since the 1990s mixes new and old motifs of the cultural repertoire of ‘the national’ for different purposes. Three main contexts triggered a rediscovery of ‘the national’ after 1989: reunification, immigration and the retrenchment of the social state. I argue, by analysing ethnographic material and political discourses, that these contexts, on the one hand, rearticulate old forms of ethnic and cultural nationalism and, on the other hand, create new images and symbols of an open civic society and immigration country. There are ‘playful’ forms, such as campaigns of nation branding, that symbolically include the ‘productive’ and ‘useful’ immigrant into the national project. Moreover, such campaigns serve to legitimatise the downsizing of the national state that – according to a neoliberal attitude – relies on a new community spirit of entrepreneurial, ‘activated’ citizens who ‘help themselves’. Thus, focusing on these pluralised renationalisation processes makes evident how polyvalent ‘the national’ still is. It can be employed by those who attempt to ‘reunite’ the East and West Germans, by businesses to sell their goods and ideas and by almost any political orientation, be it right‐wing or left‐wing.     

‘To Women in the Year 2000’: Norwegian Historians of Women,c.1900–c.1960

The lives and writings of three women who during the first half of the twentieth century wrote books on women's history are the subject of this article. Ragna Nielsen, a teacher and an amateur historian, in 1904 published her account of women's lives during the first part of the nineteenth century, stressing the sad consequences of patriarchal attitudes, but also the importance of women's contribution to the maintenance of a national identity. Anna Caspari Agerholt and Mimi Sverdrup Lunden, both with masters' degrees in history, belonged to the next generation. Agerholt is mainly remembered for her impressive book of 1927 on the Norwegian women's movement, while Lunden's books of 1942 and 1948 on women's work were important contributions to social history. The writings of these three women's historians are related to dominant positions within Norwegian historiography of their times, highlighting how they helped change central concepts by adding gender to class analysis and to the process of constructing a national identity, stressing the importance of voluntary organisations to the formation of politics and widening the concept of work.     

Diehard Conservatism,Mass Democracy,and Indian Constitutional Reform,c.1918–35

This article explores the Conservative Party crisis over India to examine the relationship between diehard Conservatives and Britain's emerging democracy. Far from rejecting democracy outright, diehard rhetoric and mass communication demonstrates how they adapted to it and utilised it in pursuit of their objectives. The accommodation of diehard Conservatism within the Conservative Party was a necessary and mutual embrace. Contrary to popular image, it promoted Conservative unity and contributed to the party's remarkable electoral success. Unable to exact decisive victories, the capacity of diehard Conservatives to generate party crises over imperial questions, among grass‐roots and back‐bench Conservatives, ensured that they had a role in shaping the presentation and content of party policy. This had implications for leadership efforts to liberalise the party, and also popular perceptions of British imperialism and the feasibility of democracy in India.     

The Candidates of the Liberal Unionist Party, 1886–1912*

Historians have hitherto based discussion of the electoral performance of the Liberal Unionist Party on incomplete data regarding the candidates of the party, as published sources, including F.W.S. Craig's British Parliamentary Election Results, 1885–1918, the standard reference work, include a number of cases where the party label of a Unionist candidate (either Liberal Unionist or Conservative) is uncertain or incorrect. Utilising a wide range of primary and secondary sources, this article resolves a number of these cases, and thus creates the most accurate list of Liberal Unionist candidates available. The creation of this list allows for accurate analysis of the party's history, and the article makes some preliminary observations based on the data presented. Among these observations are that the Liberal Unionists comprised a consistent percentage of the overall Unionist Party in the house of commons, that the number of seats contested by Liberal Unionists remained steady through the January 1910 election, and that existing interpretations of the electoral pact between the Liberal Unionists and Conservatives may be flawed.