Evaluating the Clinton Impeachment: Judicial,International, and Institutional Perspectives

Bowling, Kenneth R., and Donald R. Kennon, eds. The House and Senate in the 1790s: Petitioning, Lobbying, and Institutional Development. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2002. Pp. x, 348. $44.95 hardbound.Ackerman, Bruce, ed. Bush v. Gore: The Question of Legitimacy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002. Pp. xii, 240. $26.95 hardbound.Kotlowski, Dean J. Nixon's Civil Rights: Politics, Principle, and Policy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001. Pp. xi, 404. $35.00 hardbound.DiClerico, Robert E, and James W. Davis. Choosing our Choices: Debating the Presidential Nominating Process. Lanham, MD: Rowman &; Littlefield Publishers, 2000. Pp. ix, 136. $16.95 softbound.Knott, Stephen F. Alexander Hamilton &; the Persistence of Myth. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2002. Pp. x, 336. $34.95 hardbound.     

Impeachment Practice in the Era of Lethal Conflict

The purpose of this article is to question the widely-accepted notion that the basic norms of the United States Congress have undergone a dramatic change. In the face of an increased workload, a more divisive political environment, and significant alterations of the formal rules, this article suggests that the basic "folkways" of the House and Senate in the 1980s are remarkably similar to those described by students of Congress three decades ago. Despite some interview evidence to the contrary, patterns of legislative behavior, distinctions between "insiders" and "outsiders," and the pathways to legislative power continue to be defined in terms of such basic norms as reciprocity, apprenticeship, and specialization.     

Party,Personality and Institutional Constraint: The French Presidential Election of 2007

The designer of the French presidency intended it as a supra-partisan office. Yet this ambition was thwarted by the institutional requirement for a majority in the National Assembly, in order to pass legislation. Today, parties control the presidential function, acting as gatekeepers and enablers; their role has not been usurped by media-promoted personalities. But the presidency has its own dynamic effects on party structures, beyond the mere obligation to produce a plausible candidate. A presidential campaign is the high point of party activity, and the 2007 exercise showed a wide range of effects, according to whether parties are viable candidates for government or pure protesters, or whether they fit uneasily between these positions. This article explores some of these dynamic effects.     

Control Over Government: Institutional Isomorphism and Governance Dynamics in German Public Administration

The era of public management change is said to challenge traditional "command and control" modes of governance, encouraging a move toward either more informal forms of (co-) governance or market-type incentives and competition. Regardless of whether these claims are made by reform advocates or by more sceptical observers within the wider governance debate, less attention has been paid by either side on the mechanisms that are supposed to facilitate the spread of new forms of control. This article seeks to advance this state of affairs in two ways. First, it utilizes the notion of institutional isomorphism to explore the nature of change of modes of control. In particular, it assesses the mechanisms for change, whether control mechanisms are changing due to coercive, mimetic, or professional mechanisms. Second, it explores the impact of these mechanisms in the federal context of Germany in two policy domains, prison and local government supervision (in the field of building administration). Finally, this article suggests that cultural theory offers considerable insights for the study of institutional isomorphism by emphasizing conflicting worldviews and the diversity of related policy ideas as driving forces of change in modes of governance.     

The Dynamics and Interactions Between the President's and the Public's Civil Rights Agendas: A Study in Presidential Leadership and Representation

Past research views presidents as reactive and minor actors in the civilrights policy process. However, that research has focused solely on the latter stages of the policy process. This report views the president's role from an agendasetting perspective. A content analysis reveals that presidents lead public opinion on civil rights, but that the public has little impact on the president's civil rights agenda. The distinction between discretionary and required agenda items explains this asymmetry between the president and the public in civil rights policymaking. A fuller notion of policymaking that includes all stages of the process, from agendasetting to implementation and evaluation, is required to understand the role of the president in civil rights policymaking and leads us to revise the perception that presidents play reactive and minor roles in civil rights policy.     

Centenary reflections on Rennes and the Dreyfus Affair

Assemblée nationale, Le Parlement et l'Affaire Dreyfus 1894–1906. Douze années pour la vérité (Assemblée nationale/Société d'études jaurésiennes, 1998), 307 pp., 60F., ISSN 1268 5399 (Cahiers Jean Jaurès, No. 147).

Brennan, J.F., The Reflection of the Dreyfus Affair in the European Press 1897–1899 (Peter Lang, 1998), 521 pp., 390F., ISBN 0 8204 3844 8

Cosnier, C. and Hélard, A., Rennes et Dreyfus en 1899. Une ville, un procès (Horay, 1999), 399 pp., 180F., ISBN 2 7058 0274 6

Datta, V. and Silverman, W. Z. (eds), ‘Intellectuals and the Dreyfus Affair’, special issue of Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques, 24(1) (Spring 1998).

Joly, B., Déroulède. L'inventeur du nationalisme français (Perrin, 1998), 440 pp., 179F., ISBN 2 262 01331 4

Pierrard, P., Les chrétiens et l'affaire Dreyfus (Editions de l'Atelier, 1998), 236 pp., 120F., ISBN 2 7082 3390 4     

Youth, Racism, and Place in the Tony Martin Affair

This paper provides an analysis of media discourse surrounding the arrest, trial, and conviction of Norfolk farmer Tony Martin for the murder of 16-year old Fred Barras, a Traveller from Newark, Nottinghamshire. The paper argues that discourses about Travellers (re)constructed in the media during the Martin affair showed evidence of both older, stereotypical representations of Travellers and newer ways of locating them in relation to contemporary societal anxieties about "dangerous youth", the "underclass", and "social exclusion". The coverage was often emblematic of political discourses in Britain, which too often emphasise the moral failings of the "excluded" without any significant discussion of the sources of inequalities.     

清末片马事件的发生及其影响

史学界多认为清末片马事件的发生是英国殖民扩张、图谋侵占中国西南边疆领土引起的。本文通过考察已公布的英国外交部档案,认为英政府远征片马的深层原因在于英政府对中国西南边疆改革的不满与仇视,为了抵制所谓的中国政府的“前进政策”,英军对恩梅开江以东,包括片马在内的小江流域地区进行远征,采取具有主权特征的管辖措施,以达到迫使清政府承认既成事实的目的。这一目标未能完全实现,并且对滇缅北段未定界问题的解决、对英印政府的东北边疆政策产生了影响。     

What the Political Corruption Scandal of 2015 Reveals about Checks and Balances in Vanuatu Governance

A series of dramatic events occurred in Vanuatu in late 2015 involving the conviction of 15 MPs for bribery, purported pardons given by the acting president and a contested dissolution of parliament. This paper analyses the significance of these events from both a political and legal perspective, in particular, considering the extent to which they were unprecedented and exceptional in terms of Vanuatu’s history. Certainly, the trial and conviction of almost 30 per cent of Vanuatu’s parliament sets a new standard not only for Vanuatu and the rest of the Pacific, but quite possibly globally as well. The outcome of the various legal processes resulted in the first ever convictions under Vanuatu’s Leadership Code Act, setting an important precedent for more active use of this legislation in future. Politically, however, these events were by no means the most serious of the numerous dramas that have characterised Vanuatu’s history since independence. Indeed, the events of 2015 underline that constitutional power is distributed and exercised reasonably broadly in Vanuatu with the president, the speaker of parliament and especially the court system all playing key roles, alongside prime ministers and opposition leaders, in the outcomes of political contestation. While we have no wish to downplay the seriousness of such a large number of convictions, the events of 2015 nevertheless suggest a degree of underlying strength and resilience in Vanuatu’s governance framework.