Debating the moral and economic foundations of a democratic polity

From around the middle of the 18th century, agrarian reforms came on the agenda in most countries of western Europe. Although Norway’s economy was not manorial like that of Denmark and much of the rest of the continent, a debate emerged on how to improve Norwegian agriculture as well. Contrary to what the idealized picture of the typical Norwegian peasant might make us believe, the Norwegian right of redemption, odelsretten, was at the heart of these discussions. This article explores the differing opinions voiced over the ancient familial right from the viewpoint of intellectual history, drawing on the European historiography on political languages and the rise of commercial society and arguing that they should be interpreted as different responses to the societal changes caused by the economic growth in Norway from the middle of the 18th century.     

Court politics in a federal polity

This article uses a case study from Queensland to demonstrate the court politics approach's potential to reinvigorate executive studies. Court politics focuses on webs of interdependence within the core executive. It examines the beliefs and practices of elite actors and their fluid and contingent relationships. This article examines the patterns of executive politics that prevailed under Premier Anna Bligh. It seeks to answer three key questions. First, why is court politics a useful approach to studying the Australian core executive? Second, what is the nature and extent of court politics in Australian state governments? Finally, recognising that local traditions shape the beliefs and practices of political elites, how does the court politics approach need to be modified for application in Australia?     

The christian polity of John Calvin

J.A. Hobson is known for his views on economy and imperialism. He was also concerned with social psychology and especially with the phenomenon of crowds, which was much discussed at the beginning of the twentieth century. As crowd behaviour was both collective and apparently irrational, it could undermine liberalism. However, Hobson uses crowd phenomena to bolster his own brand of social-democratic liberalism. He perceives mass behaviour as a constituent of the social dialogue favoured by liberals since J. S. Mill, and argues that alterity and festivity are themselves human traits that merit political and legal recognition. This expanded view of human nature grounds a perception of rights which includes entitlements to leisure and structureless sociability: the welfare measures which guarantee such entitlements are thus made constituents of a revised liberalism. His interpretation of the crowd also serves Hobson as a warning to social theory itself, which, he argues, should acknowledge its distance from the world it attempts to analyse. This perception of theory further acts to strengthen liberalism, as it points to the contingent, open-ended character of any view of society and hence favours dialogue and open expression of varying opinions.     

Forced settlement and political centralization in a Classic Maya polity

Settlement and political structure in the Classic Maya Rosario polity are analyzed within a multistep research scheme (originally devised for political anthropology). Single variables arranged along continua are used to conceptualize political structure, in preference to multivariate societal types. Emphasis is given to political centralization and its implementation through forced settlement of subject population into political centers. Settlement nucleation measures for the Rosario polity and its subunits depend on various problem-oriented classifications of settlement remains (residential sites, political plaza hierarchies, and territorial divisions). Marked variation is found in the degree of nucleation (interpreted as forced settlement) in the Rosario polity's different subunits, and controlled comparison suggests that such variation relates to differences in the proportional sizes of elite groups and to “backwash” effects between neighboring subunits with unequal degrees of centralization, rather than to population scale, physical environment, or stage reached in a developmental cycle.     

Seasonality and paleodiet in the Chiribaya polity of southern Peru

In the Andes, the complex Chiribaya polity, or señorío, was composed of economically specialized groups. Previous carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses of archaeological human bone from Chiribaya-affiliated sites have effectively demonstrated socioeconomic specialization and variability in paleodiet among different Chiribaya-affiliated sites. The present study complements earlier paleodietary analyses of Chiribaya populations by supplementing them with carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses of archaeological human hair from the two Chiribaya-affiliated sites of Chiribaya Alta and El Yaral. These new data demonstrate that seasonal variability in the consumption of marine products and C₄ plants such as maize was quite high for some individuals buried at Chiribaya-affiliated sites. In addition to elucidating the complex patterns of Chiribaya seasonality, this study contributes to the growing body of knowledge of archaeological analyses of human hair for paleodiet.     

Contours of equatorial electrojet current density

A set of 17 rocket measured altitude profiles of the equatorial electrojet current density have been used to determine the parameters of a two-dimensional model of the equatorial electrojet with which the contours of equal current density of the electrojet have been constructed. The contours are in full agreement with contours by other workers constructed from wind models of the electrojet. They show the existence of return (westward) currents of the equatorial electrojet, on both flanks of the dip equator, extending from about 250 km to about 1000 km or more, with a peak at about 500 km–600 km from the dip equator, whose peak intensity is about 30% of the peak intensity of the eastward current at the dip equator. Other evidences of the westward current, the location and intensity of its peak have been mentioned.     

论民主政治

民主政治是当今世界的政治主流。民主政治相对专制政治而言,它能使社会治安形势长时间地获得好转以及使社会获得持续发展。要实现民主政治必然具备一定的客观条件,国际国内的政治形势的相对稳定是实现民主政治的先决条件。要实现民主政治,必须反对超然至上的政治权力,从而使各种政治权力趋向均衡。     

Human Right to Water: Contemporary Challenges and Contours of a Global Debate

Abstract: In recent years, significant debate has taken place around the concept of the “human right to water”. In this paper, we seek to respond to recent critiques and clarify the terms of the debate by presenting an in‐depth exploration of the human right to water. We explore several critiques of the concept, situate it in the context of the current neoliberalization of water provision and in relation to contemporary water challenges, and present some examples of how it has been deployed to further the cause of access to water for vulnerable populations in varied contexts. We conclude that, rather than abandoning the concept as critics have suggested, the human right to water maintains importance as a discourse and strategy in the contemporary moment.     

Towards a mighty union: how to create a democratic European superpower

A strong European Union is needed today more than ever: to act as a reliable partner to the United States, Great Britain and the other great democracies; to deal with the growing threats on her southern and eastern periphery; and most pressingly of all, to deal with the euro sovereign debt crisis. In order to do so, Europeans will have to abandon the gradualist fallacy that union will be achieved in small incremental steps and learn the lesson of history that all successful mergers, such as the British and the American, have been carried out in one fell swoop at a time of extreme crisis. They will have to recognize that the road to unity took a fatal turn when the failure of the European Defence Community caused a bifurcation between politico‐military and economic integration. Today, as we face potential fiscal and economic meltdown and as the external threats to Europe mount, we have another opportunity. We can only seize it, however, if we realize that full European union, if there is to be one, will be an event, not a process. It must follow more or less the American example with a directly elected presidency, a house of representatives elected by population and a senate, which represents the former nation‐states and regions. There is no need for the United Kingdom to be part of this project, but it is essential that both unions work together for the common good. Because the existing political elites are incapable of rising to the occasion—and in many cases are actually antipathetic to it—the task must fall to a new pan‐European party: the Party of Democratic Union.     

Political communication and democratic government

This paper overviews the Australian System of Political Communication in the light of the communications requirements of modern representative democracy. The broad point of departure is that representative democracy requires political communication in both directions between government and people. In addition to the media, the approach takes account of the following channels for ‘political messages’: direct mail, public opinion polls, elections, government inquiries. Five criteria of satisfactory democratic communication are examined. The Australian system of political communication is reviewed in the light of these criteria. Some research findings and other information is included demonstrating the extent of political communication in Australia. An argument is developed to show what conditions need to be satisfied for the criteria of democracy to be met in the contemporary environment.     

试析青海省乡级政权体制的历史演变

建国后,青海省乡级政权体制的发展和演变经历了三个不同的阶段。本文分析了青海省乡级政权体制的演变历史、变革的基本特征和演变的趋势。