Reporting by Letter: The 2nd Earl of Hardwicke and his Parliamentary Correspondents

For much of the 18th century, letter writing remained an important means of communicating news about proceedings at Westminster. Members of leading parliamentary families such as the Hardwickes were prolific letter writers and their correspondence has long been valued as a source for the period before the regular reporting of debates became established in the newspaper press. This article focuses on reporting by letter in the correspondence of the 2nd earl of Hardwicke and his circle. It reconstructs Hardwicke's network of informants and considers how the nature of their connection with the earl affected the way they conceived of their role as reporters. With reference to the epistolary conventions of the time, it asks how the circumstances in which letters were composed and read may have shaped the style and content of the reports. Finally, the article examines the impact made on the epistolary tradition by the emergence of newspaper reporting in the later 18th century and assesses the extent to which this development led letter writers to adjust their methods and goals.     

‘Shew Yourselves as Men’: Gender,Citizenship and Political Propaganda in the 1773 and 1774 Worcester Election Contests

This case study of the 1773 and 1774 election contests in the city of Worcester investigates how members of the local oligarchy, and the political opposition to that oligarchy, drew on contemporary discourses on citizenship to convince the electorate that their candidate would become a worthy representative of their city in parliament, and to refute the claims of their opponents. Since independence was absolutely essential to the voters’ identities as male householder citizens, this became the main issue of conflict. The candidate of the opposition interest, Sir Watkin Lewes, sought to establish himself as the guardian of the independence of the citizens of Worcester against the corrupt corporation. The candidates of the corporation, Thomas Bates Rous and his successor, Colonel Nicholas Lechmere, instead claimed that Lewes was the real threat, as his anti‐corruption campaign deprived the voters of the usual fruits of the election. While such claims also entailed an appeal by the local elite to the financial interest of the voters, the need to justify this incentive ideologically, and the high portion of voters who turned their backs on their patrons, does suggest the power embedded in the concept of citizenship in the political life at the level of the localities. Gendered and classed conceptions of citizenship, furthermore, were employed as offensive weapons in the political propaganda surrounding the elections, as each faction sought to discredit the other by claiming that they were neither manly enough, nor of the proper social status, to qualify as worthy political subjects. Thus, citizenship was not only fundamentally gendered in the masculine, but also highly hierarchical and equally intertwined with contemporary notions of class.     

Church, Space and Conflict: Religious Co-Existence and Political Communication in Seventeenth-Century Switzerland

This article sets out to explore how a local quarrel in theGrafschaft of Baden, a bi-confessional Swiss county, occasionedby efforts to install a separate font for Protestant parishioners,activated larger constitutional and confessional tensions betweenthe Catholic and Protestant cantons of the Swiss Confederation.The article reconstructs the lengthy political negotiationscaused by the rearrangement of church space since the Landfriedenof 1531: this treaty had enshrined bi-confessionalism in theSwiss Confederation and had established the duties and rightsof both confessions, although to the disadvantage of the ReformedProtestants. It had also transformed the consecrated space ofthe church into a stage for political action by the cantons.From 1531 onwards, changes in religious belief and observancewere subject to the will of the supreme governing authority.The article shows that local conflicts over the arrangementand furnishing of certain church spaces can give us fascinatinginsights into political practice, the establishment of socialorder and the handling of denominational differences withinthe Swiss Confederation. It attempts to contribute to our understandingof early modern political history by using concepts from culturalhistory and communication theory in which politics is closelylinked to social and confessional processes generating meaningand order.     

Political Attention and Public Spending in the United States

According to Jones and Baumgartner's disproportionate information processing model, it is crucial to study fluctuations in congressional attention over time and across policy issues to understand congressional policy decisions including decisions on the federal budget. Drawing on classical ideas about reelection-oriented behavior, on the one hand, and the blocking power of federal agencies, on the other, this paper extends and specifies the attention-spending predictions of the disproportionate information processing model. Specifically, spending effects of congressional attention shifts are argued to be crucially dependent on both the spending preferences expressed by the U.S. public and on pressure from spending advocates. An empirical evaluation of the association between changes in congressional attention measures and federal budget appropriations across 12 spending domains and 33 years (1970–2003) supports this conditional hypothesis derived from the extended disproportionate information processing model.     

Public policy in the Australian Journal of Political Science: A review

This paper surveys the contribution that articles on public policy have made to this journal in its first half-century. To help organise those contributions, the paper makes a rough distinction between works of a primarily explanatory nature and those that can be thought of as having a substantive focus on analysing particular policy areas or issues. It observes the paucity of policy studies in the 1960s and 1970; the rapid rise in the 1980s; and a plateauing and even perhaps decline after that. It notes the desultory interest in theoretical questions and welcome attempts to employ the comparative method.     

Political theory in the Australian Journal of Political Science: A review

The place of political theory in AJPS has historically been a fairly marginal one, partly because Australia does not seem to have a strong national tradition of political theorizing. This is thought to be a function of living in a nation that never produced a great political theorist and was born neither in revolution or utopianism. Yet, although there has been a marked absence of high theory or exegetically-inclined history of ideas over the life of the journal, theorists have responded by contributing work that usefully illuminates applied problems with theoretical insight. Further, it may be the case that there is a peculiarly Australian style of political theory that is pragmatic and self-consciously embedded within our institutions and political culture. The paper explores this and other means by which Australian theorists have adapted in order to retain a presence within the journal.     

The Political Mistress: Intimacy,Emotion, and Parliamentary Politics in the Late 18th Century

Between c.1796 and 1809, Lady Harriet Ponsonby, Countess Bessborough and Lord Granville Leveson Gower were embroiled in a passionate affair. Their liaison created tensions in aristocratic society because they belonged to rival political parties, the Whigs and the Tories respectively. In the early years of their relationship, Leveson Gower was emerging on the political scene, while the countess was already well-versed in the complexities of party politics. Leveson Gower thus solicited her advice and support and Bessborough duly shared her knowledge and insight into the political world, which created an unusual dynamic that scholars have yet to explore. This article examines several letters that Bessborough wrote to Leveson Gower to analyse how she supported her lover's fledgling parliamentary career and how she navigated their political differences. I argue that Bessborough adapted a rhetoric of affection, deference, duty, and loyalty, that was typically used by aristocratic wives, to justify her interest in her lover's career and her passion for parliamentary politics. This article contributes to scholarship that explores aristocratic women's political participation by examining the strategies a political mistress could employ to exert influence over men. It also illustrates the value of using methodologies from the history of emotions to investigate the drives and passions that shaped interactions in the late 18th-century political sphere.     

Bureaucratic Leverage over Policy Choice: Explaining the Dynamics of State-Level Reforms in Telecommunications Regulation

While state governments have enjoyed greater control over regulating local telephone service providers since 1984, movement toward efficiency-based policy reform (e.g., adoption of competitive markets) has proceeded slowly. We investigate this pattern by addressing how the degree of policy discretion held by state public utility commissions (PUCs) affects reform of local telephone exchange regulation. Using precise measures of both PUC discretion and state policy changes over time, we find that states with "stronger" PUCs (more policymaking authority) are significantly more likely to move toward efficiency-based policy regimes and away from traditional rate-of-return regimes. Greater PUC discretion systematically related to state adoption of efficiency-based reforms over time suggests that regulators are using updated information about policy impacts to inform their policymaking activities. Our findings contradict a common presumption that regulatory bureaucracies are simply motivated by a desire to increase their control over policymaking. Instead, state PUCs are a key source of telecommunications policy reform in the states.     

State,Parliament and Empire in the Mid 18th Century: Hudson's Bay and the Parliamentary Enquiry of 1749

In 1749, the house of commons appointed a committee of enquiry into the lands and trade of Hudson's Bay. This was the climax to nearly 20 years' work by the Ulsterman, Arthur Dobbs, which focused first on renewed search for a northwest passage and later widened to attempt to expand trade and settlement by challenging the monopoly of the Hudson's Bay Company. Dobbs's Irish patriotism, linked by support for union with Britain with his remarkably expansive vision of British empire, became concentrated on this campaign with a zeal and tenacity which overrode contrary evidence based on experience. Propaganda pamphlets, mobilisation of compatriots, merchant and political contacts, briefs for MPs, marshalling of evidence and witnesses for parliamentary committees, 30 petitions from a variety of places, organised by Liverpool and Bristol merchants who took the lead in the final campaign: all were used to attempt to influence parliament. This was an impressive mid-century effort to promote British commerce and manufactures, actively supported by the parliamentary opposition which was reviving under Leicester House leadership. Yet, while this campaign could shape the report of the committee of enquiry, the House itself was not so easily moved, especially when public expenditure was likely to be involved. A motion arising from the report was decisively defeated. The impressive campaign came to nought. While it indeed reveals powerful visions of commercial and imperial expansion in the mid 18th century, the outcome suggests that realism and scepticism prevailed at the heart of the state.     

Demonstrating for a Kosovo Republic in Switzerland: emotions,national identity and performance

National ceremonies are often designated as a means of crafting or strengthening the ‘national identity’ of the participants, thanks to their potentially emotional effects. This article seeks to examine in greater detail the relationship between emotions, ‘national identity’ and performance. First, it presents evidence from the literature to demonstrate the crucial role played by emotions in the process of national identification, then highlights the conditions responsible for generating these. Second, it explores these issues by adopting an oral history approach in relation to the demonstrations organised by Albanian‐speaking migrants from Yugoslavia in Switzerland in the 1980s. This approach makes it possible to explore issues from the participants' own perspective. The marchers' narratives not only provide a taste of the demonstrations' excitement but also provide clues about the conditions that lead to the emotions they experienced. They are particularly insistent about locating the demonstrations within a much broader life picture.     

世博后高校思想政治教育工作研究

2010年上海世博会的成功举办给我国高校思想政治教育工作带来了新情况和新挑战。高校思想政治教育工作在这种情况下如要发挥其应有的作用,就一定要适时创新。从而适应时代和社会进步的需要。     

一部颇具新意的拓荒之作——评《当代中国政治思想史》

河南大学出版社新近出版的《当代中国政治思想史》一书 ,不论在学术价值、理论建树方面 ,还是在推动学科建设、为现实提供借鉴方面 ,都不失为一部创见迭出、极富新意的开拓性佳作。该书也有某些不足之处     

新公共管理对官僚制是摒弃还是扬弃——基于制度层面的思考

新公共管理是20世纪70年代以后西方各国先后开展的以“企业家政府”为理论模型、以市场化运作模式和私营部门的管理为研究方法、以提高政府工作效率为目的的一项改革运动。新公共管理对政府流程再造的初期的确发挥了一定的作用,提高了行政效率,但是仍然无法改变官僚制的人事制度。新公共管理所提出的私营部门的管理方法,只是对官僚制的修正与补充,是对官僚制的扬弃,而不是摒弃。     

论李宗仁与抗战初期的安徽政局

李宗仁及其新桂系势力,趁全国抗战之机入主安徽。为了巩固地方统治,顺应抗战形势需要,先后采取了一系列较开明的政治改革和施政措施。诸如:提倡民主化建设,积极任用抗日进步人士;健全基层政权,反对和惩治官吏腐败;开展民众动员,维持国共统一战线,等等。为抗战初期安徽敌后群众性抗日运动的兴起,以及大别山地区的持久抗战,创造了有利的政治环境。     

The Parliamentary Organisation of the Whig Junto in the Reign of Queen Anne: A Further Note

The parliamentary organisation of the whig Junto in the reign of Queen Anne was far superior to that of the tory party. At the centre were the meetings in which three or four of the five members of the Junto were present together with some of their followers. Evidence of such meetings is rare but here is presented a letter giving the details of a meeting of all five in April 1713 at the home of Lord Somers, together with their ally, the tory earl of Nottingham, probably to discuss the forthcoming peace proposals, to end the war of the Spanish Succession, and the protestant succession to the British throne.     

Public administration in the Australian Journal of Political Science: A review

This article reviews publications on public administration in the Australian Journal of Political Science (AJPS). A distinction needs to be drawn between public administration as a discipline and as a field of inquiry that engages specialists from several areas. The latter has been more significant in Australia in contrast to Europe and the United States. The questions discussed in the AJPS cover changes in the field and practice of public administration; the state and government; the structures of local government, public organisation and federalism; interfaces between public administration and other sectors and institutions; and issues with public sector reform and accountability. Despite the emphasis on governance in discourse and practice, the role of government continues to be central, and what emerges from experiments in new governance is that the authority of government and the significance of hierarchy (compared to markets and networks) very often remains pivotal.     

当代西方政府管理改革价值选择的学术思潮探析

20世纪六七十年代,西方发达工业国家陷入了一系列的社会、经济与政治危机,要求政府改革的呼声日益高涨。西方学术界对此做出了积极而有力的回应,在对传统的公共行政模式展开尖锐批判和进一步思考的同时,新公共行政学和新公共管理学派应运而生。这对当代西方政府管理改革的价值取向起着至关重要的作用。本文就学术界的主流观点对这三个阶段政府管理的价值取向作简要的梳理和述评。     

New public management and welfare-to-work in Australia: Comparing the reform agendas of the ALP and the Coalition

Since the 1990s, the adoption of new public management (NPM) as a management philosophy has translated into multiple waves of reform in the employment services sector in Australia, namely Working Nation (1994–96), Job Network (JN: 1996–2009) and Job Services Australia (JSA: 2009–present). Each wave has sought to improve the preceding policy. In this article, we examine changes implemented during the Rudd/Gillard Labor governments. Using government policy documents and survey data from frontline employment services staff, we compare JSA to JN against five benchmarks. Our data indicate that JSA has generated modest improvement. JSA is also a system with less emphasis on strong forms of sanctioning. Our combined data suggest that policy actors operating under NPM conditions are indeed able to influence specific aspects of frontline practice, but they must spend great effort to do so and must accept new imperfections as a consequence.

1990年代以来,新型公共管理被作为一种管理哲学而被接受。这导致了就业服务部门的数次改革浪潮,即工作国（1994—96）、工作网（1996—2009）、澳大利亚工作服务（2009至今）。每波浪潮都力图改良此前的政策。本文考察了陆克文/吉拉德工党执政时期的变革。作者根据政府的政策文件、一线就业服务机构员工的调查数据等等,在五个基准点上将澳大利亚工作服务与工作网做了对比。根据我们的资料,澳大利亚工作服务这个系统带来的改进最小,也不大注重强有力的制裁。我们认为,实施新型公共管理的政策制定方的确能影响一线实践的某些方面,但他们还要花大力气,还要接受往后新的不圆满。     

Electoral politics in the Australian Journal of Political Science: A review

Australia’s constant experimentation with electoral system design, and its effects on voter behaviour, have been consistent themes in the Australian Journal of Political Science and its predecessor, Politics, for half a century. This article examines this research in the context of three areas: electoral institutions; election campaigns; and voter behaviour. Three distinct stages in the research are identified, starting with basic fact-gathering, then progressing to the application of rigorous methods and evidence to real-world questions. In the third stage, scholarly attention has been devoted to placing Australia within a comparative framework. An underlying theme in the research is Australian exceptionalism in electoral politics.     

从西方化到本土化:英国的殖民统治与马来西亚的政治发展

马来西亚是政治发展较为成功的发展中国家。马来西亚政治发展的成功,在很大程度上是由于对殖民时期的政治遗产进行了适当的本土化改造,使民主与权威同时为政治稳定提供支撑,形成了介于民主与权威之问的政治体制。马来西亚政治发展的经验说明,发展中国家只有根据本国国情对继承而来的政治遗产进行本土化的改造,才能建立适合本国社会与历史特点的稳定的政治体制。西方的政治发展模式并不是普适性的真理,发展中国家在探寻政治发展道路过程中也可以形成自己的政治发展模式,从而使人类文明的发展变得更加丰富多彩。