Legend,Legacy and the French 12/01 Raid in 1948

Comparison is drawn between a village's circle of lay Buddhists and an association of former ex-guerrilla fighters in a Northern Vietnamese commune and their respective modes of commemoration. Both groups commemorate the same raid by French soldiers on their commune in 1948, known as the 12/01 Raid. The Association's mode of commemoration is conceptualized as legend; a story that is considered true, but which also retells the 12/01 Raid in terms of a series of ordeals and trials, and with the protagonists overcoming them. The Buddhists' commemorative mode is conceptualized as legacy to capture their vision of a common tragedy. It is argued that the Buddhists commemorate the 12/01 Raid in terms of a common, fateful point of origin, and that legend should be considered a restricted version of legacy.     

Redrawing the Political Map of Russia: The Duma Election of December 2003

Two experts on the electoral geography of post-Soviet Russia examine the disruption of the relatively stable pattern of political choice evident in the returns from the December 2003 elections to the Russian Duma. The paper documents major shifts, relative to three previous Duma elections, in turnout and the percentage share of vote among major parties and broad party groupings (liberal/reform, nationalist, KPRF/Agrarian, and centrist). Prominent among the latter are the resurgence of nationalist parties, the losses suffered by the communists, the virtual elimination of the reform parties from the national legislative scene, and the consolidation of power by the favorite party of the Kremlin. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: H10, O10, R10. 9 figures, 2 tables, 21 references.     

Political Dynasties in Thailand: The Recent Picture after the 2011 General Election

This article seeks to understand the patterns of family-based politics in Thailand’s 2011 House of Representatives election. The key question is whether the political dynasty, a sequence of political leaders who are considered members of the same family, is still a determining factor in Thai elections, and if so, to what extent compared to the past. Drawing on a rich set of data collected from election results between 1979 and 2011, this article argues that the political roles and influences of many political dynasties have become more complicated and have tended to increase, although some have experienced defeat in elections. The article finds that while belonging to a political dynasty could give new dynastic faces a better chance of winning a House election in their constituency than their non-dynastic counterparts, the most influential factor for electoral candidates in winning a House of Representatives election is belonging to the Pheu Thai Party or the Democrat Party. This article thus suggests that one of the best ways to avoid the monopoly of one or a few political families in Thai politics is to empower and support party members and eligible voters to meaningfully engage in political parties’ affairs and activities.     

1949年日本国会选举的政治意味

议会政治下的国会选举通常会透露出社会政治意识的走向。战后的日本议会政治,是在战前议会政治基础之上植入美国式民主政治理念,以英国式民主政治为范本确立起来的。而1949年1月日本国会大选,则可以看成是战后日本议会政治由英国式民主政治模式转为日本式民主政治的标志性选举。藉助这次选举,保守性质的政党开始确立优势地位、派阀政治出现、中间政治意识失势等战后日本社会政治诸多特征都呈现出来。研究1949年1月的日本大选,对于把握战后日本保守政治体制的形成和日本社会政治意识的分化,具有十分重要的意义。     

Political Marketing and the 2008 New Zealand Election: A Comparative Perspective

Political marketing is a growing phenomenon and few political parties would seek to compete in an election without utilising at least some of its tools to help them understand their market and compete more effectively. The current range of tools available includes pre-election strategy, branding, e-marketing, opposition research, multiple forms of direct marketing and GOTV utilising market segmentation, tangibility tools, insights marketing and leadership re-marketing. New developments in practice transfer quickly between countries. In the 2008 New Zealand election, both major parties, Labour and National, utilised different aspects of political marketing with varied effects, showing the importance and limitations of global strategies, as well as the need for parties to utilise all aspects of political marketing for government and re-election.     

Enlightenment and Prophecy: The Jews and Neo-Hellenic Nationalism

ABSTRACT

Even before the rise of nationalism and its counterpart anti-Semitism sensu stricto, anti-Judaic prejudices and stereotypes were widespread in the Christian Orthodox communities of the Ottoman Empire. These attitudes arose mainly from the commercial antagonism between the Christian and Jewish communities during the crisis that beset the empire from the seventeenth century onward. To examine these attitudes more closely, this article first focuses on the extreme anti-Judaic discourse in the sermons of eighteenth-century Father Cosmas Aitolos (Cosmas of Aetolia; d. 1779), an itinerant monk, who was canonized in 1961. It then turns to Rhigas Velestinlis’s enlightened vision of a tolerant multi-ethnic, multi-religious republic, which gradually replaced the Sultan’s oriental despotism, in which Jews, Muslims, and Christians were to be equal citizens. But this vision sank into oblivion, as the aspiration to national independence and to ethnical homogeneity prevailed in Greece, as well as everywhere in the Balkans. Although the early advocates of enlightened Greek nationalism embraced the language of citizenship and emancipation, they excluded from it the proviso of multi-ethnicity. Accordingly, they perceived the “Jewish Question” as one of gradually integrating a “foreign” religious minority into the Greek nation by “re-educating them in the values of Hellenism,” in the words of Adamandios Korais (1748–1833), and according them full citizenship only in the generations to come. All three distinctive attitudes towards the Jews are traceable in subsequent ideological trends and conflicts in Modern Greece.     

Political Equality and the Regulation of Election Spending by Parallel Campaigners

The regulation of political finance, including the funding of political parties and election campaigns, remains contentious in many democracies. A particular focus of debate has been the regulation of ‘parallel campaigners’– that is, non-candidate and non-party political actors – wanting to influence the election outcome by bringing to bear their economic resources. Drawing on both recent unsuccessful and current attempts at reforming the regulation of election spending by parallel campaigners in New Zealand, this paper explores the conflict between the democratic right to freedom of expression and the idea that all citizens should have a fair opportunity for effective political influence. It is argued that Joshua Cohen's principle of political equality, which entails the balancing of these two values, provides a justifiable framework for regulating political finance, including parallel campaign expenditures, in liberal democracies.     

Election Campaigns and Television News Coverage: The Case of the 2001 Australian Election

This paper examines the patterns of television news coverage of the political parties, their leaders and the issues they raised during the 2001 Australian federal election campaign. By focusing on some issues, parties and leaders, television has long been argued to constrain voters' evaluations. We find that television news coverage in the 2001 Australian election campaign focused primarily on international issues, especially terrorism and asylum seekers, and on the two major parties—virtually to the exclusion of coverage of the minor parties and their leaders. Within the major party ‘two-horse race’, television gave substantially more coverage to the leaders than to the parties themselves, thereby sustaining what some have called a ‘presidential’-style political contest. John Howard emerged as the winner in the leaders' stakes, garnering more coverage than Labor's Kim Beazley.     

The Legend of the Grail

The Mothers. A Study of the Origins of Sentiments and Institutions. By Robert Briffault. Vols. i-iii. George Allen &;Unwin, 1927. 10" x 6 ?" Pp. xix + 781; xx + 789; xv + 841. 25s. per vol.