Political opportunity structures,evangelical Christians and morality politics in Canada,Australia and New Zealand

Politically active evangelical Christian populations are found in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Yet their patterns of activism differ not only from the exceptional United States experience, but also one another. This paper applies a political opportunity approach to explain these variations, demonstrating how differences in denominational identities and linkages and political institutions shape evangelical activism, and illustrating these opportunity structures through an examination of the struggles over same-sex marriage in each country. This approach offers a variety of further avenues for the comparative study of ‘morality politics’ in different countries, moving beyond bilateral comparisons with the United States.     

Explaining State Budget Punctuations: Policy Transparency,Political Institutions,and Electoral Incentives

What factors cause policies experiencing long periods of stability to be interrupted occationally by a short period of large changes? This study argues that electoral incentives might influence the search, supply, and processing of information on constituency issues, as well as the associated cognitive or institutional frictions, and thus determine the presence and variation of punctuated policies. This article develops and evaluates this claim within a systemic framework consisting of policy transparency, political institutions, and electoral incentives. For the purpose of identifying policy punctuations, this research uses the Generalized Pareto Distribution in the Extreme Value Theory. This study analyzes budget spending data collected from FY 1988 to FY 2008 for all 50 American states. This study finds that greater policy transparency is associated with larger spending stability. By contrast, greater gubernatorial competition is more likely to produce extreme spending changes. Electoral incentives shaped by public preference and political term limits have a profound impact on nonincremental policy changes. The impact of policy transparency is conditional on public preference, while that of electoral competition and legislative professionalism is moderated by political term limits. Particularly, a transparent policy consistent with public preference and legislative professionalism with term limits are more likely to give rise to punctuated policies, while gubernatorial (legislative) competition leads to less punctuated changes when governors (legislators) are subject to term limits.     

春到澳新赏秋景(一)

<正>"旅途"这两个字,包含着多么奇异、动人和美妙诱人的意义呵!而这个旅途本身,又是多么美妙呵……——果戈里每次准备外出旅游,我们总会萌发一种心动,特别是这次到反季节的南半球一游。当我们纵横漫游在广袤、空旷的南太平洋大陆上,没有想到:这里会有那么多历史的故事,那么多美丽的诗篇;那么多可爱的动物,那么多珍贵的花卉;那么多难忘的小镇,那么多美丽的名胜;那么多秀丽的峡谷,那么多险峻的峰峦……国内正值草长莺飞、万木葱茏的烟花三月,而当我们乘飞机降落在澳大利亚墨尔本的国际机场时,这已是烂     

春到澳新赏秋景(二)

<正>"千帆之都"奥克兰结束澳大利亚墨尔本行程后的第三天早上,我们从墨尔本国际机场乘班机飞往新西兰奥克兰。在地图上看,从墨尔本到奥克兰并不远,大约2300多千米,飞行3个小时。走出机场,奥克兰的天更晴,海更蓝,空气更清新,街道更干静,仿佛进入了一片田园牧歌般的净土。从机场乘坐面包车进入奥克兰市区,沿途导游的介绍让我们耳目一新。     

Missionization in New Zealand and Australia: A Comparison

This paper discusses missionization in New Zealand and Australia during the nineteenth century. Despite sharing aspects of colonial history and a geographical proximity in the South Pacific, the development of missions in both countries was disparate, leading to two very different types of missions, types I have identified as the “household” mission in New Zealand and the “institutional” mission in Australia. In both types common themes can be found, concerned with the “civilizing mission,” domesticity, and gender roles. These two types of missions were replicated in other parts of the globe, such as North America and the Pacific.     

Up in Smoke: Mapping Subsystem Dynamics in Tobacco Policy

This study develops and employs congressionally based indicators to track the evolution of the tobacco policy subsystem between 1945 and 2005. It concludes that far from disintegrating, the tobacco subsystem has proven resilient, weathering several punctuations over the course of the study. The subsystem has, however, undergone a significant transformation resulting in both the introduction of new ideas as well as changes in the policies affecting tobacco.     

Comparing election outcomes in Australia and New Zealand

It has been claimed that Australian and New Zealand voters have followed parallel paths since the Second World War. A comparison of the patterns of net vote movement at contemporaneous Australian and New Zealand elections since 1965 reveals that most have not been alike, although there were some remarkably similar patterns in the 1970s. Most Australian elections have been dominated by movement to the Opposition, but this is not true of New Zealand elections. At New Zealand elections, movements to minor parties have been as common.