Electoral Nationalisation,Dealignment and Realignment: Australia and the US, 1900-88

Has the behaviour of Australian voters become more 'nationalised' over time? Kemp (1978) and to a lesser extent Aitkin (1968) conclude that it has. Using more precise and comprehensive measures of nationalisation, a more standard (variance-components) statistical method and longer and directly comparable series of data, I qualify this conclusion heavily and place it on a firmer theoretical footing. I find that voting behaviour has generally been more spatially uniform in Australia than in the US, and that a sustained homogenisation-but not a 'nationalisation'-has been underway since the realignment of the late 1930s to early 1940s. Exceptionally and continually high levels of party identification, together with class-based alignments (and realignments) of electoral forces, appear to underlie the relatively high spatial uniformity of voting behaviour in Australia.     

Children and families: Relationships between family attitudes,household composition and voting in Australia

In the light of ongoing demographic trends (such as low fertility rates and growth of single-person households), some of the features of the 2004 Australian federal election outcomes and campaign raise the possibility that we might have seen the beginnings of a divide in voting behaviour based on family structure, particularly those aspects related to the presence of children. Relevant data from the 2004 Australian Election Study (AES) are quite limited, so I use data from both the 2004 AES and the 2003 Australian Survey of Social Attitudes to explore the relationships between federal voting and family structure, and attitudes towards children, parenting and families of different types. The results show effects on voting that apparently result from financial considerations related to the presence of children and others that are related to differences of values.     

On elections,voting and participation:

To summarise, there were five interesting features of the election: (i) the size of the first preference movement from the major parties to the Australian Democrats; (ii) the unexpected lack of any significant swing to Labor in the two‐party preferred vote; (iii) the notable uniformity of the results from state to state; (iv) such swing to Labor as did occur was mainly in seats already held by Labor and in urban areas; and (v) the results demonstrate that the electoral boundaries still contain a bias against Labor.     

996 and all that: the Norman peasants' revolt reconsidered

Early in the reign of Richard II of Normandy (996–1026), a peasant movement, usually described as a revolt, was suppressed. This paper re‐examines the evidence of William of Jumièges, Wace and an anonymous history of Fécamp. It argues that the movement cannot be securely dated to 996, was not a military enterprise, and was not revolutionary. Peasants attempted to mobilize quasi‐Carolingian assembly practices in order to gain concessions concerning specific economic issues, but did not seek to re‐order their society. The movement probably affected the Seine valley, rather than encompassing all of Normandy.     

The shaping of time in action: Guatemalan divination reconsidered

Barbara Tedlock. Time and the Highland Maya. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press; 1982. 304pp. $27.50.     

Archaeometry meets archaeozoology: Viking Haithabu and medieval Schleswig reconsidered

The two archaeofaunal assemblages from Haithabu (Viking period) and Schleswig (early Middle Age) belong to the largest such bone complexes ever recovered in Northern Europe. More than 800,000 animal bones were recovered from both sites in the course of the last three decades and investigated by traditional archaeozoological methods. More recently and independently from the latter, stable isotopic ratios of the light elements carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen were analyzed on a total of 440 animal bone finds representing 67 vertebrate species from both sites producing a data set comprising 1,760 individual isotopic ratios. In addition, stable strontium isotopic ratios were obtained from 68 animal teeth and bones of four species. In this paper, an attempt is made to synthesize archaeozoological and archaeometrical data on a larger scale. By becoming familiar with the specific potential of each method, we raise questions concerning not only palaeobiodiversity and palaeoecology of fish and birds in the area, trophic webs, and prey/predator relationships, but also human meat-provisioning, import of animals and animal products, and the reconstruction of hunting areas. This transdisciplinary approach led to an improvement in the quality of our interpretations and the validation of previously confirmed and/or rejected assumptions. It is still too early to expect answers to all these questions, but we are convinced that, in attempting to do so, the potential of coordinating such methods for future research will become evident, and we therefore strongly recommend an intensification of archaeometric analyses of archaeofaunal assemblages.     

The early Byzantine economy in context: aristocratic property and economic growth reconsidered

This article responds to recent primitivist claims with respect to the late antique economy of the early Byzantine period. It examines the archaeological and documentary evidence for economic sophistication in early Byzantine Egypt, and addresses the issue of economic growth in late antiquity as a whole by placing the evidence for early Byzantine economic expansion in a broader medieval context. In particular, the epiphenomena of economic growth in late antiquity are compared to the epiphenomena of statistically demonstrable economic growth in Anglo‐Norman England.     

Leadership and voting: the connection at the state level

While it is now well established that Australian party leaders at the national level influence political choice in federal elections, little systematic study has been undertaken of the equivalent role that State Premiers and Opposition Leaders might play. In the 2001 Australian Election Study (n=2010), questions were asked of a national probability sample of voters about respondent feelings towards their State Premier and State Opposition Leader, in addition to equivalent questions about Prime Minister John Howard, Opposition Leader Kim Beazley and other major political figures in federal politics. The data generated by this survey thus provide an opportunity to investigate the impact that contemporary State political leaders have on electoral choice. The analysis produces mixed results, but the findings show that State leaders generally do have an impact on voting behaviour in State elections, although in some cases this influence is eliminated when account is taken of voter attitudes towards the federal leaders. The analysis also affords an opportunity to test the extent of crossover between State and federal politics, in terms of how much State leaders influence federal voting and vice versa. While the results are somewhat uneven, they do indicate that some State leaders influence federal voting and that the federal leaders do influence voting in some States.     

Loyalists and lairds: The politics and society of Upper Canada reconsidered

The Lion, the Eagle, and Upper Canada: A Developing Colonial Ideology by Jane Errington. Kingston and Montreal: McGill‐Queen's University Press, 1987. Pp.272. $30.00.

The Idea of Loyalty in Upper Canada, 1784–1850 by David Mills. Kingston and Montreal: McGill‐Queen's University Press, 1988. Pp.x + 238. $27.95.

Becoming Prominent: Regional Leadership in Upper Canada, 1791–1841 by J.K. Johnson. Kingston and Montreal: McGill‐Queen's University Press, 1989. Pp.ix + 277. $29.95.

Attitudes to Social Structure and Mobility in Upper Canada 1815–1840: ‘Here We Are Laird Ourselves’ by Peter A. Russell. Lewiston/ Queenston/Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press, 1990. Pp.213. US$59.95.     

统一与分裂:中国历史的启示

中国历史是一连绵不断的演进过程,国家统一、民族团结的内聚力不断增强。自春秋战国至清前期,虽曾经历了三次社会大分裂,但最终还是走向了秦汉、隋唐和元明清三次大统一。统一的时间越来越长,统一的规模越来越大,统一的制度基础越来越坚实。分裂的代价逐渐为人们所认识,统一的意义逐渐为人们所肯定。传统的古代社会,以战争方式谋求统一,几乎成为不二铁律。在当代世界,以和平方式谋求国家统一,成为人们更理性更睿智的选择,但这只是寻求国家统一方式的发展趋势,能否成为不二铁律尚待人类历史实践的检查。     

Strategic voting and constituency context: Modelling party preference and vote in multiparty elections

We examine the role of strategic motivations in mediating the relationship between underlying political preferences and vote choice, in a multiparty, single member, simple plurality system, and examine the role of constituency context in determining the scope for strategic voting. Political preference data from the British Election Panel Survey, 1997–2001, were modelled with mixed multinomial logit models. Latent variables were used to model the stable party political traits underlying observed preferences, allowing correlation between choices and so avoiding the restrictive assumption of independence from irrelevant alternatives. Ranked approval ratings were used to characterize the underlying political preferences in the presence of insincere voting. From these models we estimate that approximately 9% of votes cast may have been affected by strategic factors. In keeping with ‘Duvergers law’, the smallest of the three main parties, the Liberal Democrats, were found to be most affected by strategic voting.     

Maya urban genesis reconsidered: Trade and intensive agriculture as primary factors

Maya scholarship, from its inception, has been characterized by a perspective that has stressed the uniqueness of Maya civilization. Specifically, it was assumed that cities did not emerge until the Post-Classic and that intensive agriculture was not practised. Attempts to explain the assumed uniqueness of Maya civilization have usually stressed religious traits. In contrast, geographers and archaeologists have recently demonstrated that the lowland Maya practised intensive agriculture and had well-developed local trade patterns. The notion that the lowland Classic Maya civilization was “non-urban” and “unique” is re-examined.