Morality Policy and Individual-Level Political Behavior; The Case of Legislative Voting on Lesbian and Gay Issues

Researchers using the morality politics framework have focused on aggregate-level analysis, largely ignoring the behavior of individuals wlthin political institutions. My research fills this gap by examining legislative voting behavior on lesbian and gay issues in the U. S. House ofRepresentatives. The theory of morality politics is used to extract a number of hypotheses concerning legislative voting behavior. The morality politics framework suggests that legislative voting on lesbian and gay issues will be driven by partisanship, ideology, religious beliefs, constituency opinion, and perhaps interest groups. The results of multiple regression analysis demonstrate that while the morality politics model does a good Job of explaining legislative voting behavior, some revisions may be in order. Based on my findings I argue that actually there may be two forms of morality politics, euch ofwhich is dependent on how the issue is framed. The dominant issue frame, moreover, may impact the ability of opposing interest groups to influence decisionmakers in thepolicy process.     

Ask and Tell: Gay and Lesbian Veterans Speak out

At the outset of Ask & Tell, Estes recalls the debates thatproduced the 1993 "don’t ask, don’t tell" policyprohibiting "homosexual conduct or activity in the armed forces"of the U.S. and laments the silenced voices of those most directlyaffected by the policy: gay and lesbian service members. Inresponse, Estes, an associate professor of history at SonomaState University, enlists oral history as an ally in the on-goingcampaign to allow gay men and lesbians in the U.S. to serveopenly in the armed forces. He argues "that historically, thesilence concerning gays in the     

The political impact of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras

This paper evaluates the political impact of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, now in its fifteenth year. The paper summarises the evolution of Mardi Gras from a protest march into a month long festival, culminating in a street parade. It traces the development of governance and organisational arrangements. The impact of this event in five contexts is then discussed: the political consciousness and organisational mobilisation of the gay and lesbian community; public attitudes; the major political centres; and the state. In particular the evolution of relations with the NSW state government, at political and executive levels, and with the police is reviewed. The paper concludes Mardi Gras has played a pace‐setting role in each context The success of Mardi Gras, at least in terms of attracting public attention, does however create new strategic challenges for its sponsors.     

A Rhetoric of Change: The Language of the Howard Government's 2005 Work Choices Agenda

Understanding how public political discourse acts or does not act as a persuasive force in promoting and justifying political policy remains of critical importance. This paper presents a rhetorical criticism of the public political language used by the then Prime Minister John Howard and Minister Kevin Andrews, the chief spokespersons for the introduction of the Work Choices legislation. We demonstrate that these speakers drew upon a metaphor of evolutionary change as a means of promoting their legislation to the Australian working public. We argue that although this metaphor has persuasive utility, this merit was outweighed by the contradictions that arose when the metaphor was situated within a surrounding discourse promoting the concept of individual choice.     

Policy Fiascos,Blame Management and AWB Limited: The Howard Government's Escape from the Iraq Wheat Scandal

In 1999, the Australian government privatised the statutory Australian Wheat Board and created AWB Limited, transferring the Board's assets and its export monopoly to a grower-controlled company. In 2000, allegations surfaced that AWB Limited had made payments to Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime in order to secure lucrative wheat exports worth $500 million per annum. Such actions violated the terms of the United Nations' Oil-for-Food Programme and became one of the biggest corporate scandals in Australian history. It also placed considerable pressure on senior ministers in John Howard's coalition government who were vulnerable on a number of issues, including the existence of numerous warning signs and the extent of ministerial awareness. The purpose of this article is to outline and examine the federal government's role in managing the ensuing blame game. It utilises literature on policy fiascos and blame management to create a conceptual framework that is then applied to the unfolding dynamics of the AWB Limited case. It examines issues such as the roles played by the Cole Inquiry and the political language of ministers in steering blame away from ministers and towards AWB Limited and the UN.     

Heroes and Invaders: Gay and Lesbian pride parades and the public/private distinction in New Zealand media accounts

Public space is constructed as heterosexual space in at least two senses. First, heterosexuality in public is regarded as unproblematic, whereas lesbian and gay identities are policed by subtle or overt means. Second, heterosexuality is not obviously marked in public. In this article these positions are used as a starting point to investigate the complexities of the relationships between heterosexuality, homosexuality and the public and private spheres. Much of the discussion takes as its basis the media coverage of New Zealand's lesbian and gay pride parades. Recent heterosexist discourse in New Zealand implies that gay men and lesbians are leaving the private sphere and are forcing a politicisation of both the public sphere and the metaphorical space of the private, heterosexual mind. A discursive inversion occurs whereby the homosexual subject becomes powerful and tyrannous, and the heterosexual is coerced and oppressed. Crucial to such discourse is a mobilisation of the conservative tendencies of liberalism, and an attendant denial of the privileged position granted to heterosexuality .     

The right to be heard: Citizenship and language

In this paper we address the importance and contestation of language in terms of citizenship and the development of political communities by focusing on the example of a minority language – British Sign Language. Language is crucial to debates about citizenship and belonging because the State has to rely on language for its very functioning, indeed political practice itself is a form of communicative action. For individuals language is deeply implicated in their ability to claim and maintain their rights and in their affective connections with others and sense of identification. The paper therefore begins by identifying that Deaf people's legal entitlements (e.g. to vote) are an abstract form of citizenship because as sign language users they have difficulties understanding both political and wider civil institutions and practices, and so lack the cultural proficiencies necessary to exercise citizenship in a substantive sense. We then go onto consider citizenship in the broader sense of how groups are included or situated in the public sphere, and in doing so to consider the extent to which Deaf people might be understood to have a liveable place in an oral society. The final section examines how the sense of injustice which flows from Deaf people's experiences of marginalisation in the public realm means that they are developing alternative forms of political commitment predicated on non-state spaces of belonging – where they can live their language – at both local and transnational scales. The paper concludes by reflecting on the notion of differentiated citizenship and the implications of Deaf people's claims to language rights.     

Athens: Citizenship and democracy

The Origins of Citizenship in Ancient Athens. By Philip Brook Manville (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), xiv + 265 pp., $17.95/£14.95 paper.

Fathers and Sons in Athens: Ideology and Society in the Era of the Peloponnesian War. By Barry S. Strauss (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), xv + 283 pp., $16.95/ £12.95 paper.     

1946年沈崇事件：南京政府的对策

沈崇事件发生后,在中共的发动和支持之下,迅速发展成为一场席卷全国的反美反政府的政治运动。表面上是学生和社会各界对美军暴行的抗议与对政府的责难,实质上则是一种国共之间的政治角力,一场严重的民心争夺战。国民政府为应对此事件,蒋介石亲定处理方略,调动了党政军警宪特各种政治资源,但由于种种原因,并未能获致其预想的结果,相反,一个看似偶然的突发性事件演变成了南京政府的一场严重政治灾难。     

The Gay Hussar: The Origins and Spread of Buserant in the Danube Region

This papers examines how the word Buserant ‘gay’ spread in the languages of the Danube region. Further, it hypothesises in what contact situations borrowing occurred. In this, it presents a case study illustrating lexical borrowing in the proposed Danubian Sprachbund. According to the study’s findings Italian road workers introduced Buserant in Viennese German from where it spread through army service and/or travellers in taverns of Austria Hungary. The borrowing appears to be restricted to the languages of Austria-Hungary and excludes Yiddish, which can be explained by the relative isolation of Yiddish-speaking communities by the mid-nineteenth century.