Does compulsory voting violate a right not to vote?

It is sometimes claimed that compulsory voting violates a particular right not to vote. For some, this assumed right is as fundamental as the right to vote. The existence of such a right, however, has attracted little sustained scholarly attention. This article explores from a political theory perspective whether the alleged ‘right not to vote’ is deserving the same legal and moral protection as the right to vote. I argue on two broad grounds that it is not. First, not all rights are capable of being legally waived and voting is one of them. Second, voting is a right but it is also a duty; it is a duty-right. Therefore, even though many people do fail to vote, doing so does not seem to constitute the exercise of any particular right, nor should it be legally recognised as such.

有人认为强制性投票侵犯了不投票的权利。对于很多人来说,不投票的权利跟投票的权利同等重要。不过这种权利却未得到学术界的持续关注。本文从政治学的角度探讨了所谓的“不投票权”是否应像投票权一样享有法律上和道德上的保护。笔者基于更宽泛的理由认为不应当。首先,并非所有权利都是可以在法律上免除的,投票权即是。其次,投票是权利,也是义务;是权利—义务。所以,尽管许多人没有投票,但这并不构成某种权利,法律上也不应被视作权利。     

Characterization of bricks and tiles from the 17th-century brick Chapel,St. Mary's City,Maryland

The brick Chapel at St. Mary's City, Maryland, built around 1667, would have been an impressive structure on a colonial frontier where all the other buildings were built only of wood. While the building is no longer extant, the bricks remaining in the buried foundations hold information about the technologies and materials used by brickmakers in the 17th-century Chesapeake region. Instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) and petrographic analysis of thin sections were used to compare the Chapel bricks and other 17th-century bricks and tiles from several Chesapeake contexts to locally available clay sources. While the composition of the Chapel bricks is generally consistent with that of clays available in southern Maryland, these historic materials could not be linked to any one deposit, and may reflect the mixing of clays from multiple sources. In contrast, building materials from other 17th-century buildings at St. Mary's City could be more precisely “matched” to specific local clay deposits. This paper reports on our initial investigations toward understanding the technology of the Chapel bricks and their relationship to other bricks from St. Mary's City.     

Book reviews

Joseph Camilleri, Chinese Foreign Policy: The Maoist Era and its Aftermath. Martin Robertson and Company, Oxford, 1980, pp.xiv + 311. £25.00.

Gerald Segal (ed.), The China Factor: Peking and the Superpowers. Croom Helm, London, 1982, pp.210 £12.95.

Josef Fullenbach und Eberhard Schulz (eds.), Entspannung am Ende? Chancen und Risiken einer Politik des Modus vivendi (An End to Detente: Risks and Opportunities of a Policy of Modus Vivendi). R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich, 1980, pp.381. No price given.

J.J. Fox, R.G. Garnaut, P.T. McCawley, J.A.C. Mackie (eds.), Indonesia: Australian Perspectives, Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University, Canberra 1980, pp. x + 772. $24.00.

Shirley W.Y. Kuo, Gustav Ranis and John C.H. Fei, The Taiwan Success Story: Rapid Growth with Improved Distribution in the Republic of China. 1952–1979. Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, 1981, pp. xviii + 160. No price given.

William H. Newell (ed.), Japan in Asia 1942–1945. Singapore University Press, Singapore, 1981, pp. vii +123. $S12.00.

Elizabeth E. Graves, The Minangkabau Response to Dutch Colonial Rule in the Nineteenth Century. Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, Cornell University, 1981, pp. ix+ 147.$7.50.

Talukder Maniruzzaman, The Bangladesh Revolution and its Aftermath. Bangladesh Books International Limited, Dacca, 1980, pp. xvi + 259. $US10.00.

U Maung Maung, From Sangha to Laity: Nationalist Movements of Burma 1920–1940. Australian National University Monographs on South Asia No. 4, South Asian History Section, Australian National University, Canberra, 1980, pp. xvi + 311. $7.50.

Roger C. Thompson, Australian Imperialism in the Pacific: The Expansionist Era 1820–1920. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1980, pp. 289. $25.00.

John Robertson, Australia At War 1939–1945. Heinemann, Melbourne, 1981, pp. 269. $27.50.

Adam Bromke, Harold von Riekhoff, Jacques Levesque and J.F. Fedorowicz, Canada's Response to the Polish Crisis. Canadian Institute of International Affairs, Toronto, 1982, pp. 45. $CAN2.00.

Edward C. Thaden (ed.), Russification in the Baltic Provinces and Finland, 1855–1914. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1981, pp. xiii + 497. $US52.50 (cloth), $US23.00 (paper).

Philip Towle (ed.), Estimating Foreign Military Power. Croom Helm, London, 1982, pp. 276. $13.95.

Ted Robert Gurr (ed.), Handbook of Political Conflict: Theory and Research. The Free Press, New York, 1980, pp. ix + 566. $52.95.

G.W. Jones and H.V. Richter (eds.), Population Mobility and Development: Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Australian National University, Development Studies Centre, Monograph No. 27, 1981, pp. xx + 474. $9.00.

John D. Conroy, Essays on the Development Experience in Papua New Guinea, IASER Monograph 17, Port Moresby, 1982, pp. xi + 147. K6.50.

Jan Jelmert Jorgensen, Uganda. A Modern History. Croom Helm, London, 1981, pp.345. £13.195.

Christian P. Potholm and Richard A. Fredland (eds.), Integration and Disintegration in East Africa. University Press of America, Lanham, Maryland, 1980, pp. x + 219. No price given.

Olga A. Narkiewicz, Marxism and the Reality of Power 1919–1980. Croom Helm, London, 1981, pp. 337. £14.95.

P.T. Bauer, The Third World and Economic Delusion, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 1981, pp. x + 293. £15.00.

Andrew P. Rasiulis, On the Utility of War in the Nuclear Age. Canadian Institute of International Affairs, Toronto, 1981, pp. 95. $CAN4.75.

Edward Dommen (ed.), Islands. Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1981, pp. 135. No price given.

Wilfred Burchett, The China Cambodia Vietnam Triangle. Zed Press, London, and Vanguard Books, Chicago, 1981, pp. 235. $9.95.

Andrei Amalrik, Will the Soviet Union Survive until 1984? Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1980 (revised from 1970 edition), pp. 224. $5.50.     

Whose Ethics? Which Cultural Contract? Imagining Arrernte Traditions Today

The paper uses an account of ‘tradition’ by the philosopher, Alisdair MacIntyre, to argue for the view that local Aboriginal culture that has been through extensive change is nonetheless still specifying for the Aboriginal people involved. Therefore these local traditions must be taken into account in discussions about ‘contracts’ or ‘policies’ concerning Aboriginal people today. An example is drawn from the Lutheran tradition of Western Arrernte people in Central Australia.