Indigenous Participation in Constitutional Development

In 1950 the first four Solomon Islanders were nominated for the Advisory Council. Further constitutional reforms were made between 1960 and 1978, slowly preparing the Protectorate for a transfer of power through a unitary state operating under the Westminster system. British policy was guided by previous colonial experiences in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, and to a limited extent by local circumstances, particularly through constitutional review committees. This paper addresses three central questions. Did Solomon Islanders make their own decisions when establishing the structure of their constitution and parliament, or were these decisions made for them by British and other advisers? What attempts were made to include Indigenous political structures in the governing process? To what extent did events elsewhere influence Solomon Islands political development?     

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.     

‘The gentle art of re-perceiving’: post-ceasefire identity in the poetry of Alan Gillis

This article discusses post-ceasefire identity in Northern Ireland, as examined in the poetry of Alan Gillis. Emphasising the novelty of Gillis's work (and connecting this with his status as one of the first generation ‘peace poets’), the article argues for awareness of complexity and uncertainty within the poems, suggesting formation of the ‘new’ as, in poetry as in society, a difficult, ambiguous task productive of an aesthetics of transition. Focusing particularly on the ten year gap between the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 and the implementation of devolved government in 2007 (and with reference to political writings from this period), it examines the relationship between poetic and political agency, aligning Gillis's approach to form, language and syntax with a dualistic sense of opportunity and disempowerment. Also examined are themes of consumerism and the globalising of identity attendant on economic/political ‘normalisation’, with reference to theoretical approaches by Walter Benjamin and Cairns Craig.     

Deconstructing Context: Exposing Derrida

Deconstruction has become a theme in various strands of geographical research. It has not, however, been the subject of much explicit commentary. This paper elaborates on some basic themes concerning the relationship between deconstruction and conceptualizations of context, with particular reference to issues of textual interpretation. The double displacement of textuality characteristic of deconstruction is discussed, followed by a consideration of the themes of 'writing' and 'iterability' as distinctive figures for an alternative spatialization of concepts of context. It is argued that deconstruction informs a questioning of the normative assumptions underwriting the value and empirical identity of context.