The ‘Wicked Machinery of Government':1 Malta and the Problems of Continuity under the New Model Administration

This is a study focused on the early years of British rule in Malta (1800–13). It explores the application to the island of the ‘new model’ of colonial government, one based on direct rule from London mediated by the continuation of existing laws and institutions. Systemic deficiencies are identified. These tended to undermine the effectiveness of direct British rule. This study also reveals, in the context of legal and constitutional continuity, unresolved tensions between modernity and tradition. The political stability of the island was damaged and the possibility of continued British possession was threatened.     

Ichnofacies of the Stairway Sandstone fish-fossil beds (Middle Ordovician,Northern Territory,Australia)

The Stairway Sandstone is a 30–560 m thick succession of Middle Ordovician siliciclastic sedimentary rocks within the Amadeus Basin of central Australia, deposited in the epeiric Larapintine Sea of northern peri-Gondwana. The Stairway Sandstone is significant as one of only two known Gondwanan successions to yield articulated arandaspid (pteraspidomorph agnathan) fish. Herein we use the ichnology of the Stairway Sandstone to reveal insights into the shallow marine habitat of these early vertebrates, and compare it with that of other known pteraspidomorph-bearing localities from across Gondwana. The Stairway Sandstone contains a diverse Ordovician ichnofauna including 22 ichnotaxa of Arenicolites, Arthrophycus, Asterosoma, Cruziana, Didymaulichnus, Diplichnites, Diplocraterion, ?Gordia, Lockeia, Monocraterion, Monomorphichnus, Phycodes, Planolites, Rusophycus, Skolithos and Uchirites. These ichnofauna provide a well-preserved example of a typical Ordovician epeiric sea assemblage, recording the diverse ethologies of tracemakers in a very shallow marine environment of flashy sediment accumulation and regularly shifting sandy substrates. New conodont data refine the age of the Stairway Sandstone to the early Darriwilian, with ichnostratigraphic implications for the Cruziana rugosa group and Arthrophycus alleghaniensis.     

The legacy of Atatürk: the limits of conditionality in Turkish European Union membership negotiations

There exists a significant and sustained difference between the ability of the European Union to successfully socialise those member states who have joined since the fall of Communism, and its apparent inability to similarly socialise Turkey. Despite some impressive legal and constitutional reforms since 2001, a key shortcoming remains, the unwillingness of many in the Turkish judiciary to implement those revised standards in a consistent way. Existing explanatory accounts of this inability would focus on the credibility of the Union offer of membership, the duration of negotiations or the importance of Turkish domestic standards. None of these, however, are able to account for why Turkey seems to occupy a half way position, exhibiting reformed laws but unreformed legal practice. To address this shortcoming this article shall combine existing scholarship on the importance of domestic normative contestation within Turkey with an appraisal of the shortcomings of the Union's conditionality policy itself that emerge from the conceptual studies of conditionality.     

A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words: Building American National Identity Through Art

ABSTRACT

Even though agonistic democratic theory espouses and celebrates competition, it seemingly lacks a coherent ethic for decent winning and losing in everyday political life. This article is an effort to fill this void by suggesting a practice-based, non-perfectionist ethic drawn from sport. Focusing on Xenophon's On Hunting, we argue that sport, properly defined, offers an appropriate experience with ponos (toil, suffering) that teaches citizens perseverance, humility, generosity, empathy, and stewardship. This sporting ethic, we argue, provides a more suitable model for winning and losing in public life than the martial basis of agonistic democratic theory.     

Antiquity at the National Memorial Arboretum

The paper explores the use of ancient and historic material cultures and architectures within the recent resurgence in public commemoration in the UK. Using the case study of the National Memorial Arboretum (Staffordshire), the study focuses on how ancient designs (including prehistoric, classical and medieval styles and forms) interleave with the arboreal, geological and celestial themes of the memorial gardens. Together these designs serve to create a multitude of temporal poises by which auras of commemorative perpetuity and regeneration are projected and sustained. The paper proposes that archaeologists can bring their expertise to bear on the investigation of the complex, varied allusions to the past within contemporary landscapes of memory.     

Managing global heritage in the face of future climate change: the importance of understanding geological and geomorphological processes and hazards

It is now widely acknowledged that human adaptation of the planet is causing significant changes to the global climate, which are being felt currently and are likely to increase in the future. This is beginning to place exceptional strains on the historic environment, here defined as both above and below ground archaeological remains. Using examples from the cultural list of World Heritage Sites in mainland Britain, this paper explores how knowledge of past and contemporary geological and geomorphological processes can provide an understanding of natural hazards and risk assessment. This, in turn, can inform management strategies to allow the protection and stabilisation of sites, limit further degradation and ensure long-term sustainability. From the analysis of published documentation available from UNESCO, it appears that natural processes have not always received the attention they deserve, and in some cases appear to have been ignored. Given the complexity of future climate change and the role that natural processes will play in determining the vulnerability of individual heritage assets, it is essential that geoscientists, archaeologists and cultural heritage managers work together to develop appropriate strategies to mitigate the effects of change in the future, especially since many of the themes developed in this paper have generic applicability across a range of landscape environments.