A Review of “Congressional Parties,Institutional Ambition,and the Financing of Majority Control”

Abstract

Presidential libraries hold a bounty of archival records, which is why National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) responses to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests constitute a vital data source. However, standard protocols impose an inferential dilemma: researchers get the released sample without much information about the broader population, making it impossible to appraise the former relative to the latter. Drawing on a large FOIA request (and successful appeal) from the George W. Bush Presidential Library, this study affords such a test. Results show NARA archivists typically withheld outwardly unimportant records—e.g., weekends, holidays, and other uneventful days—though “response set” may have occasionally affected their redact-or-withhold decisions. After demonstrating how even seemingly innocuous omissions can bias estimates of presidential behavior, the study concludes with practical advice for researchers submitting FOIA requests to presidential libraries.     

Articulating national identity in Turkmenistan: inventing tradition through myth,cult and language

A study of myth, cult, and language as tools of state power, this paper analyzes ways national identity was constructed and articulated in one state. When Türkmenistan became independent in 1991 its first president, Saparmyrat Nyýazow, promoted himself as the ‘savior’ of the nation by reconceptualising what it meant to be Türkmen. Myth, public texts and language policy were used to construct this identity. While they were the targets of the state's cultural products, Türkmen citizens contributed to the processes of cultural production. Nyýazow legitimised his authoritarian leadership, first by co‐opting Türkmen citizens to support his regime, and then by coercing them as participants in his personality cult. The paper concludes that Nyýazow used the production of culture, ‘invented tradition’ in Hobsbawm's sense, to bolster his agenda and further his own power. It also argues that the exaggerated cult of personality Nyýazow cultivated limited his achievements, rather than solidifying them.     

Hacking the master code: cyborg stories and the boundaries of autism

In this paper, we consider how the use of Internet technologies by individuals on the autism spectrum (AS) may contribute to recoding the spatial, sociopolitical, ontological, and epistemological boundaries commonly assumed to delimit autistic from non-autistic lifeworlds. Drawing on the work of Donna Haraway, we argue that the responses of AS individuals to a survey about online communication suggest these individuals are engaged in a form of cyborg writing, admixing constraints and opportunities in a way that opens alternative, polycentric, and indeterminate but nonetheless important political possibilities for people on (and off) the AS.     

Presbyterian Professor on the Prairies: President Walter Murray,the Co‐Education Debate and the Role of Personal Faith in Creating an Inclusive University Culture, 1907–1921

In 1907, the government of the recently formed Province of Saskatchewan set down legislation designed to guide the creation of a provincial university in this newly settled western region. Within this provincial act, female students were granted equal educational opportunities to their male peers, but equal opportunity does not necessarily translate into co‐education or wide‐scale acceptance within a university culture. Walter Murray, the university's first president, chose to interpret this clause of the 1907 University Act in its broadest terms, and what resulted was a university administration that did not discriminate against students, staff, or faculty on the basis of sex or marital status. This article will discuss Murray's commitment to co‐education and gender parity, and will examine how his personal background and religious convictions as a Maritime Presbyterian related to this progressivism.     

Why a resale royalty was rejected in Australia

In 2004 the Australian Opposition party introduced to Parliament a private member’s bill proposing the amendment of Australian copyright law to include an artist’s resale royalty. In response to the bill the Government released the Proposed Resale Royalty Arrangement Discussion Paper, which successfully provided a tangible foundation for discussions and stimulated the first strong academic debate regarding a resale royalty within Australia. Despite overwhelming support from respondents, in May 2006 the Government announced it would not support the adoption of a resale royalty right and the Resale Royalty Bill 2004 failed to pass through Parliament. The rejection of a resale royalty by the Australian Government illustrates the ongoing difficulty of incorporating civil law notions of creative rights, and moral rights in particular, into common law – particularly as the Australian Government’s approach to policy making is increasingly underpinned by economic rationalism.     

The Thaikkal-Kadakkarappally Boat: an Archaeological Example of Medieval Shipbuilding in the Western Indian Ocean

Recent excavations at Kadakkarappally in Kerala, south-west India, have unearthed the remains of an iron-fastened boat, believed to predate the earliest known records for the use of iron in South Asian boatbuilding. The design departs significantly from the traditional view of Indian watercraft, although the use of locally available timber and the suitability of the design for use in the backwaters that characterise the region suggest that it was built and used in India. This is the first excavation of its type to take place in Kerala and contradicts the belief, widely held in Kerala, that the survival of organic remains has been negated by the tropical climate of the region.
© 2004 The Nautical Archaeology Society