Reviews

Australian

Scott Bennett, Aborigines and Political Power. Sydney, Allen and Unwin, 1989, pp.167. $ 17.95 (paper)

Jim Downing, Country of My Spirit. Darwin, North Australian Research Unit, Australia National University, 1988, pp.181. $ 12.50 (paper)

Hugh V. Emy and Owen E. Hughes, Australian Politics: Realities in Conflict, Melbourne, Macmil‐lan, 1988, pp. 554. $29.95 (paper)

Paul Finn, Law and Government in Colonial Australia, Oxford University Press, 1987, pp. 216. $40.00 (cloth)

Ross Fitzgerald and Harold Thornton, Labor in Queensland From the 1880s to 1988. St Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 1989, pp.422. $34.95 (paper)

Brian Galligan (ed.), Australian Federalism, Melbourne, Longman Cheshire, 1989 pp. 228. $15.95 (paper)

Brian Galligan (ed.) Comparative State Policies, Melbourne, Longman Cheshire, 1988, pp.303. $21.25 (paper)

Helen Gardner (ed.). The Politics of Health. Melbourne, Churchill Livingston, 1989, pp. 492. $29.50 (paper)

Brian W. Head and Allan Patience (eds), From Fraser to Hawke: Australian Public Policy in the 1980s, Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, pp.525. $19.95 (paper)

Dean Jaensch (ed.), The Flinders History of South Australia — Political History, Adelaide, Wakefield Press, 1986, pp.533. $40.00 (paper)

Dean Jaensch, Power Politics: Australia's Party System, 2nd edn, Sydney, Allen & Unwin Australia, 1989, pp.226. $18.95 (paper)

Jonathan Kelley and Clive Bean (eds), Australian Attitudes: Social and Political Analyses from the National Social Science Survey, Sydney, Allen and Unwin, 1988, pp.206. $ 15.95 (paper)

D.A. Kemp, Foundations for Australian Political Analysis: Politics and Authority, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1988, pp.488. $29.95 (paper)

Clem Lloyd: Either Drought or Plenty: Water Development and Management in New South Wales, Sydney, Kangaroo Press, 1988, pp.311. $37.50 (cloth)

Ian McAllister and John Warhurst (eds), Australia Votes: The 1987 Federal Election, Melbourne, Longman Cheshire, 1988, pp.284. $19.95 (paper)

G.S. Reid and Martyn Forrest, Australia's Commonwealth Parliament 1901–1988: Ten Perspectives, Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 1989, pp.572. $29.95 (cloth)

Comparative and international

Mike Bowker and Phil Williams, Superpower De‐tented Reappraisal, London, Sage, 1988, pp. 277. £10.95 (paper)

Charles Chatfield and Peter van den Dungden (eds), Peace Movements and Political Cultures, Knoxville, University of Tennessee Press, 1988, pp.317. US$39.95 (cloth)

Ronald W. Clark, Lenin. The Man Behind the Mask. London, Faber & Faber, 1988, pp.564. £17.95 (cloth)

David Lane (ed.), Elites and Political Power in the USSR, Aldershot, Edward Elgar, 1988, pp.299. £28.50 (cloth).

Alistair Cole and Peter Campbell, French Electoral Systems and Elections since 1789, 3rd edn, Alder‐shot, Gower, 1989, pp.202. £25.00 (cloth)

Conlan, Timothy, New Federalism: Intergovernmental Reform from Nixon to Reagan, Washington, D.C., Brookings, 1988. pp.247. US$15.95 (paper)

Russell J. Dalton, Citizen Politics in Western Democracies. Chatham, N.J., Chatham House, pp. 270. US$14.95 (paper)

E. Etzioni‐Halevy, National Broadcasting Under Seige: A comparative Study of Australia, Britain, Israel and West Germany, Hampshire, Macmillan. 1987, pp. 212. $82.95 (cloth)

Roger Hilsman, The Politics of Policy Making in Defense and Foreign Affairs: Conceptual Models and Bureaucratic Politics, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice‐Hall, 1987, pp.326. $42.50 (paper)

Scott Newton and Dilwyn Porter, Modernization Frustrated: The Politics of Industrial Decline in Britain since 1900, London, Unwin Hyman, 1988. pp. 224. $7.95 (paper)

J. Mathews, Tools of Change: New Technology and the Democratisation of Work, Sydney, Pluto Press, 1989. pp.234. $14.95 (paper)

Angelo Panebianco, Political Parties: Organization and Power, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp.318. $39.50 (paper)

Robert Springborg, Mubarak's Egypt: Fragmentation of the Political Order, Boulder & London, Westview Press, 1989, pp.307. $39.95 (cloth)

Edward A. Tiryakian and Ronald Rogowski (eds), New Nationalism of the Developed West, Boston, Allen and Unwin, 1985, pp.394. $69.00 (cloth)

Political theory and methodology

J. Budziszewski, The Nearest Coast of Darkness: A Vindication of the Politics of Virtues. Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1988, pp.201. US$24.95 (cloth)

Peter Grabosky and Paul Wilson: Journalism and Justice: How Crime is Reported Sydney, Pluto Press, 1989, pp.l49.$14.95(paper)

George Grant, English‐Speaking Justice. Notre Dame, Notre Dame University Press, 1985 (1974), pp.104. US$8.95 (paper)

J. Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. One, Reason and the Rationalization of Society, trans, by T. McCarthy, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1987, pp.465. $45.40 (paper)

J. Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. Two, The Critique of Functionalist Reason, trans, by T. McCarthy, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1987, pp.447. $69.95 (cloth)

J. Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, trans, by F. Lawrence, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1987, pp.430. $65.00 (cloth).

Les Johnston, Marxism, Class Analysis and Socialist Pluralism, London, Allen & Unwin, 1986, pp. 155. $19.95 (paper)

Bernard Daucnhaucr, The Politics of Hope, London, Routledge, 1986, pp.200. $76.95 (cloth)

Bill Jordan, The Common Good: Citizenship, Morality and Self‐interest, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1989, pp. 190. $29.95 (paper)

Ciaran O'Maolain, The Radical Right: A World Directory, Harlow, Longman, 1987, pp.500. £45.00 (cloth)     

Comment

Abstract

This article examines the attempt to modernize the Italian system of education which is being made by the present government. This policy should be seen in the framework of the general attempt to meet the requirements imposed by the European Union on its members (the Maastricht treaty), and more generally to meet the European need for homogeneity among systems of education, matching the Europe‐wide labour market already in place. In the past, the Italian system of education missed a number of opportunities to keep up with the changing experiments in other European countries (especially at post‐secondary and university levels); therefore the amount of change required is now substantial. The measures taken by the Minister of Education (who is also Minister of Universities and Scientific Research) attempt to decentralize the decision‐making process, give more autonomy to individual institutes, and leave the central public administration (the ministries) the roles of coordination and evaluation. This model has been followed by the majority of European countries. Its impact on the not so dynamic Italian system of education will produce interesting debates and confrontations.     

Does the Internet Encourage Small Parties? A Case Study of the Minutiae of BC Politics, 1996–2009

Researchers remain divided on what Small describes as ‘a key debate in the cyber-campaigning literature’ – whether or not the emergence of the Internet enhanced the prospects of small parties on the periphery of mainstream politics that speak for those whose voices might otherwise go unheard. Often researchers have approached this question by seeking to establish if small parties are indeed able to maintain an on-line presence that matches that of larger, better resourced parties. The ultimate test of this ‘equalisation thesis’, however, is whether the Internet ushered in a period in which small parties could flourish. With its propensity to produce small parties and its rapid take-up of Internet technology from the mid-1990s onward, the Canadian province of British Columbia (BC) is an ideal case study. The number of small BC parties increased in the decade beginning 1995, but a close scrutiny of the minutiae of BC politics in this period finds no evidence to support a claim that the Internet favoured small parties and enlarged the opportunity for marginalised citizens to participate in politics. ‘Cyber-optimists’ will have to look to unconventional forms of political activity for evidence that the Internet can draw new constituencies into politics.     

A Sod Lime Kiln on Cefn Bryn,Gower, West Glamorgan

Abstract

The surviving half of a winged glass furnace was excavated at Savenel, south of Louvain (Belgium). Coins, glass and pottery suggested operation early in the 17th century, and archives confirm the presence in the locality of the Colnets, a family of glass makers at that time. The furnace is paralleled by excavated examples in England.