‘No distinction exists as to religion,profession, or sex’: Imperial Reform and the Electoral Culture of the East India Company's Court of Proprietors, 1760–84

As contemporaries frequently pointed out, and often in disparaging terms, the governing institutions of the British East India Company contained an almost unprecedented ‘democratical’ element. By this, they were referring to the Company's General Court of Proprietors, its sovereign deliberative body, composed of all East India stockholders. Ownership of certain proportions of stock conferred the rights to participate in debate, to vote on policy, and to elect on an annual basis the directors who governed the day-to-day affairs of the Company. These electoral rights were granted solely by virtue of stock-ownership and made no distinctions based on sex, social status, nationality or religion. This article examines the ways in which women, non-Britons and religious minorities, in particular, took advantage of the opportunities for political participation opened up by the politicisation of the East India Company's general court in the 1760s, as well as the ways in which this was discussed and debated by contemporaries both in parliament and the press. Tracing the political activities of Mary Barwell, William Bolts and Joseph Salvador provides a unique window into a variety of ways in which the Company offered an alternative venue for political activity for groups often otherwise excluded from the formal politics at Westminster. In doing so, it also shows how the democratic elements of the Company's general court played a significant role in shaping the reform of the East India Company between 1767 and 1784, a process which ultimately led to their curtailment.     

National narratives and the Oslo peace process: How peacebuilding paradigms address conflicts over history

National narratives are an essential part of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Little is said, however, on how the Oslo Peace Process sought to address these narratives. Conventional wisdom argues that the peace process initiated in the 1990s largely ignored the matter. This article challenges this view, arguing instead that the peace process was and continues to be actively engaged in solving the narrative wars that divide Israelis and Palestinians. To shed light on these solutions, this article looks beyond the agreements of the Oslo Peace Process and focuses on the peacebuilding paradigms that informed it, more specifically, the national partition and the liberal peace paradigms. These prescribe two solutions to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict over history: narrative partition and evasion. In their implementation, the article concludes, these solutions imposed greater identity costs on the Palestinian narrative than on the Israeli one.     

Mission Impossible: UN Special Representative Gunnar Jarring and His Quest for Peace in the Middle East

On 23 November 1967, Gunnar Jarring, a Swedish diplomat, was appointed the United Nations Special Representative to the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Security Council had decided to launch a peace effort in the Middle East following the Six-Day War in June 1967. Israel had won a sweeping victory, and the Arab states had suffered a devastating loss. After the war, Israel controlled a territory almost three and a half times the size of the country itself. But what should be done with these newly conquered territories? Should Israel be allowed to keep them? Over the course of some three and a quarter years, Jarring shuttled between the representatives from the three countries involved in the peace endeavour: Israel, Egypt, and Jordan. (Syria refused to participate.) Despite his arduous efforts, he failed miserably to produce viable progress in the Arab-Israeli conflict.     

What’s so good about parliamentary hybrids? Comment on ‘Australian bicameralism as semi-parliamentarianism: patterns of majority formation in 29 democracies’

Commenting on ‘Australian Bicameralism as Semi-Parliamentarianism’, this paper reconstructs the underlying justification of the issue-by-issue median as a rule of collective choice, a rule central to the theory of complex majoritarianism. In semi-parliamentary systems, this rule is institutionalised in parliamentary chambers that make law and policy by issue specific majorities. The comment questions whether it is necessary to balance the vision of complex majoritarianism with the principle of simple majoritarianism, arguing that the values of identifiability, clarity of responsibility and stability are instrumental rather than intrinsic values. It notes further problems with semi-parliamentarianism as a two-chamber system.     

Value Diversity and Support for Political Authorities in Canada

Canada is a diverse society with several historic divides, which makes democratic governance challenging. There are reasons to suppose that governing in Canada may be becoming even more complex, and this could have important implications for political support. It is also conceivable that the Canadian case may reflect some of the same challenges that could affect many other post-industrial democracies. Several structural and lifestyle changes have been altering the socio-cultural mix of Canadian society, possibly contributing to the expansion of various new value divides. Because values play a prominent role in shaping people's policy demands and political preferences, it is plausible that such a transformation could elevate the degree of intra-societal stress on Canada's political system and make governing more complex. In this essay, we have two main objectives. The first is to employ data from the Canadian World Values Surveys to explore the possibility that value diversity across various new value divides may be on the rise. The second is to test whether the degree of value diversity between different social groups poses negative implications for political support – specifically, support for people in government.     

Sport tourism and peace: crossing the contested wall

Abstract

Peace through tourism focuses on the place of tourism in promoting peaceful relations in positive multidimensional terms. Sport events are associated to tourism in that such events provide tourists with the opportunity to engage in friendly competition and social proximity brings local sport people, teams and communities in contact with societies from around the world. The main study aim is to examine and analyze how, why, under what circumstances, and to what extent a cross border sport tourism event can contribute to the promotion of a message of peace between Israelis and Palestinians in the Holy Land. The case study examines the Bethlehem to Jerusalem Peace Run in which participants were Catholic Italian pilgrims, Israelis and Palestinians. The qualitative methodology includes several forms of mixed data collection: participant observation; content analysis of media documents, and in depth interviews based on a grounded theory approach. The in-depth interview questions to the organizers focused on understanding the challenges and implications of organizing the event, and the extent to which it was important and successful, in their estimation. Participants were asked about their feelings during the event and their estimation of its importance and success. In light of the study findings, a typological model was constructed of tourism-sport-peace relations against a background of conflicts and confrontations. The model illustrates that the elements are interrelated and encourage peace-promotion aspects in three dimensions: at the decision-making and governmental level in the organizational dimension; at the level of people’s feelings in the field in the social dimension; and in the positive media image that emerges in the media dimension, promoting positive coverage and a positive image. These insights and the proposed model should be considered for implementation in other areas of the world suffering from closed and hostile borders.     

‘Therefore They Shouldn’t Exist’: The Carter Administration,the ‘Israel Lobby’ and the Sinai Settlements

Abstract

The Israeli settlements in Sinai could have been a fatal obstacle to Egyptian–Israeli peace, but the Jimmy Carter administration overcame it. The established narrative of how Israel ceded the Sinai settlements focuses on the Camp David summit. However, the real battle over the fate of the settlements was fought previously. In February–April 1978, the Carter administration attempted to turn pro-Israeli supporters in the United States against the Israeli position, according to which the Sinai settlements should remain in place. The Menachem Begin government mobilized to counter that push but lost the battle. Contrary to his image as an awkward political operator, Carter won over supporters of Israel effectively. The case raises questions regarding the oft-mentioned role of the ‘Israel lobby’ in preventing peace.     

Powerful State,Powerless Mediator: The United States and the Peace Efforts of the Palestine Conciliation Commission, 1949–51

The Arab–Israeli War of 1948 produced complex questions that needed to be solved to obtain peace. Whereas the Arab states suffered humiliating defeats, Israel was the undisputed winner, expanding and solidifying its power. For the Palestinians, the outcome was catastrophic. Between 600,000 and 760,000 Palestinians fled, becoming refugees on the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and in surrounding Arab states. Palestinian society collapsed and Palestine became divided between Israel, Egypt, and Jordan, leaving the borders undecided. The Palestinians’ dreams of statehood were crushed. After the war, Israel used diplomacy to achieve its goals, defending the post-war status quo to preserve its expanded territory and resisting the return of Palestinian refugees. Through its membership in the Palestine Conciliation Commission (PCC), established by the United Nations (UN) in 1948 to solve these problems, the United States was deeply involved in the negotiations. The United States became the informal, yet undisputed leader of the PCC, thus, it would seem, empowering it with the muscles of a superpower. After three years of struggling for peace the PCC had toadmit failure. Knowledge about these negotiations gives important insights into how mediators approached the conflict and shows that power asymmetry may explain why the belligerents could not obtain peace.     

中国特色社会主义民主政治建设的历史脉络和理论升华

中国特色社会主义民主政治建设经历了制度奠基与道路探索、重新开启与理论拓展、稳步推进与理论创新、历史新起点与理论新发展的历史过程。伴随着这一过程,中国社会主义民主政治建设理论也在不断完善和升华。回顾并梳理中国特色社会主义民主政治建设的历史脉络,系统阐释中国民主政治建设理论,总结其经验,对于继续推进中国特色社会主义民主政治建设进程,具有重要的现实意义。     

印度尼西亚民主化改革以来华人经济的新发展及其启示

后苏哈托时代印度尼西亚新政府逐步放宽了对于华人经济发展的种种限制,华人经济发展的环境进一步改善。传统的华人大型企业集团经历战略重组、结构调整、优化布局后逐渐恢复元气并拓展了业务,新兴华人企业集团开始崭露头角,华人中小企业也逐步发展壮大,尤为重要的是华人开始组建经济类社团组织,借以加强与中国的经济联系,加速扩大华人经济的商业网络。印尼华人经济呈现出新的发展趋势,不仅推动了印尼国民经济的繁荣,同时也为中国"引进来"和"走出去"战略的实施提供了新的机遇。