律令制确立前的采女与日本古代王权

采女是日本古代地方豪族献给中央朝廷的贡女,是在宫廷主要负责天皇、皇后等饮食起居的下级女官。律令制国家时期的采女制度亦是后宫女官制度不可或缺的一部分,有些采女甚至被升为贵族阶层。然而律令制确立之前的采女并非如此,她们是古代王权专制过程中的产物,是连接中央朝廷与地方豪族之间的桥梁,其出现与演变体现了王权与地方势力双方博弈的过程。对该时期采女的考察,有助于从一个侧面加深对古代王权专制统治的认识。     

从君宪到共和:袁世凯的一段心路历程

在辛亥传统叙事框架中,袁世凯重出江湖后一味搅局:先是利用武昌危机与清廷讨价还价攫取权利;继则用清军打压南方,威逼革命;终则利用南方革命党人逼退清帝,进而交换中华民国大总统宝座,"窃取"辛亥革命胜利成果。这个传统叙事框架在过去特殊年代自有其解读的合理性,但显然不是从史料发出,用事实论证,多少带有以袁世凯后来帝制自为倒推其重出江湖时的心情和作为,与历史事实具有相当差距。本文根据新旧史料最大限度还原袁世凯在武昌起义后的一段心路历程,重建袁世凯从君宪到共和的踌躇、无奈、顺势及转变的限度。本文认为,作为晚清重臣,袁世凯从维新到新政,再到仿行立宪,一路走来,基本上充当着晚清政治变革重要推手,他们那一代政治精英能够认同的也就是君主立宪,所以袁世凯重出江湖后的政治选择就是利用政治危机推动政治变革,实现君主立宪,只是当君主立宪被各方面抛弃后,袁世凯方才顺势而为,变成一个有限的共和主义者。     

The Duke's Parrot: The Earl of Leicester,the King's Children and the English Revolution

This article examines neglected evidence regarding the ongoing captivity of the children of Charles I, at the hands of the republican regime, long after the regicide in January 1649. While it is well known that the Long Parliament was anxious to attend to the education of the royal children, and to exert authority over their upbringing, and also that there were rumours during the 1640s about plans to install the youngest prince, the duke of Gloucester, on the throne in place of a deposed king, little attention has been paid to voluminous and intriguing evidence about their fate during the interregnum. The aim of this essay is to survey such sources, and to recover evidence of a political and parliamentary debate about the children's fate, not least in a situation where it was thought possible that they might provide a rallying point for royalists, and a security threat. That debates about their fate were protracted and convoluted is used to flesh out rather sketchy evidence – much commented upon by historians, but not taken very seriously – that there was an ongoing debate over a possible monarchical settlement until 1653.     

Governance Structures: Using IAD to Understand Variation in Service Delivery for Club Goods with Information Asymmetry

Club goods with information asymmetry are frequently provided through mixed economies of for‐profit, nonprofit, and public providers. Theory explaining mixed economies relies on sector to classify providers based on assumptions that sector‐level differences in how organizations either distribute or reinvest profit will affect behavior. However, this classification is overly broad and is not able to adequately capture the diversity of providers of these types of goods. The author utilizes the Institutional Analysis and Development framework to identify six “governance structures” in the for‐profit and nonprofit sectors. Governance structures are constitutional‐choice level rule variations in who has the power to make rules. I argue that there are two types of power that affect rules: (1) concentration of constitutional‐choice level decision‐making power (i.e., how many principals) and (2) proximity of monitoring and enforcement of those rules. The extent to which the constitutional rules actually guide service delivery outcomes depends on a nested rule environment. Only if there is consistency across three level of rules (constitutional, collective, and operational) can we connect sector to outcomes. The empirical reality of service delivery, particularly for club goods with information asymmetry, is far too complex for simplistic assumptions linking profit distribution or its reinvestment to outcomes. This article directs further research toward building contingent theory, with if/then conditions, based on empirical research.     

Les aleas de la reproduction sociale: ‘Le cas de la bourgeoisie d'sarles sous le second empire’

This article has two aims. The first is to outline Franco Venturi's ideas on absolutist monarchy and to highlight new analytical perspectives of his interest in the achievements of the reformist sovereigns. The second is to help shed light on his complex intellectual life. The article begins by underlining how Venturi's historical insights make it difficult to single out a unanimous understanding of absolutist monarchy, and then develops by reconstructing different notions of monarchy. These are: (1) monarchy as a dynamic impetus capable of renewing society in the ancien régime, (2) monarchy as a fundamental, albeit complex, collaboration between power and the intellectual, (3) monarchy as the ground in which libertarian ferment matured, (4) monarchy as a force that provoked revolts and rebellions. Focusing particularly on this last idea, the article suggests how Venturi's interest in the sovereigns’ actions grew in part from his sympathy for and appreciation of the rebellions to which their reformist policies gave rise. This particular perspective makes it possible to observe an ever-present streak of radicalism in Venturi's ideas.     

论戊戌维新派反专制、兴民权的政治思想

戊戌维新时期,维新派对封建专制主义进行了猛烈的抨击,并对封建专制主义的理论基础——“君权神授”和“君权至上”进行了批判,在此基础上提出了倡民权、建立君主立宪政体的主张。     

Special Days of Worship and National Religion in the Australian Colonies, 1790–c. 1914

Throughout the period between 1790 and 1914 the governments of the Australian colonies asked their populations to suspend work and amusements and join in collective acts of prayer. Australia’s special days of prayer have much historical significance and deserve more scholarly attention. They had an enduring popularity, and they were rare moments when a multi-faith and multi-ethnic community joined together to worship for a common cause. This article builds on recent work on state prayers in Britain by considering what the colonial tradition of special worship can tell us about community attachments in nineteenth-century Australia. ‘Fast days’ and ‘days of thanksgiving’ had both an imperial and a regional character. A small number of the Australian days were for imperial events (notably wars and royal occasions) that were observed on an empire-wide scale. The great majority, such as the numerous days of fasting and humiliation that were called during periods of drought, were for regional happenings and were appointed by colonial authorities. The article argues that the different types of prayer day map on to the various ways that contemporaries envisaged ‘Greater Britain’ and the ‘British world’. Prayer days for royal events helped the empire’s inhabitants to regard themselves as imperial Britons. Meanwhile, days appointed locally by colonial governments point to the strength of regional attachments. Colonists developed a sense that providence treated them differently from British communities elsewhere, and this sense of ‘national providence’ could underpin a sense of colonial difference—even a colonial nationalism. Days of prayer suggested that Greater Britain was a composite of separate communities and nationalities, but the regional feelings they encouraged could still sit comfortably with attachments to an imperial community defined by commonalities of race, religion and interest.