Small but powerful: networking strategies and the trade business of Habsburg-Italian merchants in Cadiz in the second half of the eighteenth century

Abstract

Lombardian merchants played an important role in long-distance trade between the Italian and the Iberian Peninsulas since the Middle Ages, in contrast to widely held beliefs and historiographical neglect. The eighteenth century witnessed the intensification of this role. Instead of being worse off after Lombardy passed from Spanish sovereignty to being ruled from Vienna, the Lombardian mercantile community in Cadiz made use of the institutional framework offered by the imperial maritime policy of the Habsburgs, which compensated for a lack of their own commercial institutional framework. Making use of different social strategies, which combined kinship, cultural and transnational co-operation, Lombardian merchants skilfully connected Spanish America with Habsburg Central Europe through the Mediterranean, despite the fact that their degree of formal integration into the Spanish trading system was limited. This occurred in the episode of growth that followed the Bourbon reforms in Spain after the 1760s. Although their business networks reached a wide geographical area, Lombardian merchants also acted as intermediaries for the incorporation of the Triestinian traders into long-distance maritime trade networks, and therefore contributed to linking both ends of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.     

The Rhetorical Framing of Policy Intervention

When prime ministers speak, the nation usually listens. In the Australian federation, prime ministers have consistently used the power of their political pulpit to launch policy interventions into areas of traditional State responsibility. This article suggests that there is an emerging rhetorical pattern to the way these policy interventions are presented. Prime ministers of both major parties have used rhetoric to portray the Commonwealth as acting on behalf of the legitimate interests of constituents who have been ignored by State governments. Occurring in close proximity to federal elections, policy interventions are shown to be weapons which favour incumbent prime ministers in their battles with State governments and federal oppositions alike.     

Administrative learning or political blaming? Public servants,parliamentary committees and the drama of public accountability

In theory, within Westminster systems the buck stops with the minister. Ministers are responsible for the actions of their departments and accountable for policy outcomes. In practice, it is often senior public servants rather than their ministerial masters who face the fierce questions of parliamentary committees when things go wrong. This article uses dramaturgy theory and blame theory to assess whether the nature of the parliamentary committee setting encourages or inhibits opportunities for a ‘learning’ type of accountability. Through a comparative study of committee appearances by public servants in the UK and Australia, the article argues that the adversarial nature of committee hearings encourages ‘blame games’ that do little to guarantee better decision-making in the future.

从理论上讲,西敏制下的大臣再不能推脱责任。大臣需要对其部门的行动、对政策结果负责。但在实践中,出了问题,通常是高级官员而非各部大臣面对议会专门委员会的激烈质询。本文借用演剧理论及责备理论评估议会内委员会的设置是有利于还是不利于学习型的问责。通过比较英澳两国议会委员会的样态,作者认为委员会听证的对抗性质只是鼓励“责备”,并不利于未来的正确决策。     

Speech Cycle? ‘Election-Defining Rhetoric’ in Westminster Democracies

Leaders of government within Westminster democracies undertake a key rhetorical task on the day an election is called. Following a visit to the monarch or the vice-regal representative, leaders emerge to give their opening speech of the election campaign. These are moments of definition; moments when leaders rhetorically frame the battle to come. This paper argues that in Westminster democratic systems, these statements conform to a set pattern of rhetoric, which reflects the length of time the government has been in office. This pattern – or ‘speech cycle’– suggests that electoral rhetoric is not governed solely by the policy issues of the day, and that some restraints apply to governments in the rhetoric they can legitimately utilise at different points in their tenure.     

Sticky words? Towards a theory of rhetorical path dependency

Speech matters. Political actors are defined by what they say as much as by what they do but, with each rhetorical choice, they also narrow the range of rhetorical options open to them for the future. This paper examines the idea of path dependency, a well-established concept in the field of policy studies, and applies it to the study of political rhetoric. It argues that words are sticky, leaving political leaders caught between the desire to utilise fresh and engaging rhetoric to explain new policy choices and the reality that they cannot shake off the wording of their previous promises. In advancing a theory of rhetorical path dependency, the paper builds on the insights of both discursive institutionalism and rhetorical political analysis to suggest that whilst ideas are indeed vital to the shaping of institutions, the arguments that give those ideas shape can themselves be constrained by earlier choices.     

Rhetorically defining a social institution: how leaders have framed same-sex marriage

Questions about the definition, meaning and limits of marriage have become a topic of fierce political debate in advanced Western democracies over the past decade as political leaders have sought to grapple with the issue of same-sex marriage. The rhetorical choices of leaders as they have made the case for or against moving away from traditional definitions of marriage have been central to shaping the national debate within different jurisdictions. This article applies the theoretical lens of ‘discursive institutionalism’ (Schmidt) and the analytical purchase of ‘rhetorical political analysis’ (Finlayson) to compare the rhetoric of Prime Minister David Cameron in the UK, Prime Minister Tony Abbott in Australia, and President Obama in the USA. We argue that Cameron and Obama have, in different ways, each sought to discursively re-define the institution of marriage by drawing on elements already endogenous to the institution itself.