An Alternative Approach to Canadian House of Commons Reform

Empowering backbench Members of Parliament in order to restore the effectiveness of the House of Commons has been a central theme in Canadian parliamentary reform for at least fifty years, but results are widely seen as disappointing. This article argues that unrealistic expectations, fostered by adherence to a traditional conception of the Westminster model of representative and responsible government, are part of the problem. A modernized conception of parliamentary government, recognizing the House as a forum for competing political parties between elections, could help us to better understand the House and improve its contribution to democratic governance. The proposed approach suggests innovative procedural options for legislative debate, Question Period, and other activities. It also offers a consistent basis for addressing issues such as floor-crossing, coalitions, and prorogations. More broadly, it points to the need for an integrated approach to the House, elections, political parties, public education, and citizen engagement in order to respond to contemporary democratic challenges.     

Historicizing counterurbanization: In-migration and the reconstruction of rural space in Berkshire (UK), 1901–51

This article uses census data for Berkshire to argue that large-scale counterurbanization began much earlier than is generally recognized in some parts of southern England. This was not just movement down the urban hierarchy, which as Pooley and Turnbull have demonstrated was a long-term feature of England’s settlement system, but in some cases at least amenity-driven migration to rural areas of the kind increasingly recognized as a core component of recent counterurbanization. Despite a reduction of acreage Berkshire’s rural districts saw a 54% rise in population between 1901 and 1951. The sub-regional pattern of growth is assessed to gauge whether ‘clean break’ migration to the remote west of the county (which remained effectively out of commuting range from London throughout the period) was taking place, or whether counterurbanization was confined to the more accessible eastern districts. However, whilst population did increase in both west and east, it was in fact the central districts that grew most impressively. Three case study parishes are investigated in order to gauge the nature and consequences of counterurbanization at a local level. Professional and business migrants figure prominently, seeking to preserve and promote the rural attributes of their new communities, without however cutting their ties to urban centres. It is argued that migration to rural Berkshire in the first half of the twentieth century cannot adequately be described either as a form of extended suburbanization or an anti-metropolitan ‘clean break’. Rather, early counterurbanization marks the first stage on the long road to a post-productivist countryside, in which countryside becomes detached from agriculture, there is socio-economic convergence between town and country, and the ‘rural’ increasingly becomes defined by landscape and identity rather than economic function.     

Parliament and the People in Medieval England

This article traces the relationship between parliament and the ordinary people of medieval England, mainly peasants but including townsmen, between about 1270 and 1450. In charting the early history of representation prior to 1270, it outlines the transition from representation of the people by the country's magnates, to the socially broader system of representation through the election of shire knights and town burgesses. Two themes emerge: the growth of the electorate, from the probable presence of freeholders among the electors in the county court under Edward I, to the enfranchisement of the 40s. freeholders by the famous statute of 1430; and the changing nature of petitions to parliament, from the complaints of individuals to those presented by the Commons on behalf of the nation. In the history of both these themes, the Black Death and subsequent plagues marked a turning point. In drastically reducing the population, the plagues brought prosperity to many of the peasant survivors – men who sought a place among the electorate in the early 15th century. And in threatening the income of the gentry through higher labour costs, the plagues fundamentally changed the attitude of the Commons in parliament towards the people. Until about 1350, the Commons had spoken up for their interests, in the face of Edward III's oppressive wartime demands; but from that time onwards, the Commons set their collective face against the rising claims of a potentially more prosperous people. The article pays special attention to the position of the villeins, whose relationship with parliament differed considerably from that of the freeholders.     

SOVEREIGNTY AND SOFTWARE

This article will critically appraise two approaches to cultural policy. The first focuses upon the need for a national cultural policy in order to establish a national “common culture” among its citizens, through measures to promote the arts and popular media sectors, and set limits to the flow of imported materials into the nation. This is what has been termed the “sovereignty” model, and has historically been the driver of cultural policy debates. The second approach, which is called the “software” approach, aims to create cultural infrastructure and other environmental factors to promote a creative economy, whether at local, regional, national or supra‐national levels. It questions the historical divides between “culture” and “industry”, and between “creativity” and “innovation”, and is focused upon the development of future ideas and creative concepts. It draws upon the very different conditions associated with the development of software to those of established arts and media sectors, and aims to extend the “software” model more widely into cultural and creative industries policy.     

From the Editor

ABSTRACT

The “Orange Wave” in the 2011 federal election produced the largest and most diverse federal NDP caucus in Canadian history. This article uses interviews with members of this caucus to study their legislative experiences. It finds that a shared commitment to creating social democratic change generated an overarching similarity in the experiences of these MPs across sociodemographic groups. NDP MPs that were young, visible minorities, and from Quebec were not found to have significantly different legislative experiences when compared to the NDP MPs not from those groups. Female NDP MPs did report different legislative experiences compared to male NDP MPs, but these differences were limited and more present among younger female NDP MPs. The conclusion argues that ideology shapes legislative experiences, interviewing method affects the results of legislative experiences studies, the intersectionality of MPs’ identities could be important, and gathering large cross-party interview samples of Canadian MPs is a challenge.     

A PORTRAIT OF WALTER MORRISON (1836–1921) TREASURER OF THE PALESTINE EXPLORATION FUND FOR 54 YEARS,RADICAL REFORMER AND SECRET PHILANTHROPIST

Abstract

Walter Morrison (1836–1921) was the treasurer of the Palestine Exploration Fund for 54 years. He was also a major benefactor, funding expeditions, purchasing drawings for the collection, and giving the PEF their house in Hinde Street, Marylebone. This article draws on material from the Morrison archive to provide a fuller picture of Walter, millionaire, radical politician, generous philanthropist, scholar and landowner. His interest in the Bible Lands, Byzantine and the Near East was formed at Balliol where he was taught by the charismatic Benjamin Jowett; his passion for Yorkshire was formed after he inherited the estate of Malham in Yorkshire; his belief in co-operation, parliamentary reform, and religious toleration informed his contribution to the House of Commons and his choice of friends. His obituary in The Times summed him up perfectly, a “man of simple personal tastes [with] an acute sense of the responsibilities of wealth”.     

Territory and the governmentalisation of social reproduction: parliamentary enclosure and spatial rationalities in the transition from feudalism to capitalism

Recent applications of Foucauldian categories in geography, spatial history and the history of town planning have opened up interesting new perspectives, with respect to both the evolution of spatial knowledge and the genealogy of territorial techniques and their relation to larger socio-political projects, that would be enriched if combined with other discursive traditions. This article proposes to conceptualise English parliamentary enclosure–a favourite episode for Marxist historiography, frequently read in a strictly materialist fashion–as a precedent of a new form of sociospatial governmentality, a political technology that inaugurates a strategic manipulation of territory for social change on the threshold between feudal and capitalist spatial rationalities. I analyse the sociospatial dimensions of parliamentary enclosure’s technical and legal innovations and compare them to the forms of communal self-regulation of land use customs and everyday regionalisations that preceded it. Through a systematic, replicable mechanism of reterritorialisation, enclosure acts normalised spatial regulations, blurred regional differences in the social organisation of agriculture and erased the modes of autonomous social reproduction linked to common land. Their exercise of dispossession of material resources, social capital and community representations is interpreted therefore as an inaugural logic that would pervade the emergent spatial rationality later known as planning.     

花厅墓地的人类学考察

把花厅墓地随葬的陶器划分为大汶口式、良渚式、薛家岗式和大汶口-良渚式、大汶口-薛家岗式,把玉器划分为良渚式、花厅式和融合式。根据随葬品的文化属性推测该花厅居民有大汶口人、良渚人和薛家岗人,大汶口人接受了良渚人的玉文化,良渚人和薛家岗人接受了大汶口的重要丧葬习俗。随着良渚人进入花厅,花厅由原来的富人和平民两个阶层分裂为贵族、富人和平民三个阶层,并使花厅由简单社会向复杂社会变化。三个不同考古学文化的先民在花厅共生共存,创造了面貌较为复杂和多样的考古学文化。     

The Elizabethan House of Commons and St Stephen's Chapel Westminster

This essay explores the significance of the Elizabethan house of commons meeting in a converted royal chapel within the Palace of Westminster. In 1548 the dissolved collegiate chapel of St Stephen at Westminster was given over to the exclusive use of the Commons, providing MPs with a dedicated meeting space for the first time. Although a great deal has been written about Elizabethan parliaments, little attention has been paid to the physical spaces within which MPs gathered, debated and legislated. Drawing on parliamentary diaries and exchequer records and informed by digital reconstructions of the Commons chamber modelled by the St Stephen's Chapel project at the University of York, this essay argues for the enduring influence of the architecture and decoration of the medieval chapel on the procedure, culture, ritual, and self‐awareness of the Elizabethan house of commons. Famously likened to a theatre by the MP and writer on parliamentary procedure, John Hooker, the Commons chamber is analysed as a space in which parliamentary speeches were performed and disrupted. The sound of debate is contrasted with other kinds of noise including scoffing and laughter, disruptive coughing, and prayers led by the clerk and the Speaker of the Commons. The iconography of the chamber, including the royal arms above the Speaker's chair and the mace carried by the serjeant‐at‐arms, is interpreted as enabling a culture of counsel and debate as much as an assertion of monarchical power. Evidence is also presented for the Commons chamber as a site of political memory.