The executive lawmaking agenda: Political parties,prime ministers,and policy change in Australia

In Westminster systems, governments enjoy a privileged position in the lawmaking process that they can use to deliver on their campaign promises and achieve their policy goals. What policy areas do governments seek to affect through lawmaking? How stable is the executive lawmaking agenda? How responsive is that agenda to changes triggered by elections or by transitions in prime minister? This study uses a dataset of 3982 Australian bills introduced between 2000 and 2017 to answer these questions. While it finds considerable stability in the policy content of executive lawmaking agendas, the analysis also indicates that Australia's executive lawmaking agenda is more responsive to changes in prime minister than to changes in the party in power. As the first application of the comparative policy agendas approaches to government bills in Australia, this article offers new insights into executive lawmaking priorities during an especially turbulent period in Australian politics.     

Political Time in a Westminster Democracy: The Canadian Case

Stephen Skowronek’s idea of political time is tested by applying it to Canada. Skowronek identified a recurring cycle in US presidential politics, in which a coalition was forged around a distinctive set of ideas, dominated the political scene, and then crumbled, making way for a new coalition; a president’s ability to act as an agent of change depended on his place in this cycle. The concept of political time offers insights for the study of Westminster democracies, but Skowronek’s typology cannot be transplanted from the US to the Canadian context. A political orthodoxy cannot be easily identified in Canada, and prime ministers cannot be clearly labeled as affiliated with or opposed to the ideas of a given era. Some seem determined to play a corrective role, accepting much of the orthodoxy but reconstructing some elements of it. This problem of classification is amplified by the very short term of some prime ministers, by the very long term of others, and by a multiparty system, which has meant that Canadians often end up with prime ministers who are out of synch with the dominant ideas of their age. When applying Skowronek’s ideas to Canada, they emerge as overly structural and not sensitive enough to the possibility that leaders can fail to perform according to type.     

明代勋爵承袭与勋臣宗族活动初探

明代公、侯、伯勋爵承袭遵照一套完整的勘验制度,以诰券、宗图为准,由五府、吏部执行。在这种制度的整肃下,勋贵家族组织在形式上向上古封建宗法礼制靠拢,部分族众的宗族意识不断提高,明皇朝的统治秩序与政权合理性亦借此彰显。但随着明代中后期勋臣家族生齿日繁,兼之勋爵袭封制度出现纰漏与畸变,勋贵子弟争袭爵位的现象频繁发生,宗族的秩序性受到冲击,勋臣宗族组织僵化复古,依附于国家强权而缺乏自我调节功能的特性暴露无遗。     

论三国时期的"君臣之义"

在三国时期,君臣之义属于“大义”的范畴,这是人们所公认的。故当时无论是对为君之义还是对为臣之义,都有一整套规定性内容。但和其他封建伦理道德一样,君臣之义在三国时期,也在很多时候成为了军阀、权臣和野心家进行割据、篡位的手段,成为他们种种不义行为的遮羞布。     

Welcome home: reconciliation,Vietnam veterans,and Anzac during the Hawke government

Recent studies regarding reconciliation have argued that restorative justice creates depoliticised consensus. This paper tests this argument by exploring the Hawke government’s role in the reconciliation of the Australian public with Vietnam veterans in 1987, and the opportunities that this resolution created to mark Anzac Day free of the complicating tensions that had characterised the day in the period since the Vietnam War. It argues that the restorative justice evident in the reincorporation of Vietnam veterans into national narratives of Anzac provided opportunities for political elites like Hawke to convincingly employ Anzac as an ideograph and inscribe the day with new meaning. This process had profound continuing effects for the marking of Anzac Day that demonstrate the politically limiting effects of restorative justice.     

孟子孝论对孔子思想的发展与偏离——从"以正致谏"到"父子不责善"

在家庭伦理层面上,孔子孝论注重父子自然亲情,倡导子女人格平等,父义则从,父不义则谏;主张以义辅亲,"以正致谏"。孔子、曾子"以正致谏"的谏亲原则被孟子完全地移植到社会政治伦理中,泛伦理化的倾向有增无减。孟子"君臣相责以善"的"善"之内涵当为仁义,即以仁义这一最高价值理性衡评君臣之间关系。"君臣相责以善"施行的前提是将君臣关系重新论证为以德相交的"友",而非传统意义上的以势利相交,"返祖"化现象的背后是为其民本主义政治立场张目。但是,必须指出的是,孟子"父子不责善"思想已经有别于孔子、曾子与子思在家庭伦理语境中倡导的以义辅亲的伦理精神。     

George III and Parliament*

Circumstances were auspicious when George III came to the throne in 1760, but soon his political actions were much criticized and he was accused from early in his reign until well into the 20th century of weakening the independence of parliament and undermining the constitution. Some contemporaries did defend him and these views received powerful support from Sir Lewis Namier and his followers in the 20th century. Both interpretations have their flaws, however, because of the failure to recognize the profound changes in the context in which George acted over his long reign and the subtle changes that occurred in Britain's unwritten constitution over that half century. By examining how the king appointed and dismissed ministers, sought to influence the composition of both houses of parliament, and endeavoured to shape government policy, this article seeks to revise our understanding of the king's relations with parliament and the constitution and to relocate our overall assessment of him between those offered by his many critics and defenders both during his reign and long afterwards.     

The Rhetorical Premiership: A New Perspective on Prime Ministerial Power Since 1945

The long‐standing debate about the power of the British prime minister has focused excessively on formal instruments of control exercised within Whitehall. By contrast, not enough attention has been paid to the ways in which prime ministers use rhetoric, formally and informally, to maintain themselves in power and to achieve their policy aims. The term ‘rhetorical premiership’ is used here to denote the collection of methods by which prime ministers since 1945 have used public speech to augment their formal powers. Set‐piece oratory remained consistently important throughout the period, in spite of new technology and the rise of the sound‐bite. However, parliamentary rhetoric underwent some important changes, and prime ministers spoke outside the Commons with increased frequency. Historians of the premiership should draw instruction from those scholars who have studied the rhetoric of US presidents, although caution must be exercised when drawing comparisons. Future study of the rhetorical premiership should involve close textual analysis of prime ministerial speeches, but this should not be at the expense of archival sources, from which important insights into the speech‐making process can be gleaned.     

How is Australianness represented by prime ministers?: Prime ministerial and party rhetoric of race,class, and gender on Australia Day and Anzac Day, 1990–2017

ABSTRACT

Australia Day and Anzac Day, held on January 26 and April 25 annually, are key moments used by prime ministers to share, shape, and reproduce their understanding of what and whom is representative of a unique Australian identity and nationalism. This paper uses qualitative and quantitative methods with content analysis to evaluate and compare prime ministerial and party rhetoric in their Australia Day and Anzac Day speeches between 1990 and 2017 regarding class and economic relations, gender and sexuality, and race and national identity. We ask: How have prime ministers as reflexive actors used their speeches on Australia Day and Anzac Day to represent what it means to be Australian? The study reveals that despite prime ministers sometimes using intentionally inclusive discourses, they simultaneously reproduce a classless, hetero-masculine, and Anglocentric Australianness as a normative representation of national identity in Australian society.