Milton's Case for a Free Commonwealth

This article will examine the development of John Milton's arguments for democracy as against monarchy and other sorts of autocratic rule. These arguments are interesting both in their own right and insofar as they shed light on historiographical debates concerning the classical republican tradition. Milton is shown to hold a negative conception of liberty, as opposed to a positive or participatory conception, which lends support to the neo-roman interpretation of that tradition, associated with Quentin Skinner and Philip Pettit. However, it is further shown that Sinner and Pettit misunderstand the classical republicans' case for democracy, attributing to them a conceptual argument in place of an empirical one. A better understanding of Milton's political theory contributes to a better understanding of this dilemma, and perhaps suggests a solution.     

Devolution in England—Is the Genie out of the Lamp?

This article explores the extent to which devolution within England can address the general malaise that is often described as ‘the English Question’. It considers how far the devolution genie might be considered out of the lamp. It takes as its basis three broad arguments for devolution—an economic case, a case concerning public service reform and a democratic argument for the decentralisation of power—and for each of these three it explores the theoretical underpinnings for the argument, how things are currently playing out in the current political context and what we might expect to see in the future. The article concludes with some suggestions as to how debates about the English Question might play out in the years ahead.     

Scottish Independence,State Religion and the Monarchy

The plans of the Scottish Executive/Government for the independence of Scotland, which are very sketchy, are explored in relation to desire to retain the monarchy. The Scottish Parliament has expressed support for the removal of religious discrimination from succession to the throne and instituted an alternative state religion—measures which suggest an alternative relationship between religion and the monarchy will be required in an independent Scotland. Repealing the Act of Union will require decisions as to whether the monarchy remains as Christian, Protestant and Presbyterian in Scotland or whether some alternative religious or secular arrangements will be developed. Accepting the existing religious settlement of the monarchy, or varying it, will generate challenging issues for a Scottish administration that is seeking to be more religiously inclusive.     

Teaching Party Systems: A Culinary Demonstration

Abstract

Duverger’s Law—the principle that first-past-the-post systems tend to promote two major political parties while proportional representation systems tend to promote multipartism—is a commonly taught topic in introductory and some upper-level political science courses across subfields. However, it also contains concepts that are difficult for undergraduate students to grasp, particularly those who are unfamiliar with other electoral systems. In partial response to these concerns, this article introduces a memorable in-class demonstration that utilizes food items to illustrate the logic behind Duverger’s Law. The demonstration serves as a flexible blend between lecture-oriented and active learning techniques, and can be adapted to teach other topics—such as directional and proximity models of voting, the Median Voter Theorem, and other topics in rational choice theory. Preliminary evidence presented suggests that students enjoy the demonstration, remember the concepts, and perform better on assessments related to the topic. The article concludes by challenging political science educators to develop and share more demonstration-type activities, which are commonly used in STEM and other fields.     

Network monarchy and legitimacy crises in Thailand

Abstract

This article argues that widely used ideas such as bureaucratic polity, constitutional monarchy, transitional democracy and political reform fail to characterize accurately the recent politics of Thailand. Instead, Thai politics are best understood in terms of political networks. The leading network of the period 1973–2001 was centred on the palace, and is here termed ‘network monarchy’. Network monarchy involved active interventions in the political process by the Thai King and his proxies, notably former prime minister Prem Tinsulanond. Network monarchy developed considerable influence, but never achieved the conditions for domination. Instead, the palace was obliged to work with and through other political institutions, primarily the elected parliament. Although essentially conservative, network monarchy also took on liberal forms during the 1990s. Thailand experienced three major legitimacy crises after 1992; in each case, Prem acted on behalf of the palace to restore political equilibrium. However, these interventions reflected the growing weakness of the monarchy, especially following the landslide election victories of prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra in 2001 and 2005. Thaksin sought to displace network monarchy with new networks of his own devising. This article suggests that conventional understandings of the power of the monarchy need to be rethought.     

Advocacy channels and political resource dependence in authoritarianism: Nongovernmental organizations and environmental policies in China

Nongovernmental organizations are important in policy processes, but most studies supporting this argument are conducted in democracies. This article, therefore, focuses on China's environmental policy to discuss how environmental NGOs (eNGOs) conduct policy advocacy in authoritarian contexts. Based on interviews with eNGOs and scholars in China, I provide a typology to describe policy advocacy channels based on their formality and consistency and explain how channels are selected based on the political resources of eNGOs. This article reveals how policy advocacy is affected by one of the prominent features of authoritarian states—a monopoly of political power—and indicates that many tactics identified in current literature can be explained by the political resource endowments of NGOs. Additionally, this article also provides insights on the potential changes of the advocacy channels when the political control is tightened in the Xi era and how eNGOs cope with the new political situation.     

Rousseau's Critique of Representative Sovereignty: Principled or Pragmatic?

In the Social Contract, Jean‐Jacques Rousseau advanced an impassioned critique of representative sovereignty, yet it is often thought that his objections were merely pragmatic and that he did not consider the question of representation to be a matter of basic political right. This article maintains, to the contrary, that Rousseau did have a principled argument against representative sovereignty and elucidates the nature and bearing of that argument by situating it in response to Hobbesian accounts of representation. Rousseau's argument is shown to have far‐reaching implications, as it entails that the existence of representative sovereignty contravenes two principles central to the legitimacy of modern democratic states: the sovereignty of the people and the moral equality of the citizens.     

Competing Ontologies: A Primer for Public Administration

A growing number of public administration theorists are taking up the question of ontology—the nature of existence. This primer on the topic provides a basic explanation of ontology, describes the fundamental debates in the competing ontologies of Western philosophy, and discusses why ontology is important to social and political theory, as well as to public administration theory and practice. Using an ideal‐type approach, the author analyzes how different ontologies imply particular political forms that undergird public administration theories and practices. This ideal‐type model can be used to identify the ontological assumptions in these theories and practices. The article concludes with an invitation for personal reflection on the part of scholars and practitioners in regard to which ontology best fits their experience and beliefs and the alternatives that we might pursue for a better future.     

The Differential Empowering Effects of Europeanization on the Autonomy of National Agencies

This article examines the influence of Europeanization on the relationship between ministries and agencies at the national level. The core argument is that the differentiated nature of the international environment (with policy development often transferred to the international level and policy implementation left at the national level) transforms national agencies into policy‐developing actors that shape policies without being directly influenced by their national political principals. The increasingly common involvement of national agencies in European policymaking processes thereby increases these agencies' policy‐development autonomy but does not change their role in policy implementation. We examine this argument by testing an innovative hypothesis—the differentiation hypothesis—on a combined data set of German and Dutch national agencies. Our empirical findings support the hypothesis in both countries, suggesting that similar effects can be expected in other contexts in which semiautonomous agencies are involved in transnational policymaking.     

Micropolitics and Collective Liberation: Mind/Body Practice and Left Social Movements

This article explores the growing use of mind/body practices such as meditation and yoga in Left social movements. The analysis is rooted in interviews with activists participating in the transformative movement-building current: the growing number of organizations integrating subjective and social transformation practices. William Connolly’s work on micropolitics is put into conversation with the transformative movement-building current. The epistemological assumption undergirding this article is that textual political theory, and the knowledge being produced by activists, can benefit from dynamic exchange. My argument is that Connolly’s post-Nietzschean political theory offers a powerful justification for the political importance of mind/body practices, one that adds to activist justifications. I also argue that transformative movement-building contributes to recent theoretical debates by concretely demonstrating the integral importance of micropolitics for successful macromovements.     

Industrial Relations and the Limits of the State: Can a Left Labour Government Resurrect Comprehensive Sectoral Collective Bargaining and Restore Trade Union Power?

Since 2017 the British Labour Party has proposed mandatory sectoral collective bargaining (SCB) as a comprehensive strategy to rebuild the trade union voice across the entire economy. The intellectual roots lie in the Institute of Employment Rights’ (IER) Manifesto for Labour Law (2016). First, this article explains the core IER approach, questioning its feasibility given current low levels of union membership and bargaining coverage and whether it would produce the stable and productive economy promised. Second, the article develops four social science objections to this state-driven approach centred on industrial relations history; political sociology; economics; and political philosophy. The conclusion argues that while stronger voluntary trade unions could help, it is neither practicable nor desirable for the state to impose a trade union, single-channel approach to employee voice. Instead, a ‘mixed economy of voice’ is proposed, perhaps including statutory works councils, which speaks directly to all employees—union and non-union—and wins broader political, employer and public support.     

Crisis for the State or Crisis of the State?

The Conservative‐Liberal Democrat government's policy risks turning the financial crisis into a crisis of the state. This article argues that the current trajectory of the British state risks exacerbating the very social antagonisms which it has fought so hard to contain in recent years. It contends that the crisis (2007–09) was a crisis of neoliberalism and yet, paradoxically, neoliberalism—in the form of further depoliticisation and a new politics of debt—is being re‐invoked to deal with the post‐apocalyptic condition of the British economy. The article suggests that the state lacks the necessary political discourse to secure popular consent and—as a result—is resorting to a more coercive form of political management; and that the effects of austerity are being offset through an increased indebtedness of the British public. Both risk igniting social conflict. In the conclusion several points are indicated for an alternative political agenda.     

‘And What Good Came of it at Last?’ Press–Politician Relations Post‐Leveson

James Margach famously argued that Prime Ministers from Lloyd George to Callaghan had been intent on exploiting the media in their determination to centralise power. From Margaret Thatcher onwards, however, there is a strong argument that the power relationship has been reversed, and that the Leveson Inquiry—set up in the wake of the phone hacking scandal—exposed a political class which had become deeply fearful of the power and influence of the national press. Citing evidence to Leveson and subsequent recommendations by the inquiry, this article presents two case studies—on data protection and on media ownership—where the public interest clearly demanded political intervention, which would be inconvenient for the major publishers. And yet, despite recommendations by Lord Justice Leveson and despite clear support from leading politicians of all parties, there has been virtually no policy progress in either case. While the Leveson Inquiry was billed as a watershed in press–politician relations and an opportunity to counteract decades of unhealthy press power, political inertia in these two areas suggests that very little has changed.     

The Legitimacy of Using the Harm Principle in Cases of Religious Freedom Within Education

John Stuart Mill’s famous “harm principle” has been popular in the limitation of freedoms within human rights jurisprudence. It has been used formally in court cases and also informally in legal argumentation and conversation. Shortly, it is described as a very simple principle that amounts to the notion that persons are at liberty to do what they want as long as their actions do not harm any other person or society in general. This article questions whether it is legitimate to use the harm principle in cases concerning the limitation of religious freedom within education. For example, can the exemption of a learner from sex education (based on religious objections) be denied based on the argument that such an exemption will cause harm? In order to answer this question, the meaning, origin and use of the harm principle are investigated. This article also discusses four main criticisms against the use of this principle in general and in cases of religious freedom of learners in education.     

On monarchy

Monarchy is liberalism’s little secret. Given the number of articles and books appearing every year dealing with liberal democracy as the hallmark of contemporary Western societies, it is astonishing that monarchy is rarely ever mentioned despite the fact that monarchy, and not a republic, is the constitutional form of quite a number of Western liberal states. I argue that considering the political reality of the established monarchies in Europe leads into a dilemma: either contemporary liberalism is not the kind of theory it claims to be or it has to reconsider its central tenets. In conclusion, I show that the dilemma cannot be solved or avoided but needs to be embraced by conceiving liberalism not as a applied moral theory but as a political theory that leaves room for various symbolic self-understandings and acknowledges the crooked timber of historical realities.     

Human Branding in Political Marketing: Applying Contemporary Branding Thought to Political Parties and Their Leaders

Political marketing advances by engaging with new and advanced concepts from both of its parent disciplines. One of the most recent fields of brand research—the study of the human brand—is taken into the political marketing arena in this essay. Human branding is an emergent topic in mainstream marketing. The value as a brand of a person who is well-known and subject to explicit marketing communications efforts is being investigated in many fields. The concept has clear prima facie value in political marketing, where the role of a political leader as part of the political marketing offer has been recognized extensively. Politics is also a unique context given the relationship between leaders and parties, each of which has some unique brand associations. The process of exploring the application of human branding in politics also provides a context in which some of the interactions among party and leader, human brand, and organizational brand can be explored and further developed. Among the conclusions are that political party leaders require brand authenticity as an advocate of the party policy platform and brand authority to command the organization and deliver on the policies being advocated. Implications for party and campaign management are outlined.     

Political Power, Fiscal Crises, and Decentralization in Latin America: Federal Countries in Comparative Perspective (and some Contrasts with Unitary Cases)

What factors shape decentralization processes in Latin Americanfederations? This work reviews and statistically analyzes currentapproaches on the topic, questions some claims of generalityin their theoretical frameworks, and presents an argument toexplain variation in decentralization processes across thesefederations. The main hypothesis is that the degree of decentralization(in fiscal and administrative terms) in Latin American federationshas been shaped by the political power of the national executiveand sub-national actors and the fiscal context in which theyinteract. The article presents statistical evidence (for federaland unitary countries between 1979 and 1998) to sustain someof the expectations in the argument and discusses some of itslimitations.     

Political Strategies and Fiscal Retrenchment: Evidence from Four Countries

Political strategy matters – especially in the case of unpopular reforms. This is the main argument of this article. It shows that the analysis of political strategies gives complementary insights into the causal mechanisms of reform politics. It helps us to understand how political actors successfully implement unpopular reforms. The article provides empirical evidence for this claim by means of an analysis of adjustment efforts in Sweden, Belgium, Canada and France during the 1990s. It is shown that governments acted strategically in two areas: they used strategic manoeuvres in the political sphere in order to circumvent veto players. And they employed strategic organisation and communication in the public sphere in order to dampen the risk of being punished by voters for the implemented policies.     

Fair trade: global problems and individual responsibilities

The topic of global trade has become central to debates on global justice and on duties to the global poor, two important concerns of contemporary political theory. However, the leading approaches fail to directly address the participants in trade and provide them with normative guidance for making choices in non-ideal circumstances. This paper contributes an account of individuals’ responsibilities for global problems in general, an account of individuals’ responsibilities as market actors, and an explanation of how these responsibilities coexist. The argument is developed through an extended case study of a consumer’s choice between conventional and fair trade coffee. My argument is that the coffee consumer’s choice requires consideration of two distinct responsibilities. First, she has responsibilities to help meet foreigners’ claims for assistance. Second, she has moral responsibilities to ensure that trades, such as between herself and a coffee farmer, are fair rather than exploitative.     

The Monarchy,the State and Religion: Modernising the Relationships

Aspects of contemporary monarchy and government in relation to religion are out of step with contemporary society and require systematic reform. The removal of religious and gender discrimination in the arrangements for succession to the monarchy would be in conformity with modern anti‐discrimination attitudes. The monarchy should also consider stepping back from its religious role. The monarch has an official role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England but less than a quarter of the population identify as Anglican and in its current attempts to be inclusive the monarchy seeks to respect and support other religions whose beliefs and practices are at variance with those of the C of E and the general population. In Scotland a new settlement could be promoted by the disestablishment of the Church of Scotland (comparable to the situation in Wales and Northern Ireland) and the ending of separate Roman Catholic state education.