The Press and Its Influence on British Political Attitudes under New Labour

To explore the impact of the press in Britain during the first New Labour administration, we used aggregate-level analysis to assess the relationship between the economic content of press and changes in the public's political and economic attitudes. We examine the effects on attitudes of economic coverage in the broadsheets, 'black top' and tabloid newspapers. The results suggest that the broadsheets and 'black tops' do exert an influence on voters' views, whereas the tabloids do not. The impact is, however, not global, but confined to particular segments of the population. The modest effects we have charted, nevertheless have important cumulative political significance in the medium- to long-term, and they put press influence into sharper and more realistic perspective than many current accounts. Methodologically our results suggest the need for further work to focus on press effects on specific groups of voters.     

The death of security sector reform? The South African exemplar revisited

ABSTRACT

Security sector reform (SSR) or transformation in South Africa has until recently almost universally been regarded as a success. While achievements have been real and many are enduring, under the presidency of Jacob Zuma a creeping effort by corrupt parvenu elites to capture the state for personal enrichment has become evident. The impact of this on the SSR project has not been sufficiently analysed. This article does not deal with state capture per se, which would be massive task and for which evidence is still emerging. It limits itself to the impact of state capture on the SSR project, examining the hollowing out of the defence function, as well as the corruption and factional politicisation of the intelligence, policing and prosecutions functions (it does not deal with the capture of state-owned enterprises, which would require a study in its own right). It concludes that SSR has been significantly undermined. The question is asked whether a resurrection is possible or desirable.     

The use of referendums in Ireland: an analysis

The referendum is a phenomenon which is becoming increasingly normalised in the constitutional practice of many countries. Ireland is an EU member state with particularly extensive experience of the referendum as a decision-making tool. To date, it has held 39 referendums on a variety of issues – ranking it among the top four states in Western Europe in this regard.

This article seeks to review the emergence of referendums in Ireland as a decision-making instrument and to ask what constitutional, legal or institutional factors have led to referendums enjoying such comparatively extensive use there. It seeks to examine which political issues have formed the subject of referendums in Ireland, and to investigate what kinds of issues have succeeded in gaining electoral approval and what kinds have not. The extent of electoral participation in (and thus representativity of) Irish referendums is also scrutinised, and factors affecting participation rates examined.     

The Political Significance of the Face: Deleuze's Critique of Levinas

While Levinas famously claims that ethics precedes ontology and emanates from the concrete experience of the other's face, it is often forgotten that Deleuze also discusses the face in numerous writings. The purpose of this paper is to briefly outline Levinas's arguments regarding the constitution of the face to chart its ethical importance, before engaging with Deleuze's critique of Levinas's position. I show that, by distinguishing between two systems of signification – the head-body system and the face system – Deleuze agrees with Levinas that the face is an important signifier delineating the other, but destructs the notion of face to show that it: (1) is more complex and multi-dimensional than Levinas realizes; (2) emanates from a specific semiotic relationship; and (3) emanates from specific socio-historical circumstances. Showing the face is a semiotic construct based in and emanating from a specific socio-historical configuration allows Deleuze not only to conclude that the face is related to politics not ethics as Levinas claims, but also to claim that it entails the inhuman in the human. This clarifies the nature of the face in Deleuze, offers a critique of Levinas's influential thinking on ethics, brings us to a discussion of the relationship between ethics and politics and reveals what Deleuze takes the political to entail.