Professionalism and the Millbank Tendency: The Political Sociology of New Labour's Employees

This article analyses party employees, one of the most under-researched subjects in the study of British political parties. We draw on a blend of quantitative and qualitative data in order to shed light on the social and political profiles of Labour Party staff, and on the question of their professionalisation. The latter theme is developed through a model derived from the sociology of professions. While a relatively limited proportion of party employees conform to the pure ideal-type of professionalism, a considerably greater number manifest enough of the core characteristics of specialisation, commitment, mobility, autonomy and self-regulation to be reasonably described as 'professionals in pursuit of political outcomes'.     

Labour's Transformation: Searching for the Point of Origin – The European Dynamic

Adam Lent's article in Politics Volume 17 presents a cogent set of explanations pointing to the rebirth of Labour starting well before 1987, however he has not considered the role of the European issue in explaining the location of the origins of Labour's transformation. Europe as will be shown, created a clear dynamic for party renewal as it married together a range of key factors that the Kinnock-Hattersley leadership had to constantly balance in their efforts to rebuild the Party. Namely, party unity, the retention of union support, the creation and sustaining of a new economic policy, and a rapidly changing international economic environment. These factors shaped the paradigm that has to be used if Labour's renewal is to be fully understood in the time frame identified.     

抗战精神永世长存--纪念中国人民抗日战争胜利60周年

日月经天,江河运地;潮起潮落,岁月如炬。在伟大的中国人民抗日战争胜利60周年到来之际,回望历史,我们心潮澎湃,激情奔涌。“沧海横流,方显出英雄本色。”在这场中华民族史上空前惨烈、空前悲壮的抗击外来侵略的战争中,从仁人志士到普通百姓,从政党组织到民间团体,举国上下,万众一心,同仇敌忾,共赴国难。我们的父老先贤在经受万恶的敌人所强加的深重灾难和无尽屈辱的同时,表现出了惊天地而泣鬼神的伟大的抗战精神。抗战精神博大精深,内涵丰富,是整个中华民族在抗日战争过程中乃至在处理战时战后诸多问题时所表现出来的坚持正义、反对侵略、追…     

The National Interest and the Politics of Threat Exaggeration: The Blair Government's Case for War against Iraq

During the 2005 General Election the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, suggested that the invasion of Iraq was in 'the national interest'. Whether he knew it or not, this phrase has often referred to controversial decisions taken by governments, away from scrutiny and subject to criticism when made public, but which they believe are in the best interests of the British state.
The article summarises the consequences of the invasion in terms of the subsequent criticism and official inquiries before addressing the question of what is the national interest. The article then considers what exactly was the threat, and whether or not it was exaggerated, and what evidence is now emerging to indicate that the decision to invade was taken 'in the national interest'. It concludes that there was a decision to support the USA and that the threat was exaggerated to justify this decision.     

冷战结束后美国对外经济制裁的新发展

长期以来,经济制裁一直是美国政府对外推行霸权主义与强权政治的重要政策工具。冷战结束后,伴随国际政治经济形势的新变化与美国国内政治出现的新情况,美国对外经济制裁政策也有了新的发展,这说明美国为了达到称霸全球的目的,将进一步利用经济手段加大对其它国家特别是发展中国家内政的干涉力度。     

Material Objects and Aura: Popular Culture Images against and for War

Surrealism, altered to fit the politics of marginalized people, helps to analyze popular culture's response to war and terrorism. Metaphors from surrealist art and sources from popular culture, including Fahrenheit 9/11 and the apocalyptic, violent, dispensationalist, Left Behind novel series, reveal many discussions of U.S. policy that are currently occurring. This article asks how political agendas are communicated and framed to society via images and how this influences debate over war. The overall conclusion is that the prowar movement uses images that dissuade U.S. society from critical thought and debate on foreign policy issues. While surrealist imagery provides metaphors for the analytic framework, imagery in support of war uses less thought and more violence, which is appropriately analyzed using German Romantic film as a metaphor.     

The New Institutionalism and EC Governance: The Promise and Limits of Institutional Analysis

The "new" institutionalisms" in rational choice and historical analysis are being applied with increasing sophistication and accuracy to the study of European Community governance. The basic premise of such institutional approaches is that EC institutions, once created, "take on a life of their own," acting as independent or intervening variables between the preferences and power of the member governments on the one hand, and the ultimate policy outputs of EC governance on the other. The challenge for institutionalist theory consists in constructing a precise analytical tool-box that will allow us to make specific predictions about the ways in which, and the conditions under which, EC institutions may exert such an independent causal influence. EC institutions matter, I suggest, insofar as they: lend stability to an existing institutional structure; shape any subsequent amendment of those institutions; allow individual member governments to be outvoted by qualified majority; cause member states to lose control of events through lock-ins; and subject member governments to the actions of supranational agents whose behavior they can control only imperfectly.     

Islands of the Mind: New Labour's Defensive Engagement with the European Union

This article reviews the cumulative development of New Labour's attitude and strategy towards the EU since the late 1980s and argues that the first two New Labour governments' approach to the EU represented a distinct retreat from the 'constructive engagement' and social democratic philosophy of Tony Blair's early modernising phase, moving steadily to occupy a much more traditional British position of 'defensive engagement', mixing national preferences with Atlanticism, and resisting further political integration in favour of traditional 'intergovernmentalism'. It is further argued that New Labour's prioritisation and preferencing of a UK institutional and political economy based upon economic liberalisation, the preservation of key aspects of national sovereignty, and maintaining Atlanticism as the bedrock of Europe's external foreign and defence policies have left Britain almost as far from the true 'heart of Europe' as when Blair inherited office from John Major in 1997.     

The Promise of Progressivism: Herbert Croly and the Progressive Rejection of Individual Rights

Herbert Croly's Promise of American Life provides the theoreticalfoundations for many of America's twentieth-century politicalreform movements. Croly called for the adoption of Hamiltonianmeans to achieve Jeffersonian ends. To achieve this synthesis,however, Croly rejected Hamilton's arguments for institutionalchecks on a pure national democracy, and Jefferson's argumentsfor limited government. Croly rejected these elements in Hamilton'sand Jefferson's thought because they are tied to the liberaldoctrine of individual rights. Croly wanted to transcend thedoctrine of individual rights in order to create a nationalpolitical community—one that would be forged by a strongbut democratic national government. However, Croly failed tosee the connection between Jefferson's belief in democracy andhis belief in limited government, and he failed to see the connectionbetween Hamilton's belief in a strong national government andhis call for institutional checks on democracy. Thus, althoughmany American reform movements have their roots in the rhetoricof Croly's progressivism, to be effective they have had to accommodatethe principles of liberal individualism that Croly wished toeradicate.     

The Honor of Human Rights: Environmental Rights and the Duty of Intergenerational Promise

The idea of human rights either as a moral system or as a set of legal practices does not sit well with the concept of honor. This is true for both ontological reasons and because of some reprehensible misuses of the term in constructs such as “honor killings.” Yet the absence of honor as an argument for human rights comes with a high cost in the defense of human rights generally. As Hobbes made clear in his early theory, rights—and dignity—are grounded in the human capacity to make promises and in the necessity of honoring them. In his view then, honor is an essential feature of human rights and one closely linked to the human capacity for dignity. In this article, I explore how environmental human rights place a renewed emphasis on honor as a requirement for the protection of the rights of future generations. In the process, I explore the general relationship between honor, dignity, and human rights.     

The Promise and Perils of Interpretivism in Australian International Relations

Australian International Relations (IR) was once a hybrid of American and European styles of political science, but today it is dominated by a British‐inspired post‐positivism which has its virtues – and its vices – and which utilises various interpretive and semi‐interpretive approaches. This paper welcomes the ‘interpretive turn’ in Australian IR, but recognises its weaknesses, and argues that, to overcome them, interpretivists must be clear about what interpretivism should and should not entail. It argues that a thoroughgoing interpretivism offers two things that qualitative work in Australian IR desperately needs: a revived focus on explaining international relations, as well as understanding it, and a renewed engagement with other fields and other modes of studying the field.     

中外合作办学思想政治教育工作路径选择与思考

中外合作办学作为新时期高校加强开放办学、国际交流与合作的重要窗口,应切实把创新学生教育管理模式作为推动大学生思想政治教育工作的内生动力。以山东农业大学中外合作办学为例,为创新中外合作办学思想政治教育工作作了积极实践与路径探索。     

Governing Small‐Town America Today: The Promise and Dilemma of Dense Networks

This essay examines the governance of small towns in the United States. Small towns have received little attention in the public administration literature to date, yet 1 in 10 Americans still lives in one, representing roughly 75 percent of all municipalities in the United States and some 33 million people. Small towns are characterized as dense, multiplex networks that lend unique dynamics to local politics. However, they face significant social, economic, technological, and demographic trends that compromise towns’ prevailing frame of reference, fracture their networks, and alter the traditional setting of small‐town governance. In the face of these issues, “thicker,” more active ways of engaging the public are needed to reknit community bonds and build civic capacity. Service learning for master of public administration students is proposed as a way to develop the emotional intelligence necessary to make sense of the complex social dynamics of small towns and to facilitate the hard work of building enabling relationships.