Evaluating Polysemy: An Analysis of The New York Times' Coverage of the End of the Cold War

This study examines The New York Times' definition of the end of the Cold War and its portrayal of the social movements that successfully challenged Communist authority in Eastern Europe. The analysis is located within and draws its significance from two research traditions. The first examines the degree to which media texts have a polysemic character, while the second tradition has explored the influence of Cold War ideology on the American news media's definition of international affairs. The Times' definition of the Cold War, its portrayal of the emerging post-Cold War world, and its depiction of collective action produced a text characterized by limited polysemy. This restricted polysemy was a product of the newspaper employing frames that resonated with American political values, excluding or minimizing frames divorced from mainstream American political beliefs, constructing a selective tradition in its definition of the past, and limiting the polysemic implications of particular frames.     

GOVERNANCE AND THE PUBLIC GOOD

The paper examines the control of power, using an account of the public good developed from Aristotle. It identifies three different perspectives on the relationship between governance (the control of power) and the public good: a 'cybernetic' perspective, an 'axiological' perspective, and a perspective of 'critique'. This framework offers a way to scrutinize the exercise of power, and to evaluate the linkages between a political administration and its citizenry. To evaluate an administration's legacy, this framework suggests we should study: (1) how an administration controls power over time; (2) how an administration exhibits virtue; and (3) how an administration creates conditions which enable its citizens to live the good life. Narrative theory is one basis for empirical development of this framework. This contributes to some long-standing debates in management, public administration, economics and political science. It also enables critical examination of a fashionable, though vague, term: 'public value'.     

After Number Ten: What Do Former Prime Ministers Do?

The article reviews the experience of former British prime ministers in the twentieth century. There is no fixed or predetermined role for former prime ministers. What they do after they leave office depends on personal choices and on circumstances. Some have largely disappeared from the political stage. Others have become active international 'elder statesmen'. A couple-Heath and Thatcher-were embittered 'models to avoid'. A quarter of the former prime ministers since 1900 have served in other government posts in their successors' Cabinets, while a handful have turned down such appointments. Most have gone to the Lords, which offers a political platform, but sometimes they do not think much of the quality of the second chamber. The retirements of some former prime ministers have been clouded by money worries, but they nowadays get substantial pensions and can make money from business directorships, international lectures and writing memoirs. The article concludes with speculation about what Tony Blair's post-premiership might hold.     

The Rise of the Novice Cabinet Minister? The Career Trajectories of Cabinet Ministers in British Government from Attlee to Cameron

Some commentators have observed that today's Cabinet ministers are younger and less experienced than their predecessors. To test this claim, we analyse the data for Labour and Conservative appointments to Cabinet since 1945. Although we find some evidence of a decline in average age and prior experience, it is less pronounced than for the party leaders. We then examine the data for junior ministerial appointments, which reveals that there is no trend towards youth and inexperience present lower down the hierarchy. Taking these findings together, we propose that public profile is correlated with ‘noviceness’; that is, the more prominent the role, the younger and less experienced its incumbent is likely to be. If this is correct, then the claim that we are witnessing the rise of the novice Cabinet minister is more a consequence of the personalisation of politics than evidence of an emerging ‘cult of youth’.