Duelling Honors: Power, Identity and the Russia–Georgia Divide

The paper explores a shift from engagement to confrontation in Russia's policy toward Georgia since the Rose Revolution. In addition to emphasizing power and security as explanations of Russia's behavior, the paper focuses on considerations of honor and prestige. The latter are relational and a product of Russia's perception of its ties with Western nations. Honor also plays a crucial role in Georgia's attitude toward its northern neighbor, and the entire Caucasus area emerges as a battleground for symbolic attributes of power among larger states with capabilities to influence the region. The case of Russia–Georgia divide is important for demonstrating benefits and limitations of traditional foreign policy explanations and for learning possible ways to de-escalate dangerous bilateral conflicts.     

Egalitarian justice and interpersonal comparison

Abstract. This paper surveys the strengths and weaknesses of three widely–discussed egalitarian standards of interpersonal comparison: welfare, resource , and capability . We argue that welfare egalitarianism is beset by numerous serious problems, and should be rejected. Capability and resourcist standards conform with egalitarian convictions more closely, but each faces distinctive problems. We itemise a set of desiderata which a fully adequate account of interpersonal comparison would satisfy. We conclude that the choice between capability and resourcist standards turns on the relative importance of such an account being able to accommodate reasonable pluralism and identify inequality in a publicly verifiable manner.     

Mortgagee Powers Rhetoric

This article addresses the rhetoric of land law's interpretive community at the time of, and following, the House of Lords' decision in Boland . It is argued, contrary to the views of other commentators, that the decision was not strongly motivated by a concern to see social justice done between commercial lenders and wives but, rather, was a sensible and socially realistic application of clear statutory provisions understood within the context of land law orthodoxy. Furthermore, decisions following Boland which have been said to have sapped its strength also cohere comfortably within that community's stable rhetoric. Consequently, it cannot be argued that proportionality in human rights law requires a return to the supposed 'high point' of Boland – when considered carefully, the evidence, both from Boland itself and from land law's wider interpretive community, shows that such a high point did not exist.     

Politics and the Adoption of Legislative Television: An Analysis of the U.S. House Vote on C-SPAN

The present study extends the work of Crain and Goff (1988) by examining the political determinants of the earliest decision to adopt legislative television on a permanent basis at the national level in the United States. Data on legislator and district characteristics are used to explain the 1977 vote to adopt C-SPAN coverage of proceedings in the U.S. House of Representatives. Logit regression results suggest that length of service and extremity of political views/ideologies had clear and significant effects on politicians' votes concerning the adoption of legislative television. As with Crain and Goff (1988), these measures capture some element of legislator self-interest.     

Lobbying by Law Firms: A Study of Lobbying by National Law Firms in Canberra1

This article examines the way in which national law firms lobby the federal government from their Canberra offices. It is based on extensive interviews with lobbyists from those law firms, other commercial lobbyists in Canberra and legal professional bodies. The article begins by establishing the unique nature of law firm lobbying. In particular, it looks at the technical skills law firm lobbyists possess, their access to specialist legal knowledge and their preference for administrative, over political, lobbying. The development of law firm lobbying is then discussed. This centres around changes to the legal profession, federal business laws and federal government decision-making. The article concludes by suggesting that law firm lobbying both reflects and stimulates changes in government decision-making and will grow in importance as the legal profession in Canberra grows.