Meeting the challenge: state revenue raising

Recent trends in state tax revenue reveal that overall reliance of states on taxes have been declining for the last 43 years. Faced with reduction in tax revenues, states have restructured their tax systems to meet public demand for more services. State income taxes are the one type of tax that has risen consistently. What causes state policy makers to rely on this type of tax? This research addresses this question.     

The absent Dutch: Dutch intellectuals and the congress for cultural freedom

During the 1950s and 1960s the Congress for Cultural Freedom was one of the main stages for anti-communist American and European writers and intellectuals to discuss the communist threat to the freedom of intellectual and cultural life. Most Western European countries were represented at CCF conferences and had their own national CCF branches, but the Netherlands was an exception. Dutch intellectuals participated very rarely in the conferences, and all efforts to establish a Dutch branch of the CCF failed. Possible explanations (the socially isolated position of some intellectuals, no strong tradition of political engagement among Dutch writers or artists, no lively climate of public debate, and an ambivalent perception of American culture and society) for this absence of Dutch intellectuals show clearly how national traditions can play a decisive role in determining the development of international networks.     

Advance or consolidation? The French national front and the 1995 elections

This article seeks to analyse the performance of the leader of the French National Front, Jean‐Marie Le Pen, and that of his Party, at the Presidential and Municipal elections of 1995. The elections took place after a period of apparent stagnation in the Front's political fortunes. Le Pen's relative success in the Presidential election was followed by the Front's capture of three significant towns at the municipal elections. However, its victories were in large part facilitated by the failure of the mainstream parties to rally against it. The elections ushered in a period of organisational and ideological change within the Party, which has, none the less, firmly established itself in the French political system.     

重修丝绸之路:迈向亚洲一体化

丝绸之路是指将东亚、中亚、南亚与地中海沿岸国家(包括北非和欧洲)连接在一起的、纵横交错的泛亚贸易交通网络。在过去的几十年中,随着全球化的不断深入,亚洲再度成为世界经济的重心。许多亚洲经济体成为了国际生产网络中不可分割的一部分,他们自身也从不断扩大的国际贸易、投资以及加速的经济增长中获益良多。然而,由于缺乏区域性连接,亚洲巨大的发展潜力尚未发挥出来。本文认为,缺乏全面的区域性连接是影响地区增长、阻碍亚洲乃至世界一体化进程的重要因素之一。鉴于此,亚洲应该加强地区通道建设,使之成为国际通道的一部分。本文还讨论了在通过泛亚运输基础设施建设实现地区连接的过程中,可能遇到的一系列问题和挑战。     

Displaying the Law: A Cross-disciplinary Learning Experiment Using the Internet and Multimedia Technology

The law is increasingly being displayed to its practitioners and subjects in new forms and through new media. Some of this technological change simply permits easier access to information and faster recording processes. However students are at the forefront of the attempt to provide new ways of representing legal dilemmas, problems and issues. How do students imagine and represent the law? This paper describes an experiment in which undergraduate students from quite different backgrounds examined topical legal issues and presented reports in visual form, choosing between three formats: CD-ROMs, videos and web pages. Participants came from two universities in Victoria; students from Victoria University were multimedia students, students from the University of Melbourne were criminology research methods students. They formed small teams, pooling their skills to carry out research projects on aspects of the law, including busking, football violence and how images of blood should be shown on film or TV. This article reviews the lessons of this collaborative exercise for understandings of the law.