Parliament and the army in England 1659: Constitutional thought and the struggle for control

Summary

Thomas Secker, archbishop of Canterbury from 1758 to 1768, was one of the most notable Anglican bishops of the eighteenth century. This article traces his involvement with Parliament throughout his career. The shorthand notes he made of speeches he had heard between 1735 and 1743, which he wrote up afterwards, were used by William Cobbett in assembling his Parliamentary History of England. Secker was an able speaker in the Lords and possessed a vein of independence, judging each bill on its merits, sometimes voting with and sometimes against the Court. This independence weakened his standing with the king and ministry and resulted in his being left in the see of Oxford from 1737 until 1758, when the king at last spoke to him again. Secker strongly opposed the Pretender's rebellion of 1745, but he was not always successful in other causes he espoused, notably his support for the Jew Bill of 1753. His years as archbishop were dogged by ill health, although he remained a person of weight in the Upper House. These were years when the Church of England was on the defensive, with Convocation prorogued, and Seeker found himself in a straitjacket. However, his devotion to the Hanoverian succession and the Church never wavered.     

Is there a long‐run relationship between population growth and living standards? The case of India

This note examines the existence of a long‐run, cointegrating relationship between population and per capita GDP in India for 1950–93. Unit root tests show that per capita GDP is integrated of order one while population is integrated of order zero; further, estimation of the bi‐variate relationship using the cointegration procedure of Johansen shows that no long‐run relationship exists. Thus, population growth neither causes per capita income growth nor is caused by it. A corollary is that population growth neither stimulates per capita income growth nor detracts from it.     

The Things They Learned: Aspiration,Uncertainty, and Schooling in Rwanda’s Developmental State

The role of formal education in the reproduction of inequalities is well documented. Less clear is how this lens can be applied to a study of post-conflict state-building. The present study pairs policy analysis with student-centred ethnographic fieldwork to examine education policy in Rwanda. Since the end of the genocide, the government has staked its claim to legitimacy in delivering inclusive development. Its basic education policy is an entitlement programme with broad public support and designed to allow all children to attend primary and secondary school. Students found themselves caught up in a web of contradictions with important symbolic and material dimensions. They went to schools designed to improve access for the poor. But they were also poor schools, lacking in quality and associated with failure. The country’s switch from French to English was bound up in alliances of domestic power that further undermined effective teaching and learning. The basic education policy intended to highlight the government’s commitment to deliver development to all. But in absence of a sustained and effective strategy to improve quality, young people felt excluded from meaningful engagement in the education system. Whether the basic education policy constitutes inclusive development is therefore debatable.