East Africa and Rhodesia

Sir Stewart Symes, a vice-president of the Society, took thechair, for the reading of this paper. Earlier, Sir Stewart hadopened the conference with a word of welcome to the audience.     

Crossing Identitarian Lines: Women's Liberation and James Baldwin's Early Essays

Since a gender‐free society has never existed historically, feminist thinking that posits the equality of the sexes is inherently Utopian. Feminist Utopian writers, working within the traditional genre of science‐fiction, a genre particularly well‐suited to revolutionary theoretical discussions, have explored three types of feminist utopias: all‐female societies, biological androgyny, and genuinely egalitarian two‐sex societies. This essay examines examples of feminist utopias in each of these three paradigms to determine to what extent they are “abstract” (in Ernst Bloch's terminology), ie. merely wish‐fulfillment fantasies, and to what extent “concrete” and thus viable blue‐prints for future political and social organization.     

Form and Formalism: The View from Legal Theory

Abstract. The article considers Robert Summers' new book ( Summers 2006 ), in the context of Summers' earlier work and the role of form and formalism in other jurisprudential discussions. While accepting the value of a form‐centered approach to studying law, the article questions Summers' claim that his approach is clearly superior to (and not merely complementary with) traditional analytic theories, like those of Hart and Kelsen. The article also suggests that the book's discussion of form in contract and commercial law is somewhat disappointing, given Summers' expertise in this area, and the many difficult form‐related questions that area raises.     

The Dynasty Advantage: Family Ties in Congressional Elections

Political dynasties, families in which multiple members have held elected office, commonly feature in the U.S. Congress. I explored the electoral origins of this phenomenon and determined that members of political dynasties have a significant advantage over first‐generation politicians in open‐seat House elections. Using an original dataset containing candidate‐ and district‐level covariates for all candidates in open‐seat House contests between 1994 and 2006, I found that dynastic politicians enjoy “brand name advantages,” giving them a significant edge over comparable nondynastic opponents. In contrast, hypotheses concerning potential advantages stemming from past political experience and fundraising ability yield null results.     

MODELLING BUREAUCRACY: THE CASE OF THE AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL BUDGET SECTOR 1982-1992

A substantial literature exists on the economic analysis of bureaucracy, which includes formal models of bureaucratic behaviour by Niskanen (1971) and Dunleavy (1991). This article develops hypotheses from those models about changes in size of bureaux over time and tests them against data on the Australian federal budget sector in 1982–83 and 1991–92. The models predict that bureaucrats usually will be able to influence the size or structure of their bureaux in line with their personal preferences. However, the Australian data suggest that the extent of such influence may be less than is assumed in either model and that the preferences of politicians are more influential than the models allow. One conclusion is that, if bureaucracy is to be modelled, a principal-agent approach will have more to offer than the neo-classical maximizing framework adopted by Niskanen in particular. A further conclusion, at odds with those of Niskanen and weakening his case for wholesale privatization, is that bureaucratic dysfunctions may be amenable to reform of the political and bureaucratic rules and systems.