Australia and the Emergence of the Modern Two-Party System

Although the Australian party system is accepted in some literature as a "classic" example of a two-party system, information about how this system came about does not feature prominently in international studies on political parties. It is here argued that Australia indeed blazed the trail for the two-party model by being the first to link parliamentary organisation directly to a mass electorate.     

The contribution by economists to middle eastern studies (1973–1998)

More economists have been involved in Middle Eastern studies during the last twenty‐five years than ever before, and economists from the region itself now rightly play a dominant role. Inevitably amongst economists there have been disagreements and different schools of thought, especially over the role of the state and the desirability of privatization and structural adjustment policies. There have also been different definitions of rentier states, and contrasting analysis of the dynamics of oil pricing and the effects of oil revenue. Much attention has been paid to regional economic integration issues, even though little has been achieved in that field. There is increasing interest in external trade and investment issues, but in a region where poverty persists, economists should perhaps focus more on the basic needs of the poor which are not being met. Applied microeconomic studies should be given greater priority, as macroeconomic issues have been exhaustively covered and debated.     

Social divisions in caring

This article is concerned with the perspectives on caring developed by academic feminist researchers in Britain over the last decade. It notes how these perspectives defined caring in terms of the unpaid domestic and personal services provided through the social relations of marriage and kinship to those who found it hard to meet their own care needs. The article draws on Black feminist and disabled feminist perspectives, together with recent autocritical work by academic feminist researchers, to unpack this concept of care. It focuses on what the concept obscures about the social divisions that mediate women's experiences of care. It examines what is eclipsed and who is excluded from feminist perspectives on caring which are grounded in the experience of giving care on an unpaid basis within kinship networks based on marriage.     

Revitalizing public management training in the Americas

The decade of the 1980s signalled major changes within public administration and development-oriented activities. As a consequence of the internationalization of the agendas of practitioners and academics working in these areas, there is today a growing convergence among public policy, public management, public administration and political science. Given the complexity of the public sector cross-nationally, what has become necessary in public management education is the design of programmes that meet specific needs and priorities and which are responsive to very different national settings. This particular case study is centred around one endeavour to achieve more effective interfacing between theory and practice, in the teaching of public management and the design of development programmes in the United States (US). It is based on an assessment of a 10-year co-operative endeavour between the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration and the US Agency for International Development. The outcomes of this project provided not only leverage for important changes in the teaching programmes of schools concerned with international management education but also built a new relationship between government and a non-governmental organization through the contacting out of management development work.     

Traditional aboriginal values in a Westminster parliament: The legislative assembly of Nunavut

This article examines the interplay of structure and culture in the Legislative Assembly of the newly established territory of Nunavut in Canada's eastern Arctic. This institution combines the Westminster cabinet-parliamentary system with traditional Inuit culture, many features of which are antithetical to British-style ‘responsible government’. The distinctive ‘consensus government’ system which characterises the Nunavut Legislative Assembly has important features consistent with Inuit values and approaches, for example, the absence of political parties. Based primarily on personal interviews with Members of the Assembly, the article considers whether Inuit culture has significantly recast the structures and the political imperatives inherent in the Westminster system or if the powerful values and constraints of that system have effectively overridden Inuit values. Perceptions and reflections of members serving in the First Assembly (1999–2004) suggest that while substantial adaptations to the conventional Westminster system have been made, these are indeed adaptations rather than fundamental alterations to the system.     

The Theory and Practice of Group Representation: Reflections on the Governance of Race Equality in Birmingham

A number of political theorists have recently argued that group representation is essential to the achievement of social justice. However relatively little work exists on the institutional implications of such arguments beyond the analysis of electoral mechanisms to achieve greater representation within legislatures. This leaves unanswered one of the most difficult questions facing policy-makers – how to effectively engage the range of Black and minority ethnic (BME) communities in decision-making processes. Through a detailed analysis of the changing nature of the arrangements in place in Birmingham (UK) to engage BME communities, this paper is able to reflect on the theoretical and practical challenges of group representation in contemporary polities.