State-based Representation and National Policymaking: The Evolution of the Australian Senate and the Federation

Ostensibly, Australia's constitutional framers designed the upper house as the ‘guardian of states' interests', ensuring that the smaller states were adequately represented in the federation. In recent decades the Senate has positively reinvented itself as a guardian of democracy, and is commonly known as the ‘house of review’. This study examines the changing representative role of senators and the Senate through surveys and interviews of current and former senators. The Senate has also become more of a guardian of the national interest, with proportional representation, larger constituencies and longer terms being the key institutional factors.     

Women's Participation and Representation in Politics: Perspectives from Ghana

This article discusses empirical findings on issues affecting women's effective participation in politics and the public sector of Ghana. It argues that women's involvement in public life and politics has steadily declined contrary to hopeful reportage that global empowerment campaigns have increased women's political participation across Africa. The article suggests that given the deep-rooted socio-cultural hindrances women face, affirmative action policies need to be revisited to complement women's agency in contesting for, winning, and participating in politics and public service more effectively.     

Representative Bureaucracy: Examining the Effects of Female Teachers on Girls’ Education in Ghana

Scholars have examined representative bureaucracy as a viable means to make the bureaucracy more responsive to citizens in a democratic society. The theory argues that a diverse public service that mirrors the social demographics of its population in terms of gender, race, and ethnicity (passive representation) is more likely to be responsive to the needs of all citizens (active representation). Although a substantial body of empirical research exists, a comparative understanding of the theory is lacking in Africa. This study expands the empirical research on the theory to Ghana. It investigates whether passive representation of female teachers makes the education bureaucracy more responsive to girls. The analysis of a nationally representative data set on senior high schools (SHS) within the 216 districts of Ghana revealed that increasing the presence of female teachers is positively associated with the performance of girls on math and science exit exams.     

The Lonely Citizen: Indirect Representation in an Age of Networks

This article explores what it means to be represented and how the nature of representation might change in an age of networks. Citizens' perceptions of political connection and disconnection are examined on the basis of quantitative and qualitative surveys. A typology of political connection is presented and then expanded on the basis of the discussion of four potentially democratizing characteristics of digital information and communication technologies.     

农村法律服务问题实证研究(一)

在广大农村地区,法律工作者通过诉讼代理等方式为农民提供的法律服务,有可能成为“国家”与“社会”之间的一种连接机制。基于对中西部地区进行田野调查所取得的资料,初步建立了一个相关的理论模型并对其构成命题做了具体描述。     

警察涉黑犯罪初探

警察涉黑犯罪问题是伴随黑社会性质犯罪发展过程中出现的一种特殊现象。由于涉黑的警察与黑社会性质组织的关系不同,在黑社会性质犯罪中所起的作用不同,所以,警察涉黑的表现形式也多种多样。警察涉黑犯罪的本质是警察社会角色的易位和警察权力的异化,其社会危害极其严重。教育整顿警察队伍不仅是公安队伍建设的需要,也是遏制黑社会性质组织发展势头、铲除黑社会性质犯罪的需要。     

The Microphysics of Participation in Refugee Research

This paper examines the involvement of refugees in the productionand reproduction of knowledge of which they are ultimately meantto be beneficiaries. By using examples from research with CentralAmerican refugees and Rwandan displaced children, it considersforced migrants’ roles as participants in research, theirposition in ‘participatory’ research, and the representationof refugees’ voices in refugee-centred research. Poweris intimately connected to the diverse ways in which participationunfolds, and the last part of the paper examines refugees’participation in research in terms of ‘power that circulates’(Foucault) to show that they are not more or less powerful butvehicles for the circulation of power, simultaneously undergoingand exercising it.     

Parliament and Political Disengagement: Neither Waving nor Drowning

Concern about political disengagement is prevalent in British politics, and this article seeks to examine what the Westminster Parliament has been doing to address it. Recent reforms and recommendations from various parliamentary committees are examined, including increased use of the Internet to disseminate information about Parliament, the use of online consultation mechanisms, and the tentative extension of parliament's petitioning processes. The discussion is couched in the representative origins of Parliament, its adaptation to democratic politics and the extent to which its response to political disengagement is contextualised by its representational, rather than its democratic, role. The article addresses whether Parliament can approach these issues in a 'holistic' fashion, and as a 'unified' institution within the political system.     

Millionaires and the public in Czech politics

This article relies on a unique survey of Czech millionaires and the general public to probe the nature and extent of the differences in opinions between these two groups and their correspondence with public policy. Its main finding is that millionaires are substantially more right-wing than the public on economic issues and somewhat more internationalist on foreign affairs, though a number of areas of agreement can be found as well, particularly assessments of the problems facing the country. Most surprisingly, the opinions of the public appear more likely to correspond with policy than those of millionaires. These findings have important implications for the rise of populism and the quality of democracy in the Czech Republic.     

Petitions and ‘legitimate’ engagement with power in absolutist Denmark 1660–1800

ABSTRACT

Petitioning was universal across early modern Europe, but worked differently within distinct polities. Denmark-Norway became, after 1660, an absolute hereditary dual monarchy, with no further meetings of the Estates, and no other formal representative structures. The crown, however, did fully acknowledge the right to petition, confirming the mechanism and the legal basis for doing so in the full law code of 1683, Danske Lov. Petitions from all levels of society were processed in the central bureaucracy, and those processed through the Chancellery (Danske Kancelli) can be analysed systematically. However, a number of petitions were handled separately in the Exchequer (Rentekammer) or through the legal system. This article discusses the different types of petitions to the Danish crown, and analyses some examples that illustrate not merely the complicated negotiation of power within an absolute monarchy, but also the kind of language and cultural conventions necessary for the system to work.