太平天国1860年嘉兴战事述评

太平天国1860年嘉兴战事是东征苏南战役的延伸,历时两个多月,是太平军东征战役中,清朝方面难得的一次局部战术反攻。清军将领张玉良表现了良好的战术素养和战场指挥水平。李秀成在嘉兴彻底击溃张玉良部后,为日后经略浙江打下了良好基础。     

Motivation and Intervention in the Northern Ireland Peace Process: An Interview with President Bill Clinton

The role of former U.S. President William Jefferson Clinton in the Northern Ireland peace process has been acknowledged as an example of political risk‐taking and leadership driven by political interests and strategic post–Cold War aims. The tendency to examine Clinton's role from the perspective of international and global policy objectives, however, has obscured consideration of his motivational role in the Northern Ireland peace process and of how he moved between encouragement and intervention to help the political parties reach a settlement. This article, which is drawn from an extended interview conducted with Clinton in 2017, seeks to paint a more comprehensive picture of Clinton's participation in the peace process, showing how his combination of motivational and interventional skills enabled him to help convince others of the need to take risks for peace and gave him greater influence and leverage over the peace process as a result.     

Can parties recruit postal voters? Experimental evidence from Britain

While easily-accessible postal voting is on the rise in many countries, the implications for electoral campaigns are largely under-researched. Indeed, parties actively try to sign supporters up to postal votes to make it easier for them to turn out. But how effective are these efforts to recruit supporters on to postal votes? We present an original, pre-registered postal voter recruitment experiment – the first conducted outside the US – completed during the May 2018 UK elections. We test the effect of a common recruitment tactic – letters and application forms sent to supporters. Despite being widely used by parties, we find that these efforts are ineffective at both recruiting and mobilising supporters. While the rewards of successfully signing supporters up to postal voting are potentially substantial, our results suggest that parties should consider the most effective ways of doing so.     

恩抚与制约:汉初的南部边疆政策

西汉初年,民乏国困,百废待兴;内有异姓王和同姓诸侯王的割据骚乱,外有匈奴的时常侵扰。为此,虽有一统岭南之抱负的汉室帝君,也终因国力所限,心有余而力不足。无奈之下,只得暂时对“划岭而治”的南越割据政权采取以恩抚为主,辅以防范制约的温和手段,以换得南部边境的稳定。于是,恩抚与制约便构成为西汉初60余年间中央王朝在南部边疆沿袭不替的一项基本政策。这也是汉代边疆政策的一个重要组成部分,它不仅使汉初中央王朝第一次成功地改变了边政处理的被动局面,和平地实现了其对南部边疆的主动权,为维护和巩固当时汉帝国南部边疆的稳定提供了保障,而且也对后来汉王朝实现岭南的统一发挥了重要的作用。     

The First World War Centenary in the UK: ‘A Truly National Commemoration’?

Abstract

Prime Minister David Cameron has called for ‘a truly national commemoration of the First World War’. This article shows this to be problematic, politicised and contested. This is in part due to the elision of English and British histories. Scottish, Welsh and Irish responses are noted, and the role and commemorations of ‘our friends in the Commonwealth’. There are tensions around interpretations of empire and race. There has been a failure to appreciate that the debates about the legacies of the First World War are deeply entangled with those of colonialism.     

Arresting Developments? Restricting the Enforcement of the UK's Universal Jurisdiction Provisions

Recently introduced legislative amendments limit the issue of arrest warrants on the application of a private prosecutor where jurisdiction is based on universal jurisdiction. The amendments addressed a ‘loophole’ in English law whereby a private prosecutor could seek and be granted an arrest warrant, generally in respect of an individual on a short term visit to the UK, even though the consent of the Attorney General would be required for the prosecution to continue. This article argues that these amendments addressed legitimate evidentiary and diplomatic relations concerns, are consistent with the UK's international obligations, and are in line with the UK's policy on the exercise of universal jurisdiction and with international trends. However, given the limited category of persons who were subject to such arrest warrants under the previous law and the practice of the UK concerning special missions, the amendments may be of limited practical significance.     

‘Together in the National Interest’: The Rhetoric of Unity and the Formation of the Cameron–Clegg Government

Following the formation of the Conservative–Liberal Democrat government in May 2010, David Cameron and Nick Clegg sought to persuade party members, the electorate and a sceptical media that their partnership would hold together for the duration of the parliament. Taking as its starting point Kenneth Burke's theory of rhetoric as identification, this article explores the strategies employed by senior Coalition figures to construct and present an image of unity to these different audiences. Of particular concern are appeals to the parties’ shared values and to the ‘national interest’, as well as the narrative of Britain's ‘debt crisis’. This narrative served to minimise inter‐party divisions by inviting MPs and supporters to unite behind the cause of deficit reduction, in opposition to the ‘fiscally irresponsible’ Labour party that had allegedly wrecked the economy. The article concludes by reflecting on the lessons for the partners in a future UK coalition government.     

Mobilising support when the stakes are high: Mass emails affect constituent-to-legislator lobbying

Mass emails are frequently used by advocacy groups to mobilise supporters to lobby legislators. But how effective are they at inducing constituent-to-legislator lobbying when the stakes are high? We test the efficacy of a large-scale email campaign conducted by the UK's main anti-Brexit organisation. In 2019, the group prominently displayed a ‘Write to your MP’ tool on their website and assigned 119,362 supporters represented by legislators with incongruent views to one of four email messages encouraging them to write to their MP or a control condition (no email). Messages varied across two factors: whether the MP's incongruent position was highlighted, and if urgency was emphasised. We find that 3.4 per cent of treatment subjects contacted their representative, compared to 0.1 per cent of those in the control, representing an additional 3,344 emails sent to MPs. We show that there was no substitution away from the most frequently used online legislator contact platform in the United Kingdom. While, on average, position and urgency cues had no marginal effects above the standard email, the most engaged supporters were more mobilised when informed that their MP held incongruent views. This study shows that advocacy groups can use low-cost communication techniques to mobilise supporters to lobby representatives when the stakes are high.     

New Labour

Abstract

This paper examines the use made by political parties of branding, as a means of establishing party values and winning political support. It looks in particular at the way in which political parties use communication to create, build and maintain political brands.

The paper involves an examination of the recent history of the British Labour Party. After a long period in the political wilderness, the party re-branded itself as “New Labour” in the mid-1990s, and-as New Labour-swept to power in a landslide election victory in 1997, under their new leader, Tony Blair.

Using media coverage and material written by some of the architects of New Labour, the paper will describe the creation of the “New Labour” brand, and look at how it was developed and used to generate political support. The paper will also consider the evolution and development of the brand, as the substance underlying the stated brand values has come to be questioned, not least by so-called “Old Labour” supporters of the party.

The paper will draw conclusions regarding the successful management of a political brand, pointing in particular at the need to ensure that the performance of a party espousing a particular brand supports and reinforces communicated brand values and the brand itself.     

《庄子》喜用寓言新探

寓言是《庄子》重要的组成部分和主要的论说方式。庄子喜用寓言的原因有三：其一,与当时诸子著书立说善用寓言这一流行的学术思潮分不开;其二,是当时“说难”这一客观的文化发展和庄子追求“超脱”的主观心态发展相结合的结果;其三,深受当时流行于楚国的巫风与神话的影响。