Postcards from the Raj

ABSTRACT

Patterson's article explores aspects of British identity as they relate to depictions of Britons and Indians on postcards during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He argues that these were not innocuous ‘comic’ pieces, as they were intended to be seen at the time, but rather were integrally linked to the justification of the Raj, since they emphasize the civilizing mission of empire and the ‘backwards’ nature of India. Nearly all aspects of imperial life, whether running the bungalow, dispensing justice or even travelling by train, required the British to maintain an imperial façade of control and an aura of invincibility. Part of this process required the British to depict Indians as incapable of self-rule, and the postcards depict the British as natural overlords of India, born ‘booted and spurred’ to rule, while Indians are portrayed ‘saddled and bridled’. Indians then, due to their ‘Oriental nature’, are portrayed as too lazy, too effeminate or too dishonest to run their own country effectively. Another theme that can be explicated through the postcards is that of masculinity. By constantly posing as a more masculine and worthy race, the British laid down an entire grid of civilization in which they could be the only legitimate rulers. This aspect of the White Man's Burden further bolstered and perpetuated the masculine authority of the Raj, and the postcards became a key component linking empire and metropole for the re-export of imperial ideology to Britain.     

关于“十年一贡”的争论——19世纪末晚清政府在缅甸问题上与英国的交涉

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试论英国在缅甸的早期殖民政策

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Politicians,Scandals, and Trust in Government

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论英国社区警务战略思想的形成与推进

20世纪70年代末,英国人在犯罪预防问题上陷入了一种悲观情绪之中,似乎没有任何一种措施可以抑制犯罪的增长。随即世界范围内的“社区警务”思想带来第四次警务革命。在经过20多年的实践后,在有效维护了社会治安秩序的同时,英国政府认为目前的警察组织效能与社区警务战略,也需要与时俱变、与世俱变,为了迎接全球化治安形势演变的挑战,必须采取全国性的警务改造策略与行动,为此提出了“警察改革法草案”(Po1iceReformBill)。这也是英国政府对公众提供优质的警察服务、减少违法犯罪、降低犯罪恐惧感,增进公众对警察信任感而推动警务改造的承诺和宣言,亦为英国政府推动政府公共服务改革的整体政策之一。     

英国青少年司法体系的改革及启示

最近几年,英国政府进行了青少年司法改革。改革后的青少年司法体系独立,特点鲜明,内容有针对性,既有一些专门的基本性法律,又有对基本法的具体落实和进一步阐释。这一司法体系加大了对青少年犯罪的处罚力度,成为预防青少年犯罪工作的重要环节。这对于我国青少年司法体系的建立和完善具有一定的借鉴意义。     

Constitutional Change: A Note by the Bedside

The British constitution is undergoing major change although it tends to be carried out piecemeal and is often ignored. There are contradictory trends in what is happening. Some changes are deliberate major reforms which tend to disperse power and strengthen the rights of the individual against the State. Other changes are incidental by-products of other government policies, and tend in the other direction, towards the greater concentration of power in, and within, central government, for instance by the weakening of local government and the treatment of individual rights in legislation against terrorism. This second trend makes it all the more important that the checks and balances on the exercise of power by central government are effective. The main responsibility for ensuring this must rest with Parliament, backed up by the courts. A Civil Service Bill and perhaps a code of governance for central government would in their different ways be useful.     

Young British Partisan Attitudes to Negative Election Campaign Advertising: A Tri-Party Perspective

This article presents an empirical investigation of young partisan first-time voter attitudes toward the use of negative attack advertising in a British general election. Partisanship, particularly in relation to negative advertising and third-party effects, is significantly under-researched, yet it advances understanding of youth electoral interaction. Our study confirms that young British partisans are not passive recipients of information, but are actively involved in information processing, interpretation, and counter arguing. Our findings also highlight a third-party effect among young partisans in their evaluation of the attack advertising. Overall our young partisans broadly reject image-attack election ads, which raises a “health warning” on its use in future election campaigning. The findings of this study are of significant interest to election campaign strategists in their planning for future elections and to political researchers striving to advance understanding within the field of political marketing.     

How Safe Do Majority Group Members,Ethnic Minorities,and Muslims Feel in Multicultural European Societies?

London elected a Muslim mayor in 2016, less than a year after Germany took the lead in welcoming Syrian refugees. What accounts, then, for political leaders’ public assertions of the death of multiculturalism and the resurgence of far-right parties? We examine the possibility that some areas of multicultural policy foster a sense of discrimination on the part of majority populations and reduce their sense of safety, putting pressure on political leaders for assurances and providing the impetus for populist political party agendas, even to the point of Brexit. Data from the Banting/Kymlicka Multiculturalism Policy Index project and from the European Social Survey allow us to explore the impact of specific areas of multicultural policy on those who identify as majority group members, ethnic minorities, and Muslims in fourteen European states. We provide a quantitative multivariate analysis of the influence of key areas of state-level multicultural policy on individuals’ sense of being in a group that is discriminated against, as well as their feelings of safety, satisfaction with life, and satisfaction with the national government. Background factors, including respondents’ education, are controlled. For each of the three groups of respondents, the article offers conclusions as to which areas of multicultural policy seem to contribute to the most adverse reactions. Our findings help to explain the backlash against multiculturalism and the shift in focus in European states toward “mainstreaming” integration programs. They also provide a contextual background for understanding the increasing sway of rightist party demands and cautions for the development of programs to counter violent extremism.     

The Plants of Empire: Botanic Gardens,Colonial Power and Botanical Knowledge

In this article, the multifaceted relationship between colonial power and scientific knowledge is analysed. The specific focus is on untangling the contested and symbiotic connections between colonialism and the emergence and consolidation of aspects of botanical science. Colonial imperatives and the social consequences of colonial rule in India constituted the context for the idea and project of botanical gardens that facilitated the global transfer of a variety of plants to India. It was in the process of dealing with the problems of the transfer of plants across very diverse ecological and social contexts that natural history was eventually transformed into formal botanical science both in India and in Europe. Particular forms of scientific knowledge and institutions were indispensable for the consolidation of empire even as they facilitated new imperial concerns and projects that constituted the structural context for the development of new forms of scientific knowledge, practices, institutions and power. Without reducing science to nothing more than an appendage of colonial power and imperatives, the significance of empire in the rise of botany as a formal science is analysed in this article.