Not Big Brand Names but Corner Shops

ABSTRACT

Does New Labour's model of a centrally orchestrated and national-centric political communication strategy effectively engage the electorate? Drawing on interviews with those active in politics “on the ground,” this paper argues that the centralised party model has become unpopular. Furthermore, as these activists tell us, the model is also causing the electorate to reject the democratic process and become apathetic about the political system. Many in Britain, therefore, look to a more locally focussed model, one that has proved successful for the Liberal Democrat party. This model allows communication to be managed at the local level and for the candidate to interact with the local context. An effectively marketed, locally contextualised strategy allows politics to connect with the electorate and, we would suggest, will become more widespread with the realisation that top-down politics does not engage with voters.     

Britain and Europe

Britain decided to join the European Community because its postwar, postimperial policies had failed and successive Governments saw no viable alternative. After ten years of being denied entry by De Gaulle, Britain joined on disadvantageous terms and with the British political parties, and the British people, deeply divided. Accession did not resolve the underlying issues and Britain's first year of membership saw an unprecedented oil crisis, bad relations between Britain and the United States and the demise of the British government led by Edward Heath. The underlying issues which had not been resolved in the accession negotiations were reopened by Harold Wilson and later by Margaret Thatcher. Some of them remain unresolved in British politics to this day.     

Do voters reward rebellion? The electoral accountability of MPs in Britain

To hold their Members of Parliament individually accountable for their legislative behaviour, British voters would need to base their decision to vote for an MP at least partially on the extent to which the MP's legislative voting behaviour deviated from that of the MP's party leadership. Voters should evaluate this deviation contingent on their views of the party leadership. MP rebellion can signal that voter–MP congruence is greater than that of the voter and the MP's party leadership. In this article it is found that only constituents with negative attitudes toward the Labour government reward rebellious Labour MPs, albeit to a limited extent. A similar conditional association is not observed on a single issue: Iraq. The policy accountability of MPs is relatively weak and general rather than issue‐specific.     

From Imperium to Internet: the National Alliance and the American extreme right

Led by William Pierce, a former officer in the National Socialist White People's Party, America's National Alliance has achieved particular notoriety as a result of Pierce's authoring of a genocidal political thriller called The Turner Diaries. Pierce argues, both in his fiction and elsewhere, for the recruitment of an elite that will one day lead to an armed struggle against The System. The argument of others on the extreme right in the United States, however, that only individuals or at most small cells can successfully overthrow the state represents a grave challenge to the Alliance's groupuscular logic.     

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.     

越南河内历史上的关公庙与华侨华人

历史上河内供奉关公的宗教建筑物数量曾居越南全国之首,关公庙、天后庙与河内华侨华人会馆有着十分密切的关系,具体体现为先庙后馆、庙馆同处或亦庙亦馆,这种关系一方面反映了宗教信仰在华侨华人社会中具有举足轻重的作用,另一方面也说明华人会馆具有宗教职能。     

Racism: Less is More

Racism has been in sharp decline in recent decades yet the word, as accusation, is used more than ever. The word/idea needs to be more restrictively defined and kept for when it is really needed. When almost everyone is a racist, no one is. To this end we need to distinguish more clearly between the greater comfort people often feel among familiar people and places and active hostility towards outsider ethnic groups. We also need a more discriminating language to describe the spectrum of discrimination. Prejudice, clannishness—even in some instances discrimination itself—should be regarded as sentiments and behaviours that are distinct from proper racism.     

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

1885年底英国占领缅甸后,中国与英国就缅甸问题进行了交涉.中国最后与英国达成了英国统治下的缅甸每届十年向中国进献方物的协议.但在英国巩固了对缅甸的占领之后,废除了这一协定.这一协定从确立到废止,反映了中、英双方世界秩序理论的差异.     

一场跨大西洋的"学派大辩论"

以德.代元主编的《国际关系理论批判》作为分析文本,着重评述最近出现的英美学派“大辩论”所涵盖的3个基本问题。目前这场仍在继续的“学派大辩论”,为我们认识国际关系学界两种不同的理论发展取向提供了有益的视角。尤其是,这场“后学”视角下的“学派大辩论”清晰地勾勒出一幅“非线性拓展的国际关系理论未来图画”。