Tintin in Australia: The Federal Election on 24 November 2007

The Australian federal election on 24November 2007 ended more than a decade of dominance of the centre-right Coalition government of John Howard. Despite his long reign, Howard leaves surprisingly little legacy in terms of fundamental changes, indeed, the main policy changes were already laid down by the Labor governments in the 1980s and early 1990s. Apart from general discontent with the long serving government, the environment, the close alliance with the US and opposition to work-place legislation led to the Coalitions defeat in an election, in which even the PM lost his seat.     

Liberalism and the anxiety of belief

Anxiety about perceived threats to liberal freedom has played a double role in liberalism. On the one hand, such anxiety has driven the development of liberal institutions aimed at safeguarding freedoms. Yet another, problematic, side of this anxiety can also be found in the history of liberalism and in the policies and practices of contemporary liberal states. From the beginning, liberal intolerance of those perceived to be connected, through religious affiliation or beliefs, with arbitrary or absolute power and therefore deemed to pose a threat to the existing order has justified social exclusion and, in many cases, systematic violence. Rae’s article examines the theoretical and political roots of this distinctive form of liberal anxiety, tracing the connection between anxiety about Catholicism and Catholics in John Locke’s time and contemporary anxieties about the relationship between Islamism and Muslims in liberal states.     

King Charls His Case: The Intended Prosecution of Charles I

Charles I was put to death without having pleaded to the charges preferred against him during his trial. This article examines the case that his prosecutor later said he would have opened, had the king entered a plea. John Cook's case was predictably forthright in its denunciation of the accused. On the other hand, it has some highly significant omissions; some of it was legally and factually hopeless, and much of the rest invited fairly obvious responses; whilst its exposition was much more contentious than one might expect from a case for the prosecution of a man whose guilt had already been pronounced ‘notorious’. Rather than simply setting out a wholly unsatisfactory indictment of the king's alleged ‘guilt’, as a mere prelude to the shedding of his blood, Cook's true aim appears to have been to goad the king into making, before the eyes of the watching world, a case in his own defence sufficient to enable the king's judges, having heard what he might have to say, and subject to ‘the merit of the Cause’, to hand down some sentence other than death - all as the Act erecting the high court of justice authorized them to do.     

Consensus to Contestation: Reconfiguring Democratic Representation in the European Union in the Light of 19th Century United States Democratization

This article explores how proposals for democratizing the European Union (EU) according to a supranational, contestational model are likely to disrupt its existing political system. The current EU is characterized by a dual system of representation that combines the representation of member states with that of individual citizens. Democratization typically entails enhancing the representation of individuals at the expense of state prerogatives. It is thus possible to make a pertinent analogy with the antebellum United States, which also featured dual representation, and where a great wave of democratization took place following Andrew Jackson's presidency (1829–1837). As the system of representation there became more majoritarian, John C. Calhoun led the calls for introducing new anti-majoritarian constitutional safeguards. A transatlantic comparison suggests the contestational system born of EU democratization will require institutional innovation in order to prove viable. In this context, Calhoun's theory of nullification, an ex post political mechanism wielded by the units to stymie federal legislation, appears more appropriate as an anti-majoritarian bulwark and better able to engender constitutional debate over competences than is the EU's stillborn judicial principle of subsidiarity. In similarly Calhounian fashion, a bottom-up procedure of constitutional amendment originating in the units is further proposed as a way of establishing unit acquiescence to greater supranationalism.     

Australia's Handling of Tensions between Islam and the West under the Howard Government

This article examines the impact of international conflicts involving the Muslim world upon Australia's multicultural society by studying the Howard government's responses to tensions between Islam and the West since September 11. Specifically, it surveys the Howard government's participation in the ‘War on Terror’, other aspects of Australia's foreign and security policies, including the relationship with the United States, the emergence of immigration and refugee flows as national security issues, and the subsequent impact of all this on multiculturalism and in particular on Australia's Muslim community. At a broader level, the article challenges the argument that foreign policy is inconsequential for social policy, intercommunal, inter-ethnic and inter-religious relations. The internalization of the ‘War on Terror’ has reinforced a negative portrayal of Islam and Muslims in Australia by blurring the dividing line between ‘Islam’ on the one hand and ‘extremism’ and ‘terrorism’ on the other. The evidence suggests that government statements and policies, more generally had provoked apprehension amongst a wide cross-section of the Australian Muslim community. A major finding of this article is that unless care is taken, it is not inconceivable that the hitherto harmonious relationship between Muslims and other sections of Australia's community could be unnecessarily endangered.     

The meanings,origins and implications of 'the Howard Doctrine'

This article examines the background to the so-called 'Howard Doctrine' of 1999 in response to the problems that Australian diplomacy and defence policy encountered during the East Timor crisis. The article begins by examining the critical reaction both in Australia and abroad to the doctrine which appeared to imply Australia's increased reliance on the 'special relationship' with the US and its role as a 'deputy' of its ANZUS partner in the East Asia region. The article then demonstrates the historical origins of the doctrine's thinking in Australia's reliance since the post-war period on a system of serial bilateralism and special relationships with first the UK, the US and then Indonesia. However, the article also points out the essential vulnerabilities inherent in this type of serial bilateralism and its relative inability to respond effectively to the East Timor crisis. Finally, the article considers the systemic risk in Australian policy as manifested in the doctrine, and the future viability of serial bilateralism in dealing with Australia's regional diplomatic and security agenda.     

大国政治未必悲剧——论“米氏”逻辑的困惑与出路

进攻性现实主义在传统现实主义和新现实主义上发展起来,并形成了自己完整而独立的体系,把现实主义的发展推进到一个新的高度。但是进攻性现实主义偏激地强调了国家进攻性的本质特征,忽视了国家合作的可能及其现实意义,从而导致理论在逻辑上的巨大缺陷和“存在合法性”危机的出现。特别是其基于“国家是理性行为体并竭力寻求国家权力最大化”的理论假设进行的理论推演,有着极大的缺陷和片面性。     

John Dewey on experience: a critical resource for the theory and practice of youth civic engagement

Research on youth civic engagement often sees the everyday lives of young people as barriers to civic engagement. Recent qualitative approaches have drawn attention to the civic and political dimensions of young people's everyday lives. This is a crucial insight, but cannot – by itself – answer a key question: just how is it that everyday experience can be transformed into civic engagement? I argue that John Dewey's theory of experience makes two key contributions toward answering this question. First, Dewey's situational understanding of experience directs us to the concrete conditions of everyday life as the necessary groundwork and starting point for civic engagement. Second, his concept of reflective experience helps us understand how taken for granted assumptions about political and social life can be transformed into more active forms of engagement. I illustrate this argument by drawing on selected findings from a qualitative study of young people's experience in Public Achievement, a civic engagement initiative.     

论密尔对功利主义的证明

密尔对功利主义的证明可以分以下几个步骤：首先他探讨伦理学和科学的区分，说明功利主义不可能有科学的证明；其次他探讨伦理学方法，对直觉主义伦理学和归纳主义伦理学进行分析，说明功利主义在什么意义上是可以证明的；再次，对功利主义予以证明。他首先假设人的认知机能和意欲机能是可以统一起来的，然后再从三个方面进行证明：(1)从“可见的到可欲求的”证明；(2)从个人幸福到公共幸福的证明；(3)只有幸福是值得欲求的，其他一切或是幸福的组成部分，或是达到幸福的手段。最后，对最大多数人的最大幸福予以证明。     

Rawls's Difference Principle as Compensation for Social Immobility

Outside academia, John Rawls's theory of justice—justice as fairness—has had little impact. This article is part of a broader project to rectify this. I offer a distinctive, second‐best, argument for Rawls's difference principle. The difference principle requires that inequalities in income and wealth are justified only if they benefit society's least‐advantaged citizens. My paper argues that, slightly‐modified, the difference principle is an excellent principle of redress in light of the UK's continued failure to give all citizens fair career chances. I show how we might realize the difference principle at the level of policy through tax rate reductions or negative tax rates. I conclude that if you don't want to accept the second‐best argument for the difference principle you must get serious about giving all citizens fair career chances. As I suggest, this task is extremely difficult.