The Daily Mail and the Stephen Lawrence Murder

The Daily Mail's coverage of the 1993 race murder of Stephen Lawrence has been held up as an example of newspaper journalism at its best. It is a cause of pride to the paper, which has asserted that its 1997 front page accusing five men of the murder, and the comment and reporting that followed, brought about significant social and policy changes and helped achieve justice. The coverage has also been cited by the paper to rebut critics who accuse it of intolerance. Examined in detail here and set in their context, the paper's claims about its role in the case prove to be either exaggerated or not supported by evidence. The Mail's engagement in the Lawrence case involved a famous instance of editorial brilliance, but insofar as its campaign brought about or contributed to changes, they were not usually changes sought by the paper and they were sometimes contrary to its aims.     

A tale of two ex-dominions: why the procedures for changing the rules of succession are so different in Canada and Australia

In 2011, the leaders of the nations that share Queen Elizabeth as their head of state agreed to change the rules governing the inheritance of the throne. The federal nature of the Canadian and Australian Crowns raises the question of whether Canadian provinces and Australian states should be involved in the process for modifying the rules of succession. Australia's federal government has decided to include its states in the process, whereas Canada's did not. This article will assess what the differences between these two approaches reveal about the political cultures and leaders of these nations. The issues discussed include relations between the civil service and elected politicians, the contested social memory of the British Empire, and the relationship between neoliberalism and cooperative federalism.     

通向一种文化诗学:新历史主义批评的研究综述

作为20世纪80年代后英美文论界的新兴批评理论,新历史主义是在当代语境下对历史文本重新进行文化阐释和政治解读的阅读诗学。中西方学界对新历史主义的研究也呈现出各自的文化特征。本文以格林布拉特文化诗学为研究个案,在回顾新历史批评发展历程的同时,总体把握中西方学界对新历史主义的研究现状,重新把握新历史主义文化诗学在中国文化语境下的理论内涵。     

Maple Leaf Zeitgeist? Assessing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Policy Changes*

In the October 2015 elections, the charismatic Justin Trudeau led the Canadian Liberal Party to its first majority government in 15 years, overturning nearly a decade of conservative government. His premiership is generally considered to have begun well. This article examines Trudeau’s conduct of the election campaign, his choice of a young and diverse Cabinet, his courtship of the media and image making, and assesses changes in foreign and domestic policy. These have yet to prove substantive but Trudeau has signalled a reversal of Stephen Harper’s conservative policies and especially in regard to migration has tapped into images of ‘compassionate Canadians’. In foreign policy, this has been evidenced in relations with the United States and with a re-engagement with the Commonwealth especially in its soft power aspects. Trudeau’s green credentials and stance on Climate Change are a contrast to those of his predecessor but he has yet to confront the different environmental profiles and policies of the Canadian states. Canada’s Strategic Partnership with the European Community and the ratification of CETA are priorities and he has to come to terms with the implications of Brexit.     

Exploring Strategies and Implications of an Opportunistic Alliance: A Case Study of Pakistan and China

This article seeks to test the validity of ‘balance of threat’ theory as propounded by Stephen Walt that states react to imbalances of threat. It takes into account the factors enumerated by Walt to explore threat perceptions of Pakistan and the strategy they developed to cope with security threats. It attempts to take an overview of Pakistan's security dilemma its responses in twin time frames: the Cold War period (1980–1989) and the post-Cold War period (1990–2000) with relevance to the contemporary period. Pakistan's arms acquisition, upgradation in sophistication of arsenals, increase in fund allocation in defence have all been its tangible tactics to neutralize India's military superiority. Pakistan explored Pan-Islamism to bring the support of the Islamic states. Pakistan also resorted to an active alliance with China, to increase its competency. From a theoretical angle, this article adopts a realist viewpoint, focuses on security concerns of state actors.     

Multiculturalism,Institutional Law,and Imaginary Justice

Following Le Pen's relative successin the French presidential vote and the BritishNational Party's historic return in our own2002 local elections, the article considers theprospects for the production of morecommunicative race relations in contemporaryBritain. To this end we reassess the media'streatment of the Stephen Lawrence case andexplore the political logic of the Macphersonreport, the policy document which followed theapparent miscarriage of justice that allowedLawrence's alleged killers to walk free. Interms of our analysis of the media we areconcerned to show how the real of Britain'sordinary racism was hidden behind an ideologyof multiculturalism that scapegoated singularindividuals to cover for the structuralinequalities of wider society. The article aimsto show how the media upheld the notion ofobjective justice that institutional law wasapparently unable to secure.But while the media supported the ideology ofthe law, its exposure of the failings ofinstitutional law also led to calls for legalreform to guarantee the realisation ofinstitutional justice. Although we accept thatthe attempt to achieve legal totality isimpossible, our argument is that the critiqueof legal objectivity, which takes in subjectiverights claims, may present the possibility forthe realisation of a novel, inclusive, model ofrace relations. That is to say that althoughthe media supports the ideology of the law, thefact that this support requires a critique ofpractical law forces the law to modernisearound the idealistic demands of its ownideological structure. Akin toDouzinas,¹ who has argued for theendless expansion of rights as post-modernutopianism, we believe that this process ofmodernisation, which is arranged to maintainthe status quo through minimal reform, is thecondition of possibility of a more inclusivesystem of race relations.     

At the Verge

This essay responds to the idea of “living the boundary” that Stephen Clingman develops in “A Story of Identity for our Times” and The Grammar of Identity. In mythical and wisdom traditions, revolutionary tricksters are often associated with thresholds, because travel across spatial, perceptual, or political limits is what allows cultural transformation to take place. In South Africa and elsewhere, boundaries are where culture is re-made.