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Political Commentators (political + commentator)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences80%

Selected Abstracts

Prospects for the Two-party System in a Pluralising Political World

AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, Issue 2 2002
Andrew Norton
Political commentators argue that the major political parties are in decline. This article sets out evidence for this view: minor parties and independents securing 20 percent of the vote at federal elections, declining strength of voters' party identification, and issue movements playing a large role in setting the political agenda. Possible causes for these trends range from the political, such as policy failure, undermining traditional constituencies, and ignoring public opinion, to sociological forces, such as postmaterialism, individualism and serious disaffection. However, the article argues Labor and the Coalition will be the dominant political players for the foreseeable future. In most lower houses, the electoral system favours the major parties which on balance is a good thing. The major parties have taken concerns of interest groups into account, while balancing these against majority opinion. They simplify choice for an electorate only moderately interested in politics, and can be held accountable in a way minor parties and independents cannot. [source]

The difficulties of empire: present, past and future*

HISTORICAL RESEARCH, Issue 205 2006
Linda Colley
Although empire is now an intensely fashionable subject of enquiry, much contemporary comment is relatively uninformed and lacks historical context. This is particularly significant in the light of the United States' purported new imperialism. This article considers the problems faced by those attempting to define empire, whether in the past or the present. It traces the origins of American imperialism to the beginnings of the republic and before, and compares it with the British experience, arguing in all cases for the importance of a wide-ranging and comparative approach to empire. Finally, it urges historians and political commentators to move beyond a concentration on dead European empires, to look as well at other and at present-day versions of the phenomenon, and to re-examine the overlap between nation and empire. [source]

Reclaiming modernity: Indigenous cosmopolitanism and the coming of the second revolution in Bolivia

AMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Issue 4 2006
MARK GOODALE
In this article I explore the emergence of complicated new forms of indigeneity in Bolivia over the last 15 years. I argue that although what I describe as a second revolution is under way in contemporary Bolivia, there is a danger that this revolution will be misread by scholars, political commentators, and others because of the prevailing tendency to interpret social and moral movements in Bolivia (and elsewhere) in rigidly neopolitical,economic terms. I offer an alternative theoretical framework for understanding current developments in Bolivia, which I describe as "indigenous cosmopolitanism": the ability of national political leaders, youth rappers in El Alto, rural indigenous activists, and others to bring together apparently disparate discursive frameworks as a way of reimagining categories of belonging in Bolivia, and, by extension, the meanings of modernity itself. [source]

A Realist's Moral Opposition to War: Han J. Morgenthau and Vietnam

PEACE & CHANGE, Issue 1 2001
Ellen Glaser Rafshoon
This article examines Hans J. Morgenthau's critique of U.S. policies in Vietnam. Morgenthau, renowned for his advocacy of realism in foreign affairs, was one of the few political commentators to raise questions about nation-building efforts in South Vietnam in the 1950s. After full-scale military intervention in the 1960s, he became the foremost academic critic of the war. Morgenthau demonstrated a dramatic evolution in his views. In the 1950s, he expressed reservations about Indochina policies based on pragmatic concerns. Over time, however, his analysis of Vietnam policies focused on their ethical shortcomings. His examination of the ethics of the Vietnam war led him to revise his notion of how national interests should be determined in making foreign policy, from a calculation based on purely strategic factors to one that also takes moral factors into account. [source]

Separating Sense from Nonsense in the US Debate on the Financial Meltdown

POLITICAL STUDIES REVIEW, Issue 1 2010
David Coates
The US debate on the causes of the financial meltdown and the policies appropriate for its resolution have a different center of gravity to that prevalent in Western Europe. Free-market solutions continue to be canvassed by conservative and libertarian politicians and political commentators with an intensity that is rarely found elsewhere, reflecting the extent to which a significant minority of American voters and policy makers remain wedded to a principled anti-statism. This article surveys those views, and the rebuttals to them now coming from more center-left elements of the US political class. It argues for the superiority of the latter, while noting that one serious adverse consequence of this positioning of the US debate is its capacity to distract attention from important underlying structural causes of the housing crisis and associated credit crunch. [source]