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Political Purposes (political + purpose)
Selected AbstractsHistorical writing in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Scotland: the Dunfermline compilationHISTORICAL RESEARCH, Issue 220 2010Alice Taylor This article examines the first three items in a manuscript housed in the Royal Library in Madrid but written at the Benedictine abbey of Dunfermline in Fife, Scotland during the reign of James III (1460,88). It argues that the three items were originally put together during the reign of Alexander III (1249,86) and together formed a compilation which should be viewed as the earliest extant history of the twelfth- and thirteenth-century kings of Scots. Interestingly, the Dunfermline compilation did not stress the Irish ancestry of the kings of Scots, as might be assumed, but instead set its subjects against the backdrop of their Anglo-Saxon descent from the house of Cerdic. The article then considers the relationship of the Dunfermline compilation to Turgot's Vita Sancte Margarete and Aelred of Rievaulx's Genealogia Regum Anglorum and argues that the use of these sources in the compilation suggest that it was put together for a particular political purpose, a purpose for which the Anglo-Saxon ancestry of the kings of Scots had particular relevance. [source] The Court in England, 1714,1760: A Declining Political Institution?HISTORY, Issue 297 2005HANNAH SMITH Although recent studies of eighteenth-century English politics have moved beyond viewing political activity solely in parliamentary terms and consider the extra-parliamentary dimensions to political life, the royal court has not been included in this development. This article seeks to reassess the political purpose of the court of George I, and particularly that of George II, by analysing how the court functioned both as an institution and as a venue. Although the court was losing ground as an institution, with the royal household declining in political importance, the article argues that the household should not be the only means of measuring the court's political role. Through analysing the court's function as a venue for political brokerage and as a type of political theatre, it is argued that the court retained a political significance throughout the period from 1714 to 1760. The article examines the importance of the court as a place where certain forms of patronage might be obtained, and as a location for political negotiation by ministers and lower-ranking politicians. Moreover, it also analyses how the court was employed as a stage for signalling political opinion through attendance, ceremony, gesture, and costume. [source] Dilemmas of Policy Innovation in the Public Sector: A Case Study of the National Innovation SummitAUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, Issue 4 2009Ian Marsh Policy innovation is a significant challenge for the public sector. This article illustrates its magnitude through a case study of the National Innovation Summit. The article concludes that the Summit represented an elaborate process of search and engagement that sanctioned an outcome that was, in most respects, largely pre-determined. Its outreach and deliberations served the political purpose of mobilising industry and media attention and communicating the government's commitment. But there is no evidence that it exercised any substantive influence on policy development. The obstacles confounding any other outcome are considerable. Strategic thinking is inhibited by various organisational factors including lock-in to a present successful strategy, the constraints on policy choices associated with multiple veto points and the need to maintain medium term fiscal and policy discipline across a wide range of agencies and claimants. The article explores ways these inhibitions might be overcome. [source] LANGUAGE AND TOTALITARIAN REGIMESECONOMIC AFFAIRS, Issue 2 2002Magda Stroi The communist misappropriation of words for political purposes still makes people in Eastern Europe struggle to find unambiguous language of political and economic thought. This paper discusses the problem of language that distorts reality and focuses on traps that hinder communication between people from the West and people from the post-communist Eastern Europe. [source] A decline of linkage?EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 6 2003Intra-party participation in Norway The decline in party membership in Western Europe is generally taken as an indicator of party transformation. This article looks beyond membership figures and asks whether membership decline should be interpreted to mean that the activities and motivation of the remaining members are changing. Hypotheses on changes in party activism and motivation for party membership are tested with data from the 1991 and 2000 Norwegian party member surveys. Rather than uncovering evidence of change, most analyses point to a remarkable level of stability. Active and passive members seem to have disappeared at about the same rate. The general diagnosis of party decline is neither improved nor aggravated, but the analysis casts doubt on propositions about the transformation of the grassroots organisation. The Internet is used by party office-holders and the young, but the grassroots rarely use the new technology for political purposes. The character of the representative and participatory linkages provided by parties has, however, changed as a consequence of a shrinking party membership. [source] THE SOVIET WAR MEMORIAL IN TREPTOW, BERLIN,GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW, Issue 2 2003PAUL STANGL ABSTRACT. The Soviet War Memorial in Treptow, Berlin, was an important emblem of political power and ideology during and after the cold war. Designed as the Soviet Union's premiere extraterritorial battlefield shrine, the site combines a veterans' cemetery with a large-scale memorial complex celebrating the Soviet victory in World War II. The monument was intended for use in Soviet military commemorative activity and became a key sacred space in the Cult of the Soviet War Dead, but its location in Berlin meant that it served other political purposes. By avoiding definitive statements on key issues the memorial attained a semantic flexibility that enabled it to remain a focal point of commemorative activity for decades. The memorial continues to play a part in contemporary Berlin, though the political overtones are now overshadowed by its role as a shrine to the war dead. [source] Scale and trends in species richness: considerations for monitoring biological diversity for political purposesGLOBAL ECOLOGY, Issue 2 2004Darius Weber ABSTRACT Switzerland's governmental ,Biodiversity Monitoring' program is designed to produce factual information on the dynamics of biodiversity within the country for governmental agencies, politicians, and the general public. Monitoring a complex issue like biodiversity in order to give relevant and accurate messages to the general public and politicians within a politically relevant timescale and at moderate cost means focusing on few elements. Because relevant human impacts on biodiversity operate differently at different spatial scales, we need at least three different indicators to observe changes over time in local (,within-habitat'), landscape (,habitat-mosaic'), and macro-scale (,regional') diversity. To keep things as simple as possible, we use species richness as an indicator for all three levels of diversity, just defining three different spatial scales (10 m2, 1 km2, regions, respectively). Each indicator is based on a number of taxonomic groups which have been selected mainly on the basis of costs and the availability of appropriate methods. [source] The Impact of Central Bank Independence on Political Monetary Cycles in Advanced and Developing NationsJOURNAL OF MONEY, CREDIT AND BANKING, Issue 7 2009SAMI ALPANDA political monetary cycles; central bank independence This paper examines the extent to which monetary policy is manipulated for political purposes during elections. We do not detect political monetary cycles in advanced countries or developing nations with independent central banks. We do find evidence, however, in developing countries that lack central bank independence. Furthermore, we find some evidence that these cycles are not caused by monetization of election-related fiscal expansions. This suggests that pressure by politicians on the central bank to exploit the Phillips curve may be an important factor in generating political monetary cycles. [source] Public Good, Private Protections: Competing Values in German Transplantation LawLAW & POLICY, Issue 2 2002Linda Hogle Organ transplantation has become almost routine practice in many industrialized countries. Policy, ethical, and legal debates tend to center on fairness of allocation rules or alternatives to promote greater numbers of donations. There are also certain beliefs about the use of bodily materials that are often presumed to be homogenous across Euro,American societies. In Germany, however, the idea of using the bodies of some for the good of others, and the right to proclaim some bodies dead for large,scale medical and political purposes is highly charged. This is due to the historical context of medical experimentation, selection, and euthanasia under National Socialism, and the former East German socialist policies which intervened in the private lives and bodies of citizens. This article is based on an ethnography of organ procurement practices during the period when German policymakers struggled with writing a transplant law. Active public resistance revealed deep concern about state intervention in private matters and amplified the growing unrest over definitions of moral community in a changing, post,reunification society. The article shows how public disputes about health policy become a way through which societies deal with other social conflicts. [source] Fear Appeals in Political Rhetoric about Terrorism: An Analysis of Speeches by Australian Prime Minister HowardPOLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 1 2009Krista De Castella This paper explores fear-arousing content in Australian former Prime Minister John Howard's political rhetoric about terrorism. We coded 27 speeches delivered between September 2001 and November 2007 for the presence of statements promoting fear-consistent appraisals (Smith & Lazarus, 1993). Fear-arousing content was present in 24 of these speeches, but the amount of fear-arousing content varied markedly. In particular, rhetoric that raised doubts about the capacity of Australia and its allies to cope with terrorism was most strongly present in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq and at times of declining support for government policies. Textual analysis of three key speeches confirmed a marked difference between Howard's speech given immediately after the attacks on September 11, 2001, and the second and third speeches presented prior to and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. These findings indicate that Howard has not consistently employed fear-inducing rhetoric in his speeches about terrorism, but that particular speeches appear to take this form, raising the possibility that fear-arousing rhetoric may have been selectively deployed to support his political purposes at those times. [source] Minority Representation and Majority-Minority Districts after Shaw v. Reno: Legal Challenges, Empirical Evidence and Alternative ApproachesPOLITICS & POLICY, Issue 2 2001Michael A. Smith One of the most vexing problems of American federalism is the process by which representatives get elected from the respective states. This paper discusses the muddled precedent on gerrymandering established by the U.S. Supreme Court in Shaw v. Reno and upheld in subsequent cases. After conditionally upholding gerrymandering for political purposes in Davis v. Bandemer, the Court now rejects racial gerrymandering if the resulting districts have a particularly contorted appearance on a map. These rulings lack a clear definition of representation, though the Court has hinted that it may be necessary to move beyond the stark procedural view of one-person, one-vote. Although the concept of substantive representation may seem difficult to apply at first, it may be operationalized by considering the chances that a voter or coalition has of influencing an election. Given the obvious preferences of legislators and parties for "safe seats," along with this vague Court precedent, voters may be tempted to refer districting controversies to nonpartisan or bipartisan commissions. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||