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AbstractThe theoretical literature on representation tends to read the work of Edmund Burke as a defence of a functional-corporatist conception of society, in which the groups relevant for political representation are stable and objective economic "interests" whose cooperation in and contribution to the life of nation and empire are essential for the status of Britain as a pre-eminent commercial power. This article presents an alternative, contractarian Burke that emerges out of his defence of the interests of non-economic "descriptions" of citizens such as Irish Catholics, a Burke who offers us an illuminating perspective from which to assess the claims of historically marginalized groups in contemporary liberal democratic societies.

We present a review of 80 papers representing efforts to support participation in democratic decision-making mostly related to local or national governments. The papers were published in leading human–computer interaction (SIGCHI conferences) venues. Most of this literature represents attempts to support assembly- oriented participation, wherein decisions are made through discussion, although referendum-type participation, involving decision-making based on voting, has gained attention too. Primarily, those papers addressing agenda-setting have examined organization-led forms, in which the agenda is controlled by those issuing the call for participation. Accordingly, the authors call for more research into support for representative models and participant-driven agenda-setting. Furthermore, the literature review pinpoints areas wherein further interdisciplinary engagement may be expected to improve research quality: in political science, HCI-informed methods and new ways of using physical input in participation merit more research, while, from the HCI side, cultivating closer relationships with political science concepts such as democratic innovations and calculus of voting could encourage reconsideration of the research foci. These observations speak to the benefits of a new research agenda for human–computer interaction research, involving different forms of participation, most importantly to address lack of engagement under the representative model of participation. Furthermore, in light of these findings, the paper discusses what type of interdisciplinary research is viable in the HCI field today and how political science and HCI scholars could usefully collaborate. ; Peer reviewed

CHARLES MURRAY'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IS UTILITARIAN, INDIVIDUALIST, AND COMMUNITARIAN. THE BASIS FOR HIS SUCCESS IN MAKING THESE COMPONENTS COHERE IS HIS ACCOUNT OF HAPPINESS, INSPIRED BY THE MOTIVATION THEORY OF ABRAHAM MASLOW. MURRAY CLAIMS THAT BELONGING TO A COMMUNITY AND SELF-RESPECT (WHICH ON HIS ANALYSIS REQUIRE A CERTAIN SOCIAL COMMITMENT) ARE CONSTITUENTS OF HAPPINESS. HENCE UTILITARIANS SHOULD ATTRIBUTE SPECIAL VALUE TO COMMUNITY. HE ALSO ARGUES THAT ACTIVE NATIONAL GOVERNMENTS ARE INIMICAL TO THE FORMATION AND FUNCTIONING OF COMMUNITIES, AND THAT COMMUNITIES ARE FOSTERED BY GOVERNMENTS THAT OBSERVE THE CONSTRAINTS OF LIBERAL INDIVIDUALISM.

Informed by Fredric Jameson's (1981) political approach to interpreting literature, a dialectical reading of J. R. R. Tolkein's The Hobbit (1937) & the The Lord of the Rings (1954, 1955) is presented. Rather than accept the conventional interpretation of Tolkein's works as escapist, it is contended that the protagonist Frodo Baggins is charged with the unavoidable task of destroying the Ring of Power; consequently, it is argued that Tolkein acknowledges the unfeasibility of escaping reality. Tolkein's delineation of the war between the human & demi-human races of Middle Earth & the orcs is interpreted as a manifestation of the fear of the British intellectual class that mass insurrection would threaten property ownership. Several additional themes within Tolkein's works are identified including the commodification of power, the implications of individuals' abandonment of power as a means of overcoming capitalism, property's capacity to turn individuals into evil opportunists, & the ability of socialist systems to repudiate the trappings of materialism. Contemporary society's prospects for overcoming the destructive power inherent in capitalist systems are also contemplated. 17 References. J. W. Parker

Political economy report brings together results from tasks 1 and 2 of WP11 and further develops the economic, ethical and health policy analyses. The first part of this report offers a thorough micro-economic analysis of decrementally cost-effective interventions (d-CEIs) in order to identify their distinctive characteristics and their welfare properties. It focuses on one of the most central questions, namely the symmetry between willingness to accept and willingness to pay, and addresses the controversy on the slopes of the thresholds in the N-E and S-W quadrants. The second part consists of an inquiry into the ethics of d-CEIs. It questions the validity of the justification often used by policy-makers for not considering d-CEIs: their unethical nature. The third part analyses health policy in the making, by documenting HTA bodies' willingness to adopt d-CEIs whose cost-effectiveness has been scientifically established. The fourth part of this report presents the quantitative and qualitative results of the discrete choice experiment specifically designed for this research project.

While it was not until 1871 that slavery in Cuba was finally abolished, African-descended people had high hopes for legal, social, and economic advancement as the republican period started. In Black Political Activism and the Cuban Republic, Melina Pappademos analyzes the racial politics and culture of black civic and political activists during the Cuban Republic. The path to equality, Pappademos reveals, was often stymied by successive political and economic crises, patronage politics, and profound racial tensions. In the face of these issues, black political leaders and members of black social clubs developed strategies for expanding their political authority and for winning respectability and socioeconomic resources. Rather than appeal to a monolithic black Cuban identity based on the assumption of shared experience, these black activists, politicians, and public intellectuals consistently recognized the class, cultural, and ideological differences that existed within the black community, thus challenging conventional wisdom about black community formation and anachronistic ideas of racial solidarity. Pappademos illuminates the central, yet often silenced, intellectual and cultural role of black Cubans in the formation of the nation's political structures; in doing so, she shows that black activism was only partially motivated by race.

Do improvements in health service delivery affect trust in political leaders in Africa? Citizens expect their government to provide social services. Intuitively, improvements in service delivery should lead to higher levels of trust in and support for political leaders. However, in contexts where inadequate services are the norm, and where political support is linked to ethnic or religious affiliation, there may be weak linkages between improvements in service delivery and changes in trust in political leaders. To examine this question empirically, we take advantage of a national intervention that improved health service delivery in 500 primary health care facilities in Nigeria, to estimate the impact of residence within 10 km of one or more of the intervention facilities on trust in the president, local councils, the ruling party, and opposition parties. Using difference-in-difference models, we show that proximity to the intervention led to increases in trust in the president and the ruling party. By contrast, we find no evidence of increased trust in the local council or opposition parties. Our study also examines the role of ethnicity and religious affiliation in mediating the observed increases in trust in the president. While there is a large literature suggesting that both the targeting of interventions, and the response of citizens to interventions is often mediated by ethnic, geographic or religious identity, by contrast, we find no evidence that the intervention was targeted at the president's ethnic group, zone, or state of origin. Moreover, there is suggestive evidence that the intervention increased trust in the president more among those who did not share these markers of identity with the president. This highlights the possibility that broad-based efforts to improve health services can increase trust in political leaders even in settings where political attitudes are often thought to be mediated by group identity.