Suchergebnisse

Introduction -- Political history -- Basic political data -- Basic socio-economic data -- Part I - Citizenship, law and rights -- Nationhood and citizenship -- The Rule of Law and access to justice -- Civil and political rights -- Economic and social rights -- Part II - Representative and accountable government -- Free and fair elections -- Democratic role of political parties -- Government effectiveness and accountability -- Civilian control of the military and the police -- Minimising corruption -- Part III - Civil society and popular participation -- The media in a democratic society -- Political participation -- Government responsiveness -- Decentralisation -- Part IV - Democracy beyond the state and federalism -- International dimensions of democracy -- Federalism -- Index

I. The Prehistory of the Marxian Concept of the Asiatic Mode of Production -- The Legacy of Aristotle -- Travellers' Tales -- Oriental Despotism and French Politics, the First Phase: A Negative Model for Europe -- Oriental Despotism and French Politics, the Second Phase: A Positive Model for Europe -- Empires Belonging to Space and not to Time -- The Contribution of Political Economy: The Relation of Private Property to Progress -- II. The Marxian Concept of the Asiatic Mode of Production -- Marx's Perception of the Non-Western World -- Alternative Interpretations: The Question of the Continuity or Discontinuity of Marx's Model of Asiatic Society -- Marx's Analysis of Asiatic Society in the General Perspective of his Social Theory -- The City in East and West -- The Ancient East -- The Asiatic Village System: Passport to the Future? -- The Contribution of Engels to the Marxian Analysis of the Non-Western World -- 'Asiatic Feudalism' -- The Asiatic Mode of Production and Sino-Soviet Relations -- The Impact of the Sino-Soviet Rift -- III. The Asiatic Mode of Production in Relation to the Place of Geographical Factors in Historical Materialism -- Marx on the Role of Geographical Factors in Historical Development -- Engels' Account of Laws of Nature -- The 'Geographical Deviation': Plekhanov -- The 'Geographical Deviation': Wittfogel -- Historical Materialism Versus Geographical Determinism: Stalin and Beyond -- The Revolt of the Soviet Geographers against Stalin 129 -- The Reassessment of the Place of Geographical Factors in Historical Materialism -- A Note on the Population Factor -- IV. Marxist Perspectives on Russian History: The Practical Application of the Concept of the Asiatic Mode of Production -- Marx's Conception of the Character of the Russian State: Russia Contrasted with Europe -- Marx and the Service-State Theory of Russian History: A Parallel Theory of the Non-European Character of Russian History -- Russian History in European Dress: The Orthodox Marxist Approach -- Plekhanov on Russian History: The Alternative Marxist Approach -- Modernisation in a Non-Western Milieu: Trotsky on Russia's Past and Present -- V. The Asiatic Mode of Production in Relation to the Marxist Analysis of Progress and Modernisation -- The Unilinear Schema of Social Development -- The Hegelianised Version of the Unilinear Schema -- Chronological and Logical Problems Associated with the Progressive Ranking of Socio-Economic Formations -- The Multilinear Schema of History as Found in Marx -- Variations of the Multilinear Schema as Applied to Pre-Capitalist Societies -- The Dynamics of Modernisation in the Non-Western World: Towards a New Marxist Historiography -- VI. Epilogue -- Select Bibliography -- Works by Marx and Engels -- Other Works Consulted.

AbstractIn 2019, the High Court of Australia used the term 'level playing field' no less than 18 times when considering limits on electoral campaign expenditure. This article examines the usefulness of this metaphor when assessing the opportunity to compete in elections on an equal basis. It shows that the metaphor is often used in electoral jurisprudence and by electoral monitoring bodies, but rarely subject to analysis. One place where it has been analysed is in the democratisation literature, where it is defined in terms of access to state resources, media, and the law. However, it needs further elaboration to make it useful in analysing the fairness of electoral competition in established democracies. The assumption of only two teams, incumbents and opposition, needs to be modified through considering the hierarchy of incumbency benefits. A case study of the 2019 Australian federal election illustrates the differential access to state resources of electoral contenders as well as the need to add the role of private money to the attributes of the playing field. It finds that although there has been some levelling of the playing field at the State and Territory level, at the federal level there has been further tilting.

Ritual and Rhythm in Electoral Systems: A Comparative Legal Account. By Graeme Orr (Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate, 2015), pp.xiv + 223. £70.00 (cloth).

This article moves away from issues of the impact of women and feminist scholarship on political science to examine the relationship of feminist political science to a political constituency. It traces the trajectory of feminist political science from its close relationship with women's movement activism in the 1970s to the highly professionalised disciplinary subfield of today. It highlights some of the dilemmas resulting both from professional imperatives and from the norms of research excellence stemming from new forms of research governance. It finds that feminist political science has been pushed towards addressing an international community of scholars in a language inaccessible to local publics. But it finds that despite such pressures, feminist political science has still sought to produce work that is of direct relevance to achieving women's movement goals, whether within public policy or within political institutions broadly conceived. While it may no longer be speaking the same language, it is still seeking to identify the obstacles to change and the possibilities for transformation. This can be seen particularly clearly in the area of research on the intersection of electoral systems, quotas and party structures. Yet even here tensions can emerge, as with the concept of 'critical mass', perceived by activists as a crucial discursive tool but problematised by feminist scholars.

This article moves away from issues of the impact of women and feminist scholarship on political science to examine the relationship of feminist political science to a political constituency. It traces the trajectory of feminist political science from its close relationship with women's movement activism in the 1970s to the highly professionalised disciplinary subfield of today. It highlights some of the dilemmas resulting both from professional imperatives and from the norms of research excellence stemming from new forms of research governance. It finds that feminist political science has been pushed towards addressing an international community of scholars in a language inaccessible to local publics. But it finds that despite such pressures, feminist political science has still sought to produce work that is of direct relevance to achieving women's movement goals, whether within public policy or within political institutions broadly conceived. While it may no longer be speaking the same language, it is still seeking to identify the obstacles to change and the possibilities for transformation. This can be seen particularly clearly in the area of research on the intersection of electoral systems, quotas and party structures. Yet even here tensions can emerge, as with the concept of 'critical mass', perceived by activists as a crucial discursive tool but problematised by feminist scholars.