In the cartel thesis of party behaviour, parliamentary parties have incentives to forget their political rivalry and cooperate on electoral reforms. This is especially so between the major parties in ...majoritarian electoral systems like those in Australia. In the political finance realm, the hypothesis is that the dominant parties will seek to featherbed themselves and minimise competition from alternative players. The cartel idea is not that these motivations necessarily override all principles or competitive instincts or that they are universal irrespective of conditions,¹ but that cartel-like behaviour can beexpected. A prime example is the maintenance of majoritarian voting systems
Anybody interested in Irish literature might easily be depressed by a casual perusal of the Official Report of the Senate debates on the Censorship in November and December. He might even feel that ...for the greater part of its length the debate showed the intelligence of the Senate to be on a pretty low level. On a more considered reading both these impressions vanish.
In the first place, most of the time of the Senate was taken up by Professor Magennis, who, as Chairman of the Censorship Board, had to defend himself and his colleagues.² He was permitted to wander
Documentary material drawn from the British parliamentary debate over embryo research is discussed in relation to a claim by Isaac Asimov regarding public support for, and opposition to, scientists' ...activities. The case of embryo research is taken to suggest that public reaction to science at certain fundamental moral boundaries is likely to be deeply ambivalent.
Immediately after the outbreak of the First World War, a striking force of 160,000 fighting men left Great Britain for France. It was a small army compared with European armies of this time, so small ...that Kaiser Wilhelm II referred to it as Britain's 'contemptible little army'. The designation quickly became a source of pride and has remained so to this day. The article looks at the development of the British Expeditionary Force, BEF, during the War Office tenure of Richard B. Haldane as Secretary of State for War from 1906-1912. It also seeks to determine what management techniques the Haldane team used to reorganise the BEF.
This chapter examines prisoner enfranchisement in the Republic of Ireland. As with many of the jurisdictions considered in Chapter 2, the issue was historically, socially and politically charged, ...with the debates and outcomes reflecting local characteristics. The chapter begins with an outline of prisoners’ involvement in politics pre-independence, and later in that part of Ireland that achieved independence. Although prisoners were not allowed to vote for much of Irish history, this did not prevent them from engaging with and, at times, challenging the political system, especially during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. (Much has been written about political activity
This working paper presents a historical study on the Swedish parliamentary debate with the purpose to enhance our understanding of the increasing deviations from the VAT tax-norm during the ...investigated period of time. The central question concerns why the Swedish Parliament – in contrast to the intentions of the tax reform of 1990/91 - has chosen increased tax rate differentiation over a general reduction of the VAT tax rate. No clear differences are found with respect to the general ambition of political par-ties to differentiate the tax rate. It is however possible to detect differences with respect both to how political parties have prioritized between different areas of the economy and their arguments for differentiation. This supports a conclusion where politics matter in tax policy and where VAT policy is a contentious matter on how to redistribute re-sources within the economy. The reason why all parties have promoted differentiation is interpreted and discussed from an institutional point of view. In particular the interplay of the European VAT Directive and rules on how to account for tax expenditures in the budget process are discussed.
Ringbarking, as a means of destroying trees, was known and practised from the earliest years of British settlement in New South Wales. The practice became controversial as it accelerated across the ...pastoral lands of the colony from the 1870s. This controversy was mainly the result of
fears that ringbarking, carried out speculatively by pastoral lessees, might defeat the object of the land settlement policy of the colony. Parliament responded by enacting legislation to regulate the ringbarking of trees on Crown lands, and in so doing provided a forum for the expression
of a wide range of contemporary attitudes towards deforestation. These ranged from the mundane questions of pasture improvement and timber destruction, to the loftier issue of climate deterioration. Examination of these attitudes, as expressed principally in the parliamentary debates in connection
with the Ringbarking on Crown Lands Regulation Act 1881, reveals the emergence in late-nineteenth century New South Wales of a vibrant conservation ethic. This opposed, albeit unequally, the environmental exploitation or 'development' ethic which continued for many decades thereafter to dominate
the relationship between nature and human culture in the colony.
The first legislative controls on tobacco in Australia and other countries were prompted by concerns about the harmful effects cigarettes were having on young people. These concerns resulted in a ...range of laws prohibiting the sale or supply of tobacco to children. They date from the turn of the century and have remained in force, though largely neglected, until the present time. A study of these earliest controls and the social context in which they occurred provides a valuable insight into the way tobacco, and cigarettes in particular, were seen by an earlier generation. There are many parallels and contrasts between their response and tobacco control in the late 20th century. A look into the past provides instructive lessons for future directions in that most pressing of issues in tobacco control — the uptake of smoking by the young.
This chapter examines the rhetoric of government and opposition in the Parliamentary debate over the 2010 NHS White Paper ‘Equity and Excellence’. It treats the debate as a process of deliberative ...argument in which Secretary of State Andrew Lansley justifies his reorganisation, and explores the extent to which his policy argument was scrutinised by both the opposition and by members of his own coalition government. If representative democracy depends upon significant reorganisations being adequately explained, debated and examined, then it is important to consider the extent to which this happens, even while accepting that limitations in time and expertise in
William Hague first came to prominence in 1977, when he addressed the Conservative Party conference at the age of sixteen. This speech was well received by delegates, with Margaret Thatcher ...describing it as ‘thrilling’ (BBC, 2007a). On 23 February 1989, Hague entered Parliament as MP for Richmond (Yorkshire), and eighteen months later he was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Norman Lamont. Hague performed well in this role and was subsequently promoted first to the position of Parliamentary Under-Secretary in the Department of Social Security (DSS) in 1993, and then to Minister of State
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