Suchergebnisse

Political parties have been criticised for their limited use of interactivity via their Internet presences, largely it is suggested because they seek to control their online messages. This article will consider interactivity from the perspective of a political party, the Liberal Democrats, using their Freedom Bill online campaign as a case study. We suggest that the Liberal Democrats use 'weak interactivity' because of internal policymaking concerns, and their belief that as a political party they are promoting their ideas, not co-creating a new product. Thus we suggest interaction should be closer to a formal consultation than a face-to-face dialogue.

This article focuses on the local governance process that occurred between the Secwepemc indigenous people and Sun Peaks Resort Corporation regarding the construction of a ski resort in the province of British Columbia in Canada. The article argues that this process was a localised manifestation of what Stephen Gill has labelled 'new constitutionalism' for it sought to contractualise the subsumption of a locality under the logics of capital accumulation in the world economy. The article uses this case study to endorse Gill's notion of new constitutionalism but seeks to emphasise the mechanisms of spatial scale transformation and regulation that occur through constitutionalised social relations in concrete, situated settings.

Constitutional reform requires a cautious approach that draws heavily on the theory of institutions. Too often arguments for particular constitutional arrangements are one-dimensional and limited in scope and imagination. This article illustrates this theme by discussing the debate over fixed- and variable-term parliaments, and by offering a somewhat novel argument that focuses on the role of the opposition within a parliamentary system.

This article questions the plausibility of the interpretation of Hobbes's liberty that Quentin Skinner articulates in Hobbes and Republican Liberty. It argues that Skinner's book fails to prove two of the three claims it must uphold: the 'textual accuracy claim' and his 'methodological claim'. This article maintains that understanding Hobbes's use of liberty in Leviathan according to his definition of 'corporall liberty', as Skinner does, ignores many of Hobbes's claims that invoke liberty outside the beginning of chapter 21, resulting in a one-dimensional reading of Hobbes.