Collision with the Colonies, 1765–1774

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Bourke
Keyword(s):  
Composite Structure ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
War Of Independence ◽  
Colonial Resistance ◽  
The Government ◽  
George Iii ◽  
Stamp Act

Burke's parliamentary career began with a major political crisis that would loom large in national debates for a further seventeen years. The rift with America represented the most dramatic controversy to emerge during the first half of the reign of George III. Colonial resistance mounted a challenge to the composite structure of the Empire and to the nature of metropolitan authority. This chapter charts Burke's response to the developing situation down to the eve of the outbreak of the war of independence. From the beginning he was wary about a contest over “rights,” pitting the claims of the colonists against the government. By December 1765, Burke had decided that the repeal of George Grenville's Stamp Act offered the only means of reconciling both sides.

George III, peerage creations and politics, 1760–1784

1992 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 587-609
Author(s):  
William C. Lowe
Keyword(s):  
Political Crisis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Political Influences ◽  
War Of Independence ◽  
Political Role ◽  
Original Intention ◽  
George Iii

AbstractThis article looks at the political role of the royal prerogative to create and promote British peers in the period 1760–1784. It argues that during the first two decades of his reign George III maintained his original intention that peerage creations should befew in number and isolated from short-term political influences, but that during the prolonged political crisis that unfolded at the end of the American War of Independence, the king's power to create peers became deeply embroiled in politics. Not only were all eight of the peerages created in 1782–1783 influenced by political considerations, this aspect of the royal prerogative became itself the topic of parliamentary discussion. It was in this context of recent creations and heightened interest in the royal prerogative that George III's refusal to make peers proved to be an effective tactic in his struggle with the Fox-North coalition. Especially damaging was the coalition's inability to secure Lord North's promotion to the upper house. Once the coalition had been dismissed, George HI used his prerogative in an overtly political fashion to strengthen the younger Pitt in both houses of parliament.

Land Reform in Zimbabwe: a Balance of Political Expediency and Economic Inevitability?

2020 ◽  
pp. 14-29
Author(s):  
Lyubov Prokopenko
Keyword(s):  
Land Reform ◽  
Union Leader ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
The Political ◽  
African Region ◽  
Political Aspect ◽  
National Union ◽  
Reform Program ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Government

The article considers the political aspect of land reform in the Republic of Zimbabwe. The problem of land reform has been one of the crucial ones in the history of this African country, which celebrated 40 years of independence on April 18, 2020. In recent decades, it has been constantly in the spotlight of political and electoral processes. The land issue was one of the key points of the political program from the very beginning of Robert Mugabe’s reign in 1980. The political aspect of land reform began to manifest itself clearly with the growth of the opposition movement in the late 1990s. In 2000–2002 the country implemented the Fast Track Land Reform Program (FTLRP), the essence of which was the compulsory acquisition of land from white owners without compensation. The expropriation of white farmers’ lands in the 2000s led to a serious reconfiguration of land ownership, which helped to maintain in power the ruling party, the African National Union of Zimbabwe – Patriotic Front (ZANU – PF). The government was carrying out its land reform in the context of a sharp confrontation with the opposition, especially with the Party for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), led by trade union leader Morgan Tsvangirai. The land issue was on the agenda of all the election campaigns (including the elections in July 2018); this fact denotes its politicization, hence the timeliness of this article. The economic and political crisis in Zimbabwe in the 2000–2010s was the most noticeable phenomenon in the South African region. The analysis of foreign and domestic sources allows us to conclude that the accelerated land reform served as one of its main triggers. The practical steps of the new Zimbabwean president, Mr. Emmerson Mnangagwa, indicate that he is aware of the importance of resolving land reform-related issues for further economic recovery. At the beginning of March 2020, the government adopted new regulations defining the conditions for compensation to farmers. On April 18, 2020, speaking on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the independence of Zimbabwe, Mr. E. Mnangagwa stated that the land reform program remains the cornerstone of the country’s independence and sovereignty.

scholarly journals Polish Catholic Bishops, Nationalism and Liberal Democracy

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 94
Author(s):  
Madalena Meyer Resende ◽  
Anja Hennig
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Church Leadership ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
Pope Francis ◽  
National Catholicism ◽  
Law And Justice ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Church

The alliance of the Polish Catholic Church with the Law and Justice (PiS) government has been widely reported and resulted in significant benefits for the Church. However, beginning in mid-2016, the top church leadership, including the Episcopal Conference, has distanced itself from the government and condemned its use of National Catholicism as legitimation rhetoric for the government’s malpractices in the fields of human rights and democracy. How to account for this behavior? The article proposes two explanations. The first is that the alliance of the PiS with the nationalist wing of the Church, while legitimating its illiberal refugee policy and attacks on democratic institutions of the government, further radicalized the National Catholic faction of the Polish Church and motivated a reaction of the liberal and mainstream conservative prelates. The leaders of the Episcopate, facing an empowered and radical National Catholic faction, pushed back with a doctrinal clarification of Catholic orthodoxy. The second explanatory path considers the transnational influence of Catholicism, in particular of Pope Francis’ intervention in favor of refugee rights as prompting the mainstream bishops to reestablish the Catholic orthodoxy. The article starts by tracing the opposition of the Bishops Conference and liberal prelates to the government’s refugee and autocratizing policies. Second, it describes the dynamics of the Church’s internal polarization during the PiS government. Third, it traces and contextualizes the intervention of Pope Francis during the asylum political crisis (2015–2016). Fourth, it portrays their respective impact: while the Pope’s intervention triggered the bishops’ response, the deepening rifts between liberal and nationalist factions of Polish Catholicism are the ground cause for the reaction.

Nicaragua: De-democratization and Regime Crisis

2020 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salvador Martí i Puig ◽  
Macià Serra
Keyword(s):  
Authoritarian Regime ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Protest ◽  
Hybrid Regimes ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
The Government ◽  
Nicaraguan Politics ◽  
Regime Crisis

ABSTRACTThe aim of this article is to analyze three key issues in current Nicaraguan politics and in the political debate surrounding hybrid regimes: de-democratization, political protest, and the fall of presidencies. First, it analyzes the process of de-democratization that has been taking place in Nicaragua since 2000. It shows that the 2008 elections were not competitive but characteristic of an electoral authoritarian regime. Second, it reflects on the kind of regime created in Nicaragua under Daniel Ortega’s mandate, focusing on the system’s inability to process any kind of protest and dissent. Third, it examines the extent to which the protests that broke out in April 2018 may predict the early end to Ortega’s presidency, or whether Nicaragua’s political crisis may lead to negotiations between the government and the opposition.

Swift and the Stamp Act of 1712

PMLA ◽  
1916 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-263
Author(s):  
Joseph M. Thomas
Keyword(s):  
House Of Commons ◽  
The Government ◽  
Stamp Duty ◽  
Stamp Act

In a debate, December 22, 1819, in the House of Commons on the Newspaper Stamp Duties Bill, Sir James Mackintosh, speaking of the passage of the original act of 1712, said: “Swift—being then a distinguished Tory, suggested the first idea of a stamp duty for the avowed purpose of preventing publications against the government,—Swift, that parricide who endeavored to destroy that very press to which he owed so much, to which he owed all his fame, and at that very moment all his preferment.”

South Sudan

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Giffen
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
United Nations ◽  
South Sudan ◽  
Secretary General ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
Peacekeeping Operations ◽  
United Nations Peacekeeping ◽  
The Government ◽  
Do So

Two years and five months following the country’s independence from Sudan, a political crisis in South Sudan quickly devolved into a civil war marked by violence that could amount to atrocities. At the time, a United Nations peacekeeping operation, UNMISS, was the principal multinational intervention in South Sudan. UNMISS was explicitly mandated to assist the government of South Sudan to fulfil its responsibility to protect and was also authorized to protect civilians when the government was unable or unwilling to do so. Despite this role, UNMISS’s Special Representative of the Secretary-General said that no one could have predicted the scale or speed at which the violence unfolded. This chapter explores whether the atrocities could have been predicted by UNMISS, why UNMISS was unprepared, and what other peacekeeping operations can learn from UNMISS’s experience.

The Making of Amoral Communities

2019 ◽  
pp. 22-32
Author(s):  
Mila Dragojević
Keyword(s):  
Local Level ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Prisoners Of War ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
Violence Against Civilians ◽  
The Government

This chapter identifies conditions and contexts that are conducive to wartime collective crimes. It shows how the context in which the perpetrators believe that their actions are not going to be penalized and that their actions are acceptable is created on the local level in some communities. It is a context in which moderates, or those who wish to prevent such crimes, are excluded for putting their desire to protect all civilians—regardless of their identity or political orientation—ahead of the security related needs that are presented by their leaders as more pressing concerns in time of war. This is the context that can be conceptualized as amoral communities. Instead of punishing the perpetrators of criminal acts so that civilians and prisoners of war are protected under all circumstances, the leaders in power place more emphasis on resolving a political crisis, winning a war, or eliminating those defined as enemies. In amoral communities, violence against civilians not only is tolerated by the authorities but also may be covered up or presented as a necessary sacrifice or the result of random accidents, given the need to respond urgently to a security crisis or a war. Moreover, in such communities, it is not necessary for the government to send its own armies because the local population is disposed to take part in the violence.

The Necropolitics of Documents and the Slow Death of Prisoners in Turkey

2019 ◽  
pp. 97-117
Author(s):  
Başak Can
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Health Condition ◽  
State Violence ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
The Public ◽  
Penal Institutions ◽  
Multiple State ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Public Sphere

The government used medico-legal documentation of prisoners’ health condition to solve the biopolitical crisis in penal institutions immediately after the end of death fast (2000-2007) and released hundreds of hunger strikers, who suffered from incurable conditions. That the state turned a political crisis into a medical one using the illness clause had unprecedented consequences for how claims are made in the political sphere. Human rights activists, Kurdish and leftist politicians are now using the plight of ill prisoners to make political arguments in the public sphere. The health conditions of political prisoners, specifically the use of the illness clause has thus emerged as one of the most contentious fields in the encounters between the state and its opponents. This chapter examines how temporality works as an instrument of necropolitics through the slow production and circulation of the medico-legal bureaucratic documents that are produced through encounters with multiple state officials. I argue, first, that medico-legal processes surrounding the detainees are mediated through the discretionary sovereign acts of multiple state officials, including but not limited to physicians, and second, that legal medicine as a technology of state violence is central to understanding the intertwined histories of sovereignty and biopolitics in Turkey.

“Never to Be Forgotten”

2021 ◽  
pp. 32-51
Author(s):  
Gary L. Steward
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
Political Resistance ◽  
Moral Legitimacy ◽  
Revolutionary Era ◽  
Colonial Resistance ◽  
Revolutionary Period ◽  
Stamp Act

This chapter explores the clergy’s doctrine of political resistance expressed during the Stamp Act crisis of 1765. The clergy’s justifications of political resistance as the Revolutionary-era troubles began emerged against the backdrop of clerical arguments for resistance articulated after the overthrow of Governor Edmund Andros in 1689. The memory of Andros, his tyrannical reign over New England, and the clergy’s resistance to him were evoked by the clergy during the Revolutionary era. This act of pre-Revolutionary resistance provides important context for understanding how the clergy themselves thought about the moral legitimacy of resisting one’s political authorities in the Revolutionary period. Colonial resistance to oppressive British agents was not a new or novel idea.

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