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Parliamentary supremacy has traditionally been at the core of the Westminster Model of government. Over the last century, however, a number of the classic Westminster polities have incorporated elements of judicial review of statutory law in innovative and often unique ways. What accounts for the variety of different forms of judicial review adopted? What is the most appropriate methodological approach to understanding its widespread adoption? This paper traces the process by which judicial review developed in three different instances: the United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand. A comparative historical institutionalist approach is outlined and employed in advancing the claim that judicial review in Canada and New Zealand must be understood as rooted in the changing trajectory of Parliamentary sovereignty in the United Kingdom, in the colonial structure of the British Empire, and, crucially, in concerns over ethnic consociation and exclusion. In particular, policies regarding the expropriation of indigenous peoples have shaped the development of judicial review in these countries, often with feedback effects that had important consequences for the nature of the control regimes imposed by the settler state. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last 10 years has seen a growth of formal initiatives to enhance individuals' financial literacy and capacity. States and their regulatory arms, financial firms, NGOs and international institutions have variously targeted financial consciousness as a problem for the individual, a burden on the economy and an opportunity to expand the supply of financial products and advisory services. While some financial literacy initiatives are crafted as if all individuals are positioned as similarly, needy, others implicate interlocking social relations such as gender and sexuality, class, race, age, disability and faith in quite specific ways.Policy-development in response to "financial exclusion" offers a setting in which to make connections between social (in)equality, access to financial services and the use of financial literacy education to regulate financial consciousness. Defined as "the inability of individuals to access appropriate financial services" (UK 2006: 8) financial exclusion has recently attracted the attention of policy-makers in countries of the North and the South. This paper compares policy discourses on financial exclusion in Canada, South Africa and the UK and traces the gendered (or gendering) implications of how these discourses position the regulation of financial consciousness through literacy education as a response to social inequality and lack of access to key financial services. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a cross-national study that examines the role of gender in judicial decision making in the U.S., Canada and Great Britain. It mentions that socialization of female lawyers with female judges within the respective judicial systems might affect the case outcome. The study examined appellate court decisions in each country from 1980 to 2000.

What considerations drive aid allocations from the developed nations, especially to transitional regimes such as the Central Asian republics? I am particularly interested in the extent to which donor states balance security, economic, and human rights concerns. In contrast to the public claims made by aid agencies and donor governments, I argue that the aims of aid are not selfless â€" at least not primarily. In preceding research, I develop this argument by considering the sources of domestic and international costs and benefits to states. I particularly focus on benefits from aid to subgroups within a state, and on conditions under which aiding states with poor human rights records impose costs on a donor. These hypotheses have been are empirically assessed through both quantitative and qualitative case studies of the foreign policies of Britain, Canada, and Australia between 1980 and 2003, as well as quantitative analyses of all Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) donor states during the same period. In the present research project I also include US official development assistance, and extend the temporal terrain up through 2006). I document overall patterns in the relationships between trade, domestic politics, and aid, as well as changes occurring as the era of the Iron Curtain gave way to the increasingly interdependent global economy of the early 21st century. My research suggests that the governments of donor states do apply this kind of cost-benefit analysis of the expected utility of aid, and demonstrates that, accordingly, aid recipients that are attractive trade partners are less likely to be punished for human rights abuses by having aid reduced or ended. Essentially, democratic donor states like the US pay attention to the human rights records of their aid recipients when they can afford to, in economic and electoral terms. Determining how donors make the decision to aid recipients based on weighing both self-interest and human rights is essential for at least three reasons. First, if states with the ability to set the international agenda do so in a manner that does not include a consistent or primary role for ethical considerations, they signal to leaders of other states that abuse of human rights will be tolerated. Second, in donor countries where respect for democratic values is supposed to be the basis of governmental legitimacy, failure to respect and protect these rights internationally represents a contradiction of core principles. Third, as a practical matter, most members of the aid community believe they are fostering human rights through eliminating poverty and fostering good governance. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electoral competition has long been held as a required and essential component of a smoothly functioning democracy. This common wisdom suggests that representative responsiveness is likely to decrease as the level of general election competitiveness falls off. The closer the election the more uncertain the incumbent member of the legislature is about her ability to get reelected, which motivates her to work harder to win votes (i.e. campaign harder, spend more time in the district, secure more pork projects, modify voting behavior in the legislature, etc.). In turn these activities should increase voter satisfaction and efficacy. This final linkage is what we take up here. Namely, do voters in districts that have competitive elections demonstrate higher levels of efficacy and higher levels of satisfaction with the representative and with the legislature itself? Using survey data from the most recent elections in three western democracies with single member district systems (UK, Canada, and the U.S.) we find no such connection. Rather, the winner/loser dichotomy is primal. Electoral competitiveness has no measurable effect on voters (be they winners or losers). This finding has important implications for democratic theory and for redistricting. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electoral competition has long been held as a required and essential component of a smoothly functioning democracy. This common wisdom suggests that representative responsiveness is likely to decrease as the level of general election competitiveness falls off. The closer the election the more uncertain the incumbent member of the legislature is about her ability to get reelected, which motivates her to work harder to win votes (i.e. campaign harder, spend more time in the district, secure more pork projects, modify voting behavior in the legislature, etc.). In turn these activities should increase voter satisfaction and efficacy. This final linkage is what we take up here. Namely, do voters in districts that have competitive elections demonstrate higher levels of efficacy and higher levels of satisfaction with the representative and with the legislature itself? Using survey data from the most recent elections in three western democracies with single member district systems (UK, Canada, and the U.S.) we find no such connection. Rather, the winner/loser dichotomy is primal. Electoral competitiveness has no measurable effect on voters either in terms of satisfaction with their representative or with more abstract variables like efficacy. This finding has important implications for democratic theory and for redistricting. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Variations in the degree of public support for war in Iraq can be traced to differences in the way news media in different countries represented the crisis to their publics. We present related studies of news coverage of the Iraq war in news magazines of five nations over a one-year period leading up to and including the war and its aftermath. We draw on a sample of stories about Iraq in major news magazines from France, Canada, the US, the UK, and Germany. We find support for the hypothesis that international (non-American) media framed the issues of war and foreign policy objectives by advocating a less aggressive, more internationalist, and more diplomatic foreign policy approach than US media, and that these distinctions reflect the widening gap between the United States and Europe on issues of geopolitics and global cooperation. Such differences not only reflect critically important distinctions in national policy positions towards Iraq, they also have likely contributed to differences in public perceptions of the need for war at all. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the cross-fertilisation of religion, migration and ethnic identity under diasporic circumstances in the UK, Canada and the US with specific reference to the current networks of identity formation and sustenance among members of Muslim diasporas. It sheds light on the idealistic efforts of widespread diaspora communities with different ethnic, linguistic and racial background to gather their forces together and to achieve greater representation in their hosting societies, and, how religion is used to this end as a specifically honed tool. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]