Search

Accountability of representatives to electors is a key indicator of democratic health. In mixed-member systems, the coexistence of two kinds of representation provides the opportunity to test competing claims with minimal confounding factors. There is debate about the relative accountability of constituency and list MPs, and in particular, concerning dual candidacy, where individuals can stand for both constituency and list seats. Analysing New Zealand elections since 1999, with comparisons back to the previous single-member plurality system, this article examines the effects of dual candidacy, legislative turnover and the cases where constituency or electorate MPs have lost their seats, but remained in Parliament as list members. 代表对选民负责乃民主是否健康的一个关键指标。在混合成员制下，两类代表的共存为比较单纯地检验其竞争的主张提供了机会。不过，选区及名单议员的相对责任，尤其在一个个体可以既代表选区又代表名单席位的情况下的责任，对此是有争议的。本文分析了新西兰1999年以来的选举，并与之前的单一成员多数选举制做了对比，还考察了双重候选人制的效果、议员的流动、以及选区或议员落选但依然是国会名单成员的情况。 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New Zealand is valuable as an extreme case in agricultural trade liberalisation and in market-oriented national biosecurity policy, for exploring the causes-of-effects of economic interests on national biosecurity policy. The article argues that the state is the best advocate of agro-economic interests and that international negotiations on trade liberalisation played a decisive role in the protectionist and economic orientation of New Zealand's biosecurity policies. The study contributes to improving theoretical work on the relationship between international cooperation and domestic reform politics. It suggests a historical-institutionalist and dynamic perspective which incorporates the role of institutionalised vested interests and effect of timing and sequencing. This perspective helps to explain why states' policy preferences originate from economic interests and why patterns of interaction between international and national processes have such a strong effect. 新西兰作为农业贸易自由化以及市场导向的 生物安全政策的一个极端案例，对探讨经济利益与国家生物安全政策的因果联系，是非常有价值的。作者认为，政府是农业经济利益的最佳辩护师，贸易自由化的国际协商对于新西兰生物安全政策的保护主义及经济的取向起了决定性作用。本研究致力于完善有关国际合作及国内改革政策之间关系的理论探讨。本文建议采用一种历史—制度主义以及动态的视角，将制度化的既得利益以及时间、时序的作用纳入视野。这样一种视角有助于解释为什么政府的政策倾向源自经济利益，为什么国际过程与国家过程的互动模式会有如此强烈的效果。 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiculturalism has been criticised for emphasising cultural recognition over resource redistribution for minority cultural and ethnic groups. Moreover, critics argue that cultural diversity fails to provide enough common ground upon which to sustain civic nationalism. This paper examines the development of multiculturalist and biculturalist policies in Australia and New Zealand, and argues that these have in fact been justified in terms of a negotiated balance between two civic values: the value of diverse cultural expression, and social justice understood in egalitarian terms. The tension between these values has shaped the debate around multiculturalism in both cases. Both the social justice and value of cultural diversity arguments are deployed to reinforce conceptions of national identity in Australia and New Zealand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The regulation of political finance, including the funding of political parties and election campaigns, remains contentious in many democracies. A particular focus of debate has been the regulation of 'parallel campaigners'- that is, non-candidate and non-party political actors - wanting to influence the election outcome by bringing to bear their economic resources. Drawing on both recent unsuccessful and current attempts at reforming the regulation of election spending by parallel campaigners in New Zealand, this paper explores the conflict between the democratic right to freedom of expression and the idea that all citizens should have a fair opportunity for effective political influence. It is argued that Joshua Cohen's principle of political equality, which entails the balancing of these two values, provides a justifiable framework for regulating political finance, including parallel campaign expenditures, in liberal democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New Zealand's Labour-led coalition governments in power from 1999 to 2008 committed themselves to defending and promoting a unique and confident sense of national identity. While Labour officially defined the nation in terms of openness, diversity and tolerance, this article argues that in practice they tended to stress a narrower set of identity markers: those, such as creativity, flexibility and innovation, consistent with its reading of global economic necessity. The article demonstrates how the construction of a supposedly unique and confident New Zealand identity remained strongly structured by global norms. It also shows how an insistence on a shared national vision and a common identity can lend itself to a reductive address of citizens as role-performers and, therefore, to a problematic marginalisation of divergent interests and identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political marketing is a growing phenomenon and few political parties would seek to compete in an election without utilising at least some of its tools to help them understand their market and compete more effectively. The current range of tools available includes pre-election strategy, branding, e-marketing, opposition research, multiple forms of direct marketing and GOTV utilising market segmentation, tangibility tools, insights marketing and leadership re-marketing. New developments in practice transfer quickly between countries. In the 2008 New Zealand election, both major parties, Labour and National, utilised different aspects of political marketing with varied effects, showing the importance and limitations of global strategies, as well as the need for parties to utilise all aspects of political marketing for government and re-election. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper identifies three discourses that are prominent in contemporary Treaty of Waitangi policy debate, each with significantly different implications for Maori political status within the modern nation-state. At one extreme the Treaty's significance is exaggerated by overemphasis on partnership as an implicit Treaty principle. At another extreme the Treaty's significance is understated by an assimilationist position that denies the Treaty's relevance to Indigenous rights which, in turn, imposes serious constraint on the extent to which partnership can actually develop into comprehensive policy practice. An alternative position is one that sees the Treaty, which is supported in international law, as affirming a twofold conception of citizenship as the basis of both individual and collective Maori rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]