British Parliament Research Articles

Networking against Genocide during the First World War: the international network behind the British Parliamentary report on the Armenian Genocide

In 1916, Lord Bryce and Arnold Toynbee produced a report to the British Parliament which became the first large-scale collection of evidence of the Armenian Genocide. The book was the product of a remarkable international collaborative network involving British, US, Swiss, German, Armenian and other contributors. This article provides a deep analysis of the network and its motivations, arguing that the collaborators mutually stimulated each other’s actions to go further than was possible through the resources of one part of the network alone, and assesses the book’s effectiveness as a tool of fundraising. Further, it argues that the transatlantic and transnational collaboration occurred at a point of wider transition, brought about by the First World War, in which presumed international leadership of opinion shifted from Britain to the United States.

Justice for victims of sexual abuse and harassment: lessons for Westminster?

This policy paper is a comment piece on recent sexual harassment and abuse scandals in the British Parliament, which also references new UK research on justice and gender-based violence. The author draws on six years working for the British Parliament as a clerk (parliamentary civil servant) to reflect on why the parliamentary culture and management has long ignored sexual harassment, abuse and bullying, often moving victims on rather than challenging (alleged) perpetrators. The paper presents current research being conducted by the universities of Bristol, Cardiff and UWE and national charity Women’s Aid, which is asking ‘What does justice mean to victims of gender-based violence?’ Using emerging findings from interviews with over 250 victims/survivors of gender-based abuse, the paper draws lessons for how the House of Commons authorities should respond to sexual harassment and abuse within Parliament. Vital in any victim-centred response are some key principles. Victims/survivors must: be listened to and taken seriously, be empowered to make their own choices about what happens next, be given a range of options including formal sanctions as well as less formal routes, potentially including specialist ‘transformational mediation’ and, most crucially, all be given access to specialist advocates trained in sexual harassment and abuse.

The formation and amendment of federal constitutions in a Westminster-derived context

This article discusses the formation and amendment of federal and federal-like constitutions in a Westminster-derived or post-Westminster context. The four countries considered are Canada, Australia, India, and the United Kingdom. They are chosen for comparison due to their common historical relationship to Britain and the exercise by the British Parliament of sovereign legislative and constitutive authority over their respective territories. While Canada, Australia, and India are today constitutionally independent of Britain, and while substantial autonomy has been conferred on the devolved parliaments of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland within the UK, each country has secured such independence and autonomy differently. Similarly, the constitutional relationship between the federated polity and its constituent polities in each of these countries has evolved in unique ways. This mixture of similarity and difference offers an opportunity to isolate the potential effect of particular features of the four constitutional systems and to consider the systemic effect those features might have within federal and federal-like constitutions more generally. It is argued that the mechanisms of constitutional amendment within the four countries are best understood in terms of competing locations of effective constitutive authority, as displayed in the processes by which each federal or federalized constitution was originally established and continues to evolve. Approaching the question this way, the uniquely context-dependent nature of the bargains that underlie the formation of federal and federal-like constitutions can be incorporated into a comparative theory that offers a general account of the formation and amendment of such constitutions having broad explanatory power.

Exploring the Possibility of an Energy Specific FTA Among Commonwealth Nations

Perhaps the Commonwealth of Nations is the earliest multilateral body of countries bound together by shared colonial culture, administrative language, common values, human rights, legal system, democracy and good governance. Its formation is dated back to the Statute of Westminster, an Act of the British Parliament passed on 11 December 1931. Surprisingly all these commonalities have not culminated into any formal economic agreement among the member states of the Commonwealth. The activities have remained confined, predominantly, to cultural, academic and sports. If Britain learns from its EU experience and takes initiatives to make the Commonwealth a truly democratic institution then it may emerge as the main competitor to the European Union and many other regional blocs in future.

Dennis C. Rasmussen, The Infidel and the Professor. David Hume, Adam Smith and the Friendship that shaped Modern Thought

David Hume is widely considered one of the—arguably the—outstanding philosopher of the Scottish Enlightenment. Born in 1711, four years after the 1707 Act of Union which traded away the Scottish parliament and independence for representation in the English parliament and the Scots’ access to English markets at home and abroad (and which seems to have been instrumental, within decades, in transforming Scotland from the backwater it then was into the economic and cultural showcase of 50-70 year...

The war powers of the British parliament: What has been established and what remains unclear?

Britain’s parliament has historically lacked formal war powers. Since 2003, however, MPs have voted five times on military action, including famously vetoing intervention in Syria in 2013. A new convention developed that—regardless of the legal position—governments should permit the House of Commons the opportunity to veto certain military deployments. This article explores what we now know—and what we do not—about the British War Powers Convention. It identifies apparent exceptions, including non-combat, Special Forces and drone operations. It highlights areas lacking clarity: for example, who decides what constitutes an ‘emergency’? It argues that most governments probably will allow the House of Commons to have its say before using force abroad, that a government politically able to bypass MPs without punishment need not fear involving them, while one unable to win support will be punished for avoiding a vote. Finally, the article considers the implications, both positive and negative, of parliamentary war powers for Britain.

Xenocracy: State, Class, and Colonialism in the Ionian Islands, 1815–1864 by Sakis Gekas

Reviewed by: Xenocracy: State, Class, and Colonialism in the Ionian Islands, 1815–1864 by Sakis Gekas Evdoxios Doxiadis (bio) Sakis Gekas. Xenocracy: State, Class, and Colonialism in the Ionian Islands, 1815–1864. New York: Berghahn. 2017. Pp. xii + 368. Cloth $130. Sakis Gekas's Xenocracy is a significant contribution to the literature about British colonial rule in the Ionian Islands. The book makes an important contribution by focusing on the colonial administration through the Foucauldian lens of governmentality and by examining the emergence of a commercial, professional, and administrative bourgeoisie. The work is thoroughly researched, especially with regard to the records of the British colonial administration, and its economic focus makes it a unique and interesting companion to earlier works, such as Thomas Gallant's Experiencing Dominion (2002). The first chapter, "The First Greek State and the Origins of Colonial Governmentality," introduces the main themes, discussing the transformation of the Ionian islands from Venetian possessions to a British-controlled but nominally autonomous state. For the author, this transitional period (1797–1814) [End Page 215] was crucial in the development of Ionian governmentality regarding new approaches to governance. The second chapter, "Building the Colonial State," examines the foundation of British rule on the Ionian Islands. Colonial administration combined individual liberalism, meaning that individuals enjoyed certain constitutional rights and freedoms, with autocracy, since the powers of the British commissioners often trumped any constitutional liberties. Gekas situates Ionian governance within the British colonial system and compares it with other British-held territories, such as Malta, Quebec, and Mauritius. This comparative approach, which pervades the book, is one of its strongest points. Gekas's description of British ideas regarding the Ionian islanders is not necessarily new, since Gallant and others have also commented extensively on it, but the references to the British experience of governance in other parts of the globe give the discussion an important nuance for understanding British concerns and policies. Gekas contextualizes the discussion by referring to the reception of British Ionian rule in British society and Parliament, an often ignored facet of the complexities of British rule. The second chapter also discusses local resistance to British policies and taxation. Though brief, his discussion on British responses to the violence on the islands and the attempts to disarm the population is pertinent and tied to the revolutionary upheavals of the 1820s in Italy and Greece. Gekas draws an interesting parallel between the policies of the British administration and those of the Bavarian Regency in Greece (75), a comparison that he returns to at different times in his discussion. Chapter 3, "Laws, Colonialism, and State Formation," delves deeper into the idea of governmentality, examining how concepts of sovereignty and government applied to a supposedly independent state that was ruled by foreign officials. An interesting assertion regarding legal and economic reforms is that they should not be seen as "the product of colonial rule but a process of modernization" that drew much from local legal expertise developed under French rule and subsequent British colonialism (81). The chapter devotes significant space to the examination of the legal system with special focus on the police and criminal justice system. The reform of the criminal code as a process of "civilizing" (91) is discussed extensively and successfully augments earlier works on violence and criminal justice (Gallant 2002). Chapter 4, "Colonial Knowledge and the Making of Ionian Governmentality," discusses the emergence of a modern bureaucratic state under colonial paternalism. The chapter contains a fascinating discussion on the question of citizenship and nationality, tying it to questions of surveillance, immigration, and refugees. The arrival of Christian refugees from the Ottoman Empire even prior to the Greek War of Independence forced the authorities to address [End Page 216] the question of citizenship and the legal status of refugees, such as those from Parga. The same question pertained to immigrants from the adjacent Ottoman territories as well as those from places like Malta. The authorities' response to the problem of regulating mobility was to issue passports to those arriving on or departing from the islands (including seasonal migrants, Ionian merchants, Italian citizens), thus enhancing the government's ability to surveille and control the population. The next chapter, "A True and...

The Halle Orphanage as Scientific Community: Observation, Eclecticism, and Pietism in the Early Enlightenment by Kelly Jean Whitmer

Reviewed by: The Halle Orphanage as Scientific Community: Observation, Eclecticism, and Pietism in the Early Enlightenment by Kelly Jean Whitmer Gracia Grindal The Halle Orphanage as Scientific Community: Observation, Eclecticism, and Pietism in the Early Enlightenment. By Kelly Jean Whitmer. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2015. 200 pp. Kelly Jean Whitmer's book is further evidence of a booming renaissance in scholarly engagement with Halle Pietism and Pietism in general. The title describes her focus on the Halle orphanage as a center for educational experiment. By looking closely at its founder, August Hermann Francke, his writings on pedagogy and the circle around him, she describes the Halle school as an effort to develop a new curriculum that would teach students to observe the world closely, as well as to make efforts to bring warring theological camps together in friendship and love rather than engage in dialectical conflict that students had been trained in since Greco-Roman times. This is an extraordinary undertaking. Anyone who has studied this movement and its times is at first usually baffled by the dramatis personae, not so well known as the major philosophers or theologians by which we mark epochs and centuries. Orthodoxy, Pietism, Enlightenment—easy tags, but the deeper one goes into Pietism especially, the more complicated and tangled it becomes. Pietism is more a twin, and then critical rival, of the Enlightenment than a forerunner. What it shared with the Enlightenment is more baffling than easy to understand, although how it differed most of us have been fairly clear about, but probably mistaken. Whitmer begins with an account of Francke's desire to bring peace and love to warring theological communities through a kind of philosophical eclecticism which tried to find truths Christians shared beneath their bristling differences. Francke was convinced that one should teach students to observe the world around them, even developing with his peers theories about observation (Anschauung), scientific ways and instruments for seeing, and fostering in the school a scientific community of friends. Francke's emissaries traveled widely to America, England, Russia, India, even to China, seeking to bring unity among Christians and extend their scientific knowledge. Whitmer enlarges our understanding of many of the connections between Halle and others in Europe: Friedrich Wilhelm I, the King of Prussia, whose interest in the school helped bring about the close [End Page 465] connection between pietism and the Prussian state; Peter the Great, who admired Francke's school and visited it; Leibniz, along with Ehrenfried Walter von Tschirnhaus, who helped Francke develop his curriculum. She gives time and space to those who seem like bit players in the long arc of Western philosophy and theology, but significant in this story such as the major German theologian of the day, Johann Franz Buddeus later of Jena or Christoph Eberhard, Francke's student. He was an expert in the inclinatorium, an instrument sometimes called a dipping needle that measured how far a magnetic needle dips toward the earth. People hoped it would help measure longitude, a pressing need of a seagoing nation like England. He introduced the instrument widely around Europe, to the British Parliament, and the Russian tsar. Later he disappeared from Francke's sphere suffering a similar fate as Christian Wolff. Wolff is the more important figure and the story of his inclusion and then expulsion from Halle illustrates how the Enlightenment would break from Pietism as Halle's leadership could not brook Wolff's notion, for example, that Chinese Confucionists held truths Christians could also share. There is much more. All told, this book deconstructs the assumption that pietists were not interested in the world around them. They were deeply interested because it was God's world. And because God loved it, they loved it too. Halle sent out missionaries to bring the good news to faraway places. While they did this, they also looked around at where they were, trained as they were in observation. Their training made them early anthropologists, collecting many strange and wonderful examples of the world's flora and fauna as well as its cultures. To walk through the Halle museum, now beautifully refurbished after years of communist neglect, is a...

Modes of UK Executive–Legislative Relations Revisited

AbstractAnthony King's 1976 article ‘Modes of executive–legislative relations: Great Britain, France and West Germany’ is a classic in legislative studies. It argued that it is simplistic to analyse relations between ‘the executive’ and ‘the legislature’ in parliamentary systems, because parliaments are complex organisations comprised of competing actors. Instead, we must consider the various ‘modes’ through which these actors can interact to challenge the executive. As King pointed out, the classic view of the British Parliament was of a dominant ‘opposition mode’ and yet, in fact, the most important relationship was the ‘intraparty mode’: between the government and its own backbenchers. Other options, such as the ‘non‐party mode’ or ‘cross‐party mode’ were considered weak in Britain. This article revisits King's modes in the light of changes at Westminster during the intervening forty years. Developments such as the establishment of the select committee system and a more confident and party‐balanced House of Lords require significant changes to his conclusions. But his central insights, encouraging readers to focus on the multiple relationships inside legislatures, including those within political parties, remain fundamentally important.

"The High and Conspicuous Ground": The Logic of Immediate Emancipation and the Politics of the Decision of 1834

On 1 August 1834, slavery came to its permanent and quite uneventful end in the colony of Antigua. Antigua's planter-dominated Assembly was compelled by a series of self-miscalculations to grant immediate freedom to the colony's enslaved population rather than adopt the proposed the Apprenticeship scheme. The uniqueness of Antigua's decision lay in the fact of Antigua being the only "sugar colony" to take the action. The Antigua Assembly's decision was a landmark decision, a fact not lost on many contemporary observers including other regional assemblies and politicians, pro-slavery and abolitionists within the empire. Despite the importance of the decision to understanding regional history, academic historical examination and discussion on the decision has relegated it to a mere footnote in most histories, including histories of the territory. This article seeks to re-establish the importance of the Assembly's decision to understanding planter and slave-owner attitudes about slavery and freedom, as well as what self-interests affected each slave-owning group's attitude toward British mandated slave emancipation. The article begins with an examination of the historiography of the decision, offering an insight into the two main perspectives—economic determinism and humanitarianism. The main theme of the paper is the role and nature of economic determinism in compelling the final decision. The article also establishes, in line with Douglas Hall in his Five of the Leewards, that the decision was not a unanimous one, having passed by the single vote of the Assembly's speaker. The objective is to establish that the decision of the Assembly was not based on choice and consensus, and that the economic considerations were inextricably tied to political and legislative considerations, which the planters voting for the decision appeared to view as equally important. Finally, the author seeks to place the history of the decision in its proper posture, not as a footnote or peripheral event but one which establishes that the history of the region is complex and nuanced and based in large part in colliding personal self-interests, notwithstanding the groups into which historians and some contemporaries placed these actors. The decision of the Antigua Assembly to grant freedom to its then enslaved population requires greater interrogation, debate and understanding on par with the historical discussion that have surrounded the British Parliament's 1833 decision.

Canada – from its establishment until the modern day

This year Canada celebrated the 150thanniversary of its official establishment, when the Act of British North America came into force. However, the Dominion was established, the British Parliament retained the ability of limited control over Canada until 1982. The Autonomy was granted by the Canadian Act of 1982, which freed Canada from the remaining dependence of the British Parliament forever. Canada is a federal parliamentary democracy with a constitutional monarchy as a formof the government. Noteworthy, the power of the monarch is purely nominal, and is represented by the Governor-General.
 On the surface, if compared with other countries, Canada appears to be quite recently formed state. In reality, Canada has made significant progress in its development. Importantly, Canada is a member of the G-7. Leading countries and international organizations value the opinion and authority of the Maple Leaf Country. It is one of the most ethnically and culturally varied countries in the world, since it has always depended on immigration, which is governed by federal and provincial governments. Canada has one of the highest indicators of transparency of the government, civil liberties, economic freedom, quality of life and education in the world.
 The article examines the stages of Canada’s establishment, political structure, economic development and potential opportunities. The author also focuses on the importance of Canadian-Ukrainian relations and collaboration. Currently, Canada is a special partner and pays considerable attention to all events that take place in Ukraine.
 
 Keywords: Canada, provinces, territories, political structure,parliament, economy, Canadian-Ukrainian relations

Armenian Genocide Prerequisites in Travel Memoirs (With special reference to Noel Buxton and Harold Buxton’s accounts)

The findings of our linguocognitive research on a sound historical perspective establish a number of undeniable facts which will elucidate the situation of Armenians in Western Armenia in the pre-genocidal period.
 The linguistic material of Noel and Harold Buxtons’ accounts for the British Parliament, Travel and Politics in Armenia, published in 1914, has been studied with the application of a set of methods and approaches: the cognitive method of investigation combined with those of linguostylistic and linguocultural analyses on the extralinguistic basis and the method of purposive sampling. The book is an undeniable source of eyewitness facts which confirm the existing prerequisites for the 1915 Armenian genocide.

Advice Giving and Party Loyalty: an Informational Model for the Socialisation Process of New British MPs1

Post-election socialisation has frequently been identified as a source of parliamentarians’ disposition towards party loyalty. Yet a recent study of the socialisation experiences of new members in the British Parliament, using tenure as proxy for socialisation, found little evidence of an effect on party loyalty (Rush and Giddings, 2011, Parliamentary Socialisation: Learning the Ropes or Determining Behaviour? London, Springer). This paper develops a new model of parliamentary socialisation and uses the same data to demonstrate that post-entry socialisation did in fact change legislators reported likeliness to behave in accordance with their party leadership’s wishes. Specifically, a framework based on information exchange (advice giving) is used to show that positive interactions with party actors are associated with increased loyalty. Controlling for initial levels of loyalty, members who received more useful advice from party actors were more likely to rate themselves as highly influenced by the party leadership.

Normative Epistemology of Right to Self-Determination: A Case Study of Peoples of Jammu and Kashmir

This write-up surveys the applicability of right to self-determination in the elusive and curious case of Jammu and Kashmir. The paper keeps itself strictly within the ambit and scope of the right to self-determination as granted to peoples under United Nations Charter. I have divided the paper into three parts namely; Facts; the Law; and Analysis. The core question that needs to be answered for the normative application of self-determination is to find out if the State of Jammu and Kashmir is under alien rule. The central argument of this paper is that India was always a single unit, British consolidation and takeover of its reign did not change the characteristics of India as a political system or state. The scheme of British administration in India, structurally, had two units of administrations; one with direct administration under the Parliamentary supremacy of British Parliament and the second unit was the Indian States enjoying their autonomy but lost their sovereignty and international identity to British Empire. The relationship between the Indian States and English Crown was of paramountcy. I also try to examine the relationship among the Indian States inter se. When we throw some light on the jargon of Indian states and its legal relationship under the International Law, its crystallizes the concept the unity of India under the British Empire. I have also attempted to unfold the legal meaning of the term colony and has examined the legal connotation of the same. It is established that Kashmir has always found its place in the administration of British Empire of India and needless to say ancient India in incomplete without Jammu and Kashmir.

Ideology, Grandstanding, and Strategic Party Disloyalty in the British Parliament

Strong party discipline is a core feature of Westminster parliamentary systems. Parties typically compel members of Parliament (MPs) to support the party regardless of MPs’ individual preferences. Rebellion, however, does occur. Using an original dataset of MP votes and speeches in the British House of Commons from 1992 to 2015, coupled with new estimations of MPs’ ideological positions within their party, we find evidence that MPs use rebellion strategically to differentiate themselves from their party. The strategy that MPs employ is contingent upon an interaction of ideological extremity with party control of government. Extremists are loyal when their party is in the opposition, but these same extremists become more likely to rebel when their party controls government. Additionally, they emphasize their rebellion through speeches. Existing models of rebellion and party discipline do not account for government agenda control and do not explain these patterns.

Re-establishing Class Privilege: The Ideological Uses of Middle and Working-Class Female Characters in Downton Abbey

This paper argues that the British period drama Downton Abbey, which aired between 2010 and 2015 and encountered worldwide success, uses working class and middle-class female characters to promote the aristocracy and conservative ideas, while hiding behind historical accuracy and seemingly progressive patterns of behaviour. Through a close reading of four female characters, I will demonstrate how the series’ author, Julian Fellowes, uses the show to endorse his own political agenda, as a Conservative member of the House of Lords in the British Parliament.

The Spectacle of Divorce Law in Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust and A. P. Herbert's Holy Deadlock

The article examines the way Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust (1934) and A. P. Herbert's Holy Deadlock (1934) express popular dissent against the divorce laws of England in the 1930s. These novels satirized the legal process of obtaining a divorce as farcical and tainted by parties colluding to stage “hotel divorces” in order to satisfy the single-fault ground of adultery. This article argues that these novels helped to articulate widespread opposition towards the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857, which only allowed divorce to be granted for adultery alone. The writings also spurred parliamentary debate and ultimately paved the way forward for the introduction of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1937. Herbert played a unique part in the campaign for divorce law reform. Both as a novelist and as a parliamentarian, Herbert composed legal satires and successfully introduced the Divorce Bill into the British Parliament respectively.

British Cultural Complexity: An Entropy-based Approach

The present study aimed to investigate the complexity of British culture across the twentieth century. Different from previous studies concerning cultural complexity that used written texts as the experimental data, the present study employed a large data-set of speeches and debates from the British parliament, with the intention of examining the change of British cultural complexity from the perspective of spoken texts. Interestingly, the findings of this study were largely in accordance with those of previous studies that were based on written texts. First, this study confirmed the argument that culture is cumulative in nature. In addition, this study showed that longer N-grams generate higher entropy values. Nonetheless, discrepancies were found in this study, such as the different impacts of crises on the growth of cultural complexity in Britain and America. Furthermore, comparisons with previous studies indicated a lower complexity of British spoken culture than its written counterpart. We have provided possible explanations as well as the implications for future research.

Killing Citizens: Core Legal Dilemmas in the Targeted Killing Abroad of Canadian Foreign Fighters

AbstractFor the first time since the introduction of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Canada is in an armed conflict with an insurgency that has actively recruited Canadians and directed them to use or promote violence against Canada. In the result, the Canadian government may ask its soldiers to target and kill fellow Canadians abroad or to assist allies in doing so. This situation raises a host of novel legal issues, including the question of “targeted killing.” This matter arose for the United Kingdom in 2015 when it directed the use of military force against several Britons believed to be plotting a terrorist attack against the United Kingdom from abroad. This incident sparked a report from the British Parliament highlighting legal dilemmas. This article does the same for Canada by focusing on the main legal implications surrounding a targeted killing by the Canadian government of a Canadian citizen abroad. This exercise shows that a Canadian policy of targeted killing would oblige Canada to make choices on several weighty legal matters. First, the article discusses the Canadian public law rules that apply when the Canadian Armed Forces deploy in armed conflicts overseas. It then analyzes international law governing state uses of military force, including the regulation of the use of force (jus ad bellum) and the law of armed conflict (jus in bello). It also examines an alternative body of international law: that governing peacetime uses of lethal force by states. The article concludes by weaving together these areas of law into a single set of legal questions that would necessarily need to be addressed prior to the targeted killing of a Canadian abroad.

British legislation against caste-based discrimination and the demand for the sunset clause

On 23 April 2013, British Parliament agreed an Amendment on caste to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill (ERR Bill). The Bill received Royal Assent on 25 April 2013 and Section 97 of the ERR Act (that provides that Government ‘shall’ use Section 9(5)a to make caste an aspect of race) came into force on 25 June 2013. The Amendment will be made to the Equality Act 2010 by ‘adding caste as “an aspect of” the protected characteristic of race’ [Waughray, Annapurna. (2014). “Capturing Caste in Law: Caste Discrimination and the Equality Act 2010.” Human Rights Law Review 14 (2): 359–379.]. Importantly, although the Government’s timetable states that the legislation will be enforced not before October 2015, the considerable delay in implementation is consequential of the opposition from both Sikh and Hindu organisations. Most British Sikhs agreed that legislation against caste discrimination was unnecessary under British law. The Sikh Council UK (SCUK) declared that ‘caste allegiances were on their way out in the UK’ and demanded a Sunset Clause which essentially renders the caste legislation as temporary for a period of ten years, since the credence of the SCUK is that caste will have absolutely no significance for subsequent generations of British Sikhs. This paper provides an analysis of attitudes, primarily from the British Sikh and Punjabi Dalit communities, towards caste discrimination legislation in British Law, and in particular attitudes towards the proposal of the Sunset Clause.