Imperial Governance and the Growth of Legislative Power in America

In the sixth canto of the Purgatorio, Dante Alighieri lamented the pitiable condition of Italy. Though once the donna di provincie, it was now the ‘dwelling place of sorrow’. Bereft of peace, its cities were wracked by constant strife. Attributing this to the absence of imperial governance, he called on Albert of Habsburg to right Italy’s woes with all haste. As this chapter shows, the earliest humanists embraced the imperial cause for much the same reasons. Although aware of the condition of the regnum Italicum, they were concerned primarily with the affairs of individual cities, and used their classical learning to rationalize the character of urban life. Worn down by civil strife, they too called upon kings and emperors to restore their peace and liberty. But while some associated the Empire with signorial government, the most striking and persistent appeals to imperial authority came from humanists living under communal regimes.

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Shooting a Tiger

10.1093/oso/9780199489381.001.0001 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Vijaya Ramadas Mandala

Keyword(s):

Critical Role ◽

Late Nineteenth Century ◽

Way Of Life ◽

Colonial India ◽

British Raj ◽

Early Colonial ◽

Wide Range ◽

Forest Legislation ◽

Imperial Governance ◽

North And South

The main contention of Shooting a Tiger is that hunting during the colonial period was not merely a recreational activity, but a practice intimately connected with imperial governance. The book positions shikar or hunting at the heart of colonial rule by demonstrating that, for the British in India, it served as a political, practical, and symbolic apparatus in the consolidation of power and rule during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The book analyses early colonial hunting during the Company period, and then surveys different aspects of hunting during the high imperial decades in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The book draws upon an impressive array of archival material and uses a wide range of evidence to support its contentions. It examines hunting at a variety of social and ethnic levels—military, administrative, elite, princely India, Indian professional hunters, and in terms of Indian auxiliaries and (sometimes) resisters. It also deals with different geographical contexts—the plains, the mountains, north and south India. The exclusive privilege of hunting exercised by the ruling classes, following colonial forest legislation, continued to be extended to the Indian princes who played a critical role in sustaining the lavish hunts that became the hallmark of the late nineteenth-century British Raj. Hunting was also a way of life in colonial India, undertaken by officials and soldiers alike alongside their everyday duties, necessary for their mental sustenance and vital for the smooth operation of the colonial administration. There are also two final chapters on conservation, particularly the last chapter focusing on two British hunter-turned-conservationists, Jim Corbett and Colonel Richard Burton.

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Bicameralism

The Oxford Handbook of Public Choice, Volume 2 ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190469771.013.4 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 60-71

Author(s):

Cecilia Testa

Keyword(s):

Organizational Structures ◽

Costs And Benefits ◽

Social Cleavages ◽

Constitutional Choice ◽

Legislative Power ◽

Pressure Groups ◽

Important Purpose ◽

Two Bodies

In modern democracies, the legislative power is vested in parliaments with diverse organizational structures. Bicameral legislatures, requiring concurrent deliberation by two bodies, are present in about one-third of the world’s countries. Bicameralism typically serves the important purpose of accommodating the representation of heterogeneous interests from distinct social cleavages or geographic entities, but it is also associated with advantages such as greater stability of policies, increased accountability, and better quality of legislation. These benefits, however, only arise under specific circumstances, and the greater procedural complexity brought about by two chambers is not without costs. Disagreement between the two chambers often leads to costly legislative gridlock. Bicameralism can also open the door to pressure groups advancing their requests for favorable legislation when the chambers do not have time to carefully consider its consequences. The constitutional choice of bicameralism and its optimality ultimately rest on the subtle balance between its costs and benefits.

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Flattening the Curve of COVID-19 Vaccine Rejection—An International Overview

Vaccines ◽

10.3390/vaccines9010044 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 (1) ◽

pp. 44

Author(s):

Wojciech Feleszko ◽

Piotr Lewulis ◽

Adam Czarnecki ◽

Paweł Waszkiewicz

Keyword(s):

Czech Republic ◽

General Population ◽

Herd Immunity ◽

Vaccination Program ◽

Vaccination Programs ◽

National Surveys ◽

Legislative Power ◽

Preventive Vaccination ◽

Very High ◽

Socioeconomic Benefits

Background: If globally implemented, a safe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination program will have broad clinical and socioeconomic benefits. However, individuals who anticipate that the coronavirus vaccine will bring life back to normality may be disappointed, due to the emerging antivaccination attitude within the general population. Methods: We surveyed a sample of adult Polish citizens (n = 1066), and compared it with the data on international COVID-19 vaccine reluctance. Results: In 20 national surveys, the vaccine averseness for the anticipated COVID-19 vaccine varied from meager (2–6% China) to very high (43%, Czech Republic, and 44%, Turkey) and in most countries was much higher than regular vaccination reluctance, which varies between 3% (Egypt) and 55% (Russia). Conclusions: These results suggest that a 67% herd immunity may be possible only if mandatory preventive vaccination programs start early and are combined with coordinated education efforts supported by legislative power and social campaigns.

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