Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) is a weekly, half-hour long session in the British House of Commons, which gives backbench Members of Parliament (MPs) and the Leader of the Opposition (LO) the opportunity to ask the Prime Minister (PM) questions on any topic relating to the government’s policies and actions. The discourse at PMQs is often described as adversarial (see Bull & Wells 2011) and in this paper I will show how the notion of impoliteness can be (...) applied to both the questions and the answers which make up the session. Through the detailed analysis of six sessions of PMQs I will also demonstrate that PMQs is also a source of polite linguistic behaviour of the sort described in Brown & Levinson’s (1987) politeness theory. Comparisons between Gordon Brown’s and David Cameron’s speech styles will also be drawn. (shrink)

This paper aims at creating an adequate theoretical basis for a systematic integration of institutional insights into the pragma-dialectical analysis of argumentative exchanges that occur in institutionalised contexts. The argumentative practice of Prime Minister’s Question Time in the British House of Commons is examined, as a case in point, in order to illustrate how the knowledge of the characteristics of an institution, its rules and conventions can be integrated into the pragma-dialectical analysis. The paper highlights the role that (...) theoretical concepts and tools such as strategic manoeuvring, argumentative activity types and dialectical profiles play in this integration. (shrink)

Then newly elected Labor Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, made a historic statement of “Sorry” for past injustices to Australian Indigenous peoples at the opening of the 2008 federal parliament. In the long-standing absence of a constitutional ‘foundational principle’ to shape positive federal initiatives in this context, there has been speculation that the emphatic Sorry Statement may presage formal constitutional recognition. The debate is long overdue in a nation that only overturned the legal fiction of terra nullius and recognised (...) native title to lan with the High Court’s decision in Mabo in 1992. This article explores the implications of the Sorry Statement in the context of reparations for the generations removed from their families under assimilation policies (known since the Bringing Them Home Inquiry as the Stolen Generations). We draw out the utility of recent human rights statutes—such as the Human Rights Act 2004 (ACT)—as a mechanism for facilitating justice, including compensation for past wrongs. Our primary concern here is whether existing legal processes in Australia hold further capacity to provide reparation for Australian Indigenous peoples or whether their potential in that regard is already exhausted. We compare common law and statutory developments in other international jurisdictions, such as Canada, as an indication of what can be achieved by the law to facilitate better legal, economic and social outcomes for Indigenous peoples. The year 2008 also saw Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper express his apology to residential school victims in the Canadian Parliament, providing thematic and symbolic echoes across these two former colonies, which, despite remaining under the British monarchy, both forge their own path into the future, while confronting their own unique colonial past. We suggest that the momentum provided by the recent public apology and statement of “Sorry” by the newly elected Australian Prime Minister must not be lost. This symbolic utterance as a first act of the 2008 parliamentary year stood in stark contrast to the long-standing recalcitrance of the former Prime Minister John Howard on the matter of a formal apology. Rather than a return to a law enforcement-inspired “three strikes and you’re out” approach, Australia stands poised for an overdue constitutional and human rights-inspired “three ‘sorries’ and you’re in”. (shrink)

Bishop Desmond Tutu's call, in 2013, for former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair to be tried for war crimes, led to much reporting and comment in the online pages of UK newspapers. At first sight, it was a topic that seemed particularly conducive to the attraction of trolling, flaming and Ebile in the comments posted below journalistic pieces. Both Tutu and Blair are controversial and divisive characters, and the context of the Iraq War seemed fertile ground for heated (...) exchanges. A content analysis of 2,476 comments and 27,970 likes/dislikes offered a fairly substantial for identification of and evaluation of the value this discourse. In the event, trolling, flaming and Ebile were rare in the context of this political discourse, suggesting, at least a form of discourse closer to the ideals of Habermas. (shrink)

This article examines the power relationship between the prime minister and ruling party legislators. I theoretically explore the power relationship between the prime minister and ruling party legislators, and examine legislators' parliamentary voting, focusing on the political process of postal service privatization of 2005. This analysis presents three arguments. First, theoretically, when the prime minister attempts to achieve a project, risking his or her job, he or she can firmly control ruling party legislators. Second, (...) empirically, the anti-Koizumi legislators' rebellion was based on their unfounded assumption about the prime minister's behavior or ultimate outcomes. Third, the anti-Koizumi legislators' electoral incentives to secure their reelection and ruling incentives to weaken or overthrow the Koizumi Cabinet drove them to rebel against the prime minister in the Lower House, while the ruling incentives alone caused the rebellion in the Upper House. (shrink)

Generally, the testimony of intoxicated witnesses has been considered relatively unreliable, but recent research has nuanced the knowledge base regarding these vulnerable witnesses.PurposeTo demonstrate the application of recent research findings regarding intoxicated witnesses to the statements made by a key witness to the murder of Olof Palme, Sweden's prime minister, in 1986. An additional purpose was to illustrate the use of a nuanced calculation of blood alcohol concentration for researchers.MethodsThe Palme murder has been debated since the crime was (...) committed and no one has yet been sentenced. One of the witnesses was intoxicated and to estimate a range for his BAC at the time, a comprehensive BAC calculation was conducted in this study to illustrate important factors to consider in these types of cases.ResultsThrough the demonstration of the use of a nuanced BAC formula and by applying recent research results from studies on intoxicated witnesses, it was estimated that the possible BAC of the witness in the Palme-case at the time of the witnessed crime ranged between BAC = 0 to BAC = 0.13, depending on the type of alcoholic beverage consumed and whether the witness was a social or heavy drinker. This puts the witness either well within the span of maintained completeness as well as maintained accuracy rate, or slightly exceeding this span into the BAC-range of reduced completeness but maintained accuracy rate. He was questioned immediately, and thereafter repeatedly, and he reported similar information throughout the interviews, which is in line with previous results on information maintenance over repeated interviews among intoxicated witnesses.ConclusionThe current case example shows how recent research on intoxicated witnesses can be applied in praxis, illustrating important factors for legal practitioners to consider when interpreting information from intoxicated witnesses. It also provides legal practitioners and researchers with an example of a structured approach to more nuanced BAC-calculations. (shrink)

The article provides a systems-theoretical analysis of the Cartoon Crisis and the way the Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, responded to the expectations of Muslim groups in particular and the business community. The analysis shows that the Prime Minister followed a single strategy throughout the crisis, namely, insisting on a secular understanding of the separation of politics and religion. Religion, in this view, should not interfere in politics, and politics should not interfere in religion. The (...) main outline of the analysis shows that Prime Minister Rasmussen, paradoxically, found himself using a theological distinction in order to make a political argument. In doing so, Rasmussen shows, in contrast to his former argumentations, that modern, so-called `secular' politics is actually based on a religious Protestant understanding of the separation of the two realms, though the use Rasmussen made of this separation remains political. (shrink)

As the official UK COVID Inquiry is investigating the response by the government to the 2020 global pandemic, revealing the difficulties that the Johnson administration had to face and the overall lack of adequate preparedness at the top of the UK executive, people are becoming growingly aware of the many challenges that such situations pose in terms of crisis management and public governance. Beyond the somewhat sterile blame game played by leading political actors, this formal accountability forum has also revealed (...) competing narratives about the crisis that might have hampered any coherent political solution. This article proposes to focus on the ‘official’ narratives by the UK government and to analyse critically the way Boris Johnson narrativised his political response to the pandemic in order to examine how his unconventional style of leadership was deployed during a global crisis. Using a typology of crisis management inspired by crisis expert and leadership scholar Arjen Boin, the objective is to examine how ‘crisis narratives’ framed the way the UK government responded to the crisis. (shrink)

This collection of inaugural and ascension speeches facilitates comparison of presidential themes, leadership styles, personal philosophies, and evolutionary communication strategies in Nigerian nation building. Each chapter opens with biographical notes on the speaker, followed by an introduction to the prevalent political climate; each chapter ends with the leader's unabridged speech.

On behalf of the Government of Ukraine, I congratulate you on the start of the International Scientific and Practical Conference "Religious Freedom in Ukraine in the Context of International Legal Experience" devoted to the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of the UN Human Rights.

The position of the Belgian prime minister is hardly mentioned in the Belgian Constitution. lt was only after almost 140 years, in 1970 he was mentioned for the first time. lts power is rather a matter of common law. Since 1831 through the years, the position and power of the PM changed strongly. This often happened together with changes concerning the power of the King: the weaker the King, the stronger the PM.The existence of coalition governments puts forward (...) bis role as coordinator and even as arbitrator, whereas the federalisation process since the seventies places him as a conciliator between Regions and Communities. The growing importance of the European Council of Head of States have made him the most important decision-maker among the national politicians in the European integration process. The PM's skills concerning timing and agendasetting are very important because it is one of his most important power instruments. Other key skills are bis profound knowledge in certain issues but mostly as a generalist, his insisting on good minister nominations by the party leaders, the way he can motivate his cabinet members, a good team spirit among the government members and the existence of a clear government contract. In order to avoid a strongdependency on or tutelage from the political parties of the majority it is important to have their top politicians in the government. (shrink)

The relation between the constitutionally founded supremacy of the parliament and the authoriy of the Prime Minister based on common law, is of a great importance in the Low Countries. This relation constitutes the difference between parliamentary and presidential regimes. It is the PM's duty to take care of the permanent support ofthe parliamentary majority. This is not an easy exercise. Members of parliament are not always as positive about the PM's parliamentary performances. Characteristics of the parliamentary activity (...) of the Belgian PM's Wilfried Martens, Jean-Luc Dehaene and the Dutch Ruud Lubbers are handled as: the frequency and the extent of the PM's parliamentary performances, the topics handled by the PM's in parliament, the PM's opponents in parliamentary debate and finally more generally the PM's parliamentary role behaviour. Due to the different position of both the parliament and the PM in the Belgian and the Dutch political system, the characteristics of the parliamenty activity of the Belgian and the Dutch PM are not always very similar. Additionally, remarkable differences occur between the parliamentary activity of different PM'swithin the same country. (shrink)

This article explores the significance of the work of Emmanuel Levinas for the philosophy of religion. Levinas is well‐known as the philosopher of the face of the other which provokes infinite responsibility. In his account of ethical responsibility to the other he regularly employs religious references, though rarely with extended explanations. This article considers a variety of interpretations of these religious references. Given the importance of Judaism for Levinas, we first examine whether Levinas should be understood as a philosopher or (...) Jewish thinker, presenting arguments on both sides of this debate. We then investigate the relationship between ethics and religion in Levinas’s work, including consideration of the Akedah and the problem of evil. We conclude with explorations of the relationship between reason and revelation and the question of how we ought to think about God. These reflections elucidate the contribution Levinas makes to the philosophy of religion. (shrink)

In recent years, a growing number of thinkers have criticized the use of human rights as an international standard. It is the thesis of this essay that by addressing these critics from a Levinasian ethical framework, rather than a Kantian one, we can formulate a conception of human rights that is viable for a pluralistic, international community. Though Levinas’s ethics retains an affinity to Kant’s, the divergence of Levinas’s theory from Kant’s on the issues of autonomy/heteronomy and the role of (...) reason in ethics opens up new possibilities for conceptualizing human rights. By exploring these two divergences, I willshow that a Levinasian framework prioritizes the ethical demands of others in a way that invites both a fallibilistic commitment to and an ongoing critique ofhuman rights. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Jahrbuch für Wissenschaft und Ethik Jahrgang: 20 Heft: 1 Seiten: 355-366.

The starting point for studying the Croatian constitutional democracy is the adoption of the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia on 22 December 1990. The said Constitution defines the system of government as semi-presidential and its authors state as their model the Constitution of the Fifth Republic. However, the importing, in 1990, of French constitutional provisions was not neutral since the original French constitutional text was stripped of institutional obstacles, constitutional institutions for opposing the will of the President of the (...) Republic, constitutional-law conditions for the Prime Minister's primacy in the political system in case of co-habitation and discrepancies between the parliamentary and the presidential majority. The text was complemented by constitutional norms unknown to the original. French constitutional norms had to be put to good use, interpreted in line with and legally adapted to the desired political goal, i.e., the establishment of an effective state government in which the primacy of the President of the Republic would assert itself over both the Government and the legislature. The myth on the semi-presidential system was drawn on for both the adoption of the provisions regulating the organisation of government in the 1990 Constitution of the Republic of Croatia and their amendment in 2000. (shrink)