Bulletin n. 3/2008
February 2009
CONTENTS
  • Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government
  • Section B) Global governance and international organizations
  • Section C) Regional integration processes
  • Section D) Federalism as a political idea
  • Bach Stanley
    Crisp, The Senate, And The Constitution
    in Australian Journal of Politics & History , Volume 54, Issue 4, December ,  2008 ,  545-561
    This essay explores the development of L.F. Crisp's understanding of the appropriate role of Australia's Senate in the national political system. A review of his widely-used textbook over three decades reveals that, to Crisp, the Senate was conceived primarily to protect state interests, but that role was nullified almost immediately by the emergence of disciplined parties. Thereafter, the Senate usually was an ineffectual irrelevancy until the introduction of proportional representation transformed it into a threat to the constitutional system as it should operate. Crisp also appreciated that disciplined parties undermined effective control of government by the House of Representatives, yet he consistently failed to recognize in the Senate an institution capable of doing what the House of Representatives cannot: enforcing accountability on the government of the day.
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