The fall of Cowen

People often say that politics is a boring subject, but the events of the last few days have been anything but boring. Were the situation not so serious, it would be the plot of a Hollywood comedy which would probably be panned by the critics for being too far-fetched and unrealistic.

The big news today, of course, is that Brian Cowen has stepped down as leader of the Fianna Fáil party but will stay on as Taoiseach until the general election. Little time had elapsed for the news to sink in before the attention turned to the next leader. Micheál Martin and Brian Lenihan have already put their names forward for the leadership contest which will take place on Wednesday while, at the time of writing, Éamon Ó Cuiv is also expected to enter the contest by declaring live on TG4. Mary Hanafin is another front-runner, but hadn't declared at the time of writing, while Conor Lenihan had declared an interest in partaking before nominations close on Monday. Tánaiste Mary Coughlan announced on RTÉ's Six-One news this evening that she would not be in the running.

Within the party, candidates will look to gain the support of a plurality of the seventy-one Fianna Fáil TDs in what will be the first contested leadership election since Charles Haughey resigned as leader in 1992. By 5pm, three hours after the Taoiseach announced his resignation, former Foreign Affairs minister Martin already had thirteen colleagues backing him, and is the bookmakers' favourite to become the eighth leader of the largest Dáil party.

As numerous opposition TDs and large volumes of text messages read on RTÉ Radio observed, the general public don't really care who's in charge of the larger government party, and that Mr. Cowen should add his resignation as Taoiseach to his resignation as Fianna Fáil leader and call a general election to be held before the previously announced date of March 11. A frequent question asked on RTÉ Radio 1's "Saturday View" was that if Mr. Cowen was no longer good enough to be leader of Fianna Fáil, why is he good enough to remain on as Taoiseach? Opposition parliamentarians point out that the Fianna Fáil TDs' attention have focused on the needs of the party, rather than the needs of the country. Whether that is true or not, it is fair to say that the ongoing drama has done little to improve Ireland's standing in the eyes of financial markets and her neighbours.

Whoever wins the party leadership contest on Wednesday will immediately have to defend their party in the Dáil, as a Labour Party motion of no confidence in the government is discussed on Tuesday evening, with a vote being held on Wednesday. And that's if the Dáil stays in session until then, as a Fine Gael motion of no confidence in Mr. Cowen will take place on Tuesday. Fianna Fáil and the Green Party may well unite against the Labour motion on Wednesday, but there may not be such a united front in a motion against the Taoiseach.

The drama won't subside any time soon, not least because the Green Party has notably kept silent on the whole affair today, and will remain so until after the party meets tomorrow morning. They refused to allow Mr. Cowen nominate new ministers to replace the five who resigned on Wednesday night and Thursday morning; will they pull their support for Mr. Cowen now that he isn't even his party's leader? Anyone who has booked a flight to return to Ireland to vote on March 11 might be looking for a flight a few weeks earlier yet.

Questions for when the candidates come calling and crawling

The race hasn’t quite started yet, but the show ponies and the jackasses are getting ready to line up and start the sprint to the finishing post that is 83 Dáil seats come March 11. This of course means that houses up and down the country will soon face the tapping of door knockers and ringing of bells as candidates of all parties and none come looking for votes (or at least a chance to explain themselves) of an electorate which has been baying for the chance to go to the polls.

One benefit of the horrible mess we find ourselves in is that we are now a nation of more politically aware people, a fact which politicians will ignore at their peril. The lack of interest held by much of the electorate in the last two or three general elections has been replaced by a wave of anger and a demand for information as to what any new government will do to make things better.

I, for one, am planning on having lengthy chats with any candidate who comes looking for my support. The following are the issues I’d like candidates to address.

1.      How do you intend to create new jobs in this country? This is probably the most important question, relating as it does to fixing the economy by increasing tax revenue and reducing social welfare payments. The next Dáil will have to focus on ways of making Ireland more competitive against its rivals, and invest in the new green industries.

2.      What do you intend to do regarding ministerial and TD pensions, and the bonuses paid to state employees, including the leaders of the banks we now own? Let’s face it, reducing the amount of money TDs and ministers make is always a popular issue with the voters, but the nonsense of the last few weeks justifies it. Some thirty TDs retiring (so far), including half a dozen ministers, with the majority looking forward to getting huge pensions, set at 2008 rates, unaltered by any pay cuts TDs agreed to take in the last two years. The excuse that people are stepping down to “allow the next generation take charge” not only smacks of a generation refusing to take responsibility for the mess they created, but of a group willing to get very generous pensions without offering to help fix the problems they’ve left for the next generation of leaders.

As for bank bonuses, I doubt I’m alone in the anger I felt when I heard that AIB were willing to pay €40 million in bonuses to its staff, fearing legal action were it not to, despite the fact that it effectively had to be nationalised with taxpayer money to cover the bad debts it, and other banks, willingly loaned out in the good times. If we own the banks, then employees in them should not get rewarded for costing us more money.

3.      Are you eager to look for a better deal from the EU and the IMF, and what makes you think you’ll get a better deal? Yes, the interest rate appears high, but it’s lower than what Ireland would have to pay on the open markets. Given that a lot of talk has come from some opposition parties looking to renegotiate the deal (a move which might get support from the other weak eurozone countries, especially Greece and Portugal, but would get short shrift from the big players, France and Germany), how will a new government get a better deal for Ireland?

4.      What are your policies on equal rights for the LGBT community? Settle for the Civil Partnership Act, or introduce legislation allowing equal access to marriage and adoption? Will legislation be introduced recognising sex changes? Any LGBT legislation would have no effect on me, but placing limitations on how citizens can interact in their state, when heterosexual couples have extra freedoms and rights, is an appalling injustice which should be remedied.

5.      Have you plans for political reform? The Seanad has become a big topic in the last two months, with parties across the divide giving varying sounds of approval to abolishing the second house. I feel too much focus has been placed on closing the Seanad, without looking at any reform in the Dáil or in local authorities. The cynic in me feels that Dáil deputies are looking for a sacrificial lamb to slaughter, taking the pressure off the main chamber to sort itself out.

If the problem is that the Seanad is little more than a talking shop, why not give it more powers? Similarly, make local authorities more powerful by letting them deal with more local issues, the issues one would assume county and city councillors were elected to deal with in the first place. Localism will continue in the Dáil if TDs have to placate their electorate by looking after the potholes, whether there’s one national chamber or two.

6.      Are you willing to change the way candidates for the Presidency of Ireland are nominated? Granted, this isn’t a major issue for many, but it could be a source of grief for any new government next autumn. Under the status quo, prospective presidential candidates need support from at least twenty members of the Oireachtas or from at least four local authorities, one-term incumbent or former presidents excepted. This is a system which effectively guarantees candidacies for people supported by the major parties, and makes life difficult for anyone running independently or for smaller parties.

The single most popular prospective candidate is Senator David Norris, who probably would not seek a party nomination anyway, but would need to court local authorities for support. The problem arises that if local authorities refuse to support him, the most popular candidate would be unable to enter the contest.

In the interest of fairness for candidates outside of the big parties, a referendum to change Article 12 of the Constitution should be considered before the election next October; perhaps introducing an additional qualification, say allowing someone to enter were they to have a petition supported a significant number of the electorate.

These are some of the issues I want to see tackled early in the next Dáil. I’m sure everyone has different issues, ranked differently. But the key aim of this piece is to get minds thinking; what is it that we, as citizens of this country, want from our government and our public representatives? Never mind what parties and candidates say they want to do for us, what do we demand of them? Perhaps a few more questions from an angry public might get a few more honest answers when our preferences are on the line.

Are the digital humanities taking over?

The third article I've recently read is by Christine L. Borgman, who reasons that with the ongoing digitisation of sources and journals, the days of humanities scholars spending months and years trawling solo through archives will become rarer, as collaboration and digital study could become the dominant force in humanities research this century. With an increasing number of journals becoming available online, due to demand from academics and students, information is becoming much more easily available, allowing for a greater likelihood of individuals doing the same research at the same time. Collaborative work would help reduce duplication of the same work and allow for greater development in field research, a distinct advantage over the old method of individuals working on their own.
Borgman identifies a problem with the way digital research is viewed and used by students and lecturers in the humanities, citing that concerns over publishing and promotion of one's work, as well as insecurity over tenure positions in universities, means that humanities scholars are more guarded about their work, and less willing to collaborate with colleagues, or to engage with new means of researching. University libraries allow the perpetuation of a cycle by continuing to stock printed books and journals, which humanities scholars continue to use. Borgman does not blame librarians for this, arguing that scholars should be responsible for breaking this cycle, and demand a change in the way they, and their students, access material. From what limited experience I have with administration, this demand from academics alone would be insufficient. There is a need to convince heads of departments and the upper echelons of universities that digital research is not only important, but something which they should ignore at their peril.
As the author points out, there is a mental block among humanities scholars to accept digital publishing and the collaboration which goes with it. Arts students are groomed into accepting that work must be done individually, that we are competing against our colleagues. Collaboration is a dirty word, little better than plagiarism. Large classes are broken down into smaller tutorial groups, but the message remains that we are individuals walking along our own paths and aiming for our own goals, apart from the rest of the group. I personally find it very difficult to engage in any form of collaborative work because of this engrained feeling that doing so diminished my effort. The fact that collaboration as a result of increased digital resources will become more commonplace means that I will have to address this.
Science and medicine have taken more readily to digital research than the humanities, perhaps because of the importance the data created in those fields have. Searching for cures to serious diseases is a preoccupation of many scientists around the world, with pooled information leading to quicker discoveries. I'm unable to think of the last time a single individual won one of the scientific or medical Nobel prizes, while the humanities prizes are frequently won by individuals.
The key question I have about the future of digital research in the humanities is how do senior academics and the upper rungs of university management be brought around to the idea that this is the trending way of research, that the old days of slowly going through archives is not just old-fashioned, but inefficient? I've been fortunate to complete a thesis already, and I can honestly say that while I did access books in the traditional manner, from university libraries, I did not access a single journal in its traditional printed format. Within the next generation, students will demand greater availability of information online, and digital study will become the dominant form of humanities research.

Mapping Freedom

The overall theme of this article, by Edward L. Ayers, is of the history and migration of African-Americans after the Civil War, using images and video to illustrate his piece. Quoting Bob Dylan, Ayers rightly refers to the Civil War as "one long funeral song", with thousands dying in a cruel war fought between people who had "use[d] the same God, quoted the same Bible" yet forgot their unity and descended into bitter hatred and warfare. Of course, as Ayers also observes, the Civil War allowed for the emancipation of America's four million slaves, a freedom denied for over two hundred years to them and their ancestors, with the federal government refusing to give compensation to slave-owners.

The first image Ayers provides is a graph indicated the frequency of which the word "emancipation" is mentioned in newspapers in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, between 1858 and 1868. The article notes that the frequency "emancipation" is mentioned peaked in 1862, before rapidly diminishing. Ayers appears to extrapolate these figures to represent all northern newspapers, which is a bit odd, considering that his reference is two newspapers in one county of one state, hardly a large enough sample group to represent all newspapers in the north. In addition, though "emancipation" does peak in 1862 before rapidly declining, he fails to mention that, even in 1862, the word is only mentioned eight times by these papers. Further, he doesn't factor why "emancipation", as well as "slavery" (another key word in papers at the time) declined in usage: they were topical issues in the lead up to the Civil War, and especially so in the lead up to January 1, 1863, when the Emancipation Proclamation came into effect. The simple reason why these key words declined, in much the same way that any topical issues does, is that once enacted by Congress and instituted across the union, the issue died away.

I did like what he had to say about history as a subject, declaring it to be a projection which allows us to comprehend what has occurred, allowing us to use precedent to guess what may happen in future. Comparison is made between using history to predict future acts and using climate to predict the weather: it gives a good indicator but isn't always accurate, yet  allows us to understand what has happened and why. It's an analogy I enjoy, and I'll be sure to add it to conversation I ever have with someone who queries the worth of history (Something which rarely happens to me, I'm glad to say. I like to think that people have a large respect for history!). A second metaphor is mentioned, attributed to Fernand Braudel, who explained history to be:

"An incredible number of dice, always rolling, dominate and determine each individual existence: uncertainty, then, in the realm of individual history; but in that of collective history . . . simplicity and consistency."

It certainly puts to shame my own interpretation of what history is, and why it's important: that it is current affairs, set in the past, but useful to explain the actions of our predecessors and as a guide for our own actions. 

Finally, Ayers deals with an important aspect of the fallout of the Civil War, perhaps one which is not often reflected on, if mentioned in the first place: the human history of African-Americans freed by the Emancipation Proclamation and the Union victory in the war. Having illustrated this history with two examples, Ayers explains that these historical events are in the past to us, but are events which happened to real people, in real time. One of the freedoms associated with the emancipation was the freedom of movement, a freedom naturally denied to slaves. A series of maps indicating the migrations of African-Americans from the south-east coast of the United States into the north, west, and south illustrate the movement from the agricultural heartlands of the deep south to the wealthier industrialised north and the new frontier towns and cities of the west. 

Overall, it's an article which emphasises the need to include images and video, not just to illustrate arguments in an article, but to make the subject more interesting to the reader, as well as show information which the reader can use to make their own judgements. The fact that I was able to query the limitations of the newspapers Ayers used could only have happened because it was provided to me, a positive step to allow for greater interaction with, and commentary of, articles.

The growth of digital world history

In his article on creating an agenda for digital world history, Patrick Manning attempts to push forward the idea of global history becoming a major element within history generally, explaining that the rise of modern technology has enabled what was once a small, niche part of historical study to become a more common approach.
Manning observes that global perspectives of world history as a study grew shortly after the dawn of digital technology. He further notes a link between the expansion of computers, and the dawn of the Internet, with a huge expansion of historical knowledge, notably in local history and in the coordination of national and international history.
On the local level, the Internet, as a free resource, enables the dissemination and spread of information which might not otherwise be possible, as book publishers are often reluctant to print books about issues with limited geographical or cultural appeal. With modern technology, historians can reach a greater audience at a minimal cost. In my own experience, the Internet has proven a useful tool, allowing me to send chapters of my thesis to friends far away who agreed to proofread it, without having to post copies, as well as acting as a storage location where anyone can access the final product, without having to travel to the library in UCC.
Globally, the use of an international service, which the Internet is, has allowed for a greater, and easier, collaborative effort between historians from different nations, allowing for common knowledge or experience to be interpreted from perspectives previously unknown in individual states. People have always been able to access information, but geographical barriers made it difficult to find sources that were not close to hand, while linguistic barriers and national borders made it difficult to access analysis or opinions from a different perspective. Personally, the Internet has made it easier to access information, even within Ireland. Books and articles useful for my thesis last year, but unavailable in UCC, were found in other universities with thanks to the search engines provided by other institutions. Internet shopping allowed me to find, and buy, a copy of the Pilkington Report on Broadcasting, long out of print, unavailable in UCC or any other Irish university, and not published on the Internet.
A major benefit of modern technology is the ability to create a database of information, featuring contributions from collaborators from around the world, which can be accessed by anyone, anywhere. Manning acknowledges this by pointing out the limitations encountered when he created the World History Center at Northeastern University. By placing information online, historians become capable of creating an expanded database, easily accessible and capable of allowing for greater interactivity than the limits which occur when a centre of excellence is restricted geographically within one university.
Though Manning believes world history is the up-and-coming area of history research this century, I wonder how much this is so because of interpretation of this area versus other aspects of history, and how much this belief rests on his desire for it to be so, given his speciality in the subject. No-one wishes to consider their area of expertise to be niche, or of limited interest to the general populace. I would agree with his argument that world history has expanded in tandem with the rise and expansion of the computer and the Internet, but I doubt that the correlation will rise exponentially. 

If I could give a lecture series...

As I’ve mentioned before, I have an interest in the history of the media. This is just as well, as I’m doing an MA in the History of Irish Media and Journalism, and I’ve written a thesis on the development of commercial television in the United Kingdom! I’ve also thought about becoming a lecturer, a career I’ve long had an interest in. Based on my own interests, I know I’d like to give lectures on twentieth century history, especially post-war, in politics or the media.

One of the tasks given to us by Dr. Cosgrave was to draw up a course outline for a module we’d like to teach. I would like to give a lecture series on the development of broadcast media in the United Kingdom from 1939 to 1997. This is a topic which isn’t really covered in Ireland, and only by a few universities to any level in the UK itself.

Aside from the topic being one I’m interested in, I should explain my choice of dates. 1939 saw the start of World War II and the coming of age of radio as a medium which delivered news more up-to-date than any newspaper could hope to achieve, leading to broadcasting supplanting the press as the main means of getting the latest news, with entertainment also providing a means of maintaining and improving morale. 1997 saw the fall of the Conservatives from power, having held it for the previous eighteen years, and thirty-five or the previous forty-six. During that time, the party introduced numerous pieces of legislation regarding the media, and so their fall from power and the start of a long Labour government is a natural end point.

Module: Broadcast Media in the United Kingdom, 1939-1997.

Module Objective: Investigating the development of sound and visual broadcasting in the United Kingdom from the Second World War to the fall of John Major’s Conservative government.

Module Content: The development of radio, and later television, as the dominant medium in British life as the twentieth century progressed. The introduction of commercial television as a competitor to the BBC will be featured, including the public debate over the role of the media; national and regional opt-outs and their contribution to making the media ‘more local’, especially on radio; the attempts at regulating broadcasting, including the introduction of further competitors, through the Broadcasting Acts under Conservative governments.

Learning outcomes:

-          Understand the rise of radio over newspapers as the dominant medium in British life, before being usurped by television

-          Apply knowledge of the differences between the main political parties in the debates over public service broadcasting to wider discussions on ideology in post-war Britain

-          Evaluate the key moments in post-war broadcasting history, and the impact created

-          Investigating the effects of parliamentary intervention on the media

-          Acknowledging the impact of radio and television on other activities in twentieth-century Britain

-          Learn the skills necessary to produce advanced critical essays

Assessment: Total Marks: 200 via continuous assessment (2x 3,000 word essays: 150 marks; seminar participation: 25 marks; class presentation: 25 marks).