What roles did the communications media play in undermining support for the authoritarian Franco regime, and in facilitating the transition to, and the consolidation of, democracy in Spain? A recent study of the political roles and impact of the media in Spain over the past six decades (Gunther, Montero & Ignacio, 2000) reveals that the media are just that - a medium through which political elites disseminate messages to the general public. Accordingly, the roles of the media changed over time in accord with political circumstances and with the manipulative intent of governments. In the end, through a variety of processes, the media contributed significantly to the success of the democratisation process.

Under Franco, the media were strictly controlled under policies featuring censorship and the issuing of ‘directives’ not greatly unlike those found in totalitarian systems. But there were some differences, reflective of the differences between authoritarian and totalitarian political systems.

In my book Media beyond Socialism (1994), I have challenged the idea that burial of the authoritarian practices of the former socialist countries would automatically bring about the rise of democratic political and media systems. My doubt that the series of structural changes that had taken place was genuine democratisation was largely provoked by the fact that the East-Central European (ECE) countries were caught up in hasty imitation of Western European economic and political practices rather than striving for a radical departure from the previous non-democratic practices of the socialist regimes. As Jürgen Habermas (1990) argued, the peculiar characteristic of the democratic ‘revolutions of recuperation’ in the ECE countries was a ‘total lack of ideas that are either innovative or orientated towards the future'. And it seems that these doubts were, unfortunately, justified.

The changes in the media systems of these countries suffered from the absence of both popular participation and theoretical foundations.

The early weeks of 2001 witnessed I an outburst of mass protest in the Czech Republic. The conflict was triggered by journalists employed by the public television company ČT (Čská Televize), yet quickly escalated to become a major political crisis. This 'Television War’ had begun in late December 2000, with journalists voicing their oppOSition to the appointment of ČT's new director, Jiři Hoda. In an attempt to force Hoda's dismissal, the staff went on strike, occupied the newsroom and even started broadcasting unauthorised news programmes. At the height of a conflict lasting almost six weeks, all newsrelated ČT programmes were suspended. The citizens of Prague supported the strike by providing the journalists with food. Hundreds of thousands of people eventually took to the streets against the new ČT management and the politicians who had appointed them.

What was this TeleviSion War all about? At first glance, the journalists were simply opposing the staffing policies of the Supervisory Board for Radio and Television Broadcasting, a body consisting of nine members of Parliament.

Successful consolidation of new democracies involves not only implementation of a new constitution and democratic procedures of decision making. Rather, the viability of democracy is equally dependent on the emergence of a civic culture that is supportive of the new political order. Without active citizens the majority of whom believe that democracy is the best way to govern the country, the survival of new democracies is seriously at risk (Linz & Stepan 1996). These democratic orientations have many roots, among which the mass media are perhaps of particular importance.

In modern societies the media are the main sources from which citizens learn about the political world. However, during the formative period of the development of political culture in a new democracy the role of the media can be assumed to be even more essential. Since civil society and the organised sector of political intermediation are notoriously weak, the media become the principal agents of political socialisation.

Twelve years after the introduction of reform policies in China and two years before the next expected major change at the summit of the country's leadership, China's political system is facing a series of tremendous changes. Perhaps one of the most important challenges is rooted in the effects of new information technologies on political decision-making and above all on relations between people and rulers.

The potential impact of these changes can perhaps best be explained by an example. In March 2001, the international media published reports of a deadly explosion in Fanglin school in a remote eastern Chinese mountain village. Official reports (including a statement by Premier Zhu Rongji) blamed a ‘lone madman’ for having set off two bags of explosives in a third-grade classroom. ‘ Here comes a madman’ was the immediate reaction on the Internet in China. Angry users of Internet chat rooms did not buy the story.

Italy went to the polls on 13 May 2001 to elect its parliament and the mayors of many of its major cities (Turin, Rome, Naples, Catania). As in the case of the British general election held less than a month later, the result had long been thought by many to be a foregone conclusion. In the Italian case, the choice facing voters was between a centre-right alliance, the House of Freedoms (La Casa delle Libertà) led by media tycoon, Silvio Berlusconi, on the one hand, and a centre-left alliance, the Olive-tree Alliance (I'Ulivo) led by former Mayor of Rome, Francesco Rutelli, on the other. Unlike the British election, however, the Italian election (and in particular, the election campaign) did not turn out to be a dull affair but, rather, an eventful one. This was less because of the actual results, than because of what was made possible by the complex electoral system, and because of the personalities involved, the use of media techniques and the policies addressed.

As far as the composition of the House of Commons is concerned the 2001 British general election was a rerun of its 1997 predecessor. Labour won 413 seats, almost two-thirds of the total, and their 167 seat majority represents only a marginal change in the 179 seat majority they achieved in 1997. The hapless Conservatives had a net gain of only one seat and they remain as far from government as ever with only 161 seats in the House overall. The Liberal Democrats picked up a useful additional six seats and now have their largest representation in the House of Commons since the 1920s. With very minor changes in the representation of other parties, the 2001 House of Commons looks a lot like the 1997 House of Commons, as can be seen in Table 1 .

In one crucially important respect, however, the 2001 election was very different from its predecessor.

In a little-cited chapter in Peter Merkl's Western European Party Systems, Stephen Fischer noted that the study of small or minor parties was neglected for four main reasons: concentrating on large parties delimited analysis of party polities, and thus made it more manageable; data collection problems were reduced; minor parties were thought to be irrelevant; and minor parties were considered dysfunctional elements of a system (1980: 609-10). Since 1980, two families of minor parties have come under considerably greater scrutiny, namely Green parties and Extreme Right parties (ERPs), not least because whilst in many cases they may still be small, they are no longer regarded as minor. It is still true, however, that at least as far as the latter family is concerned, data collection and dysfunctionality are two facets, which inform much, if not all research into the constituent parties.

Until the 1980s, there were two generalisations that could be made about Universities in the United Kingdom. First, they were heavily dependent on public funds. Second, they enjoyed a high degree of autonomy. They enjoyed an arm's length relationship with government through the University Grants Committee. Since the 1980s, the reliance on public funds has diminished, relative to the scale of its past dependence, as the degree of external regulation has increased. Universities have to survive in an environment that is not only more competitive than before but also more highly regulated. Far from enhancing the quality of research and teaching, many academics believe that the methods employed for accounting get in the way of delivering those key services.

The principle of being accountable for the receipt and spending of public funds is difficult to gainsay. Public funding accounts for sixty-two per cent of the funds received by higher education in the UK.

Dutch political science claims early roots. In 1613 Daniel Heinsius became Professor of Politics at Leiden University. The various sciences bearing a relation to the state were then regarded as one body of ‘scientia politica'. During the nineteenth century, however, the juridicallegalistic point of view began to predominate in the theory of the state, and between roughly 1840 and the end of the Second World War, Dutch universities almost completely neglected political science proper.

Immediately after the war, the University of Amsterdam established a new Faculty of Political and Social Sciences. Its two founding fathers were both historians but as early as the 1930s one of them, Jan Romein, had become well acquainted with American political science. The holders of the first three chairs in political science in the Netherlands, established between 1948 and 1953, had themselves studied law. It was only in 1963, with the appointment of Hans Daudt in Amsterdam, that the first professor of political science who had himself studied political science was appointed.

There has been much agonising in recent years over the future of the monograph. A few years ago the Association of American University Presses held a conference entitled ‘The Scholarly Monographin Crisis: or, how can I get tenure if you won't publish my book?’ The dilemma might be rephrased in the UK as ‘how can I survive the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) if you won't publish my book?’ – the pressures may be different, but the problem is essentially the same, summing up the way in which academic publishing has become un comfortably instrumental in the career structure and funding mechanism of the profession.

Development and innovation in learning and teaching tends often to be less advanced in higher education than at primary and secondary levels and those in higher education might usefully learn from work already done at other levels. At the same time, apart from the resulting generic applications of pedagogic models, there is room for more specific work to be done in the context of university learning and teaching.