A moment magnitude (M-w) 6.2 earthquake struck beneath the outer suburbs of Christchurch, New Zealand's second largest city, on 22 February 2011 local time. The Christchurch earthquake was the deadliest in New Zealand since the 1931 M-w 7.8 Hawkes Bay earthquake and the most expensive in New Zealand's recorded history. The effects of the earthquake on the region's population and infrastructure were severe including 181 fatalities, widespread building damage, liquefaction and landslides. The Christchurch earthquake was an aftershock of the M-w 7.1 Darfield Earthquake of September 2010, occurring towards the eastern edge of the aftershock zone. This was a low recurrence earthquake for New Zealand and occurred on a fault unrecognised prior to the Darfield event. Geodetic and seismological source models show that oblique-reverse slip occurred along a northeast-southwest-striking fault dipping southeast at c. 69 degrees, with maximum slip at 3-4 km depth. Ground motions during the earthquake were unusually large at near-source distances for an earthquake of its size, registering up to 2.2 g (vertical) and 1.7 g (horizontal) near the epicentre and up to 0.8 g (vertical) and 0.7 g (horizontal) in the city centre. Acceleration response spectra exceeded 2500 yr building design codes and estimates based on standard New Zealand models. The earthquake was associated with high apparent stress indicative of a strong fault. Furthermore, rupture in an updip direction towards Christchurch likely led to strong directivity effects in the city. Site effects including long period amplification and near-surface effects also contributed to the severity of ground motions.

Intersecting strike-slip and normal fault systems form either two or three plate configurations. In circumstances where they intersect to form a triple junction, internal block deformation produces a quasi-stable 3-D configuration permitting maintenance of both the regional geometry and kinematics of the intersection. This paper examines the temporal stability of such a triple junction in New Zealand over a range of timescales, from individual earthquakes to millions of years, and discusses the factors that impact its stability. Using seismic-reflection, gravity, drill-hole and outcrop data, the accumulation of vertical displacements is examined, both on individual faults and across the intersection zone between the strike-slip North Island Fault System (NIFS) and the Taupo Rift. Fault-throws and throw rates for the NIFS and Taupo Rift suggest that despite a three-fold increase in throw rates in both fault systems at about 0.3Ma, which may have modified the orientation of the slip vectors and therefore the contemporary kinematics of the triple junction, the intersection of the two fault systems has functioned coherently for the last 0.6–1.5Myr accumulating vertical displacements interdependently since the early stages of rifting. The apparent arrest of a large magnitude earthquake on the rift-bounding fault adjacent to the intersection, suggests that the short-term dynamic behaviour of the system is relatively complex compared to the more coherent long-term kinematics.

The decision by the British government and Parliament in March 2003 to go to war against Iraq, despite serious public disquiet and unprecedented mass demonstrations, has renewed debate about the proper relationship between elected representatives and their constituents. The article shows that the arguments in favour of the decisional autonomy of representatives, advanced by Edmund Burke and John Stuart Mill and much cited since, are more restrictive than they at first appear and could not be used to justify parliamentary independence in this case. A set of original criteria is then developed to distinguish between different examples of organised public opinion and collective protest in respect of their ‘normative weight’, and some key instances of popular protest under New Labour are assessed against these criteria. The article concludes by assessing the political implications of parliament’s ignoring of public opinion in the decision over war against Iraq.

How democratic is Britain? Using data collected by Democratic Audit, this article argues that Britain's progress towards democracy has been uneven in 2002. It assesses a wide range of areas, including the state of civil and political rights, the promotion of economic and social rights, elections and voter participation, party democracy, the effectiveness and responsiveness of government, the role of women in public life, devolution, and the state of civil society. The authors conclude that the major lesson to be learned is that democracy is a never-ending process and that a major weakness of New Labour's approach is that it is unfocused and lacks a clear definition and understanding of democratic principles.

Journal Article Democratic Audit: An Inauspicious Year for Democracy Get access David Beetham, David Beetham Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Pauline Ngan, Pauline Ngan Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Stuart Weir Stuart Weir Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Parliamentary Affairs, Volume 55, Issue 2, 1 April 2002, Pages 400–415, https://doi.org/10.1093/parlij/55.2.400 Published: 01 April 2002

Britain is about to elect a new government, But how democratic will it be and how does the present one fare on this front? An international audit of democracy, being applied to a number of countries, has produced disturbing findings about the United Kingdom. The centralised executive is seen as an obstacle to protecting civil and political rights. Checks on this power are a myth and there has been a reluctance to redress the imbalance between executive and parliamentary power.

This is a 'democratic audit' of political freedom and democratic arrangements in the UK as at the end of the year 2000, appraising the performance of the Blair government in recent years. it argues that the Blair government has sought to maintain the power of the central executive in the United Kingdom, even though it has created devolved assemblies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and mayor and assembly in London. The determination to protect central powers explains the weakness of the Freedom of Information Act and the equivocation over the pledge to hold a referendum on electoral reform for Westminster elections. The government's greatest achievement is the Human Rights Act, which puts civil and political rights in the UK on a statutory basis.

This article argues that its character as a non‐state political system makes little difference to how the EU ought to be legitimated. Minimum requirements for the legitimation of the liberal democratic state (performance, democracy and identity) also hold for the legitimation of Union power, both normatively and sociologically. This constrains the application of innovative legitimation strategies to the Union, requiring that post‐parliamentary solutions be recast as complements, rather than substitutes, for a system of representative politics in the European arena, if the EU is to meet the core standard of democratic rule, which we take to be public control with political equality.

The Political QuarterlyVolume 70, Issue 2 p. 128-138 Auditing British Democracy David Beetham, David Beetham Centre for Democratisation Studies, University of Leeds,Search for more papers by this authorStuart Weir, Stuart Weir University of EssexSearch for more papers by this author David Beetham, David Beetham Centre for Democratisation Studies, University of Leeds,Search for more papers by this authorStuart Weir, Stuart Weir University of EssexSearch for more papers by this author First published: 28 June 2008 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-923X.00213Citations: 7AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume70, Issue2April 1999Pages 128-138 RelatedInformation

Journal Article The idea of democratic audit in comparative perspective Get access D Beetham D Beetham Centre for Democratisation Studies, University of Leeds, UK Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Parliamentary Affairs, Volume 52, Issue 4, October 1999, Pages 567–581, https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/52.4.567 Published: 01 October 1999

This chapter provides a defence of economic and social rights as human rights against many different objections levelled against them. It deals with their definition and justification; outlines a theory of corresponding duties; assesses objections on the grounds of practicality; and evaluates the purpose of economic and social rights agenda in an imperfect world. In absence of a satisfactory theory of obligation, it is urged, human rights must remain merely 'manifesto' claims, not properly rights. This objection is held to be particularly damaging to economic and social rights, which require from individuals and governments, not merely that they refrain from harming others or undermining their security, but that they act positively to promote their well-being. Henry Shue developed three different kinds of duty that are required to make a human right effective. There is, first, the duty to avoid depriving a person of some necessity; the duty to protect them from deprivation; and the duty to aid them when deprived.

Schumpeter's account of the relationship between capitalism, socialism and democracy is reviewed by means of a critical analysis of four contemporary neo-liberal theorems about the market and democracy. It is argued that they each embody partial truths that can only be accepted with considerable qualifications, which the paper seeks to provide. The connection of the four theorems with Schumpeter's work is then traced through the continuities of the liberal political tradition.

Liberalism has provided both a necessary basis for modern democracy and also a constraint upon it. This duality makes a democratic critique of liberalism both imperative and also problematical, in so far as it threatens the conditions of liberal democracy itself. Two of these conditions are examined – the institution of representation and the principle of the limited state – to discover what limits they might impose on the justifiable ambitions of democratizers, to extend political participation on the one hand, and the social agenda for democratization on the other.