This article identifies the specific concept of “nation” that informed John Howard's politics from his time as Liberal Party leader in the second half of the 1980s to the final years of his 1996–2007 prime ministership. It compares and contrasts the constitutive, procedural and multicultural models of nation to show Howard's continuing commitment to a constitutive understanding of the Australian nation. He endeavoured to give this understanding expression at the policy level by explicitly moving against the multicultural concept of nation that had informed Australian policy from the late 1970s. The Citizenship Test, introduced in his final year of office, is presented as the final move in this departure from multiculturalism.

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As the recent Charlie Hebdo, Copenhagen café, and Garland, Texas, shootings show, religion has recently reemerged as a source of violence within liberal democracies, particularly in those instances where cases of alleged blasphemy are involved. Although toleration arose, within the liberal tradition, as a means of dealing with such conflict, some individuals, possessed of devout religious belief, when confronted with beliefs or practices profoundly at odds with their faith, cannot conceive of toleration as a possibility. In such situations, the demand that these individuals tolerate that to which their faith is at odds is likely to run up against a more personal and, for its adherents, eternal agenda. This article considers a way in which those with devout religious beliefs might tolerate that which is profoundly at odds with their faith, thereby providing a means to avoid violent outcomes such as those in the "extreme cases" above.

Timothy Stanton is the latest in a line of Locke scholars who, in focusing on Locke’s theological commitments, have sought to place these at the center of his political philosophy. Stanton insists that those who interpret Locke’s political philosophy in more material terms, centered on individual liberty, government authority, and the need to reconcile both via consent, apply to it a misleading “picture” and fail to perceive its essentials. By showing that this is precisely how Locke himself intended his political philosophy to be understood, with the theology substantially removed, this article shows how Stanton is profoundly mistaken in his interpretation of Locke.

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