Engaging China’s new foreign policy in the South Pacific

China’s declared foreign policy of ‘non-interference’ is contradicted by its actions in recent times. Beyond activities in the East and South China Seas, the involvement of China in negotiations on the Korean Peninsula, the evacuation of Chinese citizens from various crises, and the deployment of Chinese combat troops to peacekeeping missions in Africa have indicated China’s growing interests in the shape of world affairs, coinciding with a growing economic and military capacity to influence them. Much attention has been given to the potential consequences of great-power competition between the USA and China, but little focus has been given to the impact these trends may have in the outlying regions of Chinese foreign policy. One such place is Melanesia in the South Pacific—a subregion where a small influence from a Chinese perspective can have a significant impact on Pacific Island Countries. This article postulates that, over time, there is potential for the consequences of Chinese interests to lead to accidental friction, and suggests that this risk can be mitigated through increased cooperation.     

The demon of technology,mass society,and atomic physics in West Germany, 1945–1957

In the cultural‐political literature of post‐1945 West Germany, atomic energy often functioned as the most potent image of a “demon of technology” fraught with both enormous potential and enormous danger. These critiques of techno‐science also represented a traditional critique of “mass society,” whose erstwhile anti‐western sentiments now had to be sublimated. As the Cold War developed, discussion shifted to ambivalence about Germany's place in the struggle between superpowers, and the “demon of technology” sentiment shifted away from the conservative end of the spectrum. The controversy over the “Göttingen Eighteen” anti‐armaments manifesto of nuclear physicists is indicative of these shifts.     

The Liberal National Coalition,Australian Labor Party and Africa: two decades of partisanship in Australia’s foreign policy

The issue of bipartisanship in Australian foreign policy is not often substantially addressed. The country’s relations with the world appear to exhibit strong continuity regardless of the political party in government. And yet, when it comes to engagement with African states and issues, the last two decades have seen highly prominent partisan differences in Australian foreign policy. This article utilises the example of Australia’s foreign policy engagement with Africa to argue that there may be two levels of understanding bipartisanship in Australian foreign policy. On the one hand, aimed at relationships and issues perceived to be of primal and significant security and economic well-being for the country, Australian foreign policy does indeed appear to be bipartisan. However, aimed at relationships and issues that have traditionally been perceived as holding minimal security and economic interest and importance for the country, Australian foreign policy does exhibit partisanship.     

The responsible government question in Natal, 1856–1893

ABSTRACT

The history of South Africa's Eastern Cape continues to attract considerable attention. Recent scholarship suggests that the Royal Engineers, as one of the executive arms of imperial colonisation, played a significant role in the colonisation and development of the eastern frontier of the Cape Colony. This article seeks to contribute to the discussion by examining the importance of surveying and mapping in underpinning and extending the colonial State in what is now the Eastern Cape. It attempts to disentangle and assess the impact of the activities of the Royal Engineers and other military officers. It briefly examines African responses to surveying and the construction of fortifications; and attempts to unravel the respective roles of imperial and colonial agencies in surveying, mapping, and construction of fortifications and establishment of towns.     

The Institute’s seventieth volume: the journal,its origins and its engagement with foreign policy debate

Australian Outlook, published initially in 1947, was Australia’s first journal devoted exclusively to the analysis of Australia’s foreign relations and of international affairs. It emerged from a context where nationalist and internationalist sentiments were taking on new prominence and in a time of heightened public awareness of global issues. The journal came to provide a unique venue for academic and expert commentary, especially on the international politics of Australia’s region, as well as on a wide range of topics from defence and trade to great-power dynamics. Early contributions demonstrated a generally sound—and sometimes remarkably prescient—grasp of regional and international trends. The journal built on earlier Australian Institute of International Affairs publications—notably, the Austral-Asiatic Bulletin, inaugurated in 1937.     

The Positivism Dispute in German Sociology, 1954–1970

This article offers a re-contextualization of the Positivism Dispute between the Frankfurt School and advocates of empirical sociology in the German sociological profession between 1954 and 1970. Investigating the reasons why the German Sociological Association convened in Tübingen in October 1961, it assigns a more peripheral role to Karl Popper and this now famous seminar. Focusing instead on the debate among German sociologists from the mid-1950s which prompted the convention of the seminar and the invitation for Popper to speak, the article maintains that philosophy of history was the central concern of the Positivism Dispute. In this debate, members of the Frankfurt School emphasized contingency in history and society, while sociologists such as René König, Helmut Schelsky, Ralf Dahrendorf, and Arnold Gehlen advocated sociology as the empirical study of ‘given’ social facts. By doing so the article questions the narrative of the Positivism Dispute advanced by Karl Popper and some of his followers, as well as interpretations which have focused on debates during the aftermath of the Tübingen seminar in the 1960s.     

The Turnbull government’s ‘Post-multiculturalism’ multicultural policy

ABSTRACT

The Turnbull government presented Australia’s fifth national multicultural policy statement in March 2017. This article analyses the policy statement and argues that it represents the most significant change to Australian multicultural policy in four decades. Among other things, it abandons the language of government responsiveness to cultural diversity that previously defined Australian multiculturalism. The 2017 policy amounts to a new form of post-multiculturalism—different from earlier conservative, neoliberal and centre-left versions—in that it seeks to ‘mainstream’ multicultural policy on the grounds that Australian multiculturalism has succeeded in its intended task. While a mainstreaming strategy of this sort is, I argue, theoretically consistent with Australia’s liberal nationalist approach to cultural diversity, the institutional and attitudinal conditions that it presupposes are yet to be fully realised in Australia. More multicultural work needs to be done before this kind of post-multiculturalist approach is practicable.     

The opinion–policy link in Australia

Whether or not policy is responsive to public opinion is central to questions of representation. Democracy by many accounts is premised on there being a strong correspondence between public opinion and policy. This link has not, however, been examined in detail in Australia. This article examines the policy–opinion link in a more robust way than that has previously been achieved in Australia, through the use of legislative data from the Australian Policy Agendas Project (APAP) and public opinion data from Roy Morgan. The article asks: is policy congruent with public opinion in Australia? In addressing this question, we examine to what extent policy accords with the preferences of the public. This in turn provides us with some answers about how representative Australian democracy is, as well as contributing to an international debate about the responsiveness of policy to public opinion.

政策是否要对舆论负责,这是代表制的核心问题。民主的前提往往就在于舆论和政策之间的息息相通。但在澳大利亚,人们并没有仔细地研究过二者间的关联。本文根据澳大利亚政策议题计划提供的立法资料以及罗伊摩根提供的舆情资料,对政策—舆论关联做了比以往充分多的研究。本文试问：政策与舆论在澳大利亚是否一致？我们考察了政策在多大程度上符合民意。这也为澳大利亚民主在多大程度上具有代表性的问题提供了答案,对于国际上争论政策对民意的回应问题也具有参考意义。。