The Women,Peace and Security agenda and Australian leadership in the world: from rhetoric to commitment?

What is the ‘Women, Peace and Security agenda’ and why is it relevant now for Australia? During 2013–14, Australia is a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and, with a growing foreign military, peacebuilding and aid presence around the world, the country must play a role in preventing conflict, in protecting women and girls from violence before, during and after conflict, and in encouraging the participation of women in these peace and security decisions in order to create the structural, gender-equal conditions for lasting peace. This article highlights the promises made by Australia during the campaign for the Security Council seat. It evaluates the credibility of the campaign commitments by assessing Australia's foreign policies and overseas aid spending on women and peacebuilding in Asia and the Pacific; exploring the avenues for government-funded research on women, peace and security issues to influence government policies and programs; and taking stock of the government's record of engaging with civil society in developing and carrying out its National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security. The article suggests concrete actions that would allow Australia to fulfil its promises and progress its international leadership on the major pillars of the Women, Peace and Security agenda.     

A ‘Small Free Trade Oasis’?: agriculture,tariff policy,and the Danish example in Great Britain and Ireland,c. 1885–1911

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Denmark was an important overseas example in the United Kingdom's intertwined debates over free trade and agricultural modernization. Both countries remained open to foreign agricultural imports even as many other European states protected their farmers. But whilst British and Irish agriculture struggled, Denmark became a hugely successful exporter of dairy and pork. This achievement of rural prosperity under a liberal trade regime had obvious relevance to the future of agriculture in Britain, and particularly Ireland. Agricultural reformers in the two islands used the Danish example to show that technical education and co-operative production would allow farmers to profit even under free trade, whilst for British Liberals, ideologically committed to free trade, Denmark demonstrated that imported foodstuffs were actually a prerequisite for a flourishing rural economy. Several prominent Danish free traders personally intervened in the early 20th-century debate over tariff reform to affirm these very points. However, British and Irish protectionists contested the ‘free trade’ character of Denmark's fiscal policy. The article situates the Danish comparison within a broader Anglo-Scandinavian transnationalism, in which the themes of modernity and liberalism reside to the fore.     

The innovative power of regional policy networks: A comparison of two approaches to political modernization in North Rhine‐Westphalia

The paper compares two recent approaches of North Rhine‐Westphalia to promote the restructuring of old industrialized areas: the concept of IBA Emscher Park, a combination of expert networks and a regional development agency, and the concept of ‘Regional Conferences’, a regional round table device with the aim of defining regional development paths. The comparison focuses on the impact of the two approaches on regional policy‐making structures. Although both concepts adopt a network approach, regional conferences are comparatively weak devices focusing on common development schemes instead of projects, lacking strong power promoters, having weaker innovation incentives, being subject to counterproductive regimes and suffering from a discrepancy between conflicts to be resolved and conflict resolution capacity.     

Hard to miss,easy to blame? Peacelines,interfaces and political deaths in Belfast during the Troubles

As Northern Ireland moves further from the period of conflict known as the ‘Troubles’, attention has increasingly focussed on the social and material vestiges of that conflict; Northern Ireland is still a deeply-divided society in terms of residential segregation between Catholic nationalists and Protestant unionists, and urban areas are still, indeed increasingly, characterised by large defensive walls, known as ‘peacelines’, which demark many of the dividing lines between the two communities. In recent years a body of literature has emerged which has highlighted the spatial association between patterns of conflict fatality and proximity to peacelines. This paper assesses that relationship, arguing that previous analyses have failed to fully take account of the ethnic complexity of inner-city Belfast in their calculations. When this is considered, patterns of fatality were more intense within the cores or ‘sanctuaries’ of highly segregated Catholic and Protestant communities rather than at the fracture zones or ‘interfaces’ between them where peacelines have always been constructed. Using census data at a high spatial resolution, this paper also provides the first attempt to provide a definition of the ‘interface’ in clear geographic terms, a spatial concept that has hitherto appeared amorphous in academic studies and media coverage of Belfast during and since the Troubles. In doing so it embodies both the material and demographic aspects of social division in Northern Ireland, and suggests an urgent need to reappraise the true role of these forms of social boundary in influencing patterns of violent conflict.     

The rhetoric of science and the critique of imperialism in British social anthropology,c. 1870–1940

In this article I discuss issues of memory and historicity in a contemporary African prophetic movement, the Tokoist church. I do so by focusing on the multiple processes of “biographization” of the prophet’s (Simão Toko) life from the different allegiances within the movement. I suggest that, despite recent critiques on the biographical method, the ethnography of those (unstable and heterogeneous) processes can be very helpful to understand the place of memory and historical consciousness in contemporary Christianity.     

‘Any place to raise children is a good place’: children,housing and neighbourhoods in inner Newcastle,Australia

Neighbourhoods are important spaces of interaction for children. This paper explores the perceptions of residents from seven suburbs in the inner area of Newcastle, Australia concerning what makes a good neighbourhood for children. Key factors identified by residents include the types of dwellings found in the neighbourhood (with detached houses being seen as preferable for children) and the quality of neighbourhood resources. Another important feature was social interactions within the neighbourhood, including interactions between children and adults and interactions between groups of children. The paper examines how different features of neighbourhoods interact to create adult perceptions about whether a neighbourhood is appropriate for children. The paper also points to the ways that children are seen to actively produce the neighbourhood in which they live.     

The New Museum Folkwang in Essen. A Contribution to the Cultural and Economic Regeneration of the Ruhr Area?

Abstract

The “Bilbao effect” shows that major cultural investments can contribute to the regeneration of old industrial cities and regions. Four different contributions can be distinguished: the (1) direct economic effects of such an investment; (2) social functions of a cultural institution which often serves as a point of contact for local and regional elites; (3) symbolic functions as an expression of a new regional identity and (4) cognitive functions, for example, the contribution to regional diversity and the cross-fertilization of ideas. Taking the example of a major cultural investment in Germany, namely the renovation of Museum Folkwang prior to the European Capital of Culture RUHR.2010, this article discusses the economic, social, symbolic and cognitive contributions of this investment to the economic transformation of the town and the Ruhr area, which is now one of the largest urban agglomerations in Europe. A Bilbao effect was not intended and did not take place. The museum, however, contributed to the incremental transformation of the town by creating a different image of the town, its role as a meeting place and point of identification for local elites and companies and its contribution to the emergence of an integrated cultural district.     

A Review of “Political Foundations of Judicial Supremacy: The Presidency,the Supreme Court,and Constitutional Leadership in U.S. History”

In 1974 David Mayhew proposed that incumbency was increasingly important in deciding elections to the House of Representatives. One cause of this increase, he speculated, might be more effective use of the resources of office by incumbents bent on improving their electoral position. These suggestions heavily influenced subsequent research on congressional elections, and helped shape the design of the 1978 national election survey by Michigan's Center for Political Studies. This essay surveys that line of research, except for the recent articles making use of the 1978 data or dealing specifically with campaigning, which will be treated in a sequel. Full length books, articles before Mayhew's, and unpublished papers are excluded, except for certain works of particular relevance.