Further Thoughts on the Imperial Endgame and Britain's Dirty Wars

The publication of my book Imperial Endgame: Britain's Dirty Wars and the End of Empire in 2011 provoked many to respond, although not with a criticism that was consistent across the board. In my work, I intentionally did not draw a moral conclusion and took care to present what I considered a balanced account of British decolonisation, without praise or condemnation of past actions. This has made my argument vulnerable from several directions since, as reviewer Ashley Jackson commented, ‘it is rather difficult to know on which side the author's bread is buttered’. This paper is an attempt to bring clarity to my argument and to continue the debate on some of the aspects of Britain's end of empire that my book discussed.     

日本近世大名家训中的武家政治思想

近世日本是建立在武力统治和身份统治基础上的封建家族国家,虽然其以中国的儒学为统治思想,但是统治阶级始终坚持尚武为立国之本,把尚武习武看成是执政者和有教养者的重要标志,认为在治世能保持尚武精神的武士才是真武士。关于君臣关系,在“家”观念支配下,他们认为君臣关系是建立在同一家族共同体基础上的,家臣与主君同样对家的延续兴亡负有责任。他们的忠君观念具有家族主义和集团主义色彩,具有超越主君个人而把家国作为忠诚对象的特征。近世武士阶级在中国儒学的影响下,能够自觉地从治国安民这一政治角度考虑百姓的生活,并且达到“为国家人民立君”这样的政治高度。     

The Dance of Open Minds and Hearts

Abstract

A variety of impasses continue to weaken our individual and collective moral imaginations and likewise our approach to solidarity. Engagement with the arts, however, renews and focuses this central moral capacity and provides a new praxis for Catholic social ethics: encounter, engage, create.     

Minds of caste – Discrimination and its affects

This guest editorial considers the relevance of caste in today's world in terms of ‘castes of mind’.     

威尔逊国际政治思想探源

长老派家庭的宗教背景是构成威尔逊国际政治思想的哲学来源。威尔逊的国际政治思想深深根植于他对英美民主政治的信奉。威尔逊对美国独特性的理解(美国例外论)和对边疆学说的接受影响着他对美国在世界事务中作用的看法。威尔逊国际社会改造的思想是美国国内进步主义改革思潮向国际关系领域的一次延伸。     

Consultancy,Neo‐Liberal Conservatism and the Politics of Anti‐Politics

What a lot of nonsense about the ANU and Australian universities in general (sites of neoliberal thought indeed?!) I find it odd that people who have willingly spent their professional lives and made careers in Australian universities suddenly want to bite the hand that is (still) feeding them! (Finlayson, J. 14 December 2010, AASNet email post)     

“The Dirty Scruff”: Relief and the Production of the Unemployed in Depression‐era British Columbia

Abstract: In this article, I examine this nexus between the social and political meaning of unemployment and the political responses that follow. I focus on Depression‐era Vancouver and investigate the broad ideologies, representations and practices that contributed to the derision of the unemployed, which in turn, informed the establishment of rural relief camps that aimed to address the unemployment crisis of the 1930s. The social and political meaning of unemployment shaped the contours of the Federal Unemployment Relief Scheme, which housed men in work camps and aimed to both discipline and rehabilitate the unemployed. However, the relief camps were plagued by several contradictions exploited by the Relief Camp Workers Union, which constructed oppositional understandings of unemployment. In discussing the relationship between unemployment and relief I attend to questions of space, highlighting the urbanisation of unemployment and the ideological distinctions between the city and the country.     

Beyond Hybridity to the Politics of Scale: International Intervention and ‘Local’ Politics

The evident failures of international peacebuilding and statebuilding interventions (PSBIs) have recently prompted a focus on the interaction between interventions and target societies and states. Especially popular has been the ‘hybridity’ approach, which understands forms of peace and governance emerging through the mixing of local and international agendas and institutions. This article argues that hybridity is a highly problematic optic. Despite contrary claims, hybridity scholarship falsely dichotomizes ‘local’ and ‘international’ ideal‐typical assemblages, and incorrectly presents outcomes as stemming from conflict and accommodation between them. Scholarship in political geography and state theory provides better tools for explaining PSBIs’ outcomes as reflecting socio‐political contestation over power and resources. We theorize PSBIs as involving a politics of scale, where different social forces promote and resist alternative scales and modes of governance, depending on their interests and agendas. Contestation between these forces, which may be located at different scales and involved in complex, tactical, multi‐scalar alliances, explains the uneven outcomes of international intervention. We demonstrate this using a case study of East Timor, focusing on decentralization and land policy.     

The Politics of Contraception

Abstract

In modern societies the more obvious risks have already been reduced to level which are acceptable to the public, but there is a growing realization that serious error may be present in the allocation of resources to improve public and industrial safety. There appears to be considerable additional potential for saving many human lives, as well as large sums of money, by more rational and better-informed policies in the field. To reach this better understanding, it is necessary to compare risks and benefits for a set of alternatives and carry through a cost-effectiveness analysis for each proposal. It rapidly becomes more and more expensive to produce equal increments of risk reduction and, beyond a certain level of investment, further expenditure on safety actually increases the number of deaths and injuries, and becomes counter-productive.     

The Politics and Administration of Privatization

Privatization grows out of the theoretic constructs of public choice theory. Through the nurturing efforts of those such as E. S. Savas, privatization has been transplanted from the academic greenhouse to the fields of practical government Against the field of fads–empowerment, total quality management, reengineering, strategic planning, and benchmarking–privatization stands out.
Privatization has endured and spread. To many, privatization restores the dynamic balance of government and individual freedom. To others, privatization, like kudzu (initially a solution to soil erosion in the South), threatens to crowd out all other forms of "public" service delivery.