The Challenge to the State in a Globalized World

Individual instances of state failure and collapse must be placed within a broader appreciation of the evolution of statehood within the international system. The idea that the inhabited area of the globe must be divided between sovereign states is a recent development, and likely to prove a transient one. Largely the product of European colonialism, and turned into a global norm by decolonization, it is threatened both by the inherent difficulties of state maintenance, and by processes inherent in globalization. States are expensive organizations to maintain, not only in economic terms but also in the demands that they make on their citizens and their own employees. Poor and dispersed peoples, and those whose values derive from societies without states, have found these demands especially burdensome. The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union revealed the hollowness of existing models of sovereign states, and challenged the triple narratives on which the project of global statehood has depended: the narratives of security, representation, and wealth and welfare. While individual cases of state failure and collapse may owe much to specific circumstances and the behaviour of particular individuals, they must also be understood within the context of a world in which maintaining states has become increasingly difficult.     

全球化中的中华移民与华侨华人研究

论文从移民的背景、动机与动向等方面比较了近代与当代新老中华移民的异同;阐述了全球化背景中的中华移民在加拿大、美国、新西兰、澳洲与新加坡等"移民国家"与东南亚"原住民国家"的不同情况及其对于这些国家的影响和对当地华社的冲击;探讨了新移民研究的现状及其对当代华侨华人研究的启示。     

South Africa's Transition in a Globalizing World: HIV/AIDS as a Window and a Mirror

South Africa's peaceful transition is evolving during a period in which spectacular twentieth-century achievements have greatly improved life for one-fifth of the world's population. These are being gradually eclipsed, however, by the impact of social and economic forces that relegate four-fifths of the world's population to increasingly insecure, miserable and impoverished lives. South Africa's negotiated revolution, which has allowed it to move from the pariah status of apartheid to that of a fledgling democracy, exemplifies the paradigm shift required for global progress towards a more just and peaceful world. The HIV/AIDS pandemic, a major threat to South Africa, the African continent and many others around the world, is used in this article as a window through which to view the prospects for the long-term social success of South Africa's transition. It is also used as a mirror to reflect the world in which such a disease could emerge and spread pervasively. The explanatory links between exploitative global economic forces and the emergence of threats to lives are considered, in order to illuminate new pathways towards global progress in which respect for human rights will be further consolidated through promotion of solidarity, interdependence and social justice.     

Mission Encounters in the Colonial World: British Columbia and South-West Australia

This paper considers various aspects of the interactions of missions and indigenous peoples in regions of Canada and Australia. An analysis of first encounters indicates that the introduction of Christianity was dependent on both evangelist and client population agreeing to a modus operandi for the mission. The structure and operation of the mission were determined by the pre-existing indigenous society and the financial and personnel resources of the mission organizations. Attitudes towards, and acceptance of, Christianity were not static, they depended on changing material and political circumstances both within and outside indigenous communities. This comparative analysis indicates that religious change was not only negotiated between missionary and "convert," but among indigenous peoples themselves. The decision to profess Christianity was not a one-off decision made by individuals or communities. Rather it was a long process of change which was contingent on the perceived advantages and disadvantages of the mission world and countervailingpressures from within indigenous and colonial societies.     

The Images of Arabs and Jews as a factor in British policy towards Palestine

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Nitza Ben‐Dov, Notes on Agnon's Art of Indirection: Uncovering Latent Contents in the Fiction of S.Y. Agnon, New York, E.J. Brill, 1993, 168 pp., $57.25.

Morris, Benny. Israel's Border Wars, 1949–1956: Arab Infiltration, Israeli Retaliation, and the Countdown to the Suez War, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993, xxii+470 pp.

Laurence J. Silberstein, ed., New Perspectives on Israeli History, New York, New York University Press, 1991, ix+281 pp.

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Benny Morris, Israel's Border Wars, 1949–1956: Arab Infiltration, Israeli Retaliation, and the Countdown to the Suez War, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1993, xii+470 pp.     

Law, Justice and the Idea of a World Security

This article examines the thesis that international law is evolving in ways that reflect the requirement of world justice rather than international order and that are appropriate to an emerging world society rather than the traditional society of states with which international law is normally associated. After considering arguments for and against this thesis, the article concludes that neither adequately describes the nature of international society at the end of the millennium.