East German pragmatism,China’s policy of differentiation,and Soviet miscalculation: Hermann Matern’s 1961 trip to China revisited

This paper shows that Hermann Matern’s 1961 visit to China was mainly a trade mission whose connection with political affairs was minor and who had only an indirect influence on the Berlin Crisis. It further demonstrates that there was no Sino-East German rapprochement during Matern’s visit, but quite the contrary –relations between the two countries actually deteriorated, resulting in the East German delegation failing to achieve their goals. Yet, Soviet miscalculation and misunderstanding of China’s policy led them to substantially increase their economic assistance to East Germany, so as to ‘win their German comrades back’ to the Soviet side.     

Neo‐liberalism,policy networks,and policy change: Agricultural policy reform in Australia and Canada

Developments favouring the liberalisation and globalisation of economic exchange and increasingly rigid constraints on domestic fiscal policy have provided support for neo‐ liberal policy ideas. Neolibcralism challenges the logic of embedded liberalism that underscored trade multilateralism in the post‐second world war period, and the exclusion of sectors like agriculture from the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Focusing on agricultural policy, the article examines the pace and extent to which neo‐liberal ideas have been able to gain hold and displace non‐liberal domestic policies in Australia and Canada. The article shows that neo‐liberal ideas have been more easily translated into domestic policy change in Australia than in Canada. A significant part of the explanation for this cross‐national difference is found in the differing domestic political‐institutional arrangements, including federalism, bureaucratic arrangements, the presence or absence of a neo‐liberal epistemic community, and trie structure of interest intermediation systems. These factors, in turn, have their impact on policy change through their effects on the structures of agricultural policy networks and policy communities.     

Australia’s refugee policy: domestic politics and diplomatic consequences

ABSTRACT

Refugee policy involves a two-level game. For Australia since approximately 1998, the politics of refugees has been toxically affected by domestic politics. This has had potentially negative effects on Australia’s reputation and soft power. This article provides an overview of the issue, explores the ways in which considerations of domestic politics have come increasingly to shape Australia’s policy and concludes with a discussion of the consequences of Australia’s treatment of refugees for its diplomacy and soft power.     

Mitterrand’s Europe: functions and limits of ‘European solidarity’ in French policy during the 1980s

Abstract

This paper explores the conceptualization and interpretation of ‘European solidarity’ by the French President François Mitterrand. It discusses the relevance of former concepts of foreign and European policy. It differentiates between a European idea and European institutions, also taking into account personal experiences. Finally, it analyses the correlation between different concepts such as ‘European solidarity’, ‘transatlantic solidarity’, ‘West European solidarity’ and ‘pan-European solidarity’.     

‘Globalization with hardware’: ITER’s fusion of technology,policy, and politics

This article explores the history of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), a fusion energy megaproject currently being built in southern France. It examines three main aspects of the project’s history, focusing largely on the European research community’s perspective. First, it explores how European scientists and science managers constructed a transnational research community around fusion energy after 1960 that was part of Europe’s larger technological integration. This article also expands Gabrielle Hecht’s concept of ‘technopolitics’ to the larger international dimension and explores how the political environment of the late Cold War and the post‐9/11 era helped shape ITER’s history, sometimes in ways not entirely within researchers’ control. Finally, this essay considers ITER as a technological project that gradually became globalized. At various stages in the project’s 30‐year history, we discover processes whereby national borders became less important while social, economic, legal and technological linkages created a shared social space for fusion research on an expanding scale.     

Using Isaiah Berlin’s two concepts of liberty to rethink cultural policy: a case of Poland

The overarching aim of this paper is to rethink the normative aspects of Polish cultural policy after 1989, using a conceptual framework built upon Isaiah Berlin’s two concepts of liberty. More specifically, this article aims to analyse the rhetoric used in cultural policy and the practice of policy-making, in order to uncover and characterise the normative role that the state has played in shaping and executing cultural policy in Poland after 1989. The analysis shows that Polish cultural policy has been dominated by a perfectionist logic, which corresponds to Isaiah Berlin’s concept of positive liberty. It means that cultural policy has not been axiologically neutral but instead it has been based on state’s judgements about what kind of art is worthy support. On the other hand, the analysis shows that Polish cultural policy after 1989 cannot be classified as negative liberty.     

‘It’s good but it’s not enough’: the relational geographies of social policy and youth mentoring interventions

Developing a critical analysis of the relational and situated practices of social policy, this paper draws on an evaluation of an early intervention project in Scotland (UK) where volunteer adult mentors supported young people ‘at risk’ of offending or antisocial behaviour. Contributing to ‘enlivened’ accounts of social practice, we explore how practices of mentoring developed through the co-presence of mentor and young person in the often transitory spaces of care which characterized the ‘diversionary activities’ approach in the project. We expand the notion of the relational in social practice beyond the care-recipient dyad to include wider networks of care (families, programme workers, social institutions). The paper explores how such social interventions might both be ‘good’ for the young people involved, and yet recognize critiques that more individualized models of intervention inevitably have limitations which make them ‘not enough’ to deal with structural inequalities and disadvantages. Acknowledging the impacts of neoliberalism, we argue critical attention to diverse situated relational practices points to the excessive nature of engagement in social policy and provides scope for transformative practice where young people’s geographies can be ‘upscaled’ to connect to the realms of social policy and practice.     

Territorial development,planning reform and urban governance: the case of Ireland’s second-tier cities

The increased emphasis within Europe on the role of second-tier cities has implications for the ways in which these urban centres are considered within national spatial planning strategies. In centralized, monocentric states such as Ireland, there has been a general ambivalence towards urban policy for cities outside the capital city, and historically, this has prevented the development of a strong, diversified urban hierarchy undermining prospects for balanced regional development. This paper examines the extent to which a new found emphasis on Ireland’s second-tier cities which emerged in the ‘Gateways’ policy of the National Spatial Strategy was matched by subsequent political and administrative commitment to facilitate the development of these urban centres. Following a discussion of the position of second-tier cities in an international context and a brief overview of recent demographic and economic trends, the paper assesses the relative performance of Ireland’s second-tier cities in influencing development trends, highlighting a comprehensive failure to deliver compact urban growth. In this context, the paper then discusses the implications of current development plans for the second-tier cities and proposals for Irish local government reform for securing compact urban development.     

Structural change in local finance during China��s reform era: A case study

By looking at one particular case, this study determines what resources were available to local governments in order to finance local economic development in the reform era. It finds that although local finance expanded tremendously in this era, and extra-budgetary revenue also increased, those two things did not produce much financial surplus for capital construction and fixed investment. The only source at the local government’s disposal was cheap land expropriated from local peasants. Land thus becomes the key to understanding local finance during the reform era.     

Towards individualising couple finance: women’s housing assets and household decisions in Japan

Individualisation, which is increasingly promoted in European welfare states, tends to be absent from policy discourse as well as housing studies in Japan. It is largely because the ‘family as a unit’ is still a dominant approach in their household finance, social security and taxation systems, which also reflects women’s lack of home ownership. However, recent demographic trends such as falling marriage rates, low fertility and increased female labour participation indicate significant diversification in women’s life-course. Thus, today women making their own financial investment and house purchase have increasingly become popular practice. In this context, a new approach beyond the conventional ‘family as a unit’ may be required in the development of a new social contract. Drawing on data from qualitative research conducted among women in their 30s, this article explores the relationship between financial independence, household decisions and asset holding of partnered women in Japan, which reveals contested dimensions of women’s independence and autonomy in household and family life. Through the lens of home ownership, it considers the importance of promoting individual assets in order to foster gender equality in marriage.     

Australia’s China policy of strategic ambiguity: navigating between big fish

History, little understood, shows that for 55 years a policy of ‘strategic ambiguity’ about the application of the Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty to Taiwan, a flashpoint in Asia, served Australia well. Return to it could lessen the risks of embroilment in any Sino-American war in East Asia, and enhance Australia’s middle-power options.     

Keynes’s legacy: an intellectual’s influence reflected in arts policy

As Western governments re‐examine the economic policies of John Maynard Keynes to solve a global financial crisis believed to be almost as severe as the Great Depression, this article examines his influence on arts policy. The article articulates and examines the central assumptions that underlie the arm’s length policy model, such as Keynes’s preference for semi‐autonomous non‐governmental bodies, and locates the sources of those assumptions and ideas in Keynes’s political philosophy and his involvement in higher education. Knowing this history enables policymakers and arts administrators to recognize how contemporary policy still reflects this thinking.     

Female leadership and welfare state reform: the development of Australia’s first national paid parental leave scheme

The Howard Government’s commitment to supporting the male breadwinner policy model was a major barrier to the efforts of female political leaders to influence the development of a national paid parental leave scheme. Associated with this model was the argument that paid parental leave ‘discriminated’ against non-working women and devalued their contribution to society as mothers. Despite a change of government in 2007 this argument remained influential through the Productivity Commission’s Inquiry into Paid Maternity, Paternity and Parental Leave (2009). Key to the eventual legislation of the scheme in 2010 was female leaders’ strategy of aligning with, rather than disrupting, this narrative. As such, women in trade unions, political parties, women’s groups and the bureaucracy framed paid parental leave as supporting women in their maternal roles as it allowed them the financial breathing room to stay at home for longer with their newborn.     

Cultural policy in France’s overseas: permanence of colonial logics and the potential for creole resistance

France's overseas territories have received greater political autonomy these past three decades. In the Arts sector, the centralised government as well as local governments have developed many cultural policies. Yet, a close examination, through postcolonial lenses, reveals that these policies are imbued with a colonial logic and that colonial patterns are being maintained. These policies hide and deny processes of creolisation that represent a potential for resistance and emancipation.     

India’s Part in the Politics of Fiji’s Decolonization: From ‘Outworn Slogans’ to ‘Pragmatism and Realism’

United Nations (UN) demands for the unconditional ending of colonial rule troubled British officials confronted by local political difficulties impeding their efforts to establish self-government for Fiji, alarmed Indigenous Fijian leaders who initially resisted that reform, and encouraged the polarizing demand by Indo-Fijian leaders for a common franchise. India was initially at the forefront in maintaining UN pressure on Britain to move Fiji rapidly to independence with this franchise. Yet in the last two years of British rule, as ethnic tension in Fiji rose dangerously, India assumed the lead in urging moderation at the UN. India’s volte-face from antagonist to ally of the British helped open the way to the political accord on which Fiji’s independence constitution was based. The article highlights the major part played by the pre-eminent Indigenous leader Ratu Kamisese Mara in winning India’s support for a cautious approach to reform.     

Media literacy: the UK’s undead cultural policy

This article examines media literacy in the UK: a policy that emerged within the Department for Culture, Media and Sport in the late 1990s, was adopted by the New Labour administration, and enshrined in the Communications Act 2003. That legislation gave the new media regulator, Ofcom, a duty to ‘promote’ media literacy, although it left the term undefined. The article describes how Ofcom managed this regulatory duty. It argues that over time, media literacy was progressively reduced in scope, focusing on two policy priorities related to the growth of the internet. In the process, media literacy’s broader educative purpose, so clearly articulated in much of the early policy rhetoric, was effectively marginalized. From the Coalition government onwards, the promotion of media literacy was reduced further to a matter of market research. Today, if not altogether dead, the policy is governed by entirely different priorities to those imagined at its birth.     

Undermining Obligation to God: Hobbes’s Religious Rhetoric and False Forms of Obligation

ABSTRACT

This paper examines Hobbes’s use of religious rhetoric, specifically his definitions of the terms grace, faith, and future words in his explanation of the nature and origins of obligation. Through categorization and analysis of Hobbes’s different forms of obligation, paying special attention to the religious rhetoric of the false forms, it becomes evident that Hobbes’s view of obligation is designed not only to establish a political order, but to undermine man’s obligation to God, and as such, remove the possibility of competing obligation in the life of the citizen, and thereby reduce the cause of civil wars.     

The print depiction of King William III’s masculinity

This article examines both positive and negative print depictions of King William III, specifically how William’s masculine identity was produced and perceived in relation to readily accessible norms of manhood. That commentators invoked discourses of masculinity to both legitimate and denounce William’s regime suggests the importance of masculinity to kingly meaning. By discussing the ways in which William does or does not conform to gender ideals, commentators reveal that, although freighted differently, normative models of kingship and masculinity shared common expectations and overlapped in easily recognisable ways. As his critics reminded, William III neither achieved the supposed “hegemonic” patriarchal form of masculinity nor that of the ideal monarch because he remained childless. As such, William’s print portrayal sheds light on codes of masculinity in early modern Britain that were constructed in a variety of settings outside of the problematic paragon of patriarchal manhood.