The arithmetic of defence policy

The Kosovo campaign of 1999 demonstrated unambiguously the weakness of European military forces. Recognition of the consequences of this lack of capability has put new vigour into the European defence debate. Yet decline in military capability is systemic in every European country. The Helsinki goals will do nothing to address this decline. National defence budgets over the past 15 years have been decreasing in real terms. Even if current aspirations to hold military spending levels were to be achieved, the decline in capabilities would continue. Military equipment and personnel costs rise faster than domestic inflation, and therefore fewer people and weapons systems can be afforded each year. There is no prospect of significant uplifts in defence budgets in Europe, despite the acknowledged need for a range of expensive enabling capabilities for post-Cold War operations. Palliative measures now on trial are unlikely to have a major impact. The only option for European nations is a progressive integration of their forces to realize the economies of scale that would allow effectiveness to be maintained. There are opportunities for initiatives that would produce short-term pay-offs. Despite the severe political difficulties of a long-term plan for integration, the alternative is worse. Trying to maintain sovereignty in defence provision will mean that the nations of Europe will eventually be unable either to meet the requirements of even their most modest security needs or to exercise any influence over US defence and security policies.     

Learning to be a man: public schooling and apprenticeship in late medieval Manosque

This article looks at teachers' contracts and apprenticeship contracts from the Provençal town of Manosque. It argues that, in late medieval Manosque, education was institutionalised and gendered. Manosquin society implemented formal systems in order to inculcate a particular type of masculine identity. This identity, a function of the growing burgher class of townsmen, was driven by rapid urban expansion, economics, and secularisation. This article demonstrates how gender acquisition took place. It also explores in detail the form and content of secular schooling for young boys and apprenticeship for adolescents.     

The public-facing policy agenda of state legislatures: The communication of public policy via twitter

How political actors choose which politics to focus on helps shape the outcome of the policy process. While the policy agenda of the federal government has received widespread attention, there is much less known about the policy agendas of the U.S. states. In this paper, we describe how and why states choose to have similar agendas. We rely on the Twitter activity of every state legislator in America to measure the attention that states pay to the categories developed in the Policy Agenda Project (PAP). We develop machine learning tools to measure the proportion of tweets from every state legislature from 2017 in each of the PAP policy topics. Our results show that states that the public-facing policy agenda of a state legislature is correlated with the level of legislative professionalism and the partisan and ideological politics of the state. These results further our understanding of state policymaking and agenda setting.     

The collapse of British foreign policy

British foreign policy has tried to balance between the United States and continental Europe for the past half-century, with an unambiguous commitment to a special relationship with Washington and an ambiguous commitment to European integration. New Labour has followed its predecessors in this, claiming that Britain can act as a bridge between America and Europe, or as a pivot around which transatlantic relations turn. In the wake of the Iraq war, deepened scepticism in Washington about whether close European cooperation is in America's interest, and scepticism across continental Europe that Britain can or should act as a privileged interlocuteur, have undermined both ends of the bridge on which British foreign policy claims to rest. The end of US commitment to Atlanticism, together with post-Cold War divergence between US and European interests and values, should have led to a shift in British priorities towards closer cooperation with other major European states and-from that shared perspective-an attempt to reconstruct a more balanced transatlantic relationship. The EU presents a sadly weak framework for such a strategy; but Britain's domestic debate, in which this government-like its predecessors-has allowed a Eurosceptic press to shape the language of foreign policy, has made it more difficult for any government to change direction. Recent government speeches on foreign policy, however, suggest that ministers still cling to the illusion that Britain has a 'unique' position between Europe and the United States.     

The end of cultural policy?1

ABSTRACT

The article discusses whether we are approaching the end of public cultural policy in Western democracies, because contemporary cultural policy is not adapted to major transformation processes in contemporary societies. I discuss seven different challenges/scenarios that public cultural policy has to confront today: (1) It appears to be very difficult to democratise culture. (2) Public authorities consistently continue to support cultural institutions that may be obsolete. (3) Professional artists are still poor, despite public support schemes. (4) Public cultural policy is still predominantly national, despite the globalisation of cultural production and distribution. (5) Public authorities increasingly justify subsidies to culture with reference to the beneficial effects that art and culture could have outside the cultural field. Therefore, one might argue that other public bodies could take better care of cultural affairs. (6) A specific public cultural sector may appear to ‘imprison’ culture in a bureaucratic ‘iron cage’. (7) Finally, one might argue that a public cultural policy has no sense in a period of stagnating public finances. In addition, I discuss several counterarguments to these challenges, without coming to a definite conclusion. I have based the analysis on available comparative research about the public cultural policies of Western democracies, predominantly Norwegian cultural policy.     

The outsiders: the European neighbourhood policy

In May 2004, the European Union acquired not just ten new member states but several new neighbours. At about the same time, it began to flesh out a European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) to bring some order to the EU's relations with its old and new neighbours and to ensure that the newly enlarged EU would be surrounded by a 'ring of friends'. The ENP is also supposed to stave off further enlargement to eastern Europe. However, several problems with the ENP are evident. It requires much of the neighbours and offers only vague incentives in return, making it unlikely that the ENP can meet its core objectives. Furthermore, the ENP is ambiguous about where the EU's borders will end, and it is already apparent that such ambiguity is not helping to foster reform in eastern Europe. Either the EU should say 'no' to further enlargement, so the ENP becomes the framework for relations with the neighbour for the foreseeable future, or it should say 'yes' to eventually letting in a specified number of neighbours which then move out of the ENP.     

评清朝的西藏政策

清朝重新统一西藏后,通过册封、定制、设官、驻军等措施,并扶持达赖、班禅成为西藏的政教领袖,建立了政教合一的噶厦制度,实现了对西藏的有效管理和统治,维护了清朝在西藏的主权和领土完整,其西藏政策对后世产生了深远影响。本文从反分裂主义的角度重新审视清朝的西藏政策,认为清朝的治藏政策重政治、军事,而轻经济、文化,导致西藏与祖国内地的经济文化交流、民族融合明显滞后,为近代西藏分裂主义的产生埋下了隐患。     

The economics of UK nuclear weapons policy

The Trident replacement decision has an economic aspect that cannot be ignored, namely, its costs. This article presents a cost-benefit framework for assessing the replacement decision and its alternatives. The replacement decision is presented against the background of the defence economics problem showing the opportunities for substitution and the need for difficult defence choices in a world of uncertainty. A framework for choices is outlined showing the range and type of information needed for sensible decision-making in this area. A range of conventional force alternatives is estimated as well as alternative civil spending. The impact of the replacement decision on the UK submarine industrial base is assessed, including the challenges of reaching a partnering agreement and negotiating an incentive contract with a UK monopoly supplier. The cost figures used for the Trident replacement are illustrative only and show how the programme can be evaluated.     

The neo-developmental cultural industries policy of Korea: rationales and implications of an eclectic policy

ABSTRACT

This article undertakes an explanatory case study of the South Korean cultural industries policy shift instituted under the Kim Dae-Jung and Roh Moo-Hyun governments (1998–2008). This shift can be well positioned within the broader context of the creative turn in national cultural policy around the world, which was initiated by the British New Labour governments (1997–2010). Despite the similarities in the driving discourses and policy methods, the Korean policy shift was significantly distinguished from its British counterpart because of the differing pace and trajectories of industrialisation in the two countries. Adopting the concept of the East Asian developmental state as an entry point, this article explores how and why South Korea went through a cultural industries policy shift in the period following the 1997–98 Asian financial crisis and, additionally, examines what kinds of changes the policy shift brought about. Understanding the rationales and implications of this neo-developmental transformation can provide a unique opportunity to re-think the fashionable creative industries policies among various nations.