The introduction of Australian digital television: Politics,policy and power

This article discusses the introduction of digital television to Australia, and the competing interests, and conflicts of power, surrounding this. It seeks to explain the primary outcomes of the digital settlement in terms of these interests and these processes of power. It points out how this settlement was very much at odds with the pro-market, deregulatory and competition-oriented reform advanced by the Howard government (and prior to it, the Hawke and Keating governments) in other industry sectors. The digital settlement introduced in 2001 entirely determined what Australians watched on their television screens for the first decade of the 21st century. This article seeks to unpack the processes that led to this outcome.

本文讨论了澳大利亚数字电视的引进以及围绕它的利益博弈和权力斗争。作者力图从利益或权力的角度理解数字电视引进的主要结果。作者指出,数字电视的引进与霍华德政府（以及之前的霍克和基廷政府）推行的市场化、解除管制、竞争导向的改革大相径庭。2001年引进的数字电视整个决定了21世纪头十年澳大利亚人在电视屏幕上看些什么。本文意在揭示通向这一结果的过程。     

Invisible power,visible dispossession: The witchcraft of a subterranean pipeline

There has been a lack of attention to the role of la sorcellerie (witchcraft) and the occult in geographical work on extraction, power and resistance, despite the ways in which these epistemologies inform conceptions of power, wealth and violence. In two towns along the Chad–Cameroon Oil Pipeline, epistemologies of la sorcellerie frame understandings and critiques of the invisible actors and processes that effect the pipeline's uneven distributions of violence, wealth and risk. Far from expunging the experience(s) of extraction by erasing the pipeline's visible traces on the landscape, the oil consortium's infrastructural and discursive erasures serve to situate the pipeline within a knowledge system that associates invisible actors and materials with evil, wrongdoing, suspicion and distrust. This article addresses (i) how the production of dispersed extractive landscapes reinforce epistemologies of witchcraft by alienating the people who live within them from networks of power in ways that provoke a mistrust and jealousy that is absorbed within families and communities and (ii) the socio-political significance of this epistemological structuring of the pipeline as a logic of resistance against hydrocarbon capitalism.     

Cosmos,chaos: finance,power and conflict

The article explores parallels between the fragility of globalization on the eve of the First World War, in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 1907, and today's crisis of globalization following the post‐2007 recession. The fragility and interconnectedness of the international economy in both cases could provide a basis for an economic–military strategy. The temptation of using economic connectedness as a substitute for conventional and costly military strategy makes this course particularly attractive to a hegemon—the UK then, the US now—that is facing powerful competition from rising powers (Germany and the US then, China now). The challengers are likely to find their own alternative strategy, and the result breeds uncertainty. In consequence, rule‐based international orders are generally strained by transitions of power, even though all the parties see the desirability and need for a common system of rules.     

Territory,geoeconomics and power politics: The Irish government's framing of Brexit

The decision of the UK to withdraw from the EU's political and legal structures can be understood as a form of regional dis-integration. This had the potential to revive territorial power politics and geo-economic rivalry within Europe. In particular, it implied a major change to the status quo on the island of Ireland, where the existing border had been rendered invisible, partly due to European integration.This paper analyses how the Irish government framed this as a threat and how it was able to set the agenda in the crucial phase 1 of the negotiations. It applies a content analysis and a qualitative framing analysis to study how the government framed issues of territory and power in its language on Brexit . It considers in particular how it enacts different discourses of liberal internationalism, nationalism and Europeanism with reference to the multi-scalar power dynamics of Brexit.The Irish reaction was not to echo the nationalism and populism reverberating throughout Europe. Rather it asserted its place as an EU member and aligned itself with EU discourse and interests to protect the all-Island socio-economic space. Its eventual proposal to keep Northern Ireland aligned with the EU customs union and single market was politically controversial. It stressed that this was not a national territorial claim but if anything a transnational territorial claim (‘claiming’ Northern Ireland as a part of the integrated pan-European space). However as the negotiations developed the dispute took on some of the forms of a classic territorial dispute. Within a year Irish-UK relations had been transformed.     

Imperial power, gentry power and clan power: Western and Chinese cultural traditions in a comparative perspective

The differences between China and Western countries in human and physical environment has brought about two distinctive models of state. In the Chinese-style state of quasi-consanguinity, in which family and state have a similar structure, imperial power, gentry power, and clan power are the product of common ownership of consanguineous groups. The similarity in the structures of these three kinds of power derives from the fact that they are all restricted by the power of lineage generated from the self-sufficient small farmer economy, and must obey the conventions of ancestors which hold the benefits of the group as supreme. The relationship between these three kinds of power, is definitely not the one that is based on the division of power that is founded on individual private ownership in Western countries, where ‘public power’ and ‘individual private ownership’ are antithetic, but are three aspects of the patriarchal dictatorship that complement each other. Therefore, village rule in China and autonomy in the West are two totally different concepts, and gentry power is also not the ‘authorized power’ from the state. __________ Translated from the Journal of Tianjin Normal University, 2004: 1     

The body of power,the body of memory

Bioarchaeology is a relatively new and dynamic area of anthropological research, having grown out of the New Archaeology’s emphasis on understanding formation processes within a broader anthropological/behavioral context. Current bioarchaeological research is increasingly focused on questions of identity and social roles from the perspectives of agency and embodiment and with an emphasis on contextual interpretation, as illustrated by the edited volumes discussed in this review. The relevance of this bioarchaeology research extends to other areas of anthropological enquiry, especially when considering the importance of the body in power and identity construction in contemporary societies.     

The vertikal: power and authority in Russia

Power and authority in Russia are traditionally seen to reside with the president. Such an understanding was emphasized during the eight years of Vladimir Putin's presidency, from 2000 to 2008, as he sought to centralize power, strengthen the state and establish a strong vertical of power to implement policy. This article examines the nature of this power and authority in the light of the tandem, the ruling arrangement between current President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin. While acknowledging the central importance of Vladimir Putin in Russian political life, the article argues that emphasis on his role draws too much attention away from the leadership team that he has shaped with Medvedev. This team takes shape in formal institutional structures such as the Security Council, which has become an increasingly important group as a reservoir of experience and authority. It also takes shape in an informal network that stretches across state and business boundaries. Although there are some tensions in the network, this team ensures broad policy continuity. Furthermore, the article questions Putin's success in establishing a vertical of power, and the authority of both President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin. The analysis explores evidence that suggests that, despite the appointment of loyal personnel in this vertical of power, presidential instructions, orders and personnel commands often remain incompletely and tardily carried out or even unfulfilled. In essence, therefore, although many have suggested a split within the leadership, particularly between Medvedev and Putin, the article suggests that the more important splits are horizontal ones between different layers of authority. Thus, a process of direct control is necessary, whereby the most senior officials are obliged personally to oversee the implementation of their instructions. The article concludes by suggesting a reconsideration of our terms of reference for Russian politics, replacing the tandem with the team, and introducing ‘manual control’.     

The power of space: The biopolitics of custody and care at the Lloyd Hotel,Amsterdam

This paper examines the relationship between space and violence through a biopolitical enquiry of custody and care at Amsterdam's Lloyd Hotel. The Lloyd Hotel began as a corporate established transhipment hotel serving transatlantic voyages. It was subsequently transformed into an emergency refugee camp and an improvised prison and juvenile detention centre. An iconic building which had functioned in both specific and broader networks of violence, the building is today a sophisticated heritage accommodation. We trace and analyse the ways in which the spatial arrangements of the historic hotel have facilitated, often concurrently, conditions of custody and care, and protection and control in its key historical moments. We address questions regarding the putative ‘agency’ of specific spatial designs and architectures in ‘retaining’ the socio-spatial elements of violence perpetrated in the past. Specifically, we suggest that the original and adapted spatialities of the hotel were often the source of unintended violence, abuse and transgression, signalling the ‘power of space’ in terms of agency over the subjected ‘guests’. In analysing a single micro-site and its broader spatialities, we seek to contribute to a relational conceptualization of violence sensitive and attuned to the complex histories and geographical scales that have bound and still bind this unique Amsterdam place of hospitality and custody.     

The Atomic Marshall Plan: Atoms for Peace,British diplomacy and civil nuclear power

British policy towards President Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace speech was characterised by ambiguity. The world's third nuclear power, Britain sought to re-establish nuclear cooperation with the United States. Multilateral nuclear diplomacy was of secondary importance. This position is exemplified in Britain's conflicting attitude to the International Atomic Energy Agency which oscillated from warm enthusiasm to qualified rejection before settling on a policy of grudging acceptance. The paper focusses on British reactions to Eisenhower's proposal and shows that the fate of the agency was secondary to the ultimate aim of restoring the nuclear relationship with Washington which was realised in 1954 resulting in a British volte-face concerning the agency's future.