澳大利亚与柬埔寨的和平进程

印度支那是战后国际关系的一个焦点地区。1978年越南对柬埔寨的入侵使柬国内政治局势更加扑朔迷离。在柬埔寨漫长的和平进程中,包括中国、法国、东盟、澳大利亚在内的国际社会发挥了积极的建设性的协调作用。联合国组织更是责无旁贷地组织并主导了柬埔寨大选。本要探讨的是作为一个中等实力的国家——澳大利亚,如何利用自己的外交资源、影响以及一个相对中立的国家所享有的独特的外交协调能力及优势,与国际社会一道推动柬埔寨和平进程。     

Australia,the security council and the Iranian crisis of 1946: Liberal internationalism in practice

In the early months of 1946 Dr H.V. Evatt made a concerted effort to shape the newly formed Security Council as a security tribunal. He wanted the Security Council to be governed by the principles of the United Nations Charter, to adopt regular procedures, to have an investigatory function and to make determinations on the facts of each case, not on the basis of power politics. Evatt attempted to implement his policy during the Iranian crisis despite the opposition of all the great powers, including the United Kingdom. This episode reveals the commitment to liberal internationalism that marked Australian foreign policy during this period and demonstrates both the possibilities and limits of an ‘idealist’ foreign policy.     

'Casino capitalism' and the financial crisis

I argue that by describing the current financial crisis as the result of 'casino capitalism' commentators are reinforcing familiar and baseless assumptions about exchange and deflecting serious criticism from the true causes of the problem and how we might respond to them. I refer to recent ethnography by anthropologists working in international finance and to three features of casinos: customers, markets and regulation, in order to support the argument that neither individual casinos, nor the industry in general are good exemplars of 'casino capitalism'.     

Putting the crisis to work: The real estate sector and London's housing crisis

The idea of ‘crisis’ plays an important role in academic and policy imaginations (Heslop and Ormerod, 2020), particularly since the global financial crisis. Across major western cities, at the same time as policy-makers have had to respond to ‘the (economic) crisis’, many have also experienced intense ‘housing crises’ and the acute divergence of average incomes and house prices. In response, cities such as London have become central sites in debates around housing acquisition by the ultra-wealthy, land value extraction and growing levels of unaffordability. However, much critical geography research on housing crises is state-centred or focused on civil society impacts, with relatively little reflection on the real estate sector and the work that crisis does as a narrative in shaping institutionalised and actor-centred practices. In this paper, we draw on in-depth research with developers, investors, and advisors in London to argue that crisis-driven policy responses have created political risk which is differentially experienced by actors across the sector, with large housebuilders and advisors benefitting whilst smaller niche developers move out. Moreover, we show how consultants, investors and developers have used the crisis situation to create new geographies, products and investor types in the housing market. These, in turn, require regulatory support and demonstrate the inherently political nature of crisis narratives' use. We use the London case to broaden understandings of the impact that conceptualisations of ‘crisis’ have on urban and regional planning practices, and how these influence and shape processes of contemporary urban development.     

North and south in the current crisis

The Italian Minister for Territorial Cohesion, Carlo Trigilia, reviews the current condition of the Italian south (the Mezzogiorno) and sets out the policies that the present government is seeking to implement. Underlining the need for long-term strategies and for close cooperation with European Union funding agencies, the Minister emphasizes the need to remove the political and institutional obstacles to development and promote human capital through measures designed to improve training, education and welfare programmes. He concludes the lack of economic growth in the southern regions poses serious dangers to the growth prospects of the national economy.     

Perennial crisis and the loss of flexibility

Crisis interrupts routine in unwelcome ways with an uncertain outcome. The Greek word krisis (κρíσις), which is etymologically close to criterion and criticism, was occasionally used in relation to social ailments. However, more often, it was used to refer to a medical condition characterized by a high fever. A critical condition in English and other European languages refers to a similar situation. Two possible outcomes were envisioned in ancient Greece: you died or you recovered. In the contemporary world, the term ‘crisis’ can be of limited relevance since crisis is endemic and chronic in one or several domains virtually everywhere. There are two general causes for this: accelerated, runaway globalization generates unpredictable, unintentional side effects; and different parts of a lifeworld change at different speeds, leading to disjunctures and destabilization. Perhaps volatility is a more appropriate term.     

Church and state in the Italian crisis

Abstract

This essay explores the ways in which the positions and policies of the church have changed during the three principal phases of relations between the Catholic Church and the State since the founding of the Italian Republic. The first came after the Second World War when the church embarked on its democratic novitiate; the second was dominated by reformist project of Cardinal Montini; the leading role in the final phase during the papacy of John Paul II and the broader crisis of which the church was also part was played by Cardinal Ruini.