Intrastate federalism in Australia

The article applies a distinction often used in the study of Canadian federalism—intra‐versus interstate federalism—to the Australian federal system. The intrastate federalism model focuses on the representation of state, regional and local interests directly within central government institutions. On the surface the model appears to have little applicability to Australia. However, the examination of selected Commonwealth institutions and arenas, primarily the cabinet and party system, indicates that intrastate practices may in fact be much more pronounced in Australia than what is generally supposed. There are networks of influence at work outside the confines of standard intergovernmental arenas, networks that at times can be used to advantage by state governments or by state or local interests, at other times by the Commonwealth to enhance centralised control or even to undermine the status of state governments as legitimate actors within the Australian federal system.     

The triviality of federalism

R. J. May, Federalism and Fiscal Adjustment, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1969, pp. 192 + viii, 55/‐ stg.     

New and old in the southern question

The southern question has been posed at the key moments in the history of the Italian state. Today we face a moment of comparable importance which urges that the southern question be re‐thought. It is not an unchanging question, yet it concerns issues fundamental to the state and has been treated by the country's greatest intellectuals as a national issue. The meridionalisti have been Italy's critical conscience yet, at the same time, stereotypes of a uniformly backward South have taken hold. The post‐war intervention in the Mezzogiorno should not be seen through such stereotypes as a wholly negative experience. Its successes and failures fit into an Italian pattern of state‐led modernization and it cannot be understood in isolation from the Italian state's weaknesses. Today, a new pact between the weakest and strongest sectors is essential. The South's economic and political leadership will be a central object of study if intellectuals are to help inform new policy.     

Contested Nations: Iraq and the Assyrians

Abstract. The formation of nation‐states from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East after World War I, under colonial auspices, proceeded with negotiations in some instances and hostilities in others from previously autonomous communities, some of them formally designated as millets. Iraq comprised a diversity of religious and ethnic communities. The Assyrians, Christian mountain tribes, mostly refugees from Turkish Kurdistan under British protection, were one community which actively resisted integration into the new nation‐state and, as a result, were subject to violent attacks by the nascent Iraqi army in 1933. This episode and the way it was perceived and interpreted by the different parties is an interesting illustration of the political psychology of communitarianism in interaction with nationalism, complicated by religious identifications, all in a colonial context. Subsequent histories and commentaries on the episode are also interesting in illuminating ideological readings.     

Getting out of the Iraq trap

The Iraq crisis has been variously defined as a problem of local leadership, regional security, culture clash, arms control, neo–imperialism, transatlantic relations and international legitimacy. The competing definitions reflect the worldviews of different actors with a stake in the outcome of the crisis. Each perspective has validity for its proponent and none of them can be expected to triumph to the exclusion of the others. Consequently, it is argued here, whatever the goals of UN and/or military intervention in Iraq, at the receiving end, the experience will be at odds with what is meant or sought by such intervention. A way to understand the problem and thence to address it is ventured which combines local, regional and international perspectives and calls for a multitiered, multilateral approach to rethinking Iraq and the region. The intention is to take on 'the hawks' who claim that the United States can deliver democracy to client states, challenge their logic and propose an alternative vision that would require all parties, international and local, to take shared responsibility not only for Iraq but for Palestine too.     

Private security companies in Iraq and beyond

The numerical and functional prominence of armed and unarmed contractors on deployed operations has attracted analysis from a range of perspectives, as this collection of works illustrates. In addition to studies which seek to explain the growth in private security contractors' activities in terms of governmental needs, the books examined here consider the possible regulation of this sector and implications for the fundamentals of both national and international political systems. There are also works that throw light on the supply side, looking at the driving personalities behind the growth of Blackwater and the backgrounds of individual contractors. The review also includes an analytical framework for classifying different areas of contractor activities. The books include a range of research approaches and it is clear that the evolving political and managerial reasoning behind the outsourcing of security functions in general means that debate in this area will continue.