Between Internationalism and Empire: Ireland,the ‘Like-Minded’ Group,and the Search for a New International Order, 1974–82

This article examines the response of a group of small and medium-sized states to the Global South's demands for a new international economic order in the 1970s and early 1980s. Reading that experience through the eyes of the group's smallest state, Ireland, it describes the rise of a loosely organised collective whose support for economic justice was based on three pillars: social democracy; Christian justice; and a broadly held (if variously defined) anti-colonialism. Internationalism, and in particular support for the institutions of the United Nations, became another distinguishing feature of ‘like-minded’ action, and was an attempt by those states to carve out a space for independent action in the cold war. Détente and the decline of US hegemony helped in that respect, by encouraging a more globalist reading of the world order. Once the United States resumed its interventionist policies in the late 1970s, the room for ‘like-minded’ initiatives declined. Yet the actions of the ‘like-minded’ states should not be understood solely in terms of the changing dynamics of the cold war. This article concludes by arguing for the prominence of empire, decolonisation, and the enduring North–South binary in shaping international relations in a post-colonial world.     

Layers of Disunity: The presidential politics of Finnish business, 1981–1982

This article examines the political activity of business in late Cold War Finland, the main focus being on the presidential election campaign of 1981–1982, which was a major watershed in Finnish politics. The purpose is to investigate the divisions cutting through business circles. Different layers of disunity can be found: a turf battle between business associations and their leaders, divergent attitudes towards the Social Democrats and disagreements concerning Finland’s foreign relations and trade, particularly with the Soviet Union. These divisions were long-lasting: they emerged by the mid-1970s and remained in effect until at least the late 1980s.     

'The Holiest Campus', its Decline and Transformation: The University of New England, 1946–79

In the mid-1960s and possibly earlier the University of New England (UNE), located at Armidale in rural New South Wales, was reputed to be 'the holiest campus' in Australia. The article finds a considerable body of evidence to give credibility to this view. It argues that UNE was relatively religious because it drew more of its students from the most devout social groups in Australia than other universities and because those students were then proselytized by religious societies that operated effectively and with strong clerical support in a small, cohesive institution. The ethos of UNE was broadly Christian, perhaps more so than that of metropolitan universities.
After 1965 there was a substantial decline in religious practice, belief and influence at UNE, as apparently at other Australian universities and in Australia as a whole. In the case of UNE, secularization was more than a decline in civil or social religion, more than a process of decline through differentiation: in the first half of the 1960s over half of the student body was highly religious but by the late 1970s the proportion had fallen to one-fifth to one-quarter. Associated with this decline was a transformation of religious activity marked by the reassertion of Christian denominationalism and the emergence of a non-Christian spiritual sensibility.     

Sympathy for the Devil?: Australian Unionism and Public Opinion

Public opinion on trade unions is influenced by a variety of factors, including direct experiences of industrial conflict, socialisation, the consonance of union behaviour with values and norms, and the general climate of debate, opinion and propaganda. Union sympathy (general support for unions) slowly declined between the 1940s and the 1960s, deteriorated sharply during the early 1970s, and recovered slowly under the Accord. The deterioration after the 1940s may be attributable to anti-communism's association with anti-unionism. The deterioration during the 1970s was associated with a significant rise in industrial conflict and the slow improvement in sympathy during the 1980s and 1990s was probably linked to the Accord-related fall in it. The decline in union density since the early 1980s cannot be directly attributed to a shift in union sympathy. Despite low levels of disputation in the late 1990s, however, union sympathy then appeared weaker than in the 1940s. Its low level in Australia, compared to other countries, may partly reflect the influence of anti-communism, but especially of arbitration, which rendered strikes illegitimate.     

Reconceptualizing gender and reconstructing social life: Ugandan women and the path to national development

This article focuses on how women's responses to crisis and social change in Uganda signal attempts to achieve a more gender-equal social life while facilitating national development. After an introduction, the article reviews research on women's response to change and points out the limitations of this research. In the next section, the article provides a historical overview of Uganda's gender system and the political and economic changes that occurred during the 1970s and early 1980s. The third main section argues that while the social structural changes created widespread hardship, they also provided openings for women to advance their interests. Thus, the National Resistance Movement of the mid-1980s responded to the mobilization of women by creating new avenues for women to participate in political life and have control over financial resources. Traditional ideologies, divisions of labor, and the social construction of gender have also been altered by such factors as the involvement of women in the guerrilla movement and the key developmental role played by nongovernmental organizations and women's groups. The article continues by considering the effect of these changes on contemporary gender relations. Data from a sampling of women and men from two regions of the country and of small business owners provide the basis for a discussion of the different strategies (such as small scale entrepreneurship and networking) employed by women to meet their daily and longterm needs. It is concluded that women's attempts to change their lives have influenced macrolevel social structure. However, it remains to be seen whether these postinsurgency gains can be sustained.     

By‐Elections and Political Change in a Local Context: The Case of the 1973 Dundee East By‐Election and the SNP

With their unpredictability and occurrence in between nationwide elections, by‐elections have attracted a degree of scholarly interest. However, this has focused almost exclusively on how the contests have affected, or failed to affect, the direction of national politics. This article seeks to, instead, explore their influence upon the locality in which they are fought. It will achieve this through an analysis of the 1973 Dundee East by‐election and its consequences for the development of the local Scottish National Party (SNP). Prior to the by‐election, the party had not been particularly strong in Dundee. Yet the contest provided a setting in which it was able to transform itself into one of the most effective Nationalist organisations in Scotland, capable of cementing an SNP MP in the constituency from 1974 until 1987, holding firm against the collapse in the party's support across the country in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The article will examine the extent to which this resistance to the national swing was facilitated by the legacies of the by‐election and the extent to which its wider footprint contributed towards the development of an enduring party tradition that has persisted for decades.     

Lightening Europe: Establishing the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF)

The European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) was the first collaborative synchrotron radiation facility in Europe. This article chronicles and analyzes decisive events during ESRF’s foundation phase from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s and sheds light on the politics that mattered for its realization as a scientific collaboration in Europe. As part of a broader effort to chronicle the history of the ESRF, this article contributes to an enriched understanding of intergovernmental scientific cooperation in Europe in the second half of the twentieth century by drawing on so far unexplored material from the French National Archives and the German National Archive.     

Judicial Intervention and Local Spending

This study develops a methodology for examining the impact of court orders on local budgets and applies it to one of the most important areas of judicial involvement-local jails. During the 1980s an increasing number of local jails came under court order due to overcrowded facilities. In many counties this has been matched by equally rapid growth in jail capacity and expenditures. Based on simple comparisons of these trends and case studies of individual counties, previous research on court intervention has concluded that the courts have forced reluctant local governments to increase expenditures on corrections. However, past research on judicial intervention may be misleading because of inadequate controls for other factors that may affect both jail capacity and spending. We examine the determinants of jail spending for a national sample of jails in the mid-1980s. Our results indicate that court orders influence capacity expansion (their impact on current expenditures is less clear); however, other jail and demand factors may have a stronger effect. Contrary to conventional wisdom, our findings suggest that many jurisdictions, given adequate fiscal resources, budget for jail expansion when they need its not when forced by the courts to act.     

Estimating Relative Standard of Living in the United States Using Cross-Migration Data

A new estimator links migration data to a random utility "voting with your feet" model to compare the relative living standards of pairs of regions. It is argued that this estimator has a firmer theoretical basis and uses migration information more efficiently than previous methods. An algorithm converts pairwise comparisons into rankings of the U.S. states for 1970, 1980, and 1990. The rankings indicate living standards were highest in the Northwest (1970, 1980) and the south Atlantic coast (1990). A nonparametric test suggests that the system was in disequilibrium in 1980 (probably due to energy price shocks), but near equilibrium in 1970 and 1990.     

Long-term trends in planetary wave activity (2–15 days) at 80–100 km inferred from radio wave absorption

The daytime radio wave absorption in the lower ionosphere measured by the A3 method (oblique incidence on the ionosphere) in central and southeastern Europe is used to study long-term trends in the planetary wave activity in the period range of 2–15 days in the upper middle atmosphere. In central Europe we have found no trends in the 1960s and 1980s, but a positive trend in the 1970s (early 1970s- early 1980s); in southeastern Europe we have not established any trend in the 1970s, but a positive one in the 1980s (beginning in late 1970s). These trends are of non-solar origin. They are possibly an indication of changes of anthropogenic origin in the Earth's atmosphere.     

近50年来我国的美国黑人史研究

中国学近50年来对美国黑人史的研究可分为三个时期。20世纪50—70年代,美国黑人史研究在中国成为一个研究热点,取得一批重要成果,但不可避免带有政治化的倾向。80年代,黑人史研究略显沉寂,处于承上启下阶段。90年代以来,取得很大的进展,研究的领域和深度都有所拓展和深入。但总的看来,我国的美国黑人史研究还远未成熟,尚处于起步和奠基阶段。     

‘Save our NHS’: activism,information-based expertise and the ‘new times’ of the 1980s

This article examines activism in defence of the National Health Service (NHS), which emerges in the 1960s to defend local hospitals from closure. From the mid-1980s, a new form of campaigning developed, which sought to protect the Service nationally. Tracing this campaigning illuminates, first, that small groups played a significant role in negotiating political change, and in contributing to cultural change which, in turn, has become politically powerful. Second, this demonstrates that the 1980s were ‘new times’ in welfare politics, as Thatcher’s changes fostered voluntary interest in information-led expertise, and a new vision of the NHS as a significant, much valued, national institution.     

Police and Political Violence in the 1960s and 1970s: Germany and Italy in a Comparative Perspective

Notwithstanding the significant differences between the German and Italian police models (federal and civil vs. centralised and militarised), in both countries the confrontation with the protest movements of the 1960s and 1970s had a profound impact on police conceptions and public order strategies. Police forces in some German federal states (West Berlin) followed a hard line until the late 1960s, while in others (Munich, Hamburg) reforms to the Weimar-centred police intervention tactics took place beginning in the early to mid-1960s. In Italy, traditional police conceptions and strategies remained largely unchanged and re-emerged in 1968. Here, a movement from within the police led to the demilitarisation and unionisation of the state police in 1981. In both countries, fighting left-wing terrorism in the 1970s stimulated technical modernisation and enhanced the centralisation of the police. In critical response to police tactics, in the late 1970s Germany police matters were increasingly perceived as a concern not only of the state but of civil society—even if policing remained a highly contested terrain. In Italy, such matters largely remained state concerns in which only politicians and internal security specialists were entitled to intervene.     

Mongrel nation: animality and Empire in the novels of J.G. Farrell

The novels of J.G. Farrell (1935–79), reveal a writer preoccupied with the cultural representation of Britain in an era of post-imperial decline. Farrell's ‘Empire trilogy’ illustrates a national consciousness examining its chequered past through focus on Ireland in Troubles (1970), the Indian Rebellion of 1857 in The Siege of Krishnapur (1973) and the fall of Singapore in The Singapore Grip (1978). In doing so, Farrell's novels feature a notable proliferation of flora and fauna, particularly his use of dogs as representative of national character and the changeable state of British society under attack. This article argues that Farrell's novels explore the state of post-imperial Britain through a sustained focus on dogs and animality. In situations marked by degradation and decline, Farrell gradually collapses the boundaries of order and disorder, obedience and disobedience and man and beast, inviting comparisons between the animal instincts of the dogs that populate his novels and those of Britons fighting for survival.     

The Campbell Committee and the origins of ‘deregulation’ in Australia

The 1981 Australian Financial System Inquiry, known as the Campbell Committee, is widely seen as the start of the reform movement of the 1980s and 1990s. Accounts of its origins have been dominated by a debate about which policy actor can take credit. This paper utilises cabinet and Reserve Bank archives to reassess the origins of the Campbell Committee. The inquiry had its origins in an earlier attempt by the Whitlam government to take federal control of the regulation for non-bank financial institutions and the building society crisis of the mid-1970s. In its response to these political and economic challenges we can identify the moment in which the Fraser cabinet turned towards market-based reform. The political decisions made in the context of crisis set the path for regulatory change in subsequent decades, particularly in the area of prudential regulation, where we have seen regulatory consolidation and expansion rather than ‘deregulation’.     

‘A disguised Liberal vote’? – third-party voting and the SNP under Gordon Wilson in Dundee during the 1970s and 1980s

This article inspects the nature of the Scottish National Party and its place in the breakdown of the two-party system across the United Kingdom in the 1970s and 1980s. This is achieved through an examination of the SNP’s approach in the small city of Dundee, where the party enjoyed a sustained period of success. It highlights the commonalities between the SNP and the Liberals in the 1970s and SDP-Liberal Alliance in the 1980s. The Nationalists adopted a similar third-party role in Dundee, centring their approach on their moderate politics rather than solely on the issue of self-government. The party’s effectiveness in pursuing this approach allowed it to hold on to the Dundee East constituency from 1974 to 1987, until ideological changes affecting the national party made it increasingly impossible to hold firm to this strategy. Nonetheless, this study makes clear that the rise of Scottish Nationalism was a part of a process of British-wide political change, and should not be understood in isolation from the rest of the country.     

‘Not on Your Life’: Cabinet and Liberalisation of the White Australia Policy, 1964–67

The liberalisation of the White Australia policy in the mid-1960s was a seminal event in Australian history. It marked the beginning of the end for the racial conception of society which had defined the federation since the late-nineteenth century. Cabinet’s discussions of the proposed changes during these years demonstrate that most Australian political leaders were not only fundamentally opposed to reform but also unconvinced by arguments emphasising the policy’s administrative inconsistencies, lack of humanitarianism and racially discriminatory features. Nor were they entirely swayed by arguments of diplomatic expediency, which had been advanced by senior Immigration and External Affairs officials since the 1950s. The decline of British race patriotism in the early 1960s weakened the ideological foundations of White Australia and allowed policy-makers to reconsider its foreign policy implications, especially in terms of Australia’s relations with Asia. Although cautious, the reforms of the mid-1960s represented an important break with the policy’s fundamental principles and provided the groundwork for further liberalisation and the formal abolition of White Australia in the 1970s.     

A troubled relationship: Yugoslavia and the European Economic Community in détente

The article examines the origins and evolution of Yugoslav policy toward the European Economic Community (EEC) from the mid-1960s until the signing of the Cooperation Agreement in 1980. The signing of the Treaty of Rome and the Community's initial success in the 1960s had a profound impact on the direction of Yugoslav foreign trade. Increased trade relations with the EEC and the domestic introduction of the 1965 Economic Reform proved vital in persuading Belgrade to become the first Communist country to establish diplomatic and trade relations with the Community in 1968. The article argues that these relations in the 1970s became of increasing relevance to the economic and, ultimately, political stability of Yugoslavia.     

Clues, Margins, and Monads: The Micro–Macro Link in Historical Research

This article discusses the new microhistory of the 1970s and 1980s in terms of the concept of exceptional typical, and contrasts the new microhistory to old microhistory, in which the relationship between micro and macro levels of phenomena was defined by means of the concepts of exceptionality and typicality. The focus of the essay is on Carlo Ginzburg's method of clues, Walter Benjamin's idea of monads, and Michel de Certeau's concept of margins. The new microhistory is also compared with methodological discussions in the social sciences. In the mid-1970s concepts like the micro–macro link or the microfoundations of macrotheory were introduced in sociology and economics. But these largely worked in terms of the concepts of typicality or exceptionality, and this has proved to be problematic. Only historians have developed concepts that escape these and the older definitions of the micro–macro relationship; indeed, the "new microhistory" can best be described in terms of the notion of "exceptional typical." The essay explores the meaning of this notion.     

Protest Cycle,Political Violence and Social Movements in the Basque Country

A close look at the groups, organisations and social movements among which a terrorist organisation seeks refuge and support, will provide a fundamental and strategic view of its evolution. By means of the concept of a protest cycle, I analyse the relationship between political violence and social movements in the Basque Country. With the help of Tarrow's fundamental variables in the political structure, to which I have added the degree of consciousness‐raising and mobilisation in civil society, I aim to study the protest cycle of ETA's violence from its social origins at the start of the 1960s, through its consolidation in the 1970s, to its decline from the mid‐1980s onwards. The idea I will defend is that political violence should be seen as a form of collective action directed towards a mobilisation of society, and that its vicissitudes depend on the structure of interactions set up between the armed organisation, social movements and civil society.