Arguing for a worldwide perspective: Italy and the reform of the international monetary system between transatlantic cooperation and European integration (1971–73)

The end of the Bretton Woods system, following the US decision of August 1971, and the simultaneous re-launch of the European integration with the enactment of the Werner plan came at a critical moment of internal weakness for Italy. This article highlights how the Italian government and the monetary authorities – while not always on the same wavelength – tried to tackle these challenges with a view to preserving the principles of multilateral cooperation that had promoted the country's recovery in the post-war years. By launching the project denominated ‘Global Approach’ in the summer of 1972, Italy tried to interconnect the modification of the Werner plan with the reform of the international monetary system within the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in order to restrain the growing trends towards unilateralism. However, despite all efforts, both initiatives were doomed to failure while the country entered a dramatic period of political instability and social unrest.     

Defining the relationship between Australia and the European Union: is the framework treaty enough?

Australia is currently negotiating a framework treaty with the European Union (EU) that aims at closer cooperation on a wide range of shared policy goals. The treaty is not expected to include trade-liberalisation commitments. This article queries why this is, given the importance of trade and business relations with the EU for Australia, and the fact that the EU exerts international influence primarily as a trade power, rather than a foreign and security policy power. Since 2006, the EU has also been negotiating ‘new-generation’ bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs), focusing on tariffs and regulatory non-tariff trade barriers. It has now committed itself to FTA negotiations with many of Australia's trade partners in Asia and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. An FTA and a complementary framework treaty were concluded with South Korea in 2010, and the EU is currently negotiating a similar package with Canada. As Australia and Canada are comparable trade partners for the EU, the article argues that an FTA on the EU–Canada model could be a more effective avenue for Australia to achieve deeper engagement with the EU.     

Policy Punctuations and Issue Diversity on the European Council Agenda

The European Council is the highest political body of the European Union and the main venue for setting the agenda on high politics. Using a new dataset of all content‐coded European Council Conclusions issued between 1975 and 2010, we analyze the policy agenda of the European Council and test hypotheses on agenda change and diversity over time. We find that the theory of punctuated equilibrium applies to the agenda of the European Council, which exhibits a degree of kurtosis similar to that found in policy agendas of other institutions located at the juncture between input and output of the policy process. Throughout the 36‐year period, agenda‐setting dynamics involved both small changes and major shifts but also more frequent medium‐sized negative changes than found elsewhere. Given capacity limits to the agenda, large expansions of attention to topics involved large cuts in attention. Cuts were more often medium in size in order to maintain some level of attention to the topics affected, even though issue disappearance from the European Council agenda has been frequent too. This relates to the functions of the European Council as venue for high politics, with expectations about issue attendance rising with increasing policy jurisdictions throughout the European integration process. Studying dynamics over time, we measured entropy to show how the agenda became more diverse but also displayed episodic concentration in an oscillating pattern. This can be accounted for by the nature of the European Council as a policy venue: increasing complexity of this institution pushed the members to produce a more diverse agenda, but capacity limits and the need to be responsive to incoming information led to concentration at specific time‐points.     

AGRICULTURAL COOPERATION AND AGRIBUSINESS IN SOVIET TRANSCAUCASIA

The author, an authority on the agriculture of Transcaucasia, traces the evolution of the new Soviet system of interfarm integration at the rayon (minor civil division) level and the development of a new agribusiness administration combining all farm-related and food-related activities. Since the initial experimentation with rayon-level integration (known by the Russian acronym RAPO) in the Georgian SSR in the early 1970s (notably in Abasha Rayon), the RAPO system of administration has been introduced throughout the Soviet Union. As of Jan. 1, 1984, there were 3,109 RAPO administrations in the USSR, comprising 95,975 separate enterprises with a total employment of 33.6 million people. The enterprises included 50,435 farms (mainly the nation's 26,000 collective farms and 23,000 state farms), 7,849 agricultural processing plants, 19,587 agricultural service enterprises and 7,361 rural construction agencies. The RAPO system of administration constitutes the lowest level of a new agribusiness hierarchy of management, represented at the republic and national levels of government by the consolidated Agroprom (Agribusiness) agencies.     

‘Culture in EU external relations’: an idea whose time has come?

This chapter analyses the emergent cultural diplomacy discourse and practice of the European Union (EU) institutions, which has differed from that of nation-states. In semantics to begin with, since a far broader notion of ‘culture in EU external relations’ is EU usage. Yet Bhabha’s theoretical distinction between the ‘pedagogical’ and the ‘performative’ functions of nation-state narrative strategies holds at the supra-national scale as well: the author will explore the ways in which these functions have been appropriated by non-state actors. In EU cultural diplomacy as a ‘cultural policy of display’ in Raymond Williams’ sense, the agenda setting process has thus been marked by a polyvocal process of appropriation by different stakeholders. They have recently taken the discourse ‘beyond cultural diplomacy’ and expedient ‘soft power’ considerations, in a spirit of global cultural citizenship that privileges intercultural dialogue, mutuality and reciprocity. How this vision will be applied, however, is yet to be seen.     

Assessing Australia’s options in the context of Brexit: engaging with the UK and the European Union

ABSTRACT

The Brexit vote will fundamentally transform the European Union (EU) and will change how the UK relates to Europe and the rest of the world. What are the implications for Australia at this critical juncture? The UK has been a major player in the Australia–EU relationship, and Australia will now need to recalibrate its approach to both the UK and the EU across a range of policy areas. This article examines the future of Australia–UK and Australia–EU relations in the wake of Brexit, and assesses Australia’s options going forward. The authors advance three considerations. Firstly, Australia’s national interests are best served by adopting a pragmatic rather than nostalgic approach towards future relations with the UK and the EU. Secondly, Australia should avoid pursuing one relationship at the expense of the other and creating a zero-sum dynamic. Finally, Australia’s future strategy must consider broader global developments, such as events within its own region and the US presidency.     

Imperial cooperation at the margins of Europe: the European Commission of the Danube, 1856–65

This article deals with the work of the European Commission of the Danube (ECD) during the first two decades of its activity in the aftermath of the Crimean War. It focuses on the early stage formation of international organizations in the mid-nineteenth century when river commissions were the first organizations that issued supranational regulations and had their own bureaucracies. In this context, I argue that the ECD became a testing ground for new types of inter-imperial cooperation. First, the ECD became a site where hydraulic expertise from all over Europe was gathered and analysed. As a consequence, this exchange among the representatives of different empires and of different sub-fields of expertise generated new technical knowledge and made the ECD a space for cross-imperial knowledge production. Second, in 1865, the ECD adopted a Public Act that codified navigation rules in the Danube Delta. These regulations were among the first upholding a supranational settlement. Furthermore, the document exemplifies how such a supranational agreement was implemented through a joint imperial intervention against the authority of the Ottoman Empire, the only territorial power.     

Australia and the European Union: conflict,competition or engagement in agricultural and agri-food trade?

Many scholars have mounted convincing cases that the engagement of Australia and the European Union (EU) has been characterised by skirmishes regarding the Common Agricultural Policy and its distortion of world markets, and lack of Australian access to EU markets. This article illustrates that agricultural and agri-food trade constitutes a relatively small portion of Australia–EU trade flows; that Australia exports more goods to the EU than in the past; and that, in some agri-food sectors, it exports more goods to the EU than the EU does to Australia. Further, it argues that conflict and competition regarding the Common Agricultural Policy need to be understood in the broader context of world trade and in the context of a new and deeper engagement between the two interlocutors.     

Great expectations – the European Union and cultural policy: fact or fiction?

The European Union secured limited legal ‘competence’ to act in culture in 1992. This article examines the operational context and its complicated and countervailing tensions that make European cultural policy formulation and implementation difficult. Underlying problems originate in the failure properly to define what is meant by ‘culture’ in different contexts or to identify clear and pragmatic policy objectives, although legitimate ‘instrumental’ use of culture is common. The EU’s institutional structures (Council, Commission and Parliament) are often at cross‐purposes, while the national interests of member states can have a negative effect. The structure and internal politics of the Commission ensure that the Directorate responsible for ‘culture’ remains marginal, despite its growing ambition. An attempt to institute an ‘Agenda for Culture’ in 2007 has had some initial success, but given the definitional, legal, political and administrative problems, claims being made for significant progress seem somewhat premature.