Government,Business and Lobbyists: The Politics of Palm Oil in US–Malaysia Relations

This paper reviews how information was utilised by the disputing parties made up of producers and consumer interests in seeking and opposing the imposition of tariff and non-tariff barriers relating to the entry of palm oil into the US market. Information was used in a variety of ways to mould public opinion and influence official US trade policy. Producers, with the support of the Government of Malaysia, countered US efforts by mounting an information-based counter-campaign. This study examines how US-based opponents to the importation of oil palm used information to influence consumer opinion and governmental decision-makers. It goes on to describe countermeasures taken by Malaysian producers. These latter measures included counter-arguments challenging spurious claims made by US-based groups. The paper also reviews the role played, and the positions taken by the US and Malaysian governments. Malaysia, as one of the world's leading exporter of palm oil, reacted to preserve and protect the interests of various stakeholders in the palm oil industry. Measures taken included greater R&D effort, stronger trade promotion and countering spurious information. This study demonstrates how information was used by disputing parties to shape consumer opinion and develop a case for policy intervention by the respective governments.     

Territorial cohesion storylines in 2014–2020 Cohesion Policy

The purpose of this paper is to elaborate the concept of territorial cohesion in the context of 2014–2020 Cohesion Policy. The main goal is to investigate how European Union (EU) Member States (MSs) are coping with territoriality in their policies and to assess whether they are only fulfilling the minimum standards of a place-based approach or whether they are moving towards a new paradigm of policy-making characterized by a more territorially sensitive approach. This paper analyses Partnership Agreements which were signed between the European Commission and EU MSs and identifies the perception of territorial cohesion in the Cohesion Policy in the programming period 2014–2020. The analysis shows that different MSs choose different ways of addressing territoriality of their policies. It is thus possible to categorize countries into several groups sharing similar features and to discuss underlying ideas and approaches, which could shed some light on the still rather fuzzy concept of territorial cohesion.     

Designing Constitutions in Britain’s Mid-Nineteenth Century Empire – Indigenous Territorial Government in New Zealand and Retrieving Constitutional Histories

Focusing on the striking instance of colonial New Zealand, this article examines constitutional design for colonies of European settlement, arguing about such design in two key respects. First, this article examines the proposals of so-called ‘colonial reformers’ endeavouring to influence constitutional framing, including how their notions on ‘local self-government’ or ‘municipal government’ were reflected or not, while also illuminating their concepts of how to accommodate indigenous territorial governance and indirect administration of indigenous territories in the late 1840s and early 1850s. Second, recovering traces of these disputes and ways of thought from the archives, and how they were operationalised in grounded constitutional drafting or design, rather than resorting to analysing abstract canonical, high-level texts, such as those of Henry Maine and John Stuart Mill, is ultimately more rewarding for evaluating constitutional emergence and design. It reveals tensions within ‘colonial liberalism’, as characterised by Edward Gibbon Wakefield. How putative settler interests informed these metropolitan-Westminster constitutional enactments or not, assessed through cabinet-level discussions, in Colonial Office deliberations on settler agitation, illustrates missteps and failures as well as the particular ways in which diverse features of imperial constitutional design emerged. Examining these points is timely given Linda Colley’s focus on a ‘contagion of constitutions’ in the late eighteenth and early to mid-nineteenth centuries.     

Inter-port transshipment between Shanghai and Hankou in foreign trade: 1864–1930

Shanghai and Hankou are located at separate ends of the most prosperous watercourse of Yangtze River. The transshipment in foreign trade between the two ports shows the limitation of Hankou as an inland port. Though the port grew due to independent direct imports and exports, Hankou was never completely independent from Shanghai. In contrast, Shanghai is of great importance to the inland ports of Yangtze River which is different to its effect on the ports of coastal areas of Northern China. Also, the region along Yangtze River is very important to Shanghai as its hinterland. The trading and transshipment between Shanghai and Hankou is critical to the whole region of Yangtze River and the development of Chinese economy. Related topics worth studying are commerce, finance, population mobility and urbanization, etc.