Interpreting foreign institutions. How the Italian academic culture dealt with the French Fifth Republic, 1958–1998

The interpretation by Italian scholars of the institutions of the French Fifth Republic was directly linked not only to the new French constitution and to the evolving practice of power in France, but also to the scholars' own judgement on the Italian constitution and on their changing perception of the role of the political parties within Italian republican institutions. Three main phases in the development of the interpretation of the Fifth Republic by Italian jurists and political scientists can be identified. During the first – extending from 1958 to the late 1970s – it was strongly criticized by most as anti-democratic. The second phase – from the late 1970s to the early 1990s – was marked by the end of anti-democratic suspicions; but only during the 1990s – the third phase – were the Fifth Republic's institutions proposed by some scholars as a model to be imported in to Italy.     

Does foreign policy represent the views of the public? Assessing public and elite opinion on New Zealand's foreign policy

This article1 1. We would like to thank Philip Nel, Robert Patman, Steve Hoadley and Chris Rudd for their advice and overall contribution to this research project. We would also like to thank the anonymous referees for their comments and suggestions. View all notes investigates public opinion on New Zealand's foreign policy, drawing on the findings of a comprehensive poll of general public and elite opinion conducted in 2008. It analyses what New Zealanders think about a range of foreign policy issues and whether public opinion matches actual foreign policy. It argues that the majority of the public support the broad parameters of official policy, but that there are significant differences of opinion in some specific areas, particularly trade agreements and defence. These differences correspond in particular to political orientation and age, gender and income level. The article also outlines the key differences between public opinion and the opinion of the positional elite. Overall, it is argued that the New Zealand public does have clear opinions on foreign policy issues and that these are generally consistent. The article proposes more frequent polling and more public debate over foreign policy.     

How Ideas Influence Decision-Making: Olof Palme and Swedish foreign policy, 1965–1975

The main research question in this study is how ideas matter during different phases of a decision-making process. More specifically, the study examines whether principled and causal ideas influence foreign policy as roadmaps or as focal points, and if there is a difference across policy-making stages. The empirical basis for this article is an examination of whether former Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme (1927–1986) primarily used his ideas as roadmaps for one of his foreign policy priorities during an early agenda-setting phase of the process, and ideas as focal points for one of his foreign policy priorities during a policy-making phase. The two cases studied are (1) Sweden's decision to say no to European Economic Community membership in the early 1970s and (2) Sweden's decision to say yes to support liberation movements in Africa in the late 1960s. The main conclusion is that Palme used his ideas as roadmaps during all phases of the decision-making process, and that ideas are necessary to guide and frame all types of issues during all stages of the decision-making process.     

Howard's way? Public opinion as an influence on Australia's engagement with Asia, 1996–2007

Using the typology developed by Douglas Foyle, this article argues that John Howard behaved as a ‘pragmatist’ in dealing with situations where public opinion was relevant to Australia's engagement with Asia. Howard adhered to his own views on the relevant issues while attempting to lead public opinion in the direction he believed desirable. During the 1996–2007 period the most relevant issues relating to the impact of public opinion on Australia's Asian engagement were Australia's relations with Indonesia and Asian immigration. In the case of Australian–Indonesian relations the Howard government had to deal with various situations where an activated public opinion threatened to undermine the long term Australian approach that gave primacy to Indonesian concerns. Political leadership entailed developing a response that the government believed to be appropriate to Australia's long term objectives, while also attempting to persuade the public that this was the case. In the second instance policy developed in a more ‘deliberative’ context: Howard modified his earlier stance that was critical of Asian immigration, but continued to adhere to a strongly ‘integrationist’ position. This position was consistent with both his own views and his perception of public attitudes on the matter.     

Wilderness use,conservation and tourism: what do we protect and for and from whom?

For many people today, the idea of wilderness conjures up meanings and images referring to wild, remote, and untrammeled natural areas, which need protection from human presence and utilization. Institutionally, the first Wilderness Act was prescribed in the United States over 50 years ago and the wilderness conservation originates from the establishment of the first national parks in North America in the nineteenth century. First conservation and wilderness areas and related legal acts provided a model on how to organize and manage conservation areas globally. However, this created ‘fortress’ model of global conservation thinking, separating wilderness, and nature from culture and people, has recently been increasingly challenged by views calling for more people-centered approaches in natural resource management. In addition, the tourism industry has become an increasingly important user and socioeconomic element of change in wilderness areas, which has created new kinds of utilization needs for the remaining wild environments. Thus, there are different ways to understand what wilderness is and for and from whom we are protecting those areas. This paper aims to overview some of the key perspectives on how wilderness environment are contextualized, used, and contested: as units of strict conservation; resources for livelihoods and raw materials, and/or tourist products. The purpose is to point out that while we have different and often conflicting understandings of what wilderness is and what it is for, there are also potentially symbiotic relations between different views which could help us to protect the remaining wilderness areas. This is the case especially in the Global South, where the sociopolitical pressures of economic utilization of the remaining wilderness environments are currently the sharpest.     

How much heterogeneity can the welfare state endure? The influence of heterogeneity on attitudes to the welfare state

Cultural and economic heterogeneity is often seen as a major threat to modern welfare states. This article contributes to the discussion of how much heterogeneity the welfare state can endure by theoretically and empirically focusing on the relationship between different levels of national identity and the support for welfare state policies. We analyse the effect of different types of national identity on attitudes towards taxation and redistribution. We show that it is the subjective aspect of national identity, or social cohesion, that in fact matters for predicting attitudes to the welfare state. In comparison, more objective measures of heterogeneity like the inequality of income distribution, language fractionalisation or the percentage of foreign‐born individuals do not have any effect on attitudes to the welfare state.     

A ‘German Invasion’? Irish Rural Radicalism,European Integration,and Irish Modernisation, 1958–73

Land hunger was a pervasive feature of Irish rural society which had not disappeared with the attainment of national independence. Rural agitation for land redistribution was conducted by many small indigenous farmers and it acquired an extraordinary anti-German tone after 1960. This was partially fuelled by a wave of international media speculation about Ireland as a base for Nazis eluding justice, but it was also driven by the notable success of Irish agencies in attracting German investment to Ireland. Consequently, the land question spilled into Irish efforts to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Ireland's application to join the European Economic Community (EEC). Governments were slow to respond to the demands of the rural radicals: heavy-handedness against foreign landholdings might endanger Ireland's international reputation at the very time that the country was seeking to shake off an anti-progress and insular image. Militant republican involvement in land agitation stirred additional concern. When the Irish Land Commission compulsorily purchased the properties of a handful of West Germans in 1969, the Bundestag of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) debated the matter. This ostensibly served as the rationale for vandalism, arson, and bomb attacks against foreign-owned farms and properties at a critical point: Northern Ireland was careering out of control and Dublin's priority was to join the EEC. The government defended the right to private property and it could not halt the EEC's liberalisation of agricultural land purchases after 1970: membership of the EEC was the overriding strategic objective. In sum, land ownership had formed part of the bedrock of Irish nationalism since at least the nineteenth century and Irish adaptation to the liberal international economy generated predictable resistance. The linkage between land ownership and national citizenship was not unique to the Irish, as the Danes, the Dutch, and several countries bordering West Germany experienced comparable difficulties in the 1960s and the 1970s.     

“It Felt More like a Revolution.” How Behavioral Ecology Succeeded Ethology, 1970–1990

As soon as ethology's status diminished in the early 1970s, it was confronted with two successor disciplines, sociobiology and behavioral ecology. They were able to challenge ethology because it no longer provided markers of strong disciplinarity such as theoretical coherence, leading figures and a clear identity. While behavioral ecology developed organically out of the UK ethological research community into its own disciplinary standing, sociobiology presented itself as a US competitor to the ethological tradition. I will show how behavioral ecology took the role of legitimate heir to ethology by rebuilding a theoretical core and an intellectual sense of community, while sociobiology failed to use its public appeal to reach disciplinary status. Meanwhile, ethology changed its disciplinary identity to encompass all biological studies of animal behavior.     

In what sense ‘spaces of neoliberalism’? The new localism,the new politics of scale,and town twinning

This paper draws on a study of town twinning in Britain since 1945 to engage with narratives of ‘the new localism’ and ‘the new politics of scale’. It argues that town twinning is often used in technical assistance programmes such as the UK Government's Know How Fund and various schemes of the Commonwealth Local Government Forum. ‘Fast policy’ is a concept that can be usefully applied to these programmes and the broader field of interurban networking, urban policy mobility, and policy transfer. Town twinning plays an active yet overlooked role in fast policy. The paper also argues that town twinning is part of a longer history of bottom-up localism that includes the political arguments of John Stuart Mill, at least two moments of twentieth-century municipal internationalism, the municipal foreign policy movement of the 1980s, and the community development movement of the last three decades. This longer history suggests sources of localism other than statecraft, and problematises the conceptualisation of power and periodisation of history found in regulation theories of devolution.