Political freedom in Byzantium: the rhetoric of liberty and the periodization of Roman history

ABSTRACT

This paper proposes an intellectual history of the idea that the later Roman empire and, subsequently, the whole of Byzantium were less ‘free’ in comparison to the Roman Republic. Anxiety over diminished freedom recurred throughout Roman history, but only a few specific expressions of it were enshrined in modern thought as the basis on which to divide history into periods. The theorists of the Enlightenment, moreover, invented an unfree Byzantium for their own political purposes and not by examining the facts about its political culture. The second part of the paper proposes that the Byzantines valorized a model of positive freedom as legal-institutional protection against arbitrary oppressive power, including against both barbarian domination and domestic abuses. In contrast to modern thought, which tends to see the imperial position as the chief threat to liberty, the Byzantines viewed it as its bulwark. Yet they too had remedies for oppressive emperors, suggesting that the otherwise well-attested invocations of freedom were not a mere rhetorical trope for them but an actionable cultural norm.     

Is there a future for the past? An overview of archaeology in western Russia and Ukraine

The current political and economic situation in Russia and Ukraine poses grave dangers for the archaeological and museum professionals who guard these nations' legacies. At the moment that political barriers to Western collaboration were removed, new problems have crippled the post-Soviet archaeological community. Concurrently, Westerners tend to misunderstand Soviet and post-Soviet archaeological theory, forgetting that techniques such as lithic microwear and taphonomic analysis were introduced by Soviet scholars. New discoveries are described in three general categories: the origins of food-producing economies in western Russia and Ukraine, the evolution of surprisingly large towns in Copper Age Ukraine, and the origins of pastoralism in the Russian and Ukrainian steppes.     

Toward an Explanation for Public Interest Group Formation and Proliferation

Utilizing data from a survey of 60 national public interest group founders, this paper addresses two related questions: (a) What factors explain the (relatively) recent proliferation of public interest groups? (b) What factors determine in which policy areas public interest group activity is most likely? The results of the data analysis suggest that several factors have contributed to group proliferation. Among the most important are law group start-up costs, the spread of affluence and education, an increase in patron activity, and rapid societal change. The results also suggest that public interest group activity is most likely in issue areas of interest to well-educated, affluent whites. Ultimately, however, the data suggest there is bound to be a great deal of uncertainty in the public interest group universe. Because group start-up costs are so low and the entrepreneurial pod is so large and varied, virtually any type of public interest group dealing with any issue could form at any time.     

Book reviews

INTERNATIONAL STABILITY: MILITARY, ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL DIMENSIONS. Dale J. Hekhuis, Charles G. McClintock and Arthur L. Burns (eds.). New York, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1964. Pp. xii + 296. £3.

THE AUSTRALIAN BALANCE OF PAYMENTS: A STUDY OF POST‐WAR DEVELOPMENTS. G. D. McColl. Melbourne University Press, 1965. Pp. xiii + 180. 45/‐.

NEW DIRECTIONS FOR WORLD TRADE: PROCEEDINGS OF A. CHATHAM HOUSE CONFERENCE, BELLAGIO, 16–24 SEPTEMBER 1963. For the Royal Institute of International Affairs. Oxford University Press, 1964. Pp. 241. 49/6.

JAPAN AND THE UNITED STATES IN WORLD TRADE. Warren Huns‐berger. New York, Harper & Row, for the Council on Foreign Relations, 1964. Pp. xvii + 492. $9.95.

MILITARY INSTITUTIONS AND POWER IN THE NEW STATES. William Gutteridge. London, Pall Mall Press, 1964. Pp. viii, 182. 25/‐.

AUSTRALIA'S DEFENCE. T. B. Millar. Melbourne University Press, 1965. Pp. x + 198. 20/‐ (paperbound).

QUIET DECISION. A STUDY OF SIR GEORGE PEARCE. Peter Heydon. Melbourne University Press, 1965. 67/6.

THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDONESIA 1951–1963. Donald Hindley. University of California Press, 1964. Pp. xviii + 380. $8.50.

THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDONESIA. Justus M. van der Kroef. University of British Columbia, 1965. Pp. viii + 347. $5.50 (paperbound).

INDONESIA. J. D. Legge. New Jersey, Prentice‐Hall Inc., 1964. Pp. viii + 184. $1.95.

SOVIET JEWRY AND HUMAN RIGHTS. Isi Leibler. Melbourne, Human Rights Publications, 1965. Pp. 78. 10/6d.

THE CHINESE IN SOUTHEAST ASIA. Victor Purcell. Second Edition, Oxford University Press for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, 1965. Pp. xvi + 623. £6/6/‐.

THE THIRD CHINA. C. P. FitzGerald. F. W. Cheshire for the Australian Institute of International Affairs, Melbourne, 1965. Pp. vii + 109. 13/6.

SOUTH AND EAST ASIA SINCE 1800. Victor Purcell. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1965. Pp. x + 228. 25/‐ stg.     

British Jobs for British Workers? Negotiating Work,Nation, and Globalisation through the Lindsey Oil Refinery Disputes

This paper explores the relationships between labour organising, globalisation and national identity through an engagement with the 2009 Lindsey Oil Refinery strikes. Some strikers adopted the controversial slogan ‘British Jobs for British Workers’ in response to employers' attempts to undercut existing wages and conditions with a new migrant workforce. This led to accusations of xenophobia. We make three inter‐related arguments. First, we contend that it is necessary to interrogate the spatialised power relations generated through particular forms of labour agency enacted in relation to globalising processes. Second, since these responses can be politically ambiguous, success in territorially based disputes does not always equate with broader (transnational) class agency. Third, relevant to the project of labour geography, we propose that labour scholars and activists be more attuned to the mundane ambiguities in labour agency, and the subsequent need to frame local action within a broader relational politics of global labour solidarity.