Icebreakers in Anglo-Russian Relations (1914–21)

Foreign supply to Russia in the First World War is familiar terrain, but although the present paper engages to some degree with the military, diplomatic, and especially economic aspects of the subject, its primary affiliations lie elsewhere. Its principal purpose is to discuss the icebreakers on which it concentrates not only just before but also just after Russia's withdrawal from the First World War, with a view to contrasting the first phase of the ships' history with the second and so highlighting the perennially ambivalent character of the Anglo-Russian relationship. On the way, it touches on questions of geography, English local history, environmental history, the history of technology, and, even, towards the end, Russian literary history.     

Governing from the Border? Quebec’s Role in North American Security

ABSTRACT

This article aims to shed light on Quebec’s role in cross-border security governance. It exposes the challenges Quebec is facing in this area and what cross-border activities fall within its jurisdiction. The supported hypothesis in this article is that security is subjected to an increasing politicization from the Quebec government in a post-9/11 context, which contributes to the edification of an embryonic “multilevel governance.” If this politicization was noticeable in political statements and international agreements, it seems that it was more driven by conjectural imperatives than a real desire to make Quebec a leader in transnational security. Therefore, there were no diplomatic and financial commitments to make security part of the Gérin-Lajoie doctrine and develop a similar paradiplomacy as in other fields. However, on different technical and bureaucratic levels, transgovernmental relations between certain Quebec governmental organizations, including police corps, and their American counterparts were created. Consequently, they contributed to make continental action more effective, at least in a certain measure.     

Minds of caste – Discrimination and its affects

This guest editorial considers the relevance of caste in today's world in terms of ‘castes of mind’.     

French anarchists and the continuing power of May 1968

Abstract

The social insurrection of May 1968 in France continues to provoke strong political debate. Compared to most French politicians and social commentators who dismiss or condemn it as an excessive adolescent rebellion, French anarchists contend that it was a substantial political rupture because participants challenged the legitimacy of all hierarchy and domination in every realm of society. Research into a wide range of French anarchist books and articles from 1988 to the present reveals several distinct approaches to May 68. Beyond narratives of the events themselves, anarchists emphasised the rapid spread and delight with horizontalist social relations of mutual aid and respect on campuses and in workplaces and neighbourhoods as 10 million French people went on strike for several weeks. This liberating experience, they contend, transformed the social consciousness of large numbers and led to the great surge of anarchic autonomous social movements in different realms in the 1970s. These writings also reveal important debate among anarchists themselves on whether May 68 was a revolution, whether revolution is even possible and how to organise a revolutionary movement.