Textual Corruption in the Civil Rights Cases

The Civil Rights Cases ¹ do not quite rival Plessy v. Ferguson ² for notoriety as the decision that most clearly confirmed the failure of Reconstruction and the rise of Jim Crow. Yet the Civil Rights Cases did far more than Plessy to limit federal power to address the continuing consequences of slavery. They declared unconstitutional the Civil Rights Act of 1875 insofar as it prohibited discrimination in public accommodations operated by private parties. Congress passed that act under its powers to enforce the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, but the Court held the act unconstitutional on the ground that private discrimination was neither a badge or incident of slavery under the Thirteenth Amendment nor a manifestation of state action under the Fourteenth. Although the Court's holding under the Thirteenth Amendment was effectively overruled by the Warren Court, ³ its holding under the Fourteenth Amendment continues to be influential, supporting a decision of the Rehnquist Court striking down the Violence Against Women Act. ⁴     

Dangerous Liaisons: Neoliberal Foreign Policy and Australia's Regional Engagement

Recent dramatic events in the Asia/Pacific region have prompted a reassessment within the Australian community of the prevailing analytical and policy orthodoxies associated with our contemporary regional engagements. This paper, written well before the serious upheavals in Indonesia and Malaysia, warns of the likelihood of such upheavals taking place and of the long-term dangers faced by Australian foreign policy in relation to them. In this context it concentrates primarily on Australia's explicit and enthusiastic commitment to a neoliberal global trade agenda and its less explicit but still solid commitment to a neo-Realist security agenda. It suggests that the tensions intrinsic to this policy matrix could provoke major problems for Australia in the future. More specifically, it argues that the pursuit of traditional (elite-centred) political stability and radical (market-driven) economic prosperity in the Asia/Pacific might well accelerate an opposite scenario, as people throughout the region resist the processes of rapid free-market development and ongoing political repression. It urges less fealty to the latest grand-theory of (Western) global power and a more serious empirical analysis of the implications of it for Australia's long term future in the Asia/Pacific.     

THE TIGERS of PEMAKO

About seven years have passed since we visited Pemako. I wonder if the deity Vajrayogini has protected Tibet‘s last tigers in this sacred hidden land.     

Political dynamics in North Africa

North Africa is notable for the remarkable stability of its political systems despite the increasingly hostile social and economic environment in which they operate. In part this results from their current security engagement with Europe but more important, perhaps, is the shared political culture that informs them despite the great differences between them and their failure to fulfill the principles upon which they were, for the most part, founded. This is, in part, typified by the very similar mechanisms they have each developed to ensure political continuity, based either on monarchical succession or dynastic republicanism. It is less clear, however, that they will be able to resist the most recent challenges arising from Islamist social movements, although the new political dispensations that might emerge may not be so very different from their predecessors.     

THE SEVEN THEMES OF MUSIC GEOGRAPHY*

Music geography first emerged as a subfield of cultural geography c. 1970, During the past 25 years, a significant body of research has been published in scholarly journals, books, and reference works. Seven major themes are outlined in the formation of music geography: I - origins (non-‘geographical’); II - world distribution and types; III - location analysis; IV-source areas of musical activities; V - trends based on electricity; VI - impact of music on landscapes; and VII - global music. A view is offered of how an eighth theme (technological innovations) might develop on the basis of recent observations. La géographiede la musique est apparueau début comme un sous-domaine de la géographie de la culture aux alentours de 1970. Au cours des vingt-cinq dernières années, un grand nombre de travaux sur ce sujet a été publié dans des revues scientifiques, des livres et des ouvrages de référence. On peut cerner sept thèmes principauxdans la formation de la géographie de la musique: 1. les origines (non ‘géographiques’); 2. la répartition mondiale et les genres; 3. /‘analyse de /‘emplacement; 4. les sources régionales des activités musicales; 5. les tendances fondées sur l'électricité; 6. l'impact de la musique sur les paysages; 7. la musique globale. À partir de récentes observations, on propose une perspective sur l'élaboration éventuelle d'un huitième thème, à savoir les innovations technologiques. Mots-clés:géographie de la musique, géographie de la culture, sources régionales, paysage sonore, musique globale.     

Step-functional incidence and impact of drought in Pastoral Australia

Sequences of precipitation in pastoral Australia can be described by square waves: that is to say, their variation is step-functional. Sampling suggests that similar variation typifies pasture quality, station income, station economies in general, and rates of stock loss. Patterns of management response to drought can also display abrupt change, in consequence of certain types of managerial decision. Where stock losses ascribed to drought can be separated off from total losses, step functions again appear. Up to certain limits, however, drought appears to be merely one of several killers. Prospects of drought prediction appear to be minimal, unless successful use can be made of analogue prediction and/or of variations in the Southern Oscillation and related systems. The incidence of runs of wet and dry years is essentially random. Where an individual series can be recognised as random with persistence, the persistence effect means the prolongation of drought, when this actually occurs.     

The false developmental promise of Corporate Social Responsibility: evidence from multinational oil companies

Using the example of multinational oil companies, this article suggests that there are fundamental problems surrounding the capacity of private firms to deliver development and the aspiration of achieving development through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) may be fundamentally flawed. The article is based on an extensive twelve-month research project on the Gulf of Guinea region funded by the Nuffield Foundation. This research identified a number of constraints to a developmental role for CSR: the subservience of CSR schemes to corporate objectives; country- and context-specific issues; the failure to involve the beneficiaries of CSR; the lack of human resources; technical/managerial approaches of company staff and the lack of CSR's integration into larger development plans. But even if private companies were able to overcome practical problems, it argues that the current CSR agenda fails to address the crucial issues of governance and the negative macro-level effects that multinational companies cause in host countries. The article concludes by suggesting that a focus on CSR may divert attention from broader political, economic and social solutions for developmental problems.     

THE PIKA IS OUR FRIEND

Soon a furry-faced head with bright eyes and rounded ears will pop up and peer out.You are meeting the plateau pika. Its Tibetan name is abra and its scientific name Ochotona curzoniae.     

An Antelope of Fashion

I first encountered chiru during a wildlife survey in Qinghai in 1985.At that time,I was only aware that they lived on the high Tibetan Plateau,most of them between 4300-5000m in elevation and that they were confined to China,except for a few that strayed into India.