Three's a Crowd?: Government, Owners, and Workers during the Nationalization of the British Coalmining Industry 1945-47

The passing of the coalmining industry into public ownershipon 1 January 1947 should have been an occasion for rejoicingby the Labour Party and its supporters, yet celebrations weremuted by the looming shadow of critical coal shortages Despitethis concurrence of nationalization and coal crisis, littleattention has been focused on possible linkages between thetwo events. More generally, scant consideration has been givento the question of what happened to the industry when facedwith nationalization. This article's principal argument is thatthe fuel crisis was rooted not (as other historians have argued)in the atrocious weather, but in the very process of nationalization—or,rather in the combination of a lack of preparation for publicownership and (even more importantly) in the preoccupation withnationalization at the expense of the ‘stabilization’of the industry before entering the uncharted waters of publicownership. The chief conclusion is that during the run-up toVesting Day neither miners nor owners had any substantial incentiveto improve industrial productivity and output The period wasat best a standstill, and in many ways—as the crisis indicated—wastedmonths that a fuel-starved Britain could ill afford ^*This article is based on my MA thesis, ‘Fresh Start orFalse Dawn⁷ the coalmining Industry and Nationalisation, 1945–7'I would like to thank my supervisors, Ranald Midne and PhilipWilliamson for their continued support, and also David Howelland the referees of Twentieth Century British History for theirvaluable comments on earlier drafts of this work.     

The new resource politics: can Australia and South Africa accommodate China?

The material transformation of the Chinese economy is forcing a concomitant process of political adjustment—and not just in China. Other states are being forced to accommodate the ‘rise of China’. In this context, this article first presents a comparative analysis of China's impact on two countries, Australia and South Africa, which have little in common other than a wealth of natural resources and a possible status as middle powers; this is a particularly useful exercise because these states are geographically distant and have very different political structures and general developmental histories. Second, the authors consider how China's bilateral ties look from a Chinese perspective in these two very different relationships. Such an analysis serves as a reminder that resource dependency is a two‐way street. The article argues that underlying material realities are constraining and to some extent determining the domestic and foreign policies of three very different states that otherwise have little in common.     

The UN Arms Trade Treaty: arms export controls,the human security agenda and the lessons of history

The UN conference to negotiate an Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) concluded on 27 July 2012 without reaching consensus on the text of a draft treaty and saw both the US and Russia calling for more time to negotiate. The ATT process marks the latest in a series of attempts to insert human security concerns into arms export controls. The setback in July raises questions about the current level of international support for the human security agenda, as well as the relative power of different actors to shape global governance structures. This article locates the ATT negotiations in the broader history of multilateral efforts to regulate the international arms trade, from the 1890 Brussels Act to post‐Cold War initiatives. The historical record shows that such efforts are more likely to succeed if they are negotiated or imposed by major arms exporters. The introduction of human security concerns, as well as the merging of export control and arms control agendas, went some way towards reversing this trend. In particular, it created a broad international coalition of supportive states and NGOs from the global North and South. Yet disagreements over the purpose of an ATT remained. The draft ATT included human security provisions, but China, Russia, the US and a number of emerging powers ensured that state security considerations remained paramount in decision‐making on arms exports. The US was the first major actor to announce its unwillingness to sign the draft ATT in July 2012 and two alternative interpretations of US actions are considered. The article concludes by considering the options available to supporters of the ATT process following the 2012 conference and examines the notion that the ATT campaign has become an initiative ‘out of its time’, one that might have had success in the 1990s but not in current circumstances.     

Conceptual and practical issues in the detection of local disease clusters: a study of mortality in Hamilton, Ontario

Recent advances in local spatial statistics and operational computing capacity have led to growing interest in the detection of disease clusters for public health surveillance and for improving understanding of disease pathogenesis. Although conceptual reviews and applied examples have appeared in the literature, few studies have addressed the connection between conceptual and practical issues that confront researchers interested in using local statistics to detect disease clusters. Here we review recent literature on the use of local statistics for cluster assessment and focus on the practical issue of assigning correct geographic coordinates. The process of assigning geographic coordinates to an address or postal code, known as ‘geocoding’, is a necessary step in conducting smallarea health analyses. With a study of mortality data from Hamilton, Ontario, we illustrate inaccuracies that may be encountered when using Statistics Canada postal code conversion files. Using the Moran's I and Getis‐Ord Gi and Gi* local spatial statistics to identify significant mortality clusters or ‘hot spots’, we demonstrate that small geocoding errors, even those that affect less than one percent of a total dataset, can have a discernible impact on analytic results. To assist other researchers, we supply guidelines to minimize error introduced by geocoding. These results emphasize the importance of accurate geocoding in local health analyses. Les avancées récentes en statistiques spatiales localisées et en capacité informatique opérationnelle ont conduit à un intérêt croissant dans la détection de foyers de maladies pour fins de surveillance de santé publique, et dans l'approfondissement de la compréhension de leur pathogénèse. Bien que des revues conceptuelles et des exemples concrets aient été publiés dans la littérature, peu d'études ont adressé le lien entre les problèmes conceptuels et pratiques auxquels sont confrontés les chercheurs intéressés à utiliser les statistiques locales pour détecter les foyers de maladies. Nous revoyons ici la littérature récente sur l'utilisation de statistiques locales dans l'évaluation de foyers et focalisons sur le problème pratique d'assigner des coordonnées géographiques correctes. Le procédé d'assigner des coordonnées géographiques à une adresse ou à un code postal, nommé‘géocodage’, est une étape nécessaire dans la conduite d'analyses de santéà petite échelle. À l'aide d'une étude sur des données de mortalitéà Hamilton, en Ontario, nous illustrons que des inexactitudes peuvent être rencontrées lorsque les fichiers de codes postaux et de conversion de Statistique Canada sont utilisés. En utilisant les statistiques spatiales localisées I de Moran, Gi and Gi* de Getis et Ord pour identifier des foyers de mortalité significatifs ou des ‘points chauds’, nous démontrons que de petites erreurs de géocodage, même celles n'affectant moins qu'un pour cent de la base de données, peuvent avoir un impact discernable sur les résultats analytiques. Afin d'aider d'autres chercheurs, nous fournissons des recommandations pour minimiser les erreurs introduites par le géocodage. Ces résultats soulignent l'importance d'un géocodage exact dans les analyses de santé locale.     

The geographies of crisis: exploring accessibility to health care in Canada

There is increasing concern in Canada that the health care system is in a state of crisis. It is argued that reductions in federal government transfers to the provinces have resulted in a health care system characterized by under‐funding in key areas and policy decisions based more on provincial fiscal concerns than the health needs of their constituents. Provincial governments have responded to reduced levels in federal funding by undertaking aggressive restructuring tactics such as the closure of hospitals and the deinsuring of medical services from provincial health plans. The end result of this restructuring, as argued by the media, consumer groups and indeed some health researchers, is a state of crisis' (i.e., lower levels of accessibility, long waiting lists, overcrowding in hospitals and increasing costs of medication). One crisis theme often mentioned is that fiscal decisions of various kinds are reducing economic and geographic accessibility, one of the five principles of the Canada Health Act (CHA) that defines the very essence of the Canadian health care system. Using data from the 1998‐99 National Population Health Survey (NPHS), this paper explores the extent to which an accessibility crisis exists within the Canadian health care system by examining access to health care services and the barriers encountered in trying to access services in each of the ten provinces. The results show that approximately 6.0 percent of Canadians report access problems, with values ranging from 4.5 percent in Newfoundland to 8.3 percent in Manitoba. Regional variations in barriers to accessing care were also observed. In particular, geographic accessibility appears to be a main barrier to care in Atlantic Canada while economic accessibility emerges as a main barrier to care in Western Canada. We discuss these findings in the context of the current debates on the Canadian health care system ‘crisis’. De plus en plus de Canadiens s'inquiétent que leur systéme de soins de santé soit en état de crise. On défend l'idée selon laquelle la réduction des paiements de transfert aux provinces par le gouvernement fédéral serait responsable de l'état d'un systeme de santé caractérisé par un sous‐financement dans les domaines‐clés et des décisions politiques de santé basées, non pas sur les besoins des membres de la société canadienne, mais sur la fiscalité provinciale. Les gouvernements provinciaux ont réagi à la réduction du financement fédéral par une tactique de restructuration agressive (fermeture d'hôpitaux et retrait de services médicaux des programmes d'assurance de santé provinciaux). Selon les médias, les groupes de consommateurs et même les chercheurs en soins de santé, cette restructuration a eu pour effet un système en état de ‘crise’ (diminution de l'aecès aux services, longues fetes d'attente, hôpitaux surchargés, augmentation des coûts des médicaments etc). Un des thèmes récurrent est celui des décisions flscales de toutes sortes qui entraînent une baisse de l'accessibilité financière et géographique. Cette accessibilité est pourtant un des cinq principes de la Loi canadienne sur la santé définissant l'essence même du système de santé au Canada. Utilisant les données tirèes de l'Enquête nationale sur la santé de la population, 1998‐99 et examinant l'accès aux services de santé et les obstacles rencontrés dans les 10 provinces canadiennes, cet article évalue dans quelle mesure une crise d'accessibilité existe au sein du système de santé canadien. Les résultats démontrent qu'environ 6.0 pour cent des Canadiens ont rencontré des problèmes d'accessibilité, avec des variantes allant de 4.5 pour cent à Terre‐Neuve jusqu'à 8.3 pour cent au Manitoba. On observe aussi des variantes régionales dans les obstacles rencontrés. L'accessibilité géographique en particulier semble un obstacle mqjeur dans les régions de l'Atlantique, alors que l'accessibilite financière semble être un obstacle majeur dans l'Ouest du Canada. Ces résultats sont présentés dans le contexte des débats actuels sur l'existence dune, ‘crise’ dans le système de santé au Canada.