Commercial Liberties and Nuclear Anxieties: The US-German Feud over Brazil, 1975–7

In June 1975, Helmut Schmidt's government in West Germany sanctioned the sale of a complete nuclear fuel cycle to Brazil, including uranium enrichment and reprocessing technology. US observers in Congress, government, and the media reacted with alarm to this apparent setback to global non-proliferation efforts as spearheaded by the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Using material from US, British, and German archives, this article examines how structural disparities in the US-German relationship augmented mutual suspicions and led both parties to behave uncooperatively.

Focused narrowly on commercial rivalry with the US, politicians and industry representatives in Bonn brushed aside the concerns of non-proliferation experts, who had a weak institutional base. Jimmy Carter came to office in 1977 determined to block the consummation of the Brazil deal; he also pressed the G-7 to discontinue nuclear fuel reprocessing. Carter's abrupt unilateralism offended US allies, but together the US and France put pressure on West Germany to renounce sensitive nuclear exports. Schmidt grudgingly agreed to show more caution, but few lessons were learned; many Germans came away feeling that US-led export restrictions were overbearing, hypocritical and self-serving. While cooperative within NATO and European frameworks, West Germans remained ambivalent on global problems of proliferation until the 1990s.     

Are governmental culture departments important? An empirical investigation

It has been often claimed that governmental culture departments are not particularly significant or important for governments as a whole. The extent to which this is true is investigated through a combination of quantitative and qualitative assessments of departmental significance using the United Kingdom and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport as a case study. Departments are assessed across a number of criteria incorporating expenditure, law‐making, policy centrality, ministerial career trajectories, press coverage, departmental age, executive centrality, manifesto coverage and staffing patterns. On these the British example demonstrates that culture departments are not significantly important for governments as a whole. The comparative implications of this finding are identified, and potential new research areas are indicated.     

Guillaume postel — Prophet of the restitution of all things — His life and thought

The article starts from an examination of the authorship of the ‘Geleitwort’, the programmatic statement which appeared in the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft when it came under new editors in 1904. Recently scholars have begun to view it as an important text by Max Weber recovered from obscurity, but this is a mistake. Examination of major contemporary works by Weber and Werner Sombart – the obvious co-author – as well as the first public disclosure of an entirely new MS. by Weber, show that in all probability the text was drafted by Sombart and then revised fairly lightly by Weber. This story of a combined, if unequal, authorship leads into two broader seams of intellectual history: the relationship between Weber and Sombart, and the history of the Archiv as a journal. An unusual starting point thus casts fresh and unexpected light on some of the most central figures and episodes in German social science at the beginning of the 20th century, not least Weber's seminal essay on “Objectivity” in social science.     

‘Mr Neville did all in [his] power to assist me’: A. P. Elkin,A. O. Neville and Anthropological Research in Northwest Western Australia, 1927–1928

From the commencement of his field research A. P. Elkin sought to bring a practical application to his work on Aborigines. He positioned anthropology as an enabling science which had the capacity to reduce conflict, violence and misunderstanding on the frontier. He stated that the ‘object of his mission [field work]’ was both ‘academic and practical’. He declared that the knowledge gained through anthropological field research would serve not only narrow academic aims but would also be put at the service of government. Anthropology's purpose was to inform and influence the formulation of government Aboriginal policy. This paper examines Elkin's first encounter and interaction with government through his relationship with A. O. Neville, chief protector of Aborigines in Western Australia. It illustrates the beginnings of what Gillian Cowlishaw has called a discourse of helping, that is Australian anthropologists in the 1930s constructed a discourse about their usefulness to government. It was a discourse which seemingly lacked critical distance from the policies of government. I argue that this discourse of helping government was heavily influenced by Elkin once he became professor of anthropology but it can be discovered in this earlier period. I conclude by discussing how the implications of this discourse were played out in the decade of the 1930s. The focus of this paper is on Elkin and his relationship with Neville and the consequences of this relationship for Elkin's later actions.     

Book reviews

Australian Politics

Scott Bennett, Affairs of State: Politics in the Australian States and Territories (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1992) pp.230. $24.95 ISBN 1 86373 093 1.

Verity Burgmann, Power and Protest: Movements for Social Change in Australian Society (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1993) pp.302. $24.95 ISBN 1 86373 211.

J.R.G. Butler (ed.), Federalism and Public Policy, Intergovernmental Grants and Health Care Financing (Canberra: Federalism Research Centre in association with National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, 1991) pp.141. $12.95 ISBN 0 7315 1119 0.

Frank Farrell, Themes in Australian History: Questions, Issues and Interpretation in an Evolving Historiography (Kensington: University of NSW Press, 1992) pp.221. $24.95 ISBN 0 86840 212 5.

James A Gillespie, The Price of Health: Australian Governments and Medical Politics 1910–1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) pp.358. $49.95 ISBN 0 521 38183 5.

Barry Jones, Sleepers, Wake! Technology and the Future of Work (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1990) pp.285. $16.95 ISBN 0 19 553146 9.

Roger McDonald, Reflecting Labor: Images of Myth and Origin Over 100 Years (Canberra: National Library of Australia, 1991) p.49. $7.50 ISBN 0 642 10537 5.

Terry Newman, Hare‐Clark in Tasmania: Representation of All Opinions (Hobart: Joint Library Committee of the Parliament of Tasmania, 1992) pp.319. $39.95 ISBN 0 7246 3876 8.

Peter Vintila, John Phillimore and Peter Newman (eds), Markets, Morals and Manifestos: Fightback! and the Politics of Economic Rationalism in the 1990s (Perth: Institute for Science and Technology Policy, Murdoch University, 1992) pp.274. $18.95 ISBN 0 86905 233 0.

Michael Howard, ’Fightback!’ or Setback? The Cuts to Public Expenditure in the Hewson Package (Sydney: Public Sector Research Centre, University of New South Wales, 1992) pp.134. $15.00 ISSN 10348 569X.

Comparative and International Politics

John Allen, Peter Braham and Paul Lewis (eds), Political and Economic Dimensions of Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992) pp.440. $37.95 ISBN 0 7456 0962 7.

Ian Bellany, A Basis for Arms Control (Aldershot: Dartmouth, 1991) pp.155 $n.p. ISBN 1 85521 051 7.

Henry Brandon (ed.)? The Future of U.S.‐European Relations: In Search of a New World Order (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1992) pp.177. $19.95 ISBN 0 8157 1058 5.

Alison Broinowski, The Yellow Lady, Australian Impressions of Asia (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1992) pp.260. $39.95 ISBN 0 19 553382 8.

Robert L. Canfield (ed.), Turko‐Persia in Historical Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 1991) pp.256. $120.00 ISBN 0 521 39094 X.

Henry Frendo, Party Politics in a Fortress Colony: the Maltese Experience 2nd ed. (Valetta, Malta: Midsea Publications, 1991) pp.243. $n.p. no ISBN.

Gwendolyn Gray, Federalism and Health Policy: The Development of Health Systems in Canada and Australia (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991) pp.281. $Canl9.95 ISBN 0 8020 6862 6.

Susan Kaufman Purcell and Robert M. Immerman (eds), Japan and Latin America in the New Global Order (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1992) pp.163. SUS9.95 ISBN 1 55587 316 2.

St John Kettle and Stephanie Dowrick (eds), After the Gulf War: For Peace in the Middle East (Sydney: Pluto Press, 1991), pp.134; $9.95 ISBN 0 949138 69 X.

Andrew Ross (ed.), The Military Significance of the Gulf War (Canberra: Australian Defence Studies Centre) pp.79. $10.00 ISBN 0 7317 0191 7.

Ronald T. Libby, Protecting Markets: U.S. Policy and the World Grain Trade (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992) pp.152. $US26.50 ISBN 0 8014 2617 0.

T.B. Millar and James Walter (eds), Asian‐Pacific Security After the Cold War (London: Sir Robert Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, University of London, 1992) pp.125. £8.50 ISBN 1 85507 044 8.

John Morrison, Boris Yeltsin. From Bolshevik to Democrat (Melbourne: Penguin, 1991) pp.303. $16.95 ISBN 0 14 017062 6.

Cornelia Navari (ed.), Conditions of States: A Study in International Political Theory (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1991) pp.228. $ 39.95 ISBN 0 335 09667 0.

V. Spike Peterson (ed.), Gendered States: Feminist (Re)Visions of International Relations Theory (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1992) pp.225. $US16.95 ISBN 1 55587 328 6.

Edith Rogovin Frankel, Jonathan Frankel and Baruch Knei‐Paz (eds), Revolution in Russia: Reassessments of 1917 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992) pp.434. $145.00 ISBN 0 521 40523 8.

B. Guy Smith, The Politics of Taxation: A Comparative Perspective (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991) pp.338. $39.95 ISBN 1 55786 211 7.

Ramesh Thakur (ed.), The South Pacific: Problems, Issues and Prospects (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1991) pp.232. $49.95 ISBN 333 55704 2.

Political Theory and Methodology

Perry Anderson, A Zone of Engagement (London: Verso, 1992) pp.384. $39.95 ISBN 0 86091 595 6.

Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust (Cambridge: Polity, 1991) pp.338. $34.95 ISBN 0 7456 0930 9.

Paul Buhle, Marxism in the USA (London: Verso, 1991) pp.302. $34.95 ISBN 0 86091 547 6.

Hal Draper (edited and with an introduction by E. Haberkern), Socialism from Below: Essays Selected (New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1992) pp.282. SUS25.00 ISBN 0 391 03732 3.

Richard E. Flathman, Wilful Liberalism: Voluntarism and Individuality in Political Theory and Practice (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1992) pp.232. SUS15.35 ISBN 0 8014 9955 0.

Norman Frohlich and Joe A. Oppenheimer, Choosing Justice: An Experimental Approach to Ethical Theory (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992) pp.258. SUS45.00 ISBN 0 520 07299 5.

Agnes Heller and Ferenc Feher, The Postmodern Political Condition (Cambridge: Polity, 1991) pp.167. $32.95 ISBN 0 7456 0929 5.

George Armstrong Kelly, The Humane Comedy: Constant, Tocqueville and French Liberalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992) pp.262. $120 ISBN 0 521 41227 7.

David Keyt and Fred D. Miller Jr (eds), A Companion to Aristotle's Politics (Cambridge: Basil Blackwell, 1991) pp.407. $45.00 ISBN 1 55786 098 X.

Chantal Mouffe (ed.), Dimensions of Radical Democracy (London: Verso, 1992) pp.254. $ 34.95 ISBN 0 86091 556 5.