The awkward years: defining and managing famines, 1944–1947

Abstract

Famines in the years immediately after World War II occurred during a period of global flux, as international famine response evolved from its ambitious, early twentieth century goals toward more modest, technocratic objectives during the second half of the century. For economists, social scientists and politicians immersed in the world of emergency food aid, these were uncertain, awkward years for famine relief. Herbert Hoover’s idealistic large-scale projects of famine relief that had dominated the first three decades of the century had been proven to be expensive and of limited efficacy, but Cold War loyalties had not yet taken over as the primary logic behind large-scale humanitarian assistance projects. Ultimately, when faced with famine conditions between 1944 and 1947, states and experts balanced a call to action against pragmatism that recognized famines were also politically expedient events that could weaken rural resistance to governance and simplify wartime and postwar administration. Ultimately, both science and humanitarian concerns learned to orient themselves toward economic expediency in these awkward years.     

The Common Good,Pluralism and the Small Church

Abstract

This paper discusses the understanding of “Common Good” that has been used by the Church of England, especially over the last five years. It suggests that its implicit universalism and identification of Christian morality with the ethical norms for the nation is premised on an understanding of the role of the Church which is no longer realistic. After a brief discussion of the latest statistics for church attendance and a comparison with other national churches in Northern Europe, I suggest that the Church of England is a “small church” and even that Christians constitute a religious minority. This means that the pursuit of the “Common Good” as defined by the church may simply be a piece of nostalgic longing for the time of the “big church.” The recent exclusions for the churches on same-sex marriage legislation indicate that the gap between most of the churches and the wider society. Rather than defining the common good, I suggest that in a pluralist society the churches which recognize their limited role will need to build alliances and common causes with other groups, both religious and secular.