The Abbott government and the Islamic State: a securitised and elitist foreign policy discourse

This article analyses the foreign policy discourse that surrounded the Abbott government’s 2014 decision to fight the Islamic State (IS). An analysis of parliamentary Hansard reveals that the debate featured three prominent axes: the legacy of the 2003 Iraq War; the strategies and objectives of the 2014 mission; and Australia’s domestic terror threat level. Throughout, the Abbott government not only marginalised dissenting views, but also justified its renewed engagement in the Middle East via a highly securitised and elitist foreign policy discourse. This finding has consequences beyond the battle against the IS. It reveals a deep-seated tension between the ideals of democratic pluralism and the reality that securitised and elitist foreign policy discourses protect governments from serious scrutiny.     

Harold Laski's International Functionalism: A Socialist Challenge to Federalism

Harold Laski argued for international functionalism from his distinctive socialist perspective. He opposed the existing international system based on the principle of state sovereignty. He also criticised the international federalism proposed as an alternative to the existing system. Although Laski began to devise and present his functionalist case in the 1920s, the circumstances of the following decade led him to adopt and adapt some Marxist ideas and to place less emphasis on functionalism. During and after the Second World War he reconsidered the possibilities for international functional organisation. Although fragmented and undeveloped, his functionalist theory was innovative. By the end of the 1940s he had expressed it in a variety of publications as he reflected on the international conditions of that decade. Unlike what is probably the most well-known functionalist case of the early to mid-twentieth century – that of David Mitrany – Laski's argument bears affinities with the later neofunctionalist theorists. Laski's functionalism was underpinned by the critique of sovereignty which made his political philosophy distinctive. Reasons can be detected for the changes in his attitude to and emphasis on functionalism.     

Masculinities and geography,moving forward: men’s bodies,emotions and spiritualities

Geographical work on men and masculinities has expanded and diversified since the 1990s. Gender, Place and Culture has been, and continues to be, a significant outlet for this research. Geographies of masculinities now range across diverse sub-fields – social, cultural, economic, health, post-colonial, urban and rural geographies. We provide a brief overview of this scope, including the expansion of geographies of masculinities beyond the Anglo-American sphere. We then focus on two vibrant fields of research on geographies of men and masculinities, which cut across the various sub-fields of the discipline: men’s embodied and emotional geographies, and their experiences in relation to religion, faith and spirituality. We discuss these fields, suggesting further productive developments for geographies of masculinities, which include work on the body and wellbeing, body size, male care giving, men’s experiences in diverse faith communities, and men and alternative spiritualities. Ongoing development of geographical work on men and masculinities is important for helping to contest patriarchal structures and knowledge production.     

Public Policy and the Idea of the Vietnamese State: The Cultural Political Economy of Domestic Water Supply

Using Rural Water Supply (RWS) policy practices as a case study, this article shows that the disjunction between implementation as formally conceived and informally practised is not a question of ineffective policy cycle dynamics, but rather an inherent feature of Vietnam’s Cultural Political Economy. Drawing on critical realist approaches to social and state theory, we argue that formal and informal RWS policy practices, as a set of two interconnected spheres, serve as key, separate but connected, mechanisms for reproducing the distribution of material resources (primarily through the informal sphere) and the hegemony of ideas (primarily through the formal sphere) in Vietnamese society. We conclude that the formal, administrative practices of RWS policy are primarily to be understood in their function of reproducing the idea of the state and state legitimacy. RWS administrative practices function to sustain the core social and political order in Vietnam as institutionalised in “the state”, rather than being primarily oriented to improving rural water supply. The findings raise questions for donor-supported programs that focus on formal administrative institutions and practices for improving the performance of the water sector.     

Exotericism and the Untroubled Race for the Future

Abstract

The simple case against the philosophic practice of exoteric writing is that it takes too long. Especially short of time are those who would contribute to or even attempt to keep up with the advance of what used to be called natural philosophy. The assumption of progress in science has been purchased with the relentless specialization of its practitioners. In theory transparent to inquiry, in practice specialized, science may be not just anti-exoteric but esoteric.     

792 or 793? Charlemagne’s canal project: craft,nature and memory

In autumn 793, Charlemagne visited the fossatum magnum (the ‘big ditch’ or canal) between the Rhine and Danube. Excavations, dendrochronology and a re‐reading of Carolingian Annals shed new light on the chronology and setting of this canal, which was planned in 792, initiated in 793, and abandoned later that year. The abandonment is attested by both written and archaeological evidence. The different versions of the annals offer a unique opportunity for comparison with the archaeological record. Evidence that works of Vitruvius circulated in the Carolingian court suggests that Charlemagne’s advisers were drawing on classical tradition when they pitched the idea of digging the canal.     

A Pre-Lapita Structure at Apalo,Arawe Islands,Papua New Guinea

Stilt structures in the inter-tidal zone or over shallow water on fringing reefs are widely accepted as a feature of settlements of the Lapita cultural complex in Near Oceania. Claims for similar structures in a pre-Lapita context at the Apalo site in the Arawe Islands, New Britain, Papua New Guinea, have been queried on several grounds. Re-evaluation of the Apalo evidence, together with 10 additional AMS radiocarbon dates, establishes human activity associated with some form of structure and possibly with a ground stone axe about 400–500 years before the Lapita pottery occupation. The paucity of occupational refuse suggests a non-residential structure perhaps associated with water transport. Comparisons with the older Dongan midden site in the Sepik-Ramu basin suggest stilt structures were probably used there as well. An apparent shift in depositional processes between the pre-Lapita and Lapita use of Apalo could reflect changed sea conditions arising from increased ENSO activity.