Symposium: Australia–US Economic Relations and the Regional Balance of PowerAustralia,the United States and the Trans-Pacific Partnership: Diverging Interests and Unintended Consequences

When the talks for a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) were launched in 2010, there appeared to be a coincidence of interests between the American and Australian governments in negotiating a high-quality, ‘21st-century’ trade arrangement that would multilateralise the bilateral and minilateral trade agreements that have proliferated in the Asia-Pacific region in the last 15 years. As the negotiations progressed, however, a divergence between American and Australian interests became apparent. Protectionist interests in the United States have prevented the administration from improving on market access agreements in the current preferential trade agreements with TPP partners, thereby undermining the multilateralisation objective. Some of the elements of the US template for 21st-century trade agreements, notably enhanced protection for intellectual property, and the inclusion of investor–state dispute resolution, clash with Australian trade priorities. Moreover, the central role of the TPP in the US ‘pivot to Asia’ has led to perceptions that it is part of a strategy to encircle China: consequently the TPP may force Australia to make the very choice between China and the United States that the government wishes to avoid.

当2010年启动跨太平洋伙伴关系时,在谈判高质量、“21世纪”的贸易安排时美国和澳大利亚政府的利益似乎走到了一起。这种贸易安排会使过去十五年里亚太地区繁荣的双边及微关系多边化。在谈判进行的过程中,美澳之间的分歧却变得明朗了。美国的保护主义利益集团阻碍政府在现行的与亚太伙伴的最惠贸易协定中改善贸易准入协定,因此损害了多边化的目标。美国21世纪贸易协议的模式,明显加强了知识产权的保护,而且包含了投资者—国家争端解决的内容,与澳大利亚贸易优先的考虑发生了冲突。但亚太伙伴关系在美国重心移往亚洲的计划中至关重要,让人觉得就是包围中国战略的一部分。因此亚太伙伴关系会迫使澳大利亚在中美之间做澳政府并不愿意做的选择。     

The Italian colonial cinema: Agendas and audiences

In 1997, Italy's leading politicians began the overdue process of revising the existing constitution. The bicameral commission of parliament charged with this task has proposed significant alterations to the country's institutional structure. Innovations include a directly elected presidency, an end to bicameralism and a greater role for sub‐national tiers of administration. However, this article argues that the suggested changes are in fact less sweeping than they seem, and do not address the country's urgent need to move towards a more competitive form of democracy.     

Editorial

For John Stuart Mill, Matthew Arnold, and their later Victorian respondents, the Stoic writer and second-century CE Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius represented a test-case for the sufficiency of the ostensibly masculine practices of askesis and detachment as ethical ideals, specifically in the context of Christianity. A brief passage in Mill's On Liberty (1859) comparing Stoic ethics with Christian ethical practice provoked an extended response from Arnold in an 1863 review essay. Mill and Arnold both used comparisons with Christianity to trace the contours and to explore the limits of Marcus Aurelius's ‘lovable’ nature; in doing so, Arnold in particular enacted a peculiar kind of historical sympathy for both the Marcus Aurelius that was and for a missed rapprochement between classical and Christian ethics. For a series of later writers, including freethinkers, religious conservatives and liberal Christians, Marcus Aurelius either promised or threatened to reconcile Stoicism with Christianity. Assessing the emperor in the light of Christianity became a means both for producing or denying a link to the classical past and for describing the condition of Christianity in England. A key point of contention for these writers and a landmark in the broader debate over Victorian secularization was the question of Marcus Aurelius' role in the torture and killing of 48 Christians at Lugdunum (Lyons) in 177 CE.     

The Exploitation of Carnivores and Other Fur-bearing Mammals during the North-western European Late and Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic

The exploitation of large mammals, particularly large herbivores, has dominated perceptions of Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic subsistence behaviour in north-western Europe. This paper critically reviews the evidence for the exploitation of a complementary resource which has received little attention within the archaeological literature — carnivores and other fur-bearing mammals. Evidence for exploitation of individual species is described and discussed. A model is then developed to explain the apparent expansion of the subsistence base to include a wide range of fur-bearing mammals during the Lateglacial and Mesolithic. This paper concludes by arguing that although the use of carnivore meat and pelts cannot be viewed as a dominant trend in European hunter-gatherer subsistence practices, their contribution to hunter-gatherer economies cannot be ignored.     

Political and Socioeconomic Indicators of State Restrictiveness Toward Abortion

We compare the relative impacts of political and socioeconomic factors on state restrictiveness toward abortion during the pre-Roe, pre-Webster and post-Webster time frames. This analysis tests the value of cycle theory, where shifting epochs dominated by liberalism and conservatism enhance the role of political variables in shaping policy formation. It also tests the explanatory value of public opinion theory which holds that bimodal issues which cut across party lines accentuate the role of socioeconomic variables in shaping issue evolution. The results of this analysis lend support to cycle theory and public opinion theory, although public opinion theory receives stronger support. When socioeconomic independent variables are regressed against our dichotomous measures of state restrictiveness toward abortion, they explain more variance than political independent variables. Political variables were more important in the conservative era (1989) than in the liberal era (1972).