State Boundaries and Agricultural Change in the South Eastern Australian Wheat Belt: Counterfactual Analyses, 1891–1911

An analysis of the Australian wheat belt, 1891–1911, develops and tests a model of wheat belt expansion and evaluates the consequences of two counterfactuals involving revised state boundaries. Results show that percentage county wheat acreage is related to land availability, soil quality, rainfall, markets, and railroads, and demonstrates the role played by state land laws and railroad construction policies. The use of counterfactuals is of value to create historical-geographic ‘might have beens’.     

LA DÉCENTRALISATION DES SERVICES SUPÉRIEURS DANS LA RÉGION MÉTROPOLITAINE DE MONTRÉAL, 1981–1989

Certaines activités tertiaires ont la capacité de jouer un role de ‘moteur’économique. Ces activités du ‘tertiaire moteur,’ ou ‘services supérieurs,’ constituent une partie importante de la base économique des régions métropolitaines. Récemment, aux États-Unis, des chercheurs ont commencéà remarquer la tendance de ces activitès à quitter leur ‘habitat naturel’ dans le centre d'affaires des grandes villes pour se relocaliser dans des ‘edge cities’ ou ‘magnet areas’ vers la périphérie de la zone métropolitaine. Le but principal de cet article est de vérifier si la région métropolitaine de Montréal se caractérise, elle aussi, par des tendances semblables de décentralisation des services supérieurs. Nous utilisons la base de données longitudinales sur les entreprises canadiennes de Statistique Canada pour examiner la question de la décentralisation de ces activités dans la région montréalaise. Nos résultats indiquent que pour 11 des 17 secteurs d'activité compris dans les services supérieurs, la période 1981–1989 a vu un transfert du poids relatif de la ville de Montréal vers les deux couronnes périphériques de la région métropolitaine. Ce transfert été plus fort dans les services financiers, d'assurances et d'affaires immobilières que dans les services aux entreprises. Certain service activities have the capacity to play the role of a ‘motor’ of economic development. These ‘hight-order services’ now form one of the principal components of the economic base of metropolitan areas. Recently, researchers in the U.S. have begun to notice a new propensity for these activities to leave their ‘natural habitat’ in the downtown business district of large cities and to relocate in ‘edge cities’ or ‘magnet areas’ toward the periphery of the metropolitan region. The purpose of this article is to verify if the Montreal metropolitan region is characterized by similar patterns of spatial decentralization of high-order services. Our study uses Statistic Canada's Longitudinal Database on Businesses in the Canadian Economy to examine this issue. Our results indicate that for the period 1981-1989, 11 of 17 high-order service sectors were marked by a relative shift from the City of Montreal towards the periphery of the metropolitan area. This shift was more pronounced for the finance, insurance, and real estate group than for the business service group.     

The Islamic State lexical battleground: US foreign policy and the abstraction of threat

This article suggests that President Obama's consistent references to the extremist Sunni group as ‘ISIL’ (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) is not a trivial matter of nomenclature. Instead, the Obama administration's deliberate usage of the ISIL acronym (as opposed to other commonly‐used terms such as ‘Islamic State of Iraq and Syria’ or ‘ISIS’, ‘Islamic State’, ‘IS’, ‘so‐called Islamic State’ and ‘Daesh’) frames the public perception of the threat to avoid engagement with the requirements of strategy and operations. Both the labelling and the approach could be defended as a response to the unique challenge of a transnational group claiming religious and political legitimacy. However, we suggest that the labelling is an evasion of the necessary response, reflecting instead a lack of coherence in strategy and operations—in particular after the Islamic State's lightning offensive in Iraq and expansion in Syria in mid‐2014. This tension between rhetoric, strategy and operations means that ‘ISIL’ does not provide a stable depiction of the Islamic State. While it may draw upon the post‐9/11 depiction of ‘terrorism’, the tag leads to dissonance between official and media representations. The administration's depiction of a considered approach leading to victory has been undermined by the abstraction of ‘ISIL’, which in turn produced strategic ambiguity about the prospect of any political, economic or military challenge to the Islamic State.     

GOLD AND SILVER ALLOY COATINGS OVER COPPER: AN EXAMINATION OF SOME ARTEFACTS FROM ECUADOR AND COLOMBIA

An examination, by metallography, atomic absorption spectrophotometry, and electron probe microanalysis of some decorative metalwork and small items such as needles and fish-hooks from Ecuador and Colombia revealed that ‘fusion-gilding’ or ‘wash-gilding’ was employed in the manufacture of many artefacts. The coatings found included silver alloy coatings over copper and gold alloys over copper. The coatings are often themselves superficially enriched at the surface; they are thick, and completely different from the surfaces found on depletion gilded objects which are far more common in ancient Colombia. The evidence from Ecuador is piecemeal and a considerable number of additional analyses must be carried out to clarify the extent of use of this surface treatment technology.     

Land Transport Reforms and the Economic Geography of the Northern Territory

Agreements at the special Premiers' Conferences in October 1990 and July 1991 removed Northern Territory Government control over the setting of heavy vehicle registration charges and arrangements for local roads funding on Aboriginal land. In relating the way in which the Northern Territory Government has traditionally administered these policy areas and reacted to the Premiers' Conference agreements, it is shown how land transport policy has been used to facilitate a preferred direction for development of the Territory's economic geography, namely, one in which costs to the private sector are subsidised and activities on privately-owned Aboriginal land are controlled. The agreements should result in a more equitable administration of land transport pol icy in the Territory. Changes to the administration of land transport reflect a broader shift in Australian Federal relations, in which the Commonwealth has sought greater national uniformity of transport policy. This has major implications for the future economic geography of the Northern Territory.     

Economic Development,Social Identity and Community Empowerment in the Central and Western Amazon

A multi-dimensional and multi-scalar perspective is used to contrast different experiences with community development involving new settlers, the historic riverine peasantry and Amerindians on and beyond the advancing frontier in the Brazilian Amazon. Local development is shown to occur only when a compromise is reached between the economic development of individual farmers, common social background and community political empowerment. However, the local development of communities does not necessarily result in regional development because contradictions present between political actors can cancel out gains in one dimension or scale vis-à-vis others and so frustrate wider processes.