The Limits of Influence: Australia and the Future of New Caledonia, 1975 to 1988

From the late 1970s Australian governments (led in turn by Malcolm Fraser and Bob Hawke) expected New Caledonia to become independent. France responded with suspicion. From 1983, however, reformist governments in Australia and France took apparently converging views. But tensions rose because of unrest in New Caledonia and conflict over French nuclear testing. Australia’s limited capacity to influence developments waned further in 1986 when Jacques Chirac became French prime minister and countered the Kanak nationalist movement. Foreign Minister Bill Hayden favoured moderating Australia’s position, but the issue became moot in mid-1988 when the rival forces in New Caledonia agreed to the truce embodied in the Matignon Accords. The different approaches of the Fraser and Hawke governments reflected philosophical differences, the personal stance of key players, influences from their political movements, and the challenges of changing circumstances. Decades later, with a referendum due by November 2018, Australia’s approach is likely to be cautious.     

Political Time in a Westminster Democracy: The Canadian Case

Stephen Skowronek’s idea of political time is tested by applying it to Canada. Skowronek identified a recurring cycle in US presidential politics, in which a coalition was forged around a distinctive set of ideas, dominated the political scene, and then crumbled, making way for a new coalition; a president’s ability to act as an agent of change depended on his place in this cycle. The concept of political time offers insights for the study of Westminster democracies, but Skowronek’s typology cannot be transplanted from the US to the Canadian context. A political orthodoxy cannot be easily identified in Canada, and prime ministers cannot be clearly labeled as affiliated with or opposed to the ideas of a given era. Some seem determined to play a corrective role, accepting much of the orthodoxy but reconstructing some elements of it. This problem of classification is amplified by the very short term of some prime ministers, by the very long term of others, and by a multiparty system, which has meant that Canadians often end up with prime ministers who are out of synch with the dominant ideas of their age. When applying Skowronek’s ideas to Canada, they emerge as overly structural and not sensitive enough to the possibility that leaders can fail to perform according to type.     

Reading back from Experimental Painting

ABSTRACT

My book, Experimental Painting (1970), was the product of a decade of coming to terms with the history of modern art and with contemporary manifestations of the avantgarde. While at Cambridge from 1960 to 1967, I published art criticism, initially in locally published magazines, and then went on to review art exhibitions both nationally and internationally. This led to being co-editor of Form, which produced further opportunities. The term ‘experimental’ that I adopted in 1970 was intended to suggest the paradigm of scientific discovery which suited some, if not all, of the artists I studied. This article considers concepts directly imported from contemporary scientific enquiry that seemed relevant to me at the time, notably those from experimental psychology, psychoanalysis and structural linguistics. I relate them to the character of intellectual life at Cambridge in a period which saw much debate about the relationship between Sciences and Humanities as ‘Two Cultures’.     

The “informer” and the political and organisational culture of the Irish republican movement: old and new interpretations

This article will analyse recent interpretations of the “informer” as a subject of political and historical significance for a balanced understanding of the trajectory of the Provisional Republican movement. It will do so in part through a discussion of some recent fiction and memoir-writing devoted to the figure of the informer. Specifically, this will involve an exploration of the recent fictional re-imagination of the real-life case of Denis Donaldson, by the French journalist Sorj Chalandon (Mon traître, 2007 and Retour à Killybegs, 2011) (These novels have been translated into English as My Traitor (2011) and Return to Killybegs (2013)). All subsequent references are to the English versions. In the first section, the article analyses the historical evolution of the phenomenon and recent revelations regarding the apparently widespread existence of informers in the movement during the Troubles. This section engages with the academic debate concerning the effects of these revelations upon the morale and internal political culture of the republican movement; it is argued here that the “Republican family” has been significantly affected by these disclosures in the “post-conflict” era, and that they have become an important element in the contestation between leadership supporters and “dissenters” within contemporary republicanism. The second section utilises old and new literary representations of “the informer”, particularly based around Liam O’Flaherty’s The Informer and Chalandon’s work, to discuss continuities and changes in the image and perception of this phenomenon. It is argued that the interweaving of fiction with real-life and factual historical detail is a particularly appropriate means of interpreting the role and effects of the informer.     

THE LIVING PAST

It is argued that although this book will be of interest to any scholar interested in Croce, Gentile, or de Ruggiero, it will be of particular interest to those interested in R. G. Collingwood, for the ultimate focus of the book is upon Collingwood's philosophy and how it developed in relation to the work of the Italian idealists. This is a subject that has not previously been investigated in any depth. Peters argues that the basic idea that unites all four philosophers is that “the past is not dead, but living”; but what distinguishes Collingwood's philosophy from the Italians' is the idea, and its justification, that “the past can live on even if we are not aware of it.” Collingwood explored and developed this idea in reaction to the “presentism” of the Italians, a position that is most obvious in the philosophy of Gentile but that is also to be found, albeit less obviously, in the philosophies of Croce and de Ruggiero. Without casting doubt upon the influence of the Italian idealists on Collingwood, it is suggested in this review that, as well as explaining that influence, Peters's book also throws Collingwood's similarities with Oakeshott into relief; by contrast with Collingwood, there is no evidence that Oakeshott ever read the Italian idealists.