International relations and foreign policy in the Australian Journal of Political Science: A review

The Australian Journal of Political Science (AJPS) has evolved from a publication that deliberately relegated articles in international relations (IR) to a secondary status to one that has defined and encouraged leading-edge contributions to that field. This development can be attributed to successive AJPS editorial teams’ realisation that contemporary political problems are increasingly interconnected and that emerging approaches to IR reflect this condition. Several recent and key IR debates that have emerged within the journal’s pages are assigned special attention here: the linking of Australia’s domestic politics to that country’s foreign policy interests and behaviour; in-depth discussions that relate to ongoing trends in the international political economy; critical analysis of national defence and regional security postures; and diverse theoretical perspectives that are increasingly shaping the IR field’s paradigmatic identity. It is concluded that the AJPS is now a leading source of IR thought and discourse.     

A Spanish Man‐o‐War in New Zealand? The 1864 wreck of Grafton and its lessons for pre‐Cook shipwreck claims

This paper considers the 1864 wreck of Grafton in the Auckland Islands, and its implications for wreck analysis and pre‐Cook exploration claims. The captain of Grafton, Thomas Musgrave, stated that the schooner was built from the wreck of a Spanish man‐o‐war, and archaeological analysis of the wreck found that the timbers are a tropical South American species, and had possibly been reused. The implications of this are clear; it is possible that timbers that originated in pre‐Cook (1769) ships lie in New Zealand, but without a full understanding of the historical and archaeological context of any such timbers, including their reuse in later ships, it is not possible to claim proof of pre‐Cook European exploration of New Zealand.     

Neglect,Inattention, and Legislative Deficiencies: The Consequences of One-Party Deliberations in The U.S. House

Congressional scholars have conducted little research on the consequences of the majority party controlling bill formulation and excluding minority members from the legislative process. Critics of one-party deliberations use case-study evidence to argue that such processes lead to error-prone, often defective legislation. However, no large-N analysis has sought to operationalize and verify this effect. I develop new empirical strategies to explore claims about the relationship between deliberative procedures and policy outcomes. Examining legislation drafted in the U.S. House between 1987 and 2008, I find suggestive but consistent evidence of error-prone bills being developed under one-party processes.     

Has the euro sustainably increased home price co‐movement?

A low level of co‐movement between different euro country housing markets creates difficulties for the ECB in setting monetary policy. Such co‐movement across eurozone countries has been the subject of a number of studies, using different methodologies and finding mixed results. In this study, we use endogenous break methods to explicitly test for whether the introduction of the euro has changed home value co‐movement. We also employ informal correlation analysis. Endogenous break results indicate no sustainable increase in co‐movement attributable to the euro, whereas correlation analysis is suggestive of a decrease in synchronization since the currency's introduction.