Lost at Sea: Finnish government,shipping companies and the United Nations embargo against China during the 1950s

Finnish Cold War foreign policy was based on the desire to stay out of all international disputes. Yet, during the 1950s, two Finnish tankers, Wiima and Aruba, received an enormous amount of foreign attention when they tried to sail to Communist China. The United Nations had urged all countries, including non-members such as Finland, to stop selling strategic goods to China, which had intervened in the Korean War. The embargo created a highly profitable opening in the shipping market for anyone willing to transport such goods, and Finnish companies tried to fill it. This article suggests that they were in fact undermining the embargo more extensively than has been generally known. When the Finns were criticized for their actions, they interpreted this as a sign of the ruthlessness of great powers. At first, the Finnish government failed to recognize that these companies drove the country into the middle of international conflict and then took little decisive action to steer the country out of it. The allegedly pragmatic Finnish foreign policy was in this case actually based on unreliable information and incorrect assumptions.     

Measure of Despair: the Syndicate for Commerce and Industry,the London Tribune,and German Foreign Policy, 1906–8

Based on fresh archival sources in Germany and Britain, this article offers new insight into the mindest of the German Foreign Ministry in the aftermath of the First Morocco Crisis of 1905/06. Eager to arrest the deterioration in the Anglo-German relationship and concerned about its fallout for US-German relations, the German Foreign Ministry, in league with twenty of the country's top financiers, took a radical initiative which resulted in Germany's largest expenditure, before the First World War, on influencing the press. The article closes with a transnational comparison, detailing a similar influence-buying scheme masterminded by a high-level British political wire-puller.     

Beyond ‘Parade Ground Soldiers’: French Army Assessments of the British in 1918

When the Germans launched their Spring Offensives of 1918, they placed tremendous pressure on the alliance between Britain and France. While French and British soldiers had formed strong relations through mutual cooperation at the Somme in 1916, the French experiences at Verdun and during the mutinies of 1917 had changed the way they viewed the war and, most crucially, how they would view any allied failures. When the British were forced to retreat following the beginning of Operation Michael in March 1918, the French reacted with fury. This article examines the nature of the French evaluations of the British during 1918 and the extent to which they judged their ally to have failed them. By using the collections of the Commissions de contrôle postal for the French army during the war, it will show the depths to which French opinion of the British fell in the first half of the year but also how British actions towards the war’s conclusion managed to restore some of their honour in French eyes.     

Introduction

The second Berlusconi government came to power at the end of a period of unprecedented change in Italian politics to which the term 'Italian transition' is frequently applied. While the new government's arrival has not brought the transition to an end, the manner of its election powerfully symbolizes the end of much of what was 'unique' about the Italian polity. Such uniqueness derived essentially from the tripolar nature of the country's party system and the 'blocked' character of its democracy. The crisis of the early 1990s gave rise to the onset of a regime transition whose phases can be described analytically by applying Flanagan's (1973) developmental framework and Linz's (1978) breakdown and re-equilibration model. Given the transition's 'stalling', the article considers what kind of and how much change has taken place in the Italian political system and the degree to which the second Berlusconi government might represent a new departure for it. The Introduction concludes by presenting the 'aspects of the Italian transition' discussed in the following five articles.     

FANY (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry) ‘Other Spaces’: toward an application of Foucault's heterotopias as alternate spaces of social ordering

This article applies the principles of Foucault's (1986) concept of heterotopia to the spatial imaginaries and material realities of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY), an elite organisation of British women volunteers who served on the Western Front during World War I. First, the FANY created crisis heterotopia shaped by the history and politics of the period and linked to gendered cultural anxieties at this slice in time; second, FANY space was ordered and made accessible through the interplay of class privilege and patriotic national identity; third, it involved possibilities for transgression through the heterotopic juxtaposition of material practices of domesticity within and against sites of combat; and finally, FANY space both involved an utopian element that contrasted with other real spaces available to women and helped reveal the gendered politics of those traditional sites.     

两次鸦片战争期间清朝对欧美小国的外交

两次鸦片战争期间,清朝政府将欧美小国与欧美列强“一视同仁”,宁愿让欧美小国享受欧美列强从清朝攫取的除割地赔款之外的种种特权,也不轻易满足欧美小国提出的符合近代国际惯例的一些要求.这样,清朝对欧美小国的外交也不断丧权辱国.究其原因,在于清朝以传统的“天朝上国”思想来指导近代对欧美小国的外交;清朝对欧美小国外交的最主要目的,是为了维护“天朝上国”的体制,而不是保护近代意义上的国家主权.     

论雪山一期文化

雪山一期文化是中国北方地区新石器时代的一支代表性文化。本文对其文化内涵、分期年代、分布范围、 地方类型、来龙去脉、对外关系等问题进行了探讨。     

巴基斯坦国家构建进程的多维阐释

现代巴基斯坦的历史线索纷繁复杂,以国家构建的视角对其进行考察是一种可尝试的研究路径。认识巴基斯坦的国家构建进程,需要从三组结构性矛盾切入:一是国家认同与非国家认同的矛盾,二是军人干政倾向与民主诉求的矛盾,三是世俗主义与宗教化的矛盾。三组矛盾可追溯到巴基斯坦国家建立时期乃至更久远的历史,并嵌入巴基斯坦的社会环境和地缘环境之中。每一组矛盾都会对另外两组矛盾造成影响,影响方式可分为"逻辑关联型"和"现实策略型"两类。三组矛盾可分别归纳为国家认同、政体、国体三个维度,它们共同构成巴基斯坦国家构建的立体图景。巴基斯坦的国家构建本质上是一个价值性问题,三组矛盾都是围绕着"把巴基斯坦建成一个什么样的国家"这一命题展开。     

美国社会组织与联合国人权规范的起源

二战爆发后,美国社会组织在对战争与和平问题的研究中提出依靠国际组织保障人权的规范构想。美国政府则并未重视人权议题,人权在敦巴顿橡树园会议上只处于边缘地位。社会组织在此后掀起大规模的游说活动,要求提高人权议题的地位,这使得美国政府考虑融合社会组织的人权规范构想与主权规范原则。旧金山会议上,美国说服其他大国接受其人权立场,极力否决拉美国家的人权提案,体现出美国借人权话语行使霸权的实质意图。最终出台的《联合国宪章》多处涉及人权,奠定了此后联合国人权规范的基础。但是,社会组织与美国政府围绕人权的争论凸显了宪章人权条款的复杂特征,这使得美国在此后联合国人权规范的发展中面临更多的挑战。     

美英在联合国中国代表权问题上的分歧与协调(1950-1951)

有关中国在联合国的代表权问题,美国的基本立场是反对中国代表权变更,尽管在朝鲜战争爆发前后有微妙的区别,此前主要是私下操纵,此后则公开阻挠。英国的投票立场经历了从弃权、赞成中国代表权变更到最终支持美国在联合国搁置对中国代表权问题讨论的演变过程。而且,英国赞成新中国取得合法代表权并不意味着取缔国民党集团的非法代表,其政策转轨亦不同步。在1950年1-6月,英国开始由弃权走向有条件赞成新中国取得席位,美英分歧凸现,各自为自己的立场游说其他安理会成员国。1950年6月-1951年1月是美英分歧与协调的高峰时期,英国逐渐走向赞成接纳新中国代表同时驱逐国民党非法代表的立场。美国则不遗余力地反对中国代表权的变更。1951年2-6月,英国由赞成中国代表权变更转向支持美国在联合国搁置对这一问题的讨论,美英纷争基本平息。美英在这一问题上的分歧除了反映两国对华政策的差异外,也折射出两国对联合国组织的不同理念。