Defending Empire at the United Nations: The Politics of International Colonial Oversight in the Era of Decolonisation

This article argues that, although anti-colonial delegations to the 1945 San Francisco Conference did not succeed in bringing all colonial territories under the umbrella of international trusteeship, the threat of expanding international oversight shaped the relationship between colonial governments and international organisations in powerful ways. By focusing on how the UN Special Committee on Non-Self-Governing Territories evolved as a de facto supervisory system for dependent territories, this article considers the ways that representatives at the United Nations defined dependency and self-government and explores the crusade that colonial governments led to justify imperialism in the post-war world. Through a consideration of the diplomatic actions of France, Great Britain and Belgium, this article explores the ways that colonial empires jointly mobilised to defend colonialism at the level of the United Nations. In the face of evolving supervisory mechanisms at the United Nations, the French, British and Belgian delegations joined forces in an attempt to expose some of the inherent contradictions in UN policy towards dependent populations, and to make the case that subject populations living in independent territories often endured worse conditions than those living in formal overseas empires.     

‘What has Ghana Got That We Haven't?’ Party Politics and Anti-Colonialism in Botswana, 1960–66

This article offers a re-examination of the period leading up to independence in Botswana, formerly known as the Bechuanaland Protectorate, between 1960 and 1966. With the use of original archival material from Botswana and the United Kingdom, it aims to explain why the Bechuanaland Democratic Party overwhelmingly defeated the Bechuanaland People's Party in the March 1965 elections for self-government. Botswana's post-colonial transition was unusual for being without a mass, social movement for national self-determination. The Democratic Party, led by Seretse Khama, favoured close cooperation with the British colonial authority and a gradualist transition to independence, while the People's Party closely adhered to the ideology of anti-colonialism and demanded immediate independence. This article will argue that the Democratic Party won independence due to its sacrifice of anti-colonial credentials, in the short term, in favour of a political platform that addressed the long-term challenges of Bechuanaland's quest for viable statehood. The research helps to explain why Botswana was slow to develop closer relations with fellow independent African states. As a provincialised history of decolonisation, this article shows the potential for variance within the wider anti-colonial movement, which incorporated diverse actors, agendas and geopolitical conditions.     

‘A Hazardous Task’: Britain and the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations

In 2014, the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations celebrated its fiftieth anniversary since its coming into force in 1964. Setting out the privileges and immunities accorded to diplomats and diplomatic missions, the negotiations of this convention were part of the United Nations' plan to strengthen the international rule of law. This article analyses the role of Britain, one of the major actors in the negotiation process. It explores how Britain's negotiation position was shaped by diplomatic realities of the 1950s, and the strategies used to ensure Britain's interests being reflected in the final convention. The focus will be on the overall political pressure that underlined Britain's negotiation position, in order to reveal the general UK position on the codification of diplomatic privileges and immunities. Despite the remarkably friendly atmosphere at the 1961 Vienna conference, Britain could not press through all its amendments which, through the concluding legislation process, protracted Britain's ratification process. The article shows while London was supporting the codification of international law, codification by convention was not its ultimate choice. Therefore, the subsequent legislation process was marked by an inter-departmental dispute between the Foreign Office and Treasury, inter alia, on the exemption of Scotch whisky from excise duties.     

Brands of youth citizenship and the politics of scale: National Citizen Service in the United Kingdom

This paper explores the politics of scale in the context of youth citizenship. We propose the concept of ‘brands of youth citizenship’ to understand recent shifts in the state promotion of citizenship formations for young people, and demonstrate how scale is crucial to that agenda. As such, we push forward debates on the scaling of citizenship more broadly through an examination of the imaginative and institutional geographies of learning to be a citizen. The paper's empirical focus is a state-funded youth programme in the UK – National Citizen Service – launched in 2011 and now reaching tens of thousands of 15–17 year olds. We demonstrate the ‘branding’ of youth citizenship, cast here in terms of social action and designed to create a particular type of citizen-subject. Original research with key architects, delivery providers and young people demonstrates two key points of interest. First, that the scales of youth citizenship embedded in NCS promote engagement at the local scale, as part of a national collective, whilst the global scale is curiously absent. Second, that discourses of youth citizenship are increasingly mobilised alongside ideas of Britishness yet fractured by the geographies of devolution. Overall, the paper explores the scalar politics and performance of youth citizenship, the tensions therein, and the wider implications of this study for both political geographers and society more broadly at a time of heated debate about youthful politics in the United Kingdom and beyond.     

The role of ‘diplomatic lobbying’ in shaping US foreign policy and its effects on the Australia–US relationship

Lobbying as a form of engagement with the US Congress has long been studied from a domestic perspective. Lobbying, however, is not a practice confined to actors with domestic interests—it is also used as a form of diplomacy by many foreign governments, including Australia. Diplomatic lobbying is a vastly understudied phenomenon and its impact on US foreign relations is rarely examined. Unlike most Westminster-based democracies, the USA has two branches directly involved with foreign affairs—the Executive and Congress—each of which is important for different aspects of foreign policy development. Australia has found lobbying the US Congress to be a powerful tool for diplomatic engagement. This article looks at the role of the US Congress in foreign affairs, the effects of lobbying, and the ways in which diplomats engage with and lobby Congress. Australia’s specific lobbying efforts and their effects on the US–Australia relationship are then examined.     

North Korea’s participation in the Universal Periodic Review of Human Rights

North Korea’s participation in the UNHRC’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR)—a peer review in which states make recommendations to one another for improving human rights implementation—is a notable exception to its rejection of other human rights mechanisms. What explains North Korea’s willing participation in the UPR? This essay analyses North Korea’s participation in the first (2008–11) and second (2012–15) UPR cycles through its written submissions, responses to recommendations, and recommendations to other states. It finds that North Korea has consistently accepted weak recommendations, rejected more specific policy changes, and implemented accepted recommendations on a limited basis, allowing it to claim compliance with human rights at minimal cost. The UPR’s reliance on states’ self-reports and its inability to adjudicate competing factual claims allow North Korea to reject claims of egregious abuses, openly advocate for a radically state-centric vision of human rights, and challenge the legitimacy of human rights mechanisms like the Commission of Inquiry and Special Rapporteur while building support from other states with similar views. Notably, the Commission of Inquiry appears to have motivated North Korea to increase its cooperation with the UPR, demonstrating that the UPR complements but cannot replace other UN human rights mechanisms.     

Italy during the Rhine Crisis of 1840

The paper addresses the impact of the Rhine Crisis of 1840 on Italian countries and explains the role they played in the European State System when the Continent seemed to be on the eve of a general war. As the paper attempts to prove, the crisis seriously alarmed the ruling classes as well as the general public and revealed the internal problems of the Italian countries as well as their deep distrust towards the egotistic and self-serving policies of the Great Powers. The paper therefore introduces the history of Italy during late 1840 within the wider context of European diplomatic history and serves as a probe into the history of the European State System during the Pre-March period in general.     

对近20年来美国中国“民族主义”研究中“冷战”思维范式的反思

在美国学界关于当代中国"民族主义"研究中,部分学者依然延续着"冷战"思维范武。这种范式的主要特征是:思维预设上表现为强调东西方意识形态的对立;思维理路体现为从共产主义意识形态的角度考量中国"民族主义";在分析中国"民族主义"方法上采取单方面展示的策略。从本质上讲,"冷战"思维范式是西方中心思维范式的极端化,其思维根源是二元对立的思维方式。以"冷战"思维范式考量当代中国"民族主义"问题给中美公众带来了相互敌视的恶性循环,而"冷战"思维范式中也凸显了美国部分学者双重标准的悖论。     

Chiefdoms and states in the Yuncheng Basin and the Chifeng region: A comparative analysis of settlement systems in North China

Regional settlement datasets for the Yuncheng Basin and the Chifeng region are re-analyzed for comparison so as to reconstruct differing patterns of community development at local and supra-local scales. A methodological implication of this reanalysis is that comparing settlement areas and surface artifact densities between projects requires special attention to how the data were recorded so as to put them on the same measurement scale. The analytical approaches originally taken to reconstructing community organization in the two regions, while differing in several respects, are shown to produce highly compatible results, permitting a comparison of the two trajectories with a sound empirical foundation. Neolithic settlement began much earlier in Chifeng, but rates of demographic and community growth were extremely slow. In Yuncheng, early village growth was much more dramatic. Multiple chiefly districts of modest size emerged in both regions, but those of Yuncheng, despite their shorter developmental trajectory, had substantially larger populations. Their central settlements, in particular, grew to be much larger than those in Chifeng and the special activities carried out at these centers differed between the two regions. A poorly understood, but not contemporaneous, demographic disruption punctuated both sequences. It was followed by the emergence of political integration on a much larger scale in the Yuncheng Basin, focused on a single settlement an order of magnitude larger than its predecessors. In Chifeng, regional population soared far beyond previous levels, but political integration remained persistently small in scale.     

Explaining Shell-Tempered Pottery in Prehistoric Eastern North America

Explanations for the rise in frequency of shell-tempered pottery in the Eastern United States have vacillated between historical and functional accounts. Using evolutionary theory, the historical records of first appearance and diffusion are woven with physical properties of shell-tempered pottery that may have led to its selection. An appreciation of the scale at which change occurs and the units of analysis most appropriate for understanding that change is necessary for an explanation that can account for the widespread use of shell-tempering and the more-or-less coincident rise in its frequency. A hypothesis with empirical consequences is offered as a starting point for understanding this phenomenon.