Recollecting bones: the remains of German-Australian colonial entanglements

This article critically engages with the different politics of memory involved in debates over the restitution of Indigenous Australian ancestral remains stolen by colonial actors in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and brought to Berlin in the name of science. The debates crystallise how deeply divided German scientific discourses still are over the question of whether the historical and moral obligations of colonial injustice should be accepted or whether researchers should continue to profess scientific ‘disinterest’. The debates also reveal an almost unanimous disavowal of Indigenous Australian knowledges and mnemonic conceptions across all camps. The bitter ironies of this disavowal become evident when Indigenous Australian quests for the remains of their ancestral dead lost in the limbo of German scientific collections are juxtaposed with white Australian (fictional) quests for the remains of Ludwig Leichhardt, lost in the Australian interior.     

Modification of Dynamic Foundation Response Due to Soil-Structure Interaction

This paper presents the results from extensive parametric dynamic analyses of soil-structure systems that focus on the clear modification (increase or decrease) of the acceleration amplitude at the foundation with respect to the free-field, especially for squatty structures. Properties of the systems are selected such as to cover a wide range of meaningful geometries and materials for engineering practice. The results are presented in terms of weighted modification factors of the maximum foundation acceleration amplitude with reference to the corresponding maximum acceleration amplitude at free-field, for squatty and more slender structures. For the large majority of the studied systems, foundation acceleration decreases from the free-field by 10–15% on average. Nevertheless, acceleration demand at the foundation increases compared to the free-field, for 30% of squatty and for 15% of the more slender structures. Modification of the foundation acceleration amplitude is also correlated with the ratio of the predominant period of the input motion to the flexible-base system period. Finally, the findings of this study are compared with sparse available recorded data from the Seismic Hazard Harmonization in Europe database.     

Rethinking the Politics–Religion Distinction

William T. Cavanaugh argues that the politics–religion distinction presupposes covert commitments that inappropriately support a “migration of the holy” from the church to the state. Despite his strong critical instincts, several of his genealogical propensities appear to stand in tension with his commitments to constitutional democracy and the universality of grace. By contrast with Cavanaugh, John Rawls’ post-metaphysical reformulation of the politics–religion aims to identify a public criterion compatible with a plurality of comprehensive doctrines. Although I commend Rawls for retaining some form of this distinction, I question the possibility of a post-metaphysical standpoint and its compatibility with his commitment to what he calls the “fact of pluralism.” Drawing on Bernard Lonergan’s transpositions of human nature and grace in this paper’s final section, I develop an alternative account of the relationship between politics and religion that aims to harmonize some of the strongest insights from the work of Cavanaugh and Rawls.     

“Neither too much nor too little” France,the USSR and the Helsinki CSCE

In the early 1970s, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) was the cornerstone of French foreign policy regarding East-West relations. It was considered by Paris as the best way to maintain dialogue with Moscow as well as an instrument to reach the Gaullist goal of overcoming the European status quo. This double objective explains why the French adopted an ambiguous attitude during the CSCE: even though their goal was to challenge the Brezhnev doctrine and initiate a process to meet the aspirations of peoples under Soviet domination, they knew that this would be a lengthy process. For them, it was necessary to avoid provoking the Soviets by putting forward expressively liberal proposals. The French leaders of the 1970s saw the CSCE as the multilateral prolongation of the Gaullist policy of ‘détente, entente, cooperation’.     

‘Supplicant Nationalism’ in Slovakia and Wales: Polyethnic Rights During the Nineteenth Century

During the nineteenth century, nationalists in Wales and Slovakia attempted to promote national goals by attempting to persuade English and Hungarian leaders to freely grant collective rights to the ‘subordinate’ nation. This strategy of ‘supplicant’ nationalism included effusive declarations of loyalty to the common state, exaggerated claims to moral superiority, and flattering comments about the ‘dominant’ nation. Supplicant nationalism closely resembles what Will Kymlicka called the struggle for ‘polyethnic rights’, but can still be seen as a form of nationalism.     

Sunflowers,youthful protestors and political achievements: lessons from Taiwan

ABSTRACT

In 2014, an interesting youth movement collective started small p political and big P Political action and resistance in Taiwan. Their protest was against the way a major trade agreement proposed between China and Taiwan was being non-democratically pushed through the Taiwanese legislature. In this article, we provide an analysis of the activities of the Sunflower Student Movement (SSM) as a means to record a relatively little-known youthful and youth-centric successful uprising. It serves to place the SSM, and other East Asian-based protests, on the map of young people’s political geographies, and explores the paradoxical political and spatial practices pursued by young Taiwanese. This case study makes visible the interconnectedness of big P/small p politics of everyday youth geographies within an Asian context.     

The business case for a free trade agreement between the European Union and Australia

ABSTRACT

The free trade agreement (FTA) between Australia and the European Union holds the promise of strengthened political collaboration and increasing economic integration. Both Australia and the European Union note increasing bilateral trade and investment. Oftentimes, data does not take current trends in global-value-chain participation for intermediary goods and services movements into account. Behind this sit the cross-border strategies and activities of business entities, whether multinationals or large, small or medium-sized enterprises. This article provides an in-depth investigation of the premise stemming from an FTA for Australian business. What advantages can politics hope to support through a business perspective? What is the global-value-chain part of the story, and what are the business challenges ahead? How can economic policy help shape this FTA to foster a productive bilateral business environment in a geopolitical and geoeconomic context in which regionalisation has taken on new momentum? Specific focus is given to the analysis of the higher education sector and to agriculture. These are two of the leading sectors in this FTA debate. Generating business value means setting negotiation agendas to target tariff and non-tariff barriers to counterbalance ambiguity in the conditions that shape the global business environment.     

Knowledge bases and regional development: collaborations between higher education and cultural creative industries

This paper builds on the assumption that cooperation between higher education institutions (HEIs) and creative and cultural industries (CCIs) stimulates innovation and economic growth at the regional level. It further assumes that HEIs and CCIs hold different perspectives on their intention to cooperate with external actors and, thus, there is a need for joint arenas to develop and integrate knowledge and practices among stakeholders across academia and industry. With this rationale in mind, the paper’s main objective is to discuss how universities’ roles in the establishment and development of locally embedded CCIs change or evolve over time. Taking a process economics perspective and building on a case study from the South of Norway, two questions are addressed: (1) What are the barriers – structural and cognitive-cultural – hindering cooperation between HEIs and CCIs in Southern Norway? and (2) How can long-term win-win cooperative arrangements between HEIs and CCIs be enhanced? Different knowledge bases, combined with lack of knowledge and understanding of the other sector’s expertise or knowledge content, and thus the lack of common language, were found to be the biggest barriers that must be overcome to stimulate strategic cooperation between HEIs and CCIs in Southern Norway. The findings support the need for a diverse and flexible policy where target initiatives are adjusted to CCIs’ needs and academic departments’ fields of knowledge to decrease barriers to cooperation, with the ultimate aim of moving from a situation of ‘lock-in’ towards the creation of new innovative and valuable relationships.     

Peace negotiations in the political marketplace: the implications of women's exclusion in the Sudan-South Sudan peace process

This article investigates the implications of women’s exclusion for the nature and durability of peace processes, and whether factors that undermine peace consolidation post-settlement might be prevented through more inclusive peacemaking. It examines the Sudan-South Sudan peace process that produced the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the roles women played in peacemaking and their exclusion from official negotiations, and the sources of insecurity post-CPA. South Sudan’s peace process shows that the exclusion of women can be understood as a canary in a coal mine: a highly visible marker of the broader exclusivity of such processes, and the complex dynamics of elite capture in war and peace processes. Women’s exclusion was the product of the region’s political marketplace, in which power and authority is secured by elites through violence and bargaining, to the exclusion of other groups. By understanding exclusion as a deliberate strategic tactic that extends from war into peacetime, I argue that the exclusion of women is not the reason why peace processes fail in and of itself, but rather the product of elite ownership of peace processes and the structure of many peace processes that facilitates and rewards such ownership, with serious consequences for the sustainability of peace post-settlement.