Novus Ordo Seclorum

Review in this Article
Michael H. Hunt. Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy . New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987. xiv + 237 pp.     

"That Admirable Italian Gentleman": The View from America (and from Italy)

Review in this Article
David F. Schmitz. The United States and Fascist Italy, 1922–1940 . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988. x + 273 pp     

DOWNTOWN OR THE SUBURBS? A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF TWO VANCOUVER HEAD OFFICES

Office location policy in Canadian cities has often emphasized the social costs of job-residence separation. From a survey of two Vancouver corporations, one centrally located and the other relocated to Burnaby, it was found that employees in both head offices are equally satisfied with their job location, if for different reasons. As policy suggests, decentralization is associated with a shorter journey to work, especially for clerical staff; however, unforeseen by policy, management is more ambivalent about suburban relocation, primarily for business reasons. In addition, employees express significant differences in evaluating new and old head office buildings as a work environment. La politique concernant la situation des bureaux dans les villes canadiennes a souvent insisté sur les coǔts sociaux entraǐnés par la distance séparant le lieu de travail du lieu de résidence. Une enquěte par sondage concernant la relation géographique entre les lieux de résidence et de travail évalue le degré de satisfaction des employés d'agences centrales de deux sociétés commerciales de Vancouver. Etant donné le besoin d'un nouvel emplacement, une des sociétés commerciales s'est décentralisée, alors que l'autre s'est maintenue en ville dans ses édifices traditionnels. L'ensemble des employés des deux sociétés sont également satisfaits de la location de leurs bureaux (quelquefois pour des raisons différentes). Comme le suggère la politique, la décentralisation est associée à un trajet plus court pour se rendre au travail, particulièrernent pour les employés de bureaux; cependant (et ceci nétait pas prévu par la politique), la direction est plus ambivalente en ce qui concerne la relocalisation en banlieues, principalement pour des raisons d'affaires. De plus, les employés expriment des différences significatives dans l'évaluation des nouveaux et des anciens édifices d'agence centrale en tant qu'en-vironnement de travail.     

Defining the ‘Environmental Problem’: Local Conservation Strategies in Metropolitan Victoria

Although the three tiers of government in Australia are becoming much more aware of environmental issues, it is frequently up to local government to implement policies impacting on the land, water and air. In Victoria, Local Conservation Strategies are one mechanism to have been utilised by local government to decentralise environmental management and enable a greater community contribution to environmental decision-making and management. This paper considers the effectiveness of these strategies.     

Professionalism and Australia's Security Intellectuals: Knowledge,Power, Responsibility

This article examines critically the systemic 'professionalism' which has overtaken Australia's defence and security community in the 1990s. It focuses on the unhealthy convergence of academic security studies at the Australian National University with an overriding foreign policy priority of the Australian Government: the formation of a new regional identity based on themes of 'engagement' and 'enmeshment' with Asia. It argues that the main consequence of this 'professionalist' trend is a mode of inquiry that expunges politics, ethics and responsibility from academic discourse on security. The article also addresses briefly an emerging postmodern politics of dissidence in the disciplines of security studies and political geography which has transformed our understanding of the role and social responsibility of security intellectuals.