Continuity and change: prospects for civil—military relations in Turkey

Early indications suggest that the appointment of General Yaþar Büyükanýt as chief of the Turkish general staff (TGS) at the end of August 2006 marked a new era in civil‐military relations in the country. Yet it would be a mistake to see the military's more forthright attitude under Büyükanýt simply as a return to the past. Civil‐military relations in Turkey have always been characterized by a combination of continuity and change. Both the legal basis for and the TGS's own perceptions of the role and responsibilities of the military have remained unchanged for over 70 years. However, the extent and the manner in which the military has influenced politics have always varied. In recent years the TGS's ability to ensure that government policy remains within acceptable parameters has been primarily based on its public prestige rather than the prospect of a full‐blooded military coup. Although the TGS has always been the most respected institution in the country, the Turkish public's willingness to tolerate, or even to encourage, its assumption of a more active political role has traditionally varied according to changes in the prevailing domestic political circumstances: falling during times of stability and confidence and rising during times of uncertainty. In early 2007 both the country and the government of the moderately Islamist Justice and Development Party (JDP) appeared to have lost momentum and direction. In such an environment, and in the continued absence of an eff ective political opposition, many Turks will once again look to the country's military to prevent the JDP from increasing its control over the apparatus of state, starting with the appointment of a new president in April 2007. To date the JDP has always backed down in the face of pressure from the TGS. However, whether it will continue to do so, and what the TGS can or will do if the JDP defies its warnings, currently all remain unclear.     

Globalization, Corporate Social Responsibility and poverty

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become a major focus of interest for development practitioners in recent years. While development NGOs have been critical of voluntary corporate initiatives, official development agencies have taken a more positive view and in some cases encouraged CSR. This article locates the growth of CSR in the context of global deregulation since the early 1980s, highlighting the key drivers that have led to its adoption by many leading transnational corporations. It then describes the factors that have led to the recent emphasis given to CSR by both bilateral and multilateral development agencies and the United Nations. A framework for analysing the links between foreign direct investment and poverty is developed focusing on the impacts on the poor as producers, consumers and beneficiaries of government expenditures. This framework is used to illustrate the limitations of CSR in terms of likely impacts on poverty reduction through each of the channels identified and also to point to areas in which CSR may have some positive benefits. Overall, the article concludes that it is unlikely to play the significant role in poverty reduction in development countries that its proponents claim for it.     

Ethical Responsibility and the Historian: On the Possible End of a History "of a Certain Kind"

In this article I try to answer the question posed by History and Theory's“call for papers”; namely, “do historians as historians have an ethical responsibility, and if so to whom and to what?” To do this I draw mainly (but not exclusively and somewhat unevenly) on three texts: Alain Badiou's Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil, J. F. Lyotard's The Differend, and Edward Said's Representations of the Intellectual; Jacques Derrida and Richard Rorty have a presence too, albeit a largely absent one. Together, I argue that these theorists (intellectuals) enable me to draw a portrait of an ethically responsible intellectual. I then consider whether historians qua historians have some kind of ethical responsibility—to somebody or to something—over and above that of the intellectual qua intellectual; I reply negatively. And this negative reply has implications for historians. For if historians are to be intellectuals of the type I outline here, then they must end their present practices insofar as they do not fulfill the criteria for the type of ethical responsibility I have argued for. Consequently, to be “ethical” in the way suggested perhaps signals—as the subtitle of my paper suggests—the possible end of a history “of a certain kind” and, as the inevitable corollary, the end of a historian “of a certain kind” too.     

Tourism and Foreign Investment in Australia: Trends,Prospects and Policy Implications

Processes of internationalisation and structural economic change have had profound impacts on the pattern of regional economic activity in Australia. The 1980s was a decade of rapid growth in foreign investment, reoriented to the property and services sector, including tourism. It was also a boom time for international tourism, which emerged as the nation's leading export industry. In addition to the national gateway city of Sydney, the rapidly growing coastal cities of Gold Coast and Cairns in Queensland emerged as major international tourism destinations underpinned by significant levels of foreign investment, particularly from Japan. The 1980s boom years for tourism and foreign investment are revised and raises policy implications raised for the longer-term development of tourism and the role of foreign investment.