Restructuring of Sydney's Central Industrial Area: Process and Local Impacts

Since World War II Sydneys central industrial area has lost more than 80 per cent of its manufacturing workforce and no longer the dominant centre of manufacturing in Sydney, is now just one of a number of important centres. Unlike inner cities of the United Kingdom and United States, de-industrialisation in Sydney's central city has not caused a trapped population of displaced workers The first aim of this paper is to outline the restructuring of the central industrial area Two major periods of restructuring can be distinguished Up to the early I9 70s change in the industrial area was driven by intra- metropolitan forces. Since then international forces, and related major infrastructure developments, have substantially accelerated job bss. The second aim is to document the impacts which restructuring has had on the inner city workforce Jobs lost up to the early 1970s did not disadvantage inner city workers because employers as well as workers were moving to the suburbs Since then inner city workers in traditional blue collar occupations have been more strongly affected by de-industrialisation than the city as whole but the numbers involved have been too small to have been of much political interest Social problems in the inner city resulting from restructuring in the industrial area have been masked by strong gentrification.     

Markets,Resources, Environments

Orthodox economists argue, in this country as elsewhere in the developed world, that many of the issues of environmental damage and resource use over which governments, corporations and community groups tussle could be resolved if appropriate markets for environmental goods were established. This paper argues that markets are commonly not appropriate mechanisms to resolve environmental disputes: much of the problem is to determine the effects rather than to allocate them; when the rate of discount of the future is positive, the social need is different from the sum of rational individual decisions; and markets ignore equity. Furthermore, the limits on sustainability seem to be quantitative rather than qualitative - to rest on the magnitude of resource discovery, or on the rate of improvement of environmental quality per dollar invested for example. Again, the central question concerns the data rather than a means of allocating costs and benefits. These difficulties in using market mechanisms imply that legal systems may be preferable as means of regulating environmental use.     

In from the margins? The changing place of Africa in International Relations

This article surveys recent literature on Africa and International Relations (IR) and reviews the current place of Africa within the discipline. It notes that critical debates continue around claims of a mismatch between Africa and ‘mainstream’ IR theories and concepts. However, alongside this set of issues, there is in fact a burgeoning literature on many aspects of Africa's international relations. While some of these studies utilize existing IR theories, and others explore empirical cases that could deliver important lessons for the wider discipline, much of this promise goes unfulfilled. The article reviews literature on China's role and on HIV/AIDS governance in Africa to illustrate how the study of African international relations, the wider IR discipline and international policy could all benefit from a closer engagement between Africa and IR. The article concludes by setting out three challenges for a renewed agenda: a need to address the problematic relationship between universal analytical concepts and regional particularities; a need to give recognition to, and analyse, African agency in international politics; and a need to address inequalities in knowledge production in the field of Africa's international relations.     

The Kosovo war: a recapitulation

This article has four objectives: first to make a case for the significance of the Kosovo war in contemporary history; second, to present an overview of the crisis itself and the military confrontation which was its consequence; third, to survey the initial controversies aroused by military action—and, specifically, the debates surrounding NATO's Operation Allied Force; and finally, to reference the longer term significance of the Kosovo war in terms of the themes covered by the remaining contributions which make up this volume.     

Repairing NATO's motors

NATO moves toward its next summit (to be held in Newport, Wales in September 2014) in a mood of anxiety and uncertainty. This is not simply because telling questions are being asked of the alliance in relation to Afghanistan and Ukraine, but because the twin motors which have sustained NATO now show signs of considerable wear and tear. The first of these motors relates to principles of purpose. This encompasses the activities (or purposes) which NATO has consciously pursued in the last 25 years: namely, operations, enlargement, partnership, transatlanticism and security. The second is principles of function: the means, in other words, by which NATO is kept in motion. Here, American leadership, cohesion and trust, burden‐sharing and credibility all matter. These motors are not about to completely break down (NATO has underlying strengths which make that unlikely) but they do need attention. NATO's good health requires it to focus on a series of core tasks—what this article refers to as readiness, reassurance and renewal. These three tasks speak to an agenda of consolidation and preservation, rather than one of task expansion. But this is not a conservative agenda; grasping the nettle of prioritization and focus requires, in itself, a certain foresight and enterprise. Managed successfully, it is an agenda that will preserve and strengthen NATO in what are increasingly troubled times.     

Is promoting war trauma such a good idea?

A well-known medical journal, The Lancet, recently published an important systematic review and meta-analysis of mental disorder estimates in conflict settings, advocating for the scaling up of mental health interventions in such contexts. However, there is an assumption that the introduction of such treatments has no significant impact, except from a therapeutic one, in the settings they have been imported to. The authors' research in post-conflict northern Uganda analyzed the social impact of mental health interventions addressing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and showed that promoting trauma has had considerable socio-economic ramifications on the wider society. The introduction of trauma narratives has created a market where some are able to thrive, but many deeply troubled individuals remain invisible. The authors found no social benefits from promoting trauma, and few positive effects for individuals. Arguments for urgently upscaling mental health interventions of the kinds highlighted by the review in The Lancet, and which the authors have observed on the ground, should be treated with caution.