Australian‐Asian Sociability,Student Activism,and the University Challenge to White Australia in the 1950s

During the 1950s, staff, students and graduates of Australian universities were increasingly critical of the racial restrictions on immigration, and their activism contributed to a broader government and community reassessment of the White Australia Policy. Personal experiences of cross‐cultural interactions between Australian students and an increasing number of international students from Asia, including those sponsored by the Australian government's Colombo Plan, underpinned the university challenge to immigration policy. Tertiary curriculum offering new academic interpretations of Asian history and decolonisation also contributed to a growing awareness among university‐educated Australians of Asia, and fostered empathy for its peoples. The publications of the Immigration Reform Group extended this critique of White Australia, and were driven by a moral indignation towards a policy that affected individuals personally known to the critics.     

The Significance of ISIS's State Building in Syria

Researchers and policy makers appear to hold a deeply rooted reluctance to acknowledge, let alone address, the significance of ISIS's state building. Those who have engaged with this issue have tended to traverse the analytical dead end of legalistic questions and themes, inevitably concluding that ISIS's efforts fell short of the threshold of statehood. This article sharply diverges from this reasoning and instead focuses on the political extent of ISIS's state building, which was a reaction to the collapse of authority in Iraq and Syria, and the concomitant failure to protect peoples at risk. The study examines the Islamic State on four dimensions: the stabilization of society, the extraction of income, the politicization of religion, and the use of sectarian divisions. It finds that ISIS's efforts were internally contradictory and contained a number of elements that impeded its establishing a conventionally defined state and its carrying out of actions expected of such a state.     

Nigeria's foreign policy and transnational security challenges in West Africa

This article explores how Nigeria's foreign policy has responded to transnational security challenges in West Africa. It engages in a conceptual overview of the discourse on transnational security and links this with a discussion of Nigeria's foreign policy towards West Africa. Of note is Nigeria's pursuit of a leadership role in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), in its quest for security, economic integration and development. Several questions are posed: What do Nigerian policymakers consider to be the most significant transnational threats in West Africa? How and through what legitimate policies and instruments do they respond to such threats? How important is ECOWAS to Nigeria's attempt to respond to transnational threats? And how effective have Nigeria's attempts to influence the ECOWAS agenda in this regard been? Although ECOWAS has remained central to Nigeria's responses to transnational security threats in the subregion, the country has not been able to match its rhetoric on addressing transnational security threats with far-reaching concrete achievements. It is suggested that social transformation of Nigeria's current foreign policy (that is, to one focused and committed to putting people at its centre) and a change in the policies of dominant global powers towards West Africa would enhance human emancipation and eliminate the numerous insecurities confronting the peoples of the subregion.     

Filling in the Gaps: The Transnational Administration of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Peru

Diverse sources have constructed a common narrative of individual and isolated responses by countries and their leaders to the global coronavirus pandemic, akin to sálvese quien pueda (every man for himself). This article suggests that this is a simplification of the governance of the COVID-19 pandemic in Peru. Peru's governance story is one of domestic public and private action closely interwoven with crucial elements of transnational administration out of sheer necessity. The struggle against the pandemic has generated a domestic and transnational administrative symbiosis, involving authorities at multiple levels in efforts to fill a series of interconnected domestic, regional, and global governance gaps.     

COVID-19 and the Limitations of Official Responses to Gender-Based Violence in Latin America: Evidence from Ecuador

As the COVID-19 lockdowns were implemented, Latin American countries raced to announce plans to address gender-based violence in response to the increase in reports of intrafamily abuse. However, states' interventions had limited results. This article explores the Ecuadorian case. The Andean country's emergency strategy was based on reporting violence via the 911 emergency number, a plan that failed to consider that women quarantined with their aggressors would not have the opportunity to make the call. This article lays bare the extent of the gap between policy and practice in gender mainstreaming and the acute consequences of this during the pandemic.     

From the Eastern Question to the Death of General Gordon: Representations of the Middle East in the Victorian Periodical Press, 1876–1885

After a tribute to the late Professor J. D. Pearson, this lecture advances the view that the Victorian periodical press was an extremely important medium for the exchange of ideas by the political and intellectual elite in Britain. Among the many topics covered in the press was British foreign policy and the author analyses almost 400 articles on the Middle East which appeared in 10 of the most influential periodicals during the years 1876-1885. Almost all the articles examined approach their subject with Britain's strategic position in the world as their prime, if sometimes unspoken, concern. Although some articles attempt to be fair in their view of Middle Eastern peoples and of Islam, the concept of racial superiority is very common, and reflects the contemporary writers' view of Britain as a civilizing influence in the Middle East.     

China: A function of the Japan‐US alliance

China's greatest future strategic concern is the Japan‐US alliance. Hisahiko Okazaki argues that a strong alliance limits China's foreign policy options, and stresses the importance of Japan and the US working together to establish a foreign policy towards China that will promote peace in the region. Okazaki was born in Dalian, China, in 1930. He served in Japan's Foreign Ministry, holding such posts as minister to the United States, chief of the ministry's Information Analysis, Research and Planning Bureau, and was ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Thailand. This article is adapted from an article first published in August 1995 in The Daily Yomiuri and is printed with the permission of the author.     

Konfrontasi and Australia's Aid to Indonesia during the 1960s

This article examines Australia's aid program in Indonesia in the 1960s. With the transfer by the Dutch of West New Guinea to Indonesia in May 1963, the Australian government looked to expand aid to its northern neighbour beyond the Colombo Plan in an effort to cement friendly relations. The events associated with konfrontasi threatened this policy objective. Yet despite Indonesia's belligerent stance, Australia was able to continue its aid program (by supporting the Aeronautical Fixed Telecommunication Network) and to keep the lines of communication with Jakarta open. When konfrontasi ended in August 1966 after regime change in Indonesia, Australia was able to rapidly expand its aid program. This article argues that konfrontasi changed the ways in which Australia's aid program in Indonesia was construed, which in turn contributed to a re‐consideration of the role of aid in Australia's foreign policy more broadly.     

How the Global Pandemic Intensifies Vulnerabilities for Colombia's Women Social Leaders

Women social leaders in Colombia say that the biggest danger posed by the global pandemic comes not from contracting the virus, but rather from non-state armed groups taking advantage of the quarantine to violently pursue social and territorial control. This article details three phenomena that highlight how existing vulnerabilities for women social leaders have been sharpened by the global pandemic: (a) women's community work increases while state and institutional support decrease; (b) armed groups' ability to target violence increases while women's ability to self-protect decreased; and (c) armed groups' ability to act with impunity is increasing as access to justice is limited.     

German expellee organisations in the enlarged EU

This article examines German expellees (Vertriebene) as an interest group in domestic and enlarged European Union contexts. While their background and motivations may be unique, they have similarities to other non-party actors aiming to influence political and/or legal processes. German governments have made rhetorical and financial expressions of support but privileged foreign policy considerations over core expellee demands and sought to contain them as an internal issue. EU enlargement and accession by CEE states to its legal bases has been interpreted as opening new possibilities. A ‘Europeanising’ of ‘justice’ may have unintended implications for relations among European states and peoples.     

The feminist movement during the AKP era in Turkey: challenges and opportunities

This article explores women's rights activism in Turkey during the Justice and Development Party's (AKP) time in power (2002–present). A comparative analysis of three feminist campaigns for policy reform shows that in a context in which majority public opinion and the policy preferences of the ruling party militate against feminist policy proposals, a strong political ally (the European Union) was necessary to generate a policy change. The article also argues that the political opportunity structures within which feminists are embedded have been reconfigured over the course of the AKP's three terms in power, leaving the AKP in a stronger position to resist feminists’ demands. This explains the paradox of an internally stronger and more dynamic social movement that, nevertheless, appears to have weakened vis-à-vis the state. Furthermore, because some recent legal reforms do not significantly reflect the AKP's or much of the public's preferences, the movement has been less able to generate implementation of recent policy changes.     

Indigenous Peoples in Southern Africa

Abstract

This article considers the complex cases of indigenous peoples in three Commonwealth countries in southern Africa: Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. In terms of national-level policy, the governments of these countries do not differentiate indigenous peoples from the rest of their populations. They do, however, have programmes aimed at assisting ‘marginalised’ or ‘disadvantaged’ communities. In this article, three main dimensions related to indigenous peoples’ rights in southern Africa are discussed: national policies, indigenous peoples’ rights, and rights to representation; land and resource rights, including rights to water; and language and gender rights. The paper concludes with an assessment of where indigenous peoples stand today in southern Africa.     

In search of real justice for Africa and Africans,and her/their descendants in a world of justice,injustices and impunity

Abstract

The quest for justice by Africans and peoples of African descent, wherever they may be in the world, is arguably one of the most daunting mental, psychological, moral, legal and material challenges facing humanity in general, and the peoples of Africa in particular. It is a question of whether African peoples demand justice for the wrongs committed against Africa and its peoples over the last 500 years, or whether Africa and African peoples accept complicity in the global impunity enjoyed by the perpetrators of those injustices, and by doing so diminish the significance of contemporary enthusiasm for global justice. Centralising the question of impunity to date for horrendous crimes, gross human and peoples’ rights violations and other injustices against Africa and Africans is not meant to distract Africans in Africa and the diaspora from the quest, in the 21^st century, for a new Africa that we have a historical responsibility to build and, by doing so, to ensure that the past is not repeated. Acknowledging the wrongs of the past and making symbolic reparative actions for those wrongs are essential for ensuring that the pursuit for a better world of justice is not built on top of underlying sinkholes and on the waste dumps of past injustices. Critical breakthroughs, such as the commitment enshrined in the Constitutive Act of the African Union (2000), on crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide and the prohibition of unconstitutional change of government, must be vigorously pursued to their logical conclusion. To do so requires an understanding of where Africans, in their relationship with peoples in the rest of the world, are coming from. Smaller parts of the world have experienced similar heinous injustices with impunity, and Africa's pursuit of real justice also applies to those states and their peoples. Corrective or reparative justice is needed to clear the path for the meaningful and honest promotion of real global justice in the making of the future. It is imperative that the making of the African Renaissance confront real global justice for the sake of the past, the present and the future.     

Causes of the Collapse of the USSR

The paper studies Russia's Ukraine policy since the Orange Revolution. Russia's policy toward its western neighbor has evolved from unhappy relations with Victor Yushchenko to rapprochement with Victor Yanukovich and then confrontation over the revolutionary power change in Kiev in February 2014. The paper argues that Vladimir Putin's actions following February revolution in Kiev demonstrate both change and continuity in Russia's foreign policy. Although these actions constituted a major escalation, relative to Russia's previous behavior toward Ukraine, the escalation of relations with Kiev also reflected a broader policy pattern of Russia's assertive relations with the Western nations adopted by the Kremlin since the mid-2000s. What made Russia's conflict with Ukraine possible, even inevitable, was the West's lack of recognition for Russia's values and interests in Eurasia, on the one hand, and the critically important role that Ukraine played in the Kremlin's foreign policy calculations, on the other. The paper provides an empirically grounded interpretation of Russia's changing policy that emphasizes Russia–Ukraine–West interaction and a mutually reinforcing dynamics of their misunderstanding. It also addresses four alternative explanations of Russia's Ukraine policy and discusses several dangers and possible solutions to the crisis.     

Facing the Inevitable: Britain's Entry into the European Community and Australia's Policy, 1970‐72

While Australia's response to Britain's 1961‐63 bid to join the European Community has been examined in almost every possible detail, Australian policy towards Britain's 1970‐72 application has drawn very little scholarly attention. This article therefore aims to fill this gap by drawing on newly released archival material from the National Archives of Australia in Canberra and the National Archives in London. In doing so, the article examines the impact of Britain's 1971‐72 application to join the EC on Australian policy and the Anglo‐Australian relations. It argues that while far from provoking the same widespread uproar as the Macmillan government's original application in 1961, Britain's final bid had important political and economic implications for Australian foreign policy.     

Watching Bran Nue Dae in Japan

While recently teaching in Japan, I used the Australian film Bran Nue Dae (2009), directed by Rachel Perkins, in one of my courses. The mixed, but non-Australian students, were interested to discuss why a film that was partly about family and historical trauma was a comedy. Extending from the interest, this article considers whether there has been a similar response in Australia to Indigenous-themed films. Are Indigenous issues in Australia, today, also understood to be best represented as serious; that is, to be presented in terms of trauma and with a focus on the difficult moments? Why might many people—the Tokyo students, but also non-Indigenous people in Australia—find it hard to laugh with (or even at) Aboriginal peoples doing funny things? Using Bran Nue Dae, and my students' reactions, this article examines the usefulness and limits of the sometimes careful attendance to issues of race and pain, which are often the way non-Indigenous people engage with Indigenous peoples and issues. Drawing on the success of Perkins' film, the article also explores the usefulness of comedy.     

‘Raising a moral generation’: the Republican People's Party and religious instruction in Turkey, 1946–1949

When Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, as the Prime Minister of the Turkish Republic, declared his government's intention to raise a ‘religious generation’, his proposition drew harsh criticisms from Turkey's secularists, who argued that doing so would clearly challenge the secular nature of the Turkish state. Yet it may come as a surprise to many that it was not a conservative party with Islamist leanings that first experimented with the idea of relying on religious education as an antidote to the perceived moral decadence of the society. Rather, it was the secularist party, the Republican People's Party, which attempted to use religious instruction for the same purpose during the heyday of Kemalism in the 1940s. Against this backdrop, providing an analysis of how the Republican People's Party had come to the point of offering religious education to school children and how it justified this policy can shed light on today's debate on secularism and the secular character of the Turkish state.     

A Pretext for Regression? The Gendered Institutional Response to COVID-19 in the Country of Football

This article considers the gendered institutional response to COVID-19 in Brazilian football. It is argued that the asymmetries of power which shaped policy are rooted in the historical marginalisation of women's sports in the country along with socially constructed notions of hegemonic masculinity. The COVID-19 pandemic has served to accentuate deeply embedded social and economic inequalities and may serve as a pretext for eroding precarious gains made in recent times.     

John Stuart Mill on the Antipodes: Settler Violence against Indigenous Peoples and the Legitimacy of Colonial Rule

J.S. Mill's support for colonialism and empire has attracted recent critical attention in the context of debates about his status as a modern egalitarian liberal, and liberalism's historical justification for empire. While Mill defended imperialism for most of his life on the grounds that it brought progress and civilization to historically backward peoples, his later correspondence reveals that he became increasingly concerned that settler violence against subordinated populations, notably in New Zealand, India and the West Indies, undermined the civilizing mission. Mill had been a strong advocate for settler societies in Australia and New Zealand, but came to fear that colonial abuses of power over indigenous peoples would vitiate the utilitarian benefits of colonial self‐rule.     

Change and continuity in post-unification German foreign policy

Ten years after unification, Germany still maintains its post-Second World War foreign policy course based on transatlantic multilateralism and European integration despite changes in Germany's international and domestic contexts. This study argues that neither realist nor institutionalist explanations can explain the post-unification pattern of German foreign policy. Instead, continuity and change in this policy can be understood best through a role-theoretical approach based on the civilian power idealtype. Two causal pathways are developed which account for continuity in foreign policy orientation (goals) and strategies while explaining change in the choice of foreign policy instruments. First, the apparent success of Germany's traditional foreign policy role concept during and after unification helped to reify a broad foreign policy consensus around the goals and strategies of an ideal-type civilian power. Second, major foreign policy crises, such as the Yugoslavian wars, stirred the long held hierarchy between the core values of reticence vis-à-vis the use of force (never again German militarism) and the special German responsibility to prevent genocide (never again Auschwitz). The interaction between domestic and foreign expectations provides a promising source for explaining change and continuity in Germany's foreign policy role concept and behaviour.