Cuba: From “Dollarization” to “Euroization” or “Peso Reconsolidation”?

Since its “depenalization” in 1993, the U.S. dollar has become possibly a more significant component of Cuba's money supply than the old peso. What are the alternatives? The euro seems inappropriate, given the inevitability of eventual normalization of relations with the United States. More advantageous would be to restore the Cuban peso, though this would involve unifying the bifurcated economic structure and the dual monetary and exchange rate systems. The Cuban government has yet to announce its plans. This study argues that an appropriate mix of exchange rate, monetary, fiscal, and income or wage and salary policies should support a rehabilitation of the Cuban peso.     

“Rediscovery”, “Reinvigoration” and “Redefinition” in Perpetuity: Australian Engagement with India 1983–2011

For the past twenty‐five years Australia's bilateral relationship with India has been typified by an ongoing process of “rediscovery”, irrespective of whether Labor or Liberal administrations have steered foreign policy. This article explores the reasons why this might be the case by analysing Australia's foreign policy approaches to India spanning the period 1983 to 2011. It interrogates various Labor and Liberal strategies that have been mobilised to “reinvigorate” the relationship and searches for reasons why they have only been partially successful in strengthening Australia's rapport with India. The authors draw upon discussions with strategic affairs editors of India's major daily newspapers and current affairs journals to gain insights into Indian impressions of Australia from a political and foreign policy perspective.     

Australia's “War on Terror” Discourse

Australia's “War on Terror” Discourse. By Kathleen Gleeson (Ashgate Publishing Company: Surrey, 2014). ISBN: 9781472419859. £65.00 (hb).     

An Australian “Historikerstreit”? Review Article

Frontier Conflict. The Australian Experience. Edited by Bain Attwood and S.G. Foster
Historical Records of Australia Series III Despatches and Papers Relating to the History of Tasmania, Vol. VIII, Tasmania, January-December 1829. Edited by Peter Chapman
The History Wars. By Stuart Macintyre and Anna Clark
Whitewash. On Keith Windschuttle's Fabrication of Aboriginal History. Edited by Robert Manne
The Fabrication of Aboriginal History. By Keith Windschuttle     

Parliament on “the Wireless” in Australia

Australia's parliament allowed the radio broadcast of proceedings in 1946, a decade after New Zealand, but well before the “Mother of all Parliaments” in 1978. In keeping with Australia's reputation as a pioneering democracy, early interest in broadcasting parliamentary debates can be traced to the 1920s. In the formative years of “wireless” it was imagined radio might close the gap between parliaments and the public. Proceedings of the New South Wales parliament were actually broadcast for several weeks during 1932 (and before the New Zealand parliament institutionalised this practice). Tasmania experimented with parliamentary broadcasting in 1934. Australia's embrace of parliamentary broadcasting in 1946 was less carefully planned than has been suggested. It was an opportunistic, caucus‐initiated Chifley government measure driven by a long‐held ALP concern about newspaper bias. It was however generally justified as reform to bring the people to their Parliament and, remarkably, did have bipartisan support.