Small state or minor power? New Zealand’s Five Eyes membership,intelligence reforms,and Wellington’s response to China’s growing Pacific role

ABSTRACT

This article uses the lens of small state theory to assess New Zealand’s role in the Five Eyes Alliance and Wellington’s implementation of intelligence reforms in the last seven years that are intended to help the country deal with a transformed security environment. In this context, New Zealand decision-makers have become increasingly concerned about growing Chinese influence in the South Pacific region and in New Zealand itself. It is clear that the New Zealand’s response to these developments resembles that of a minor power rather than a classical small state.     

National security and surveillance: the public impact of the GCSB Amendment Bill and the Snowden revelations in New Zealand

Abstract

In New Zealand, Edward Snowden’s revelations about the extraordinary scope of the National Security Agency’s surveillance capabilities and the facilitating role of the Five Eyes alliance converged with increasing public concerns about the Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment and Related Legislation Bill in 2013. This generated an intense and sustained debate in the country about surveillance policy. It was a debate in which Prime Minister John Key has featured prominently. While apparently unable to clearly refute Snowden’s claims concerning mass surveillance in New Zealand, Key’s vigorous public interventions helped counter the short-term political and diplomatic fallout. However, the long-term impact of public concerns over the surveillance policies of the Key government may be much harder to predict in what is an intimate democracy, and the prospect of substantial political blowback cannot be ruled out.     

Examining the immanent dilemma of small states in the Asia-Pacific: the strategic triangle between New Zealand,the US and China

ABSTRACT

Small states throughout the Asia-Pacific are confronted by a growing dilemma over how to balance their traditional security ties with the US and rapidly growing trade with China. This gives Washington and Beijing potential leverage over small states to use within their competition with one another. This article explores the implications of this for New Zealand – a small South Pacific state that prides itself on maintaining an independent foreign policy. Situated within the small state literature, it utilises a material-based strategic triangle to illustrate the fundamental facets of New Zealand's position. Relatedly, the article examines how Wellington has managed its burgeoning relations with China and the US over the past decade and critically considers New Zealand's independent foreign policy. It finds that New Zealand has adopted a mixed set of strategies to manage its position between the US and China, closely aligning itself with Washington while remaining nonaligned on some key security issues in the Asia-Pacific region. New Zealand has certainly not opted for neutrality. The article concludes that New Zealand and other small states must remain vigilant, may want to consider alternative strategies of alignment, and outlines a number of areas where additional research could prove fruitful.     

New urbanism and the city: Potential applications and implications for distressed inner‐city neighborhoods

Abstract

New Urbanism has been described as the most influential movement in architecture and planning in the United States since the Modernist movement. In recent years, New Urbanist design principles have been adopted for many housing and neighborhood planning efforts. This article considers the applications and implications of New Urbanism for distressed inner‐city neighborhoods. Claims and criticisms of New Urbanism are examined and the long‐standing debates over the extent to which physical planning and design can affect human behavior are revisited.

The article concludes that New Urbanism is not a panacea, but that its design principles are consistent with broader policies aimed at revitalizing and improving living conditions and opportunities for inner‐city residents. New Urbanism needs to be viewed as one strategy to be integrated within the larger array of economic, social, and community development programs attempting to revitalize and improve the quality of life in inner‐city neighborhoods.     

Lists as Social Grid: Ratings and Rankings in Everyday Life

It is argued that the inundation of lists in our everyday lives has become part of the social grid, which tells us who and what we are and how we relate to the world. Using Baudrillard's three mutations of the sign, this paper examines the relationship between lists (rankings and ratings) and social life. This updated grid, which is increasingly defined by market capitalism, makes for not only a greater commodified self but a simulated self based on the external statistical world.     

Building a liberal-local hybrid peace and state in Bougainville

Abstract

There has been an increasing attempt to theorise the emergence of a liberal-local hybrid approach to state-building, which recognises the coexistence and interaction of liberal and local socio-political institutions. There has not yet been a sustained attempt to understand what occurs when a liberal-local approach is adopted from the outset of a state-building operation. This article seeks to fill this gap by applying the literature to the state-building process in Bougainville, an autonomous region of Papua New Guinea.     

Comment on Charles C. Bohl's “new urbanism and the city: Potential applications and implications for distressed inner‐city neighborhoods”

Abstract

This article argues that distressed neighborhoods greatly benefit from New Urbanist design. New Urbanists have been rebuilding distressed neighborhoods for years, and New Urbanism's mix of architecture, planning, and public policy offers inner‐city neighborhoods the best set of tools available to improve the quality of life for their residents. Principles based on flexibility and absolute rejection of formula allow New Urbanism to offer solutions for a broad range of situations.     

Affordable housing in New Urbanist Communities: A survey of developers

Abstract

Despite the unequivocal goal of income diversity as expressed in the Charter of the Congress for the New Urbanism, one of the more significant challenges facing the movement has been the creation of socially diverse neighborhoods, especially ones that include a mix of incomes. Although recent reports show that most New Urbanist developments are being built for upper‐middle‐class residents, some projects have managed to support income diversity. This article takes a closer look at those projects, reporting on the results of a nationwide survey of New Urbanist developers.

We found that many developers have used complex, creative schemes to make affordable housing possible within the New Urbanist context. Developers created affordable opportunities by combining available government programs, partnerships with nonprofits, and innovative design solutions. These efforts have provided important sources of affordable housing within the context of walkable communities—serving as examples that should be emulated by future developers.     

An Evaluation of Local Government Websites in New Zealand

Abstract

The study assesses the effectiveness of New Zealand local government Websites in providing equitable and appropriate access to government information. All local government Websites that could be identified were evaluated using 37 criteria, and visitors to approximately half of these sites were surveyed to determine their perceptions of the effectiveness of the sites. Results show that although there is a good range of information provided on the better sites, some smaller regional or district councils sites provide little in the way of basic information to their citizens. The study also found a limited range of transactional services available on New Zealand local government Websites, and a widespread lack of disabled-enabled access to sites, along with poor provision for user privacy and security. User comments focused on the need for more information and more up-to-date information to be provided, and better search facilities on sites. Although over 90% of users approached a particular site seeking specific information, less than half were able to find the information they sought. Significant indigenous and ethnic minority groups were underrepresented among users. The study concludes that there is room for considerable improvement in the use of the Web as a primary communication and transaction channel within the context of the government's vision for extending e-government in New Zealand to local government and Other agencies.     

The Tragedy of Liberal Diplomacy: Democratization,Intervention, Statebuilding (Part II)

Abstract

The first part of this paper (in the previous issue) showed that the democracy promotion policies often perceived as characteristic of the New World Order are not so new. Rather, they were an integral part of the modernization theories and policies of the Cold War era. This second part of the paper shows that the democracy transition paradigm is based on precisely the same liberal assumptions as its predecessor and that, like the former, its theories and policies have widely been identified as failing. This failure leads to interventionist and statebuilding policies which in turn trigger resistances in target countries; a pattern already familiar from the Cold War period. We are confronted, thus, neither with a new world order nor with the end of history but rather with its repetition. And this repetitive cycle of counterproductive theories and policies, the paper concludes, will continue for as long as the liberal ideology underpinning it remains essentially unchallenged.     

Reviews and notes

Farewell to the Working Class: An Essay on Post‐Industrial Socialism by Andre Gorz, Boston: South End Press, 1982, $7.50, 152 pp.

Robert Lekachman. Greed Is Not Enough. (New York: Pantheon, 1982).

Debunking is not Enough

Frank Ackerman, Reaganomics: Rhetoric vs. Reality. (Boston: South End, 1982).

Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward. The New Class War. (New York: Pantheon, 1982).

Power and the Intellectuals

Paul Hollander, Political Pilgrims (New York, Oxford University Press, 1981)

Regis Debray, Teachers, Writers, Celebrities (London, New Left Books, 1981)

Alvin Gouldner, The Future of Intellectuals and The Rise of the New Class (New York, Seabury Press, 1979 (Note — Oxford University Press has picked up the imprint and published this work in paperback in 1982)

Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison, The Deindustrialization of America: Plant Closings, Community Abandonment, and the Dismantling of Basic Industry (New York: Basic Books, 1982).

Doreen Massey and Richard Meegan, The Anatomy of Job Loss: The How, Why, and Where of Employment Decline (London and New York: Methuen, 1982).     

Book notes

Jean‐Pierre Cabestan, Le système politique de la Chine Populaire (No. 2863 in the series Que sais‐je) Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1994. 127 pp. ISBN 2–13–046516–1.

Frederick C. Teiwes Politics and Purges in China: Rectification and the Decline of Party Norms 1950–1965 Armonk, NY and London: M.E. Sharpe, 1993. 593 pp. $70.00, ISBN 1–56324–226–5. Paperback $27.95, ISBN 1–56324–227–3.

Erroll Hodge Radio Wars: Truth, Propaganda and the Struggle for Radio Australia Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. 324 pp. £35.00. ISBN 0–521–47380 2.

Richard A. Baker (ed.) The Anzus States and Their Region: Regional Policies of Australia, New Zealand and the United States Westport CT and London: Praeger, 1994. 228 pp. £51.95. ISBN 0–275–94693–2.     

New Labour

Abstract

This paper examines the use made by political parties of branding, as a means of establishing party values and winning political support. It looks in particular at the way in which political parties use communication to create, build and maintain political brands.

The paper involves an examination of the recent history of the British Labour Party. After a long period in the political wilderness, the party re-branded itself as “New Labour” in the mid-1990s, and-as New Labour-swept to power in a landslide election victory in 1997, under their new leader, Tony Blair.

Using media coverage and material written by some of the architects of New Labour, the paper will describe the creation of the “New Labour” brand, and look at how it was developed and used to generate political support. The paper will also consider the evolution and development of the brand, as the substance underlying the stated brand values has come to be questioned, not least by so-called “Old Labour” supporters of the party.

The paper will draw conclusions regarding the successful management of a political brand, pointing in particular at the need to ensure that the performance of a party espousing a particular brand supports and reinforces communicated brand values and the brand itself.     

Murder on the Tokyo Subway: Nerve Centres,Religion and Violence

Abstract

The 1995 Tokyo subway attack by the Japanese religious movement Aum Shinrikyō represents one of the most dramatic examples of violence by a religious movement in modern times. Initially urban-based but with a rural communal presence, Aum believed that it had a mission to transform the world and fight in an imminent apocalyptic war between good and evil, and it engaged in numerous conflicts with the secular world it despised. While emphasising the significance of religious visions in Aum's activities this article examines the degree to which Aum's associations with the city of Tokyo also featured as an element in its violence.     

Inclusionary housing in California and New Jersey: A comparative analysis

Abstract

Many people have argued that inclusionary housing (IH) is a desirable land use strategy to address lower‐income housing needs and to further the geographic dispersal of the lower‐income population. In an attempt to evaluate the effectiveness of IH, this article examines the experiences of New Jersey and California, two states where IH has been applied frequently over an extended period.

While the concept of regional “fair share” is central to both states’ experiences, the origins of the programs, their applications, and their evolutions are quite dissimilar. IH originated in New Jersey from the famous Mount Laurel cases and in California from housing affordability crises and a legislatively mandated housing element. The experiences of both states indicate that IH can and should be part of an overall affordable housing strategy but that it is unlikely to become the core of such a strategy.     

Keep Them in the Dark: Australian Government Strategy to Weaken Activism against Australia's new Nuclear Reactor

Martin O'Connor, editor: Is Capitalism Sustainable? Political Economy and the Politics of Ecology. New York: Guilford Publications, 1994.

Kate Soper: What is Nature? Oxford: Blackwell, 1995.

Jim Schwab: Deeper Shades of Green: The Rise of Blue‐Collar and Minority Environmentalism in America. San Francisco, CA: Sierra Club Books, 1994.

Michael E. Zimmerman: Contesting Earth's Future: Radical Ecology and Postmodernity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.

Michael Hough: Cities and Natural Process. New York: Routledge, 1995.

Wayne Roberts and Susan Brandum: GET A LIFE! How to make a good buck, Dance around the dinosaurs, and Save the world while you're at it. Get A Life Publishing, Toronto, 1995.

Sara Berry: No Condition is Permanent: The Social Dynamics of Agrarian Change in Sub‐Saharan Africa. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993.     

Comment on Jennifer Steffel Johnson and Emily Talen's “affordable housing in New Urbanist Communities: A survey of developers”

Abstract

A long‐time criticism of New Urbanism has been that the housing it provides is affordable only to middle‐ and upper‐income families. Johnson and Talen's survey of New Urbanist developers and developments is intended to see whether this criticism is justified. Although the methodology is limited, the results of this survey would seem to indicate that it is.

Because Johnson and Talen's survey is restricted to New Urbanist developments, it is not possible to compare the results with those for other, more conventional developments to see whether New Urbanist developments may actually contain more affordable units than comparable conventional projects. Also, limiting the definition of affordability to the cost of housing alone prevents the authors from seeing whether the housing New Urbanist communities provide would be considered less expensive if housing and transportation costs were combined.     

From permanent employment to massive lay-offs: the political economy of ‘transitional unemployment’ in urban China (1993–8)

Abstract

The idea that economic activities may be described and studied as ‘embedded’ in social relations has been central to much debate in recent economic sociology. The present paper analyses legal struggles over the status of begging in US law and argues that conflicting rhetorical accounts of begging illustrate social actors’ efforts to articulate the interconnectedness of their social world, including the ways in which economic practices are embedded in their social and institutional contexts. The paper thus suggests that embeddedness is not just something identified by social researchers, but also a problem faced by social actors as they try to understand the socio-economic order in which they live and act. By arguing for or against the claim that begging is simultaneously an economic action and the exercise of the right to freedom of expression, the voices in this debate attempted to affect the future of this marginal economic activity.     

Gentrification in tourist cities: Evidence from New Orleans before and after Hurricane Katrina

Abstract

Tourism‐led redevelopment often provides city residents with increased opportunities for employment, leisure, and cultural enrichment, but it can also have dramatic and unpredictable effects on their lives. One of these effects involves the repercussions of redevelopment that transforms working‐class neighborhoods into middle‐ or upper‐class areas catering to tourists. We use the city of New Orleans as a case study to explore the connections between tourism and gentrification.

We first discuss the growth of tourism in New Orleans, paying particular attention to its geographic scope. We then consider the ways in which gentrification and tourism are connected in New Orleans and what their relationship adds to theories of tourism development and urban revitalization. The analysis concludes with an in‐depth look at one of the nation's oldest black neighborhoods, Tremé, where both tourism and the nonblack population have been increasing in recent years.     

A Retrospective of Northern Green Political Thought and Practice

Timothy Silver: A New Face on the Countryside: Indians, Colonists, and Slaves in South Atlantic Forests, 1500–1800. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, 1990.

William Cronon: Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England. Hill and Wang, New York, 1983.