Empire, Region, World: the International Context of Australian Foreign Policy since 1939

What have been the most important factors in international relations for Australian foreign‐policymakers over the last sixty years? Five broad themes stand out: the end of empire; Cold War dependency; the changing nature of security; economic development; and race and national identity. Cumulatively, and often in intertwined ways, these themes have amounted to little short of a revolution in Australia's place in the world since the Second World War. The challenges facing Australians have, as a result, been considerable. The international context in which Liberals have made foreign policy has been reshaping Australia as it has been reshaping the external environment.     

Lloyd George, Curzon and the Control of British Foreign Policy 1919-22

This article revises the accepted narrative about British foreign policy in the aftermath of the First World War, which portrays the Foreign Secretary and Foreign Office as subservient to a dynamic and interventionist Prime Minister inthe formulation of foreign policy. It argues that the relationship between Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, Lord Curzon of Kedleston, was far more complex than that suggested by the historical consensus, shaped, in part, by David LloydGeorge's political opponents and Curzon's enemies. Comparisons are drawn between Curzon's influence over policy towards specific geographical areas, and between Curzon's experiences under Lloyd George and his eventual successors as Prime Minister, Andrew Bonar Law and Stanley Baldwin.     

Leadership Lessons: Minority Governments,Independents and Relationships

The 2010 Australian election returned the first “hung” House of Representatives since the Second World War. This paper tracks the political lessons of history to the only other time when a prime minister had to work in a hung parliament. Circumstances and political parties differ, but on closer examination some common themes emerge. The prime ministership is both a gift and a burden, where control is, for the most part illusory. R.G. Menzies lacked the personal qualities his parliamentary colleagues found in Arthur Fadden. In 1941 he lost the prime ministership because he lost the support of his party room. Just as she had defeated Kevin Rudd in 2010, Julia Gillard was eventually defeated in a caucus ballot in June 2013. However, at least initially, Gillard displayed personal traits which Rudd lacked and which enabled her to retain the trust of both the ALP caucus and key independent members. History contains some valid lessons which, given recent events, need restating: relationships in politics matter.     

Anarchism, Internationalism and Nationalism in Europe, 1860–1939

This article is part of a broader project on the social history or histories of anarchism. The standard accounts of anarchism (Nettlau, Joll, Woodcock, Marshall etc.) have been combinations of the histories of ideas and political/social movements. A larger project I am engaged in uses another methodology and is reliant upon the vast outpouring of published and unpublished academic writing on social history that has been produced since the 1960s. I will cover only several interconnected themes here: anarchism, internationalism and nationalism in Europe. This article will give a synoptic overview of the internationalism of the European anarchist and syndicalist movements during the “classical” period of anarchism (1860–1939). It focuses on the First and Second Internationals and the birth of the Third. It examines the ideology and culture of Internationalism, which was the nursery of the modern anarchist movement. The linkage between federalist and regionalist republicanism is stressed and the legacy of the Paris Commune of 1871 is highlighted. The desire to secure a global level playing field in labour markets promoted labour internationalism during the First International and a revival of this strategy by anarchists and syndicalists during the era of the Second International. The mismatch of industrial development and union density between industrialised Britain or Germany and artisanal and industrialising France and southern Europe limited internationalism in the 1860s and the 1900s. Equally the patriotic legacy of the Commune of Paris undermined the internationalism of anarchists and syndicalists when war broke out in 1914. In 1917–1918 anarchist and syndicalist internationalism seemed to be revived as Europe entered a period of revolutionary discontent. But very quickly the Bolsheviks and the Soviet Union channelled this wave into the Third International and ultimately the interests of the newly born Soviet State. Anarchist and syndicalist internationalism had little effect on the fortunes of the anarchists in the Spanish Civil War in a world of nation‐states and state‐centric political parties and movements.