A Tale of Two Councils. Explaining the Weakness of the SVP in the Upper House of the Federal Parliament

The SVP is the strongest party in the National Council, but the weakest among governmental parties in the Council of States. This article analyses possible explanations for this surprising difference by combining macro‐level information on electoral results and data from recent election studies. The results presented show that the weakness of the SVP in the Council of States is due neither to its decision to compete only in selected constituencies, nor to “mechanical” effects of the electoral system. Rather, this weakness is explained both by the strategic behaviour of voters, who avoid “wasting” their vote in the majoritarian election of the Council of States, and by incumbency effects. The SVP is further disadvantaged by its ideological position, as its candidates have more difficulty gathering the majority of votes required for election in the Council of States than do, for instance, those of the centre‐right parties.     

The Melbourne Jewish Left, Communism and the Cold War. Responses to Stalinist Anti-Semitism and the Rosenberg Spy Trial

This article explores the political marginalisation of the Melbourne Jewish Council to Combat Fascism and Anti-Semitism during the Cold War. Attention is drawn to contending views about the nature of the Council's links with communism. By comparing the Council's response to two coinciding international events during 1952 and 1953 - the anti-Jewish show trials in Stalinist Eastern Europe, and the Rosenberg spy trial in the USA - evidence is derived confirming the dominance of communist influence within the Jewish Council at that time. In order, I examine the Australian Jewish political context in which the Council operated and its relations with the wider Jewish community prior to the Cold War; explore rival arguments concerning the Council's links with communism and the Australian Communist Party; examine the major features of Stalinist anti-Semitism and the Council's response to them; recount the Council's reaction to the Rosenberg Spy Trial and Doctors Plot; and conclude that the Council lost influence because it fell under the control of a pro-Soviet group unwilling to recognise and attack anti-Semitism on the political left.     

The coordination of policy priorities among regional institutions from the Baltic Sea to the Arctic: the institutions – coordination dilemma

We examine the coordination of policy priorities among the Arctic Council, the Barents Euro-Arctic Council, the Council of Baltic Sea States, and the Nordic Council of Ministers. The member states of these groups established these institutions to coordinate their regional cooperation. However, the member states ended up having to coordinate the parallel work of these institutions. This coordination effort influenced their cooperation, creating an institutional coordination dilemma. We analyze how interests, leadership, and identity politics influence this dilemma and how negative, problem-solving, and positive forms of coordination can amend its effects regarding the temporal consistency of policy priorities and their sectoral overlap.     

“There are No Votes in Africa”?: Australia,Africa and the UN Security Council

This article examines how Australia's successful campaign for a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) (2008-12) and its subsequent term on the Council (2013-14) both encouraged and impacted on the country's engagement with Africa. Drawing on extensive interviews with senior Australian politicians and government officials with intimate knowledge of the country's campaign for the UNSC and its time on the Council, as well as with senior African diplomats, the article contributes new knowledge on how Canberra campaigned to secure African UN votes and how it engaged with the Council's Africa-dominated agenda. The article concludes by evaluating the legacy of this period of high engagement for both ongoing Australia-Africa relations and Australia's new campaign for a UNSC seat during the 2029-30 term.     

Pares Inter Pares? The Bargaining Success of the Commission,the Council,and the Parliament in European Union Legislative Negotiations

This research note tries to determine how politically successful the Council, the Commission, and the European Parliament are in the area of EU legislative decision‐making. After reviewing the literature, a research design is presented which incorporates information on the policy preferences of the different institutional actors for 70 recent EU legislative decisions that were negotiated under the consultation and the codecision procedure. We use correlation and OLS regression to analyze the distances between what the EU institutional actors want and what they eventually get out of the process. The findings of the analysis are that (1) the preference profiles of the three actors are rather dissimilar, and that (2) the success rates of the Council are higher than the rates of the Commission and Parliament.     

Symposium: Reexamining The Arab-Israeli Peace Process

The following is an edited version of the proceedings of a symposium sponsored by the Middle East Policy Council on March 9, 1995, in the Capitol Building in Washington, DC. Former Senator George McGovern, president of the Middle East Policy Council, introduced the panel. The organizer and moderator was Thomas R. Mattair, the council'S director of research and policy analysis.     

SYMPOSIUM ON DUAL CONTAINMENT: U.S. POLICY TOWARD IRAN AND IRAQ

The following is an edited version of a symposium sponsored by the Middle East Policy Council on February 24, 1994, in the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. George McGovern, president of the Council, moderated the panel; Thomas R. Mattair, the Councis resident policy analyst, was the organizer and discussant.     

The Dove Flies East: Whitehall, Warsaw and the 1950 World Peace Congress

In 1950 the Cold War turned hot in Korea, the threat of atomic annihilation hovered menacingly and the spectre of another world war haunted Europe. The establishment of the World Peace Council that year was one response to these fears. In November 1950 the Council decided to hold a World Peace Congress in Sheffield. The British Labour government sabotaged this Congress and forced it to shift to Warsaw. This article analyses this event which, to date, has received no scholarly attention. It argues that the attitudes and actions of the protagonists were a microcosm of the Cold War in that each side, East and West, saw the Congress as an opportunity to achieve moral authority, political leverage and strategic advantage over the other. The article also highlights the role of the state in controlling major political events during the Cold War.