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.     

The Canberra Commission: A “Realistic” Analysis?

This paper examines the proposals made in the Canberra Commission for the abolition of nuclear weapons. The Report is quickly summarised and the major arguments for the abolition of nuclear weapons are then examined in the following way. A classification, or "typology", of reasons why nuclear weapons should be abolished is given, and then the main and supporting arguments outlined in turn. It is concluded that these arguments are not persuasive and that the Report contains certain hidden presuppositions and assumptions.     

For King,For Country: Changing “Good” Behaviour in Victoria, 1930s and 1950s

Far from being incidental, what is taught at primary school can reveal key beliefs about the world and its future held at a given period. I compare Victorian primary school curricula and reading resources of the 1930s and 1950s, attending particularly to references to war and cultural difference. I find that in the 1930s war was to be avoided by valuing cultural differences, whereas in the later decade the aim was effacement of difference through modernisation. I argue that this attitude to difference, combined with the imperialism and internationalism of the 1930s, engendered a moral form of identity in Victorian primary school children. In contrast, under the economic nationalism of the 1950s, children were taught to be good citizens taking little moral responsibility to those who were not Australian.     

Re‐evaluating Australia's “Cooperative Security” in Cambodia

Australia's role in resolving the conflict in Cambodia has been described as a triumph of cooperative security that achieved a balance between principles and pragmatism. The pursuit of cooperative security is a familiar theme in discussions of Australian diplomacy during the 1990s, yet there has been little scholarly consideration of whether this accurately captures the nature of Australian foreign policy at the time. This article explains Australia's conflict resolution role in Cambodia using an alternative, neoclassical realist framework. Specifically I demonstrate that expectations of reciprocity meant that Australia, when negotiating for peace in Cambodia, preferred bilateral over multilateral diplomacy. Secondly, Australia actively sought to lead the Cambodian peace‐keeping operation to enhance its regional security credentials. Finally, building closer ties with Vietnam was an important, often overlooked policy outcome.     

“Great and Powerful Friends of Yesteryear”: Australia's Dilemma with “East of Suez”, 1967–71

Great Britain's decision to withdraw its forces from Southeast Asia by the mid-1970s created uncertainty for those living in the region. The potential loss of British presence led Australia to attempt to discourage Britain from leaving, while also recsognising recognising the decision as an opportunity to re-evaluate Australia's strategic outlook in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Scholars have treated Asia and the Pacific as two regions with distinct experiences related to withdrawal. Some address changing Anglo-Australian relations but include little, or no, mention of the Pacific territories. Others, writing about the Pacific, focused more the individual paths taken by each island than on connecting the larger process of decolonisation in the Pacific to the one in Asia. This article pairs Australia's Strategic Basis of Defence papers with documentary evidence across multiple departments in Canberra to understand how British withdrawal from east of Suez connected Australian concerns about security in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. By connecting the two areas through Australian interests, the withdrawal from east of Suez can be understood as a catalyst for Australia's pursuit of a distinctive role within its neighbourhood.     

The Economics of the “Final Solution”*

The economics of the Holocaust is a many‐facetted subject that is an integral part of the Holocaust's history. This paper describes some of the results of the new research since 1990 and discusses the economic rationalities employed by the perpetrators in despoiling the Jews. Economic considerations accompanied the timing and pace of the expropriation of Jewish assets and their “Aryanization.” The new research also shows that there was widespread collaboration in the expropriation of the Jews by private interests both inside Germany and in German‐controlled Europe and that networks of bureaucrats and private interests joined to achieve Nazi goals. The combination of expropriation and mass murder was one of the aspects of the Holocaust that made it unique.     

Nazism and Religion: The Problem of “Positive Christianity”

Current debates on Nazism and religion are focused around the notion that the Nazis sought to promote a kind of Christian faith called “positive Christianity”. This article challenges such perspectives. It establishes that “positive Christianity” had an existing meaning in German society before the Nazi Party was formed — dogmatic Christian faith — and demonstrates that this was the same interpretation of religious faith that Hitler appeared to advocate in Mein Kampf. By contrast to recent revisionist accounts, the paper argues that “positive Christianity” had such a wide variety of interpretations that it cannot be considered as a cohesive construct.     

“People the North”: Nation‐building in 1960s Australia

The People the North Committee, founded in Townsville in 1962, was true to its name. It wanted to treble the population of northern Australia in a decade. Putting people before profits, the committee insisted that Australians had a moral obligation to prolifically populate their northern lands. Neither the ambition nor the rationale was new. In fact, the People the North Committee was the last gasp of a grand demographic aspiration that went back more than a hundred years. Thereafter, through to the present day, proposals for northern development have prioritised economic over demographic gains: profits before people. This article examines the ambitions and advocacy of the People the North Committee, setting them in the longer historical trajectory of the aspiration to people the north. In doing so, it offers a window onto a neglected facet of the nation‐building project in Australia.