Negotiating Natural Resource Conflicts: A Study of State Practices,Peasant Mobilisation and Sub‐National Government in the Peruvian Andes

This article explores the dynamics of natural resource conflicts and local government in the Peruvian Andes. Recent publications have found that efficiency and democratic accountability in local government are key variables for mitigating conflict. By focusing on the ethnographies of two conflicts and as participant observers within local government, we argue that by re‐framing the analytical focus within local histories and current practices of natural resource conflicts, we can better make sense of the dynamics of current land politics. The article presents a sequential framework that explores key moments of the relations between the state and peasant communities during natural resource conflicts. Through this framework, we argue that natural resource conflicts are negotiated in a sphere of politics that transcends the state's institutional and legal limits.     

社会中的马来西亚国家:意象与实践

本文旨在以第13届国会选举之后马来西亚政治、经济、社会诸领域的状况为主要依据,对作为意象的马来西亚国家和作为实践的马来西亚国家进行考察,进而展开以下两方面的论证:(1)马来西亚国家各组成部分的实践过程如何形塑着马来西亚国家的主导原则与主导功能;(2)马来西亚国家建构与政治制度化的不足及其出路。     

Appeasement and After: Towards a Re-assessment of the Lyons and Menzies Governments' Defence and Foreign Policies, 1931–41

In terms of international policies, the Lyons and Menzies Governments of 1931-41 have had a bad press for generations. They have been accused of failing to rearm in time for the Second World War, sending troops abroad who were sorely needed at home, too readily appeasing the Dictators, perversely selling pig-iron to Japan, and planning to give away half of Australia above a Vichy-like Brisbane Line. A reassessment reveals this to be leftist demonology. Rather, in very difficult circumstances they pursued carefully policies that, with benefit of hindsight, were more in the national interest than those of their Labor opponents.     

The Secular State Under Siege: Religion and Politics in Europe and America

The Secular State Under Siege: Religion and Politics in Europe and America. By Christian Joppke (Cambridge and Malden: Polity 2015).     

Negotiating Liberty: The Use of Political Opportunities and Civil Society by Barbary State Captives and Guantánamo Bay Detainees

This article contrasts two distinct sets of prisoners who were held by foreign governments: sailors from the United States held captive in Algiers in the late‐eighteenth century and British citizens detained in Guantánamo Bay in the early‐twenty‐first century. The article uses social movement theory to examine and compare the campaigns orchestrated by these men and their supporters, and the role of those campaigns in securing their freedom. It demonstrates the utility of social movement theory in comparing cases of foreign detention that transcend centuries, regions and communication technologies. We find that successful campaigns on behalf of citizens held captive abroad, and the timeline of those successes, are contingent on the exploitation of domestic political opportunities and an external event to trigger government action on behalf of the captives.     

Entangled history and politics: Negotiating the past between Namibia and Germany

The relationship between Namibia and Germany is marked by intense exchanges about the meaning and the consequences of the colonial wars of the early twentieth century in the erstwhile German colony. This engages various state and civil society actors including groups from across the political spectrum in Germany, whereas in Namibia the debate concerns the descendants of the victims on the one hand and German-speaking Namibians on the other.

The article explores this discursive situation and brings out a range of relationships and interactions to be understood as expressions of an entangled history that eschews attempts of appropriation on one side. The problems emerge most poignantly in terms of the still ongoing exchanges around the denial of genocide in 1904–8 which, given that the framework of the debate is predicated to considerable measure on German history, inevitably points to the Holocaust. A further strand of acting out and negotiating historical responsibility concerns the mode of apology and redress which remains a contended question. Not least, this involves an incoherent set of state and non-state actors on both sides. Here, the call for dialogue made particularly by Namibians raises the sensitive issues of intercultural communication.     

Aboriginal Affairs: Humanitarian Intervention Then and Now: Dis/Connections and Possibilities

Aboriginal affairs has always been a sore point in Australia. Ever since the first Governor attempted to put in place the Colonial Office's instructions to treat the inhabitants with “amity and kindness” the exercise has been fraught. There is a text‐book version of the changing policy landscape and rote school lessons on the gradual acquisition of Aboriginal rights and freedoms. These go some way to conveying the contested ground, political conflict and personal anguish on which this history was built. Yet, they give the impression of evolution and progress. At the same time, the history wars magnified the fractiousness without carving a pathway through. In this paper I recover an important part of the history, which often goes unremarked. I reflect on the role of humanitarian intervention in this politics. Not only has it been critical to the policy landscape — for good and ill — but there are also historical connections and lineages between then and now, which deserve attention. Closely aligned to a history of human rights in Australia, recovering this history seems more pertinent than ever 1 .     

Empire,State and the Bedouin of the Middle East,Past and Present: A Comparative Study of Land and Settlement Policies

The Bedouin of the Middle East have been one of the region's most marginalized groups in modern times. This study assesses the interplay between state policies and the Bedouin in the last 150 years, from a comparative standpoint. We examine the development of land laws in the Middle East as they have affected the Bedouin, from the enactment of the Ottoman land laws of 1858 up to the present. Moreover we explore whether the land laws and the fate of the Bedouin are associated with the characteristics of the regime in each country. We find that the imposition of land laws and policies directed at nomadic and sedentarizing Bedouins has depended on disparate factors such as the origins of the leadership of countries (i.e. Bedouin or non-Bedouin) and the social and economic models embraced. Regimes with origins in the tribal-Bedouin fabric of the Middle East have pursued land policies that were favorable to the Bedouin, whereas regimes drawing their strength from urban elites and with socialist outlooks encouraged very different policies. We also consider whether the case of the Bedouin in Israel is unique or reflects a larger regional context.     

Defending Country: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Military Service since 1945

Defending Country: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Military Service since 1945. By Noah Riseman and Richard Trembath (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 2016), pp. xi + 243, photographs, bibliography, AU$34.95 (pb).     

Negotiating state and society: the normative informal economies of Central Asia and the Caucasus

ABSTRACT

This special issue introduces new research on informal markets and trade in Central Asia and the Caucasus. The research presented here was conducted in Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, as well as Beijing, Guangzhou, Yiwu and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China. The following eight articles illustrate how informal markets and trade in Central Asia and the Caucasus provided spaces for people across the region to negotiate state and society in the last three decades; the articles also suggest that informality should be seen as constitutive of a normative order for polities in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Informal markets and trade in Central Asia rest on three factors: the inability of the state to measure commercial transactions; markets and trade becoming places from which citizens built personalized networks that required individualized networking and oral agreements based on social relations, particularly trust; and markets being embedded within states in which clientelism frequently thrives.     

Voting Attitudes and Behaviour Among Aboriginal Peoples: Reports from Anangu Women*

At state and particularly in federal (or national) elections, Aboriginal Peoples in remote regions turn out to vote in low numbers. A number of hypotheses have been offered to explain the low voting participation of such constituencies. Some have asserted that Aboriginal Peoples do not wish to vote; others have suggested that “first order” elections have low salience for Aboriginal Peoples, thereby depressing turnout. The low political efficacy thesis has also been proposed, as well as cultural and mechanical factors. We consider whether any of these hypotheses are plausible using data obtained in group interviews with twenty‐nine Anangu Women in remote South Australia. On the basis of this fieldwork we consider means for stimulating turnout within this, and in similar, constituencies.     

Computing in the USSR: Recent Progress and Policies

The paper evaluates a broad spectrum of Soviet computing capabilities ranging from the development, production and service sectors to applications in enterprise management, national security, education, and consumer products. Comparisons between Western and Soviet information technologies, summarized in tabular form, reveal gaps in Soviet computing and communications resulting from both technical limitations and administrative/political constraints in the economy. Programs designed to narrow these gaps are described in a final section. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: 052, 124, 635.     

From Protection to Competition: The Politics of Trade Practices Reform in Australia and the Trade Practices Act 1965

The Trade Practices Act 1965 was widely criticised as being weak and unproductive. It was a significantly watered‐down version of the original Bill overseen by Garfield Barwick. Although the final form of the Act was perceived as ineffective at the time, it is now viewed as an important step towards a national competition policy and a precursor to the opening up of the Australian economy. This paper outlines the economic, political and social background to the introduction of the legislation. We specify some of the factors that explain why its creation caused controversy and its importance in initiating change in Australians' attitudes towards collusive behaviour and economic protectionism.