Eastern Figures: Orient and Empire in British Writing

This article outlines the labour impacts and social consequences of the 1997–98 Asian financial crisis and 2008–09 global financial crisis on Southeast Asia. Both had adverse consequences on output, employment, income and poverty in the region, although the impact of the global financial crisis was much less severe compared to the Asian financial crisis. Economies recovered quickly from both crises. However, labour markets continue to be characterised by informal, vulnerable and precarious employment. The crises and the ensuing efforts of employers to resort to increased flexibility in labour hiring in both crisis and recovery periods fanned labour protests despite the diminutive size of the trade union movement and the underdeveloped system of industrial relations in most countries. In turn, these protests have triggered national and regional debates on rules for labour contracting, minimum wage adjustments and social protection. These debates have remained unresolved even as the region is gearing up for fuller economic integration in 2015 labelled as the ASEAN Economic Community.     

俄罗斯国家定位:从帝国到面向欧亚的民族国家

冷战后的俄罗斯丧失了帝国但还没有形成清晰的国家定位。关于俄罗斯国家定位,从内部看是如何处理帝国后遗症与走向正常的民族国家之间的关系,从外部看是关于走向西方与面向欧亚之间的矛盾。在经历国内政治、经济的艰难转型以及对外的外交博弈,帝国之后的俄罗斯其国家定位必然是建设在面向欧亚基础上的正常的民族国家。     

German and British parliaments and conceptions of the global climate threat during the United Nation Earth Summit of 1992

Ever since the beginning of international climate conservation politics there has been variation across nations in political traditions in debating the climate issue. Political decision-makers have interpreted the scientific findings on global warming with different emphases, thereby giving rise to variation in views on preferred national or international solutions. These tensions first became evident before and during the Earth Summit of the United Nations in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, when the United Nations Climate Change Convention was prepared and eventually signed. This article discusses the historical background of international climate conservation politics and illustrates the tensions between contrasting parliamentary traditions in conceptualizing the climate issue. It analyses concepts and arguments presented in the German and British parliaments, which debated the necessity and justifications for international and national climate politics and the form these should take. Empirical analysis of the parliamentary debates of the period shows that during this phase in the early 1990s of introducing and initiating climate conservation policies parliamentarians debated the limits and prospects of national, international and supranational decision-making. The German and British parliaments have traditionally articulated different ideas on international and European co-operation and this difference is also apparent in the field of climate conservation policies.     

The Burden of White Supremacy: Containing Asian Migration in the British Empire and the United States

The Burden of White Supremacy: Containing Asian Migration in the British Empire and the United States . By David C. Atkinson (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2016), pp.334. AU$31.50 (pb). Available in Australia through Footprint Books.     

The British Empire in India,the Gulf pearl and the making of the Middle East

Abstract

Genealogies of the term ‘Middle East’ conventionally focus on a juncture around the 1890s, when it gained new geopolitical currency, promoted by various European and American officials with reference to a space centred around the Arabo-Persian Gulf. This article argues instead that the ‘Middle East’ label should be seen as the culmination of a longer process, led less from London than from India. Over the previous century, this consolidation of ‘British’ India as a distinct regional actor was accompanied by the conceptualisation of its borderlands, including that Gulf-centred space. This space become a theatre for economic and political monitoring strategised from India, seeking to transform what was represented as a pirate-infested margin into a pacified buffer zone. Control and exploitation of pearl fisheries, the main economic activity for Gulf populations, was central to these efforts. Imperial strategy around the Gulf pearl was a key tool in founding an informal Indian empire in the Gulf and its hinterlands, in that very space to which the name ‘Middle East’ would subsequently be given.     

Regions and the constitution for Europe: German and British impacts

Regions have attempted to influence the emerging constitutional order of the EU for around 20 years. The German Länder have made a particular impact in sensitising the Union to regional concerns at successive Intergovernmental Conferences since Maastricht. They were also the leading regional voice in shaping debates at the Convention on the Future of Europe, though the Scottish government also succeeded in leaving an imprint on the Constitution for Europe. This article contrasts the different understandings in Germany and Scotland of how regions should make their interests felt. The German Länder have opted for a strategy focused heavily on using the structure of the member state to limit EU regulation of their fields of competence, while the Scottish government developed a more open-ended and flexible strategy based also in constructive engagement beyond the member state at the EU level. In the light of the Scottish approach the article questions whether the Länder strategy is too one-dimensional, leaving them over-dependent on the German federal government.     

Eco‐Cultural Networks and the British Empire: New Views on Environmental History

Eco‐Cultural Networks and the British Empire: New Views on Environmental History. Edited by James Beattie, Edward Melillo and Emily O'Gorman (London, New Delhi, New York and Sydney: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015), pp. xvi + 323. 20 Illustrations. £65.00 (cloth).