The Boomerang Effect: A Case Study of the Murray‐Darling Basin Plan

In the period from 1997 to 2009 Australia experienced a severe drought, which significantly affected the Murray‐Darling Basin. The drought has broken but state governments are still in conflict over water allocations. The establishment of the Murray‐Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) in 2007 was intended to address these issues but the management of the Basin remains complicated by constitutional ambiguity. This paper addresses the question of whether it is possible to implement effective policies for the health of the Murray‐Darling Basin without the present danger of a drought. We suggest that the MDBA has encountered what Beck refers to as the ‘boomerang effect’. The MDBA's plans seem to have produced new challenges and the Authority might find the Basin is exposed to risks it has created.     

The New Governance of French Education?

This article contributes to ongoing debates in comparative public administration through exploring the governance paradigm in the unfavourable empirical terrain of French education. After identifying potentially relevant features of governance, we investigate changing patterns of policy-making in French education at macro, meso and micro levels. Extrapolating research findings from extensive interviews and participant observation at ministerial meetings, we conclude the existence of a French-style governance that operates within distinctive ideational and institutional environments and interest structures. The article emphasizes the importance of historical and institutional traditions in framing the available pathways of governance.     

The Liberals as Managers of the Australian-American Alliance

Only occasionally has the worth of the Australian‐American alliance been questioned in Australian politics — and then it has usually been at the expense of the detractors. More important has been the question of how the alliance has been managed. How have Australian governments of the last fifty‐four years dealt with features such as the asymmetry of the relationship, in terms of power; the potential disruptions to avoid; the growing range of policy issues and ministerial portfolios to consider; the need for good relations at officials' level; and the need to keep the alliance out of party politics as much as possible? If the Menzies Government began well in the 1950s, then involvement in the Vietnam War was a low‐point in the mid‐late 1960s, and it took until the 1990s for the Liberals to recover from this. The Howard Government's efforts since the late 1990s, however, have gone a long way towards restoring the Liberals' reputation as effective managers of the alliance.     

Sentencing Councils and Victims

This article explores the place victims have, and should have, in bodies that formulate sentencing guidelines, with particular reference to sentencing guidelines in England and Wales and the Sentencing Council's obligation under the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 to have regard to ‘the impact of sentencing decisions on victims of offences’ when devising guidelines. The issues are situated in political and penological contexts; the place of victims in sentencing commissions or advisory bodies in the USA, England and Australia is analysed and the meaning and significance of the Sentencing Council's obligation towards victims is considered, relating the specific obligation to broader issues concerning the place of victims within bodies that formulate sentencing guidelines. While incorporating victims within sentencing commissions might undermine commissions’ aims, it can play an important role in helping to boost public confidence in criminal justice, a touchstone for all western governments’ criminal justice policies.     

Post-colonial trade between Russia and former Soviet republics: back to big brother?

We examine the developments in trade patterns between the former Soviet republics in the years following the initial breakup shock. After a huge fall following the Soviet breakup of the early 1990s, Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) trade with Russia began improving, and there have been recent formal efforts at Eurasian Economic Integration. This might be taken, a priori, as contrary to the hypothesis of gradual decline in Head, Mayer and Ries (HMR in J Int Econ 81(1):1–14, 2010)—or perhaps as evidence of the power of restored trade agreements, such as the incipient Eurasian Economic Union. We decompose the region’s trade into theory-consistent ‘gravity’ components, in order to analyze dynamic changes in the components since the Soviet era. Despite the sharp falls after 1991, trade in 1995 still shows strong ties, consistent with high dyadic (country pair) components linked to trade specialization. By contrast, in the second decade, the ties (dyads) began to weaken significantly and calibrated trade costs tend to rise, despite attempts at renewed integration. Rather, the sharp improvement in trade volumes was mainly due to the sharp recoveries in GDP levels for both Russia and many of the Central Asian Countries, associated with improvements in the global economy and economic ties with the World (especially with EU and China). We would therefore conclude that the recovery in trade between Russia and Central Asia reflects monadic factors (i.e., the regional economic recovery) and does not contradict the HMR (2010) hypothesis. Nevertheless, further, dynamic analysis shows that there are strong long-run ties within the CIS and Russia, which are not declining, and that sticky post-colonial adjustment does not appear set to eliminate the current bias of trade between these republics.

     

Russia and NATO expansion: The uneasy basis of the founding act

Much of the debate since the formation of the Common Foreign and Security Policy has focused on the political will, or lack thereof, as the principal obstacle to a successful European security policy. However, even if a cohesive will to develop a clear and operational foreign and security policy exists, the lack of military capabilities within the EU would make the implementation of that policy difficult, if not impossible, for the foreseeable future. The emerging political will to develop a CFSP needs to be paralleled by significant improvements in the force projection capabilities of the EU member states in order for a CFSP and future Common Defence Policy to be credible.     

‘Old’ un peacekeeping principles and ‘new’ conflicts: Some ideas to reduce the troubles of post‐cold war peace missions

The European Union (EU) has declared its European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) operational. It has put the institutional structures in place to manage the political aspects of security and defence policy and the member-states have pledged a range of military capabilities, which the EU may call upon. However there are significant issues that need to be resolved for the ESDP to be a truly effective and credible policy. On the whole, these issues revolve around military capabilities, defence spending and a strategic concept. Without investing in critical military capabilities and without a clear direction, ESDP will become a policy without substance.