Brisbane and Federation: A Review Article

Our Federation: Brisbane Heritage Trail 1901. Edited by Rod Fisher et al.
Our Federation: Brisbane: Patriotism, Passion and Protest 1901. Edited by Barry Shaw
Our Federation: Brisbane through the News 1901. Edited by Katherine McConnel     

A Novel Forensic Tool for the Characterization and Comparison of Printing Ink Evidence: Development and Evaluation of a Searchable Database Using Data Fusion of Spectrochemical Methods

A searchable printing ink database was designed and validated as a tool to improve the chemical information gathered from the analysis of ink evidence. The database contains 319 samples from printing sources that represent some of the global diversity in toner, inkjet, offset, and intaglio inks. Five analytical methods were used to generate data to populate the searchable database including FTIR, SEM‐EDS, LA‐ICP‐MS, DART‐MS, and Py‐GC‐MS. The search algorithm based on partial least‐squares discriminant analysis generates a similarity “score” used for the association between similar samples. The performance of a particular analytical method to associate similar inks was found to be dependent on the ink type with LA‐ICP‐MS performing best, followed by SEM‐EDS and DART‐MS methods, while FTIR and Py‐GC‐MS were less useful in association but were still useful for classification purposes. Data fusion of data collected from two complementary methods (i.e., LA‐ICP‐MS and DART‐MS) improves the classification and association of similar inks.     

‘I Think it Just Made Everything Very Much More Intense’: A Qualitative Secondary Analysis Exploring The Role Of Friends and Family Providing Support to Survivors of Domestic Abuse During The COVID-19 Pandemic

Journal of Family Violence - The COVID-19 pandemic, and associated social restrictions, have amplified women’s experiences of domestic abuse (DA). In usual times, female DA survivors reach...     

Military action but not as we know it: Libya,Syria and the making of an Obama Doctrine

This article examines the evidence for a putative Obama Doctrine. Its main finding is that a Doctrine is identifiable and is characterised by a modus operandi deriving its strength not from what it threatens to do but from what it offers: a calibrated, multilateral response to egregious humanitarian crises. This nascent Doctrine is identifiable in three main ways: first, it is an attempt to clarify and institutionalise a response to the massive human rights violations that have typically engendered little or no action on the part of the USA. Second, it seeks to recast a series of false choices which have historically compelled an uncomfortable commitment to stability rather than the pursuit of reform. A third defining element concerns the practical application or operationalisation of this philosophy. While adding clarity – specifically in terms of identifying how and when to act – the Obama Doctrine is very broad indeed, raising concerns about both content and articulation.     

Parity in France: A ‘Dual Track’ Solution to Women's Under-Representation

As the world's first country to adopt a ‘parity’ quota, France could be considered an example of the growing phenomenon of quotas as a ‘fast track’ solution to the problem of women's under-representation. French universalism had impeded a more ‘incremental track’ to gender equality whilst placing a constitutional ban on quotas. The design of ‘parity’ as a means of overcoming these hurdles was both normative and pragmatic. Parity could be considered an example of a symbolic policy, where grand claims were made early on but the corresponding legislation only became effective over time. While the practical constraints on parity have delayed its impact, the recognition of the need to ‘legislate equality’ has had a more profound impact, leading to the creep of parity into other areas such as ethnic minority representation and parity in the workplace. This broader societal change is indicative of a ‘dual track’ to gender equality.     

Practices of assemblage and community forest management

Abstract

Governmental interventions that set out to improve the world are assembled from diverse elements – discourses, institutions, forms of expertise and social groups whose deficiencies need to be corrected, among others. In this article I advance an analytic that focuses on practices of assemblage – the on-going labour of bringing disparate elements together and forging connections between them. I identify six practices that are generic to any assemblage, whatever its specific contours: 1) forging alignments, 2) rendering technical, 3) authorizing knowledge, 4) managing failures, 5) anti-politics, and 6) reassembling. I demonstrate the power of this analytic through an extended study of community forest management. This is an assemblage that brings together an array of agents (villagers, labourers, entrepreneurs, officials, activists, aid donors, scientists) and objectives (profit, pay, livelihoods, control, property, efficiency, sustainability, conservation). Its very unwieldiness helps to sharpen analysis of how such an assemblage is, in fact, assembled, and how it has been sustained for more than thirty years, absorbing hundreds of millions of dollars in programmes from the west coast of Canada to the eastern islands of Indonesia. I do not attempt to adjudicate the rights and wrongs of this assemblage. Rather, I deploy an analytic of assemblage to explore the practices that fill the gap between the will to govern and the refractory processes that make government so difficult.     

Book reviews

Parties and Party Systems: A Bibliographic Guide to the Literature on Parties and Party Systems in Europe Since 1945 on CD‐ROM. Edited by Stefano Bartolini, Daniele Caramani and Simon Hug. London: Sage Publications, 1998. £99 (stand alone version), £150 (network version). ISBN 0–7619–5924–6 and ‐6002–3.

Changing Party Systems in Western Europe. Edited by David Broughton and Mark Donovan. London: Pinter, 1998. Pp.xix+315, 2 figures, 13 tables, biblio., index. £55 (cloth); £16.99 (paper). ISBN 1–85567–327–4 and ‐328–48.

The Choice for Europe. Social Purpose and State Power from Messina to Maastricht. By Andrew Moravcsik. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998. Pp.xii+514, index. £16.95 (paper). ISBN 0–8014–8509–6.

People and Parliament in the European Union: Participation, Democracy, and Legitimacy. By Jean Blondel, Richard Sinnott and Palle Svensson. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998. Pp.xvi + 287. £40 (cloth). ISBN 0–19–829308–9.

Legitimacy and the European Union. By David Beetham and Christopher Lord. London: Longman, 1998. Pp.viii +144. £9.99 (paper). ISBN 0–582–30489‐X.

Democracy in Europe: Legitimising Politics in a Non‐State Polity. By Heidrun Abromeit. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1998. Pp.ix + 182, bibliog., index. £25 (cloth). ISBN 1–57181–985–1.

Political Theory and the European Union: Legitimacy, constitutional choice and citizenship. Edited by Albert Weale and Michael Nentwich. London: Routledge, 1998. Pp.xiii + 205. £55 (cloth). ISBN 0–415–17313–2.

Germany, France and the Integration of Europe: A Realist Interpretation. Thomas Pedersen. London: Pinter, 1998. Pp. viii + 221, bibliog., index. £40. ISBN 1–85567–537–4.

Recreating Europe: The European Union's Policy towards Central and Eastern Europe. By Alan Mayhew. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Pp.xxi + 403, 2 maps, 7 figures, 37 tables, bibliog., index. £45 (cloth); £15.95 (paper). ISBN 0–521–63086‐X and ‐63897–6.

Enlarging the EU Eastwards. By Heather Grabbe and Kirsty Hughes. London: Pinter for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1998. Pp.x + 130, 1 map, 16 tables, 4 figures, bibliog., index. £27.50 (cloth); £11.99 (paper). ISBN 1–85567–525–0 and ‐526–9.

Divided Europe: The New Domination of the East. By Adam Burgess. London: Pluto Press, 1997. Pp.222, bibliog., index. £40 (cloth); £13.99 (paper). ISBN 0–7453–1262–4 and ‐1257–8.

The European People's Party: Origins and Development. By Thomas Jansen. New York: St Martin's Press; London: Macmillan. 1998. pp.xiv + 206. 2 annexes, bibliog., index. £45. ISBN 0–312–21062–0 and 333–72057–1

The Italian Guillotine. Operation Clean Hands and the Overthrow of the First Republic. By S. H. Burnett and L. Mantovani, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998. Pp.xii + 332, chronology, The Cast of Characters, index. £45 (cloth); £15.95 (paper). ISBN 0–8476–8877–1 and ‐8878‐X.

The French Civil Service. By M. Luc Rouban. Paris: La Documentation Francaise, 1998. Pp.118, bibliog. NP. ISBN 9–782110–038777.