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Constructive history: Delineating theoretical divides and
conquering schisms in IR
Over the past two decades scholars have deconstructed the dominant claims to
knowledge in the discipline of international relations (IR). Their work has
not only fostered new appreciation of limitations in social scientific analysis.
It has also provided a more acute awareness of the manner in which the contours
of contemporary theoretical enquiry have been produced over time. The papers
in this panel use critical analyses of the construction of knowledge to identify
latent opportunities for new axes of disciplinary dialogue. We focus on the
manner in which divides between various forms of scholarship have been validated
and reified during the historical development of academic IR. We then offer
a range of novel methodological and conceptual devices to assist scholars in
working across and around these problematic schisms. The panel will not only
explore the contested nature of our knowledge, it will outline new ways of mining
the discipline‚s intellectual diversity.
Darshan Vigneswaran
An ahistorical discipline? The conceptual contours of academic
IR
Few scholars would dispute that the entrenched representations, interpretations
and classifications that underpin the discursive practices of academic international
relations (IR), have a powerful influence on the ways in which they ask and
answer questions. The mutually constitutive relationship between the history
of international thought and modern IR theory significantly shapes the collective
frame(s) of reference that contemporary scholars employ. This paper critically
evaluates the ways in which histories of international thought inform collective
understanding of the relationship between the intellectual endeavours of past
and present. By analysising how and why orthodox claims and characterisations
structure the ways in which past contributions to the study of the international
realm are interpreted and discussed, we hope to provide important insights into
the epistemic and sociological foundations of academic IR. The contemporary
study of IR is framed by a complex amalgam of tradition, orthodoxy, mythology
and convention. This paper is primarily concerned with three important aspects
of disciplinary orthodoxy - i) the set of ideas that underpin academic IR's
claim to a clearly demarcated conceptual/disciplinary space; ii) the ways in
which the claims, characterisations and classifications of prominent histories
of international thought help to sustain the idea of a venerable tradition of
theoretical enquiry into the Œinternational‚; and iii) the connections between
the constructed context of past works and contemporary notions of what constitutes
legitimate IR scholarship. Since the consideration of the international realm
was not consistently divorced from the study of law, politics, history, economics
and/or religion until the early to mid 20th century, the development of academic
IR involved a complex process of disciplinary construction and differentiation.
Histories of international thought have played a crucial role in the shaping
the way in which the internal and external faultlines of academic IR have evolved
over time.
Joel Quirk
The construction of an edifice: The story of a ŒFirst Great
Debate
A diverse range of conceptual tools and classificatory schemes have been formulated
by a long line of scholars who have attempted to systematise the history of
the study of international relations (IR.) Given this diversity, it is unfortunate
that simplistic classificatory schemes or scripts have acquired a privileged
status within the discursive practices of academic IR. One of the most prominent
and widely accepted of these script claims that the academic discipline of IR
has been shaped by a series of ŒGreat Debates.‚ The story of the debates provides
a ritualised account of how IR scholarship has made disciplinary progress through
a series of seminal debates which challenged a previously entrenched orthodoxy.
The privileged status of the story of the ŒGreat Debates‚ is such that it significantly
shape the key reference points which inform the collective self-understanding(s)
of contemporary IR scholars. This paper explores the ways in which the retrospective
construction and reification of a ŒFirst Debate‚ has misrepresented the intellectual
history of the early decades of academic IR. Disciplinary orthodoxy presents
the triumph of the Realists over the inter-war Idealists in a First Debate in
the late 1930s and 1940s as a catalytical turning point. This Œvictory‚ is presented
as a turning point that radically reoriented a previously naïve discipline towards
hard headed, Œrealistic‚ forms of theoretical analysis. Despite the way in which
decades of theoretical prejudice have been partially justified by Realism‚s
ostensible Œvictory‚ in this debate, its claims and characterisations have rarely
been directly examined or challenged. A number of scholars have provided nuanced
treatments of various aspects of the IR scholarship of this period. While such
works have (often implicitly) problematised the story of a First Debate, they
have not provided an alternate account of the significant and diverse changes
in IR scholarship that occurred in the mid-twentieth century. By problematising
the place of a First Debate within existing orthodoxy, we seek to provide a
more sophisticated account of the series of intellectual shifts which the story
of the debate purports to explain.
Chris Reus-Smit
Imagining society: Constructivism and the English School
This paper critically examines the current relationship between constructivism
and the English school. I begin by arguing that although important points of
convergence have been identified and emphasized, scholars in both schools have
worked largely with stereotypes of the other, and this has greatly impeded productive
dialogue and cross-fertilization. Constructivists have almost exclusively focused
on the 'ontological' aspects of English school theory, ignoring altogether its
crucial 'normative' aspects. For their part, English school scholars have defined
constructivism almost totally in terms of the writings of Alexander Wendt, thus
giving constructivism an unnecessarily statist and positivist profile. A more
fruitful strategy, I suggest, is to treat both schools as bounded fields of
debate, as rich and diverse realms of internally contested thought. Constructivism,
for instance, is characterized by three key axes of debate: between sociological
institutionalists, Habermasian communicative action theorists, and Foucauldian
genealogists; between unit-level, systemic, and holistic theorists; and between
interpretivists and positivists. The English school is also divided between
pluralists and solidarists, between those who identify the school with international
society theory and those who see it as inherently multifaceted, and between
those who emphasize interpretive or eclectic methodologies. Opening up each
approach in this way enables us to identify new, potentially rewarding axes
of dialogue. In particular, acknowledging the English school's normative reflections
on the relationship between order and justice can help constructivists to develop
more secure foundations for the subterranean normativity that motivates much
of their work. And recognizing the communicative and holistic strands of constructivism
can enable English school theorists to move beyond the unsustainable and increasingly
unproductive debate between pluralists and solidarists.
Robert Ayson, Australian National University
Concepts of regional stability in the Asia-Pacific context
"Regional stability" appears extremely frequently in official, academic
and media assessments of developments in the Asia-Pacific. But while there appears
to be consensus on the need to promote Asia-Pacific regional stability, it is
not always clear what this concept (and its antonym regional instability) really
consists of. This paper seeks to understand the nature of this concept, assessing
the relative importance of constituent factors such as system stability, the
likelihood of great power conflict, balances of power, and domestic political
stabilities. It will also ask whether a revised notion of regional stability,
which gives rather less emphasis to strategic relations between the region's
major powers and rather more to broader understandings of security in the region,
might be preferable and available.
Alex Bellamy, University of Queensland
Is there an English School discourse of security?
This paper identifies an evolving discourse of security in English School approaches
to International Relations. It begins by arguing that contributors to this discourse
share three common ideas: (1) security is a normative value not an instrumental
object (2) Security is socially constructed and therefore does not rest on fixed
foundations. (3) The invocation and resonance of security discourses takes place
within a political community, but the community is not necessarily limited to
the state. This discourse was initially shaped by the pluralist account of security
put forward by Hedley Bull, Martin Wight, Herbert Butterfield and Michael Howard
(and was later reiterated by Robert Jackson). The pluralist conception of security
rested on the communitarian assumption that states permitted diverse moral communities
to pursue their own moral paths and that therefore rules, norms and institutions
had to be constructed to secure states. This pluralist consensus was shattered
by RJ Vincent's suggestion that it allowed the invocation of a narrow statecentric
conception of security to override other concerns regardless of their merit.
Vincent opened up the possibility of thinking about a solidarist or Kantian
praxis of security. Vincent's call for a broader approach to security was taken
up by Barry Buzan who expanded the concept by retained the pluralist ontology.
More recently, English School writers have begun to articulate a solidarist
conception of security through an engagement with constructivism and critical
theory. The paper concludes by articulating a solidarist conception of security
which focuses on the security of individuals and communities as much as states.
I argue that international society is developing new norms of security that
speak to this new agenda. This can be seen in the concept of 'sovereignty as
responsibility', the development of the human security discourse, and the flourishing
of security communities.
Brett Bowden, Political Science Program, Research School
of Social Sciences, Australian National University
The democratic 'standard of civilization' in international
society
Not so long ago anthropologists drew a clear distinction between what were thought
to be 'savage', 'barbarian', and 'civilized' peoples. A similar distinction
was also made in the realm of international law to determine 'whether a State
was civilised and, thus, entitled to full recognition as an international personality'.
This long-held distinction came to a rather abrupt end with the onset of WWII
and the subsequent demise of the colonial era. Recently there has been a revival
in both implicit and explicit calls for the return of a Œstandard of civilization'
in international society. The human rights theorist Jack Donnelly argues that
'human rights have become very much like a new international standard of civilization'.
John Rawls makes a similar argument in his Law of Peoples in dividing the world
into a hierarchy of five distinct groups within two sub-sets, the Œwell-ordered
peoples‚ and the 'not well-ordered‚. While Thomas Pogge and a number of noted
jurists including W. Michael Reisman and Thomas Franck insist that an inherent
'democratic entitlement' determine 'the right of each state to be represented
in international organs...' Putting theory into practice the US House of Representatives
is presently considering a Bill before it titled the ŒResponsible Debt Relief
and Democracy Reform Act‚ which ties the cancellation or reduction of debts
owed to the US by foreign countries to democratic reforms. Likewise the EU seeks
to encourage transitions to democracy via the ŒEuropean Initiative for Democracy
and Human Rights‚. A range of other international regimes and intergovernmental
organisations such as the Commonwealth and the Organisation of American States
are also seeking to enforce their stated democratic membership criteria by expelling
or suspending non-conformers like Zimbabwe. Out of these lines of argument this
paper will argue the that the post-Cold War era has witnessed the gradual emergence
of something akin to a democratic Œstandard of civilization‚ in international
society.
Michelle Burgis, Australian National University
A law for all peoples? Reconciling Rawls's 'realistic utopia'
with global poverty and Islamic worldview(s)
Despite already substantial critique and engagement with the ideas expounded
by Rawls in The Law of Peoples (LP), more scholarship is still necessary. In
this article, I explore two areas in particular to demonstrate that LP is a
very useful contribution to international ethics, but one that needs substantial
reworking and deeper consideration. In the first part of the article, a detailed
analysis of the changes in Rawls's thought is provided with a consideration
of his ideas found in both Theory of Justice (TJ) as well as LP. LP marks a
clear shift away from Rawls's earlier universalism in the way that he is willing
to accommodate non-liberal, but 'decent' societies. Unlike in TJ, there is no
guarantee of a rich set of human rights and Rawls also refuses to apply the
difference principle globally, despite the plethora of academic writing on this
topic and significant disparities in wealth today. More importantly than economics,
however, is the way that Rawls sacrifices some fundamental safeguards relating
to rights and liberty so as to tolerate non-liberal societies. The example given
by Rawls is the fictional Muslim society of Kazanistan, which is arguably the
most utopian aspect of LP. The article spends a good deal of time surveying
Islamic political thought and recent state practice to demonstrate that the
faith that Rawls has in decent societies is not enough. It is essential also
to implement a thicker conception of rights as well as obligations so that current
Muslim state practice need not be replicated in Rawls's realistically utopian
model.
Anthony Burke and Minerva Nasser-Eddine, Politics, University
of Adelaide
The existential terror: The United States and Israel after
September 11
This paper works at the intersection of the politics of identity, military strategy,
conflict and nationalism to examine the impact and construction of 911 in the
US and Israel. It takes as its point of departure the anxieties resonating around
George W. Bush's question to Congress and the American people: "Why do they
hate us?" We examine how politicians in both countries have framed the attacks
in identity terms, to shore up shaky and contested images of security and being
in opposition to threatening patterns of otherness, violence and resistance.
We critique the way that narrations of Islamic and Palestinian terrorism have
been used to quarantine and dissolve opposition, police public opinion and legitimate
escalating deployments of force, and, most significantly, to close out the question
of deeper political change that is central to both why the attacks occurred,
and how counter-terror strategies can be more justly and effectively pursued.
We speculate that their resort to Manichean, violence-obsessed policy discourses
do not in fact separate them from their protagonists but reveal them, bound
together, in a geopolitical hall of mirrors. Trapped in the same logic of violence,
their responses can only be a performance of terror, not its resolution; a perpetuation
of insecurity, not its defeat.
Darian Clark
Is it possible to 'make trade fair'?
Ever since the Seattle protests against the World Trade Organisation in 1999,
the anti-corporate globalisation movement has reserved some of its most scathing
invective for the perceived imbalanced trade structures between the global North
and South. Inspired by this in April this year, Oxfam (also known as Community
Aid Abroad in Australia) thus launched an internationally coordinated campaign,
Make Trade Fair. But what is 'fair' trade, and how does it stand up against
the arguments of the orthodox Right and Left, who tell us that free trade is
an engine of prosperity on the one hand or that fair trade is hopelessly naïve
on the other? The central argument of this paper is that the developmental effects
of the regime of 'free' trade are so doubtful as to justify the grounds for
an alternative. It thus makes the case for 'fair' trade as a means to development,
broadly understood. Many developing nations, along with civil society actors
in the North and South, believe the essential character of the international
trade system to be not free, but unfair. For them, fair trade opens space to
challenge and change trade structures and institutions in favour of empowerment
and development.
Malcolm Cook, Department of International Relations, Research
School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University
Opening up the vault: Emerging market responses to the new
global political economy of finance
In the last 25 years, the traditionally highly protective defensive financial
policies of most emerging markets have come under increasing, both in strength
and diversity, multilateral political and global market pressures. For the first
30 years after WWII, closed capital accounts and highly, often infinitely, protected
local financial services was the globally supported consensus policy regime
amongst emerging, and most emerged, markets. Yet, since the late 1970s, this
well-entrenched, domestically focussed policy regime has lost favour with increasingly
globally-focussed emerged market mega-banks, emerged market financial authorities
and international financial institutions like the IMF and ADB. After briefly
discussing the material and intellectual changes within emerged markets that
led to this changed attitude towards emerging market financial policies, focussing
on Southeast Asia, this paper will look at how financial regulators have responded
to this new, less benevolent external environment. It will look at to how these
new external pressures for financial liberalization have affected, or not, domestic
financial policy coalitions, and political interest in financial policy. When
looking at emerging market responses to this new external policy environment,
attention will be paid both to domestic financial policy change, and emerging
market efforts, individually and collectively, to actively contribute and remold
the multilateral debate over suitable financial sector policy change. This paper
thus hopes to cast some light on this crucial and evolving policy question for
all emerging markets and how their responses may lead to greater emerging market
cooperation and multilateral impact.
Richard Devetak, Monash University
'A war against the example': Burke, Bush and the War on Terror
This paper analyses the rhetoric of President Bush's war on terror by comparing
it to Edmund Burke's writings on the French Revolution. In particular it examines
the understandings of international society and the justifications of war that
are employed by the two politicians. Despite the two hundred years that separate
Bush and Burke there are interesting parallel understandings at work, particularly
in the crusading rhetoric. For Burke the war against the regicidal, jacobin
and atheist revolutionaries represented a defence of civilization. The 'fury
and faction' unleashed by the French Revolution and the Terror posed a unique
threat to international society. This was no ordinary threat however. It was
a subversive, armed doctrine that destabilised the entire European society of
states. Describing the enemy as a poisonous influence, Burke exhorted the British
to wage a war on the contagious revolutionary doctrine. This was not, he emphasised,
a war on France, but a war against the example set by the French revolutionaries.
On the basis of what he calls the 'law of neighbourhood', Burke argues that
an intervention is justifiable to root out the source of threat before it spreads
its violence and destruction elsewhere. In various speeches since September
11, President Bush has described the war on terror as a 'different kind of war'.
It is a war against a different type of enemy, a 'radical network of terrorists,'
who must be 'smoked out' or 'destroyed where they grow' before spreading their
influence and violence further afield. The enemy is not Afghanistan, Bush hastens
to add, but the malicious source of the armed doctrine -- al-Qa'ida. Moreover,
Bush follows the logic employed by Burke to argue that this is not only America's
fight, it is 'civilisation's fight'. Both Burke and Bush claim that nothing
short of a crusade is demanded against those subverting the basic elements of
civilisation and international society. Burke's war against the French example
therefore becomes an exemplary crusade for Bush's war against terrorism in Afghanistan.
Both Burke's and Bush's arguments are structured by the same logic, the logic
of a 'war against the example', to use Burke's terms.
Thuy Do, Australian National University
The evolution of refugee protection in international and
domestic state practices
Since its creation in 1950, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees (UNHCR), has evolved from a small organization to become the United
Nation's largest provider of humanitarian assistance, not only to refugees fleeing
persecution but also, since the 1980s, to other 'persons of concern' including
the internally displaced and stateless persons. At the same time that UNHCR
practices and mandate have expanded, many traditional asylum states have, since
the early 1970s, adopted increasingly restrictive measures aimed at limiting
the numbers of those considered for refugee status. These include the introduction
of the concept of 'temporary protection', the imposition of visa requirements
from countries that are producing or likely to produce large flows of asylum
seekers, and the detention of asylum seekers for the processing of their claims.
The paper seeks to examine this growing gap in both international and domestic
protection, between the expanding role of the UNHCR and the increasingly restrictive
interpretation by receiving states of their obligations and responsibilities
with respect to asylum seekers, and addresses the major debates surrounding
these developments. The paper therefore gives an account of the changing nature
of the international refugee protection regime since 1950 as a context for understanding
and explaining variations in state policies.
Greg Fry, Australian National University
Oceania's voyage: Reflections on the power of 'region' in
world politics
While there is increasing support for the idea that regions have begun to matter
in world politics, the political theory of 'region' has been limited by its
generation in relation to European and to some extent North American experience.
There is a tendency to associate the power of region with a highly integrated
entity with coercive backing (that is, with the appearance of state-like attributes)
and therefore to dismiss the power of region in post colonial contexts. Prompted
by Oceania's long experience of 'region' this paper argues that this is to miss
the presence of other important sources of power. It proposes a political theory
of region that sees it as both a site of normative contest over community, identity
and agency, and as mediator of the relationship between global processes and
ideas and local societies and their practices. While such political roles are
also performed by the state, the region takes a special role as a knowledge
and policy category in global management -both colonial and post-colonial- and
in local resistance to it.
Nicky George, Australian National University
Understanding the relationship between rights, needs and
obligations: Women's civil society organisations in Fiji
This paper will examine the strategies employed by women's rights activists
in Fiji in relation to the issue of violence against women. At the same time
it will also outline the social, political and economic context in which these
organisations operate. I will draw upon evidence from the Fijian case to support
my proposition that focusing upon the idea of human rights as an atomised series
of ideas (i.e. generations of rights) rather than human rights as a "total
package" that should be considered in connection with issues of material,
physical and emotional need has a distorting affect upon the way in which solutions
to rights violations are framed. I will demonstrate that a tendency to place
the individual actor at the center of the human rights debate under-estimates
the extent to which an interplay of structural forces can routinely contribute
to a situation where the individual's human rights are ignored or deliberately
undermined. At the same time I will also highlight the fact that this situation
also impinges upon the individual's ability to access proposed solutions to
rights violations.
Ayla Göl, Department of International Relations, Australian
National University
A critique of foreign policy analysis (FPA) in transitional
states
This paper will challenge the orthodox understanding of foreign policy analysis
(FPA) to demonstrate why an alternative approach to the foreign policies of
transitional states is required. There are three main criticisms of the mainstream
theories of foreign policy. The first criticism is that much of the literature
has not only been within a behavioural framework that ignores the sociological
analyses of the state but also FPA become restricted by a fetishism of decision-making
as an end in itself. Although all foreign policy analysts did not neglect the
sociological explanations about the state they have not reached the same level
of analysis with sociology and more recently historical sociology. The second
criticism against FPA is that its preoccupation with the 'big powers' and/or
'modernised/developed' states, in particular the United States of America. After
the 1960s, a need of new theories for new states has become a subject for FPA
since it cannot be separated from the main theoretical and methodological concerns
of IR. In the 1970s and the 1980s, although most foreign policy analysts developed
new models for the study of the newly emerging states' foreign policies the
level of analysis was mainly restricted to domestic politics, interdependence
and the role of charismatic leadership within Third World literature. The third
criticism is that FPA has been inadequate in explaining foreign policy making
in transitional states. In the 1990s, the debate over internal/external, domestic/foreign,
and inside/outside within the IR theory forced foreign policy analysts to think
about 'the domestic sources of foreign policy' and its converse, 'the external
sources of domestic policy'. Based on these criticisms this paper will aim to
expand the scope of FPA into post-positivism that suggests an analysis of the
relationship between national identity construction and foreign policy making
by emphasizing the role of agency and a socio-historical structure of transitional
states.
Sarah Graham, Australian National University
America's soft power in international relations theory
The concept of hegemony is central to International Relations theory, connoting
a world order consisting of relations of power based on consent and authority
rather than coercively deployed material resources. Taking this definition as
a starting point, I argue that soft power gives hegemony its qualitative distinction,
particularly in relation to the US' dominant position within the contemporary
world order. I intend to explore some of the theoretical difficulties associated
with studying America's soft power, particularly in relation to key conceptual
weaknesses of IR theory and the consequences of these weaknesses for empirically
driven writings including those of Joseph Nye.
Beth Greener-Barcham
Visualising a liberal military
Many states are currently reinventing (or repackaging) their military forces.
Some liberal democratic states have taken recourse to the rhetoric of 'liberal
values' in justifying the changes that their military forces have undergone.
But what would a 'liberal military' look like? The liberal political tradition
has generally been very fearful of arbitrary power, has therefore frequently
tried to offer thoughts as to how best to stem, limit or circumscribe violence
in various ways. In terms of contemporary thinking about liberal themes as related
to the use of force by states, much of the international relations theory debate
centres on the democratic peace thesis, notions of cosmopolitanism, or the centrality
of individual human rights in thinking about issues such as humanitarian intervention.
To these 'top-down' approaches we can also consider the 'bottom-up' approach
of the military sociologists as represented by the notion that the military
forces of liberal democracies are increasingly civilianised, internationalised
and structured with the soldier-scholar and the constabulary ethic in mind.
This paper draws on these main arguments to suggest some ways in which we might
try to visualise a 'liberal military', thereby allowing a benchmark for assessing
the relationship of political rhetoric to actual change.
Cameron Hill, University of Queensland
‘Imagining imperialism’: Constructivism, role theory
and American debates over the Philippines, 1898-1913
The concept of states' 'role identities' and their sources has received much
attention within recent contructivist international relations theory. In particular,
the question of whether states' role scripts are principally drawn from 'structural'
sources (international norms, social practices and interactions) or from 'corporate'
sources (domestic narratives and state-society relationships) poses a key problem
for constructivists interested in the empirical implications of key ontological
questions such as the structure-agency problem. Drawing from official debates
in the United States over the acquisition of the Philippines in 1898-1913, this
paper contends that role identities must be understood as a product of both
predominant structural and domestic norms. This is demonstrated by:
(1) the impact of dominant international colonial norms and social practices
in structuring American debates over the Philippines question at the turn of
the century:
(2) the role of domestic narratives such as liberalism, republicanism and exceptionalism
in shaping the actual content of America's colonial policies in the Philippines.
The paper concludes by assessing the ways in which constructivist theory should
further elaborate the concept of role identities.
Purnendra Jain and John Bruni, Centre for Asian Studies,
Adelaide University
Australia, Japan and the United States:Towards a new security
architecture in the Asia-Pacific?
This work-in-progress paper examines the possibility of whether Australia, Japan
and the US can develop an informal trilateral security architecture, as was
suggested by Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, during the ASEAN
Regional Forum and Australia-US Ministerial meeting in 2001. The paper will
analyse the complementarity of these countries to support such an architecture
in the light of ongoing tensions on the Korean Peninsula, the Taiwan Straits
and international terrorism. Importantly, it will assess how the proposal has
been received in the region and implications for Australia's regional status.
Paul Keal
Can international society be redeemed? Indigenous rights
and the politics of mutual recognition
This paper argues that the legitimacy of international society is compromised
by unresolved claims to indigenous rights within the states that are its constituents.
Self-determination is the most fundamental of indigenous rights but conflicts
with the meaning ascribed to it in the norms of international society. For international
society to attain legitimacy in relation to indigenous rights it needs to consciously
promote a normative order that supports indigenous self-determination within
the constitutional structures of its constituent states. For this to happen
international society needs to be constitute by states seeking constitutional
arrangements based on an ongoing politics of mutual recognition founded on genuine
inter-cultural dialogue.
Jefferson Lee, School of Communication, Design and
Media, University of Western Sydney (Nepean)
The media and East Timor: Taking stock of the post mortems
This paper will review the shifting sands in media coverage of the East Timor
issue in Australia. Taking the tumultuous events of the second half of 1999
as the highwater mark of Australian political and media interest, this paper
will offer a tentative examination of media revisionism from the conservative
Right and the 'Jakarta Lobby' - from the lead up into the aftermath of the Interfet
Commitment. It will also reflect on how the the Howard Government's claims to
the high moral ground on East Timor prevented a political snowballing from the
Left on what should have been "their" victory. Political scientists
were quick to argue that East Timor was an aberration from the normalcy and
continuity of Australian foreign policy. To what extent did the media coverage
since 1999 ensure a backsliding away from the Right's latest fears - a 'domino
theory' in reverse? One where regional security sabre-rattlers were reminiscent
of their "One,Too Many Vietnams" days as they foresaw East Timor's
independence inspiring the Aceh and West Papua shake-outs that are yet to happen?
Email: jefferson.lee@bigpond.com
Greg McCarthy, University of Adelaide
Hollywood politics: Attack of the moral clones
This paper argues that just as the novel was the moral basis of the British
Empire so the film is the foundations for American 'imperialism' and Super-Power
status. It will be demonstrated that Hollywood films have a dominant political
trope which has at its essence a liberal individual who exudes a moral' goodness'
that has been inculcated into him (or occassionally her) via his (her) American
citizenship. The paper will show that there is an irony in the depiction of
American liberal morality in that it is often portrayed as emanating from civil
society and not its democratic polity. Rather American democracy is often depicted
as flawed by the corrupting influences of power and money. Thus the international
relations conceptualisation of American global reach being premise on the democratic
mission is somewhat contradicted by the filmic representation of American politics
as being deeply flawed. The paper will show how the resolution to this conundrum
is found in indivudual acts of valour, where the force of goodness triumphs
over that of darkness.
Email: gregory.mccarthy@adelaide.edu.au
May McPhail, Griffith University
The East Timor intervention: Foreign policy success or failure?
When the Howard Government announced the 'historic policy shift on East Timor'
in January 1999, few predicted the events that were to follow. This paper examines
the circumstances leading up to that decision, and the sequence of events that
followed. It is argued that Australia's image and standing in the Asian region,
rather than being enhanced, was diminished by the way in which the change in
policy was implemented, in particular, by the 'megaphone diplomacy' associated
with the intervention in East Timor.
Matt McDonald, University of Queensland
Security, sovereignty and identity
This paper is part of a broader research project that seeks to map the construction
and evocation or invocation of security. Central to this project is understanding
how particular conceptions or discourses of security come to have prominence
and resonance with political communities concerned, and how these discourses
might be located in a wide of political and representational practices. The
central argument of this paper is that security, sovereignty and identity are
inextricably linked, to the extent that the evocation of particular understandings
of sovereignty and identity may be viewed as being indicative of particular
discourses of security at work. Sovereignty and identity politics (in terms
of the extent to which actors engage in the construction or reification of the
self and the other) are central to particular discourses and understandings
of security, to the extent that security, sovereignty and identity are fundamentally
mutually constitutive. In making this argument, this paper will first outline
the means through which security is constructed and operates in world politics.
It will then discuss the ways in which sovereignty and identity are central
to the construction of security, using the examples of Realist and Critical
Security discourses of security. Finally, it will be argued that an acknowledgment
of the relevance of the evocation of sovereignty and identity with reference
to security may provide us with an understanding of how discourses of security
come to be evoked in different contexts and at different times, and therefore
how meanings associated with security may come to be changed in a manner more
consistent with normatively progressive ends.
Natalie Mast, Department of Political Science, University
of Western Australia
An upper house in all but name? An analysis of the European
Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) has long been seen as a relatively powerless institution
in comparison with the national parliaments of the Member States of the European
Union (EU). This view has been modified in recent years as a consequence of
the introduction of the Co-decision Procedure which significantly increased
the powers of the EP in regard to the EU's legislative process. The Maastricht
and Amsterdam Treaties have led to the EP gaining the power to either amend
or reject approximately half the legislative output of the Union. But many are
still critical of the fact that the EP does not have the power to initiate legislation,
and remains relatively weak in comparison to the majority of first chambers
within parliamentary systems. Even so, some commentators have suggested that
the EU now functions in the manner of a two-chamber legislature with the EP
acting as the lower house and the Council of Ministers fulfilling the role of
the upper house. This paper explores the possibility that the EP can be better
understood as analogous to a second chamber, rather than relying on traditional
comparisons with lower chambers. Using Lijphart's typology of strong bicameralism
as a framework, this paper examines the structure and functions of the EP by
focusing on the four main areas of EP authority: legislative activity, budgetary
scrutiny and supervisory powers, as well as the ascent procedure. It concludes
that the analogy with a powerful upper house is useful for the analysis of the
operation of the EP and for plotting the direction in which change is likely
to occur.
Email: ngmast@cyllene.uwa.edu.au
Kathy Morton, Australian National University
Do we need a world bank?
Development has recently come to occupy a central position on the global political
agenda. At the Millenium Summit in September 2000 the international community
endorsed its commitment to eliminating the number of people existing in absolute
poverty by 2015. The events of September 11th have further precipitated debate
over how best to address the needs of the poor and the vulnerable in order to
create the preconditions for peace. It is generally assumed that the World Bank
as the biggest lender to developing countries has an important role to play.
But to what extent does the Bank's development advocacy actually translate into
effective action? This paper will assess the institutional capacity of the Bank
to address global poverty and environmental sustainability by looking at the
complex interplay between new ideas and entrenched interests at the international,
state, and local levels. It will draw upon the Bank's experience in China as
a way of illustrating the centrality of politics in determining actual outcomes.
The purpose of the paper is not to build a case for closure but to propose a
new integrated strategy based upon the plurality of ideas, pragmatic reform
and ethical responsibility.
Gavin Mount, Australian National University
The global politics of emotion: All's fear in love and war
This paper draws upon recent interdisciplinary writings from sociology and moral
philosophy challenging the assumption that rationality and emotion are necessarily
antithetical to argue that International Relations theory has not provided an
effective conceptual framework for understanding the salience of emotion in
global politics. Conventional International Relations theories have eschewed
the study of emotion in favour of claims about rational agency or a structural
logic. While critical theories have challenged assumptions of rationality, they
have also tended to avoid making claims about the role of emotion as an underlying
dynamic of global politics. In practical terms, the failure of discipline to
acknowledge the role of emotion in social and political life has meant that
the field has been underwhelming in its attempts to analyse phenomena such as
'guilt' or 'pride' in national identity, 'fear' or 'compassion' in xenophobia
or cosmopolitanism or 'mood' in the global market.
Alex Munton, Australian National University
Regional cooperation and the governance of maritime security
in the Arafura and Timor seas
Maritime problems feature prominently in discourses of security studies, especially
in relation to the Asia-Pacific. This reflects both the intrinsically maritime
nature of the region and also the increasingly geostrategic significance of
the marine environment. In this paper I explore the concept of maritime security
and suggest that, as currently used, the concept is incoherent, has little analytical
utility and obscures an understanding of the actual relationship between regional
cooperation and the maintenance of peaceful marine co-existence. In this paper
I indicate a more coherent framework for analysing maritime security which focuses
on empirically observable sources of maritime conflict that are categorised
according to 'type'. This framework is designed to facilitate an intended empirical
investigation of the relationship between regional cooperation and the governance
of maritime security in the Arafura and Timor Seas.
Chengxin Pan, School of Social Sciences, Faculty of
Arts, Australian National University
Two perspectives on self and other: Western and traditional
Chinese views of identity: Implications for global politics
Sometimes in an effort to redress the wrongs of Eurocentrism, the claim is made
that almost all Western ideas can find their counterparts in ancient China.
In International Relations, similar attempts have been made to identify Chinese
sources of what are commonly regarded as Western ideas, such as realism, power
politics, the balance of power, and nationalism. In this paper, I want to examine
in what sense this can be said about the notions of self and Other, central
themes in the development of a Western theory of international relations. Without
denying that there are commonalities between Western and traditional Chinese
conceptions of self and other, I argue that significant differences exist between
these perspectives. It is primarily because of those differences, I suggest,
that 'Western' IR theory failed to take root in China before Western expansion
into China in the nineteenth century. Moreover, I suggest that an appreciation
of traditional Chinese way of relating self to other (rather than Other) in
a non-dichotomised manner may help shed much-needed light on how we might better
interact with one another in the increasingly globalised world.
Robert G Patman, Department of Political Studies, University
of Otago
US exceptionalism and the 'new war' against global terrorism
After the horrific attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon on September
11, the Bush administration faces America's most daunting challenge since the
beginning of the Cold War in the late 1940s. In the space of one deadly day,
America experienced a bonfire of the certainties. The most military capable
nation in the world was powerless to prevent attacks on its soil against the
very symbols of US military and economic power. The conventional wisdom since
the suicide attacks of September 11 is that the world will never be the same
again. But what happened on September 11 is that the 'new wars' of the post-Cold
War era have finally caught up with and impacted directly on the United States.
In that sense, it is America's world, rather than the world per se, which changed
after September 11. If the US is to prevail in the 'new war' against terrorism,
it will have to fashion a response that seeks to come to terms with both the
immediate effects and the long-term causes of this threat. That will demand
not only considerable change in US foreign policy towards the Middle-East and
'failed states' like Afghanistan, but also a reassessment of American exceptionalism
in the contemporary era. If the US cannot make such changes, its current efforts
against terrorism are likely to be little more than a band-aid solution.
Siswo Pramono, School of Social Sciences, Faculty of
Arts, Australian National University
Paralysis by design: An account of the international theory
of genocide
The Genocide Convention is best described as 'paralysis by design'. As states
devoured their own subjects, others, who attempted to stop the frenzy, designed
a consensus to prevent and punish genocide. But in so doing the designers had
left open so many loopholes as exit strategy for both impunity and policy of
future genocide. The purpose of this paper is to give an account of the theory
of genocide. The premise is: the realist dominated approach to genocide and,
hence, its corresponding statist perspective is a main impediment for the repression
of genocide. This paper presents a more pluralist argument, insisting that the
individualisation of the liability of the crime is a prerequisite for the internationalisation
of the status of the crime. In so doing, it will examine some scholarly roots
that allegedly sustain the current state centric approach, in an attempt to
find a less-statist path. It is in the context of this less-statist path that
the (individual) moral element (mens rea) of genocide is discussed. And finally,
this chapter will present a bigger picture of genocide ¾beyond its traditional
statist frame¾ and the legal-politico implication which presses on the need
for a more critical theory of genocide: an approach in which the voice of the
victims, instead of the perpetrators, can be better accommodated. As such, the
propositions forwarded in the paper are as follows. First, genocide must include
politicide ¾the killing of human group because of political affiliation¾ otherwise
the savagery of this new millennium will cast millions of lives into the abyss
of "crime without a name". Second, the study of genocide must establish linkage
between the "international" and the "individual" within the national borders
so that the international society becomes more responsive to the plea of individual
members of the victimised group. Third, the moral element (intent) of genocide
must be extended by introducing a standard of knowledge on the course and outcome
of genocidal acts. Fourth, the study of genocide must step beyond the statist
paradigm.
Siswo Pramono, School of Social Sciences, Faculty of
Arts, Australian National University
An account of the genocidal state
The purpose of the paper is to discuss genocide as a state policy. One scholar
described a genocidal state as a state that continuously pursues politics of
annihilation "for an almost inexhaustible availability of victims." Genocide
is inflicted on people by a state through a synchronised attack on certain aspects
of life, including the political, social, cultural, economic, biological, religious,
and moral aspects. As such, genocide is "planned" to assure the effectiveness
of the (genocidal) policy and the impunity of the perpetrators. The questions
raised in this paper are straight forward. First, why do some states -authoritarian
and democratic alike- commit genocides while other do not? If a state resorts
to genocidal policy, how is such a policy implemented? And the most daunting
question, perhaps, is: when do states commit genocide. Among the best methodologies
are those that are inter-disciplinary and comparative, which genocide study
unfortunately lacks. A comparative study will help understand various levels
of state-perpetrated (or sponsored) genocide. For the purpose of this study,
this paper examines the symptoms of the genocidal state in various cases of
genocide, including the Holocaust, the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Burundi.
Genocide is too complex to be understood from the perspective of a single discipline.
Since the paper focuses on study genocide in the realm of global politics, international
theory (international relations, international law and sociology) will be used
as the main reference.
Wynne Russell, Australian National University
Hard feelings: Methodological challenges in the study of
emotion in international politics
The discipline of International Relations has shown itself slow to acknowledge,
interpret, or assess the role of emotion in international politics. To a large
degree, this reluctance stems from the scholarly biases outlined in the previous
paper. Even for those with an interest in emotion, however, the field of inquiry
is littered with tiger traps. Some of the most obvious--the difficulty of isolating
the importance of emotion in situations that are overdetermined, for example--will
be of most importance to those dedicated to treating as a separate source of
action from rationality. Even those who start from a concept of emotion and
rationality as effectively inseparable, however, will find empirical investigation
challenging. Drawing on a study of Russian-Baltic diplomatic exchanges after
the collapse of the Soviet Union, this paper will outline some of the methodological
challenges facing scholars of emotion and highlight some potentially useful
strategies from the soci! ology and nationalism literatures.
Leonard Seabrooke, Government and International Relations,
University of Sydney
The domestic sources of the international financial order:
A comparison of legitimating principles in international finance in the late-nineteenth
and late-twentieth centuries
This paper analyses the legitimating principles behind the international financial
orders of the late-nineteenth and late-twentieth centuries. In many ways these
two periods (1895-1915 and 1985-2000) are similar. Both are times of intense
centralisation: from the state in terms of financial regulation, and from private
financial institutions as they became more concentrated and swallowed-up smaller
institutions. Furthermore, both periods are considered to be periods of Œfinancial
globalisation‚, where Œhigh finance‚ stripped states of their power, especially
disempowering the capacity of the Œcommon people‚ to influence state policies.
While I agree on the first point concerned with concentration, I do not agree
that Œhigh finance‚ necessarily disempowers Œsociety‚ within the Œstate-society
complex‚. My Œneo-Weberian historicist‚ account of the two periods outlines
the importance of understanding domestic social legitimacy in Great Powers,
to see how domestic norms can alter the international financial order and generate
legitimating principles among a society of states. In Great Powers financial
policies with a high degree of domestic legitimacy are able to have a greater
influence in legitimating principles in the international financial order. I
contend that legitimating principles provide a framework formally held by a
society of states and become contested only by other principles derived from
a substantive domestically legitimate basis in other Great Powers. To demonstrate
my point, I provide brief case studies of the English movement to naturalise
the Gold Standard and dismiss international financial regimes in the 1895-1915
period, and the American movement to selectively create international financial
regimes in the 1985-2000 period. The paper thus provides a neo-Weberian historicist
account which also considers the relevance of the concept of a Œsociety of states‚
to understanding the international financial order. In the end, domestic legitimacy
is important in understanding the formation of an international financial order,
requiring an analysis of both norms and materials factors within Great Powers.
Richard Shapcott, School of Australian and International
Studies, Deakin University
Communicative ethics and international ethics: The road ahead
This paper seeks to explore the basis for the application of communicative ethics
to the ethical problems characterising International politics under conditions
of globalisation. The paper investigates what it might mean to think and act
based on the presupposition that moral action should involve a commitment to
communication. It stands as part of wider efforts to develop a coherent ethical
theory of International politics based on the incorporation of communicative
approaches to ethical issues and problem solving. If a cosmopolitan vision is
to be of any worth it must also provide moral guidance as to how to act in the
here and now as well as a motivating ideal to work towards. However most research
to date has focused on the abstract defence of the principles underlying communicative
ethics. To date this project has not moved far beyond the task of defending
and defining an ideal cosmopolitan order. Critics have charged that communicative
ethics appear 'disconnected from the most difficult moral dilemmas encountered
in contemporary global politics'. The issue that is raised by the critics of
communicative ethics is whether or not they can guide our action in an imperfect
world. The international order today is far from approximating the ideal of
a community of equals. In this context it is imperative to investigate how to
operationalise the communicative principle in the absence of a cosmopolitan
international order. This paper seeks to identify some ways in which communicative
ethics might be applied to thinking and practice in real world international
ethical situations. It identifies some of the grounds on which research on the
empirical and normative context for ethical thinking based on the principle
of communication might take place as well as to advance the case for a communicative
approach to international ethics.
JC Sharman
Tax havens and the struggle for global tax regulation
The world's richest and most powerful countries have become increasingly concerned
about revenue lost to tax havens, and fear that tax competition might spark
a "race to the bottom". This article argues that the G7/OECD-sponsored
campaign against "harmful" tax competition has been severely constrained
by regulative norms concerning means large states can legitimately employ in
this area. Norms rule out the use of coercion, but also the use of side payments,
despite the massively Pareto-improving potential of a deal between tax havens
and OECD states. The failure to strike such a deal cannot be explained by uneven
relative gains, nor by high transaction costs. Regulative norms thus can affect
economic bargaining between states by blocking mutually advantageous exchanges
that are regarded as inappropriate, irrespective of their potential profitability.
Instead the OECD has opted for a rhetorical strategy of reasoned and moral suasion,
with mixed results
Gary Smith, Deakin University
The expansion of sovereign Australia: Frontiers, borders,
boundaries and identity in Greater Australia
The map of Sovereign Australia at the start of the twentieth century was defined
by the coastline of the continent and a three-mile territorial limit over the
oceans. The map of Sovereign Australia for the twenty-first century incorporates
a massive geographical space, extending into the Indian and Southern Oceans,
the Western Pacific, and pushing north and east until it meets the counterclaims
of other states. Added to a sovereignty claim over large parts of Antarctica
and the associated seas. Australia has, with limited reflection and without
strategic design, become one of the world's largest territorial and ocean entities.
'Greater Australia' is built upon the dynamic interaction between Australian
continental and island platform and the emerging International Convention on
the Law of the Sea, which established Exclusive Economic Zones for coastal states.
This interaction creates a new, and still expanding boundary around Australia.
Australia has trebled its physical size, and with new giganticism comes new
and multi-layered boundaries, new zones of the legal jurisdiction, new lines
between the (national) self and the (non-national) other. Three sets of issues
are identified:
1. New borders —and complex engagements with neighbours: Indonesia, East
Timor, PNG, France and Antarctic claimants.
2. New boundaries — risks and securities in international relations: Defending
extensive and often distant oceans against the unlawful intrusions of other
states, or private actors; Greater exposure to the growing movement of peoples
across the world, as refugees, or 'illegal non citizens'; Strategic vulnerabilities
created by sovereignty over remote islands and island communities; Maintaining
the Antarctic Treaty system
3. Politics and policy inside the zone: The border within: The Federal/State
line of control; 'Sea Country' : Native title beyond the continent; Distant
island settlements; Antarctic dreams; Oceans: environmental and economic issues.
Email: gks@deakin.edu.au
Alex Stephens, School of Political and International
Studies, Flinders University
Japan, leadership and theory: Constraints, problems and present
implications
Leadership in international relations theory is one of those often used but
little understood aspects of this social science. This paper will outline the
three major interpretations (liberal/public choice, realist and Gramscian) of
leadership theory in international relations theory and the weaknesses inherent
in the discourse. These include the preoccupation with hegemony as the main
form of leadership in international affairs and the almost total ignorance of
those states being led (otherwise known as followers). It will also demonstrate
the troubled partnership between Japan and Leadership - from realist interpretations
to the use of economic pluralism to remove some of the arguable theoretical
aspects. Subsequently, it will be argued that the leadership debate surrounding
Japan has always been flawed, not only because of the theories' own internal
deficiencies but through the theory‚s application to Japanese leadership in
the Asia Pacific. In particular, in relation to Southeast and East Asia, the
belief that Japan could act as a hegemonic-style leader to the region was, and
continues to be, misguided. Despite largely US calls for Japan to play a larger
role in providing regional public goods to the region from the late 1960s, SE
Asia has only shared the same desire for greater Japanese leadership in the
region in limited circumstances. Finally, it will be argued that the problems
that Japan has faced in current leadership theory, with its overwhelming concentration
on hegemonic leadership, are universal and face any potential hegemon in international
affairs. This important point is of current salience considering the study of
China, its near exponential growth over the past 20 years and the belief that
it will be the next hegemon.
Shogo Suzuki, Department of International Relations, Research
School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University
Peace in East Asian international society
Recently, there has been some divide over the nature of China's international
relations. Traditionally it has been argued that Chinese political philosophy,
with its unique emphasis on pacifism, contributed to Imperial China’s preference
for defensive strategies and reluctance to expand aggressively overseas. This
view has been severely challenged by Alastair Iain Johnston, who has shown that
the Chinese actually have a hard realpolitik 'parabellum' strategic paradigm,
which shows a high preference for coercive military tactics and sees adversaries
in highly zero-sum terms. Moreover, Johnston seems to suggest that this
paradigm has persisted over time, and continues to guide the People's Republic
of China's strategic thought to this very day. Johnston’s argument has
added strength to the ‘China Threat’ thesis. Some scholars have argued
that given China’s traditionally aggressive strategic culture, we should
expect China in the 21st century to be just as dangerous as it always has been.
However, has China always been as aggressive? If we take a broader view of international
relations surrounding the Chinese empire, we can see that in some areas (particularly
Korea, Ryukyu, Vietnam, and, to a lesser extent, Japan) hard realpolitik paradigms
may not have necessarily been the central guiding principles, and wars are relatively
infrequent. What explains this phenomenon? I argue that the East Asian international
system developed from fundamentally different principles from the European one.
The East Asian international system was a hierarchical system (as opposed to
an anarchical system). The maintenance of its order was premised on tributary
relations, rather than the maintenance of the balance of power.
Email: shogo.suzuki@anu.edu.au
Timothy Szlachetko, Policy Adviser, Social Policy
Branch, Department of Premier and Cabinet and Department of Political Science,
University of Melbourne
An alternative 'Third Way': Danish welfare state experiences
in the 1990s
The Danish welfare state underwent fundamental reform in the 1990s in response
to major challenges such as globalisation, europeanisation and an ageing population.
Universal and 'passive' policy measures have been replaced with more selective
and 'active' measures. To a large extent these reforms have been motivated by
the belief that the universalistic welfare state had created a culture of dependency,
which had undermined people's sense of social responsibility. Social and labour
market policies introduced in the 1990s reveal dramatic changes in the principles
underpinning public policy in Denmark - changes which can be said to reflect
a paradigm shift in welfare discourse in Denmark and more broadly in the Nordic
countries. This presentation will discuss how 'activation' of unemployed people
has been at the core of labour market reforms in Denmark and more generally
in the other Nordic countries. These reforms have been aimed at reducing structural
unemployment and related social and economic costs primarily through increasing
the qualification levels of indviduals. In this way the experience from the
Nordic countries provides an alternative 'third way' to that prevailing in countries
such as Australia and to some extent, continental Europe. Finally, the will
paper investigate how welfare states may actively contribute to promote employment
opportunities and strengthen the position of particularly vulnerable groups
in the labour market and in doing so will highlight issues which are relevant
for Australia, including: · engaging more young people in education, training
and employment; · assisting long-term unemployed people through relevant training
and employment; and · regional solutions to labour market and broader social
policy issues.
Email: timothy.szlachetko@dpc.vic.gov.au
Reiko Take, Australian National University
Japanese security policy: Evolution or status quo?
This paper will analyse Japan's security and foreign policy outlook, and Japan's
perceptions of its international role. It will discuss the changes in the debate
over Japanese security policy since the end of World War II and analyse the
material, political and cultural factors that have shaped and continue to shape
Japanese thinking about security and its contribution to global security. It
will also discuss the non-traditional security interests of Japan of the last
decade, namely Japan's adoption of human security, and compare this to Japan's
actual responses to September 11. It will analyse what these responses demonstrate
in terms of changes in Japan's security and foreign policy after September 11.
It will also focus on the tensions that exist between traditional and alternative
security, the tensions between competing security cultures within Japan, and
changes of threat perceptions with in Japan.
Alan J Ward, Government Department, College of William and
Mary, Virginia
A constitution for a divided society: The problematic case
of Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland has a history of constitutional development dating to the Government
of Ireland Act, 1920. This established Northern Ireland as a constitutional
entity for the first time, with devolved self-government. The model of government
used was majoritarian, and therefore inappropriate for a divided society containing
two antagonistic communities, one Protestant/Unionist the other Catholic/Nationalist.
Unionists were able to use their majority to monopolize the Northern Ireland
parliament and executive in the unionist interest between 1921 to 1972, when
the system was abolished by the UK parliament. Since 1972, Britain has been
trying to devise a system of power-sharing that would provide both communities,
and all major parties, with some share of political power.
Donna Weeks, School of Political Science and International
Studies, University of Queensland
‘Comprehensive security’ and Japan's security policy
In recent years, The Pacific Review has hosted an increasingly vigorous
debate by a wide range of participants over the past, present and future Japanese
security policy, particularly in light of the demise of the Cold War. Tsuyoshi
Kawasaki's latest contribution, however, despite its confident assertions, cannot
pass with out response. He rightly challenges the short-comings of the so-called
'domestic-constructivists' especially Berger and Katzenstein. However, in attempting
to demolish their cases for 'selective biases' he then proceeds to selectively
argue a similarly biased case in asserting the superiority of yet another derivation
of the realist cause-'postclassical realism'. His key premises are based on
his interpretations of the architect of Japan's NDPO, Takuya Kubo and in doing
so 'proves' the military aspect of Japan's security policy and its 'inherent
superiority' as an explanatory framework. There are several problems with this
argument. Firstly, it continues to perpetuate a 'one-size-fits-all' approach
to understanding Japan's multi-dimensional national security interests-it is
either the economy or self-defence rationales; secondly, this kind of explanation
seeks to maintain the kind of paradigmatic hegemony of the realists that some
of us had hoped might have been diluted in the post-Cold war era; thirdly, Kawasaki
sets up a thin defence by citing the work of one bureaucrat-this is his selective
bias. Equally, one can mount a case, far stronger I think, for the 'comprehensive
security' proponents by citing the life-work of the late Okita Saburo-arguably
the architect of Japan's comprehensive security policy, with a legacy of writings
which stretches back to 1946, more than twice the length of the 25 years of
Kubo's work. This paper will demonstrate a similar argument to that of Kawasaki's
based on an analogous analytical framework, using the example of Japan's post
war relationship with Australia. I agree with Kawasaki on the shortcomings of
the domestic constructivists case for Japan as an anathema to realism. Nonetheless
I prefer to persist with a 'social-constructivist' understanding of Japanese
security. My contentions differ substantially from Kawasaki's assertions, however,
inasmuch as one proffers the social-constructivist case not as superior to existing
explanations, be they realist variants, liberal-institutional or constructivist,
but as something to offer 'in tandem' with the otherwise quality analysis that
Kawasaki has offered in recent years.
Ben Wellings, School of Social Sciences, Australian
National University
England and the British question: English nationalism, 1997-2001
Nationalism in Britain during the 1990s was dominated by demands from the "stateless-nations"
for national assemblies. New Labour's first term in office witnessed concessions
to these nationalist demands for greater political representation in the form
of a Scottish parliament and assemblies for Wales and Northern Ireland. As such,
England became a political entity in a way it had not been for three hundred
years almost by default. However, devolution and national consciousness in England
did not appear to be linked in any forceful way. In particular, neither of the
two major political parties, Labour or the Conservatives, made much attempt
to turn themselves into the "English Party", despite some rumblings from backbenchers
on the issue. Both parties, although for different reasons, ultimately remained
wedded to the idea of Britain and Britishness. Whereas nationalism in Scotland,
Wales and Northern Ireland meant reforming the state, nationalism in England
required the re-packaging of old narratives and discourses into a new product.
As the devolved assemblies embedded themselves in the British political system,
England itself became not so much a "stateless-nation", but a nation with too
much state, with a national consciousness adhering to British discourses which
were themselves being undermined by the nationalisms of the periphery. At present
a majoritarian English nationalism remains quiescent, but the example of John
Howard's Australia and his championing of the "mainstream", demonstrate the
potential of such nationalisms to advance the rights of the many at the expense
of the few. Ultimately, the course of English nationalism will be determined
by events outside England. The content of English nationalism is another matter
and one which at present neither main party seems willing or able to articulate.
Xu Yi-chong and Patrick Weller, Griffith University
Negotiating GATS: The GATT/WTO secretariat and policy outcomes
Amid the public furore over the influence of the World Trade Organisation, little
attention has been given to the impact of the WTO secretariat. On the one hand
it is stigmatised as an unaccountable bureaucracy, on the other as a mere bunch
of clerks who take the minutes and organise the meetings but have no influence
on outcomes. This paper will explore the impact that the Secretariat had on
the development and agreement that led to the General Agreement on Trade in
Services as part of the Uruguay Round. Based on GATT documentation and interviews,
it will illustrate that, once the Services agenda was accepted, the Secretarial
played a significant role in defining the concepts and moving the debate along
towards a satisfactory conclusion. In so doing it used many of the skills traditionally
required of national bureaucracies. The paper will show that if the impact of
the WTO is to be understood, then there must be an appreciation of the role
of the secretariat, its relations with the member nations and the scope for
action within the framework of " member-driven" organisation. That role can
be shown to be essential to the success of any negotiations.
This site maintained by Phil Griffiths. This page updated 30 September 2002