International politics

Stream convenors(s): Katrina Lee Koo (Australian National University)
Complete list of papers

Other streams:       Australia's contribution to political studies    The disciplinary history of political science    Australasian politics    Political sociology    The politics of resistance and class    Health, politics and policy    Women and politics    Political theory    Environmental policy and politics

Presenters:

PANEL

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.

ABSTRACTS

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.

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