‘‘An old quarrel between us that will never be at an end": Middleton’s Women Beware Women and Late Jacobean Religious Politics

In this article, I examine Thomas Middleton's Women Beware Women as a response to the particular religio-political context in the years surrounding 1621. The onset of the Thirty Years War in 1618 and the subsequent humiliation of James' son-in-law Frederick, Elector of Palatine, the vexed question of a possible Catholic marriage for Charles, Prince of Wales, the ever present difficulty of Anglo-Catholic relations, particularly with Spain, as well as growing religious factionalism within the Church of England between Calvinists and Arminians: all contributed towards a culturally febrile atmosphere, one to which, as I will argue, Middleton was well placed to respond. Given Middleton's Calvinistic beliefs, I suggest that Women Beware Women offers an acerbic examination of contemporary debates concerning human will, especially women's will, as well as promoting a sceptically apocalyptic anti-Catholic agenda throughout. I also examine the religious language and imagery used to construct Bianca as the whore of Babylon, and argue that her emergence and fall offer a political commentary on the precarious position of the English Church around 1621.

Are Good Industrial Relations Good for the Economy?

Recent US microeconomic analysis indicates that good industrial relations might improve firm performance. Of late, it has also been claimed that the benefits of industrial relations quality - proxied inversely by a strikes variable - could also extend to the macroeconomy. Using cross-country data, we find that, independent of other labor market institutions, a lower strike volume is associated with lower unemployment. Although there is a separate line of causation running from unemployment to strikes, our analysis suggests that this is not dominant. That said, support for the notion that macro performance owes something to good industrial relations is, however, weakened once we formally control for strike endogeneity.

'"To have its cake and eat it too:" US policy toward South Africa during the Kennedy administration

The assumption that US policy toward Africa was characterized by continuity during the cold war has recently been challenged by scholars who argue that President John F. Kennedy embarked on an African policy that was distinct from his predecessors. This may be true for black Africa, but Kennedy’s support for African nationalism did not extend to South Africa. This article reveals that Kennedy’s cold war priorities ensured continuity in US policy toward the apartheid state and, in some cases, additional cooperation as cold war crises increased the perceived importance of South Africa as an ideological and strategic ally and bastion against communism on a rapidly changing continent. This article also explores the role South Africa’s apartheid government played in this cold war alliance. The ruling National Party recognized its importance to US foreign policy goals and used this to stave off serious American criticism of its racial policies, deflect attention in the United Nations, and ensure continued economic and military cooperation with the United States.

Off-Duty Resilience: Re-orienting Tourism, Leisure and Recreation in the US Army BOSS program

Understanding how US imperial strategy is sustained by tourism and militarism requires an account of how American soldiers learn to understand themselves in relation to a variety of marginalized others. This paper explores how the US Army’s ‘Ready and Resilient’ (R2) campaign constructs soldier / other relations by mobilizing off-duty time through the ‘Better Opportunities for Single Soldiers’ (BOSS) program. BOSS’s first two platforms of ‘Well-Being’ and ‘Community Service’ feed into the R2 agenda by producing highly-skilled leaders (who govern a disengaged rank and file) and benevolent humanitarians (who provide charity for abject civilians). When these dispositions are transposed into BOSS’s third platform of ‘Recreation and Leisure’, soldiers turn away from the goals of leadership and humanitarianism to reveal the privileged narcissism underscoring the R2 agenda. This self-focus is intensified by familiar power relations in the tourism industry as soldiers pursue self-improvement by commodifying, distancing and effacing local tourist workers. Using the BOSS program as a case study, this paper critically interrogates how the US Army is assimilating off-duty practices of tourism, leisure and recreation into the wider program of resilience training.