A warrior nation

Under Prime Minister John Howard, Australia today appears to have turned away from Asia, returning to a Western oriantation. Has racial invasion fear, once expressed in the 'White Australia' policy, been the determinant of relations with Asia? I argue, in contrast, first, that invasion fear preceded race fear and, second, that Australia was unlucky, in coming to nationhood during the eras of Social Darwinism and New Imperialism, scaling ideas of race citizenship into its national formation. It was unlucky to associate national 'manhood' with Gallipoli and war, making the national tradition expeditionary nationalism, or ANZAC. War is central in national memory and public patriotism, primarily because war has been carried out overseas rather than through fighting on Australian soil, and the devastation of Australian cities. Even after the retreat of Western empires in Asia, and of racial ideology, why has this romantic and foolish view of war as an expression of the nation persisted? Paradoxically, Australians romanticise war even though, after 1788, there has been no other invasion of a continent which is harder to invade than it is to defend.

Popular consent and foreign policy choices : war against the Philippines and covert action in Chile

It is usually assumed that US policymakers need to generate popular consent in order to undertake regime change against another state. This article explores the ways in which contextual factors such as the joint democracy effect, popular values and public moods influenced efforts by elites in the United States to generate popular consent for regime change in the Philippines and Chile. Against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, the United States undertook covert action in Chile due to public recognition of the target state's democratic credentials and a public mood opposed to further military ventures. In contrast, the absence of a strong joint democracy effect, a national mood infused with romantic nationalism qua militarism and social Darwinism facilitated efforts by US elites to generate consent for the invasion and occupation of the Philippines. Subsequently, this article contributes to understandings of the domestic-level factors that influence foreign policy decisions.

A mystery to the medical world : Florence Nightingale, Rosendo Salvado and the risk of civilisation

In 1860 Florence Nightingale conducted a study on the mortality rates of indigenous children attending native colonial schools across the British Empire. Her study was driven by the question: ‘Can we civilise the natives without killing them?’ One colonial school that participated in the survey was New Norcia Benedictine mission in Western Australia. When Rosendo Salvado, the mission’s superintendent, responded, he drew on his daily encounters with the Yuat people, his statistics on the mission residents and his Benedictine philosophy of civilisation and conversion of colonised peoples. The correspondence between Salvado and Nightingale took place in the climate of intense debates about Aboriginal health, colonisation and extinction in Britain and the colonies. While many settlers and colonial observers understood Aboriginal depopulation to be the result of either the vices and diseases of unprincipled Europeans or an unstoppable destiny, whether Divine Providence or natural selection, Nightingale and Salvado shared a belief in practical solutions to what they understood to be a practical problem. Their collaboration is an example of the humanitarian opposition to the racial pessimism of Social Darwinism. They both sought to use the recently influential intellectual discipline of social statistics to support their conviction that Aborigines, if patiently and carefully handled, would survive the admittedly risky process of civilisation.