While the violence of the attempted coup in East Timor is shocking, it should not be a surprise. East Timor has been moving into multi-dimensional crisis for several years, resulting from three factors: rule by the gun; increasing and apparently intractable impoverishment and corruption; and deeply eroded legitimacy of all the major political players. Tanter...

In this paper David Martin Jones argues that the ruling coalition led by Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi's United Malay National Organization now faces the challenge of renegotiating the terms of its fraying social contract, widening the basis for minority participation and more forcefully addressing the problem of judicial corruption.

The Potential Leaders in Local Communities initiative of the Australian Government's Stronger Families and Communities Strategy focused leadership development initiatives on four largely disadvantaged social groups – youth, Indigenous communities, women, and rural and regional communities – to address various social issues. This paper evaluates the outcomes of the initiative. A number of different strategies...

The author argues that the new Labor government should initiate a regional climate pact, established within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change/Kyoto Protocol framework aiming at both mitigation and adaptation. He examines possible models for such a pact, and argues for the inclusion of major emitters Australia and Indonesia and a diverse group of...

An evaluative case study undertaken as part of the Stronger Families and Communities Strategy. The report assesses the achievements in the implementation and effectiveness of the Strategy in addressing the local issues of social isolation, youth at risk, families with young children and disempowerment of the Indigenous population around Mandurah in Western Australia.