The shift from sterling to the dollar 1965-76: evidence from Australia and New Zealand

The management of foreign exchange reserves has recently attracted attention from both policy-makers and historians. Historical research has focussed on the nineteenth century and the interwar period, with less attention to the strategies of smaller countries in the final transition from sterling to the dollar in the post-1945 period. This article examines the evolution of reserve currency policy from the perspective of Australia and New Zealand in the 1960s and early 1970s. As in the 1930s, economic uncertainty and a shift in global economic power prompted changes in reserves strategy. Patterns of trade and debt and falling confidence in British economic policy prompted a move away from sterling, but the timing and extent of this transition were affected by the fragility of the sterling exchange rate, lack of alternative assets, and continued dependence on the London capital market. The choices for Australia and New Zealand were thus constrained, but they were able to leverage their position as holders of sterling to engage in agreements that provided an exchange rate guarantee for their sterling holdings and continued access to the London capital market. This mitigated the effect of the final global transition from sterling to the dollar while protecting their interests

Small States in the Rearview Mirror: Legitimacy in the Management of Economy and Society

Small States in World Markets is about political efficacy and legitimation rather than scoring who is ahead in the economic sweepstakes. Its case for democratic corporatism rests on norms, particularly stability, rather than on narrow measures of economic efficiency. But stability and the efficacious management of the economy and social problems requires a degree of technocracy that undermines the legitimacy of the management process itself by helping to produce populist revolts

Beyond aggression: Androgen-receptor blockade modulates social interaction in wild meerkats

In male vertebrates, androgens are inextricably linked to reproduction, social dominance, and aggression, often at the cost of paternal investment or prosociality. Testosterone is invoked to explain rank-related reproductive differences, but its role within a status class, particularly among subordinates, is underappreciated. Recent evidence, especially for monogamous and cooperatively breeding species, suggests broader androgenic mediation of adult social interaction. We explored the actions of androgens in subordinate, male members of a cooperatively breeding species, the meerkat (Suricata suricatta). Although male meerkats show no rank-related testosterone differences, subordinate helpers rarely reproduce. We blocked androgen receptors, in the field, by treating subordinate males with the antiandrogen, flutamide. We monitored androgen concentrations (via baseline serum and time-sequential fecal sampling) and recorded behavior within their groups (via focal observation). Relative to controls, flutamide-treated animals initiated less and received more high-intensity aggression (biting, threatening, feeding competition), engaged in more prosocial behavior (social sniffing, grooming, huddling), and less frequently initiated play or assumed a ‘dominant’ role during play, revealing significant androgenic effects across a broad range of social behavior. By contrast, guarding or vigilance and measures of olfactory and vocal communication in subordinate males appeared unaffected by flutamide treatment. Thus, androgens in male meerkat helpers are aligned with the traditional trade-off between promoting reproductive and aggressive behavior at a cost to affiliation. Our findings, based on rare endocrine manipulation in wild mammals, show a more pervasive role for androgens in adult social behavior than is often recognized, with possible relevance for understanding tradeoffs in cooperative systems

Using playback of territorial calls to investigate mechanisms of kin discrimination in red squirrels

Kin recognition can facilitate kin selection and may have played a role in the evolution of sociality. Red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) defend territories using vocalizations known as rattles. They use rattles to discriminate kin, though the mechanism underlying this ability is unknown. Our objective was to distinguish between the mechanisms of prior association, where animals learn the phenotypes of kin they associate with early in life, and phenotype matching/recognition alleles, where animals use a template to match phenotypes, thereby allowing them to recognize kin without an association early in life. We used audio playbacks to measure the responses of squirrels to rattles from familiar kin, unfamiliar kin, and non-kin. Initial analyses revealed that red squirrels did not discriminate between familiar and unfamiliar kin, but also did not discriminate between kin and non-kin, despite previous evidence indicating this capability. Post hoc analyses showed that a squirrel’s propensity to rattle in response to playback depended on an interaction between relatedness and how the playback stimuli had been recorded. Red squirrels discriminated between rattles from close kin (r = 0.5) and rattles from non-kin (r < 0.125) when the rattles were recorded from provoked squirrels. Squirrels did not exhibit kin discrimination in response to unsolicited rattles. Once we accounted for how the stimuli had been recorded, we found no difference in the responses to familiar and unfamiliar kin. Our study suggests that kin discrimination by red squirrels may be context dependent

Red squirrels use territorial vocalizations for kin discrimination

The ability to discriminate among individuals, or among classes of individuals, can provide animals with important fitness benefits. Although several mechanisms for discrimination are possible, most require animals to show stable phenotypic variation that reflects their identity or their membership in a particular class (e.g. sex, mate, kin). For territorial animals that rarely interact physically, vocalizations could serve as long-distance signals that facilitate discrimination. In this study, we tested whether the territorial rattle vocalizations of North American red squirrels, Tamiasciurus hudsonicus, are repeatable, and whether they could hence provide the basis for multiple types of discrimination. We measured four structural features from two rattles from each of 76 marked squirrels. All four features were repeatable, which is consistent with territorial rattles being individually distinctive. We then conducted a playback experiment to determine whether squirrels use rattles for discrimination. Specifically, we tested whether squirrels discriminate between the rattles of neighbours and non-neighbours, and kin (coefficient of relatedness, r ≥ 0.25) and non-kin (r < 0.125). Following a 2 × 2 factorial design, we broadcast a rattle from a non-neighbouring nonkin individual to 15 subjects, from a neighbouring nonkin individual to 14 subjects, from a non-neighbouring kin individual to 11 subjects, and from a neighbouring kin individual to 13 subjects. Subjects did not discriminate between the rattles of neighbours and non-neighbours, but did respond differently to the rattles of kin and nonkin. Specifically, squirrels were significantly more likely to produce a rattle of their own in response to the broadcasted rattles of nonkin versus the broadcasted rattles of kin. This result demonstrates that red squirrels can use territorial vocalizations for kin discrimination. It also suggests that they are more tolerant of territorial intrusions by kin

Beyond ‘geo-economics’: advanced unevenness and the anatomy of German austerity

This article aims to shed new light on Germany’s domineering role in the eurocrisis. I argue that the realist-inspired depiction of Germany as a ‘geo-economic power’, locked into zero-sum competition with its European partners, is built around an empty core: unable to theorise how anarchy shapes the calculus of states where security competition has receded, it cannot explain why German state managers have insisted on an austerity response to the crisis despite its significant risks and costs even for Germany itself. To unlock this puzzle, this article outlines a version of uneven and combined development (UCD) that is better able to capture the international pressures and opportunities faced by policy elites in advanced capitalist states that no longer encounter one another as direct security rivals. Applied to Germany, this lens reveals a twofold unevenness in the historical structures and growth cycles of capitalist economies that shape its contradictory choice for austerity. In the long run, the reorientation of the export-dependent German economy from Europe towards Asian and Latin American late industrialisers renders the structural adjustment of the eurozone an opportunity—from the cost-saving view of German manufacturers producing in the European home market for export abroad, as well as for German state officials keen to sustain a crumbling class compromise centred on Germany’s world market success. In the short term, however, its exposed position between the divergent post-crisis trajectories of the US and Europe accelerates pressures for austerity beyond what German state and corporate elites would otherwise consider feasible