The rise of China is profoundly altering the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific region, and this shift will accelerate as China’s economy grows to rival that of the United States during the next two decades. This report examines these issues and suggests the course that New Zealand should chart to ensure that its interests in the peace and stability of the Asia Pacific are maintained.
The kea, a crow-sized parrot that lives in the rugged mountains of New Zealand, is considered by some a playful comic and by others a vicious killer. Its true character is a mystery that biologists have debated for more than a century. Judy Diamond and Alan Bond have written a comprehensive account of the kea's contradictory nature, and their conclusions cast new light on the origins of behavioral flexibility and the problem of species survival in human environments everywhere. New Zealand's geological remoteness has made the country home to a bizarre assemblage of plants and animals that are wholly unlike anything found elsewhere. Keas are native only to the South Island, breeding high in the rigorous, unforgiving environment of the Southern Alps. Bold, curious, and ingeniously destructive, keas have a complex social system that includes extensive play behavior. Like coyotes, crows, and humans, keas are "open-program" animals with an unusual ability to learn and to create new solutions to whatever problems they encounter. Diamond and Bond present the kea's story from historical and contemporary perspectives and include observations from their years of field work. A comparison of the kea's behavior and ecology with that of its closest relative, the kaka of New Zealand's lowland rain forests, yields insights into the origins of the kea's extraordinary adaptability. The authors conclude that the kea's high level of sociality is a key factor in the flexible lifestyle that probably evolved in response to the alpine habitat's unreliable food resources and has allowed the bird to survive the extermination of much of its original ecosystem. But adaptability has its limits, as the authors make clear when describing present-day interactions between keas and humans and the attempts to achieve a peaceful coexistence.
While we New Zealanders live off the cow's back, our long-term economic prognosis looks grim. Our economic growth lags behind Australia and other countries in the OECD. Our universities fall each year in international rankings. We export 24 per cent of our university graduates. The country's lack-lustre economic performance following the free-market reforms of the 1980s is often cast as a paradox: why haven't sound economic policies led to growth? In this book two of New Zealand's leading thinkers tell us to 'get off the grass!' - and explain how we might do so. Shuan Hendy and Paul Callaghan argue that the New Zealand 'paradox' can be explained by our struggle to innovate. On a per-capita basis, OECD countries on average produce four times as many patents as New Zealand. Why is this? What determines a country's capacity for innovation? Shaun Hendy and Paul Callaghan take a quantitative look at how innovation works both in New Zealand and around the world. They show that economic geography plays a key role in determining rates of innovation and productivity. If New Zealand is to grow its economy more rapidly it must overcome geography to build nationwide communities of innovators, entrepreneurs and businesses. It must get off the grass and diversify its economy beyond the primary sector. Hendy and Callaghan pose deep challenges to the country: Can New Zealand learn to innovate like a city of four million people? Can New Zealand become a place where talent wants to live? Can we learn to live off knowledge rather than nature? Are we willing to take science seriously? In a brilliant intellectual adventure that takes us from David Ricardo and Adam Smith to economic geography and the science of complex networks, Shaun Hendy and Paul Callaghan pose the tough questions and provide some powerful answers for New Zealand's future.
The Covid-19 pandemic triggered the first global public health emergency since 1918, the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, and the greatest geopolitical tensions in decades. Global governance mechanisms failed. Yet, East Asian countries (with caveats) managed to control Covid-19 better than most other countries and to increase their cooperation toward economic integration, despite their position on the security frontline. What explains this East Asian Covid paradox in a region devoid of strong regional institutions? This Element argues that high levels of institutional preparation, social cohesion, and global strategic reinforcement in a context of situational convergence explain the results. It relies on high-level interviews and case studies across the region.
This volume is the first to explore the vibrant history of Magna Carta in Aotearoa New Zealand’s legal, political and popular culture. Readers will benefit from in-depth analyses of the Charter’s reception along with explorations of its roles in regard to larger constitutional themes. The common thread that binds the collection together is its exploration of what the adoption of a medieval charter as part of New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements has meant – and might mean – for a Pacific nation whose identity remains in flux. The contributions to this volume are grouped around three topics: remembrance and memorialization of Magna Carta; the reception of the Charter by both Māori and non-Māori between 1840 and 2015; and reflection on the roles that the Charter may yet play in future constitutional debate. This collection provides evidence of the enduring attraction of Magna Carta, and its importance as a platform of constitutional aspiration.
The Paradox of Risk contends that central banks' fear of inflation and risk taking has hampered their efforts to revive global prosperity. Ángel Ubide mobilizes a wealth of research on the experience from the last decade, urging policymakers to leave their "comfort zone," embrace risk taking, and take bolder action to brighten economic prospects.
Rebecca Priestley longs to be in Antarctica. But it is also the last place on Earth she wants to go.In 2011 Priestley visits the wide white continent for the first time, on a trip that coincides with the centenary of Robert Falcon Scott's fateful trek to the South Pole. For Priestley, 2011 is the fulfilment of a dream that took root in a childhood full of books, art and science and grew stronger during her time as a geology student in the 1980s. She is to travel south twice more, spending time with Antarctic scientists &– including paleo-climatologists, biologists, geologists, glaciologists &– exploring the landscape, marvelling at wildlife from orca to tardigrades, and occasionally getting very cold.A constant companion for Priestley is her anxiety &– both the kind that is brought on by flying to the bottom of the world in a military aeroplane; and the kind that clouds our thoughts of how our world will be for our children. Writing against the backdrop of Trump's America, extreme weather events, and scientists' projections for Earth's climate, she grapples with the truths we need to tell ourselves as we stand on a tightrope between hope for the planet, and catastrophic change.Fifteen Million Years in Antarctica offers a deeply personal tour of a place in which a person can feel like an outsider in more ways than one. With generosity and candour, Priestley reflects on what Antarctica can tell us about Earth's future and asks: do people even belong in this fragile, otherworldly place?
This volume offers the personal narratives of school, district, and state education leaders engaged in ongoing pursuits of equity, as well as findings from research and from research-practice partnerships. The chapters offer glimmers of hope through glimpses into the experiences of education leaders in the US and New Zealand. None of the stories told offer a fool-proof formula for achieving the goal of culturally responsive, socially just, equity-minded schools. They each present the inherent complexities of enacting change in schools and school systems, and the blunders that happen along the way. Each chapter begins with guiding questions to focus readers’ attention as they listen to – and really hear – the lived experiences of these authors. Chapters end with reflection questions to push others to work to move aspiration into action, to build ideas of how to engage with communities in meaningful and productive ways, and how to keep stoking the passion and dedication to face the next hurdle. Taken as a whole, the book offers a reminder to pause and celebrate small successes along the way. The disproportionate impact of the pandemic on communities of color make an edited volume with accessible stories of culturally responsive leadership for social justice particularly relevant, even necessary.
