Front and Back Covers,Volume 32, Number 5. October 2016

Front and back cover caption, volume 32 issue 5 Front cover CHÁVEZ'S AFTERLIVES Amid widespread crisis and uncertainty today, political symbols are pivotal in the shaping of political subjectivities. In today's widespread crisis and uncertainty, political symbols, ranging from national flags and monuments to mausoleums and street names, are regaining prominence as objects of public display, debate and contentious activity. Some of these symbols have become strongly associated with the shaping of increasingly polarized political publics across the globe. In this issue, Luis Angosto‐Ferrández examines the intensification of an ongoing struggle over political symbols in contemporary Venezuela, focusing on the figure of Chávez as the epitome of a contested national symbol. At a conjuncture of political readjustments in the country, the fate of Chávez's corpse, currently located in a mausoleum, is at stake, but also the configuration of the institutionally sanctioned symbolic order with which political actors aim to condition political manoeuvring in years to come. The figure of Chávez has been transformed into a ‘master symbol’ with political afterlives. This helps explain the strength of Chávez‐as‐symbol among those who resort to it in support of their political hopes: as Christianity continued without Christ, political Chavismo is said to live on without the flesh and bone Chávez, transubstantiated in his supporters. Does the manipulation of symbols imply a degree of creational (social) power, or do symbols represent and mobilize already existing social groupings? Are symbols exclusively generated and manipulated by elites who use them to control social demands, or are symbolic and material political practices intertwined in a more dialectical way? In exploring these questions we are invited to interrogate the nature, potential and challenges facing contemporary democracies. Back cover Walls, barbed wire, spiked and electric fences as well as CCTV cameras are prominent components of the South African securityscape, especially in middle and upper‐class areas. It would not be an exaggeration to say that in post‐apartheid South Africa, the previous socio‐spatial segregation along racial lines has been replaced by one based on economic inequalities. In this issue, Thomas G. Kirsch discusses the semantics and internal logic of security discourse. The securitization of South Africa has a material, tangible side that endows security concerns with an omnipresence, even if it is not talked about explicitly. Here, the text and photographs combine to illustrate and exemplify why security discourses and practices are proliferating worldwide.     

Capture Life: The ‘Document-Monument’ in Recent Commemorations of Hugo Chávez

The recent passing of Hugo Chávez, president of Venezuela from 1999 till 2013, produced a juncture in the nation's imaginary that immediately sparked numerous and diverse commemorative practices. This article explores this sudden demand for a coherent and enduring memory of the late president by analysing different official postures and commemorative strategies. These are initially placed in the context of key historiographical tropes of the Bolivarian Revolution, and then analysed in light of such tropes. Specifically, the discussion identifies a thirst for ‘documents’, used in the broad sense proposed by Jacques Le Goff, which converged on the presidential body, the social body and public space as potential stimuli for memory. In this context, the initial possibilities of embalming Chávez's body, free tattoos of his signature and its use to decorate government buildings, appeal to the archive as a source of authority and as the commencement of history, as Jacques Derrida has it, while extrapolating the president's signature as a mobile and reproducible image of power to seek the eternal presence of the ‘líder eterno’ (eternal leader) as an anchor for political unity.     

Trump’s populism: lessons from Latin America

This paper compares left-wing Latin American populism with Donald Trump. Despite their different social bases and economic policies, they use a similar logic to construct politics as an antagonistic struggle between two camps. Left-wing and right-wing populists aim to rupture existing political institutions to give power to the people, yet they differ in how they construct this category. Whereas Trump used ethnic criteria to differentiate the people from three out groups – Mexicans, Muslims, and African-American militant organisations – left-wing Latin American populists used political and socio-economic criteria. Despite their democratising promises, Latin American populists like Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and Rafael Correa in Ecuador undermined democracy from within. Even though stronger institutions might protect American democracy, Trump has disfigured democracy.     

Sámi Citizenship: Marginalisation or Integration?

Abstract

In accordance with international conventions the Sámi is an indigenous group belonging to two populations and two overlapping civil societies within one nation state. This situation not only influences Sámi political interests and activities in general, but it also affects the individual Sámi's political orientation and decisions. Nevertheless, no thorough study has been conducted, on the individual level, of Sámi political participation and involvement. We know neither how political attitudes and participation vary within this group, nor how it varies in relation to the Norwegian population in general. Thus we know practically nothing about how recent institutional developments have influenced Sámi citizenship.

This article looks closely at variations in political involvement and participation amongst Sámi and non-Sámi living in Norway's Sámi language management area, and compares this with political involvement and participation amongst the Norwegian population in general. The Citizenship Survey shows that in terms of political interest and participation, the Sámi living in the Sámi language management area are on par with others living there, and with Norwegians in general. In several important political areas the Sámi actually show significantly more interest and involvement than Norwegians in general. Furthermore, Sámi political trust and self-confidence are as high as in the general population, and we have not uncovered any particular marginalisation with respect to women and young people's interest and participation.

There is much to suggest that our findings measure not only the Sámi's combined political interest and participation, but also their degree of participation and interest in the Norwegian political system. We do not find a picture of Sámi political segregation, nor of an extensive marginalisation. The findings point towards strong integration in the Norwegian political system, with Norwegian and Sámi public space and civil societies overlapping rather than being competitive or even antagonistic.     

Challenging the Quimera (Sirena) Negra: Unamuno Reads Pardo Bazán

This article examines the literary relationship of Emilia Pardo Bazán and Miguel de Unamuno by analyzing Unamuno's 1905 review of La Quimera, as well as his tribute to Pardo Bazán on the occasion of her death in 1921. These two critical pieces, together with Unamuno's Dos madres and La tía Tula, reveal that while Unamuno dismisses Pardo Bazán's realism in his discussion of her works, he develops in his own fiction alter egos who struggle with dominant female figures, just as he competes with Pardo Bazán's model of authorship.     

Book reviews

Book reviewed in this issue. International Relations theory British international thinkers from Hobbes to Namier. Edited by Ian Hall and Lisa Hill. International law, human rights and ethics After Abu Ghraib: exploring human rights in America and the Middle East. By Shadi Mokhtari. Globalizing justice: the ethics of poverty and power. By Richard W. Miller. International organization and foreign policy The contemporary Commonwealth: an assessment 1965–2009. Edited by James Mayall. The Commonwealth and international affairs: the Round Table centennial selection. Edited by Alex May. International security in practice: the politics of NATO—Russia diplomacy. By Vincent Pouliot. Conflict, security and defence Securing the state. By David Omand. Why intelligence fails: lessons from the Iranian Revolution and the Iraq War. By Robert Jervis. Preventing catastrophe: the use and misuse of intelligence efforts to halt the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. By Thomas Graham Jr and Keith Hansen. Intelligence for an age of terror. By Gregory Treverton. Liberal peace transitions: between statebuilding and peacebuilding. By Oliver P. Richmond and Jason Franks. Aftermath: the Omagh bombing and the families' pursuit of justice. By Ruth Dudley Edwards. Governance, civil society and cultural politics The Muslim revolt: a journey through political Islam. By Roger Hardy. The borders of Islam: exploring Samuel Huntington's faultlines from Al‐Andalus to virtual Ummah. Edited by Stig Jarle Hansen, Atle Mesøy and Tuncay Kardas. Global Salafism: Islam's new religious movement. Edited by Roel Meijer. Political Islam observed. By Frédéric Volpi. Political economy, economics and development High financier: the lives and time of Siegmund Warburg. By Niall Ferguson. Too big to fail: inside the battle to save Wall Street. By Andrew Ross Sorkin. Capitalism 4.0: the birth of a new economy. By Anatole Kaletsky. This time is different: eight centuries of financial folly. By Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff. Crisis: cause, containment, and cure. By Thomas F. Huertas. The end of influence: what happens when other countries have the money. By Stephen S. Cohen and J. Bradford DeLong. Energy, resources and environment Global politics of health. By Sara E. Davies. History America's Rasputin: Walt Rostow and the Vietnam War. By David Milne. The Atlantic and its enemies: a personal history of the Cold War. By Norman Stone. The Cold War and national assertion in Southeast Asia: Britain, the United States and Burma, 1948–1962. By Matthew Foley. Southeast Asia and the Vietnam War. By Ang Cheng Guan. Europe The European Union as a small power: after the post‐Cold War. By Asle Toje. The paradoxical republic: Austria, 1945–2005. By Oliver Rathkolb. Russia and Eurasia Turkmenistan's foreign policy: positive neutrality and the consolidation of the Turkmen regime. By Luca Anceschi. Middle East and North Africa The United States and Iraq since 1979: hegemony, oil and war. By Steven Hurst. The Iraq effect: the Middle East after the Iraq war. By Frederic Wehrey, Dalia Dassa Kaye, Jessica Watkins, Jeffrey Martini and Robert A. Guffey. Crisis of authority: Iran's 2009 presidential election. By Ali M. Ansari. Abu Dhabi: oil and beyond. By Christopher M. Davidson. Regime and periphery in northern Yemen: the Huthi phenomenon. By Barak A. Salmoni, Bryce Loidolt and Madeleine Wells. Sub‐Saharan Africa Somaliland: an African struggle for nationhood and international recognition. By Iqbal D. Jhazbhay. Zimbabwe: years of hope and despair. By Philip Barclay. Milk and peace, drought and war: Somali culture, society and politics: essays in honour of I. M. Lewis. Edited by Markus V. Hoehne and Virginia Luling. The curse of Berlin: Africa after the Cold War. By Adekeye Adebajo. South Asia My life with the Taliban. By Abdul Salam Zaeef. Edited by Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn. India and Pakistan: continued conflict or cooperation? By Stanley Wolpert. Toughing it out in Afghanistan. By Michael O'Hanlon and Hassina Sherjan. Empires of mud: wars and warlords in Afghanistan. By Antonio Giustozzi. Inside nuclear South Asia. Edited by Scott D. Sagan. East Asia and Pacific Mao's great famine: the history of China's most devastating catastrophe. By Frank Dikötter. North America Obama's wars: the inside story. By Bob Woodward. The bridge: the life and rise of Barack Obama. By David Remnick. The promise: President Obama, year one. By Jonathan Alter. Reading Obama: dreams, hope, and the American political tradition. By James T. Kloppenberg. Soft power and US foreign policy: theoretical, historical and contemporary perspectives. Edited by Inderjeet Parmar and Michael Cox. Dominion from sea to sea: Pacific ascendancy and American power. By Bruce Cumings. American foreign policy. By Paul R. Viotti. Latin America and Caribbean 1959: the year that inflamed the Caribbean. By Bernard Diederich. Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian revolution: populism and democracy in a globalised age. By Barry Cannon. Venezuela's Chavismo and populism in comparative perspective. By Kirk A. Hawkins. Electing Chávez: the business of anti‐neoliberal politics in Venezuela. By Leslie Gates. Revolutionary social change in Colombia: the origin and direction of the FARC‐EP. By James J. Brittain. Blood and capital: the paramilitarization of Colombia. By Jasmin Hristov. Portrait of a nation: culture and progress in Ecuador. By Osvaldo Hurtado.     

Book reviews

Books reviewed in this issue. International Relations theory The clash of ideas in world politics: transnational networks, states, and regime change, 1510–2010. By John M. Owen IV. Hierarchy in International Relations. By David A. Lake. British foreign policy, national identity, and neoclassical Realism. By Amelia Hadfield‐Amkhan. International law, human rights and ethics Laws, outlaws, and terrorists: lessons from the war on terrorism. By Gabriella Blum and Philip B. Heymann. International organization and foreign policy Liberal Leviathan: the origins, crisis, and transformation of the American world order. By G. John Ikenberry. Conflict, security and defence Governing the bomb: civilian control and democratic accountability of nuclear weapons. Edited by Hans Born, Bates Gill and Heiner Hänggi. Disarmament during deterrence: deep nuclear reductions and international security. By James Acton. Osama bin Laden. By Michael Scheuer. Governance, civil society and cultural politics Why leaders lie: the truth about lying in international politics. By John J. Mearsheimer. A metahistory of the clash of civilisations: us and them beyond Orientalism. By Arshin Adib‐Moghaddam. Political economy, economics and development Exorbitant privilege: the rise and fall of the dollar. By Barry Eichengreen. The future of global currency: the euro versus the dollar. By Benjamin J. Cohen. Global politics and financial governance. By Randall Germain. Fault lines: how hidden fractures still threaten the world economy. By Raghuram G. Rajan. Energy, resources and environment The new harvest: agricultural innovation in Africa. By Calestous Juma. Climate change in Africa. By Camilla Toulmin. History Stalin's genocides. By Norman M. Naimark. The victims return: survivors of the Gulag after Stalin. By Stephen F. Cohen. We cannot remain silent: opposition to the Brazilian military dictatorship in the United States. By James N. Green. Europe Europe's decline and fall: the struggle against global irrelevance. By Richard Youngs. European Union foreign policy: from effectiveness to functionality. By Christopher J. Bickerton. Extreme politics: nationalism, violence, and the end of Eastern Europe. By Charles King. Democracy's plight in the European neighbourhood: struggling transitions and proliferating dynasties. Edited by Michael Emerson and Richard Youngs. Russia and Eurasia The return: Russia's journey from Gorbachev to Medvedev. By Daniel Treisman. Radical Islam in the former Soviet Union. Edited by Galina Yemelianova. Russia and Islam: state, society and radicalism. Edited by Roland Dannreuther and Luke March. Middle East and North Africa Awakening Islam: the politics of religious dissent in contemporary Saudi Arabia. By Stéphane Lacroix. Hamas: the Islamic resistance movement. By Beverly Milton‐Edwards and Stephen Farrell. Kill Khalid: the failed Mossad assassination of Khalid Mishal and the rise of Hamas. By Paul McGeough. The sixth crisis: Iran, Israel, America, and the rumors of war. By Dana H. Allin and Steven Simon. Beyond Islam: a new understanding of the Middle East. By Sami Zubaida. Voices from Iraq: a people's history, 2003–2009. By Mark Kukis. Sub‐Saharan Africa * 1 See also Calestous Juma, The new harvest: agricultural innovation in Africa, pp. 1005–1006; and Camilla Toulmin, Climate change in Africa, pp. 1006–1008.
Somalia: the new Barbary? Piracy and Islam in the Horn of Africa. By Martin N. Murphy. The great African war: Congo and regional geopolitics, 1996–2006. By Filip Reyntjens. The trouble with the Congo: local violence and the failure of international peacekeeping. By Séverine Autesserre. Self and community in a changing world. By D. A. Masolo. South Asia Pakistan: a hard country. By Anatol Lieven. East Asia and Pacific On China. By Henry Kissinger. The perils of proximity: China–Japan security relations. By Richard C. Bush. China's emerging middle class: beyond economic transformation. Edited by Cheng Li. Overseas Chinese, ethnic minorities and nationalism: de‐centering China. By Elena Barabantseva. Latin America and Caribbean Dragon in the tropics: Hugo Chávez and the political economy of revolution in Venezuela. By Javier Corrales and Michael Penfold. Dismantling democracy in Venezuela: the Chávez authoritarian experiment. By Allan R. Brewer‐Carías. Brazil and the United States: convergence and divergence. By Joseph Smith. Paulo Freire and the Cold War politics of literacy. By Andrew J. Kirkendall.     

The Boundaries of Women's Power: Gender and the Discourse of Political Friendship in Twelfth‐Century England

The discourse of friendship was an integral part of political language and interaction in twelfth‐century England. Because the qualities that made a good political friendship – loyalty, wise counsel and generosity, among others – corresponded so closely to the criteria for successful lordship, historians often used the quality of a king's friendship as a signifier for the quality of his rule. Yet their treatment of women's political friendship was markedly different. The discourse of friendship therefore provides a window into the larger struggle over the representation of gender and rulership in twelfth‐century historical writing in England, reflecting chroniclers’ anxiety about female sovereignty. Twelfth‐century historians depicted women's participation in political friendship as acceptable only within certain circumscribed boundaries that corresponded to the sanctioned political roles for women in general. Otherwise, chroniclers attempted to efface the existence of women's political friendship, sometimes describing the same situations in different language depending on whether the main participant was male or female. Chroniclers also represented women as arbiters of friendship, showing men how better to conduct their relationships either through direct instruction or counter‐example. In both cases women reinforced male friendship, either by being excluded from it, or by demonstrating the correct way to carry it out.     

The Gender,Place and Culture Jan Monk Distinguished Annual Lecture: Gentrification,assassination and forgetting in Mexico: a feminist Marxist tale

In this article, I employ feminist and Marxist tools to expose the struggles over the constant plunder and expansion of global capitalism along Mexico's northern border, specifically in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. In particular, I examine how an official politics – promoted by the Mexican and US governments – for forgetting the economic and social devastation of a transcontinental drug war contributes to the mechanisms for further exploiting the working poor. By combining a feminist focus on the daily struggle of social reproduction with a Marxist emphasis on accumulation by dispossession, I show how this official ‘forgetting’ segues with an international gentrification plan in downtown Ciudad Juárez that seeks to expand the rent gap by denying place, legitimacy and legal status to the working women and their families who have made this border city famous as a hub of global manufacturing. As such, I argue that the social struggles against the official forgetting are struggles against a violent political economy that generates value via a devaluation of the spaces of the working poor, even of the spaces of their literal existence.     

Revolution,Reaction, Restoration: The Meanings and Uses of Seventeenth-Century English History in the Political Thinking of Benjamin Constant,c.1797–1830

Comparisons, juxtapositions or analogies between France's recent Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary history and England's experiences of Revolution, Civil War and Restoration between the 1640s and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 were a common but controversial feature of political discourse dealing with France's contemporary situation in the decades following the Revolution of 1789. The present article probes this dimension of post-Revolutionary political debate, by tracking the shifting meanings and uses of seventeenth-century English history in the published and unpublished political writings of the leading liberal thinker and politician Benjamin Constant, from the 1790s through to his death in 1830. Such an analysis reveals the sometimes striking reversals and inconsistencies to which Constant was driven in his effort to adjust his historical readings to France's rapidly changing political conditions, but it also reveals underlying continuities in his historical and political thinking. The exemplarity of England's case lay, for Constant, less in the provision of a constitutional model that France might hope to appropriate than in the historical spectacle of a nation's struggle for liberty, and the value of this spectacle lay as much in its cautionary messages—focused on the sterile brutality of the Stuart Restoration—as in its eventually progressive outcomes.     

INDONESIA'S MEDAN MERDEKA: NATIONAL IDENTITY AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT*

Indonesia, among the world's most culturally diverse countries, has long grappled with the issues of national unity. This paper explores the meanings of Medan Merdeka [Independence Square] in central Jakarta, Indonesia - a particular site in which symbols for the abstract ideals of political unity and national identity were constructed in an urban space honoring the struggle for national independence. These symbols, however, also expose the struggle to define “Indonesianness” within the international geopolitical milieu of the post-independence years. As such they offer a glimpse into competing interpretations of identity and the real world struggle to impose meaning on the built environment.     

The theory and implementation of the People's Republic of China's revolutionary diplomacy

The foreign relations of modern China, starting from the birth of the People's Republic in 1949 until the Cultural Revolution, can be said to have had continuous ups and downs and twists and turns. Its underlying abstruse principles, while stemming from nationalism, contained for the most part the Chinese Communist Party's own revolutionary principles and individual revolutionary experiences. The Chinese Communist revolution was based on class analysis and class conflict, on struggle and ideology. This ideology determined how China viewed itself and the world; no views could be separated from the ideology of class struggle and class analysis. The leadership's adherence to this type of ideology led to the long-term instability of China's diplomacy. Though those who, like Mao Zedong, employed class revolution in order to seize political power while viewing class analysis, class struggle, and in particular the success of using class ideology in a united front policy as the magic wand of the revolution's success, were singularly able to adapt such views to China's foreign policy and diplomacy. This became the fundamental red line for China's foreign policy.     

The Eclipse of Eschatology: Conversing with Taubes's Messianism and the Common Body

Abstract

In this article Jacob Taubes's idea of eschatology is examined. Taubes's own understanding of eschatology has profound implications on the very expression of political theology and political practice. If politics— as a practice— assumes that time has a terminal point, than it will invariably change this practice and encumber and even neutralize political action of a common-body that gives voice to the oppressed. This article agrees with Taubes in that eschatology must announce an end to itself, which is at once a birth of a postmodern possibility of the principle of immanence in which a common-body announces its infinite possibility. The end of eschatology is the end of transcendence and the beginning of a struggle for liberating the infinite possibility of a common-body of labor.     

The 1892 General Election and the Eclipse of the Liberal Unionists

This article seeks to establish that the 1892 general election marked a major change in the relative positions of the parties in the Unionist alliance. Not only did it reveal the limitations of the Liberal Unionist Party's strategy and appeal in an age of increasingly organised, mass politics, but it also acted as a brake on the ambitions of the new leader of the Liberal Unionists in the house of commons, Joseph Chamberlain. It argues that the Liberal Unionist Party suffered a more severe setback in 1892 than has been recognized hitherto and that Chamberlain's attempts to revive his party both before and after the general election were now prescribed by the reality of the political position in which the party now found itself. Rather than regarding the fluid political circumstances of the 1890s as the outcome of an emerging struggle between increasingly polarised ideologies, it seeks to reinforce the significance of local political circumstances and the efficacy of party management in the growing dominance of Lord Salisbury and Arthur Balfour and the Conservative central organisers.     

Deliberation and Resecuritization: Australia,Asylum-Seekers and the Normative Limits of the Copenhagen School

In the lead-up to the Australian federal election in 2010, both major political parties represented the ‘unauthorised’ arrival of asylum-seekers as a security issue. This article explores the dynamics of this resecuritization of asylum in Australia, suggesting the case has important implications for both the securitization framework and Australia's treatment of asylum-seekers. The relationship between securitization and calls for an open debate about asylum-seekers challenges the securitization framework's normative claims about political debate and deliberation as a progressive development illustrative of desecuritization (the removal of issues from the security agenda). This case also illustrates that without political leadership to engage with the social and cultural context that allows the securitization of asylum to resonate with large segments of the Australian population, the exploitation of this issue for short-term political gain will continue.     

Legacy Underplayed or Ignored? Tsietsi Mashinini: The Forgotten Warrior of South Africa's Liberation Struggle

Tsietsi Mashinini symbolises youth resistance to racism and imperialism after he heroically led the June 16 1976 Soweto student uprisings that defied South Africa's apartheid government. Subsequently, the United Nations condemned apartheid as a crime against humanity, but Tsietsi became a political exile at the tender age of 19. In exile, he formed the South African Youth Revolutionary Council (SAYRCO) together with his comrades from the Soweto Students Representative Council (SSRC) that was banned by Pretoria in 1977 along with numerous other organisations. Ironically, Tsietsi's individual and collective legacy is underplayed or ignored in contemporary South Africa. His illustrious role has only grudgingly been recognised long after South Africa achieved liberal democracy in 1994. Yet Tsietsi's heroism and legacy inspired the students that he led when confronting the apartheid system. Like Tsietsi, thousands left the country to join the anti-apartheid liberation struggle. Thus, his activities remain etched deeply in their minds whenever they reflect on his legacy annually during the 1976 uprising's anniversary, now called Youth Day. Others put increasing pressure on apartheid at home until it relinquished power through negotiations. This article examines Tsietsi Mashinini's legacy and his contribution to South Africa's freedom struggle based on a review of the literature, historical records and media reports, theoretical reflection guided by Rational Choice Theory and Game Theory, and an analysis of the awards given to freedom struggle stalwarts and other South African luminaries. It concludes with observations on Tsietsi Mashinini's legacy, with the author's contention that his legacy—underplayed or ignored—will forever haunt post-1994 South Africa's democracy.     

Reification and the Dictatorship of the Water Meter

In this paper, I seek to gain an understanding of the power that water meters are able to acquire in regulating the daily rhythms of life in the South African city of Durban. In doing so, I put Georg Lukács's writings on reification to work. Lukács's theorisation of the phenomenon of reification captures the twin processes of encroaching formal rationalisation and commodity fetishism. Charting the history of the introduction of water meters and the rise in power of associated infrastructures, I seek to put a historical geographical materialist imagination to work. Thus, I develop a relational ontology of the urban waterscape before seeking to identify lines of struggle that might challenge the dictatorship of the water meter and move towards radically democratic technologies for a more equitable distribution of water.     

Sir Frank Packer and the Leadership of the Liberal Party, 1967–71

This article considers the role of Sir Frank Packer and his media outlets in the demise of Sir John Gorton in 1971 and the elevation of Sir William McMahon to the leadership of the Liberal Party and the Prime Ministership of Australia. It identifies Packer's long association with McMahon and traces the part played by Australian Consolidated Press in the intra-party struggle of the late 1960s and the early 1970s. The article argues that while Packer and some of his employees, particularly the Daily Telegraph 's political correspondent Alan Reid, helped to destabilise Gorton's leadership, it is much too simplistic to suggest, as many observers have, that a 'Packer plot' was executed in 1971. The article, which examines what is represented as a key instance of a media proprietor exercising undue influence in the political process, serves as a historical case study of the relationship between the news media and political parties in Australia.     

Book reviews

Book reviewed in this issue. International Relations theory Thinking politically: essays in political theory. By Michael Walzer. Edited by David Miller. Human rights and ethics Human rights and structural adjustment. By M. Rodwan Abouharb and David Cingranelli. Ending slavery: how we free today's slaves. By Kevin Bales. International law and organization International territorial administration: how trusteeship and the civilizing mission never went away. By Ralph Wilde. Crafting cooperation: regional international institutions in comparative perspective. Edited by Amitav Acharya and Alastair Iain Johnston. Foreign policy Shifting alliances: Europe, America and the future of Britain's global strategy. By Patrick Diamond. The European Union and the United States: competition and convergence in the global arena. By Steven McGuire and Michael Smith. Britain in Africa. By Tom Porteous. Europe—Asia relations: building multilateralisms. Edited by Richard Balme and Brian Bridges. Conflict, security and armed forces Critical approaches to international security. By Karin Fierke. War and the transformation of global politics. By Vivienne Jabri. Things fall apart: containing the spillover from an Iraqi civil war. By Daniel L. Byman and Kenneth M. Pollack. Architect of global jihad: the life of Al‐Qaeda strategist Abu Mus'ab Al‐Suri. By Brynjar Lia. Combating terrorism: strategies and approaches. By William C. Banks, Renée de Nevers and Mitchel B. Wallerstein. Politics, democracy and social affairs Defending identity: its indispensable role in protecting democracy. By Natan Sharansky. Political economy, economics and development Regional monetary integration. By Peter B. Kenen and Ellen E. Meade. Authority in the global political economy. Edited by Volker Rittberger and Martin Nettesheim. Ethnicity and cultural politics God's continent: Christianity, Islam and Europe's religious crisis. By Philip Jenkins. Energy and environment The political economy of power sector reform: the experiences of five major developing countries. By David G. Victor and Thomas C. Heller. History Piercing the bamboo curtain: tentative bridge‐building to China during the Johnson years. By Michael Lumbers. Croatia through history: the making of a European state. By Branka Maga?. The Sino‐Soviet split: Cold War in the communist world. By Lorenz M. Lüthi. Russia and Eurasia Yeltsin: a life. By Timothy J. Colton. Middle East and North Africa International assistance to the Palestinians after Oslo: political guilt, wasted money. By Ann Le More. Mirror of the Arab world: Lebanon in conflict. By Sandra Mackey. Sub‐Saharan Africa Angola: the weight of history. Edited by Patrick Chabal and Nuno Vidal. Darfur's sorrow: a history of destruction and genocide. By M. W. Daly. The translator. By Daoud Hari. Southern Africa. By Jonathan Farley. Asia and Pacific China's new Confucianism: politics and everyday life in a changing society. By Daniel A. Bell. The three faces of Chinese power: might, money and minds. By David M. Lampton. China's Communist Party: atrophy and adaptation. By David Shambaugh. Assessing the threat: the Chinese military and Taiwan's security. Edited by Michael D. Swaine, Andrew N. D. Yang and Evan S. Medeiros with Oriana Skylar Mastro. North America Enemies of intelligence: knowledge and power in American national security. By Richard K. Betts. Foreign affairs strategy: logic for American statecraft. By Terry L. Deibel. The terror presidency: law and judgment inside the Bush administration. By Jack Goldsmith. Bill Clinton: mastering the presidency. By Nigel Hamilton. Legacy of ashes: the history of the CIA. By Tim Weiner. Latin America and Caribbean Rethinking Venezuelan politics: class, conflict and the Chávez phenomenon. By Steve Ellner. Crossroads of intervention: insurgency and counterinsurgency lessons from Central America. By Todd Greentree. Presidential impeachment and the new political instability in Latin America. By Aníbal Pérez‐Liñán.