Challenging the Australian Government Approach Towards Expatriate Voting: The Case of Italy

In 1999 the Australian government dropped its objections to the Italian legislation that contemplated postal voting and parliamentary representation for its Italian citizens resident abroad. This was a significant turning point for the Australian government approach on the question of voting rights for expatriate communities in Australia voting in their homeland elections. Based on undisclosed government sources and interviews with former Australian diplomatic and government officials, this paper will recall and examine the Australian government's reaction to the Italian political debates leading up to, and eventual passage of, the Italian expatriate vote legislation.     

Tasmanian Forests,the Environment and Voting in the 2004 Australian Federal Election

The 2004 Australian federal election appeared to depart from the historical tendency for the Australian Labor Party to benefit electorally from adopting policies more sympathetic to environmental movement demands than those of the Liberal–National Coalition, when environmental issues have been prominent in election campaigns. This article assesses contending claims about the actual impact of environmental issues on the outcome of the 2004 election, and possible explanations for Labor's failure to gain a significant net electoral advantage from its environmental policies, in particular its commitment to preserve 240,000 hectares of native forest in Tasmania.     

Spatial Variations,Contextual and Social Structural Influences on Voting for the ALP at the 1996 Federal Election: Conclusions from Multilevel Analyses

Multilevel modelling of individual survey data from the 1996 Australian Election Study and aggregate contextual Census data is used to investigate the extent of spatial variations in voting at the 1996 election, and to examine potential explanations for the variations. The size of the variations was about the same as at the 1993 election, and was again mainly at the divisional rather than the state level. However, unlike in 1993, only a small amount of the variations could be explained by differences in the individual sociodemographic compositions of the areas, suggesting that local influences were more important in 1996 than 1993. The most significant change in the effect of the individual-level variables between the two elections was that the influence of being personally unemployed completely changed direction (working against the ALP in 1996, whereas it had favoured it in 1993), although the estimated strengths of several others also changed. I suggest that the concentration of the 1993 election on the 'Fightback' package might be the main cause of many of these differences. The nature of the main contextual influences is similar to those at the 1993 election, involving an urban-rural effect, a local economic effect and an ethnic effect, confirming that these are more than short-term factors. However, there also remain somewhat larger unexplained local influences than in 1993. Detailed investigation of the ethnic contextual effect suggests the presence of a specifically anti-Asian influence.     

Australian approaches to countertrade: State and firm responses

Countertrade (or barter trade) has become an important element of the international political economy in the past 15 years, and is said to typify the emergence of neo‐mercantilist tendencies in the international system. The implications for Australia arising from this alteration in the ‘rules of the game’ with respect to the international system are profound. This article explores how the Australian government, and Australian‐based firms, have responded to the emergence of countertrade. We demonstrate that in the absence of government leadership on the issue, firms have developed their own coping mechanisms of dealing with countertrade.     

State Support for Higher Education: A Political Economy Approach

This research examines state support for higher education by first ascertaining the amount supplied and demanded of this service. The approach assumes that supply and demand occur simultaneously, and that each is affected by higher education spending policies among the states. We argue that enrollment is the most satisfactory proxy for both supply and demand. State policy is measured as expenditure effort. We estimate three time-series equations using two-stage least squares regression with data for the years 1986–95. In the final equation, supply/demand (enrollment) emerges as the strongest predictor of state spending effort. Commitment to higher education (effort) is also especially sensitive to variations in the number of employees (per student). Employee costs clearly are a major factor in fueling increases in state higher education spending effort. State per capita income exerts a negative effect on the final dependent variable. Poor states exert greater financial effort in support of their colleges and universities than do more affluent states.     

Globalisation,Neoliberalism and the Transformation of the Australian State

A review of the literature is used to construct a model of economic 'globalisation' and its implications for the state. Three theses are derived from this exercise: the 'economic globalisation thesis', the 'loss of state sovereignty thesis' and the 'neoliberal convergence thesis'. These theses are assessed empirically, the latter two against Australian evidence. The paper argues that while the Australian state has lost considerable sovereignty, this effect is more pronounced at the macroeconomic level than at the microeconomic level. And though it can be argued that Australia broadly conforms to the pattern of 'neoliberal policy convergence', the paper argues that 'externalist' explanatory accounts of the type offered by the globalisation thesis overlook important domestic pressures for neoliberal policies.     

Local Democracy and Local Government Efficiency: The Case of Elected Executives in Australian Local Government

In the international context it has been argued that institutional reform to leadership in local government can improve the sector in terms of both its democratic legitimacy and its operational efficiency. In Australia, despite two decades of far-reaching reform processes across state government jurisdictions, focused heavily on structural change, local government still faces daunting problems, yet the potential of reform to political leadership as a method of alleviating these problems has not been fully explored. This paper thus examines the applicability of alternative leadership models to Australian local government, in particular the elected executive model which characterises some American and European local government systems. We argue that the introduction of elected executives could prove problematic in terms of accountability and representation in Australian local government.     

The Politics of Reconstructing National Identity: A Corporatist Approach

In both liberal democracies like Australia and Canada and autocracies like Singapore, the state has stepped in to try to manage ethnic claims that had hitherto been marginalised or suppressed. Once the concept of corporatism is rescued from its recent economic-focused excursion, it provides a framework within which to examine new state strategies for managing ethnicity, and the resultant politics of national identity. The states have sought to license or create ethnic institutions as channels for ethnic interest articulation, for ethnic elite cooptation, and for the funding and political control of ethnic assertions. The corporatist strategies for ethnic management imply also attempts by the states to unify the disaggregated polyethnic societies by seeking new myths of organic national unity. The attempts to manage ethnic politics within these new institutional and ideological parameters generate tensions which exacerbate rather than ameliorate the decline in state authority.     

A Review, Comparison, and Evaluation of Some State & Local Data Handbooks

Bureau of the Census, 1972 Census of Governments
Bureau of the Census, Local Government Finances in Selected Metropolitan Areas and Large Counties: 1974–75
Bureau of the Census, City Government Finances in 1974–75
International City Management Association, The Municipal Year-book, 1977
Paul Albright, ed., The Book of the States, 1976–77     

State Archaeology and the Private Museum: An Integrated Approach to Archaeological Site Management for Local People in China

During the emergence of Chinese archaeology, the legislative system of cultural heritage in China included archaeological excavations and investigations as being the ‘exclusive right of state’. This mode of state archaeology has proved its worth by increasing the authority and quality of archaeological research and excavations, as well as enhancing the social values and benefits at the state level. The local communities, however, have hardly been embedded into the archaeological projects, nor have the archaeological projects been employed to improve local and regional economic development. This paper considers private museums as embodying regional values and beneficial to projects under the mode of state archaeology. With a case study outlining collaborations between archaeologists and local agents under the excavation and conservation of ancient kiln sites at the town of Zichuan, I argue that private museums could be relatively prominent platforms for public engagement in activities of state archaeology. It might contribute to a reconsideration of the following: indirect archaeological concerns, local economic benefits, identities and alternative interpretations of locality.     

Agglomeration and the Local State: The Tobacco Economy of Yunnan, China

This paper explores the interplay of local state action with historical contingency, innovation and external economies in the world's largest tobacco-producing region – Yunnan, China. Formed in a relatively unindustrialized province and promoted by local authorities as their primary revenue base, Yunnan's tobacco economy gained a headstart through concentrated resource support and ad hoc regulatory flexibility. Its further growth has drawn greatly on intraregional spillovers of knowledge of locally based institutional innovation, which foster and enhance conventional forms of external economies. Implications for the study of regional economies are discussed.     

Voting swings and seat changes: A stochastic model

The usual method for analysing the relationship between net seat changes and net voting swings has been Mackerras's pendulum, which is based on the assumption of uniform swing. This paper argues that the probabilistic concepts which underlie the relationship have not been clearly recognised in the past, and proposes a simple stochastic model for net swings. The pendulum‐uniform swing model is a special case of this model. A mathematical analysis is given of the implications of the model for the relationship between swing and seat changes. As well as showing how net seat changes can be predicted from net voting swing, the analysis demonstrates that quite large fluctuations in net seat changes can result from random variation alone.     

Changing roles,changing rules: procedural development and difference in Australian State upper houses

The status and potential of Australian State upper houses have been enhanced, to a greater or lesser degree from State to State, by electoral system change over the past half century. The purpose of this article is to determine the extent to which those changes have been accompanied by efforts on the part of the upper houses to improve performance of their core functions of review of legislation and scrutiny of government. The focus is the parliamentary procedures that facilitate performance of these functions. As well as surveying innovation in, and use of, relevant parliamentary procedures in the five upper houses, the article explains differential outcomes in innovation and effectiveness across the States in terms of the consequences of choice of electoral system and size of upper house membership.     

Bicameralism and Democracy: The Transformation of Australian State Upper Houses

Australia is unique among parliamentary federations in having strongly bicameral parliaments at regional as well as national levels. The purpose of this article is to analyse the evolution of the State-level second chambers, the Legislative Councils, over the past half-century. The main changes have concerned the electoral systems of the Councils, enhancing the latter's democratic legitimacy and recasting the mechanisms for producing differently composed chambers. Democratisation of the Councils, together with the other changes discussed, has brought about a subtle transformation of their role. Their design no longer casts them as conservative checks on the 'people's houses', but makes them key elements within a more fully developed system of 'consensus democracy'. The article concludes by discussing three types of second chamber now existing in the Australian States.     

The Country,the City and the State in the Australian Settlement

The Australian Settlement, as formulated by Paul Kelly, had a sixth pillar: a settlement between the city and the country in which the state compensated people living in the country for the costs of remoteness and sparse settlement. This was underpinned by the reliance of Australian export performance on agriculture, by nation-building commitments to peopling the continent, and by agrarian beliefs in the virtues of country life. Australia's egalitarianism had a spatial and regional as well as a class dimension. Changes in Australia's economy, demography, and political culture have eroded these foundations, leaving rural Australia vulnerable to the neoliberal agenda. The dismantling of tariffs, the restructuring of agriculture, microeconomic reforms driven by National Competition Policy, and regional policy which stresses self-reliance, all treat rural Australia as a minor part of the nation rather than its economic and cultural foundation, and reject claims to special treatment. To give country Australia its own pillar makes visible the magnitude of the historic shifts which have taken place in the state's relationship to rural Australia since 1983 and brings it into the main frame for understanding Australia's abandonment of protective statism.     

Bringing Organizations Back In: Multilevel Feedback Effects on Individual Civic Inclusion

Policy feedback scholarship has focused on how laws and their implementation affect either organizations (e.g., their resources, priorities, political opportunities, or incentive structures) or individuals (e.g., their civic skills and resources or their psychological orientations toward the state). However, in practice the distinction between organizations and individuals is not clear‐cut: Organizations interpret policy for individuals, and individuals experience policy through organizations. Thus, scholars have argued for a multi‐level model of feedback effects illuminating how policies operating at the organizational level reverberate at the individual level. In this theory‐building article, we push this insight by examining how public policy influences nonprofit organizations’ role in the civic life of beneficiaries. We identify five roles that nonprofit organizations play. For each role, we draw on existing research to identify policy mechanisms that either enlarge or diminish nonprofits’ capacity to facilitate individual incorporation and engagement. From these examples, we derive cross‐cutting hypotheses concerning how different categories of citizens may need policy to operate differently to enhance their civic influence; whether policy that is “delivered” through nonprofits may dampen citizens’ relationship with the state; and how the civic boost provided by policy may be influenced by the degree of latitude conferred on recipient organizations.     

Englishmen,Scots and Marchers: National and Local Identities in Thomas Gray's Scalacronica

Abstract

The abortive Wakefield Plot of March 1541 against Henry VIII was followed by a massive — and armed — royal progress to the North that summer. Historians have, however, tended to see the progress as being more concerned with a projected meeting between Henry and James V of Scotland at York. This article re-examines both the Wakefield Plot and the progress. It argues the Plot did indeed present great danger to Henry VIII. It was well planned, involved unprecedented inter-class collaboration, and envisaged a bloody conflict to overthrow the 'tyrant' Henry. It also envisaged aid from the Scots, with whom the conspirators may have had links. The Plot is set in the context of serious discontent about taxation in early 1541, and severe local economic problems in Yorkshire. The progress bound the northern elites to the King through a succession of choreographed supplications from the northern gentry and yeomen. Despite serious fears that the progress might meet trouble in the North, it succeeded in pacifying the region. Meanwhile, the possibility of a meeting with James at York emerged only during the progress, and James's failure to appear was of little importance in the slide to war between England and Scotland in 1542.