‘A monstrous construction'? The state and limited democracy in Australia

Alastair Davidson, The Invisible State: The Formation of the Australian State 1788–1901 (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1991) pp.x + 329. $59.95 ISBN 0 521 36658 5.

Alastair Davidson and Roger D. Spegele (eds.), Rights, Justice and Democracy in Australia (Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1991) pp.x + 387. $34.95 ISBN 0 582 87070 4.

Beth Gaze and Melinda Jones (eds.), Law, Liberty and Australian Democracy (Sydney: The Law Book Company, 1990) pp.xxvi + 505. $69.00 ISBN 0 455 20986 3.

Bob Jessop, State Theory: Putting Capitalist States in Their Place (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990) pp.xii + 413. $34.95 ISBN 0 745 60289 4.

Gianfranco Poggi, The State: Its Nature, Development and Prospects (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990) pp.vii + 214. $29.95 ISBN 0 745 60879 5.

Geoffrey de Q. Walker, The Rule of Law: Foundation of Constitutional Democracy (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1988) pp.xxvi + 475. $69.95 ISBN 0 522 84347 6.     

Suburban citizenship? The rise of targeting and the eclipse of social rights in Toronto

The decline of ‘universal’, welfarist forms of social citizenship and the rise of selective or targeted social policy is generally considered to be a recent phenomenon, and a constituent element of neo-liberal citizenship and state forms (Brodie ), or ‘advanced liberal’ technologies of government (Rose ). This paper documents how targeted policies were in fact being defined at the height of Keynesian welfarism, in the newly consolidating post-war suburbs of Toronto. I suggest an alternative account of the genesis of these practices, which sees the spatiality of the post-war metropolis as key. The analysis considers how the mutual consolidation of these social and material spaces, and of hegemonic suburban political practices enabled the articulation of a suburban style of citizenship, which was both intensely familial and entrepreneurial in form. Through a case study in recreation policy in the Toronto region, this paper demonstrates how selective, targeted and residual approaches to service delivery evolved in suburban municipalities in the immediate post-war period, and were only generalized across the city more recently through the restructuring of a municipal amalgamation. It documents how these approaches have relied on radically different assumptions about citizenship that were dependent on the articulation of suburban life, literally built around the private family in private space. Thus this paper also documents ways in which these approaches to social policy, increasingly dominant across a range of policy areas and at a variety of spatial scales, construct gendered and racialized identities and problematize non-nuclear family forms.     

Abolish the army? The ideal of democracy and the transformation of the Czechoslovak military after 1918 and 1989

This article deals with the relationship between the democratic transformations in Czechoslovakia after 1918 and 1989 and the armed forces. The democratic ideal of transformation seemed to be alien to the military institution, which upheld the old regime and paradigmatically represented undemocratic patterns of governance. In order to accommodate the popular demand to ‘abolish’ the army, the new political elite strived to initiate an institutional transformation that would re-legitimize the armed forces. Whereas after 1918 the military improved its reputation by changing into a ‘school of nation’, after 1989 the military, expected to become fully professional, went through a period in which its inner organisational culture was liberalized and personal freedoms of the soldiers were strengthened. The decline of previous authorities and the rise of civic self-confidence connected to the process of democratisation also led to the demoralisation of the soldiers. The liminal phase of military transformation was marked by the experience of the first ‘post-war war’, the Czechoslovak-Hungarian War in 1919 and the Gulf War in 1991, which indicated the needs of the new security environment and gave the idealistic thinking about the democratic military a touch of reality.     

Whither labor geography and the rise of the robots?

The rise of the robots suggests a technological revolution like no other. It heralds potentially profound impacts on jobs and labor markets. Geographers have so far remained relatively quiet about such transformations. This commentary suggests ways in which social and cultural geographers can expand upon a robust labor geography and the debates surrounding the relationship between robots, robotic technologies, and labor. Six areas of engagement are offered that outline the richness and nuance of social and cultural geographical analysis related to the ‘rise of the robots’ at a time where much of the popular discourse around robotics is characterized by the extremities of either dystopian angst or positive boosterism. We call on social and cultural geographers to engage in conceptually rigorous and empirically informed research that provides novel ways of making sense of the multiple dimensions of our robotic futures.     

The Campbell Committee and the origins of ‘deregulation’ in Australia

The 1981 Australian Financial System Inquiry, known as the Campbell Committee, is widely seen as the start of the reform movement of the 1980s and 1990s. Accounts of its origins have been dominated by a debate about which policy actor can take credit. This paper utilises cabinet and Reserve Bank archives to reassess the origins of the Campbell Committee. The inquiry had its origins in an earlier attempt by the Whitlam government to take federal control of the regulation for non-bank financial institutions and the building society crisis of the mid-1970s. In its response to these political and economic challenges we can identify the moment in which the Fraser cabinet turned towards market-based reform. The political decisions made in the context of crisis set the path for regulatory change in subsequent decades, particularly in the area of prudential regulation, where we have seen regulatory consolidation and expansion rather than ‘deregulation’.     

Missing the Jackpot? The Proliferation of Gambling in Australia and its Effect on Local Communities

Research assessing the consequences of gambling proliferation fails to recognise the influence of local circumstances on its costs and benefits. The consequences of new gambling facilities need to be assessed at the community level. The introduction of poker machines to hotels in the South Australian town of Peterborough has exacerbated pre-existing socio-economic problems associated with the wider effects of the rural crisis. The growth of gambling worldwide requires new policies that reflect the current geographies of gambling.     

The new ‘Pacific Century’ and the rise of China: an international relations perspective

The re-emergence of the ‘Pacific Century’, or ‘Asia-Pacific Century’, discourse centred on the rise of Chinese power raises important questions in the discipline of international relations (IR). These questions relate to the conceptualisation of the Pacific Century discourse, its application to the contemporary empirical case, and its relationship and amenability to IR theories. In order to address these questions, the article subjects the concept of a ‘Pacific Century’ to critical analysis through the synergy of three pertinent ‘debates’. First, it creates a novel analytical framework to define and codify the parameters of the Pacific Century debate; a discourse that has until now remained diffuse and inchoate. Second, it engages with the present ‘great debate’ in IR between the traditional/rationalist and critical/reflectivist approaches, applying them in juxtaposition to the notion of a ‘new’ Pacific Century, led by China. Thirdly, then, the article speaks to the ‘rising China’ debate, which currently captivates commentators both in academic and policy-making circles. The article explores how the ‘Pacific Century’ concept is a compound of both ideational and material factors: it is at once both a political/ideological project and a reified intellectual frame of reference. Through this multidimensional analysis, the article aims to shape the re-emerging debate on the Pacific Century, affirm the enduring value of the term, and demonstrate the efficacy of IR theories in deconstructing conceptual problems.     

Malaysia — democracy and the end of ethnic politics?

In this article I discuss Malaysia's turning point moments – the March 8^th General Election and the August 26th by-election which respectively saw the opposition's ascendancy and Anwar Ibrahim's political comeback. The opposition's ability to gain an ‘optimum multiethnic consensus’ had denied the incumbent of its unbroken two-thirds majority win. Its coalition arrangement was presented as a credible alternative to the 51 year-old winning but increasingly fractured coalition of the incumbent. In the final analysis a combination of a dwindling economy, the Abdullah-versus-Anwar leadership factor and the new media was what provided the major push for the swing. The article ends by posing various questions about the future of Malaysia's characteristic ethnic vote, the possibility of an emerging two-party system and of a probable Malaysia under Anwar Ibrahim.

     

The suppression of the Congo rebellions and the rise of Mobutu, 1963–5

ABSTRACT

The first years of the Congo as an independent state were marked by instability and rebellion as local nationalist struggles became embroiled in what NATO powers feared could lead to the loss of hegemony over the country and its vast mineral wealth, if not into a theatre of Cold War politics. This article focuses on the series of rebellions, including the Mulelist revolt and the Simba uprising, that took place in the Congo from late 1963 into 1965. Belgian, British, and US diplomatic and Congolese military sources are used to analyse the intervention of the West against the Congolese rebels, in support of the Congo government in Léopoldville headed by Prime Minister Tshombe and President Kasa Vubu. Belgian, US, and Congolese sources on this military campaign led by Belgian officers, known as ‘the Ommegang’, allow a detailed analysis of the planning and execution of the assault on the rebel stronghold Stanleyville by Belgian officers, white mercenaries and the forces of the Congo Army, including the decision to deploy Belgian parachutists, dropped by US aircraft. These events culminated in the coup that brought Mobutu to political power in Congo in November 1965, marking out the trajectory of the county's history for the next three decades.     

Rights to the rescue? The promotion of Indigenous women's political-electoral rights and the rise of the Mexican security state

This article demonstrates how the promotion of Indigenous women's political-electoral rights in Mexico has furthered a conservative agenda of state securitization. To do so, it presents a discourse analysis of national media reports focused on the story of Eufrosina Cruz, a Zapotec woman who became the figurehead for state-led initiatives to promote Indigenous women's rights. It argues that a colonial rescue narrative constructed through Cruz's figure helped generate new hegemonic discourses of gendered indigeneity that portrayed Indigenous peoples' alternative political practices and spaces as anti-democratic and illegal. In an era where advancements in party democracy were linked to processes of state securitization, these categorizations helped justify new forms of state intervention into Indigenous peoples' lives. By exploring how rights initiatives were discursively constructed through racialized, spatialized and gendered constructions of indigeneity, this article contributes to a critical geography of indigeneity within political geography.     

Cyclical downturn or structural disease? The decline of the Italian economy in the last twenty years

Italy is experiencing at present the most serious economic recession of the post-war period. Between 2008 and 2013 national income fell by 9 per cent, per capita incomes by 11 per cent, and industrial production by 25 per cent; and unemployment doubled. In this essay we argue that, while this dramatic situation has been made worse by the policies of ‘expansive austerity’, its origins can be traced back to changes that took place in the 1990s (notably globalization, competition for emerging new markets and the diffusion of new technologies – ICT) to which Italy failed to react speedily or effectively by reorganizing its entire productive system. Instead, many of the reforms that have been introduced with respect to the labour market, for example, have reduced costs but in ways that have encouraged firms to stay in traditional sectors where products are poorly differentiated and of low technology content. If the Italian economy is not to become even weaker, new reforms are urgently needed to encourage innovative investment and push through to completion a restructuring of the industrial system that can no longer be deferred.     

Can Australia save the world? The limits and possibilities of middle power diplomacy

Australian policymakers have always harboured a desire to ‘punch above their weight’. On occasions they have succeeded. At a time when Australia's strategic, economic and environmental future is inextricably bound up with that of its immediate neighbours and the wider world, there are compelling reasons for hoping that they still can. This paper explores some of the most important aspects of Australian foreign policy during the Rudd era and asks whether the Australian government can play a constructive—even an exemplary—role in finding solutions for some of the planet's most pressing problems.     

The role of the AALD in preserving the Australia–US alliance

This article critically evaluates the agenda and strategy of the Australian American Leadership Dialogue (AALD) for protecting and strengthening the Australia–US alliance. Nominally an exercise in informal diplomacy dedicated to fostering mutual understanding, the AALD functions more like a pro-American lobby group as it seeks to preserve orthodox thinking and eschew dissenting perspectives. The AALD performs this function in three main ways: by carefully framing discussion and debate, by socialising Australian elites into the alliance orthodoxy and by serving as a ‘gatekeeper’ of the status quo.

本文对保卫、加强澳美联盟的澳美领袖对话提出批评。该对话虽然名义上只是加强共同理解的非正式外交实践, 但其作用更像是亲美游说集团,因为它要保持正统的思路,回避不同的观点。该对话用三种方式实现这一功能：小心地设置讨论和辩论;向澳大利亚精英灌输联盟的正统观;充当现状的守门人。     

Agents of casualization? The temporary staffing industry and labour market restructuring in Australia

This article presents a study of the Australian temporary staffingindustry. It explores how temporary staffing markets are manufacturedthrough the interactions between industrial relations and regulatorysystems, on the one hand, and the structures and strategiesof domestic and transnational temporary staffing agencies onthe other. The article draws on secondary datasets and semi-structuredinterviews with government departments, labour unions, staffingagencies and their trade bodies to analyse the size, structureand characteristics of the Australian temporary staffing market.It argues that the Australian market differs in important waysfrom those other ‘neoliberal’ labour market regimes—suchas those in Canada, UK and USA—with which it is oftencompared. The article argues for an approach that seeks to explorethe (often gradual) mutual transformation of temporary staffingorganizations and the institutional and regulatory systems inwhich they are embedded, rather than privileging one at theexpense of the other.     

Party commitment,vote switching and liberal decline in Australia∗

Electoral outcomes are determined in part by voters who switch their political allegiance between elections. Though the subject of extensive study in other countries, this floating vote has received comparatively little attention in Australia. This paper uses 1967 and 1979 survey data to analyse vote switching in Australian elections. We argue, firstly, that turnover tables based on recalled voting are, as research in other countries has shown, inaccurate reflections of the election result. As an alternative, we propose a measure of ‘potential’ vote switching based on the concept of lifetime voting. Secondly, using this concept of lifetime voting to derive a measure of party commitment allows the construction of a three‐fold typology of Australian voters — partisans, marginals and switchers. Finally, a longitudinal analysis of the voting patterns of these three groups indicates a gradual erosion of electoral commitment to the Liberal party, whereas Labor has largely retained its partisan base.     

The new resource politics: can Australia and South Africa accommodate China?

The material transformation of the Chinese economy is forcing a concomitant process of political adjustment—and not just in China. Other states are being forced to accommodate the ‘rise of China’. In this context, this article first presents a comparative analysis of China's impact on two countries, Australia and South Africa, which have little in common other than a wealth of natural resources and a possible status as middle powers; this is a particularly useful exercise because these states are geographically distant and have very different political structures and general developmental histories. Second, the authors consider how China's bilateral ties look from a Chinese perspective in these two very different relationships. Such an analysis serves as a reminder that resource dependency is a two‐way street. The article argues that underlying material realities are constraining and to some extent determining the domestic and foreign policies of three very different states that otherwise have little in common.