The State of Free Speech

This article surveys the regulation of speech under the government of Prime Minister Howard so as to clarify the understandings of free speech that have been operant and to extrapolate from this debate to consider broader shifts in political forms. It reviews and contrasts liberal and republican conceptions of free speech and argues that what suffered most is the critical role free speech plays in ensuring popular sovereignty. It links this shift in the location of sovereignty with the changing role of the state in the context of globalisation and the demands from economic actors to remove impediments posed by certain forms of civic activism. Using this case, it theorises the apparently contradictory emergence of neoliberal and neoconservative trends, arguing that both undermine active citizenship.     

The Fiscal-Electoral Nexus in Australia, 1976-94

This article re-evaluates existing political business cycle theory in the specific context of the political economy of Australian fiscal policy since the mid-1970s. Whereas 'traditional' political business cycle models, formulated within a Keynesian framework, assume a high level of state autonomy over fiscal policy, this article argues that an environment of fiscal restraint has been imposed on Australian federal governments over the study period. Given the historical dynamics of Australian economic policy which inform this study, a hypothesis is developed which reflects the policy optimisation dilemma which has confronted Australian federal governments when formulating fiscal priorities in a pre-election context. On one hand, there are pre-poll demands for expansionary fiscal settings from the electorate; on the other, there are demands from financial markets and domestic neoliberal interests for fiscal restraint. Reflecting the fact that identifiable costs are associated with implementing expansionary fiscal policy settings, it is hypothesised that such an approach will be adopted only in times of greatest political need, when an incumbent government is facing a popularity deficit in a pre-election context. While the study confirms that the fiscal-electoral effect is relatively weak, electoral demands do still influence the fiscal priorities of Australian federal governments. This is particularly so with the case of personal taxation relief, a policy approach that appears to be more acceptable to financial markets, key neoliberal interests and some segments of the electorate.     

Turning Point? The Volatile Geographies of Taxation

This article argues that the geographies of taxation offer an important but neglected insight into changes taking place in the nature of the contemporary state in the context of globalisation. Following Schumpeter's analysis of the “tax state”, the paper argues that, historically, the theory and practice of fiscal space are fundamental both to state form and to the possibility of political and social institutions. Despite this, the complexity and fluidity inherent in fiscal space has been obscured by the dominant normative conception of “the” fiscal state. As the concept of “fiscal sovereignty” becomes less and less salient in practice in the context of economic globalisation, it remains a powerful ideological concept for state governance. This paper reviews the primary contemporary accounts of fiscal space across a range of disciplinary contexts and scales of governance. Despite the expectation and or desire for some form of “fiscal globalisation” on the part of commentators, in practice what we see is an increased centralisation of state fiscal control coupled with a creeping individuation and privatisation of fiscal responsibility. This radical respatialisation of fiscal space has profound implications both for the state itself and for any prospect of the creation of a global “public domain” founded on a global fisc.     

Social conflict and the neoliberal city: a case of Hindu–Muslim violence in India

In an era of globalisation the 'global' is very much implicated in the 'local'. Local events like conflicts therefore need to be understood in the context of the dynamics of globalisation. This paper argues that neoliberal globalisation undergoes a thorough grounding in accordance with the pre-existing socio-cultural and economic specificities of places, which impact upon inter-community alienation and conflict. Using four case studies from a Hindu–Muslim conflict in a neoliberalising city, Ahmedabad, India, this paper illustrates how open market policies are implicated in local industrial restructuring and urban renewal that simultaneously utilise place-specific ethnocentrism to exclude and fragment the poor.     

Southern Unionism and the New Labour Internationalism

The paper traces the genesis of SIGTUR, a new network/organization of southern unions that has been built over the past decade, which brings together democratic unions from Latin America, Southern Africa, Asia and Australasia. The impact of neoliberal globalisation has spurred this action, and Australian unions—with their rich tradition of labour internationalism—have been at the forefront. The paper shows how the initial hostility of the established trade union internationals has been transformed into strategic alliances as the internationals have come to value SIGTUR's campaign orientation. The paper argues that SIGTUR has continued to expand because of its strong emphasis on internal democracy. The new southern alliance is one instance of a search for a new form of unionism—global social movement unionism—that may offer greater scope for a more effective resistance to the logic of globalisation. In the new millennium, this search is critical if unions are to rekindle the vision and the confidence that drove the early movement.     

The Liberal Paradox and the Politics of Asylum in Australia

This article interprets the politics of asylum in Australia in light of what James Hollifield calls ‘the liberal paradox’; that is, the trend amongst contemporary states towards greater transnational open-ness in the economic arena alongside growing pressure for domestic political closure. It begins with an outline of Australia's recent history of economic reform and of the discourse of globalisation that has been employed to legitimise the changes wrought by this transition. Focusing on the period from the late 1990s to the early 2000s, the article provides an account of anxieties associated with these changes and an analysis of government strategies to secure the support of disaffected sections of the electorate. Asylum policy is analysed in this context. The article shows how the policing of asylum seekers constitutes performances of political closure designed to assuage those made vulnerable by Australia's neoliberal economic trajectory. It argues that these politics of asylum are indicative of the tensions between transnational engagement and territorial closure faced by neoliberal states more generally.     

Prospects for a Distinctly Scottish Planning in a Post-sovereign Age

Debates on the sovereignty of the State and the role of (sub-national) regions have moved on quickly in recent years spurred on by interest in the implications of globalization and (more recently) devolution. Reductionist perspectives on the 'death of State sovereignty' have given way to more balanced understandings that emphasize bottom-up and top-down influences upon State restructuring. Yet the impacts of a changing sovereignty upon policy areas are still largely unknown. This paper seeks to add to these debates and cast some light on potential influences upon and autonomy of the Scottish Parliament vis-à-vis land use planning. The paper argues that despite expectations of policy divergence from academics and practitioners the Scottish Parliament has taken a modest approach to land use planning which mirrors that in the rest of the UK. Yet, the reasons for this are only partly explained by the 'death of the State' theses. Significantly, there is evidence of an expectation of reduced sovereignty which has had an impact upon the anticipation of change. In addition, party political loyalty, ideology, the mechanics of the devolution settlement and the fragmented nature of sovereignty have driven the agenda for planning under the Scottish Parliament all of which point towards a further convergence.     

The Economic Geography of Australia and Its Analysis: From Industrial to Post‐Industrial Regions

The Australian economy has experienced profound change over the last five decades, moving from an industrial to a post‐industrial structure. This transformation has had far‐reaching implications for the nature of economic activity in Australia and has provided the backdrop for the evolving analysis of the nation's space economy. The paper argues that three interrelated themes underpin much of the work of economic geographers in Australia: the impacts of globalisation on Australia's space economy; neoliberalism and the governance of regions; and policy‐focused analysis of regions, their history and prospects. The paper concludes that economic geography will continue to make important intellectual and practical contributions to Australia in the near future as the reshaping of the Australian economy continues and as new challenges reshape the nation's regions.     

Towards the Relational Construction of Militant Particularisms: Or Why the Geographies of Past Struggles Matter for Resistance to Neoliberal Globalisation

This paper argues that rejecting a bounded notion of past struggles can generate stories that resonate with the diverse and spatially stretched resistances to neoliberal globalisation. It explores some of the routes and connections which made up subaltern struggles in eighteenth‐century London. It uses these stories to position militant particularisms as mobile, as the product of interrelations and as actively negotiating spatial relations rather than as fixed, bounded, origins of political struggles. The final section of the paper uses this re‐imagining of militant particularisms to address key tensions in counter‐globalisation politics. The paper argues that choices between local or global resistance are false and destructive of political possibilities. It contends that connections between different place‐located struggles are crucial to opposing exclusionary nationalist oppositions to globalisation.     

Asylum-seekers in Australia's international relations

The paper is divided into five sections. In the first, I offer some observations on the nature of 'sovereignty', and on the place of 'border controls' within sovereignty discourse. In the second, I discuss what it means to be a 'middle power', and what 'soft power' resources a middle power may need to use. In the third, I argue that crude populism has shaped recent responses to asylum-seekers, with scant regard to some of the wider consequences for Australia's reputation, but suggest that part of the blame lies with past failures of the foreign policy establishment to recognise genuine concerns entertained at mass level about the morality of Australian alignments and affiliations. In the fourth, I outline the key elements of Australia's recent policies towards asylum-seekers, and argue that they entail costs in terms both of Australia's reputation, and the nature of the Australian polity. In the fifth, I suggest some new directions to pursue.     

Learning About Regionalism from Europe: ‘Economic Normalisation’ and Beyond

This paper critically analyses the European Union's regional policy framework and considers its implications for Australia's multi‐level governance system. The analysis is made with reference to the ‘new regionalist’ debates in Europe and North America that have asserted the importance of regional economic development in the context of globalisation. New regionalism's advocacy of ‘economic normalisation’ as a leading regional policy aim is critically evaluated against the EU policy experience. Conclusions about the adequacy of new regionalist claims are drawn for Australian policy debates.     

FLEXIBLE SPECIALISATION AND SMALL FIRMS IN ITALY: MYTHS AND REALITIES

This paper offers a critical evaluation of the ‘Flexible Specialisation’ model which asserts that a new and dominant model of industrial organisation based upon craft principles is emerging, or can be nurtured in places where it does not yet exist. Drawing upon recent evidence from Italy, the country whose economic resurgence around small firms has become a cornerstone for the flexible specialisation thesis, the paper argues that there is little cause for the thesis's optimism for small flexible firms and their emancipatory role for the working class.     

China challenges global capitalism

This paper establishes a novel understanding of the nature and implications of China's rise. By borrowing Robert Gilpin's concept of sub-optimisation, it is argued that China is the most prominent player in a non-Western subgroup's suboptimisation strategy, which undermines the Western-dominated neoliberal capitalist system, or the Washington Consensus, and liberal democratic values, taken as gospel by Western economists, governments and industry for the past 30 years. While China and other non-Western states are a part of this system, a consequence of their actions within the system, and particularly in the international energy markets, is that they are increasing their relative gains at the expense of the larger group. China-led subgroup's suboptimisation strategy may result in direct competition between the predominant neoliberal Western paradigm, which is synonymous with globalisation, and which has entered into a structural crisis, and the emerging non-Western economic and political capitalist model.     

Geographical Takes on Three Decades of Economic Reform in Australia

The idea of an economy taking a geographical journey highlights the importance of changing spatialities and how these shape and result from economic change. It also focuses on the geographical scaling of key processes. Using these insights, this paper explores three decades of economic change in Australia in which the nation State has played a central role in the operation of markets and accumulation processes, albeit with dramatic shifts in the qualitative nature of that role. Such shifts have been crucial during the emergence of Australia's particular variety of neoliberalism. The paper explores the liberalisation of Australia's financial and corporate environment, trade policies and the industrial relations environment. The three cases suggest contradictions inherent in the State's adherence to a neoliberal reform agenda, in the name of globalisation, while facing: first, political needs to retain sovereignty over national security and tighten border protection; and second, multi‐scaled political processes including clashes with State governments grappling with regional and local impacts of change. There has been no simple roll‐out of neoliberalism in Australia since the mid 1990s. Geographical scales, constructed contingently by social and political agents, have contributed in fundamental ways to the power and direction of economic reform. Despite powerful re‐scalings to both global and local levels over the past three decades, there is no evidence of a diminished role for the nation State.     

South Korea's Meandering Path to Globalisation in the Late Twentieth Century

Globalisation, or segyehwa1 1. The system of romanisation for the South Korean language that is used in this article is the revised system proclaimed by the South Korean Ministry of Culture and Tourism in July 2000. Exceptions to the revised system are proper nouns – e.g. the names of the former presidents of South Korea and of jaebeol (chaebol) groups such as Samsung, Hyundai, Daewoo and Sunkyung. View all notes in Korean, has recently been the central theme in discussions of South Korean political economy, particularly in strategic policy-making discourses since the outbreak of the Asian financial crisis, which was triggered by the collapse of the Thai baht in 1997. The serious nature of the South Korean currency meltdown in 1997 resulted at first glance in a striking transition in the South Korean political economy from state-driven market and industrial policies, and a strong nationalist policy towards foreign capital (inflow of foreign direct investment), to a neo-liberal policy of globalisation. This article critically examines the paradoxical nature of Korea's globalisation efforts under three political regimes (February 1993–February 2008), as a response to new economic conditions embedded in the nature of developmental capitalism. The paper argues that South Korea's globalisation effort over the period has been highly pragmatic and selective in policy and regulations but has resisted embracing the principles of market-driven globalisation. South Korea's globalisation drive or segyehwa therefore appears only a temporary phenomenon rather than a carefully structured strategic policy.     

Freedom of Information and Democracy in Australia and Beyond

Freedom of Information laws (FOI) throughout Australia have been routinely studied by law and media scholars. These authors have revealed widespread challenges to functioning FOI regimens, which range from government hostility to public sector restructuring to globalisation. Nevertheless, analysts have only begun to fully appreciate and explore the symbolism of FOI. Access laws are situated at the very heart of state and citizen relations, and they are especially sensitive to broader assumptions about citizenship and democracy. This paper aims to explore this sensitivity through a contextual examination that is as much about democratic theory as it is about access law. Many of the deficiencies outlined by various studies, it is argued, can be best viewed as a cluster of concerns that relate to one major problem – a lack of popular sovereignty. Australian and global democracy must be viewed and conducted in a more generally robust manner in order to strengthen FOI.     

Discerning institutional and spatial restructuring under emergent neoliberal projects in India

The policy of economic liberalization pursued by the Indian government since the 1990s in response to an economic slowdown has led to the creative destruction of institutional space and the built environment. India launched the Smart Cities Mission and the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor to enhance infrastructure delivery and employment opportunities. Focusing on these cases and using direct observation and in-depth personal interviews, this paper explores the role of emergent neoliberal projects in the country's institutional and spatial restructuring at different scales. The aim is to make a twofold contribution to urban research: first, to contribute to the discourse on neoliberalism by identifying institutional and spatial restructuring in India based on the concept of creative destruction; and second, by validating the significance of strong state and political willingness in distributing neoliberal benefits such as affordable housing and services to the poor. The paper argues for a stronger role of the state in creating equity in the urban development process and infrastructure delivery.     

Re‐Politicising the Analysis of “New State Spaces” in Hungary and Beyond: Towards an Effective Engagement with “Actually Existing Neoliberalism”

Abstract: Recent scholarship grounded in strategic‐relational state theory has offered a compelling approach to state spatial restructuring under neoliberal capitalism. By drawing on Hungary's post‐1990 state spatial reforms, this paper discusses a major limitation of state theoretical frameworks. In particular, the paper seeks to challenge state theorists’ generally subtle but persistent bias to capitalist economic structures, and argues that the above bias impedes an adequate and effectively critical account of state spatial regulation. Finally, it makes a case for a perspective on new state spaces that acknowledges the wider socio‐historical embeddedness of state space production, as well as its inherently political nature.     

Labor and globalisation: from Keating to Latham

This paper documents the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party's (FPLP) approach to globalisation under four different leaders, starting with Paul Keating in the early 1990s, and ending at the early stages of Mark Latham's leadership in 2004. It argues that, despite some notable differences, there was a considerable degree of consistency in Labor attitudes to globalisation under successive party leaders: globalisation was seen as inevitable, irreversible, as beneficial for the majority of the population, and as destructive to states' capacity to intervene in the economy. The paper suggests that a number of factors explain Labor's continued support for globalisation in the face of growing public discontent, including the pressures of international institutions such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and big business, ideological factors, and comparatively low levels of economic growth, both in Australia and internationally.     

Typologies of Advantage and Disadvantage: Socio‐economic Outcomes in Australian Metropolitan Cities

Australia's metropolitan cities have undergone significant social, economic and demographic change over the past several decades. In terms of socio‐economic advantage and disadvantage these changes, which are often associated with globalisation, wider economic and technological restructuring, the changing demographics of the population and shifts in public policy are not evenly dispersed across cities, but represent a range of often contrasting outcomes. The current paper develops a typology of socio‐economic advantage and disadvantage for locations across Australian metropolitan cities. More specifically, the paper takes a range of Australian Bureau of Statistics data and uses a model‐based approach with clustering of data represented by a parameterised Gaussian mixture model and discriminant analysis utilised to consider the differences between the clusters. These clusters form the basis of a typology representing the range of socio‐economic and demographic outcomes at the local community level.