Australian Labor and the Socialist Tradition

Amidst the turmoil of the so‐called ‘death of socialism’, both in Australia and elsewhere, there has been renewed debate about what socialism should be taken to mean. This paper attempts to come to terms with the competing claims about, in particular, socialism within the Australian Labor Party and, in general, how better to understand the meaning of socialism. A comparison and contrast between the first principles of liberalism and socialism helps to illuminate some of the inadequacies of Marxist criticisms of parliamentary Labor. In addition, the argument is made that if we are willing to give greater emphasis to questions of means and ends, socialism can be seen to be part of Labor's historic mission. Far from being a defence of the Hawke administration, however, the case is made that there has been, under Hawke, a fundamental break with the democratic socialist tradition; that the difference is in kind, not degree.     

Mark Latham and the ideology of the ALP

This article focuses on Mark Latham's views on equality. Latham's emphasis on education and on overcoming suburban, spatial inequality draws on the Whitlamite tradition. However, his work also draws on neoliberal influences and on arguments regarding the impact of the information economy. Both these influences have contributed to a move away from more traditional Labor and social‐democratic views on class, racial and gender inequality. This article considers Latham's relationship with traditional Labor ideology as well as with Third Way politics. Latham's arguments regarding the role of elites and the implications that this has for his understandings of the city, capitalism and diverse forms of inequality are also addressed. Latham's earlier views still influence his speeches and electoral strategy as Labor Leader.     

The ALP and the union movement: ‘Catch‐all’ party or maintaining tradition?

Considerable debate continues over whether the Hawke government has been loyal to or betrayed the ‘Labor tradition’. This article argues that two important ideological influences upon Labor are ‘labourism’ and ‘social democracy'; both depend upon the union movement for ideas and practical support While labourism explains much about the accord process and suggests that the ‘Labor tradition’ was not betrayed by the Hawke‐Keating axis, it cannot capture the complete ideological landscape of the contemporary labour movement Labourism fails to explain the more social democratic aims of the Australian Council of Trade Union's objective of ‘strategic unionism’. Yet, ironically, strategic unionism may well fail due to the steady decline in union membership over the last fifteen years. The influence of social democracy and labourism upon the Australian Labor Party (ALP) would diminish should unions’ coverage of the work force continue to decline and with it arguably, so would the'Labor tradition’.     

One Party,Two Traditions: Radicalism and Pragmatism in the Australian Greens

The 2004 Australian federal election established the Australian Greens (Greens) as the third largest political force in the country behind the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and the Liberal Party in electoral terms. Despite the Greens’ electoral achievements, the party has been largely dismissed as a radical single-issue political party. This paper will argue that while radicalism is an institutionally entrenched feature of the Greens in both organisational and programmatic terms, there are also strongly pragmatic aspects to the party's modus operandi. It suggests that the Greens are astute political operators who use radicalism in a highly pragmatic way to achieve their political objectives.     

MacIntyre and Nussbaum on Diversity,Liberalism, and Christianity

This article argues that the politics of difference has been unsuccessful in its attempt to liberate itself from the modern politics of universal dignity and self-determination. As a result, theorists who emphasize difference ultimately must find a way to balance a conception of diversity with that of a universal normative ethics. To make this case, I examine the virtue ethics of Alasdair MacIntyre and Martha Nussbaum as two different examples of this tension, one constructing a particularistic virtue ethics around specific traditions, while the other presents a universalistic virtue ethics around universal human experience, thus serving as an example for how the “right” and “left” engage with diversity. There is a common denominator to the virtue ethics of MacIntyre and Nussbaum in that they both go about this by reconstructing an ethics of character out of elements of Aristotle's ethics of virtue in his Nicomachean Ethics as the basis for a model of pluralism and do so within a modern liberal and hence rational–individualist framework. Both are critical of certain elements of Aristotle's thought, while attempting to recover the “true” essence of Aristotelianism. While those who identify with the different political extremes are diverse, one basic premise is that the former believes in the role of tradition and the values of slow change in dialogue with the past, while the latter advocates the good of all individuals within a state that is blind to differences notwithstanding the practices of the past. Each approach faces a significant weakness: tradition is often unable to recognize that social benefits have often been brought about by modern liberalism's rejection of tradition, while universal human experience tends to forget that universal thinking is not universal but is a liberalization of a particular Christian way of approaching the world.     

A revisionist interpretation of the impact of Queensland's electoral scheme

In December 1989 Queensland voters changed their government from National Party to Labor Party. Labor had been out of office since August 1957, a record period of opposition for a major party. How is that very lengthy Labor period in the wilderness to be explained? The orthodox interpretation is that there has been a gerrymander in Queensland. This article argues, however, that Queensland's electoral system is the same as that of other mainland states. While it is true that electorates are malapportioned in Queensland (and in Western Australia), nevertheless the method of single member electorates with preferential voting is in use for all mainland states. Such a system does not translate a party's percentage of votes into a similar percentage of seats in the Legislative Assembly. The elections of 1956 and 1989 each saw Labor getting a first preference vote in excess of 50 per cent— with which Labor won in excess of 60 per cent of the seats. At no election between these dates did Labor secure a majority of votes, either first preference or two party preferred.     

Dawkins and the labor tradition: Instrumentalism and centralism in federal ALP higher education policy 1942–88

As Commonwealth Minister for Employment, Education and Training, John Dawkins has overturned prevailing methods of funding, organization and control of Australian higher education. By making funds dependent upon agreements to pursue national priorities, the Labor minister has also appeared to threaten the dominant objectives and philosophies of higher education. Recent policies (1987–88) have also been regarded as a betrayal of traditional ALP values. This paper argues that such an interpretation misrepresents the history of federal Labor policies in higher education and Dawkins' place within it Tertiary education has usually assumed prominence in the face of either actual or perceived national crises. When in office Labor has usually promoted instru‐mentalism of both an egalitarian and economic kind, and brought about an increasing centralization of Commonwealth control. Federal ALP MPs have also been ambivalent on the values of liberal education and academic freedom. On these grounds, the Dawkins policies represent more of a continuity with, than a departure from, ALP tradition. Any explanation of the Minister's political success must take into account this federal Labor heritage in higher education.     

Continuity or Discontinuity in the Recent History of the Australian Labor Party?

Recent characterisations of the Australian Labor Party as a ‘cartel party’ suggest that there was, after the 1970s, a fundamental discontinuity in Labor's history. We assess this contention not only in terms of the ALP's policies but also the mechanisms which link it with different classes and social groups: Labor's electoral support, membership and local branches, the backgrounds of the Party's parliamentarians and leaders, the role of trade unions inside the ALP, and its sources of funding. While there have been some quantitative changes in these characteristics, we conclude that Labor remains, on balance, a ‘capitalist workers party.’     

Modern Pagan Festivals: A Study in the Nature of Tradition

The cluster of recently appeared religions known as Paganism have developed, over the past sixty years, a distinctive cycle of annual festivals, most of which draw on long historic roots but that are grouped together in a modern framework. No study has yet been made of the manner in which this cycle developed, and potentially rich rewards may be gained from doing so. Such a project is a rare opportunity to study a religious festive tradition in the process of evolution, and also to suggest features of the nature of tradition in modern societies, and the manner in which it is perceived by scholars in different disciplines.     

近20年福建长乐人移民美国的动机和条件——以长乐实地调查为主的分析

长乐人素有海上谋生的传统,并在近20年间塑造了移民海外的社会风尚。长乐与纽约之间巨大的收入差距和美国较好的谋生与发展条件,使长乐人选择美国作为移民的主要目的地。长乐人在美国成功建立的互助网络,使长乐人能承担巨额出国费用和成功地在美国求职与发展。因此,美国虽然是绝大部分中国国际移民的首选目的地,但唯有长乐人(福州人)能大规模移民美国,创造了在20年间近20万人成功地从一个仅60多万人口的县级市移民美国的奇迹。     

Suit of power: fashion,politics, and hegemonic masculinity in Australia

In 2010 the Australian Labor Party selected Julia Gillard as leader, making her Australia’s first female Prime Minister. Between 2010 and 2015 there was a renewed focus on issues of gender inequality in the way that women politicians have been treated in Parliament and in the media. Specifically, women in positions of political and institutional power such as Julia Gillard, Julie Bishop, and Quentin Bryce, were critiqued on their clothing choices in the Australian media. In this article, I argue that the Australian media’s attention to the fashion choices of women in politics is problematically gendered, because it subordinates aesthetic features that do not conform to hegemonic masculinity. I argue that in response to the dominant masculine aesthetic norm in politics, women politicians are using their sartorial choices to challenge this marginalisation of femininity in the political sphere.     

Between Utopia and Tradition: William Morris’s A Dream of John Ball

ABSTRACT

William Morris, author of the famous nineteenth-century utopian novel News from Nowhere, thought it both possible and desirable to develop a utopian vision that could be affirmed by many individuals. However, Morris also recognised that achieving such utopian unity was not easy. There is, at least potentially, something personal about utopian visions; they are shaped by idiosyncratic desires that cannot be shared. Through a reading of Morris’s A Dream of John Ball, I argue that Morris offers a temporal solution to the problem of utopian unity. The central characters in the text, medieval priest John Ball and a nineteenth-century socialist agitator, come to recognise their shared adherence to the same image of a new society. This is achieved through the mediation of tradition: Ball and the agitator overcome their differences by committing themselves to disappointed hopes elaborated in past struggles that have been handed down to the present. Morris’s articulation of utopia and tradition—the sense that visions of the future can be made shareable through reference to the past—offers the possibility of a transtemporal solidarity of utopians and the bringing together of the dreams of a plurality of individuals.     

Split parties finish last: Preferences,pluralities and the 1957 Queensland election

The 1957 election is a watershed in Queensland politics. Coming after the Labor split, the election saw the end of over 40 years of almost uninterrupted Labor rule in Queensland. Often overlooked in discussions of this key period is that the 1957 election was conducted under plurality rule, or as it is more commonly known, ‘first‐past‐the‐post’. Had the 1957 election been held under preferential voting, preferences would have been distributed in 46 of the 71 contested seats. Through simulations of distributions of hypothetical second preferences I assess the effects of the Labor split on the fates of the respective parties. Contrary to some interpretations of the 1957 election I find that plurality rule saved Labor from even greater electoral losses than those they would have sustained under preferential voting. Single‐member constituency electoral systems deal harsh punishment to small parties, or, as in 1957, split parties: a point well known by astute political leaders. Preferential voting may have given Labor leaders even more powerful incentives to heal the split of 1957, and perhaps even avoid it in the first place.     

Creating the cultures of the future: cultural strategy,policy and institutions in Gramsci

Gramsci’s writings have rarely been discussed and used systematically by scholars in cultural policy studies, despite the fact that in cultural studies, from which the field emerged, Gramsci had been a major source of theoretical concepts. Cultural policy studies were, in fact, theorised as an anti-Gramscian project between the late 1980s and the early 1990s, when a group of scholars based in Australia advocated a major political and theoretical reorientation of cultural studies away from hegemony theory and radical politicisation, and towards reformist–technocratic engagement with the policy concerns of contemporary government and business. Their criticism of the ‘Gramscian tradition’ as inadequate for the study of cultural policy and institutions has remained largely unexamined in any detail for almost 20 years and seems to have had a significant role in the subsequent neglect of Gramsci’s contribution in this area of study. This essay, consisting of three parts, is an attempt to challenge such criticism and provide an analysis of Gramsci’s writings, with the aim of proposing a more systematic contribution of Gramsci’s work to the theoretical development of cultural policy studies. In Part I, I question the use of the notion of ‘Gramscian tradition’ made by its critics, and challenge the claim that it was inadequate for the study of cultural policy and institutions. In Parts II and III, I consider Gramsci’s specific writings on questions of cultural strategy, policy and institutions, which have so far been overlooked by scholars, arguing that they provide further analytical insights to those offered by his more general concepts. More specifically, in Part II, I consider Gramsci’s pre-prison writings and political practice in relation to questions of cultural strategy and institutions. I argue that the analysis of these early texts, which were written in the years in which Gramsci was active in party organisation and leadership, is fundamental not only for understanding the nature of Gramsci’s early and continued involvement with questions of cultural strategy and institutions, but also as a key for deciphering and interpreting cultural policy themes that he later developed in the prison notebooks, and which originated in earlier debates. Finally, in Part III, I carry out a detailed analysis of Gramsci’s prison notes on questions of cultural strategy, policy and institutions, which enrich the theoretical underpinnings for critical frameworks of analysis as well as for radical practices of cultural strategy, cultural policy-making and cultural organisation. I then answer the question of whether Gramsci’s insights amount to a theory of cultural policy.     

The impotence of being earnest? Avoiding the pitfalls of ‘creative middle power diplomacy’

This article critically evaluates Australia's ‘creative middle power diplomacy’, encapsulated in the three pillars of the Labor government's foreign policy platform. It notes that each pillar has been accorded specific roles in the implementation of Australian foreign policy and makes particular reference to the government's preference for multilateral engagement. The article subsequently demonstrates that such an agenda actually impedes a creative approach to key issues such as trade, climate change and non-proliferation challenges, as well as Australia's participation in Asia-Pacific order-building. It then offers some suggestions for a more flexible posture that is not inconsistent with past Labor approaches, but which also better appreciates regional and global complexities.     

‘I want to be all I can Irish’: the role of performance and performativity in the construction of ethnicity

Over the past few decades, ethnicity, amongst third generation and beyond descendants of European immigrants in America, is thought to have evolved from a group-oriented protectorate to a more individualized form of identity. ‘Symbolic ethnicity’ is the name given by sociologists, who, working in the 1980s and 1990s within the confines of traditional assimilation theory, thought this to be the final step in that process. More recently, however, research within the social sciences has moved on, not just in how assimilation is considered, but also to newer immigrant and ethnic groups. In this study, I return to the concept of symbolic ethnicity and to those ‘older’ ethnics who, despite the assimilation process, continue to construct and maintain powerful links to an ethnic ancestry and homeland. From my observations of and interviews with dozens of individuals learning the Irish language throughout North America, I attempt to uncover why this connection persists, beginning with the subjective nature of symbolic ethnicity and ending with concepts of performance and performativity. I argue that these Irish not only knowingly construct their ethnic identities, but also unconsciously conform to a discourse of Irishness based on their perception of authenticity and tradition.     

New government and policy change in western Australia 1983–1988: Did Mr Burke Make a difference?

Using four indicators of government activity, we identify a number of policy innovations in WA under the Burke government We argue that this government's policies are distinct in some measure both from those of its Liberal predecessors and from the aims of the WA Labor Party prior to the Burke leadership.

Comparison with other Australian states suggests though that these policies are broadly compatible with directions taken under other Labor administrations and distinct from those of non‐Labor administrations. Thus, whilst a Burke‐led government did make a difference in WA, its policies reflect broader Labor‐oriented state trends.     

Factions and Fractions: A Case Study of Power Politics in the Australian Labor Party

Over the past three decades, factions have cemented their hold over the Australian Labor Party. This has largely been due to the entrenchment of the proportional representation of factions. One of the effects of the institutionalisation of factions has been the development of factional sub-groupings ('fractions'). This article analyses the phenomenon by looking at a case study of a single ALP faction ‐ the Left in New South Wales. Since 1971, two major fractions have developed in the NSW Left, based on ideological disagreements, personality conflicts, generational differences and arguments over the role of the union movement in the ALP. This development parallels the intra-factional splits that have occurred in many other sections of the Labor Party. Yet the factional system in the 1980s and 1990s operated relatively effectively as a means of managing power. The question now is whether it can survive the challenge of new issues that cross-cut traditional ideological lines.     

Stand(ing) up for the immigrants: the work of comedian Des Bishop

This article examines the work of white Irish American stand-up comedian Des Bishop in the context of Ireland's changing demographics. In particular, it situates Bishop within current and controversial debates on ‘undocumented Irish’ in the USA versus ‘illegal immigrants’ to Ireland, debates in which Bishop himself has explicitly intervened. A New York native who has been living in Ireland since the age of fourteen, Bishop's comedy draws upon the convention of the US stand-up as ‘ethnic’ outsider who exposes the foibles of the dominant mainstream, while he also self-consciously asserts his comic persona within the ‘returned Yank’ tradition in Irish American culture. In an increasingly multicultural Ireland, I contend that Bishop has established himself as a mediating figure between white (read: desirable) and non-white (read: undesirable) immigrants to Ireland, a strategy which, I argue, must be approached with caution.