The Prestige of Australian State Supreme Courts Over the 20th Century

This article measures the prestige of the Australian State supreme courts and examines competing explanations for differentials in their prestige over the course of the 20th century. The study finds that the prestige of the State supreme courts are positively correlated with the reputation of their Bench, proxied by the number of High Court judges from that State; socioeconomic diversity in that State, proxied by the State's population; and legal capital, proxied by the number of pages of the official law reports of the State supreme court.     

Proceeding through Colonial Past-Presents in Fieldwork: Methodological Lessons on Accountability,Refusal, and Autonomy

This article examines how the colonial past manifests within the present through an analysis of ethnographic and archival fieldwork. Drawing on feminist geographic scholarship for decolonising knowledge production, I argue that geographers have a responsibility to the people they work with and the places where they conduct research to know what came before. Through an analysis of how the colonial past surfaced in everyday and ongoing experiences of negotiating consent during fieldwork, I show how reflecting on the colonial past-present offers insights into the colonial power geometries of knowledge production. Proceeding through the colonial past-present offers useful lessons on being accountable to people and lands, recognising refusal, and making autonomy. While this article is focused on my experiences as a white settler scholar from the USA who did research in a Mixe community in Oaxaca, Mexico, proceeding through colonial past-presents offers lessons to any and all geographers who struggle to unsettle the persistent colonial power geometries of knowledge production.     

Mapping US Public Diplomacy in the 21st Century

This article tracks how the US is adapting its public diplomacy architecture to suit the needs of the information age. The areas of public diplomacy used to influence foreign target audiences are media diplomacy, public information, internal broadcasting, education and cultural programs, and political action. The agencies involved are the State Department, the International Broadcasting Bureau and the National Endowment for Democracy. Key features are the use being made of the Internet as a major tool for information dissemination and interactive communication between US public diplomacy practitioners and their target publics and the 'deep coalitions' being fostered with civil society actors to shape the norms and values of the post Cold War. This strategy is described by Arquilla and Ronfeldt as 'noopolitik' as opposed to state-centred realpolitik. Noopolitik emphasises the shaping and sharing of ideas, values, norms, laws, and ethics though soft power and is recognised by its authors as being very similar to the academic school of constructivism.     

Book reviews

Australian politics

John Cain, John Cain's Years. Power, Parties and Politics (Carlton, Melbourne University Press, 1995) pp.323 $29.95 ISBN 0 522 34615 7.

Braham Dabscheck, The Struggle for Australian Industrial Relations (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1995) pp.194 $26.95 ISBN 0 19 553486 7.

Timothy Doyle and Aynsley Kellow, Environmental Politics and Policy Making in Australia (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1995) pp.296 $32.95 ISBN 0 7329 2794 5.

Roy Green and Rodin Genoff (eds), Making the Future Work: Crisis and Change in the South Australian Economy (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1993) pp.254 $26.95 ISBN 1 86373 526 7.

Comparative and international politics

Howard Adelman, Allan Borowski, Meyer Burstein and Lois Foster (eds), Immigration and Refugee Policy: Australia and Canada Compared. 2 Vols. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1994) pp.725 $34.95 @ Vol.1 ISBN 0 52285 559 2, Vol.2 ISBN 0 52284 560 6.

David Arase, Buying Power: The Political Economy of Japan's Foreign Aid (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 1995) pp.307 $US49.95 ISBN 1 55587 447 9.

Mohammed Ayoob, The Third World Security Predicament. State Making, Regional Conflict, and the International System (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1995) pp.216 $US18.95 ISBN 1 55587 567 9.

Bruce J. Berman and Colin Leys (eds), African Capitalists in African Development (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 1994) pp.275 $US45.00 ISBN 1 55587 417 7.

Robert Ellas and Jennifer Turpin (eds), Rethinking Peace (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1994) pp.380 $US19.95 ISBN 1 55587 488 6.

John R. Faust and Judith F. Kornberg, China in World Politics (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1995) pp.281 SUS19.95 ISBN 1 55587 427 4.

Elie Kedourie, Nationalism, 4th ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993) pp.154 $US16.95 ISBN 0 63118 885 1.

Jan‐Erik Lane and Svante Ersson, Comparative Politics: An Introduction and New Approach (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994) pp.270 $35.95 ISBN 0 7456 1257 1.

Rosemary Righter, Utopia Lost: The United Nations and World Order (New York: Twentieth Century Fund Press, 1995) pp.420 $58.20 ISBN 0 87078 358 0.

Herbert F. Weisberg (ed.), Democracy's Feast: Elections in America (New Jersey: Chatham House, 1995) pp.353 $US29.95 ISBN 1 56643 011 9.

Spencer Zifcak, New Managerialism: Administrative Reform in Whitehall and Canberra (Buckingham and Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1994) pp.229 $39.95 ISBN 0 33519 304 8.

Political theory and methodology

R. Darcy and Richard Rohrs, A Guide to Quantitative History (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1995) pp.323 $35.25 ISBN: 0 275 95237 1.

Ernest Gellner, Conditions of Liberty: Civil Society and Its Rivals (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1994), pp.225 $35.00 ISBN 0 241 00220 6.

Jurgen Habermas, The Past as Future, interviews with Michael Haller (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994) pp.181 $34.95 ISBN 0 74561 454 X.

G.J. Mulgan, Politics in an Antipolitical Age (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994) pp.215 $US19.95 ISBN 0 745 60813 2.

Hugh Stretton and Lionel Orchard, Public Goods, Public Enterprise, Public Choice: Theoretical Foundations of the Contemporary Attack on Government (London: Macmillan Press, 1994) pp.301 $39.95 ISBN 0 33360 725 2.

Vernon Van Dyke, Ideology and Political Choice; the search for freedom, justice, and virtue (Chatham: Chatham House Publishers, 1995) pp.320 $US24.95 ISBN 1 56643 017 8.