Australia–Japan economic relations: ten years after the NARA Treaty

The NARA Treaty looked to a strengthened Australia–Japan relationship, which foreign ministers of both countries celebrated this year. Events of the mid 1980s, however, demonstrated how an adverse turn in economic circumstances can stress even a strong bilateral relationship. The two countries were then at opposite points in their economic cycles, Japan almost too successful, with the high yen putting pressure on Japan's export industries, steel in particular. Seeking to reduce costs, the steel mills transferred pressure to their Australian suppliers of coal and iron ore, through reductions in prices and volumes. This was unwelcome to an Australian government coping with a recession and worried about balance of payments and unemployment, and led to concerns about equal treatment. Although the minerals trade returned to normal relatively quickly, ambitious investment projects aimed at enhancing the economic relationship did not materialise.     

'Hired Hands' or 'Local Voice': Understandings and Experience of Local Participation in Conservation

In recent years, the notion of local participation has emerged as a major force in both policy-making and political philosophy. This paper explores the role that participation is playing in mediating relations between local people, conservation organizations and the ideas and practices of nature conservation in England. Drawing upon empirical research in the county of Kent, the paper argues that there are systematic discrepancies between the motives, experiences and understandings of the various policy actors towards the theory and practice of a participatory conservation. It argues that these apparent discrepancies have serious implications for both the credibility and the effectiveness of present initiatives, whereby participatory practice serves to reshape existing conceptions of conservation and rural space.     

Conceptions of Australian political thought: A methodological critique

This paper takes issue with a number of standard interpretations of Australian political thought and the methods of argument by which they have been reached. It confronts the substantive claims (a) that Australia has produced no significant indigenous political thought, ideology, or ideological conflict, and (b) that which passes for political thought is generally derivative, lacking in originality and inferior. It is argued that such claims are based upon unduly narrow conceptions of political thought and misplaced categories of evaluation. Finally, the paper demonstrates that by expanding our conceptions of political thought beyond that of ‘epic’ or universalist political philosophy, and applying methods of evaluation appropriate to the subject matter, more sensible conclusions can be drawn about the existence and quality of Australian political thought, as well as its place in political life.     

Reviews

Howard R. Penniman (ed.) Australia at the Polls: The National Elections of 1980 and 1983, Washington, DC, George Allen and Unwin for American Enterprise Institute, 1983, pp.351. $14.95 (paper)

Alexander Kouzmin (ed.) Public Sector Administration: New Perspectives, Melbourne, Longman Cheshire, 1983. pp.329. $15.95

Blanche D'Alpuget, Robert J Hawke: A Biography, Schwartz, 1982, pp.418. $19.95

Frank Cain, The Origins of Political Surveillance in Australia, Sydney, Angus and Robertson, 1983, pp. 306. $24.95

Leonie Sandercock and Michael Berry, Urban Political Economy: The Australian Case, Sydney, George Allen and Unwin, 1983, pp.193. $22.50, $4.50 (paper)

Brian W. Head (ed.), State and Economy in Australia, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, pp. 305. $25.00, $12.99 (paper)

Bruce O'Meagher (ed.) The Socialist Objective: Labor and Socialism, Sydney, Hale and Iremonger 1983, pp. 198, $24.95, $11.95 (paper) and John Reeves and Kelvin Thomson (eds) Labor Essays 1983: Policies and Programs for the Labor Government, Blackburn, Drummond 1983, pp. 197. $12.95 (paper)

James Jupp, Ethnic Politics in Australia, Sydney, George Allen & Unwin, 1984, pp.213. $22.95, $11.95 (paper)

Archives Guide to Collections, Melbourne, Archives Board of Management University of Melbourne, 1983, pp.210. $18.00, $9.50 (paper)

Nancy Viviani, The Long Journey: Vietnamese Migration and Settlement in Australia, Melbourne University Press, 1984, pp.316. $26.60

Christopher Cunneen: Kings’ Men: Australia's Governors‐General from Hopetoun to Isaacs. Sydney, George Allen & Unwin Australia, 1983, pp. 237. $24.95, $12.95 (paper)

Dennis Phillips, Cold War Two and Australia, Sydney, George Allen & Unwin, 1983. pp.122. $15.95, $6.95 (paper)

Harry Redner and Jill Redner, Anatomy of the World: The Impact of the Atom on Australia and the World, Melbourne, Fontana/Collins, 1983, pp. 368. $8.95 (paper)

David McKay, American Politics and Society, Oxford, Martin Robertson, 1983, pp. 336. $55.00, $18.95 (paper)

David Martin and Peter Mullen (eds) Unholy Warfare: The Church and the Bomb. Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1983, pp.247. $34.95, $13.95 (paper)

Barry Gustafson, Labour's Path to Political Independence — The Origins and Establishment of the New Zealand Labour Party 1900–19, Auckland, Auckland University Press/Oxford University Press, 1980, pp. 199. $18.50

Christopher T. Husbands, Racial Exclusion and the City: The Urban Support of the National Front, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1983, pp.191. $49.50

Charles F. Sabel, Work and Politics: The Division of Labor in Industry, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1982, pp. 304. $45.50

David Coates and Gordon Johnston (eds) Socialist Strategies, Oxford, Martin Robertson, 1983, pp.294. $49.50, $16.50 (paper)

R.J. Moore, Escape from Empire: the Attlee Government and the Indian Problem, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1983, pp. 376. $48.75

T.H. Rigby & Bohdan Harasymiw (eds) Leadership Selection and Patron‐Client Relations in the USSR and Yugoslavia, London, Macmillan. 1983, pp.246. £20

Theodore H. Friedgut, Political Participation in the USSR, Princeton, Princeton U.P., 1979, pp.353. $16.25 (paper)

Mervyn Matthews, Education in the Soviet Union: Policies and Institutions Since Stalin, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1982, pp.225. $15.95 (paper)

Ronan Paddison, The Fragmented State: The Political Geography of Power, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1983, pp. 315. $54.00, $21.95 (paper)

William H. McNeill, The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society since A.D. 1000, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1982, pp. 405. $39.95

David Held and others (eds) States and Societies, Oxford, Martin Robertson and the Open University, 1983, pp.629. $16.50 (paper)

Andrew Linklater, Men and Citizens in the Theory of International Relations, London, Macmillan/London School of Economics and Political Science, 1982, pp. 232. $36.00

Celso Furtado, Accumulation and Development: The Logic of Industrial Civilization, trans, by S. Macedo, Oxford, Martin Robertson, 1983, pp.201. $39.95

Irving Louis Allen, The Language of Ethnic Conflict, Social Organization and Lexical Culture, New York, Columbia University Press, 1983, pp.162. US$12.50

Stephen P. Dunn, The Fall and Rise of the Asiatic Mode of Production, London, Routeledge and Kegan Paul, pp.124.

Preston King (ed.) The History of Ideas, An Introduction to Method, London & Canberra, Croom Helm, 1983, pp. 334. $16.50 (paper)

Howard Williams, Kant's Political Philosophy. Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1983, pp. 292. £20

Gerard Bekerman, Marx and Engels: A Conceptual Concordance, Oxford, Blackwell, 1983, pp.205. $62

Nicholas Abercrombie and John Urry, Capital, Labour and the Middle Classes, London, George Allen and Unwin, 1983, pp. 169, $29.95, $13.95. (paper)

Rob Steven, Classes in Contemporary Japan, London, Cambridge University Press, 1983, pp. 357. $45.50

R.W. Connell, Which Way Is Up? Essays on Sex, Class and Culture, Sydney, George Allen and Un‐win, 1983, pp.278. $19.95, $9.95 (paper)

Hester Eisenstein, Contemporary Feminist Thought Sydney, Unwin Paperbacks, 1984, pp 196. $16.95, $7.95

Bettina Cass et al. Why So Few? Women Academics in Australian Universities Sydney University Press, 1983, pp.253. $14.00

Jocelynne Scutt Even in the Best of Homes: Violence in the Family, Melbourne, Penguin, 1983, pp.303. $9.95     

Power and the Spirit of Clustering

This paper utilizes the Scotch Whisky industry to identify an issue which is absent from the current literature on sector specific clusters namely the concept of power. It is argued that in order to understand the nature of power relationships within a cluster it is necessary to adopt a radical Coasian framework. The paper utilizes a typical Structure-conduct-performance approach to analyse the Scotch Whisky industry and to highlight the problems that power relationships pose within a typical cluster. It is imperative that policy-makers are aware of the power relationships which exist in clusters if clustering strategies are to deliver the perceived potential.     

Critiquing the heteronormativity of the banal citizen in New Zealand's mediated civil union debate

This article extends Billig's (1995) landmark thesis on banal nationalism by considering how processes of national deixis circumscribe the boundaries of citizenship and forms of belonging within nation-states. Drawing on critical analyses of sexual citizenship, the article provides a discursive analysis of the debate over civil union in the New Zealand mainstream press during 2004–2005. It argues that this mediated debate represented an historical moment where the routine deictic flagging of the nation, and the correlated flagging of the ‘banal citizen’, fundamentally broke down, thereby allowing this unmarked and ‘ordinary’ process to be systematically examined. Four major discourses are identified in press coverage: ‘Homosexual’ subjects as abnormal and disordered, tolerance, equality and human rights, the sanctity of marriage and the preservation of the family (and the social order). Although the passing of the Civil Union Act does mark a (faltering) step forward in sexual equality, we argue that the presence of these discourses suggests that forms of both ontological and cultural heterosexism persist in New Zealand society. Despite the Act conferring new legal rights, ultimately we conclude that the four discourses act to restrict the extent to which ‘homosexual’ subjects are considered ‘valid’ and ‘legitimate’ citizens. In continuing to structure the public politics of sexual citizenship in New Zealand, these discourses have influenced recent debates over legislative moves towards ‘marriage equality’ in ways that raise concerns over the continuation of heterosexist norms, as well as exclusionary forms of homo-nationalism. More generally, this research demonstrates the effectiveness of Billig's work as a valuable and productive analytic lens to explicate concerns over the exclusionary nature of citizenship itself.