The World under the Stars: Astrological Geography and the Bologna 1477 Edition of Ptolemy’s Cosmographia

ABSTRACT

This article is a re-examination of the first complete printed edition of Ptolemy’s Cosmographia (Bologna, de Lapis, 1477), hitherto considered flawed and defective. An investigation of the status and priorities of the team of court astrologers responsible for this edition, and an examination of the alterations they made to Ptolemy’s maps, suggests that their aim was a redaction intentionally different from existing versions of the Geography. It is suggested that the editors sought to adjust the arrangement of provinces from that recommended in Ptolemy’s Geography (book VIII) to the astrological arrangement detailed in his Tetrabiblos (book II) and that they modified the content of the key regional maps accordingly. In this light, the Bologna 1477 edition underlines the importance of assessing the reception of Ptolemy’s geographical work against a cultural background in which astrology prevailed as an integrated system of knowledge, practices and beliefs.     

The Australian National University's Department of International Relations: the early years

This article is a contribution to the re-evaluation of the formative years of the emergent international relations discipline. Work on this topic, extensive over the past decade and a half, has overturned a number of the foundational myths of the global discipline, especially regarding the period between the two world wars. The literature on international relations in Australia, slow to reflect this re-evaluation, generally still locates the first important developments in the 1960s, and characterises the scholarship that emerged as predominantly ‘realist’. This study both pushes back the boundaries and challenges the theoretical perspectives used to categorise thinking in Australia at that time. A student of C. A. W. Manning and thus conversant with British ideas of ‘international society’, George Modelski's early exposure to theoretical work in the USA and his endeavours to give his department a strongly regional focus gave his work a richness and multifaceted character not easily captured by the ‘realist–rationalist’ dichotomy. Modelski went on from the Australian National University to become a major figure in international relations in the USA, contributing to the original debates on globalisation and best known for his work on ‘long cycles’ in world politics.     

On the Degeneration of Public Philosophy in America: Problems and Prospects

Abstract

Mark Blitz’s Plato’s Political Philosophy is reviewed in this article with special attention to two recurring themes. The first is the relation of parts to wholes and, especially, how the knowledge of parts and wholes in general and of political parts and wholes in particular relate to the philosophic attempt to know the whole itself. The second theme is that of philosophy’s relation to piety and, in particular, how the attempt to know the whole, as understood by Blitz, relates to the fundamental opposition between piety and philosophy. Attention to these themes, the author argues, helps to explain peculiarities of Blitz’s approach, especially his greater emphasis on articulating the entire “realm of political philosophy” than on explicating individual dialogues and his tendency to connect and divide Platonic thoughts, themes, and problems rather than to bore into individual Socratic problems.     

The Failure of Citizens’s Initiated Referenda Proposals in Australia: New Directions for Popular Participation?

Australia has been a leading proponent of direct democracy since the turn of the century because of the provision for referenda in the Australian Constitution. However, the experiment has progressed little further. Bills for citizens’s initiated referenda have been introduced across the Australian parliaments. Not one has been passed, despite the concept being supported at different times by all sides of politics. This article examines why these proposals have failed. It also evaluates other means of reinvigorating popular participation. Widespread disillusionment with the political system indicates that there is a genuine need to increase community involvement in the political process.     

Japan's Political Leadership Deficit

Analysts have long pondered the question: 'Who rules in Japan?'. Prime Ministers who have exercised strong leadership have been the exception rather than the rule. Despite the widespread acknowledgment that Japan's political leadership deficit undermines the ability of the government to act swiftly in a crisis and to exercise international leadership in trade and foreign policy, a systematic explanation for Japan's weak political executive is yet to be advanced. While historical and cultural factors cannot be ignored, more relevant in a contemporary context are institutional factors that restrict the power of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. A parliamentary Cabinet system is not incompatible with strong leadership but, in Japan's case, the inability of the political executive to exercise indisputable authority, or indeed, merely to exercise the legitimate prerogatives of Prime Ministerial and Cabinet Office, is directly attributable to the constraints imposed by a collection of informal power structures within the ruling conservative party and by an autonomous central bureaucracy, all of which have held power away from the political executive. Various institutional remedies are currently being pursued to enhance the leadership of the executive branch. They are part of a deliberately engineered shift in power from non-elected bureaucrats to elected politicians. The reforms will also help to diminish the influence of ruling party factions over personnel selections to executive office and the ascendancy of internal policy cliques within party policymaking.