Ghostly Remains and Converging Memories: Yūshūkan and the Australian War Memorial Exhibit the Pacific War

Focusing on the Yūshūkan museum in Tokyo, and the Australian War Memorial Museum in Canberra, this article engages how pain and sacrifice in the Pacific War are represented through the characters of kamikaze and prisoners of war respectively. Despite the inimical historical, political and moral orientations, these institutions’ presentations of memory of war display some interesting overlaps. After establishing that historical, cultural and political contexts are significant in assessing how and why pain and sacrifice in the war are engaged by each institution, I examine the Japanese midget submarine attack on Sydney in 1942, which effectively bridges both institutions. By assessing the emotive nature of the exhibitions it becomes apparent that while the framing of this single act of violence is culturally esoteric, themes of bravery, heroism, loyalty and sacrifice cross cultures.     

Assemblages of State Power: Topological Shifts in the Organization of Government and Politics

Abstract: Multi‐scalar or multi‐site power relations offer two contrasting ways of understanding the shifting geography of state power. In this paper, we argue for a different starting point, one that favours a topological understanding of state spatiality over more conventional topographical accounts. In contrast to a vertical or horizontal imagery of the geography of state power, what states possess, we suggest, is reach, not height. In doing so, we draw from Sassen (2006 , Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages, Princeton University Press) a vocabulary capable of portraying the renegotiation of powers that has taken place between central government in the UK and one of its key city regions, the South East of England; one that highlights an assemblage of political actors, some public, some private, where negotiations take place between elements of central and local actors “lodged” within the region, not acting “above”, “below” or “alongside” it. The articulation of political demands in such a context has less to do with “jumping scale” or formalizing extensive network connections and more to do with the ability to reach directly into a “centralized” politics where proximity and reach play across one another in particular ways.     

Book reviews

Australian Politics

J.M. Baxter, M. Emmison and J. Western, Class Analysis and Contemporary Australia (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1991) pp.xiii + 394. $29.95 ISBN 0 7329 0335 1.

Clive Bean, Ian McAllister and John Warhurst (eds.), The Greening of Australian Politics: The 1990 Federal Election (Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1990) pp.xvi + 229. $22.99. ISBN 0 582 87031 3.

Peter Cullen, with an introduction by Clem Lloyd, No is Not an Answer: Lobbying for Success (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1991) pp.vii + 166. $19.95 ISBN 0 04 442294 6.

Peter Sekuless, Lobbying Canberra in the Nineties: The Government Relations Game (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1991) pp.vii + 165. $19.95 ISBN 0 04 442303 9.

Hugh V. Emy and Owen E. Hughes, Australian Politics: Realities in Conflict, Second Edition, (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1991) pp.ix + 577. $34.95 ISBN 0 7329 0392 0.

Brian Galligan, J.R. Nethercote and Cliff Walsh (eds.), The Cabinet and Budget Processes (Canberra: ANU, 1990) pp.141. $n.p. ISBN 0 7315 08815.

Adam Jamrozik, Class, Inequality and the State (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1991) pp.xx + 348. $29.95 ISBN 0 7329 0245 2.

Bruce Muirden, The Diggers Who Signed on For More: Australia's Part in the Russian Wars of Intervention, 1918–1919 (Adelaide: Wakefield Press, 1990) pp.115. $14.95 ISBN 1 86254 260 0.

Hugh Smith (ed.), Australia and Peacekeeping (Canberra: Australian Defence Studies Centre, 1990) pp.viii + 137.$10.00 ISBN 0 7317 0129 1.

David Wells, In Defence of the Common Wealth: Reflections on Australian Politics (Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1990) pp.126. $14.99. ISBN 0 582 86913 7.

Kenneth Wiltshire, Tenterfield Revisited: Reforming Australia's System of Government for 2001 (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1991) pp.47. $9.95 ISBN 0 7022 2349 2.

Comparative and International Politics

Adam Ashforth, The Politics of Official Discourse in Twentieth‐Century South Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990) pp.xiv + 296. $120.00 ISBN 019 827702 4.

Stefano Bartolini and Peter Mair, Identity, Competition and Electoral Availability: The Stabilization of European Electorates, 1885–1985 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) pp.xix + 363. £45.00/$US59.50 ISBN 0 521 38292 0.

Gerard Braunthal, Political Loyalty and Public Service in West Germany (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1990) pp.xvi + 249. $27.50 ISBN 0 87023 707 1.

Grant Evans and Kelvin Rowley, Red Brotherhood At War (revised edition) (London: Verso, 1990) pp.xxii + 322. $29.95 ISBN 0 86091 501 8.

Ron Eyerman and Andrew Jamison, Social Movements: A Cognitive Approach (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991) pp.184. $29.95 ISBN 0 7456 08671.

Brian Head and Elaine McCoy (eds.), Deregulation or Better Regulation? (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1991) pp.vii + 183. $24.95 ISBN 0 7329 0563 X.

Ewan Jamieson, Friend or Ally (Sydney: Permagon Press, 1990) pp.x + 139. $19.95 ISBN 0 08 040081 7.

Boris Kagarlitsky (Translator, Rick Simon), The Dialectic of Change (London and New York: Verso, 1990) pp.xi + 393. $29.95 ISBN 0 86091 973 0.

Samuel Kernell (ed.) Parallel Politics: Economic Policymaking in Japan and the United States (Tokyo: Japan Center for International Exchange, and Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1991) pp.xiii + 390. $US36.95 ISBN 0 8157 4892 2.

Chandran Kukathas, David W. Lovell and William Maley (eds.), The Transition From Socialism: State and Civil Society in the USSR (Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1991) pp.viii + 227. $24.99 ISBN 0 582 87046 1.

James Minchin, No Man Is An Island: A Portrait of Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1990). pp.407. $17.95 ISBN 0 04 4000028.

Chris Moore and J.J. Richardson, in association with Jeremy Moon, Local Partnership and the Unemployment Crisis in Britain (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989) pp.163. $n.p. ISBN 0 04 352220 3.

Neil Nevitte and Roger Gibbins, New Elites in Old States: Ideologies in the Anglo‐American Democracies (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1990) pp.xi + 209. $24.95 ISBN 0 19 540803 9.

Philip Norton (ed.), Legislatures (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990) pp.xi + 336. $28.95 ISBN 019 8275811.

Amin Saikal and William Maley, Regime Change in Afghanistan: Foreign Intervention and the Politics of Legitimacy (Bathurst, Australia: Crawford House Press, 1991).pp.viii + 190. $37.50 ISBN 1 86333 029 1.

Alan Tapper, The Family in the Welfare State (Sydney: Allen and Unwin in association with the Australian Institute of Public Policy) pp.x + 284. $17.95 ISBN 0 04 442309.

Elise K.Tipton, The Japanese Police State: Tokko in Interwar Japan (Sydney: Allen & Unwin 1991) pp.vii + 209. $24.95 ISBN 004 442258 X.

Wang Jiye and Terence H. Hull (eds.), Population and Development Planning in China (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1991) pp.xx + 311. $24.95 ISBN 0 04 442323 3.

Political Theory and Methodology

John Dunn: Interpreting Political Responsibility: Essays 1981–1989 (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990), pp. vii + 274. $32.95 ISBN 0 7456 0828 0.

David Held (ed.), Political Theory Today (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991) pp.ix + 360. £12.50 ISBN 0 7456 0856 6.

Fredric Jameson, Late Marxism: Adorno, or, The Persistence of the Dialectic (London: Verso, 1990) pp.x + 270. $29.95 ISBN 0 86091 981 1.

Eugene Kamenka, Bureaucracy (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989) pp.ix + 192. $24.95 ISBN 0 631 14579 6.

Ernesto Laclau, New Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time (London: Verso, 1990) pp.xvi + 263. $34.95 ISBN 0–86091–919–6.

Alan Moran, Andrew Chisholm and Michael Porter (eds.), Markets, Resources and the Environment (Sydney: Allen and Unwin in association with National Priorities Project, Tasman Institute, Melbourne, 1991) pp.ix + 290. $19.95 ISBN 1 86373 025 7.

Joseph Raz (ed.), Authority (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990) pp.330. $34.95 ISBN 0 631 15944 4.

Ian Shapiro, Political Criticism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990) pp.xii + 338. $n.p. ISBN 0 520 06672 3.

David West, Authenticity and Empowerment (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990) pp.xv + 198. $n.p. ISBN 0 7450 0516.

Jonathan Wolff, Robert Nozick: Property, Justice and the Minimal State (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991) pp.168. $29.95 ISBN 0 7456 0603 2.