Tunnel-bypasses and minarets of capitalism: Amman as neoliberal assemblage

Mainstream accounts of Arab political life highlight endogenous political legacies to explain the persistence of illiberal regime outcomes in the face of global pressures for transition and newness. Meanwhile, the government of people and places across the Middle East and North Africa is being transformed by powerful models of pedagogy and practice derived from the laws of the market. Consider Jordan. The landscape of government is being reconfigured via—inter alia—Special Economic Zones, Poverty Pocket schemes, Development Corridors, community empowerment initiatives, urban regeneration projects, gated communities, planned satellite cities, and new systems of movement and connection. The scope and political significance these arrangements may not be revealed through examination of the institutions and coalitions traditionally associated with Arab regimes. A different picture emerges, however, if one explores this changing landscape of government from the perspective of those governed within it. Focusing on efforts to advance neoliberal modalities of development and government within the Greater Amman Municipality, this paper charts global connections giving rise to powerful agencies that have been elided by regime-centric inquiry, and considers what they imply for currently dominant modalities of thinking about and acting upon Arab political life. Along the way, it also recovers a sense of the subaltern globalism of people and places elided by efforts to extract theory from dominant accounts of contemporary globalization.     

Earmarks and Elections to the U.S. House of Representatives

Popular treatments of earmarks abound with allegations that members of Congress use them to aid their reelection campaigns, but the academic literature has yet to examine whether earmarking influences elections. To begin to fill this void, we search for relationships between earmarking and several facets of electoral competition and outcomes in the 2008 and 2010 House elections. There are three principal findings. First, in both election years, active earmarkers faced weaker primary election competition than other members. Second, in 2008 there was a positive correlation between earmarking and campaign receipts. Third, both of these correlations exist only among Democrats. These findings suggest that earmarks critics might be correct in charging that members, particularly Democrats, benefit from the earmarks they place into spending bills.     

Botanical Remains from the Baumer Component at Kincaid Mounds

The Baumer construct defines the Early and Middle Woodland periods in the lower Ohio Valley in the confluence region of the Ohio, Tennessee, and Cumberland Rivers. Originally defined by University of Chicago investigations in the 1930s, Baumer remains a poorly understood cultural unit. This paper reports the botanical and environmental data from Baumer features excavated in recent work at Kincaid Mounds. These data demonstrate a stable plant food regime highlighted by a major emphasis on nut harvests as well as the cultivation of Eastern Complex seed crops. The Kincaid data show that Baumer and related Crab Orchard groups inhabiting large stream floodplains are more strongly committed to horticulture than their relatives living in small interior stream drainages in southern Illinois. Maize was also recovered but it is clearly of Mississippian origin.     

The dynamics of global visual effects and games development industries: lessons for Australia’s creative industries development policy

The paper critiques the focus of creative industries policy on capability development of small and medium sized firms and the provision of regional incentives. It analyses factors affecting the competitiveness and sustainability of the games development industry and visual effects suppliers to feature films. Interviews with participants in these industries highlight the need for policy instruments to take into consideration the structure and organization of global markets and the power of lead multinational corporations. We show that although forms of economic governance in these industries may allow sustainable value capture, they are interrupted by bottlenecks in which ferocious competition among suppliers is confronted by comparatively little competition among the lead firms. We argue that current approaches to creative industries policy aimed at building self-sustaining creative industries are unlikely to be sufficient because of the globalized nature of the industries. Rather, we argue that a more profitable approach is likely to require supporting diversification of the industries as ‘feeders’ into other areas of the economy.     

The retreat from neoliberalism that was not: Australia’s Building the Education Revolution

This article examines the durability of neoliberalism in the face of crisis by analysing the Building the Education Revolution (BER), a key part of the Australian Labor Government’s stimulus measures in response to the global financial crisis in 2009. The fiscal stimulus measures enacted by governments in the aftermath of the crisis led many commentators to herald the end of neoliberalism. By examining the design of the BER, however, this article finds that one of the key policy tools of neoliberalism – the outsourcing of public sector capacity – was extended through such stimulus programs. The article argues that a materialist analysis of neoliberalism is better able to understand this phenomenon than the recent tendency to analyse neoliberalism in ideational terms.     

Reviews

Geoffrey Hawker, Who's Master, Who's Servant? Reforming Bureaucracy, Sydney, George Allen & Unwin, 1981, pp. 100. $12.95, $5.95 (paper).

Robert Catley and Bruce McFarlane Australian Capitalism in Boom and Depression: Options for the 1980's, Chippendale, Alternative Publishing Cooperative Ltd, 1981, pp. 249. $21.95, $9.95 (paper).

Robert Birrell and Tanya Birrell, An Issue of People: Population and Australian Society, Melbourne, Longman Cheshire, 1981, pp. 277. $9.95.

Jim Kemeny, The Myth of Home Ownership; Private Versus Public Choices in Housing Tenures, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981, pp. 173. 6.95 (paper—Routledge Direct Editions).

R.F. Henderson (ed), The Welfare Stakes: Strategies for Australian Social Policy. Melbourne; Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, University of Melbourne, 1981. $6.95.

Heather Radi, Peter Spearritt, Elizabeth Hinton Biographical Register of the New South Wales Parliament 1901–1970 Canberra, ANU Press, 1979, pp. 302. $24.95, $12.50 (paper).

R.L. Mathews (ed), Regional Disparities and Economic Development, Canberra, Centre for Research on Federal Financial Relations and the ANU Press, pp. 254, $12.00 (paper).

Grant Amyot, The Italian Communist Party, London, Croom Helm, 1981, pp. 252 212.95; Carl Boggs and David Plotke (eds), The Politics of Eurocommunism: Socialism in Transition, London, Mac‐millan, 1980, pp. 479. $13.95

J.A. Ballard (ed), Policy‐Making in a New State: Papua New Guinea 1972–77, St Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 1981, pp. 331. $25.

Joseph Camilleri, Chinese Foreign Policy; The Maoist Era and its Aftermath, Oxford, Martin Robertson, 1980, pp. 311. 225.

L.J. Macfarlane, The Right to Strike, Harmond‐sworth, Penguin, 1981, pp. 201. $6.95.

Ian Bradley, Breaking the Mould? The Birth and Prospects of the Social Democratic Party, Oxford, Martin Robertson, 1981, pp. 172. 22.95 (paper).

Shirley Williams, Politics is for People, Harmond‐sworth, Penguin Books, 1981, pp. 230. $6.95.

V.L. Allen, The Militancy of British Miners, Bail‐don Green, Yorkshire, The Moor Press (distributed in Australia by Australian Studies Books), 1981, pp. 337. n.p.a.

Robert Behrens, The Conservative Party From Heath to Thatcher: Policies and Politics 1974–1979, Farnborough, Saxon House, 1980, pp. 139. $20.50.

Neill Nugent and Roger King (eds), The British Right: Conservative and Right Wing Politics in Britain, Farnborough, Saxon House, 1977, pp. 230. $31.00.

Ahmed Mohiddin, African Socialism in Two Countries, London, Croom Helm, 1981, pp. 231. 212.50.

Jan Jelmert Jorgenson, Uganda: A Modern History, London, Croom Helm, 1981, pp. 381. 213.95.

Mohammed Ayoob (ed), The Middle East in World Politics, London, Croom Helm, 1981, pp. 217. 210.95.

Aryeh Y. Yodfat and Yuval Arnon‐Ohanna, PLO Strategy and Tactics, London, Croom Helm, 1981, pp. 225.211.50.

David Lane, Leninism: a sociological interpretation, Cambridge University Press, 1981, pp. 150. 213.50, 24.50 (paper).

Donald C. Hodges, The Bureaucratization of Socialism, The University of Massachusetts Press, 1981, pp. 210. $15.00.

Marshall S. Shatz, Soviet Dissent in Historical Perspective, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1980, pp. 214. $32.25.

Seweryn Bialer (ed), The Domestic Context of Soviet Foreign Policy, Boulder, Colorado & London, Westview/Croom Helm, 441 pp. 214.95.

Raymond Plant, Harry Lesser and Peter Taylor‐Gooby, Political Philosophy and Social Welfare: Essays on the Normative Basis of Welfare Provision, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980, pp. 262. 8.95, 4.95 (paper).

William E. Connolly, Appearance and Reality in Politics, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981, pp. 218.15.00.

Jane J. Mansbridge, Beyond Adversary Democracy, New York, Basic Books, 1980, pp. 377. US$20.

William A. Galston, Justice and the Human Good, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1980, pp. 324. US$27.95.

Norma Grieve and Patricia Grimshaw (eds), Australian Women. Feminist Perspectives, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1981, pp. 333. $9.95 (paper).

Joni Lovenduski and Jill Hills (eds).Tfie Politics of the Second Electorate: Women and Public Participation. London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981, pp. 332. 6.95 (paper).

E.M. Ettorre, Lesbians, Women and Society, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980, pp. 208. $13.95.

Jane Lewis, The Politics of Motherhood, Child and Maternal Welfare in England 1900–1939, London, Croom Helm 1980, pp. 235. $17.50.

Dale Spender, Man Made Language, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980, pp. 250. 4.95 (paper).