Reviews

The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam: Religion, Political Order, and Societal Change in Shi'ite Iran from the Beginning to 1890 Said Amir Arjomand. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1984. $24.00.

Bibliography on Qajar Persia Shoko Okazaki & Kinji Eura, eds. Osaka University of Foreign Studies, Japan, 1985, xvi, 163 pp.

The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 2, The Median and Achaemenian Periods Ilya Gershevitch, ed. Cambridge University Press, 1985, xv, 946 pp., 48 plates.

Shah of Shahs Ryszard Kapuscinski. Translated from Polish by William R. Brand and Katarzyna Mroczkowska‐Brand. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, a Helen and Kurt Wolff book, 1982. $12.95.

The Iranian Revolution: Thanatos on a National Scale Gholam R. Afkhami. Washington, D.C.: The Middle East Institute, 1985. $24.95.

Shi'ism, Resistance, and Revolution Martin Kramer, ed. Boulder: Westview Press, 1987, x, 324 pp., index.

Labour Unions and Autocracy in Iran Habib Ladjevardi. Syracuse University Press, 1985, 328 pp., including appendices, notes, bibliography, index. $29.95

Iran: At War with History John W. Limbert. Boulder: Westview Press, 1987, xviii, 186 pp., index. $28.00.

Finding Hoseyn Colin MacKinnon. New York: Arbor House, 1986, 306 pp. $16.95 cloth.

An Introduction to Shi'i Islam, The History and Doctrines of Twelver Shi'ism Moojan Momen. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985, xxii, 397 pp. 32 pages of halftones, three appendices, notes, and select bibliography. $25.00 (cloth).

Fundamentals of Islamic Thought: God, Man and the Universe Ayatullah Murtaza Mutahhari. Tr. R. Campbell. Ed. and intro. Hamid Algar. Berkeley: Mizan Press, 1985, 219 pp., index to p. 235. $19.95. Pb. $8.95.

Man and Islam Ali Shari'ati. Translated by Fatollah Marjani. Houston: Filing, 1981, xxi, 128 pp. $4.95.

A Manual of Classical Persian Prosody Finn Thiesen. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1982.

The Left in Contemporary Iran: Ideology, Organization and the Soviet Connection Sepehr Zabih. London: Croom Helm, 1986. 239 pp., including appendices, bibliography, index.     

The construction of a ‘narrative’ in Australian federal budget speeches, 1996–2013

Given the significance of annual budgetary decisions in both fiscal terms and policy reach, the annual federal budget speech has a distinctive place in Australia's parliamentary cycle. The speeches afford a government a significant opportunity to articulate its economic policy agenda and to contrast its agenda with that of its predecessors or the Opposition. This article reviews the budget speeches of two Treasurers, Peter Costello (Liberal, 1996–2007) and Wayne Swan (Labor, 2008–13), and compares them with respect to how they used the budget speech to position their parties and their governments. Costello's speeches are singular, consistent and highly partisan. Swan eschewed the ‘ad hominem’ argument favoured by Costello, but failed to project an alternative, consistent narrative of his government's agenda and achievements.

年预算无论是财政上还是政策上都至关重要,因此年度联邦预算讲话在澳大利亚的国会程序中有着特殊的位置。这个讲话为政府提供了阐述其经济政策并比较其前任或反对党经济政策的机会。本文研究了两任财长即彼得考斯特罗（自由党,1996-2007）和怀恩斯万（工党,2008-13）的讲话,比较了两人如何利用预算讲话阐明其政党和政府的立场。考氏的讲话不同凡响、一以贯之,具有鲜明的党派倾向。斯万不像考氏那样个人风格,但他没能就其政府的议题和成就拿出一个别样、连贯的讲述。     

Gender,migration and intimate geopolitics: shifting senses of home among women on the Myanmar-Thailand border

This article examines changing experiences of home among migrant women from Myanmar in the context of the Myanmar-Thailand border. Drawing upon semi-structured interviews with migrant women and participant observation within a women-led organisation, the article demonstrates the ways in which women’s journeys from Myanmar into Thailand are also journeys of personal transition in which ideas of home are questioned and reconfigured. Developing perspectives on the geopolitics of home and bringing them into dialogue with feminist theorisations of borders, the article conceptualises home on the border as a site of vulnerability and potential in which participants can challenge gendered norms that associate women with reproduction, domesticity and the preservation of national culture. The article reveals a complex reality in which women negotiate multiple insecurities, developing alternative ideas of home while contributing to social change across borders.