‘The dilemmas and paradoxes of public bodies performing commercial tasks’: The rhetoric of rationality and the rejection of traditional labor philosophy on the role of the state.

Traditionally a commitment to an active public sector has been a centrepiece of Labor's official thinking. Rhetorical conflict between Labor and non‐Labor has always focused upon the role of the State. The most recent instance of this was the debate between Labor and non‐Labor over the Fraser Government's Review of Commonwealth Functions (commonly known as the ‘Razor Gang').

Traditions have been changing and developing on both sides. The changes made by E. G. Whitlam have been widely discussed. Three years and as many months after the election of the first Hawke Government Labor traditions themselves are being rewritten.

In this paper I shall use the policy area of the function and administration of public sector enterprises in order to demonstrate the depth and significance of this change. It has been said also that the Hawke Government has reduced politics to pronouncements from the Kirribilli Cabinet and non‐productive factional squabbling. The ‘fourth graders’ of the Hawke Government, which apparently includes members of the outer Cabinet as well as the backbenchers, have been excluded from the policy‐making process. This is notwithstanding the firm intentions of the Report of Task Force on Government Administration.

The public sector area can be used to demonstrate shifts along four axes, (i) Significant frontbenchers have been bent upon changing the rhetoric, so that the activities of public sector enterprises are assessed in terms like ‘efficiency’ and ‘dollar rationality’. Change in rhetoric is part of a wider tendency to reject appeals to traditional Labor imagery (such as equality, welfare, the public sector as a good in its own right and other social as opposed to economic goals).

(ii) This, in turn, is related to a rejection of the traditional Labor practices whereby the Labor Party Platform (which could broadly be seen as a pro‐public enterprise document) is no longer seen by significant members of the Labor front‐bench as the most important guide to policy, (iii) Other sources of policy have become more salient, in the case of public sector enterprises, the rhetoric and ideas of the Department of Finance have become prominent (iv) The changing tone of the rhetoric has reflected to a small extent changes being made to official party theology as expressed in the Party Platform. Key individuals have successfully opposed left‐wing challenges to maintain and to shore up the role of the public sector and of public sector enterprises. To the extent that the Platform will retain its traditional symbolic role these activities are significant.

Policy‐making has been about domination from above and the ‘crowding out’ of traditional ideas and their sources. Control, however, has not always been successful. Sources of objection have included the Left Faction of Caucus, key Ministerial Departments (viz. Transport and Communications) dealing with public sector enterprises, and the Ministers themselves.     

Book reviews

Australian politics

Cora Vellekoop Baldock, Volunteers in Welfare (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1990) pp.xii + 171. $19.95 ISBN 0 04 442213 X.

Hugh V. Emy and Andrew Linklater (eds.), New Horizons in Politics: Essays with an Australian Focus (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1990) pp.vii+207. $17.95 ISBN 0 04 442269 5.

P. Hay, R. Eckersley and G. Holloway, Environmental Politics in Australia and New Zealand (Hobart: University of Tasmania, 1989) pp.200. $n.p. ISBN 0 85901 405 3.

Peter Larmour (ed.) The Greening of Government: The Impact of the Labor/Green Accord on Government in Tasmania (Hobart: Royal Australian Institute of Public Administration, 1990) pp.iv + 74. $12.00.

Ian McAllister, Malcolm Mackerras, Alvaro Ascui and Susan Moss Australian Political Facts (Longman Cheshire, 1990) pp.x + 234. $12.99 ISBN 0 582 71258 0.

John Summers, Dennis Woodward and Andrew Parkin (eds.), Government, Politics and Power in Australia (Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 4th edition, 1990) pp.375. $n.p. 0 582 86843 2.

Comparative and international politics

Archie Brown (ed.), Political Leadership in the Soviet Union (London: Macmillan, 1989) pp.xi + 245. $14.99 ISBN 0 333 41343 1.

Henry P. Frei, Japan's Southward Advance and Australia—from the sixteenth century to World War II (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1991) pp.xvii + 303. $34.95 ISBN 0 522 843921.

Manuel Antonio Garreton, The Chilean Political Process (Translated by Sharron Kellum and Gilbert W. Merkx) (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989) pp.xix + 220. $39.95 ISBN 0 04 497069 2.

Timothy Garton Ash, We The People, The Revolution of ‘89, Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin & Prague (Cambridge: Granta Books, 1990) pp.156. $12.99 ISBN 0 14 014023 9.

Misha Glenny, The Rebirth of History: Eastern Europe in the Age of Democracy (London: Penguin, 1990) pp.xiii + 245. $14.99 ISBN 0 14 014394 7.

Dennis Gilbert, Sandinistas: the party and the revolution (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988, paperback edition, 1990) pp.xii + 238. $29.95 ISBN 1 55786 072 6.

Dennis Kavanagh and Peter Morris, Consensus Politics from Attlee to Thatcher (Basil Blackwell, 1989) pp.ix + 137. £6.95 ISBN 0 631 16566 5.

Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Southeast Asian Affairs 1990. (Southeast Asian Studies, 1990) pp.x + 395. $US37.00 ISBN 0377 5437.

David Lane, Soviet Society under Perestroika (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990) pp.xv + 401. $34.95 ISBN 0 04 445167 9.

Ralph Miliband, Divided Societies: Class Struggle in Contemporary Capitalism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989) pp.x + 277. $n.p. ISBN 0–19827535–8.

J.D.B. Miller and John Vincent (eds.), Order and Violence: Hedley Bull and International Relations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990) pp.viii + 220. $55.00 ISBN 0 19 827555 2.

Peter Riddell, The Thatcher Decade: How Britain has changed during the 1980s (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989) pp.x + 236. $39.50 ISBN 631 16274 7.

Carlyle A. Thayer, War by Other Means: National Liberation and Revolution in Vietnam 1954–1960 (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1989) pp.xxx + 256. $19.95 ISBN 0 04 370187 6.

Malcolm Waters, Class and Stratification: Arrangements for Socioeconomic Inequality Under Capitalism (Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1990) pp.ix + 199. $n.p. ISBN 0 582 86833 5.

Political theory and methodology

Rodney Barker, Political Legitimacy and the Stale (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 990) pp. 216. $62.50 ISBN 0 19 827495 5.

John Braithwaite and Philip Pettit, Not Just Deserts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990) pp.viii + 229. $65.00 ISBN 0 19 824233 6.

David Gauthier, Moral Dealing: Contract, Ethics, and Reason (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990). pp.377. $14.95 ISBN 0 8014 2431 3.

G.T. Kaplan and C.S. Kessler (eds.), Hannah Arendt (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1989) pp.xi + 178. $16.95 ISBN 0 04 920109 3.

David W. Lovell, Marx's Proletariat: The Making of a Myth (N.Y.: Routledge, 1988) pp.261. $27.59 ISBN 0–415–00116–1.

Schmidtz, David. The Limits of Government: An Essay on the Public Goods Argument (Boulder: Westview Press, 1991) pp.xviii + 197. $21.00 ISBN 0 81 330871 2.

Michael Thompson, Richard Ellis, Aaron Wildavsky, Cultural Theory (Boulder, San Francisco and Oxford: Westview Press, 1990) pp.xiv + 296. $49.95 ISBN 0 8133 7863 X.     

Book reviews

Australian Politics

Douglas Blackmur, Strikes: Causes, Conduct and Consequences (Sydney: The Federation Press, 1993) pp.232 $n.p. ISBN 1 86287 114 0.

W.D. Borrie, The European Peopling of Australasia (Canberra: Demographic Program, RSSS, Australian National University, 1994) pp.403 $24.50 ISBN 0 7315 1860 8.

Deborah Brennan, The Politics of Australian Child Care: From Philanthropy to Feminism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) pp.242 $29.95 ISBN 0 521 41792 9.

Peter Gathercole, T.H. Irving and Gregory Melleuish (eds), Childe and Australian Archaeology, Politics and Ideas (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1995) pp.241 $16.95 ISBN 0 7022 26130.

Gerard Henderson, Menzies’ Child: The Liberal Party of Australia (Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1994) pp.382 $29.95 ISBN 1 86373 747 2.

Dean Jaensch, Election! How and why Australia votes (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1995) pp.155 $19.95 ISBN 1 86373 761 8.

John Murphy, Harvest of Fear: A History of Australia's Vietnam War (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1993) pp.335 $19.95 ISBN 1 86373 49 X.

Bron Stevens and John Wanna (eds), The Goss Government: Promise and Performance of Labor in Queensland (Melbourne: Macmillan Education Australia, 1993) pp.292 $29.95 ISBN 0 7329 2622 X.

Beverley Symons (compiled with Andrew Wells and Stuart Macintyre), Communism in Australia: A Resource Bibliography (Canberra: National Library of Australia, 1994) pp.281 $25.00 ISBN 0 642 10625 8.

W.A. Townsley, Tasmania: Microcosm of the Federation or Vassal State 1945–1983 (Hobart: St David's Park Publishing, 1994) pp.451 $n.p. ISBN 0 7246 2345 0.

Comparative and International Politics

David Baldwin (ed.), Neorealism and Neoliberalism: The Contemporary Debate (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993) pp.377 $US56.50 ISBN 0 231 08440 4.

Leon Brittan, Europe. The Europe We Need (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1994) pp.248 $35.95 ISBN 0 261 00249 4.

Desmond Dinan, Ever Closer Union? An Introduction to the European Community (Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner, 1994) pp.532 $US19.95 ISBN 1 55587 388 X.

Francis G. Castles (ed.), Families of Nations: Patterns of Public Policy in Western Democracies (Aldershot: Dartmouth Publishing Company, 1993) pp.353 £37.50 ISBN 1 85521 345 1.

Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Civil War (Granta Books: London, 1994) pp.144 $14.95 ISBN 0 14 014094 8.

Gareth Evans and Bruce Grant, Australia's Foreign Relations: in the world of the 1990s (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2nd ed., 1995) pp.417 $34.95 ISBN 0 522 84657 2.

S. Henningham and R.J. May (eds), Resources, Development and Politics in the Pacific Islands (Bathurst: Crawford House Press, 1992) pp.323 $24.95 ISBN 186333063 1.

Helen Hughes, Wolfgang Kasper and John Macleod, Australia's Asian Challenge (Sydney, The Centre for Independent Studies, CIS Policy Forums 12, 1994) pp.47 $7.95 ISBN 1 86432 000 1.

Fergal Keane, The Bondage of Fear: A Journey Through the Last White Empire (London: Viking, 1994) pp.242 £17.00 ISBN 0 670 85391 7.

Bradley S. Klein, Strategic Studies and World Order: The Global Politics of Deterrence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) pp.196 £11.95 ISBN 0 521 46644 X.

Roy Licklider (ed.), Stopping the Killing: How Civil Wars End (New York: New York University Press, 1993) pp.354 $US50.00 ISBN 0 8147 5070 2.

Andrew Maclntyre (ed.), Business and Government in Industrialising Asia (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1994) pp.312 $29.95 ISBN 186373 556 9.

Michael McKinley, The Gulf War: Critical Perspectives (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1994) pp.201 $24.95 ISBN 1 86373 606 9.

Robert F. Miller (ed.), The Development of Civil Society in Communist Systems (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1992) pp.197 $22.95 ISBN 1 86373 1717.

Kim Richard Nossal, Rain Dancing: Sanctions in Canadian and Australian Foreign Policy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994) pp.323. $US21.95 ISBN 0 8020 7571 1.

Barnett R. Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the International System (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995) pp.378 $US35 ISBN: 0 300 05963 9.

Dennis J.D. Sandole and Hugo van der Merwe (eds), Conflict Resolution, Theory and Practise: Integration and Application (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993) pp.298 $55.00 ISBN 0 7190 3748 4.

Jan Aart Scholte, International Relations of Social Change (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1993) pp.186 $45.00 ISBN 0 335 09329 9.

Susan L. Shirk, How China Opened its Door: The Political Successes of the PRC's Foreign Trade and Investment Reforms (Washington DC: Brookings Institute, 1994) pp.120 $US28.95 ISBN 0 8157 7854 6.

Stephen John Stedman (ed.), South Africa: The Political Economy of Transition (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 1994) pp.213 $US38.00 ISBN 1 55587 421 5.

Lionel Cliffe et al, The Transition to Independence in Namibia (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 1994) pp.293 $US38.00 ISBN 1 55587 420 7.

Frederick C. Teiwes, Politics and Purges in China: Rectification and the Decline of Party Norms, 1950–1965. 2nd edn (Armonk and London: M.E. Sharpe, 1993) pp.594 $US27.95 ISBN 1 56324 227 3.

Luke Trainor, British Imperialism and Australian Nationalism: manipulation, conflict and compromise in the late nineteenth century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) pp.213 $29.95 ISBN 0 521 43476 9.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, The State of the World's Refugees: The Challenge of Protection (London: Penguin, 1993) pp.191 $19.95 ISBN 0 14 023487.

Joyce N. Wiley, The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shias (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 1992) pp.193 $US30.00 ISBN 1 55587 2727.

David W. Ziegler, War, Peace and International Politics, 6th ed. (London: Harper Collins, 1993) pp.458 $n.p. ISBN 0 673 52287 3.

Political Theory and Methodology

Stephen Eric Bronner, Of Critical Theory and Its Theorists (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1994) pp.372 $45.00 ISBN 0 631 18738 3.

William James Booth, Patrick James and Hudson Meadwell (eds), Politics and Rationality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) pp.307 $39.95 ISBN 0 521 43568 4.

Richard Sylvan and David Bennett, The Greening of Ethics: From Human Chauvinism to Deep‐Green Theory (Cambridge, UK: White Horse Press, 1994) pp.269 £11.95 ISBN 0 8165 1529 8.

Danilo Zolo, Democracy and Complexity: A Realist Approach. David McKie (trans.) (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992) pp.202 $39.95 ISBN 0 7456 0675 X.     

Learning to teach geography for primary education: results of an experimental programme

Students training to become primary school teachers appear to have little awareness of the core concepts of geography (teaching). To ensure that future primary school teachers are able to develop their pupils’ geographical awareness, a six weeks programme was developed. The characteristics of this programme – named Consciously Teaching Geography (CTG) – are: principles of good geography teaching, conjunction and a recurrent structure during training, modelling and reflection. In a quasi-experimental research design the question is answered what the effects are of CTG on the development of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for the subject of geography of first year primary student teachers. The results indicated that the programme has a positive effect on the domain-specific PCK development in the short term.     

Reviews

THE MIND OF GERMANY. Hans Kohn. London, Macmillan & Co., 1961. Pp. xi + 370. Australian price 49/9d.

DOLLFUSS. Gordon Brook‐Shepherd. London, Macmillan & Co., 1961. Pp. xvii + 296. Australian price 41/6.

RELIGION IN THE SOVIET UNION. Walter Kolarz. London, Macmillan & Co., 1961. Pp. 3rii + 518. Australian price 72/‐.

THE KENYATTA ELECTION: KENYA 1960–1961. George Bennett and Cart Rosberg. On behalf of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, Oxford. London, Oxford University Press, 1961. Pp. viii + 230. Australian price 49/9.

SOME NEWLY ESTABLISHED ASIAN STATES AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNATIONAL LAW. J. J. Syatauw. The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1961. Pp. xii + 249. 19 Guilders.

THE INDIAN MIDDLE CLASSES: THEIR GROWTH IN MODERN TIMES. B. B. Misra. For the Royal Institute of International Affairs. London, O.U.P., 1961. Pp. x + 438. Australian price 64/9d.

POLITICAL ADVANCEMENT IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC. Francis West. Melbourne, O.U.P., 1961. Pp. xii + 188. Australian price 35/‐.

AUSTRALIA IN THE ANTARCTIC. R. A. Swan. Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 1961. Pp. xxiv + 432. Australian price 57/6d.

AUSTRALIA AND THE ANTARCTIC. Phillip Law. Brisbane, University of Queensland Press, 1962. Pp. 22. Australian price 3/6d.     

The impact of feminist scholarship on Australian political science

The discipline of political science has remained male dominated in most parts of the world. Women have organised within political science associations both to raise the status of women in the profession and to try to transform the discipline. This article is a personal account of the 25‐year history of the Women's Caucus of the Australasian Political Studies Association and its successes and failures. While the status of women in the profession has improved and the journal has become more gender inclusive, the impact of feminist scholarship on political science curriculum remains patchy. Space has been made for gender scholarship and a chapter added to textbooks and disciplinary histories, but the approach is additive rather than transformative. One contributing factor may be increased fragmentation of the discipline.     

Possible shell beads from the Middle Stone Age layers of Sibudu Cave,South Africa

Recent excavations at Sibudu Cave, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, uncovered an Iron Age horizon below which is a complex 3 m thick Middle Stone Age sequence with post-Howiesons Poort, Howiesons Poort, Still Bay and pre-Still Bay layers. Available OSL ages indicate that the Howiesons Poort occupation is older than 60 ky and the Still Bay older than 70 ky. Here we present the archaeological context and the taphonomic analysis of six Afrolittorina africana, three of which bear perforations, from the Still Bay and Howiesons Poort layers of this site. The single specimen from the latter cultural horizon comes from the lowermost layer attributed to this technocomplex. This and the depositional context of this layer suggest that this shell derives, as do the other five, from the Still Bay occupation layers. Taphonomic analysis of the archaeological specimens based on present day Afrolittorina africana biocoenoses, microscopic examination, morphometry, experimental perforation of modern shells, and a review of the natural agents that may accumulate marine shells at inland sites, indicate probable human involvement in the collection, transport, modification, and abandonment of Afrolittorina africana in Sibudu. If confirmed by future discoveries these shells would corroborate the use of personal ornaments, already attested at Blombos Cave, Western Cape Province, by Still Bay populations. The apparent absence of ornaments at Howiesons Poort sites raises the question of the mechanisms that have led to cultural modernity since it seems to contradict the scenario according to which cultural innovations recorded at Middle Stone Age sites reflect a process of continuous accretion and elaboration interpreted as the behavioural corollary of the emergence of anatomically modern humans.