"Real Solemn History" and its Discontents: Australian Political History and the Challenge of Social History

The relationship between Australian political and social history has received little historiographical attention. Political history has been lauded or, more often, dismissed as traditional historical practice, while from the 1960s social history took its place as a catch-all phrase for various "new" histories concerned with everyday life. This article examines the place of political and social history in the nascent Australian academic historical profession of the 1950s to the early 1970s, and then explores the impact of the new social history on academic political history. It will suggest that while there was only limited exchange before the late 1980s, in the last twenty years social history has contributed modestly to a reconstituted understanding of political history as part of lived experience.
"[…] I can read poetry and plays, and things of that sort, and do not dislike travels. But history, real solemn history, I cannot be interested in. Can you?"
"Yes, I am fond of history."
"I wish I were too. I read it a little as a duty, but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all — it is very tiresome: and yet I often think it odd that it should be so dull, for a great deal of it must be invention […]". ¹     

The Rise of the Insider: Memoirs and Diaries in Recent Australian Political History

The memoirs and diaries composed by politicians represent an increasingly important form of history. This article provides a comprehensive survey of such writings in Australia. It suggests that they have become more popular, diffuse, confessional, immediate, ambitious, interventionist and cynical over recent decades. The significance of these developments is considered and some tentative explanations advanced.     

A New Kind of Mission: The Volunteer Graduate Scheme and the Cultural History of International Development

This article contributes to the cultural history of humanitarianism and international development by tracing the origins of development volunteering programs, which are a key point of public interaction with foreign aid and international development. Australia's Voluntary Graduate Scheme was established in 1951. This article traces the program's first decade, tracing its interactions with postcolonial politics, international development policy, and colonial discourses and missionary Christianity, and situating it within the geopolitical contexts of Australian‐Indonesian relations, Asian decolonisation and the Cold War. It concludes by tracing VGS's influence on subsequent programs including Britain's VSO and the United States Peace Corps, revealing the significance of the Volunteer Graduate Scheme to the history of humanitarianism and international development.     

Measuring Political Preferences: Ratings for Members of the Swiss National Council

Party affiliation as the standard measure of political preferences of Swiss legislators is associated with several problems. To overcome these problems the authors develop ratings for members of the National Council, based on roll-call votes. They discuss the construction of the ratings and their limitations in detail, and outline the importance of this kind of information for the participants of the political process, as well as some applications in empirical research.     

State Socialism in Australian Political Thought: A Reconsideration

In understanding the origins of conventional tenets in political thought, we should attend to cross‐spectrum analysis of usage. Taking state socialism as an instance, this paper argues that the practice of treating it historically either as an element within a radical tradition (by Labour historians) or as a discredited part of a socialist agenda (by liberals) ignores the ways in which it was it was deployed across the political spectrum. Outsiders (such as the Webbs and Métin) skewed the record, describing the pragmatic accommodations they saw as “socialism without doctrines”, unconscious of the debates amongst Australian political elites. We need to explore anew where ideas came from, how they were taken up and adapted in the Australian context (by all sides) and the circumstances that determined their duration within everyday discourse.     

国际资本规则之争的政治经济学分析——以欧洲会计一体化进程为例

按照单一会计标准形成的可比的会计信息是资本市场有效运行的基础。然而,会计绝不仅仅是对经济现象进行客观反映的"信息系统",它更是企业组织中确定绩效衡量标准的权力子系统,代表着不同的社会政治结构;当不同国家的企业在同一资本市场上面对某一特定绩效标准展开竞争时,必然导致国家间权力格局和利益格局的调整,使得会计问题转化为国际政治问题。由此,作为一种重要的资本规则,会计标准并非"中性",其背后隐藏着激烈的国家间冲突。欧共体所追求的实现资本自由流动的目标推动了欧洲会计一体化进程;欧共体成员国间以及欧美之间针对国际会计标准主导权所展开的激烈角逐使得欧洲会计一体化的历史进程更明显地表现为一个政治过程。     

Making History: the Australian history curriculum and national identity

History is a key site for the negotiation of national identity, with the ability to define the past shaping the national narrative on who “we” were, who “we” are, and, crucially, who “we” should be. As such, the teaching of history is a site of intense political debate. This paper examines the history module of the Australian Curriculum to understand the extent to which the history curriculum moves beyond Eurocentric, colonial imaginings of Australia's history towards a more inclusive, multi-cultural, globally-oriented, cosmopolitan vision of society. Both the curriculum and teaching resources were examined to ascertain the identities and orientations these materials could provide. The research finds that — despite improvements in presenting a diversity of representations, in particular a positive focus on the rights and contributions of Indigenous peoples in Australia and some orientation to diverse migrant histories, the environment, and Asia — the main thrust of the curriculum is a focus on the nation-state at the expense of global engagement. The funnel structure which deals with broader world history in earlier years, relegates the rest of the world to a temporal and spatial distance, leaving a somewhat myopic narrative that perpetuates traditional, Anglo-centric narratives, maintaining the perspectives of “Others” as peripheral.     

The Australian Greens: Party Organisation and Political Processes

The Greens challenge the Australian two‐party system by promoting an alternative political agenda and by facilitating democratic processes. Their recent successes in federal and state elections suggest that the party itself deserves closer scrutiny. This paper shows how the Greens are organisationally different from other parties currently active in Australian politics due to both their internal processes and their parliamentary practices. Recent theories of parties argue that party organisation has changed significantly for major parties, adopting an electoral‐professional or cartel model that centralises power and decision‐making in party representatives within parliaments. This paper shows how a smaller party uses identity formation processes to establish a distinctive organisational style. We examine the Greens' party organisation by analysing the interdependent relationships between the party membership, the state and national offices, and Green MPs. The paper is based on original research including in‐depth interviews undertaken with state and federal Greens members of parliaments.     

Political Change in America and Implications for the US-Japan Alliance

This article examines the domestic political dynamics behind US president Donald Trump’s “America First” approach to trade and foreign policy, to understand better how long this strain of American economic nationalism might last and what it means for Japan’s national security strategy. The political base for Trump’s trade protectionism and apparent indifference to allies has roots stretching back into American history, but this movement has strengthened in recent years due to a combination of growing economic inequality in the United States, demographic changes, and the impact of fast-paced technology development and economic globalization. These political trends are likely to persist beyond Trump’s presidency, although some potential negative effects on Japan and the US-Japan alliance in the medium-to-longer term can be mitigated by Japan’s proactive foreign policy and other steps. The alliance still offers a great deal of value to both countries—now and into the future—but Japan should consider a slightly larger global leadership role in concert with others, even as the allies work to enhance their continued cooperation on shared interests.     

泰国华人政治生活的变迁

同东南亚其他国家相比 ,泰国华人同化较早且与当地融合得较为彻底 ,他们很早就参与了当地的政治生活。泰国华人政治生活也相对简单 ,远没有东南亚其他国家那么复杂 ,其参政历程虽经历了波折 ,但总体而言较为顺利。     

Priorities for International Co-operation with Libya: A Development Perspective

This article provides a development co-operation perspective on the challenges facing Libya during its post-Qadhafi transition. Four key areas for international co-operation are outlined: peace, reconciliation and justice; governance and public administration; economic diversification; and migration. While concrete initiatives in all of these areas depend on Libya’s domestic security situation, they need to be part of a long-term, holistic strategy for one of the most fragile and conflict-affected countries in North Africa. Assuming that Libya’s domestic power-brokers decide that a modern, prosperous country is what they want, patient and committed international support can help turn Libya into a success story.     

Respectable Radicals: A History of the National Council of Women of Australia 1896–2006

Respectable Radicals: A History of the National Council of Women of Australia 1896–2006. By Marian Quartly and Judith Smart (Clayton, Victoria: Monash University Publishing, 2015), pp.vii + 497. A$39.95 (pb).