Gillard,Rudd and Labor Tradition*

Julia Gillard replaced Kevin Rudd as prime minister and Labor leader in June 2010. She describes her government as being firmly in the “tradition of Labor”. To locate it in the broad ideological continuum of Labor governments, and to test the suggestion that she is travelling a reform path set largely by the Hawke and Keating governments, I analyse the positions taken by Rudd and Gillard on a range of issues, beginning with economic policy. On social issues Gillard has been even more cautious than Rudd and this reflects her analysis of the electoral impact of Howard's Culture Wars. Her focus on educational opportunity suggests she is the logical successor to Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating. As Labor leaders, Rudd and Gillard each embraced market‐reliant policy positions. Rudd even claimed to be an “fiscal conservative”. However, with Rudd venturing a critique of neo‐liberalism, it is Gillard whose stance is closer to Hawke and Keating's “economic rationalism”. Indeed Gillard's insistence upon the centrality of markets leaves Labor with a dilemma: if there are no significant problems with relying on markets then why does Australia need a social democratic party?     

Commonwealth Update

Abstract

There were clashes between protesters and the police after Mohamed Nasheed was replaced as president of the Maldives by his deputy, Mohammed Waheed Hassan, in what Nasheed said was a coup. A film aimed at raising awareness of the atrocities committed by Joseph Kony, leader of the notorious Lord's Resistance Army militia in Uganda, became an internet phenomenon, being seen by close to 100 million people in a month, but also drew fierce criticism. The Boko Haram Islamist uprising in Nigeria claimed hundreds more lives with the rebels rejecting offers to negotiate. Australia's prime minister, Julia Gillard, defeated a challenge to her leadership by her foreign minister, Kevin Rudd. Fears grew for the nascent democracy in Malawi as a prominent human rights lawyer and critic of President Bingu wa Mutharika was jailed. The king of Tonga, who introduced democracy to the south Pacific nation, died.     

Prime Minister Nakasone and The United States of America

Although it is commonly believed that as Prime Minister of Japan, Nakasone Yasuhiro focused diplomatic efforts on the United States, his first trip abroad as prime minister was to the Republic of Korea. In the 1950s, he was even a vocal critic of the US-Japan alliance. But he was different from many other politicians in reading books, traveling abroad to discuss issues with foreign leaders, and soliciting ideas and advice from intellectuals. In the end, he acquired mature views on how to fight the Cold War as well as maintain robust relations with the US. This article traces the evolving approach he had with the United States from the Occupation through the “Ron-Yasu” relationship during his prime ministership.     

The 2007 Australian Federal Election: The Story of Labor's Return from the Electoral Wilderness

In an era of continuous campaigning, elections are seldom won in the final weeks of the formal campaign period. The 2007 Australian federal election saw voters dispatch a Liberal Party and Nationals Coalition government that had presided over a buoyant economy, and return the Australian Labor Party from the electoral wilderness it had occupied since 1996. The explanation of this revival in Labor's stocks can be traced to the Wheat Board scandal, the unpopularity of the labour market deregulation, and to a series of other political tribulations that the fourth Howard Government faced during 2005 and 2006. Initially their impact was masked by the failure of Labor's parliamentary leadership. But when caucus elected Kevin Rudd and freed him to position Labor as offering fresh ideas and a safe pair of hands, Labor seized a lead in the opinion polls and retained it throughout 2007. Rudd's tactical leadership of his party proved critical. This article describes how the 2007 campaign unfolded and the pattern of events which saw a refashioned ALP win an eighteen‐seat lower house majority.     

The Ancestry of the Australian Prime Ministership: “the blue ribbon of the highest possible ambition”

More than a century after the birth of the Commonwealth of Australia, the office of prime minister is the apex of the nation's political life. Yet little has been written about the antecedence and evolution of the office of prime minister. This article takes a step towards redressing this neglect by considering how the Westminster‐derived model of the prime ministership was conditioned by the nature and form of executive office in the Australian colonies in the second half of the nineteenth century. The experience of the colonial legislatures predisposed against fears of an overweening executive. The constitutional Conventions of the 1890s were dominated by seasoned colonial politicians with benign attitudes towards executive authority. Yet as delegates grappled with the challenge of marrying responsible government to a federal system, the form of executive was debated rather than treated as fait accompli. These deliberations hinted at their expectations for the prime ministership in a federated Australia: the office would be the most powerful and greatest political prize in the new nation. The article concludes by suggesting that the first Commonwealth decade was a transitional period for the prime ministership (with pre‐Federation patterns still evident) and identifying the Fisher Government of 1910–13 as heralding a shift to a more modern form of (party‐based) executive governance.     

Marxist scholarship on Thailand the work of E. Thadeus flood (1932–1977)

Abstract

Thadeus Flood died of cancer on December 11, 1977. The last ten years of his life were devoted to promoting revolutionary change and resisting American imperialism in Thailand. His life and work reveal the contradictions of American education and imperialist policy. This is not only because of what he wrote about, but because his life and scholarship transcended his conservative and “apolitical” education, moving him from academic scholarship to political commitment, forcing him beyond the functions within the university for which he had been intended. American imperialism in Southeast Asia gave him a political awareness which his education had consistently denied him. In this brief article I would like to indicate the important lessons which Asian scholars and others can learn from his transformation, and to attempt to assess his seminal contribution to the study of Thailand. I seek to draw, from his life and work, political lessons which can further our common struggles.     

John Howard's “Nation”: Multiculturalism,Citizenship, and Identity

This article identifies the specific concept of “nation” that informed John Howard's politics from his time as Liberal Party leader in the second half of the 1980s to the final years of his 1996–2007 prime ministership. It compares and contrasts the constitutive, procedural and multicultural models of nation to show Howard's continuing commitment to a constitutive understanding of the Australian nation. He endeavoured to give this understanding expression at the policy level by explicitly moving against the multicultural concept of nation that had informed Australian policy from the late 1970s. The Citizenship Test, introduced in his final year of office, is presented as the final move in this departure from multiculturalism.     

The Gambian 2016 Presidential Election and its Aftermath

This article explores the Gambian presidential election of December 2016, which was very surprisingly won by the leader of an opposition coalition, Adama Barrow, and its extraordinary aftermath. Barrow defeated Yahya Jammeh, who had won the four previous presidential elections, thus ending Jammeh’s 20-year rule of The Gambia, which had been marred by human rights abuses. Jammeh at first accepted the result, but changed his mind a week later, thus triggering a major political crisis. Over the next month, he made various desperate attempts to cling to power, before finally leaving the country on 21 January 2017, when faced with the prospect of being removed by force. Barrow, who had earlier been inaugurated as president, finally returned to Banjul on 26 January to assume office. The article concludes by considering the possible key features of a Barrow presidency and assesses the challenges that he will face.     

Seeking a New Role: Japan’s Middle East Policy under Shinzo Abe

With his frequent travels to the Middle East, more than all other Japanese leaders in the past, Shinzo Abe had been destined to ineluctably play a distinctive role in redefining his country’s foreign policy approach toward the region. Essentially, when Abe returned to power for a second time in late 2012, he succeeded to subsequently establish a relatively stable and long-term government which strived to critically reappraise some highly contentious elements of Japan’s internal and external policies. Reassessing Japan’s conventional low-profile orientation to the Middle East was particularly a major objective of the Abe government because the region had turned out to be closely and dubiously connected to some pivotal political and security reforms which Abe had long pursued to achieve domestically. By primarily doubling down Japan’s political engagement in different parts of the Middle East, therefore, Abe took advantage of what his country had capitalized in the region in more recent times to especially accelerate the accomplishment of some other political and security he favored ardently.     

后苏联时期的俄罗斯政治领袖

政治领袖是苏联和俄罗斯政治体系中的关键组成部分,在后苏联时代的俄罗斯政治生活中占有特别重要的地位。俄罗斯政治文化一直偏爱强势而有个性的政治领袖,从1917年以来的苏联领袖大多都秉持了这一特点。改革派领导人戈尔巴乔夫由于自己的优柔寡断而丧失了对于改革乃至国家的控制,而与其个人风格和成长经历迥异的叶利钦经历了一系列复杂的政治斗争,最终成为了新生的俄罗斯联邦的领袖。他推动俄罗斯进行了激进的市场化改革,希望使俄罗斯走上以市场经济为特征的"文明之路",但由于复杂的国际国内环境以及政策方面的失误,这一尝试最终以失败而告终。虽然他是俄罗斯第一任民选总统,但叶利钦自相矛盾的执政风格、不稳定的心理状态和诸多生活上的不良习惯都令人诟病,他虽然赢得了竞选连任,但由于身体原因和杜马掣肘,很难有所作为。在经历了复杂的甄选之后,他选择了普京作为自己的接班人,并且帮助普京顺利当选。有克格勃背景的普京是一位具有开拓精神和无比坚韧的性格的领导人。在接任总理之后,很快凭借自己的超群才能,解决了车臣问题,并且有效提高了社会福利,从而迅速提高了自己的威望,以绝对优势当选总统。执政之后,普京很快推动了俄罗斯政治制度新的"转型",他通过除了暴力之外的一切手段强化国家权力,打击"寡头",取消地方选举,限制独立媒体,通过"西罗维基"掌控权力,最终使整个政权集中于自己的手中,形成了被称为"可控民主"或"主权民主"的普京体制。在八年任期结束后,普京拒绝了第三个总统任期,而选择了一项略显复杂的政治安排。将总统职务交给自己的亲信梅德韦杰夫,本人则以总理和统一俄罗斯党主席的身份继续参政,形成了一种特殊的"双头制"政权,直到2012年重返克里姆林宫。随着时代的变迁,俄罗斯正处于发展的十字路口。普京的重新执政对于俄罗斯未来的改革可能将会是一个积极的因素,因为他拥有足够的权力推动改革的进行。虽然面对诸多不确定的挑战,但仍然有成功的机会。     

From “Queue Jumpers” to “Absolute Scum of the Earth”: Refugee and Organised Criminal Deviance in Australian Asylum Policy

The arrival of asylum seekers by boat in Australia is no longer represented as a threat by the Australian government because of characteristics of asylum seekers themselves, but is instead predominantly represented as threatening because of the involvement of transnational organised crime in the form of people smugglers. This progression, which is demonstrated by comparison of the approach of the Howard coalition government with that of the Rudd and Gillard Labor governments, is best understood by reference to conventional understandings of organised crime and irregular migration, and critical accounts of both phenomena. Understood in this way, organised crime and people‐smuggling discourses serve to externalise the asylum seeker “problem” and maintain punitive policies, inhibiting the development of effective regional responses to the issue.     

A legacy reassessed: Helmut Kohl and the German party finance affair

Revelations about former chancellor Helmut Kohl's party finance practices spawned the biggest scandal in post‐war German political history. Though some details of this affair's scope remained unclear or in dispute, the author argues that large, unreported private contributions served Kohl's strategy for managing his Christian Democratic Union: such resources helped fund the modern party organisation that he had built and sustained his own quasi‐feudal network of personal relationships at all levels. His intense partisanship made it easier for him to justify circumventing party finance laws. Yet evidence for the contention that Kohl took such funds in exchange for granting policy favours remains more ambiguous.     

The Four Principles that Formed the Basis of Friendly Relations between Japan and China: The China Policy of the Nakasone Yasuhiro Government

This article examines Nakasone Yasuhiro’s policy toward China as a politician, including his remarks in the Diet before appointment as prime minister as well as exchanges with Chinese leaders during his prime ministership. Nakasone raised Japan-China relations to a level called a “honeymoon” in the 1980s, at which time the four principles of Japan-China relations were shared and there was the prospect of continued friendly relations into the 21st century. Behind the emergence of this era was not only Japan’s support for China’s economic development through ODA, but also the closeness of the stances that both Japan and China held toward the Cambodia and Korean Peninsula issues at the end of the Cold War. This may have been because there was the possibility for both parties to share information and mutually support each other. Nakasone actively talked not only with Hu Yaobang but also leaders such as Deng Xiaoping and Zhao Ziyang. However, as Nakasone’s partner Hu Yaobang was dismissed and the Cold War approached its end, the “honeymoon” between Japan and China came to an end, and the four principles by Nakasone and Hu gradually became just one frame of history.     

J.B. Jeyaretnam: Three decades as Lee Kuan Yew's bête noir

Abstract

J.B. Jeyaretnam was Singapore's most celebrated opposition leader when his career came to an abrupt end in 2001, but he is better known for the injustices he has suffered at the hands of the People's Action Party regime than for anything he has achieved or said. Bankrupted, imprisoned, deprived of his livelihood and expelled from Parliament twice, he has acquired the aura of martyrdom, yet little is known about his life, his ideas or his motivations. Drawing on interview and archival research, this article studies him with a view to better understanding both the man himself and — probably of greater significance — what his experience can tell us about the dynamics of the Singapore policy.

Why did he enter opposition politics and keep coming back for more in the face of persecution? Why did the government set out to destroy him with such vehemence? What does this tell us about the limits of political tolerance in Singapore, both today and in the past? What lessons can other opposition figures learn from his experience? And why has Jeyaretnam been treated so harshly while the government nurtures some other opposition MPs as responsible and courteous players?     

The political thought of Isaiah Berlin

Typically evaluated for the merits or otherwise of his famous account of 'value pluralism', Isaiah Berlin's more general political thought is less often discussed. However, broader reflection sheds light on three crucial elements necessary for a proper understanding of Berlin's work. First, it shows the importance and context of his analysis of Marx and Marxism in providing the basis for his distinction between pluralism and monism. Secondly, through his criticisms of Marxism, Berlin's political sympathy for a moderate nationalism, something also reflected in his personal considerations regarding Jewish identity, can more easily be gauged. Thirdly, and in conclusion, a combination of this political preference and the 'pluralism–monism' dichotomy offers an explanation as to why Berlin wrote the history of political ideas as he did.     

Legacy of the past,promise of the future: Land reform,land grabbing,and land conversion in the Calabarzon

Abstract

Rather than viewing the recent violence in the Thai South largely as a product of long-standing historical and socioeconomic grievances, this article argues that the government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has played a crucial role in provoking conflict in the region. Early in his premiership, Thaksin decided that the South was controlled by forces of “network monarchy” loyal to the palace and to former prime minister Prem Tinsulanond. Thaksin sought to reorganize political and security arrangements in the deep South in order to gain personal control of the area, but in the process he upset a carefully negotiated social contract that had ensured relative peace for two decades. As the violence increased, royal displeasure — articulated mainly by members of the Privy Council — forced Thaksin to make certain concessions, notably the creation of a National Reconciliation Commission to propose solutions for the growing crisis. Network monarchy had struck back, albeit from a position of weakness. This analysis seeks to demonstrate that the southern violence is actually inextricable from wider developments in Thailand's national politics.     

The Kurdish image in statist historiography: the case of Simko

This article focuses on the uprising in 1918–1922 of Ismail Agha of Shikak (a.k.a. Simko) in Iranian Kurdistan and how he has been portrayed in Persian historiography. Painting Simko simply as another Kurdish rebellious chief with no nationalist aspirations leaves important questions unanswered. Simko introduced a number of firsts in Kurdish political history to Iranian Kurdistan, yet his innovations have generally been overlooked. Simko was conscious of, informed by, and founded his politics upon the communal distinctions deemed to legitimize varying degrees of Kurdish self-rule. In addition to his political and military activities, Simko co-founded the first Kurdish school in Iran, published the first Kurdish–Persian newspaper, and made Kurdish the official medium of his reign. This article draws on memoirs, personal accounts, and other unexplored primary documents to show a more complex picture of Simko's resistance, problematizes some idées reçues about Simko and his ethno-nationalism, and explores inconsistencies in the existing literature on the subject.     

Divided we Fall: Division Within the National Partisans of Vidzeme and Latgale,Fall 1945

Heinrihs Strods has shown that Latvia's national partisans were defeated primarily because of the overwhelming military odds they faced, but he added a secondary cause–the lack of unity in their ranks. This article explores the causes of such disunity and suggests that Björn Felder is right to see a blurring of ideological divisions as the Second World War came to an end; however, even at the height of summer 1945 there were some signs of tension, and as the likelihood of foreign intervention waned, fundamental tactical disagreements developed, disagreements which reflected different political pasts and differing visions of Latvia's future.     

Pearson’s Mission: Revisiting Noel Pearson’s Revisionist History of Hope Vale

In 2000, Noel Pearson drew on his experiences of growing up on the Hope Vale, the Guugu Yimidhirr–speaking community that emerged from the Cape Bedford mission in the south east of Cape York, to write a revisionist history of the region. Indigenous communities were “strong, if bruised” in the wake of colonisation, he argued, but had descended into chaos since the 1970s because alcohol and welfare benefits had undermined the formerly resilient Aboriginal norms of “responsibility”. This paper offers a critical review of this politically potent account of the past, drawing on alternative oral histories, ethnographies and ethnohistories of Hope Vale, including Pearson’s own honours thesis (1986). Without challenging this sketch of his own experience, nor the sincerity of his nostalgia for the mission of his youth, I argue that Pearson’s more recent retellings are selective. In particular, his revisionist history overlooks evidence of drug abuse in the early colonial period and overstates both Guugu Yimidhirr agency in the process of missionisation and the uniformity and representativeness of the community that developed at Cape Bedford. Finally, I offer some possible personal, philosophical and political explanations for Pearson’s shifting approach to the past.     

Elite patronage over party democracy – high politics in Sri Lanka following independence

When Sri Lanka became independent in February 1948 it lacked a well-established party system and instead relied upon patronage and elite social relationships. Though it had a long pre-independence history of constitutional development and evolving democracy, party politics was not deep-rooted and political power continued to be wielded by an elite that had an almost feudal relationship with the masses. The convention based Westminster model Sri Lanka adopted engendered a local system that relied more on relationships than rules. Political parties and institutions were often unable to check and balance the Executive's conduct of power. Sri Lanka's elite operated British institutions in an anachronistic eighteenth-century manner such as in having a patronage-based Cabinet dominated by its prime ministerial leader/patron rather than by collegial attitudes or values. The weakness of party institutionalisation and the ambiguity in the constitutional arrangements laid the foundations for future political conflict and marginalisation of segments of society. The continuity of affairs of state from the colonial era and the known and reassuring leadership of D.S. Senanayake and his ‘Uncle-Nephew Party’ masked the democratic tensions and institutional fragility within the Sri Lankan state that would come to the fore violently only years after what was then seen as a model transfer of power.