The “Morpeth Mind” and Australian Politics 1927–1934

The publication of the Morpeth Review between 1927 and 1934 was a milestone in the evolution of an authentic public sphere for Australian political intellectuals. The Review covered several areas of political and philosophical concern, ranging ideologically from Christian socialism and idealist liberalism, through market economics, to reactionary anti‐Bolshevism, within the editorial context of a strongly idealist liberalism inspired by the Oxford liberals of the early twentieth century, and both evangelical and sacramentalist Anglican Protestantism. Ernest H. Burgmann and Roy Lee used the magazine to develop a unique form of Anglican social and political activism and other members of an identifiable group of radical clergy also contributed. A.p. Elkin's writings on Indigenous politics are of particular interest as they can be viewed simultaneously as a turning toward the novel idea of Aboriginal citizenship, and at the same time as a restatement of Darwinist biological determinism and racialism, both lit by genuine compassion and affection for Aboriginal Australians.     

The Politics of Professionalism in Russia

A political scientist examines the ways in which the word "professional" constructs group identities in the world of politics. Applying discourse analysis to 34 texts generated by interviews with prominent members of Russia's political class in the Gorbachev, first and second Yel'tsin, and Putin administrations as well as the democratic opposition, this article seeks to determine how the word "professional" has been used by past and present members of Russia's political class. Two opposing discourses that constitute its meanings are outlined. The study's results are framed in a dynamic model of change in Soviet and Russian political communication.     

战略的背叛:呼吁真正的欧盟战略伙伴关系

以对欧盟的官方文件和非正式文件的回顾,以及笔者对欧洲官员进行的大量访谈为基础,本文得出的结论是,截至2011年,欧盟总共与10个第三国建立了战略伙伴关系。在对上述战略伙伴关系进行了批判性评估之后,本文对其战略性质大体持质疑态度,原因在于:第一,并非每个战略伙伴都具有同等的战略意义;第二,在绝大多数真正具有战略性的问题上,欧盟并没有与其合作伙伴开展合作;第三,战略伙伴关系并没有对双方关系产生结构性或制度性影响;第四,在很多情况下,欧盟本身根本就没有被视为战略伙伴。最后,本文还是提出了积极的结论:既然欧盟已经创设了战略伙伴关系,而且提升了战略伙伴的预期,那么,欧盟就必须发展并实施这些战略伙伴关系,以使其真正有效,并最终具有真正的战略性。     

Difficult Partnerships: The World Bank, States, and NGOs

Since the early 1990s, World Bank officials in many countries have pressed their government borrowers to include nongovernmental organizations as development partners. What impact has this new partnership norm had in the bank's borrower countries, and why? This article investigates these questions through longitudinal analysis of three cases: Guatemala, Ecuador, and the Gambia. In their first iteration in the 1990s, these bank-sponsored efforts generally failed to take root; yet by the 2000s, NGOs and state actors were engaged in multiple partnerships. This article suggests that over time, bank officials' repeated efforts to embed these new ideas fostered a social learning process that led NGOs to adopt more strategic partnership practices and government officials to see NGO partners as useful. Several factors may affect this learning process: levels of professionalism and the growth of professional networks, the presence of effective “bridge builders,” and the level of historical conflicts.     

Politics of Trade in Post‐neoliberal Latin America: The Case of Bolivia

Deploying a two‐level perspective, this article analyses the regional and domestic space that the Morales administration has in which to implement the vision of trade articulated in its Plan Nacional de Desarrollo (PND; National Development Plan). Regionally the Morales administration has attempted to combine the solidarity principles of the Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América (ALBA; Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America) with the market‐oriented growth possibilities provided by more orthodox integration projects such as the Comunidad Andina de Naciones (CAN; Andean Community of Nations) and the Mercado Común del Sur (Mercosur; Southern Common Market). Domestically the Movimiento al socialismo (MAS; Movement Toward Socialism) government must negotiate the destabilising effects of its trade strategy in a polarised national context where business and civil society actors are critiquing from their respective positions both the solidarity principles and market‐oriented elements of the PND trade strategy.     

Conceiving of Telecom: The Politics of Australian Telecommunications Reform 1967–1972

This article explores the politics of telecommunications reform between 1967 and 1972, during which time Labor developed a new policy approach that included committing to reconstitute the Postmaster‐General's Department as a relatively independent statutory authority. This represented the first serious attempt to reconcile the conflicting objectives of Australian policy: to provide affordable universal services by a government department expected to operate as a “business‐like” enterprise, and ended the political consensus about how national telecommunications should be delivered. The paper contrasts Labor's policy with the Liberal‐Country government's more incremental approach; and highlights a significant public policy shift that has received insufficient attention.     

From Protection to Competition — The Politics of Trade Practices Reform in Australia

From Protection to Competition — The Politics of Trade Practices Reform in Australia. By Kerrie Round and Martin Shanahan (Sydney: The Federation Press, 2015), AU$125.00 (hb).     

The Politics of National Recognition: Honouring Australians in a Post‐Imperial World

The announcement in January 2015 that Prince Philip had been chosen to receive an Australian knighthood (an honour which itself had been controversially revived the previous year) sparked a fury of debate about honours, and about the continuance of a British connection in Australia's national life. Such debates were not new, echoing earlier arguments about honours as a national or imperial symbol. Through two related case studies — the Australian honours system and the Australian of the Year award — this article explores the politics of national recognition in 1970s and 1980s Australia. We consider both the politics involved in the creation and alteration of awards by which individual achievement and service are recognised by the nation, and the politics involved in imagining and recognising an Australian nation as expressed in those awards. We argue that these two institutions were more than a means to acknowledge hard work or sacrifice; they were also significant sites for contests over the nature of Australia's post‐imperial identity.