"Culture up to our Arseholes": Projecting Post-Imperial Australia

In December 1967, Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt announced his Government's intention to establish an ambitious new Council for funding the visual and performing Arts in Australia. Holt had formed the view that Australian culture was fundamentally deficient— that urgent measures (and money) were needed to project a more distinctive, mature, and culturally sophisticated Australian image at home and abroad. His ambition was taken up by his successor, John Gorton, who set up the Australian Council for the Arts in 1968 and its stablemate, the Australian Film Development Corporation. This essay considers the rationale behind the new government schemes to promote national culture, and argues that these processes need to be understood in terms of the demise of British emblems of civic identity and belonging in the 1960s. It examines the dilemmas faced by those charged with the task of projecting a distinctive new face of Australian culture for a post-imperial age. While there was a broad consensus about the need for a "new nationalism" in cultural policy, there was little agreement as to what that policy should entail. The idea of "Australian content" proved notoriously difficult to pin down, and aroused scepticism as to whether Australia could ever live up to the aesthetic standards of "real nationhood"—a scepticism that was most vividly conveyed by Barry McKenzie's typically crass observation that "back in Oz now we've got culture up to our arseholes".     

Suicidal ligature strangulation: case report and review of the literature

An unusual case of suicidal ligature strangulation is described. The victim is a 42-year-old white male who devised a very elaborate ligature mechanism comprised of thin wire, a plastic tub filled with water, and a combination of other common objects to commit suicide while in custody. A brief review of the literature follows.     

Analysing the determinants of financial performance for UK insurance companies using financial strength ratings information

Economic Change and Restructuring - We investigate the determinants of financial performance of UK insurance companies based on their financial strength ratings. We use data from the A.M. Best...     

Does the Money Matter? Examining the Source and Type of Child Welfare Dollars Through the Eyes of County Child Welfare Services Directors

Child abuse is addressed through a complicated design of federal, state, and local funds. Congress approved a new round of waivers permitting states to flexibly use funds, otherwise limited to foster care reimbursement, for other child welfare needs. Conducted in Ohio, this longitudinal study examined flexible funds from child welfare directors’ perspectives, including key informant interviews, a survey, and semi-structured interviews. Directors noted that improved discretion results in better child health outcomes and better community partnerships; community partnerships are essential to promoting the health and safety of vulnerable children; and federal child welfare success measures do not reflect directors’ perceptions of success.     

Does Racial Balance in Workforce Representation Yield Equal Justice? Race Relations of Sentencing in Federal Court Organizations*

Increasing racial and ethnic group representation in justice‐related occupations is considered a potential remedy to racial inequality in justice administration, including sentencing disparity. Studies to date yield little evidence of such an effect; however, research limitations may account for the mixed and limited evidence of the significance of justice workforce racial diversity. Specifically, few studies consider group‐level dynamics of race and representation, thus failing to contextualize racial group power relations in justice administration. To consider these contextual dynamics we combine court organizational and case‐level data from 89 federal districts and use hierarchical models to assess whether variably “representative” work groups relate to district‐level differences in sentencing. Using district‐specific indexes of population and work group dissimilarity to define representation, we find no relationships between black judge representation and sentencing in general across districts, but that districts with more black representation among prosecutors are significantly less likely to sentence defendants to terms of imprisonment. We also find in districts with increased black representation among prosecutors, and to a lesser degree among judges, that black defendants are less likely to be imprisoned and white defendants are more likely to be imprisoned, with the effect of narrowing black‐white disparities in sentencing. Consistent with the “power‐threat” perspective, and perhaps “implicit racial bias” research, findings encourage modeling diversity to account for relative racial group power in processes of social control and suggest that racial justice may be moderately advanced by equal representation among authorities.     

Toward an Analytical Framework for the Study of Race and Police Violence

Treatments of race and police violence in the fields of public administration and policy have drawn eclectically from many disciplinary sources in historical, political, and managerial analysis. From an institutional perspective, emphasis has been on how organizational practices, rules, norms, and values, along with role socialization, shape germane behavior. Of particular interest to the authors is the phenomenon of race‐related police violence in its systemic but also attitudinal and behavioral manifestations in the policing role. How does an academic or practitioner researcher specify evaluative perspectives applicable to this policy and administrative challenge? There is a prior need for defined analytical and ethical positions drawing closely from public administration and policy sources. This article suggests ways to develop such grounded frameworks, built on these distinctive traditions but also going beyond them, so as to allow for an integrative approach to evaluative analysis and action on this grave and contentious issue.