Histories of constrained compassion: the idealised refugee family and the Australian nation, 1947–1975

Abstract

By way of introduction to this special issue, I examine the idealised family as a technology of Australia’s white nation-building project in a period of growing internationalism. I place the articles in this context, highlighting their contributions to a history of compassion propelled by Australia’s emerging sense of itself as a global citizen and constrained by a nationalist agenda defined by economic and social aims and informed by a history of racial anxiety. Racialised and gendered productions of the family have been deployed by the Australian nation to embrace, regulate and reject refugees in the period since 1947. This special issue contributes to historicising these techniques and their effects, which remain with us in reconfigured forms in the present.     

Image and the impact of public affairs management on internal stakeholders

This paper examines both the direct and indirect effects of images of corporate social performance on internal stakeholders. The authors suggest that public affairs managers must be particularly concerned about the ways in which images that are intended for and projected at external stakeholders are reflected back to internal stakeholders. In this new era of extremely tight labour markets, minimal corporate loyalty and high job mobility, public affairs efforts will increasingly impact upon a firm's employees. By monitoring this process, managers may more quickly identify the moment when internal stakeholders have developed a perception that differs from their original intent. This will allow managers to make a better job of maintaining a consistent image of the firm both inside and outside, and of managing the culture of the firm and its key human resources. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications     

The Elephant, Umbrella, and Quarrelling Cocks: Disaggregating Partisanship in Ghana's Fourth Republic

Within the literature on Ghanaian partisanship, a healthy debatehas arisen between those viewing Ghana’s two dominantparties as cleaved along socioeconomic lines and those suggestingthat this cleavage runs along ethnic lines. Using election results,constituency maps, census data, and a survey of voters’‘cognitive shortcuts’, this article weighs in withthe debate. The findings suggest that ethnicity matters in Ghanaianelections far more than socioeconomic variables. The findingsdo not, however, lead easily towards the gloomy predictionsthat often accompany ethnic politics. The relationship betweenethnicity and partisanship in Ghana is far more complex. Datapresented here suggest that Asante and Ewe voters are likelyto vote for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and National DemocraticCongress (NDC), respectively, regardless of the candidates theyselect. Voters of other ethnic backgrounds, who make up thevast majority of Ghanaian voters, view the dominant partiesas representative of Asante and Ewe interests but do not themselvesvote as a block and base their evaluations of the ‘Asante’and ‘Ewe’ parties ultimately on things other thanethnicity. It is this latter group of voters that makes Ghanaianelections unpredictable and discourages politicians from turningnational votes into a zero-sum ethnic censes.     

Challenges to the Theory and Practice of Polyarchy: the rise of the political left in Korea

This paper provides an analysis of the development of democracy in Korea since the transition from authoritarianism in 1987, and its implications for critical analyses of Third World democratisation. Accounts of ‘low intensity democracy’ or ‘polyarchy’ have noted Third World democratisation for its constrained and elite-centred nature, and as an outcome of US foreign policy, which has sought to demobilise restive popular movements and extend the reach of global capital. However, the Korean general elections of 2004 saw the historic entry of the explicitly socialist Korean Democratic Labour Party (kdlp) into the National Assembly. A re-examination of post-authoritarian politics in fact shows a process of continuous contestation that belies the claims made by the polyarchy literature. Formal democratisation has by its very nature allowed for a counter-movement to be mobilised. The paper also examines the relationship between the kdlp and the mass labour union movement and argues that, while democracy has provided opportunities for participation by previously marginalised social forces, concomitant neoliberal restructuring has limited the development of the mass movements from which such political projects draw their strength. Thus, inquiry into the implications of democratisation for a progressive challenge to neoliberal capitalism must also extend beyond ‘politics’ to mass movements in the socioeconomic sphere.     

Organisational culture and strategic change in Australian local governments

This study examines the impact of organisational culture on strategic change in local governments in Australia. The findings indicate that strategic change is affected by two organisational culture factors, innovation and attention to detail. This study contributes to the management accounting contingency literature and the public management literature by providing an insight into the role of organisational culture as a contingency factor influencing strategic change. Such findings may be used by local government managers to enact change effectively.     

Capital united? Business unity in regulatory politics and the special place of finance

While organized business is a key actor in regulatory politics, its influence is often conditional on the level of unity or conflict occurring within the business community at any given time. Most contemporary regulatory policy interventions put pressure on the normal mechanisms of business unity, as they are highly targeted and sector‐specific. This raises the question of how business unity operates across a highly variegated economic terrain in which costs are asymmetric and free‐riding incentives are high. In this paper, we empirically assess patterns of business unity within regulatory policymaking across different regulated sectors. Our analysis utilizes data from hundreds of regulatory policy proposals and business community reactions to them in the telecommunications, energy, agriculture, pharmaceutical, and financial sectors over a variety of institutional contexts. We find considerable empirical support for the “finance capital unity” hypothesis – the notion that the financial sector enjoys more business unity than other regulated sectors of the economy. When the financial sector is faced with new regulations, business groups from other sectors frequently come to its aid.     

Tools of single party hegemony in Tanzania: evidence from surveys and survey experiments

Political systems dominated by a single party are common in the developing world, including in countries that hold regular elections. Yet we lack knowledge about the strategies by which these regimes maintain political dominance. This article presents evidence from Tanzania, a paradigmatic dominant party regime, to demonstrate how party institutions are used instrumentally to ensure the regime's sustained control. First, I show that the ruling party maintains a large infrastructure of neighbourhood representatives, and that in the presence of these agents, citizens self-censor about their political views. Second, I provide estimates of the frequency with which politicians give goods to voters around elections, demonstrating that such gifts are more common in Tanzania than previous surveys suggest. Third, I use a survey experiment to test respondents’ reaction to information about corruption. Few voters change their preferences upon receipt of this information. Taken together, this article provides a detailed picture of ruling party activities at the micro-level in Tanzania. Citizens conceal opposition sympathies from ten cell leaders, either because they fear punishment or seek benefits. These party agents can monitor citizens’ political views, facilitating clientelist exchange. Finally, citizens’ relative insensitivity to clientelism helps explain why politicians are not punished for these strategies.     

Legal Cynicism,Antisocial Attitudes,and Recidivism: Implications for a Procedurally Just Community Corrections

The current approach to supervising offenders in the community has produced disappointing results in terms of reduced recidivism. In response to this, a number of scholars have turned their attention to the role that community corrections officers (CCOs) may play in ensuring successful community supervision. Early evaluations of CCO training have shown promising results, yet missing from this knowledge is a consideration for the legal cynicism that may be held by offenders. It may be unreasonable to expect CCOs to change the antisocial attitudes of offenders when those negative attitudes are directed toward them. The purpose of the current work, therefore, is to integrate ideas about legal cynicism into the knowledge about effective supervision to promote a more procedurally just community corrections. Our broader purpose is to encourage a more realistic understanding of the challenges of the officer-offender relationship in order to improve the efficacy of existing models of effective community supervision practice.     

Racial/Ethnic Disproportionality in Psychiatric Diagnoses and Treatment in a Sample of Serious Juvenile Offenders

Psychiatric disorder prevalence has been shown demonstrably higher among justice-involved adolescents than youth in the general population. Yet, among arrested juveniles, little is known regarding racial/ethnic differences in disorder prevalence, the role of trauma exposure in the diagnosis of behavioral disorders, or subsequent psychiatric treatment provided to adolescents with such diagnoses. The current study examines racial/ethnic disparity in psychiatric diagnoses and treatment of behavioral disorders associated with delinquency, controlling for traumatic experiences, behavioral indicators, and prior offending among serious juvenile offenders. Logistic regression is employed to explore the racial/ethnic disproportionality in behavioral disorder diagnoses and psychiatric treatment provision among 8763 males (57.7?% Black, 11.8?% Hispanic) and 1,347 females (53.7?% Black, 7.6?% Hispanic) admitted to long-term juvenile justice residential placements in Florida. The results indicate Black males are 40?% more likely, and Black females 54?% more likely to be diagnosed with conduct disorder than Whites, even upon considerations of trauma, behavioral indicators, and criminal offending. Black and Hispanic males are approximately 40?% less likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than White males, with no racial/ethnic differences for females. Importantly, Black males are 32?% less likely to receive psychiatric treatment than White males, with no differences between White and Hispanic males, or any female subgroups. Traumatic exposures increased the odds of oppositional defiant disorder and ADHD, but not conduct disorder for males, though adverse childhood experiences were unrelated to behavioral disorder diagnoses among females.     

Enoch Powell's ‘Rivers of Blood’ Speech: Fifty Years On

Fifty years ago, Enoch Powell made what still is one of the most notorious speeches in postwar British politics. Its tone was shocking for its use of inflammatory references to ethnic minority immigrants. Immigration continues to be divisive and references to it by politicians inevitably lead to comparisons with Powell. The aim of the collection is to examine Powell's speech from a number of perspectives, exploring how it was viewed both by contemporaries and in the light of subsequent developments. The objective of this article is to examine Powell's motivations, impact and legacy.