April 19

Richard Abanes, American Militias: Rebellion, Racism and Religion. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996. Pp.296, biblio, index. $13.49 (paper). ISBN 0–8308–1368–3.

John George and Laird Wilcox, American Extremists: Militias, Supremacists, Communists, & Others. Amherst, NY: Promethius Books, 1996. Pp.443, index.. $31.45 (cloth), $24.95 (paper). ISBN 1–57392–058–4.

Jim Keith, OKBOMB!: Conspiracy and Cover‐Up. Lilburn, GA: Illuminet Press, 1996. Pp.237, index. $14.95 (paper). ISBN 1–881532–08–9.

Kenneth S. Stern,A Force Upon the Plain: The American Militia Movement and the Politics of Hate. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996. Pp.303, biblio, index. $24.00 (cloth), $15.26 (paper). ISBN 0–684–81916–3.

Brandon M. Stickney, “All American Monster”: The Unauthorized Biography of Tim McVeigh. Amherst, NY: Promethius Books, 1996. Pp.336, index. $23.95. ISBN 1–57392–088–6.

Jess Walter, Every Knee Shall Bow: The Truth & Tragedy of Ruby Ridge & The Weaver Family. New York: ReganBooks, 1995. Pp.375. $24.00 (cloth), $6.29 (paper). ISBN 0–06–0391 74‐X.     

Beyond Performance: Racial Prejudice and Whites’ Mistrust of Government

Political Behavior - Scholars have argued that racial policy beliefs contributed to a decline in public trust among white-Americans, but this effect waned over time as racial policies left the...     

Categorically wrong? Nominal versus graded measures of ethnic identity

Ethnic identity is a fundamental concept for understanding the dynamics of contemporary political change, but there has been very little exploration of how to measure ethnic identity and even less discussion of the implications of these measurements for understanding ethnic conflict. Through an analysis of Estonians and Slavs (Russians, Byelorussians, and Ukranians) in Estonia, we show that the ethnic identity of different groups is “salient” to different degrees and that this has significant implications for within-group agreement about political issues and for between-group differences. We show that nominal ethnic identity fully predicts political attitudes when ethnicity is highly salient because a highly salient ethnic identity sets in motion forces that cause individuals within a group to form similar attitudes based upon their ethnic identity. These forces were fully active for Estonians in Estonia in the early 1990s. In this case, nominal ethnic identity was sufficient to explain the attitudes of Estonians. But ethnicity must be treated as graded when it is not highly salient, as with Slavs in Estonia, because only degrees of ethnicity can explain the within-group differences in political attitudes that arise because of a lack of salient identity. Researchers, therefore, should typically treat ethnicity as if it were graded, and they should devise graded measures of it. Although nominal measures are sometimes appropriate (i.e., when ethnicity is highly salient), they will cause the researcher to miss something important in other situations. For example, our work suggests that if events discrupt the social processes that maintain a group’s sense of itself, then a graded measure of ethnicity is useful for predicting attitudes concerning ethnic identity and survival. In short, it is not categorically wrong to treat ethnicity as nominal, but it is best to begin by treating it as graded. Henry E. Brady, Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, is co-author ofVoice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics andLetting the People Decide: The Dynamics of a Canadian Election. He has also written on elections, referendums, polotical behavior, and political methodology. Cynthia S. Kaplan, an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, received her Ph.D. from Columbia University and has conducted extensive research in Russia, Estonia, and Tatarstan. She is the author ofThe Party and Agricultural Crisis Management in the USSR and numerous articles on comparative ethnicity, social movements, and political culture in the former Soviet Union.     

Outmanoeuvring Defence: The Australian Debates over Gay and Lesbian Military Service, 1992

On 24 November 1992, Australia overturned its longstanding ban on gay and lesbian service in the Australian Defence Force. The ban was on the political agenda throughout 1992, though it was never a government priority or subject to mass protest. The debates over gay and lesbian military service have subsequently received scant attention from historians. The arguments against gay and lesbian service centred on troop morale, security concerns, fears of predatory homosexuals and the spread of HIV/AIDS. The arguments to permit gay and lesbian service hinged to an extent on principles of non‐discrimination, but even more so on international law. This article examines the debates in 1992 leading up to the repeal of the ban, focusing in particular on the Labor Party divisions and the ways international law influenced the decision‐making process.     

The Magistrate is the Muse: Law and Visual Economy in Bangkok

Governmentality is a spatial formation negotiated within historically-constituted political landscapes. In Bangkok, this spatialization of power is manifested in the militarization of urban life and the protocols of security procedure, but also in anti-government protests and an increasingly politicized visual culture. The memory and meaning of the city’s streets exist as an overlooked legibility that challenges the visual strategies of government control. Monuments, travel routes, and other public sites of national recognition now compete in an extended urban arena of images, such as literature and cinema, which re-stage governmentality and the material contours of Thailand’s contemporary political disagreements outside of its institutional norms. I read this intersection between governing and image circulation through the development of a visual economy in Bangkok and depict how different communities—including a bureaucratized military and a populist political party, but also writers and filmmakers—intervene in its circulation. Each group zooms in on key spaces of the city in the attempt to speak to changing forms of governmentality.