The politics of Australian society: Political issues for the new century

The aim of this book is to assist those who want to understand and analyse social, political and economic issues. In this project we have drawn upon the resources of political science, which typically examines the interaction between political ideas, institutions and policies in its attempt to make sense of the society in which we live. The perspectives offered by political science are evident in the structure of contributions to the volume. The organising framework we have adopted emphasises the importance of political ideas in shaping the way we comprehend political issues; the centrality of political institutions in influencing the possibilities for and limits on politics; and how present and past policies determine the context and direction of the solutions to political problems. This second edition expands upon out original brief. Where we have retained certain topics, the chapters have all been revised and updated. There are also a number of new chapters in each section that deal with significant political doctrines, institutions and policies.

Locating whiteness in the academic production of "I Philosophy" in and of time and place

This review will critically evaluate two recent texts by white academics working across disciplines of cultural studies, history and anthropology and published by UNSW Press, which share a focus on the relationship between Aboriginality, Philosophy, Place and Time in Australia. I write from the position of a queer white academic committed to engaging politically and intellectually with the challenge of Indigenous sovereignties in this place while also aware that my position as a middle class white woman and intellectual imposes limits on what it is possible for me to know about Indigenous epistemologies (see Moreton-Robinson, 2000). In the course of this review I will demonstrate how anthropology's tendency to fix its objects of study within a circumscribed space of 'difference' limits the capacity of texts produced within this discipline to account for racialized struggles over sovereignty. While these struggles are equally embedded in the ethnographic context and the nation's constitution and political institutions, we will see that Muecke and Bird Rose confront problems in analysing the relationship between the intimate space of the 'field', in which one's research subjects quickly become one's 'friends' and/or 'classificatory kin'—on one hand—and the public space of the nation within which statements about Aboriginality by white academics circulate and are vested with an authority that escapes individual intentions and control—on the other.

Politics and parties: Neglected aspects of postmaterial value change

Inglehart’s thesis of postmaterial value change is one of the most influential accounts of social and political change in advanced Western nations. This paper uses data from the World Values Survey and the Australian Election Surveys to reexamine the relationship between age and values in 19 advanced industrial nations. We find evidence of a monotonic age structuring of values in a number of countries, but in others, the relationship between age and values is not as Inglehart would predict. In addition, the impact of birth cohort on values differs between countries that are dominated by two major parties and those where there are many smaller parties. The presence of successful Green parties is also important for enhancing the uptake of postmaterialist values. These findings suggest that Inglehart’s arguments about generational value change should be modified to take into account national political institutions and political cultures that might enhance or impede generational-based values change.

Political science and public administration: The saga of a difficult relationship

This paper is based on 'The perennial ugly duckling-public sector education in tertiary institutions before and after Coombs, an invited contribution on management education delivered at the Sydney Academics Symposium on the Coombs Commission in Retrospect, IPAA National Conference, 28 November 2001.