The rise and decline of Libya as a rogue state

From 1980 until 2006, the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (Libya) was considered by the United States as a “Rogue State”. However, in May 2006, the U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, welcomed Libya back into the world community and declared that this erstwhile enemy had reformed. But has the American public registered this change in Libya’s status? Has this return to the fold influenced U.S. public opinion about Libya and its eccentric leader, Colonel Qaddafi? Or is it merely a case of new foes pushing old ones out of mind? What might some of America’s new “Rogue State” enemies learn from Libya’s example? This paper explores the nexus between the tumultuous U.S.-Libyan relationship and the U.S. public, and analyses how and why perceptions of Libya have changed.

Cross-sector transfer of consolidated financial reporting - conceptual concerns

This article addresses a major concern about the use of particular accounting concepts, notably those of control and assets, for whole-of-government consolidated financial reporting. While whole-of-government consolidated financial reports may resemble the formats required by accounting standards and so provide a benchmark for comparative purposes, inherent weakness in the specification of underpinning concepts means that proper and full application of the consolidation methodology cannot be assumed. A study of the whole-of-government consolidated financial reports of the Commonwealth, state and territory governments of Australia revealed that significant assets, obligations and controlled entities have not been included.

Attitude change in employment of people who have a disability

This thesis is set in Ecological Systems Theory and found that direct experience with people who have a disability, rather than constructed scenarios, is the key to positive attitude change. Future research should utilize the powerful role stereotyped groups themselves have in attitude change through their own development and interaction with the environment.

Dresden as Opferstadt? : the politics of commemorating destruction, 1985-2005

Using public remembrance of the controversial WWII firebombing of Dresden as its case study, the thesis probes the politics of war memory and commemoration. It argues that before, during, and after Germany's reunification, Dresden was portrayed as a, if not the, leading paradigm of German wartime loss and suffering.

New governance, green planning and sustainability : Tasmania together and growing Victoria together

Bridgman and Davis(2000:91) have argued that ‘ideally government will have a well developed and widely distributed policy framework, setting out economic, social and environmental objectives’. This article compares and evaluates two such frameworks or plans, Tasmania Together and Growing Victoria Together, in terms of their potential to promote sustainability. It argues that they are very different exercises in new governance, aimed at reconnecting with community priorities and at redirecting macro-policy setting away from a preoccupation with economic priorities, respectively. Nevertheless, both plans have the capacity to ‘green’ state planning, in Tasmania in terms of more purposeful benchmarks, and in Victoria in terms of enhanced sustainability emphasis in the macro-policy setting. The article encounters tensions in its review of the plans between deliberation and planning, policy empowerment and policy progress, and policy institutionalisation and politicisation as means of achieving policy change. It finds that whilst Tasmania and Victoria are re-engaged states that are reinventing state policy, as yet they are failing to meet the governance challenges of sustainability.

Tasmania together and growing Victoria together : can state plans deliver environmental sustainability?

Sustainability has always been a contested term, environmental sustainability in particular. It presents challenges and opportunities for policy making at all levels. This paper suggests that state plans have a key role to play in the pursuit of sustainability. It argues that, in theory, sustainability requires well integrated, interactive, informed and informing, as well as institutionalised policy processes. It reviews state plans in Tasmania and Victoria to analyse their capacity for delivering sustainability. Tasmania Together and Crowing Victoria Together are very different plans, so very different conclusions are drawn here, however we find that both of them lack the explicit political and policy commitment to sustainability that is required to turn rhetoric into state planning practice.

Opportunity lost? Victorian Labor's enactment of community development 1999-2006

The idea of community development has been evoked by Australian governments over many decades. The expressions of community have differed widely, often as a result of politics rather than informed policy. In 1999, after seven years of radical neo-liberal restructuring in Victoria, the Bracks government found itself unexpectedly elected to power. They faced new challenges such as a diminished public sector, growing social inequality and climate change. The first two terms of Victorian Labor were a seminal period in terms of the role they would invoke for ‘community’. Did grass roots participation take a central place, or did rhetoric rule over substance? The evidence points to a government maintaining a neo-liberal trajectory, and thereby losing an opportunity to enable an active citizenry.

Metaphors, stigma and the ‘Alzheimerization’ of the euthanasia debate

This paper reports the findings of an unobtrusive research inquiry investigating the possible use and misuse of Alzheimer’s disease in public policy debate on the legalization of euthanasia. The component of the study being reported identified the problematic use of five key metaphors: the Alzheimer metaphor, which in turn was reinforced by three additional metaphors – the epidemic metaphor, the military metaphor, and the predatory thief metaphor; and the euthanasia metaphor. All metaphors were found to be morally loaded and used influentially to stigmatize Alzheimer’s disease and mediate public opinion supporting the legalization of euthanasia as an end-of-life ‘solution’ for people with the disease. It is contended that, in the interests of promoting intellectual honesty and giving proper recognition to the extraordinary complexity of the issue, the problematic use and influence of metaphoric thinking in the public debate about Alzheimer’s disease and euthanasia needs to be made transparent, questioned and challenged.

The Australian Labor Party and its various constituencies

This paper discusses whether and how the Australian Labor Party (ALP) can balance the arguably conflicting interests and outlooks of its blue-collar 'heartland' and the socially progressive, middle-class, professional elements of its constituency. The paper includes analysis, in socio-geographical detail and in historical perspective, of the results of the November 2001 national Australian election as well as opinion poll trends and academic survey results and interpretations before and since that time. Debate intensified after Labor’s 2001 election defeat about the supposedly irreconcilable character of different Labor Party constituencies. Much of this debate however was (and remains) characterised by derogatory and judgemental categorisations of various ill-defined social groups. On the eve of the 2004 national Australian election, based on careful consideration of a range of demographic and electoral evidence, this paper contends that, while there are, at times, conflicting interests and outlooks between different elements of the ALP's constituency (just as there is amid the support base of many social democratic parties in western nations), the party's electoral future will be best served by standing on and extending as far as possible the considerable common ground between these various elements. This common ground, it is argued, consists of egalitarian economic policies which promote security in people's lives and which thus build scope for the pursuit and acceptance of more compassionate, outward looking social policies. Its consolidation requires leadership by the Party in shaping public opinion rather than mere reaction to what is assumed to be static public opinion.

Lobbying defined and observed

The critical and most obvious component of lobbying is the interaction an entity has with government. The executive, parliament and bureaucracy are the key players in the field. On the opposing side, to extend a sporting analogy, are the lobbyists – who are identified or labelled, singularly or plurally, by a variety of names: pressure groups, policy consultants, tariff consultants, public relations consultants, interest groups, special interest groups, industrial and professional associations, government relations managers, public affairs managers and Lloyd’s qualified term, the ‘political lobbyist’ .
All these nomenclatures require further explanation – some are used interchangeably, others are now an historical term only, some fall from the common language only to reappear at a later date. Of all, the oldest and most widely recognised is lobbyist and lobbying. Lloyd (1989) states that the term ‘lobby agent’ was first used in Westminster in the mid-17th century. In the United States Schriftgiesser (1951) writes that the famous American journalist H L Mencken, the Sage of Baltimore, traced the first use of the word lobby, as we currently understand it, to Washington DC in 1829. At that time the term lobby-agent was in use but it was shortened, by journalists, to lobbyist by 1832.
It has been suggested that the concept of lobbying – of seeking influence among the powerful – is as old as government e itself. Lloyd (1989) cites examples of lobbying from the Old and New testaments – the most famous pressure group being those who petitioned Pontius Pilate to crucify Jesus Christ!
In the US the activities of lobbying were recognised before the term was coined when, according to Schriftgeisser (1951), ‘a little gang of painted –up merchants (who) pushed British tea into the salt water of Boston harbor’ (p4).
So the pedigree of lobbying activities is long and colourful. As the western form of parliamentary democracy has evolved and expanded among nations it seems that lobbying has been ever present on this journey. It is by its activities, its parts, that we can define and recognise lobbying most clearly and view the changes.

Beyond 'types' in environmental agencies

Dr Brian Coffey contends that Dr Sue Briggs' commentary - 'From advocates to zealots' (PUBLIC ADMISTRATION Today, issue 27: July-September 2011) - on bureaucratic types in environmental agencies - 'raises an important issue: the need for reformers to understand the characteristics of public servants'.

Are ICT/Web 2.0 tools influencing civic engagement in modern democracies? An exploratory analysis from India

Web 2.0 tools, while mobilising citizens to make informed choices, may also manipulated public opinion. This hypothesis forms the central theme of this research investigation through the historiography lens. Based on concurrent research from decade, the authors take a closer look at citizen-to-citizen engagement, so as to trace the role of web 2.0 tools, in perhaps manipulating public opinion or enabling democratic governance through reversal of some existing defects in the Indian context. Specifically, they raise these questions: Has ICT enabled civic engagement manipulated public opinion in this developing democracy? Has it succeeded in reversing apparent defects in the electoral system, which is regarded pivotal in democracies? Focusing on the elections, the authors present a synopsis of the use of web 2.0 tools which were seemingly efficiently and prolifically used during the elections albeit to reach out to the large population base in this country.