Howard, Downer and the Liberals' realist tradition

The successive Howard Governments sought not only to make foreign policy in response to new regional and global agendas, but to respond to and to seek to manage new forms of electoral challenge with new forms of nationalism. This has resulted in a set of important departures from the major Liberal tradition in international affairs, the claim to a realist approach to foreign policy, and has led to the need to manage the consequences of those departures. The boundary that realism sought to draw between the domestic and international politics, as the spheres of values and interests respectively, became increasingly blurred. In relations with the Asian region the expression of strong domestic (nationalist and internationalist) agendas led initially to distancing from Asian engagement. However, from 2002, a more realist-focused external policy led to new forms of state to state re-engagement in pursuit of national interests. In the commitment to military operations in Iraq, the Anzac legend is interpreted to supply nationalist legitimation which would not normally be required for wars fought for realist (i.e. defensive) reasons. A future Liberal prime minister would lack Howard's touch here. In the debate in the Liberal Party over defence doctrine, an attempt by the Defence Minister to reformulate the realist doctrine of Defence of Australia into an expeditionary construct was rejected.

Real english and english lite : what texts should we teach in the english classroom? (1) or English lite and thick lit : what is the debate about?

Why is it that Prime Minister John Howard wants to micro-manage English curricula? Why does how teachers teach English and Literature regularly make it to the front and editorial pages of the national dailies? The author attempts to critique that phenomenon, to explain her state of mind - that of being both alert and alarmed. The latest round of the debate began with Tony Thompson's article, 'English Lite is a tragedy for students', in 'The Age' on 12 September 2005. He was concerned that VCE English might be reduced to a single print text and he was alarmed about the watering-down of curriculum driven by 'postmodern notions'. The author is at odds with many of Thompson's views and discusses her stance on various aspects of his propositions. Issues examined include Thompson's argument that no multimodal text yields as much significance as a piece of genuine literature; that students are not being 'stretched' far enough; the false dichotomy between aesthetic/formalist manoeuvres on the one hand and postmodern ones on the other; how texts make meaning to students as consumers and the rationale for the use of pop culture texts to connect with students.

Triangulation in organizational research : a re-presentation

This paper extends the discussion of postmodern thinking in organizational theory through a re-presentation of the concept of triangulation in organizational research. Initially triangulation is defined through the contrasting lenses of positivism and post-positivism/postmodernism and analysed as a metaphor for fixing and capturing the research subject. Subsequently triangulation is ‘re-presented’ as ‘metaphorization’—in terms of process and movement between researcher-subject positions. Rethinking the lines and angles of enquiry in triangulation, the paper suggests a shift from the ‘triangulation of distance’ tradition to a more reflexive consideration of ‘researcher stance’. This movement is represented across three perspectives: the researcher as a follower of nomothetic lines; the researcher as the taker of an ideographic overview; and the researcher as the finder of a particular angle. The implications of this re-presentation are then discussed in terms of perspective, data capture, reflexivity and metatriangulation.

Positivism: one ring to rule them all? A tale of information systems research methodology

The tale of research methodology in information systems is told through the fantasy of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. The tale is intended to be at once a piece of light hearted fun in its placement of the struggles of research methodology as an epic story but, in the tradition of the court jester, attempts to provide a new perspective on Information Systems (IS) research methodology and our struggles with positivism in particular. Our tale is one of developing a greater maturity and confidence in IS methodology and introduces postmodern methodologies to Information Systems. Our tale, our pastiche, is itself postmodern.

The 'China Threat' in American self-imagination: the discursive construction of other as power politics

Argues that the "China threat" argument in mainstream international relations literature in the United States is derived, primarily, from a discursive construction of otherness. Construction which is predicated on a particular narcissistic understanding of the U.S. self and on a positivist-based realism, concerned with absolute certainty and security; Concern which is central to the dominant U.S. self-imagery.

Theories of international relations

This collection of essays demonstrates the continuing importance of the work of Michael Polanyi for the understanding, not only of the great events of the 20th century, but also of the problems that face us in the 21st century. Polanyi moved liberalism away from a negative, sceptical and rationalist basis towards an acceptance of trust, tradition and faith in transcendent values. His conception of the free society is not one merely of doing as one pleases nor vacuously 'open', but one of individual and communal self-dedication to those values and ideals.These essays, authored by a distinguished international and interdisciplinary panel of invited contributors, examine Polanyi's specific insights in the theory of knowledge, the nature and source of social order and the philosophy of economics and science and draw relevant comparisons between Polanyi and related thinkers such as Popper, Hayek and Mises. This book shows the sources of Polanyi's ideas and his distinctive contribution to philosophy generally, to social and political thought and to economics.

Re/de/signing the world : postructuralism, deconstruction and 'reality' in outdoor/environmental education research

This paper examines rhetorical constructions of ‘reality’ in selected outdoor/environmental education discourses-practices.1 Many outdoor/environmental educators privilege philosophical realism coupled with suspicion towards poststructuralism(s) and deconstruction. From a postlogographic position on language, we argue that producing texts is a method of inquiry, an experience and performance of semiosis-in-use as we sign (and de/sign) the world into existence. This re/de/signed world never represents the ‘real’ world precisely or completely, and in this paper we explore and enact modes of textual (and extratextual) production that struggle to retain a poststructuralist skepticism towards representational claims without falling into antirealist language games. We focus in particular on Deleuzean concepts of ‘rhizomatic’ inquiry and nomadic textuality as enabling dispositions for re/de/signing worlds in which realities and representations are mutually constitutive (rather than dialectically related).

"Where myth becomes history" : the politics of mythical time in Heiner Muller's Medea

Heiner Müller in the 1980s produced a sequence of plays featuring Euripides’ heroine Medea using his distinctive, poetic modality of “the theatre of images”. These ostensibly postmodern narratives take the form of disjointed, visual and textual representations that are also fragmentations of historical and mythical times and spaces. Müller’s Medea plays are thus suggestive of the intersection between the discourses of history and myth — and the blending of historical time with ahistorical, supposedly “timeless” mythical narratives. Further, the postmodern possibility of history’s textuality to liquidate it into a type of (modern) mythology seeks expression in the plays’ representation of a converse equation: the moment signaled in the text as that “where myth becomes history”. This paper examines the problematisation of the myth-history dichotomy in Müller’s Medea plays, outlining the ways in which the “timeless” myth of the classical, infanticidal figure of Medea is strategically deployed to politicise evolutionist teleology, Western colonialism and the technologies of war in twentieth century Europe.

Antinomies of Slavoj Zizek

For the last decade, Slavoj Zizek's provocative and insightful interventions have contested the contemporary abandonment of radical politics and the postmodern retreat from the Enlightenment. Rejecting talk of the "victory of liberalism," Zizek calls for a revolutionary analysis of the connection between multinational capitalism and political subjectivity capable of reconstructing the project of global emancipation. In opposition to postmodern relativism, Zizek positions Lacan not as a postmodern theorist but as an Enlightenment thinker. His Lacanian interpretation of ideology proposes that the missing link in post-Althusserian theories is the unconscious subject, as the unruly by-product of ideological interpellation. Zizek combines this...

Normative regionalism in East Asia

Normative regionalism has been largely overlooked and ignored; and
normative questions concerning regionalization are deemed unimportant,
idealist and irrelevant to Asia. This is mainly due to the domination of
realism, pragmatism and functional approaches, thus inhibiting the substantial
progress of regionalism in East Asia. It is time that scholars and
policy-makers take normative orders of regionalism seriously.
This chapter examines the state of normative regionalism and its impact
in East Asia through an overview of the historical evolution of the
concept of regionalism, the meanings of and variations in Asian regionalism,
and the impact of all these on regional cooperation in East Asia.
It examines the old pan-Asianism, the advocacy of "re-Asianization" in
Japan, Mahathir's idea of neo-Asianism in Malaysia and the ideas of
regionalism developed in Korea and China. This examination provides the
basis for a discussion of the normative order of East Asian regionalism
by addressing a set of questions concerning national sovereignty, nationalism,
democracy and regional identities.
In particular, this chapter will examine how Asian nationalist and statist
normative thinking influences various ideas of regionalism and constrains
the development of genuine regionalism in East Asia.

Re-imagining the cultural brand : postmodernism and next wave

The traditional interpretation of a brand, and the means by which an organisation communicates its brand, might be considered a product of a modernist managerial paradigm, with its focus on consistency, control, and coherence (Brown 1995, 1999; Firat and Shultz 1997). With the emergence of postmodernism, this logic has been challenged by one of flexibility and openness, since consumers are no longer willing to commit or conform to any unified and consistent idea, system, or narrative. In order to explain this change in the management of brands, this paper will examine the Australian cultural brand, Next Wave, as a paradigmatic example. Next Wave offers an innovative brand management model founded on the interaction between the organisation and the content provider, i.e., the artist. Based on both aesthetic and conceptual experimentations, Next Wave is a dynamic brand in which shape and content are continually redefined in an interactive and mutual relationship between the artist and the organisation. Therefore, it can be argued that paradoxically, the organisation does not own its own brand. In fact, the ownership exists only from a legal point of view (as a trademark); the real artificer of the brand is the artist. Since it is not possessed nor controlled at all by the organisation, but is always subject to continuous evolutions and redefinitions, the Next Wave brand can be considered as a postmodern brand that is not strictly tied to marketing rules, but involves the target as an active participant in the brand creation process.

Visions of Utopia

Since 1949, propaganda posters have been produced in China as a visual language to unite the masses. Posters and billboards portraying images of youth in minority costumes, traditional paper cuts and China’s abundant workforce engaged in modernisation were meant to unite the masses through ‘revolutionary realism with revolutionary romanticism’. These images offer interesting insight into Mao’s version ‘socialist utopia’. With the opening of China to foreign investment and trade in 1979, the vision of a ‘socialist utopia’ has changed once again. Propaganda posters are replaced with large-scale billboards featuring luxury cars, clothing and products from the West. In order to illustrate this change, artists from Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia, Lisa Scharoun (Lecturer of Graphic Design) and Frances Tatarovic (Lecturer of Photography), have created a series of ‘advertisements’ that utilize similar themes of Maoist era propaganda posters with the infusion of the glossy characteristics of luxury fashion advertising. The images reference techniques and the visual language of contemporary western commercial fashion photography. Within the artworks, the past and present visual culture of China is juxtaposed to create a dialogue between the icons of the Maoist vision of a socialist utopia and the contemporary visual icons of fashion and luxury advertising.

What can Arendt's theorising add to critical social workers empowerment practice?

Empowerment is one of the most frequently invoked concepts in critical social work theory and practice. Critical social work theory tends to privilege the concept of “power” as the central concept in em-power-ment. However over the last two decades postmodern and poststructural thought has discredited how power was understood in critical social work. Some leading critical social workers have re-thought the notion of “power” with Foucault’s early and middle work. One of the key problems raised by leading social workers is about how to re-think “allowance for difference” in empowerment practice (Fook 2002; Healy 2000). I argue that to re-think power in relation specifically to problems with “allowance for difference” using Foucault’s early and middle work is not possible because he is still conflating power with domination. Hence I turn to Hannah Arendt’s theorising on power. For Arendt power is understood as the capacity of people to “act in concert” and to create something new. Arendt’s concepts of “plurality”, “natality” and “publicness”, I argue can add a much to critical social work empowerment practice by re-thinking the notion of “allowance for difference” in critical empowerment social work.

Reinvigorating the public sphere : the role of voluntary associations

This thesis examines the key question: can voluntary associations enhance democracy? It tests critical claims made by Habermas and others that voluntary associations have the potential to reinvigorate a public sphere in a state of atrophy. The thesis outlines the major theoretical arguments pertaining to these areas and then presents the results of empirical work within voluntary organisations. Specifically the thesis: Critically examines the concept of the public sphere, being a sphere between the state and civil society and investigates why theorists have advocated voluntary associations, claimed to be the core institutions of civil society, as sites where democratic ideals can be secured; Goes on to examine the concept of civil society and reviews the recent literature that has attempted to define and analyse the role of voluntary associations in contemporary society; Tests empirically the normative ideals that have been advocated on behalf of voluntary associations through the presentation of data obtained using qualitative methodology. The analysis of the data collected during interviews with key employees and members of six voluntary associations in Melbourne, Australia allows for a more informed knowledge regarding the key concepts and themes of the thesis. The thesis ends by directly addressing the following points: whether or not the public sphere is in a state of atrophy; the particular nature of voluntary associations contemporary engagement in the public sphere; and whether voluntary associations can indeed, be sites where democracy can be enhanced and democratic ideals be secured. It is concluded that voluntary associations operate within Habermasian public spheres, counterspheres, and postmodern public spheres and that unitary notions of the public sphere, such as those Habermas proposes, do not adequately explain voluntary associations engagement in the public sphere. Accordingly, it is concluded that voluntary associations have the potential to invigorate public spheres, though not in ways that many theorists writing on the subject suggest.

Raising the subject : ideology in children's fiction

This thesis is concerned to reveal, by means of textual analysis, ideologies connected to human subjectivity within eight contemporary novels for 'children' . The analyses draw upon the work of Macherey, Eagleton, Jameson and Bakhtin among others. The texts discussed cover more than two decades, from 1955 to 1977. The first, Philippa Pearce's Minnow on the Say, attempts to reconcile a traditional form of subjectivity with a less hierarchic and mare open type. Lyotard's account of customary and scientific knowledge, and Said's of affiliation ion , are the basis for discussion here. Susan Cooper's sequence The Dark is Rising grounds humanism in a mythic British past. Within these texts the problem of situating the subject within a wider social framework is linked to one of nationalism. Her novels are fantasies, and provide an opportunity for a discussion of a non-realist form and its ideological implications, Todorov's account of the fantastic as a genre is a reference—point in this analysis. Jane Garden’s Bilge water presents a discontinuous subject—in-process. Her story is told by a first— person narrator, situated within a framed narrative. Through its themes and structures the text interrogates its central character's project of subjectivity as perfectible, centered and continuous, and finds it untenable. In Russell Hagan’s The House and his Child the possibility of self-determination within language as discourse is of central concern. The tin mice, who are hollow, echo in their persons the text's interest in the distinction between inside and outside, the difference which Lacanian theory posits as essential for an accession to subjectivity- Hoban's work gives an account of the postmodern subject, and calls into question the subjectivities assumed in Pearce's and Cooper's texts.