Creating the political will necessary for achieving multilateral disarmament : the need for a peace-industrial complex

This dissertation deals with the failure to end the central arms race and provides some alternative proposals. Chapters 1 and 2 look at the failure of governmental disarmament negotiations and the ineffectiveness of the non-governmental peace movement. Chapter 3 outlines the author's recommended comprehensive strategy for ending the arms race? both the need for the US to make a dramatic unilateral initiative to break the deadlock (Super GRIT) and a detailed disarmament treaty. The main problem, as argued by the author, is more one of political will and so it is necessary to find a way of creating the political will to stimulate the US to make that dramatic unilateral initiative. He calls for the creation of a Peace-Industrial Complex. The intellectual arguments for the potential basis of such a complex are to be found in the research done by the United Nations; this is examined throughout Part II (Chapters 4-7). Unfortunately very little attention has been paid by governments to this work. Part III (Chapters 8 and 9) deals in more detail with the recommended Peace-Industrial Complex. Chapter 8 looks at its possible creation and method of work. Chapter 9 suggests that the proposed complex creates a transcending vision: from ‘uclear winter’to ‘nuclear spring’.

Earthquake fatalities : the interaction of nature and political economy

To say that the level of fatalities resulting from an earthquake is inversely related to a country's per capita level of income is hardly novel. What makes our approach novel is that we relate fatalities to both per capita income and the level of inequality that exists within a country through their joint impact on the likelihood of collective action being taken to mitigate the destructive potential of quakes. We first develop a theoretical model which offers an explanation as to why, in some environments, different segments of society prove incapable of arriving at what all parties perceive to be an agreeable distribution of the burden of the necessary collective action, causing the relatively wealthy simply to self-insure against the disaster while leaving the relatively poor to its mercy. Following this, we test our theoretical model by evaluating 269 large earthquakes occurring worldwide, between 1960 and 2002, taking into account other factors that influence a quake's destructiveness such as its magnitude, depth and proximity to population centers. Using a Negative Binomial estimation strategy with both random and fixed estimators, we find strong evidence of the theoretical model's predictions. That is, while earthquakes themselves are natural phenomena beyond the reach of humankind, our collective inaction with respect to items like the creation and enforcement of building codes, failure to retrofit structures and to enact quake-sensitive zoning clearly plays a part in determining the actual toll that a given quake takes. And, it is through these and other examples of collective inaction that limited per capita income and inequality couple together with a given quake's natural destructive power in determining the actual fatalities resulting from a quake.

Babylonia : reconfiguring the Australian political novel in the 'postfeminist', 'postmodern', 'postcolonial' era

The thesis comprises the comic novel "Babylonia", set in the Northern Territory, the Middle East and the United States in August 1990 after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and the accompanying exegesis that links "Babylonia" to selected Australian fiction and to political and cultural concerns of the current era.

Human nature in Hobbes's political thought

This study of Thomas Hobbes's political thought maintains that, in Hobbes's abstract and historically presented view, short-sighted and self-absorbed people engaged in war to their ultimate harm. In Hobbes's societal remedy, citizens submissively obeyed centralised rule. Their compliance, and detachment from the political process, satisfied their wish for peace.

Citizenship and the political institutions of cultural diversity in Australia

This thesis uses political theory to analyse and compare the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission and the Federation of Ethnic Communities' Councils of Australia. It argues that 'self-determination' and 'multiculturalism' in practice hide the power of the Anglo-Australian dominant culture and stifle the possibilities of more viable intercultural political innovation.

Visualising clientelism in the Indonesian political tabloids 1998-2001

The thesis uses a discourse analysis approach to examine the visual grammar and the political meanings of the front cover designs of the Indonesian political tabloids in the period 1998-2001 and argues that the meanings show that Indonesian politics operates on the basis of clientelism.

Dream dolls : misogyny and political mythology in fin de siecle Australian culture

Examines Australian nationalism from the 1890s onwards through the interaction between cultural stereotypes of the feminine and issues of identity, citizenship and political constructions of "democracy". The employment of an idealised masculine aesthetic as catalyst to creating an imagined state was compared in Australia and Wilhelmine Germany.

Islam and political violence : Muslim diaspora and radicalism in the West

How do we engage with the pressing challenges of xenophobia, radicalism and security in the age of the "war on terror"? The widely felt sense of insecurity in the West is shared by Muslims both within and outside Western societies. Growing Islamic militancy and resulting increased security measures by Western powers have contributed to a pervasive sense among Muslims of being under attack (both physically and culturally). Islam and Political Violence brings together the current debate on the uneasy and potentially mutually destructive relationship between the Muslim world and the West and argues we are on a dangerous trajectory, strengthening dichotomous notions of the divide between the West and the Muslim world.