Law-and-order politics, public-opinion polls, and the media

Over the past two decades, considerable political rhetoric has focused on the need to get tough on crime. Justification for this hard-line approach has been the public's apparent concem about rising crime rates and its increasing dissatisfaction with criminal sentencing. In this paper, we consider characteristics both of the measurement of public opinion and of the influences upon public opinion that may contribute to the depiction of a fearful, punitive community. In particular, we identify sources of bias in the methods and contexts of opinion-polling that promote a distorted representation of the discrepancy between community expectations of sentencing and the practices of the judiciary. We argue that the practices of pollsters, politicians, and media combine to create a self-sustaining obstacle to considered community discussion of crime and criminal sentencing.

The politics of 'sustainability': a critical discourse analysis of Victorian Government policy discourse, 1999-2006

Since its emergence during the 1980s the idea of sustainability has come to provide the dominant frame within which environmental policy is debated. Thus, for many ‘sustainability’ represents the best way to address the economic, social and environmental effects of the myriad of environmental issues facing human societies, including biodiversity loss, soil erosion, pollution of waterways, ozone depletion and climate change. There are however, widely divergent views advocated as to what sustainability means, which has important implications for how serious environmental issues are understood to be, why they are important, what has caused them, and what needs to be done to address them. Given the diversity of such views, the consequences for policy making, and the likelihood of effective responses being developed, are self evident. Within this context, this thesis investigates the politics of sustainability, focussing particularly on the way in which it is defined, because of the implications this has for the way in which environmental issues are understood and addressed. Following a review of various approaches to analysing environmental policy (traditional, mainstream, ecopolitical and discursive), Norman Fairclough’s approach to discourse analysis (Critical Discourse Analysis) was identified as having particular merit. Fairclough’s approach avoids the assumption that policy issues exist independently of the way they are framed and offers a perspective on discourse that links the social theoretical concerns of Foucault with the micro level concerns of linguistics. It also provides a means for taking environmental policy analysis in directions that that have attracted relatively limited attraction, namely the detailed analysis of the ideological effects of language on environmental policy. In this thesis Fairclough’s approach is used to explore how three storylines of sustainability (sustainable development, environmentally sustainable growth and transforming society) and their associated discourses shaped environmental policy making in Victoria, Australia, between 1999 and 2006. In undertaking this analysis, I examined the political and institutional context informing policy making (social practice); the contested process of text production (discourse practice), and; the detailed wording of a policy text (textual analysis). A major policy statement on environmental sustainability released by the Victorian Government in 2005 is subjected to detailed analysis. Based on the analysis undertaken, the substantive finding from this research is that rather than moving beyond neoliberalism, the Victorian Government embraced an approach to sustainability that was informed by neoliberalism and (weak) ecological modernisation, which constructs sustainability in ways that limit its importance and constrain the types of responses that could be advocated. In doing so, it drew heavily on notions of natural assets and ecosystems services as ways to make sense of the environment and why it is important. The Victorian Government also highlighted that environmental issues are caused by the cumulative effects of individual choices, and emphasized the importance of individual choice and behavioural change as central features of sustainability, while restricting opportunities for more transformative ideas to be heard. The broader conclusion arising from this research is that approaches to environmental policy that rely on neoliberal and (weak) ecological modern discourses are flawed, because, in commodifying nature, limiting the nature and magnitude of change required, and placing responsibility onto individuals they offer a constrained understanding of the challenge of sustainability and what needs to be done about it. The overall contribution made by this research is an improved understanding of the discursive nature of the politics of sustainability and the influence of neoliberalism and ecological modernisation, the use of a methodology that has attracted relatively limited attention within environmental policy (despite its widespread use in other areas of policy) and the documentation of a period of significant environmental policy reform in Victoria.

Cultural destruction and identity politics : targeting the history of Iraq

Since its inception in 1921, a number of successive regimes have sought to politicize Iraq‟s cultural history in order to develop national identity and foster social cohesion across this rich and complex nation. Foremost among these were the Baath party, particularly under the rule of Saddam Hussein, who used much of the nation‟s Oil wealth to undergo an extensive nation-building campaign. However, identity in Iraq is far from monolithic and various factions have long resisted the state sanctioned version of “Iraqi” identity and asserted alternative histories and narratives to underpin their own identity politics. With the invasion of Iraq by Coalition forces in 2003, however, came an unprecedented era of cultural destruction. Following the devastation of the battle phase of the war, there were further attacks on Iraq‟s cultural heritage including everything from the carefully choreographed removal of the giant bronze statue of Saddam in Firdos square, through to military bases set up at sensitive archaeological sites such as the ancient city of Babylon. In addition, Iraqi civilians targeted the cultural history of their nation with wanton looting and arson, as well as systematic attacks on sites of archaeological or ethno-religious significance. More recently, the Shia and Kurdish dominated Iraqi Government have organised the “Committee for Removing Symbols of the Saddam Era” and drew up plans to purge the state of its Sunni dominated past.

This paper argues that the unprecedented scale and magnitude of the destruction of Iraq‟s cultural history has played a part in eroding the various intersecting and overlapping versions of identity politics in Iraq. In turn, this has provided fertile ground for terrorists and sectarians to plant the seeds of their own narrow and deadly ideologies. This has brought about the rise of ethno-religious based violence and seen a series of bloody and protracted conflicts emerge between previously peaceful and compatible factions. In this way, Iraq serves as a powerful case study in furthering academic discussion on the complex inter-relationships between cultural and historical destruction and identity politics, sectarianism, violence and democracy.

The play of power and politics in innovation and HRM

This paper analyses the human resource management (HRM) practices involved in the implementation of a process innovation approach to product development (concurrent engineering (CE)) in the Australian subsidiary of a multinational firm engaged in military defence electronics. According to the research literature, almost all aspects of managing product development under a CE approach are linked to people management. Yet in this particular case, other than project team structure, the prescriptive HRM dimensions of CE were conspicuously absent in the implementation process. This absence is explained by the play of power and politics involving stakeholders analysed over an 18 month period. The implications of this analysis for understanding the embedded, interdependent and political nature of HRM and process innovation are addressed.

Innovation and HRM : absences and politics

This article analyses the role of HRM practices in the implementation of an innovative cross-functional approach to new product development (concurrent engineering, CE) in Eurotech Industries. Contrary to CE methodology stipulations, and despite supportive conditions, HRM received scant attention in the implementation process. Organizational power and politics were clearly involved in this situation, and this article explores how their play created such HRM ‘absences’. The article builds on a four-dimensional view of power in order to provide a deeper understanding of the embedded, interdependent and political nature of HRM practice and innovation.

New scalar politics : implications for education policy

This paper argues that globalisation has implications for research and theory in the social sciences, demanding that the social no longer be seen as homologous with nation, but also linked to postnational or global fields. This situation has theoretical and methodological implications for comparative education specifically focused on education policy, which traditionally has taken the nation-state as the unit of analysis, and also worked with 'methodological nationalism'. The paper argues that globalisation has witnessed a rescaling of educational politics and policymaking and relocated some political authority to an emergent global education policy field, with implications for the functioning of national political authority and national education policy fields. This rescaling and this reworking of political authority are illustrated through two cases: the first is concerned with the impact of a globalised policy discourse of the ‘knowledge economy’ proselytised by the OECD and its impact in Australian policy developments; the second is concerned explicitly with the constitution of a global education policy field as a commensurate space of equivalence, as evidenced in the OECD’s PISA and educational indicators work and their increasing global coverage. The paper indicatively utilises Bourdieu’s ‘thinking tools’ to understand the emergent global education policy field and suggest these are very useful for doing comparative education policy analysis.

Competing notions of regionalism in South Korean politics

In the past decade, ASEAN has been the primary driver of East Asian regionalism, and Korea has been an active supporter of ASEAN plus Three. Korea has explored the idea of an East Asian Community, and has been relatively open to notions of Asia–Pacific regionalism. The ROK has involved itself comparatively heavily in regional projects as both an initiator and a participant, but its notion of ‘region’ has oscillated between more and less inclusive forms of regionalism. This article examines how competing conceptions of region have influenced Korea's pursuit of regional initiatives. By revisiting historical understandings of Korea's regional identity, we explore the normative bases and material interests which motivate Korean regional initiatives, and assess the impact of its proposals.