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Volume 31 of the Melbourne Journal of Politics is now available.
Please see the Melbourne Journal of Politics website for more information.
Australia 2020 Summit Participation
‘Sana Nakata, a PhD student supervised by Adrian Little, gave the opening address and participated in the Productivity Agenda stream at the Australia 2020 summit in Canberra, 19-20 April.’
Recent Publications
New Books Published in 2008
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The Theory and Practice of Local Government and Economic Development |
Mark Considine
Partnership is a necessary policy tool in a fragmented institutional landscape in which globalization is placing increasing pressure on national and local economies. And yet, it has no obvious place in public policy frameworks. There is no common understanding of what partnership can or should do in the process of designing and implementing policy. This book develops a greater understanding of how to bridge the gap between theory and practice and offers new insights to improve both national policy settings and local methods of collaboration. The practical possibilities and options identified in this volume are illustrated by case studies from three continents, examining a range of issues from fostering entrepreneurship to helping disadvantaged youth in education. This book is
essential reading for all those interested in learning how society can make better choices in a global economy.
Mark Considine is Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne, where he leads a
programme of research on emerging forms of network governance in various OECD countries. This
work is represented in recent books including Enterprising States: The Public Management of Welfare
to Work and Making Public Policy: Institutions, Actors, Strategies.
Silvain Giguère is Deputy Head of Local Economic and Employment Development at the OECD
in Paris. An economist born in Canada, he leads a multidisciplinary work programme on
employment and governance producing influential publications translated in many languages. Each
addresses a burning issue arising from globalisation, from developing the right policy mix to
achieve balanced growth to skills upgrading and the integration of immigrants.
Published by Palgrave Macmillan
Adrian Little
This book presents an innovative analysis of the nature of democratic theory, focusing on the prevalence of pious discourses of democracy in contemporary politics. Democracy is now promoted in religious terms to such an extent that it has become sacrosanct in Western political theory. Rather than accepting this situation, this book argues that such piety relies on unsophisticated political analysis that pays scant attention to the complex conditions of contemporary politics. Little contends that the importance of conflict is underplayed in much democratic theory and that it is more useful to think instead of democracy in terms of the centrality of political disagreement and its propensity to generate political violence. This argument is exemplified by the ways in which democracy and violence have been conceptualised in the war on terrorism. Fighting against democratic piety, this book contends that it is vital to understand the inevitable failure of democratic politics and thus promotes a theory of democracy founded on the idea of ‘constitutive failure’. Key Features: • Challenges democratic piety through the application of key contemporary approaches in political theory: complexity theory, post-structuralism and the idea of radical democracy • Uses the work of theorists such as Jacques Rancière, William Connolly, Chantal Mouffe, Judith Butler, Slavoj Žižek, Giorgio Agamben, Walter Benjamin and Alain Badiou to interrogate the discourses of democracy which characterise contemporary political debate • Grounds the theoretical analysis of democratic discourse with examples from contemporary politics including the war on terror, the process of indigenous reconciliation in Australia, the struggles for recognition of refugees and asylum seekers, the plight of the Sans-Papiers in France, and the problems in Northern Irish politics over the last ten years.
Published by Edinburgh University Press.
Ralph Pettman
MUP, Academic Monograph Series, Publication Date: March 2008 RRP: $49.95 (print-on-demand), $39.95 (e-book), 978-0-522-85531-9
How we look at the world is informed mainly by our assumptions and the ways in which we rationalise them. Seldom do we rely - or allow ourselves to rely - on 'gut thinking' or intuition.
Intending the World shows how rationalism, which is our primary approach in thinking about world affairs, is in crisis. By studying the world rationalistically, we objectify it and we look at it as detached from ourselves. But in doing so, we cease to see that we are using a perspective that limits as well as enlightens.
In a disciplinary first, Ralph Pettman provides an account of twenty-first century international relations in terms of phenomenology—one of the main philosophical attempts to compensate for these limits. He explores how this re-embedded use of reason can successfully describe and explain world affairs in ways unused by rationalists.
Intending the World follows the lead of the German philosopher Edmund Husserl. It looks at the world not only in terms of things-in-themselves, but also in terms of why it is we keep willing the world the way we do.
Ralph Pettman is Director of the Master of International Politics program at the University of Melbourne.
Barcelona Summer School in International Politics 2008
The third edition of the Barcelona Summer School in International Politics will take place at the Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals (IBEI) during June 30 - July 11. The objective of IBEI's Summer School is to offer different short courses on significant topics in international relations and international political economy, taught by experts of international prestige. The direction and coordination of the summer school will be provided by Carles Boix, visiting professor at the IBEI.
The summer school is aimed at graduate students, professors and researchers in the areas of political science, economics, and international relations and international studies who are interested in learning first-hand about the latest advances in research.
The Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals is a graduate teaching and research institution recently created through the initiative of the CIDOB Foundation and five universities in Barcelona (the University of Barcelona, the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Pompeu Fabra University, the Open University of Catalonia, and the Technical University of Catalonia). The Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals supports research in all fields of international political economics, international relations, international security, foreign policy and comparative public policy.
PRICES AND DISCOUNTS
The price of each course is 300 euros. However, there is a discount for early registration. Before June 9th, the price of each course will be 225 euros.For second course (and successive) the price will be 210 euros each one of them.
COURSES
- Theory and Policy in International Relations (Prof. Stephen Walt, Harvard University)
- Trade, Inequality, and Politics (Prof. Ronald Rogowski, University of Califonia)
- Democratization in an Interdependent World (Prof. Carles Boix, Princeton University-IBEI)
- The Middle East at the Crossroads (Prof. Fred Halliday, ICREA -IBEI)
- Institutions and Politics in the European Union (Prof. Simon Hix, London School of Economics)
Each course will be taught over a period of one week, in a format of a daily two-hour sessions (10 hours). During these weeks, the teaching staff of the Barcelona Summer School in International Politics will also be available to participants hours to discuss their research projects.
Further information and registration form can be found at www.ibei.org
This is part of a project which aims to produce new ways of understanding and interpreting the role of intellectuals in the development of Australian political radicalism during the period 1872 to 2000. The project has resulted in the establishment of a substantial on-line collection of radical political primary source material, with scholarly commentary and analysis, easily accessible to other researchers.
Coursework Master of International Politics students are eligible
for the European Union exchange program: Coursework Masters Exchange Program in International Relations: A European-Australian Asia-Pacific Nexus (EAAPN). It is an excellent opportunity for students to study in Europe (Paris, Trento, Birmingham) as part of a University of Melbourne degree. More information can be found at this website.
The following staff members received ARC Discovery-Project Grants commencing
in 2008.
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