Funded
Research
Researchers in the Department have enjoyed considerable success in
winning external funding to support their work. Current research projects
are supported by grants from the Australian Research Council and from
government, cultural, industry and community organisations.
The Department has won four new Discovery Grants from the Australian
Research Council for funding commencing in 2005, including one postdoctoral
fellowship. The new projects are:
Ongoing funded research projects are being conducted in our research
fields of strength:
Global democracy, legitimacy
and human rights
The Politics of Rights:
Australia in Comparative Perspective.
Investigators: Prof. Brian
Galligan, Dr John Chesterman,
Prof. Ted Morton
Australia tends to be left out of comparative rights studies, and accounts
of rights protection tend to be focused upon courts and legal rights.
There is no comparative study available that shows how well Australia
protects rights, nor does there exist a detailed national study that
shows how rights are protected in Australia by parliamentary means and
the political mediation of international rights norms. This project
will deliver both, enabling a fuller understanding of Australian rights
protection. It will also boost comparative knowledge of rights protection
via political means.
Australian Research Council Discovery-Project Grant
The corruption-organised crime
nexus in four European states, with particular reference to people.
Chief Investigator: Prof. Leslie
Holmes
Considering its importance to Australia, too little research is being
done here on Europe. The EU alone accounts for c.40% of Australia's
trade. Yet most research on Europe undertaken here is either historical
(pre-1945) and/or of individual countries. Relatively little is in the
social sciences. One benefit of this project is that it ensures that
comparative social science research on Europe is conducted in Australia.
Second, Australia experiences many problems facing European states,
albeit usually on a smaller scale. The potential benefits of learning
vicariously from others' experiences are obvious. Third, this will enhance
this country's expertise in this strategically important area.
Australian Research Council Discovery-Project Grant
Fragility and Security: Human
Rights, State Wrongs and Democratic Solidarity.
Dr Andrew Schaap (Australian Postdoctoral
Fellow)
This project will investigate whether a shared awareness of human fragility
provides a basis for articulating a political commitment to human rights
while affirming the open-ended nature of politics on which the ethos
of democracy depends. It will do so by examining the relation between
the practice and values of democracy and: 1) the legislation of rights;
2) the violation of rights; 3) solidarity in defence of rights. The
main outcome will be a normative account of the extent and nature of
citizens' responsibility to testify to and defend the rights of others.
A distinctly political approach will ensure an original contribution
to debates about human rights in the present context of heightened security
concerns within democratic states.
Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship
Reason in Revolt: The
Role of Intellectuals in Australian Radicalism.
Investigators: Prof. Verity
Burgmann, Prof. Stuart Macintyre, Prof. Andrew Milner
The project 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. By digitizing a sizeable
and representative data base of primary source materials produced by
radical intellectuals, the Chief Investigators will be able to investigate
these texts in innovative ways, producing a co-authored monograph and
other research that will provide an improved understanding of Australia's
past, present and possible futures. Secondary outcomes will include
the establishment of a substantial on-line collection of radical political
primary source material, with scholarly commentary and analysis, easily
accessible to other researchers. The Reason in Revolt website can be found at www.reasoninrevolt.net.au.
Australian Research Council Discovery-Project Grant
Communicating power: Political
consultants, symbolic production and media democracy.
Chief Investigator: Dr Michael
Crozier
The project will investigate the professionalization of political communication
with a specific focus on the role of political consultants and communication
specialists in contemporary Australian politics. The principal research
aim is to identify and analyse the frames of reference and evaluative
modes structuring the work of political consultants. Political consultants
will be analysed as a subset of new 'symbolic' managers and mediators
in a society in which information is the key productive resource. The
project will generate a detailed analysis of how the professionalization
of political communication is transforming representative democracy
in network society.
Australian Research Council Discovery-Project Grant
 top of page
International
relations, globalisation & international political economy
top of page
Social movements & social
theories
Young injecting drug users,
embodied identities and social worlds: an ethnographic study.
Investigators: Dr Kevin McDonald,
Dr John Fitzgerald
This research explores the social experience of young injecting drug
users, mapping processes of initiation, the hidden drug experience,
and modes of maturing out of drug use. It focuses on analysing the trajectories
of young drug users in both rural and urban context, focusing on the
experience of embodied selfhood, social worlds and identities exploring
injecting use as a medium of relationship with the self and the other,
and mapping social networks and cultures of risk. It will develop key
implications for national and local drug policy in three critical areas:
prevention, harm minimisation and withdrawal.
Australian Research Council Discovery-Project Grant
Virtual Connections? Exploring Intimacies in Cyberspace.
Investigators: Dr
Millsom Henry-Waring, Dr Jo Barraket
Melbourne University Early Career Researcher Grant
Social connectedness and policy
development: modelling strategies and measures.
Investigators: Dr Jenny Lewis,
Dr Mark Considine, Dr
Jo Barraket
The project will build alternative models of connectedness to link together
community engagement, policy development and health.
VicHealth Research Grant
Hepatitis C and initiation
into injecting drug use in a rural setting.
Investigators: Dr John Fitzgerald, Dr
Kevin McDonald
Victorian Public Health Research Fund Grant
top of page
Questions of governance and
social and public policy
Creating Collaborative
Advantage through Better Network Governance: A Comparative Study of
New Institutions and Instruments.
Chief Investigator: Prof.
Mark Considine
By harnessing the embedded resources of different government and service
delivery organisations operating at community level, and by removing
costly boundary problems between them, governments can address the needs
of citizens in a more wholistic and flexible manner. But to do this
in a coherent way it is necessary to develop new institutional rules
and organisational processes to allow agencies to collaborate without
fear of reduced accountability or syphoning of public funds. The project
will examine the structures and processes used in a selection of leading
international cases in order to improve Australia's performance in gaining
a collaborative advantage for citizens and agencies.
Australian Research Council Discovery-Project Grant
Where commerce and culture
connect? Corporate governance and social capital in the global era:
the case of the AFL.
Chief Investigators: Assoc.
Prof. Ann Capling, Dr Tim Marjoribanks
This project investigates a central puzzle that confronts many community
organisations in the global era: how does an organisation sustain its
cultural core while negotiating the new challenges of commercial viability
and strategic governance? Increasingly, community organisations are
confronted with the logics of the market and corporate management. At
stake is their cultural identity, autonomy and their embeddedness in
local communities. Through a study of the 16 clubs of the Australian
Football League, this project aims to generate a new analytical framework
to evaluate organisations that seek to blend corporate governance and
community engagement in novel and innovative ways.
Australian Research Council Discovery-Project Grant
Academic networks and research performance: A comparison across disciplines and countries
Chief Investigator: Dr Jenny Lewis
Contemporary research policy in Australia aims to encourage collaboration and ensure academic accountability through measuring and funding research performance. Yet little is known about how this impacts on collaboration and knowledge generation. In addition, while academic networks are essential for generating new knowledge, the link between them and research performance is unexplored. This project will combine network theory with policy analysis to build a framework that links academic networks to research outcomes. It will generate a major analytic and methodological improvement in our understanding of how best to promote high quality research, and contribute to the knowledge economy.
Australian Research Council Discovery Grant
Fostering innovation
inside government: the role of structural and personal networks in improving
innovation performance among politicians and bureaucrats.
Professorial Fellow: Prof.
Mark Considine
Chief Investigator: Dr Jenny
Lewis
Innovation is the engine of the new economy. The Prime Minister's Australia
Day Statement 'Backing Australia's Ability' put innovation at the top
of the government agenda. Unfortunately most research and public policy
ignores the participation of government itself, apart from its fiscal
role. This new study takes the innovation question inside government
to map the path to innovation and to show how networking influences
outcomes. The study considers both structural and personal networks
and considers how they are connected. Outcomes will include a new model
for governmental innovation and methods for performance improvement
inside governmental systems.
Australian Research Council Professorial Fellowship and Discovery-Project
Grant
Connecting government to community: a study of social and political connectivity at the municipal level
Chief Investigators: Prof Mark Considine, Dr Jenny Lewis, Dr Jo Barraket
Facilitating community strengthening by making public institutions more responsive to the needs of citizens is a central policy challenge in the global era. This project will advance theoretical, methodological and practical understandings of this issue by using comparative measures of personal ties and organizational connectedness in four municipalities to explicate the networks linking politicians, bureaucrats, civic leaders and ordinary citizens. The study will generate new measures of which kinds of connections count most, which ties bring more isolated groups closer to engagement, and which community strengthening strategies are likely to make improved governance outcomes feasible.
Australian Research Council Linkage Grant
Connecting for health: the
role of networks and partnerships in improving health and wellbeing.
Chief Investigator: Dr Jenny
Lewis
Networks and partnerships are emerging as the new ideal models of governance
and service delivery around the world. In Victoria, there is now an
emphasis on working in collaboration to improve service delivery and
policy development, strengthen communities and ultimately, improve population
health. However, there is little understanding of how these models of
coordination and collaboration work and what they can achieve. Do they
improve service delivery and health policy processes? Do they strengthen
communities, generate social capital and so improve health? This research
aims to answer these questions by focusing on networks and partnerships
as key means for creating linkages and collaborations between policy,
services and communities.
VicHealth / Department of Human Services Public Health Fellowship
top of page
The politics of
anti-politics: everydayness, virtual reality, media/new media
The Paichusuo (the Chinese
police station): how governments construct private lives.
Chief Investigator: Assoc.
Prof. Michael Dutton
Employing the architecture of a Chinese police station to frame a series
of questions about the policing of identity, this study could best be
described as ethnography in a dual register. First, it is the only ethnographic
study of a Chinese police station ever undertaken. Second, it employs
the insights gained from this close scrutiny of grass roots level policing
to raise a broader range of more philosophically orientated questions
about governmentality and the social construction of subjectivity and
identity.
Australian Research Council Discovery-Project Grant
top of page
The politics of difference:
Indigenous politics, gender politics,
postcolonialism and race
Native Title and Land
Justice: The Yorta Yorta Experience.
Chief Investigator:
Dr Wayne Atkinson
With the ruling against the Yorta Yorta Native Title claim by the High
Court in December 2002, the decision provides an ideal opportunity to
research and review the Yorta Yorta struggle for land justice in 21st
Century Australia. The material produced will make a significant contribution
to research in Indigenous studies and land claim processes in Australia.
It will also enrich our understanding of Indigenous history, race relations
and the nature of Indigenous based rights in Australia.
Melbourne Research Grant
Encyclopedia of women and
Islamic studies.
Chief Investigator:
Dr Jacqueline Siapno
Ford Foundation Grant
top of page
|
![The University of Melbourne [logo]](/template-assets-custom/images/custom_logo_crest_comb.gif){kind=logo}
