NEW IN JULY
	The Canberra Bureaucracy’s Reform by Stealth Paul ’t Hart The winds of change are once again blowing through Canberra. Every two decades or so, the federal bureaucracy is encouraged to take a good hard look at itself with a view to reforming how it is organised and operates. In the community of public sector stakeholders such big-ticket reform exercises are the stuff of excitement, even legend … Going by the Book: Academic Guides for Public Servants Kathy MacDermott Over the course of the Howard Government, the Australian Public Service was accused with increasing frequency of failing to strike a balance between telling the government what it wants to know and telling the government what it needs to know. Is there a toolkit that can help public servants do their job better? And how, if at all, can academics help?

Faith Answering Faith Marion Maddox (Jun 2010)
The Texas Board of Education recently approved new curricula for the history, social sciences and economics in public schools, with standards that present the McCarthyist witch hunts as justified, downplay the civil rights movement and add study of the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association, among others. If the departure of President George W. Bush was expected to end the influence of the religious right in the American public sphere, these changes give pause for thought …

Bringing Up Baby in the 21st Century Helen Proctor (Jun 2010)
At the beginning of the 20th century, a parent might have considered themselves to have done a good job if their children were clean, housed, fed and healthy. At the beginning of the 21st, this had expanded to include the provision of advanced education in the ‘right’ school, prolonged financial support, detailed psychological encouragement and personal fulfilment. With the bar set so high, is it any wonder that parenting advice has become such a wildly successful publishing phenomenon?

The Meaning of Malcolm: Rejecting the Easy Life Tony Smith (May 2010)
Australia has had 26 prime ministers and Australians have a natural tendency to find fault with the powerful. We have applied to prime ministers terms such as drunkard, playboy, traitor, narcissist, cynical opportunist and intellectual pygmy. Amongst such an unflattering range of traits, the idealism of Malcolm Fraser has much to recommend it.

Protecting Human Rights in Australia: A Long and Winding Road Hilary Charlesworth (Apr 2010)
Much research and writing on human rights in Australia has come from lawyers so a new book that seeks to examine the politics of this key field of theory, policy and practice is welcome. Yet human rights is an area where it is particularly difficult to disentangle law from politics, so what does a political, as opposed to a legal, analysis of human rights protection in Australia look like?

Canberra Journalist, Costello Spin Doctor, Howard Whinger Rodney Tiffen (Apr 2010)
First we had the ‘Howard battlers’: working and middle class Australians repelled by Keating’s exotic pursuits and attracted to Howard’s sound economic management. Then we had the ‘Howard haters’, the term his supporters attached to those who criticised his government’s actions, especially on asylum seekers or the Iraq war. Now we have the ‘Howard whingers’...

A Titular Misnomer and a Degree of Analytic Error Stewart Clegg (Mar 2010)
Socrates was, if Plato is to be believed, as much of an anti-careerist as one might find: the agora rather than the boardroom was his habitual place, or what one might call ‘the street’. Moreover, in recent times, few university leaders have been prepared to take the hemlock rather than compromise themselves when a difficult and ethically challenging decision presented itself. So is there a case for Socrates in the Boardroom of our universities?

Reforming the Global Order Dennis Phillips (Mar 2010)
It is easy to sympathise with those who despair at the current state of global politics. Today the world system seems to be broken, unable to function effectively in many crisis situations. Nevertheless, there are some distinguished optimists out there, with concrete plans for change for the better. What are their plans and will they work?

The Road to Elsewhere: Work, Family and Technology Elizabeth Hill (Mar 2010)
The lives of knowledge economy professionals look pretty much the same, whether they live and work in New York, Sydney, London, New Delhi or Beijing. It’s a whirlpool of constantly intersecting activities in which they multi-task their way through every minute of the day, feeling ever pressed for time and on the move. Buffeted by streams of information coming via their BlackBerries and laptops, this elite live with only one eye on the here and now …

Gaia Theory – Reflections on Life on Earth William Grey (Feb 2010)
Greek mythology gives us the goddess Gaia, who brought order out of chaos, and the tempestuous and destructive Medea. These figures provide powerful—and opposing—metaphors for understanding the history of life on earth. As ever, how we understand history shapes how we move forward, and as global temperatures continue to rise, some tough decisions are needed.

The Case for Liberal Women Marian Sawer (Feb 2010)
The Liberal Party of Australia has eschewed quotas as ‘patronising’ to women. The effects of this approach seem evident enough in the proportion of Liberal women in Australian parliaments: currently an average of 20 per cent, compared with 37 per cent on the Labor side. If the Liberal Party did more to assist the entry of more talented women, it might assist in the rebuilding of the party and its electoral appeal.

Politics is a Messyanic Business Patrick Brownlee (Feb 2010)
Australia’s last two prime ministers Paul Keating and John Howard, were tribal warriors, perhaps the last of their kind. Both are 1950s suburban Sydney boys of white Christian background, both were administered a healthy dose of work ethic by their small business parents, both had entered parliament by the mid-1970s. They do seem to have a lot in common …

Test Cricket: Analogy for Australian Values, or Tool of Hegemony? Tony Smith (Dec 2009)
Along with the other summer sports of swimming and tennis, cricket dominates myth production and hero generation in Australia. And most cricket books reinforce the notion that beneath the commercial imperatives, the game remains in the ‘fair go’ tradition that has coincided with Australian values. Can we read between the lines to find a richer—and more realistic—account of corporate cricket in the postmodern age?

Gay Marriage: Social Revolution, Evolution or Largely Insignificant? Jane Edwards (Dec 2009)
However much conservatives insist that marriage is divinely ordained, it is an institution profoundly moulded by secular events. The changing position of women, the nature of the labour market, educational and welfare policy, the state of the economy and other structural factors will continue to shape marriage into the future. It is the worst fear of conservatives and a fond hope of non-heterosexuals that gay marriage might also help re-shape heterosexual marriage. Both groups are likely to be disappointed …

	SYMPOSIUM: Protecting Human Rights in Australia: Challenges and Strategies (Nov 2009)
	The Australian Human Rights Debate: Where to From Here? Louise Chappell If Australia is to adopt a bill of rights, three elements need to be in place: an agreed model, public support and political support. The National Human Rights Consultation Committee recently submitted its report to the Attorney-General. The report clearly demonstrates that one element can be counted on: public support. The other two still seem to be some way off … Freedom of Speech and a Bill of Rights Katharine Gelber Freedom of speech is at the apex of the core freedoms considered to warrant protection in any mechanism designed to protect human rights. Yet developments in anti-terrorism laws have demonstrated the fragility of the protection of freedom of speech in Australia. Changes to sedition and censorship laws have turned sceptics into supporters of a bill of rights for this country. Prisoner Voting Rights Lisa Hill Australia is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which stipulates that ‘every adult citizen shall have the right to vote without distinction and regardless of their circumstances’. Yet Australia flouts this commitment by legally preventing prisoners from voting. Curiously, the same high standards for political participation do not apply to legislators themselves … Human Rights in Australia: Refugees and Asylum Seekers Graham Thom Fleeing persecution is a fundamental human right. Despite the 1951 Refugee Convention explicitly stating that those arriving undocumented, or ‘illegally’, should not be penalised for doing so, members of this group are increasingly being stripped of some of their basic human rights. Their treatment by successive Australian governments provides a compelling case for a human rights act.

Is Australia Losing Its Religion? Michael Hogan (Nov 2009)
The mainstream secularist argument has it that the more modern, economically developed and technological a society becomes, the more religion will fade away. Can the argument be turned on its head? As we advance into the 21st century, are formerly materialistic societies like Australia facing a religious revival of hand-clapping religious enthusiasm from populist movements like Sydney’s Hillsong?

Is Australia the New Economic and Social Model for the World? Peter Auer (Nov 2009)
During the global financial crisis, the Australian economy and labour market have fared well—very well; better even than Denmark; that darling of the new ‘flexicurity’ model of growth-with-fairness in the European Union. Has Australia defined the new way forward? Is it time to cast the Scandinavian model into the dustbin of history?

Must Try Harder: A Report Card on Australian Democracy William Bowe (Oct 2009)
The qualities or otherwise of democracy have been the subject of controversy since ancient Greece. In Australia, the meaning of the term has been one more battleground in the culture wars, over which the Howard Government continues to cast a long shadow. A new book from the Democratic Audit of Australia provides a systematic evaluation of Australian state and society in a single volume. What does it find?

‘No One Likes Armed Missionaries’ Dennis Phillips (Oct 2009)
Who could have predicted that eight years of George W. Bush’s hapless foreign policy would produce a crisis of confidence among liberal theorists? Put another way, did George W. Bush and his neoconservative brains trust so discredit Wilsonian liberal internationalism that there is nothing useful left in the grand old idealism for which America’s 28th president, Woodrow Wilson, is justly famous?

ARPA is published within the Faculty of Economics and Business at The University of Sydney.
Access is free for individual and non-profit educational use.