Journal articles on the topic 'Representative government and representation – European Union countries'

The article starts by emphasising the differences between the Central and East European countries in terms of their labour relations traditions, providing a brief characterisation for four CEECs, with Slovenia identified as the country in which the participatory tradition is strongest. Subsequent sections identify similarities and differences in terms of collective labour law and labour relations at enterprise and supra-enterprise level. At enterprise level the article provides examples of co-operative relations between trade unions and works councils (Slovenia), a dual system of interest representation imposed by government without trade union support (Hungary), political duplication of representation structures (Poland), and the tendency to retain former representation structures (Czech Republic). Similar differences emerge with respect to tripartism, which remains underdeveloped in all countries, again with the exception of Slovenia. The relative weakness of the social partners, and in particular their fragmentation, are shown to be a problem for the candidate countries on their path towards EU accession. Here the European social partners, in particular the ETUC and UNICE, and also European works councils in firms with subsidiaries in eastern Europe should do more to promote social dialogue in the CEECs.

Gender mainstreaming is an integral part of the process of building a democratic society, including in thepolitical sphere. In order to draw conclusions about gender equality in the political sphere, it is necessaryto constantly investigate the current situation. An indicator of gender equality in the political sphere is therepresentation of women and men in the governmental institutions. Therefore, there is a need to analyse thegender structure of central and local authorities in the European Union.The aim of the paper is to analyse the representation of women and men in elected authorities andgovernments of the European Union and Ukraine. The author explored the participation of men and womenin the European Parliament, national parliaments of European countries, national governmental authorities,regional and local parliaments of the EU and Ukraine.The gender structures of different authorities were compared. The countries with gender equality in thepolitical sphere and the countries with the largest imbalances were identified.The author analysed the factors that contributed to the establishment of equality in countries with indicatorsas close as possible to gender balance (Scandinavian countries). Among such factors the most interesting are:emancipation of women; high level of social development; institutional factors and legislation as incentives.A comparison of the gender structures of the central executive and legislative bodies and local councils ofUkraine and Poland was made.

Good governance promotes the fundamental grounds of participation and democracy in contemporary public administration, whilst institution building and the (in)effectiveness of public administration is linked to economic growth. This synergy brings forth sheer implications on the sustainable economic development. On this composite setting, the paper examines several fundamental credentials of public administration in the European Union (EU) countries, in relation to economic development, but also poverty, research, and development support, as representative socio-economic credentials. The empirical analysis is based on data covering the 1995–2017 lapse of time, processed through three econometric procedures, namely robust regression, structural equation modeling, and Gaussian graphical models. The main results emphasize that there are significant joint implications of public administration on the considered socio-economic dimensions. General government spending and, particularly, the environmental support, have positive implications on the European Union economies, leading to significant increases in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita and downsize in poverty risk (more emphasized in regard to the government expenditures than the environmental protection). Overall, the quality of governance in EU countries requires an additional effort dedicated to leverage good public governance in order to support the long-term economic development.

Purpose: This study was conducted to analyze the impact of public debt stock in 12 European countries on the size of primary[1] anti-coronavirus fiscal responses, and to explore the general characteristics of these packages in sample countries. Methodology: The sample included only countries from the European Union due to homogeneity in economic standards and legal framework beside the availability of data. However, graphical representation along with regression anlaysis were performed, our key findings indicate a significant negative impact of public debt on the size of primary anti-coronavirus fiscal response and expect a second wave of government borrowing in the near term. Findings: However, this study sheded the light on public debt confirming the importance of maintaining reasonable levels, as a policy recommendation; governments in the European Union are advised to conduct more efforts to reduce public debt stocks and to adopt new effective public financial management rules to overcome the high debt dilemma, since countries with low debt stocks have initiated the largest packages among the sample. Unique contribution to theory, practice and policy: The study recommends that employing data from different geographical areas and occasions to gather more evidence on this topic. Moreover, stimulus packages may be in effect for further periods. Therefore, a series of observations might be accumulated and utilized in panel data analysis to form a cogent evidence on this topic by future research efforts. [1] Primary fiscal responses are the first fiscal packages announced between the period between March-May 2020.

Indonesia is the largest producer of palm oil in the world. With Malaysia, palm oil production could account for about eighty percent of global production. Meanwhile, Europe is the country with the third largest CPO export destination for Indonesia after India and China. However, the EU proposed a European Union resolution initiative on palm oil and deforestation of rainforest, which finally passed with the major votes from EU members of Parliament in April 2017. The key point on EU resolution reveals that EU will ban palm oil use for biofuels production by 2020. The purpose of this research is to analyze the Indonesian government’s diplomatic efforts to respond and negotiate with EU regarding the issue. It is also considered important to prevent the global downturn on palm oil products. To analyze the diplomacy effort, the researcher will use qualitative methods presented through data collection from sources such as books, journals, press releases and official reports from institutions in this case the European Union. To support the research, the researcher also uses primary data through the interview with one of the representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia for diplomatic actions conducted by Indonesian government. This research finds that the government of Indonesian finally combined several soft diplomatic strategies to face EU both directly and indirectly.Keywords: Strategies, Government of Indonesia, Trade, Palm Oil, EU Resolution, Deforestation

This paper offers a biased review of digital platforms introduced recently and operated by national posts in several European Union countries. Authors chose the most interesting cases, including those deemed as most successful, those that failed, and the most modern ones. The paper compares diverse European experience with modern solutions introduced by the Japan Post. Methods used for delivering the study included direct interviews with Japan Post officials and systematic review of official documents and announcements by national post operators in European countries covered bin the paper. European Union Member States, and their national postal operators seem to be well ahead of Japan in the way modern technology is utilized in the process of providing traditional (and new) postal services. Paper makes an attempt to show how representative national postal operators benefit from advanced Information and Telecommunication technology and by replacing the manner in which postal services are rendered. There are numerous successful cases of digital platform implementation, like those from Denmark, France, Czech Republic, and Poland, among others. One will find interesting insight into reasons for failed case from Italy among conclusions, at the end of the paper. Environmental issues are also addressed, along with e-government issues. It happens that European Union postal operators optimize their operations with modern technology in the form of digital platforms in a much wider scope than the Japan Post. Japanese organizations deal with extremely challenging geographic conditions. This, in turn, should motivate much more advanced optimization by the means of solutions enabled by digital platforms.

Purpose: To analyze the international and national legal and normative devices regarding the management of pharmaceutical products and their post-consumption waste. To guide this review, the following question was posed: what is the national and international evidence on the management of pharmaceutical products and their post-consumption waste? Method/design/approach: Descriptive review consisting of an investigation of technical and normative documents. To this end, representative countries of the European Union, North America, and South America were included in this review. Results and conclusion: They were found to be: (1) the European Union model, which is characterized in a general framework for all Member States; (2) the North American model, where most countries are not subject to a common regulatory framework; (3) the South American model, where most countries have legal provisions implemented at the national level. Thus, it is inferred that the countries analyzed have regulations, even if in different spheres of government. Research implications: The contributions point to the knowledge of the legislations, provoking questioning about the way they are being executed and the concretization of these changes. Originality/value: The development of this research allows us to know the history of the legislations and have a broader and more critical view of the theme, so that measures can be taken to mitigate and remediate the impacts.

The article makes focus on the rise of Western Europe’s far-right parties which act with anti-immigrant agenda amid 2010s European migrant crisis. Massive influxes of refugees and migrants have accumulated huge political significance and triggered off a wide range of conflicts (both on international and national levels). The migrant crisis has indicated many social-political challenges for European countries. The crisis has been synchronous with a rise of popularity of right populist political movements (old ones as well as new ones), which promote restrictions of immigration etc. At the same time it cannot be ignored that West European right-wing populist political movements achieved some success in previous decades, well ahead of the current migrant crisis. Immigration issue has been a centerpiece of political discourses of West European right-wing parties (National Front in France, for instance) since late 1970s – early 1980s. But it is quite obvious that the 2010s migrant crisis became a trigger for revitalization of the far-right movements which are outspoken critics of the European Union as “a supra- national body” dictating its conditions to the member countries. Besides, the crisis gave a boost to a rise of new populist movements (for example, “Alternative for Germany”). In 2017 the populist right-wing parties in Europe won the largest support over the three past decades. Recently the right populist forces appeared in elections in a number of European countries (Germany, Austria, France etc.) as tough competitor of traditional mainstream political parties and won parliamentary representation and/or representation in the government coalitions. Furthermore, these movements demonstrate attempts to change their image to shift to political mainstream. However, in the foreseeable future, any cardinal breakthrough and far-right anti- immigrant parties’ coming to the power in Western Europe’s coutrnies is hardly possible.

The main aim of paper is seen at two levels: the first level to assess the situation on the venture capital market in the Czech Republic based on the results of a comparative study of selected countries of European Union is the area of venture capital financing. The second level is, then, to propose measures, whose implications could increase the effectiveness of venture capital to the business sector in the Czech Republic. The main purpose of the paper is to identify internally homogeneous groups of the EU states regarding the situation on the venture capital market in the European Union Member States. The aim of this article is supported by relevant statistical data for the period 2008-2013 to assess the legislative framework of venture capital market in the Czech Republic and other selected European countries. Based on the results of cluster analysis, EU countries were identified, Hungary and the Netherlands, in which legislative conditions with venture capital market were subsequently analyzed and the results were compared with the situation in the Czech Republic. The Netherlands as a representative of the countries with developed market risk capital, Hungary as a representative of CEE countries. The problem of undeveloped VC market in the Czech Republic is not in demand for venture capital, but in its supply. Pension funds and insurance companies cannot invest more than 5% in risky assets. In the Czech Republic, there are no tax incentives to attract investors and even government programs that could complement the missing investors and support the creation of venture capital funds. This low level of venture capital usage for the development of enterprises could also be seen in misunderstanding and ignorance of this form of financing, the inability of management to prepare a business plan and to attract a potential investor, fears of administrative burdens arising from an investor and finally questionable return on investment when, for example, public offering of shares, which achieves a high appreciation, is in the Czech Republic underused. Keywords: venture capital, benchmarking, cluster analysis, Ward’s method, CEE countries, EU countries, Czech Republic, Hungary, Netherlands. JEL Classification: G32, M21

The article examines the phenomenon of a government forum with international participation. Using the example of the Asian Economic Forum in Boao, the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok and the Jeju Forum for Peace and Prosperity, we analyzed the foreign policy meaning of such forums, identified their general and specific features, and defined this phenomenon. The East Asian case seems especially representative in the study of government forums, since the lack of trust and numerous historical, ideological, military, economic and other tensions make it difficult to create a regional intergovernmental organization similar to the European Union. The methodology of our research is «generalist realism», which considers the growth of supranational organizations in the 21st century quite logical. It is due to the desire of countries to facilitate cooperation, although it is carried out in the interests of any great power. It is concluded that the growing interest of national governments in this format of diplomacy is due to three factors. First, the host country expects to have a decisive influence on the formation of the agenda, the course of discussions, the preparation of possible political agreements, that is to create a new international institution under its control. Secondly, the host country seeks to expand economic cooperation and attract foreign investment, because most of these forums are called economic. It is extremely difficult to trace the correlation between investments and forums, but it seems incorrect to completely deny it, because forums with the participation of senior political figures and major businessmen increase the recognition of the host location. Thirdly, the host country is trying to improve its international image through forums, which directly depends on the political and economic status of the participants and the significance of the problems on the forum's agenda.

The article analyses the main stages of political reform in Ukraine from the point of view of comparative Western political science and taking into account the experience of the political history of developed Western countries of The modern era. It shows the fundamental difference between the real mechanisms and institutions of Ukrainian power from the real democratic standard of Western democracy and effective separation of powers. The article reveals the systemic shortcomings of any parliamentarism in a situation of acute crisis and the mechanisms of falsification of presidential and parliamentary political foundations in the post-Soviet space. Myths about the possibility of democratization of the Ukrainian government and the promotion of Ukraine’s approach to membership in the European Union by introducing the procedure for electing a President in a representative status, which will be carried out by the legislative body, are refuted. The author of the article argues that it is now advisable to take advantage of the General positive trend in Ukrainian politics – the transition from the previous presidential-parliamentary model to a parliamentary-presidential Republic. And complete the process of democratization of the Ukrainian government by introducing a purely parliamentary Republic in Ukraine. However, it is important to note that even the founders of European parliamentary republics are aware that numerous collegial bodies cannot be effective in emergency situations. It has been well known since ancient times that a consistently collegial structure and decision-making mechanism does not eliminate the danger of shadow tyranny. It is noted that the development of a full-fledged model of presidentialism will actually contribute to improving the efficiency of the Ukrainian government. But the right to develop and implement such a model should only be granted to political forces that actually demonstrate their ability to protect national Ukrainian interests. Keywords: Ukrainian political reform, parliamentary-presidential Republic, constitutions of post-Soviet countries, European political history.

Due to the economic crisis in 2008, processes of restructuring and dissolution of the social welfare state have been accelerated in the European Union, especially in the context of severe austerity measures imposed in countries with sovereign debt problems such as Greece. These neoliberal policies have increasingly sought their ‘legitimizing basis’ in discourses concerning a corrupt, ineffective and oversized public realm, while simultaneously promoting the notion of ‘welfare dependency’, insinuating an absence of moral values and proper ‘work ethic’ for the poor and disadvantaged, who are the most affected by the social state's withdrawal. Additionally, such narratives seem to have benefitted from the creation of ‘moral panic’ and the associated cultural representations of underprivileged social groups through mainstream mass media. The current article focuses on the nuances of this phenomenon in Greece, arguing that the catalyst has been the popularity of the extremist, nationalistic and anti-immigrant party of ‘Golden Dawn’. It contends that the representation of Golden Dawn's rhetoric and activism by the media, triggered processes of disidentification with poverty and the underprivileged in the mind of the average Greek; processes rooted in highly emotive sentiments of patriotism, religion and national identity, while linking such groups with the supposed deviant behaviour and ‘inferior’ traits of immigrants. Furthermore, it argues that this discourse enabled the government to ‘assault’ the ideological stance and arguments of the advocates of robust public social interventions from an advantageous position, enhancing the acceptance of its neoliberal agenda regarding public social policy in the Greek populace.

The study discusses the general principles of building the education system in some foreign countries that are part of the European Union and are allied to Ukraine, were from the Soviet camp and faced similar problems for Ukraine to reform their own state institutions and national legislation (Poland and Estonia), as well as the relevant legal framework. It is noted that Poland began to reform the education system in the 1990s, where the general trend in the management and control of educational institutions is decentralization and increasing the autonomy of the latter. It is emphasized that during 1990-1999, not only at the level of legislation, but de facto local governments began to play a major role in the change and control of secondary education. It is indicated that the main laws regulating the functioning of secondary education are the Laws "On the Education System" of 1991 and the Law "On Education" of 2016. The provisions of the Law "On Education" of 2016 are highlighted, the main links of the Polish secondary education system are revealed. In accordance with the provisions of this Law, the powers of the Minister in the implementation of state policy in the field of secondary education, coordination and control in which aspects are indicated. The role and powers of the curator of education as a special official in exercising control over institutions providing secondary education services in the voivodship are disclosed on the basis of the said Law, it is noted that control over the activities of such institutions. The content of the concept of pedagogical supervision and the role and place in it of the Minister of Education and Science as a representative of the central government, curators of education and school management are revealed. The norms of the Law "On Higher Education and Science" of 2018, which contains norms on the control of higher education institutions in Poland, are covered. The basic administrative and legal bases for the control of education in Estonia in accordance with Estonian national law are also defined.

AbstractObjective:To describe and analyse the changes in diet, physical activity and body composition of the Cuban population during the 1990s and the health implications of these changes.Design and setting: Data on national food balance and physical activity are from government agencies and the Ministry of Public Health; nation-wide and local representative surveys were used to analyse body composition and leisure activities. Data on morbidity and mortality arefrom the Ministry of Public Health.Results:The collapse of the European socialist countries and the Soviet Union, as well as the reinforced United States' blockade, provoked a sudden shortage of fuel, raw materials, imported foods and essential supplies. Per capita energy availability decreased, physical activity increased, and the prevalence of obesity decreased. Nutrition deficiencies were observed in the early 1990s, while the trend of morbidity from non-communicable disease continued to increase. The nutrition transition characteristics following the economic recovery in 1995–1996 resembled those of the 1980s because of the increased food availability, decreased physical activity and increased obesity prevalence.Conclusions:Programmes to deal with the complex situation generated a response in a remarkably short time. Undesirable changes in diet composition and the reduction of physical activity constitute a challenge in the current post-critical stage that must be prevented.

Geopolitical changes in international relations after the First World War, new accents in the foreign policy of the leading European countries, increasing the relevance of the "Ukrainian issue" were the main factors that stimulated the interest of Galicia's public figures in international policy. The Western Ukrainian Society of the League of Nations (ZUTLN), pursuing the idea of reviving Ukrainian statehood, tried to influence the solution of the "Ukrainian issue" in the format of the Union of Societies of the League of Nations (STLN). The author considers the program principles of activity, the status of ZUTLN in STLN, the impact of international factors on the evolution of its activities, shows the relationship of ZUTLN with the ZUNR (Western Ukrainian People's Republic) government-in-exile, Ukrainian parties, organizations, institutions. The attitude of ZUTLN to the policy of the Polish authorities on the "Ukrainian issue" is also illustrated. The formation of the society is associated with the Ukrainian political emigration, and its ideological platform was based on the idea of non-acceptance of the Versailles system of treaties (on the dividing of Ukrainian lands between the USSR, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia), the Treaty of Riga 1921 between Poland, the Russian SFSR, and the USSR, as well as the decision of the Council of Ambassadors of the Entente States of March 15, 1923. To implement the statutory tasks, ZUTLN kept close contacts and cooperated with the ZUNR government-in-exile, political parties of Western Ukraine, as well as with the UPR (Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation) and other public and political organizations. Keywords: ZUTLN, STLN, Poland, the Western Ukrainian People's Republic, statut, Galicia, League of Nations.

History is a social science, which is concurrently humanistic since it offers not only knowledge about the past, but through the study of historical processes and phenomena influences the creation of a representation of today's concepts and social processes. History is the foundation on which the personality of each individual is built and formed, particularly in education where history models the mankind about their knowledge of themselves and others. Unfortunately, in more or less all Balkan historiographies there is a certain extent of history mythologizing, reinterpretation of facts depending on the needs of usually the government or certain structures and centers of power, and the imposition of truth that should not be discussed, or what is written in textbooks. That is why the mentioned structures create purposeful crises, and then they manage them and, if necessary, resolve them. Socio-political relations are changing and most frequently, apart from a small circle of people who have an interest, ordinary people and society as a whole suffer from long-term harmful consequences that can often get out of control. That is why history has become a powerful weapon that is very often used to manipulate and achieve various, mostly political goals. That is why it is difficult to be a historian in the Balkans! It is quite normal and logical for historians to argue and disagree about certain historical processes and phenomena, but the problem is that because of the above mentioned, historians become an instrument for achieving a certain goal and ideology. One such example is North Macedonia, which suffers consequences in its development, position in the world and realization of its strategic goals precisely because of the (mis)use of history and historical revisionism. This is particularly pronounced by the blocking of North Macedonia to start the negotiations for EU membership by Bulgaria due to the history and processes in the past that are not in line with the so-called Bulgarian historical narrative. Using an argument of force, not facts, using its better international position, Bulgaria creates and imposes a narrative on the Bulgarian identity of the Macedonian people, and the Macedonian language for the Bulgarian dialect, with the relativization of the then Bulgarian participation in the fascist coalition, and the negation of the occupying regime. This is utterly inappropriate for one state to intervene in this way on the history and historical facts of another state. Bilateral disputes are not new to Europe, but the way and pressure that Bulgaria is exerting on North Macedonia is morally and legally unjustified, in which a large part of historians are co-sponsors, becoming an instrument of certain structures. In addition to the analysis of controversial attitudes and positions as a result of historical revisionism of Bulgarian institutions and „historians“, the paper shows that the development of relations between the two countries is directly correlated with changes in government and governing structures, i.e, their ideologies and needs. The resolution of disputes related to the past is possible only with the application of modern approaches and depoliticization of history and its role in modern society.

The emergence of Ukraine as an independent sovereign state is connected with important historical events that have significantly influenced its present. The purpose is to study the dynamics of the gradual historical development of the legal institutions of Ukraine, focusing on important historical events that significantly influenced the emergence and development of our country's statehood and its strengthening in the future. Historically, the development of local self-government in the territory of Ukraine-Russia is closely linked to the situation on these lands, which occurred after the Tatar-Mongol invasion of 1240 and the actual destruction of Kievan Rus. The distribution of Magdeburg law in Ukrainian cities is considered, which is related to the influence of the processes inherent in European states of that time. The importance of Philip Orlik's Constitution for the democratic development of both Ukraine and European countries is considered. This document is a source of law not only in Ukrainian but also in European history and is important both in terms of Ukraine's internal development and its impact on the processes of becoming democratic European countries. In legal terms, the importance is to solve one of the most important issues - to justify the role of representative power as a prototype of the future Ukrainian parliament. It is emphasized that the most significant events concerning the establishment of Ukraine as a sovereign independent state occur in its recent history: after the First World War 1914 - 1918, when Ukraine became an independent state; as a result of the collapse of the USSR in the late twentieth century and the final creation of independent states on the ruins of the Soviet Union, which marked the beginning of a new era of Ukrainian statehood. The formation in April 1917 of the Central Rada as the highest territorial authority in Ukraine was the source of a number of legal documents on the way to the independence of Ukraine, four Universals were adopted, which gradually brought Ukraine closer to an independent state. Universals of the Ukrainian Central Rada are political and legal documents of programmatic character of 1917-1918, defining changes in the state and legal status of Ukrainian lands of the former Russian Empire. The most important milestone on the path to the formation of an independent Ukrainian state was the adoption by the Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian SSR on the eve of the final collapse of the Soviet Union a well-known document of historical significance - the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine and the adoption of the Act of Declaration of Ukraine on August 24, 1991. It is concluded that on the long road of gradual historical and legal development in Ukraine law has been formed as a sign of its statehood and which is of great national value. Keywords: formation of the state and legal institutions, Magdeburg law, Constitution of Phillip Orlik, creation of independent state.

In the geopolitical area of Eastern and Central Europe 20th century was a period of unwilling and un- planned migration of huge numbers of individuals, groups of people, societies or even whole nations, and the displace- ment of borders and states. Two destructive wars, two totalitarian systems fighting against each other forced millions of human beings to change the place of living. Especially the experience of the World War II settled the fate of many people in the region and caused several waves of political emigration. The author uses the term ‘old literature’ in broad sense, including also 19th century literary output, as for the big number of young researchers this period of history seems to be a very old one. Among the Polish refugees fleeing the country in various times and circumstances there were also politicians, soldiers, artist, writers, people of culture and scholars. The article presents and reminds of some Polish researchers of literature who had to change their country of living by political reasons, but did not abandon their research. The first group of emigrants formed those who left Poland short before or during the world war II. Some of them worked as professors at west European universities, an decided not to returned into the country occupied by Germans or emigrated with Polish Government, others get in Western Europe leaving Soviet Union with the Polish army formed by general Anders. They continued scholar work abroad and took part in formation of several new generations of researchers in Slavonic litera- ture. Another wave of emigration took place after the war, in late 40. and included mainly Polish citizens of Jewish origin who in spite of surviving the holocaust and returning home decided to leave Poland for fear of communism. A numerous emigration of Polish Jews was also provoked by communist government of Poland in march 1968. The author presents briefly the silhouettes of such scholars as Stanisław Kot, Wacław Lednicki, Józef Trypućko, Wiktor Weintraub, Jadwiga Maurer, Rachmiel Brandwajn and Jan Kott. The situation of 20th century Polish emigrants seems very similar to that of 19th and also represents the common experience of many Eastern and Central European countries and societies. Losing the homeland scholars of these countries also lost the close contact with their cultural roots, but on the other hand they gained a wider glance, distanced outlook of national literature and art and common platform of dialog and confrontation. Many times the foreign Universities, where they found the possibility to provide their research and meet the representative émigrés of other nations, became for them such places as Collège de France for Adam Mickiewicz and constitute the space where they all could meet together without mutual distrust and give lectures about Slavonic literature and culture for German, British of American students, inspiring them to pursue studies in Slavonic philology.

Non-union representative employee participation recently has attracted increasing international attention in employment relations due to the growing representation gap in many countries as union membership declines, and mounting evidence of the benefits of representative employee participation for enterprise flexibility and efficiency. However, relatively little is known about Australian experiments in employee participation, although it is essential to learn from Australian experience in order to develop effective public policy. This case study represents a contribution to this larger project. SMEC is a non-union employee representative body that has adopted a European works council organizational model. The case study evaluates SMEC's effectiveness as a non-union form of representative employee participation. It concludes that the opportunities for the formation of genuinely independent works council style organs of employee participation remain severely constrained by the current Australian regulatory environment, which tends to encourage a union substitution role.

Cities have long been the destination of those on the move. Migrationand especially immigration always raise issues of inclusion andexclusion, of rights and obligations, and of the meaning of membershipand citizenship. The particular form and content of thesedebates vary, just as host countries, national and local governments,and immigrant populations vary. Over the past few decades, patternsof immigration have begun to shift away from classical immigrationcountries (the United States, Canada, Australia) toward the democraciesof the European Union. “In this troubled world, WesternEurope has in fact, become a fragile island of prosperity, peace,democracy, culture, science, welfare and civil rights,” according tourban sociologist, Manuel Castells. “However, the selfish reflex oftrying to preserve this heaven by erecting walls against the rest ofthe world may undermine the very fundamentals of European cultureand democratic civilization, since the exclusion of the other isnot separable from the suppression of civil liberties and a mobilizationagainst alien cultures.”

The Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015, paved the way for a new hybrid global climate governance architecture with both bottom-up and top-down elements. While governments can choose individual climate goals and actions, a global stocktake and a ratcheting-up mechanism have been put in place with the overall aim to ensure that collective efforts will prevent increasing adverse impacts of climate change. Integrated assessment models show that current combined climate commitments and policies of national governments fall short of keeping global warming to 1.5 °C or 2 °C above preindustrial levels. Although major greenhouse gas emitters, such as China, the European Union, India, the United States under the Biden administration, and several other countries, have made new pledges to take more ambitious climate action, it is highly uncertain where global climate policy is heading. Scenarios in line with long-term temperature targets typically assume a simplistic and hardly realistic level of harmonization of climate policies across countries. Against this backdrop, this article develops four archetypes for the further evolution of the global climate governance architecture and matches them with existing sets of scenarios developed by integrated assessment models. By these means, the article identifies knowledge gaps in the current scenario literature and discusses possible research avenues to explore the pre-conditions for successful coordination of national policies towards achieving the long-term target stipulated in the Paris Agreement.

The representative democracy has become weak and fragmented, and under control of international market policy approaches of national state governments and multilateral agreement organizations like the European Union. In this paper, I argue that any study and explanation of economic crises and their contemporary supranational governance structures solutions conducted in the democratic capitalism countries as USA during the last fifty years, must be anchored in a multidisciplinary context. Crises of the art are rooted in social structures and classes, and in the behavior of the capitalistic system, based on inequality and new classical economic theory and right-wing political ideology.

AbstractThe intensification of integration led to the establishment of supranational structures, which influenced the volume of regulations and interaction between states, interest groups and the will of the people. The European Union is beginning to regulate several areas of public life and is gradually shifting the balance of regulations in relation to internal policies. As a result, the national governments are trapped between the interests of different economic and social groups and domestic politics, which is gradually becoming an element that is no longer representative for nationals. This article proposes a historical analysis of the matter with emphasis on how, the new approach has changed the paradigm of formulating European public policies from a classic method of regulation, in which the Commission collaborated with stakeholders and expert communities in developing regulation, to a subsequent one that embraced the method of policy coordination. The paper also aims to demonstrate the usefulness of transparent legislation in the field of relations between interests and decision-makers, especially in Eastern European states. The analysis was elaborated by researching primary and secondary sources plus the presentation of a representative case study. Lobby regulation is a recent concept in most Member States. Currently, only seven Member States have legislation on lobbying, as well as a mandatory register of interest group representatives. In some countries, there are codes of professional ethics drawn up by public relations and consultancy agencies, but they are not included in any set of laws. Future regulation will have the capability to create the premise of drafting rules between interest groups and state structures? Which are the essential principles that must be respected in the interaction between lobbyists and decision makers? Is the transparency of their efforts essential to legitimate the service of democracy?

The system of multi-level governance is being established in the countries — members of the European Union, within the framework of which there is considerable redistribution of authority between the main levels of power. These levels — supranational, national and subnational — are becoming increasingly interdependent, and there is the lack of unambiguous domination of a single particular level of power or an institute.The decision-making mechanism within the multi-level governance system is sufficiently fragmented. It is consensus — based and involves participation of not only formal state institutions but also of different non-governmental structures connected with the civil society. Finally, we have a new system of mutual relations between the state and the society with borders becoming more transparent.There are two major dimensions of the multi-level governance being described in the scientific literature — the "vertical", based on the interaction of three power levels mentioned above, and the "horizontal", involving the dynamic interaction of state and non-governmental structures, with the activities of the latter being often of a network origin. Mutual relations of the power levels in the European Union are complex and dialectical. The subnational level begins to play an increasingly important role, and this role is no longer necessarily mediated by governments of the corresponding countries, i.e. by the national level. Subnational authorities are active on the European arena through their representative offices and channels of communication available to them. Meanwhile many European states failed so far to create more or less strong regions able to perform significant powers and to serve as real limiters to the powers of their national governments.With consideration of asymmetry typical for the territorial organization of public power in the European Union and the growing economic and political crisis the perspectives of the multi-level governance seem to be rather vague. The ideologists of the corresponding concept managed only to give a new interpretation of the decision-making process in the European Union, but they failed to describe clearly enough the mechanisms of further development of the European integration.

The main goal of this paper is to investigate the mechanisms of the influence of NGOs on public policy-making in Bosnia and Herzegovina after the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement on December 14, 1995 in Paris. The sharp increase in the number of NGOs occurs immediately after the Dayton Accords, and according to some estimates, there were more than 1,500 at the time, which cannot be considered a large number when compared to the number of NGOs in other transition countries. Data from the Collective Register of Foundations and Associations in Bosnia and Herzegovina state that their total number is 25,646, while the number of actually active is difficult to determine. The literature so far has been presented from the non-governmental sector in Bosnia and Herzegovina to a significant extent for public policy making, as well as research results and these claims primarily based on the number of qualitative impact diaries of individual NGOs (case studies). This research paper aims at systematic research of the domain of influence of the non-governmental sector, through quantitative analysis of newly collected data on the influence of non-governmental organizations. The survey was proven at the local, cantonal, authorial and state level on a representative and stratified sample (10% - according to the statistical method) and was trained by the leadership and activists of non-governmental organizations and government officials (ministries and state administrative organizations). One of the main assumptions is that by successfully networking with organizations from neighboring EU member states, NGOs become a respectable actor in public policy-making in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In addition to quantitative analysis, this paper provides a detailed overview and theoretical analysis of civil society, NGO sector and public policies as well as a comparative insight into institutional and non-institutional mechanisms of NGO influence on public policy making in Bosnia and Herzegovina and their practical application in neighboring countries European Union. This paper contributes to a better understanding of the role of the non-governmental sector (association) in public advocacy and the analysis and comparison of current theories of the legal policy framework, structure, size, factors of development of the non-governmental sector. In addition, the paper contributes to the assessment of the current state of the mechanism of influence on the creation of public policy agendas in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the formulation of measures for internal structures and networking of NGOs and the definition of their number, structure and types. The problem of the research is reflected in the fact that the started processes of transformation and the unfinished process of transition of the Bosnian society and civil sector are, due to the war destructions, significantly slowed down. Changes in society in the pre-war phase created realistic preconditions for the development of the non-governmental sector and civil society in general, and provided a realistic basis for influencing the advocacy and creation of various public policies. In the post-war period, international donors invested heavily in the NGO sector. The subject of this research is the influence of the non-governmental sector on policy-making processes, through knowledge of institutional mechanisms, as well as the correlation of the non-governmental sector and public policies from the aspect of democracy development as an integral process in all its aspects. Given that this topic has previously been partially addressed in this context, through a systematic review of the problem and offering an adequate solution to the problem, it is necessary to re-examine the key issues. The key issues explored within this paper are how networking with neighboring EU Member States has a positive impact (has a positive association) on the importance of NGOs in advocating for public policies. In addition, the extent to which financial support from EU institutions has a positive impact on the importance of NGOs in advocating for public policies has been explored.

The Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) concept involves having producers take environmental responsibility for post-consumer products. Based on this principle, the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive of the European Union, enacted in 2006, is the most representative management program in the world and the most popular recycling policy many countries follow. Taiwan’s version of EPR for WEEE recycling, set up in 1998, had a focus on recycling fees determined by a recycling fee equation. Nowadays, the equation takes into account the consideration of the environment in the designs of products, in addition to the cost needed for recycling. The environmental performance upgrades in products, encouraged by the financial incentives from these considerations, is a side-benefit of this program. In this paper, the functions of the recycling fee equation that consider environmental costs are reviewed. It was found that in spite of the difficulty in determining the real environmental costs in practice, pricing is a mechanism which helps us to consider the cost of e-waste recycling, not only in terms of labor and administration, but also environmental quality.

Abstract. The article reveals the experience of using gender quotas and the issues of their effectiveness in the political sphere of the European Union and Ukraine. The relevance of the article is due to the fact that gender quotas are a common and at the same time institutionalized mechanism for ensuring gender equality. The article uses historical, comparative and structural-functional research methods. The authors determined the legal basis of gender quotas, mechanisms for their implementation, types of quotas and criteria for their effectiveness. Legislative candidate quotas and voluntary party quotas have been found to apply in European countries. The experience of applying gender quotas in the EU and Ukraine was studied. Gender quotas have been shown to increase women's representation, but not immediately after application. The effectiveness of quotas is determined by a good legal basis and the use of quotas in combination with other means. It is determined that even a single application of gender quotas has a lasting effect on increasing the number of women in representative bodies. The adoption of voluntary party quotas by leading political parties also contributes to the equal representation of women and men. In addition to directly affecting the number of women in the legislature, gender quotas indirectly affect other aspects of life. Key words: gender, gender equality, gender quotas, affirmative action, European Union.

ContentsGreen Chemistry in the International ContextThe Concept of green ChemistryDefinition of green chemistry | Green chemistry: Why now? | The historical context of green chemistry | The emergence of green chemistryThe Content of Green ChemistryAreas of green chemistry | Preliminary remarks | Alternative feedstocks | Benign reagents/synthetic pathways | Synthetic transformations | Solvents/reaction conditionsGreen Chemistry in the International ContextIt has come to be recognized in recent years, that the science of chemistry is central to addressing the problems facing the environment. Through the utilization of the various subdisciplines of chemistry and the molecular sciences, there is an increasing appreciation that the emerging area of green chemistry1is needed in the design and attainment of sustainable development. A central driving force in this increasing awareness is that green chemistry accomplishes both economic and environmental goals simultaneously through the use of sound, fundamental scientific principles. Recently, a basic strategy has been proposed for implementing the relationships between industry and academia, and hence, funding of the research that constitutes the engine of economic advancement; it is what many schools of economics call the "triple bottom line" philosophy, meaning that an enterprise will be economically sustainable if the objectives of environmental protection, societal benefit, and market advantage are all satisfied2. Triple bottom line is a strong idea for evaluating the success of environmental technologies. It is clear that the best environmentally friendly technology or discovery will not impact on the market if it is not economically advantageous; in the same way, the market that ignores environmental needs and human involvement will not prosper. This is the challenge for the future of the chemical industry, its development being strongly linked to the extent to which environmental and human needs can be reconciled with new ideas in fundamental research. On the other hand, it should be easy to foresee that the success of environmentally friendly reactions, products, and processes will improve competitiveness within the chemical industry. If companies are able to meet the needs of society, people will influence their own governments to foster those industries attempting such environmental initiatives. Of course, fundamental research will play a central role in achieving these worthy objectives. What we call green chemistry may in fact embody some of the most advanced perspectives and opportunities in chemical sciences.It is for these reasons that the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) has a central role to play in advancing and promoting the continuing emergence and impact of green chemistry. When we think about how IUPAC furthers chemistry throughout the world, it is useful to refer to IUPAC's Strategic Plan. This plan demonstrates the direct relevance of the mission of IUPAC to green chemistry, and explains why there is growing enthusiasm for the pursuit of this new area as an appropriate activity of a scientific Union. The IUPAC Strategic Plan outlines among other goals:IUPAC will serve as a scientific, international, nongovernmental body in objectively addressing global issues involving the chemical sciences. Where appropriate, IUPAC will represent the interests of chemistry in governmental and nongovernmental forums.IUPAC will provide tools (e.g., standardized nomenclature and methods) and forums to help advance international research in the chemical sciences.IUPAC will assist chemistry-related industry in its contributions to sustainable development, wealth creation, and improvement in the quality of life.IUPAC will facilitate the development of effective channels of communication in the international chemistry community.IUPAC will promote the service of chemistry to society in both developed and developing countries.IUPAC will utilize its global perspective to contribute toward the enhancement of education in chemistry and to advance the public understanding of chemistry and the scientific method.IUPAC will make special efforts to encourage the career development of young chemists.IUPAC will broaden the geographical base of the Union and ensure that its human capital is drawn from all segments of the world chemistry community.IUPAC will encourage worldwide dissemination of information about the activities of the Union.IUPAC will assure sound management of its resources to provide maximum value for the funds invested in the Union.Through the vehicle of green chemistry, IUPAC can engage and is engaging the international community in issues of global importance to the environment and to industry, through education of young and established scientists, the provision of technical tools, governmental engagement, communication to the public and scientific communities, and the pursuit of sustainable development. By virtue of its status as a leading and internationally representative scientific body, IUPAC is able to collaborate closely in furthering individual national efforts as well as those of multinational entities.An important example of such collaboration in the area of green chemistry is that of IUPAC with the Organization for the Economical Cooperation and Development (OECD) in the project on "Sustainable Chemistry", aimed at promoting increased awareness of the subject in the member countries. During a meeting of the Environment Directorate (Paris, 6 June 1999), it was proposed that United States and Italy co-lead the activity, and that implementation of five recommendations to the member countries be accorded the highest priority, namely:research and developmentawards and recognition for work on sustainable chemistryexchange of technical information related to sustainable chemistryguidance on activities and tools to support sustainable chemistry programssustainable chemistry educationThese recommendations were perceived to have socio-economic implications for worldwide implementation of sustainable chemistry. How IUPAC and, in particular, its Divisions can contribute to this effort is under discussion. IUPAC is recognized for its ability to act as the scientific counterpart to OECD for all recommendations and activities. Although the initiatives being developed by the OECD are aimed primarily at determining the role that national institutions can play in facilitating the implementation and impact of green chemistry, it is recognized that each of these initiatives also has an important scientific component. Whether it is developing criteria or providing technical assessment for awards and recognition, identifying appropriate scientific areas for educational incorporation, or providing scientific insight into the areas of need for fundamental research and development, IUPAC can play and is beginning to play an important role as an international scientific authority on green chemistry.Other multinational organizations including, among others, the United Nations, the European Union, and the Asian Pacific Economic Community, are now beginning to assess the role that they can play in promoting the implementation of green chemistry to meet environmental and economic goals simultaneously. As an alternative to the traditional regulatory framework often implemented as a unilateral strategy, multinational governmental organizations are discovering that green chemistry as a nonregulatory, science-based approach, provides opportunities for innovation and economic development that are compatible with sustainable development. In addition, individual nations have been extremely active in green chemistry and provide plentiful examples of the successful utilization of green chemistry technologies. There are rapidly growing activities in government, industry, and academia in the United States, Italy, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Japan, China, and many other countries in Europe and Asia, that testify to the importance of green chemistry to the future of the central science of chemistry around the world.Organizations and Commissions currently involved in programs in green chemistry at the national or international level include, for example:U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), with the "Green Chemistry Program" which involves, among others, the National Science Foundation, the American Chemical Society, and the Green Chemistry Institute;European Directorate for R&D (DG Research), which included the goals of sustainable chemistry in the actions and research of the European Fifth Framework Programme;Interuniversity Consortium "Chemistry for the Environment", which groups about 30 Italian universities interested in environmentally benign chemistry and funds their research groups;UK Royal Society of Chemistry, which promotes the concept of green chemistry through a "UK Green Chemistry Network" and the scientific journal Green Chemistry;UNIDO-ICS (International Centre for Science and High Technology of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization) which is developing a global program on sustainable chemistry focusing on catalysis and cleaner technologies with particular attention to developing and emerging countries (the program is also connected with UNIDO network of centers for cleaner production); andMonash University, which is the first organization in Australia to undertake a green chemistry program.Footnotes:1. The terminology "green chemistry" or "sustainable chemistry" is the subject of debate. The expressions are intended to convey the same or very similar meanings, but each has its supporters and detractors, since "green" is vividly evocative but may assume an unintended political connotation, whereas "sustainable" can be paraphrased as "chemistry for a sustainable environment", and may be perceived as a less focused and less incisive description of the discipline. Other terms have been proposed, such as "chemistry for the environment" but this juxtaposition of keywords already embraces many diversified fields involving the environment, and does not capture the economic and social implications of sustainability. The Working Party decided to adopt the term green chemistry for the purpose of this overview. This decision does not imply official IUPAC endorsement for the choice. In fact, the IUPAC Committee on Chemistry and Industry (COCI) favors, and will continue to use sustainable chemistry to describe the discipline.2. J. Elkington, < http://www.sustainability.co.uk/sustainability.htm

Purpose This paper aims to examine the relevance of boards in driving firm level performance. For this purpose, it considers firms listed on Ireland and Spain stock exchanges for the period 2005 to 2014, over a period that includes the global financial crisis. Design/methodology/approach This study uses panel data regression analysis to analyse the effects of board characteristics on performance and also uses alternate model specifications to test the significance of robustness of relationships. Findings The impact of board size on performance is negative and significant for Irish and Spanish firms for the study period. In general, the board independence has a positive effect on the performance of Spanish firms for the complete study period and suggests consistency with the resource dependency theory. Research limitations/implications The analysis suggests that in general, the non-executive and the board size do not affect the corporate performance of Irish and Spanish firms during the financial crisis. The fixed effects model suggests positive effects of gender diversity on performance for Spanish firms, while the random effects indicates negative relationship between gender diversity and performance for Irish companies. Practical implications The evidence on the Spanish firms suggests that female representation on the boards may be critical during the financial crisis Social implications The quota legislation on female board representation in Spain is yielding superior results over the soft law approach by Irish firms during the times of financial crisis period. Originality/value This study contributes to the literature on the corporate governance practices and performance of two countries that were strongly affected by the crisis in the European Union. As governments increasingly contemplate board gender diversity policies, this study offers useful empirical insights on Spanish and Irish firms.

The English language is the most dominant language in the Western world and its influence can be noticed in every aspect of human communication. It’s increasing diffusion, especially since the turn of the century, is hard to measure with conventional means. The present research studies the use of language in websites of European Union (EU) member states, in order to collect data about the prevalence of the English language in the different countries and regions of the European Union. To achieve a realistic representation of today’s landscape of the European Web, this study uses a vast population of websites and a representative sampling size and methodology. By analyzing and processing the findings from over 100,000 websites from every country in the EU, a solid foundation is set that is used to explore the dominance of the English language in the European World Wide Web in general. This is the first study that examines the presence of English content in the websites of all EU member countries and provides statistical evidence regarding the ratio of English content availability for each country. Conclusively, the results of the research demonstrate that the English language is available on more than one quarter of all websites of non-English speaking EU member states. Moreover, it is available in the vast majority of multilingual and bilingual websites, while at the same time being the only language that is available in a number of monolingual websites. In addition, it is shown preference over the national language in a significant number of cases. A moderate negative correlation is found between a member state’s population and the availability of English in these countries’ websites and the same holds true for a member state’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Both these correlations indicate that smaller countries tend to provide more content in English in order to establish a stronger presence in the international environment. Taking into account the role of language in the expression of national identity, this study provides data and insights which may contribute to the discussion about the changes underway in the national identity of EU member states.

The commercial trade in frogs and their body parts is global, dynamic and occurs in extremely large volumes (in the thousands of tonnes/yr or billions of frogs/yr). The European Union (EU) remains the single largest importer of frogs’ legs, with most frogs still caught from the wild. Amongst the many drivers of species extinction or population decline (e.g. due to habitat loss, climate change, disease etc.), overexploitation is becoming increasingly more prominent. Due to global declines and extinctions, new attention is being focused on these markets, in part to try to ensure sustainability. While the trade is plagued by daunting realities of data deficiency and uncertainty and the conflicts of commercial interests associated with these data, it is clear is that EU countries are most responsible for the largest portion of the international trade in frogs’ legs of wild species. Over decades of exploitation, the EU imports have contributed to a decline in wild frog populations in an increasing number of supplying countries, such as India and Bangladesh, as well as Indonesia, Turkey and Albania more recently. However, there have been no concerted attempts by the EU and present export countries to ensure sustainability of this trade. Further work is needed to validate species identities, secure data on wild frog populations, establish reasonable monitored harvest/export quotas and disease surveillance and ensure data integrity, quality and security standards for frog farms. Herein, we call upon those countries and their representative governments to assume responsibility for the sustainability of the trade. The EU should take immediate action to channel all imports through a single centralised database and list sensitive species in the Annexes of the EU Wildlife Trade Regulation. Further, listing in CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) can enforce international trade restrictions. More joint efforts are needed to improve regional monitoring schemes before the commercial trade causes irreversible extinctions of populations and species of frogs.

Unmanageable and not well regulated nature of cyberspace, both on the national and the international level, is a serious problem for all governments of the world, therefore, the issue of ensuring cybersecurity in the cyberspace comes to the fore, and there is a need for regulatory documents to govern it. In this article, using the example of regulations of the European Union (the EU Cybersecurity Strategy, announced by the EU Commission and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy on 16 December 2020), the USA (the National Cybersecurity Strategy of the United States of America, 2018), the Republic of Kazakhstan (Concept of Cybersecurity (“Cyber Shield Kazakhstan”), 2017) and the Russian Federation (Draft Concept of the Cybersecurity Strategy of the Russian Federation, 2014) the main characteristics of legal regulation of cybersecurity issues are examined. The analysis of the main documents in the field of cybersecurity of the EU, the USA and the Republic of Kazakhstan showed that their emergence and significant modifications are caused by the fact that the entire world is undergoing a transition to a digital economy. In Russia, the implementation of the national project “Digital Economy” (2019) has also begun. However, within its framework, the federal project “Information Security” is being promoted. This is explained by the fact that Russia adopts a broader approach to “information security”, while other countries use the term cybersecurity in their regulations. The paper suggests that the national understanding of cybersecurity and its key priorities differ significantly, but the issues that they treat are common: building a state level management system in the field of cybersecurity; determination of the necessary cybersecurity policy and establishing the corresponding mechanism regarding the problems of ensuring the cybersecurity of national information infrastructures and a clear definition of the roles in its implementation. The divergence in various cybersecurity visions is one of the main reasons that lead to a deadlock that prevents productive discussion of cybersecurity and the setting of norms at the international level.

(1) Biodiversity, sustainable development and nature conservation are fundamental issues nowadays. All companies, administrations, governments and international organisations take these issues into consideration. Sustainable forest management always requires a compromise between profitability and conservation and in this fragile equilibrium, forest certification plays a key scheme. This sustainable management is of great importance in the European Union (EU), with the Forest Stewardship Council playing a fundamental role in forest certification. This certification forms the basis of the ecosystem conservation and improvement strategy in Ence, Energía y Celulosa, the leading company dedicated to the production of eucalyptus in Spain; (2) A three-phase protocol (identification of High Conservation Values, assessment of conservation areas and monitoring program), has been developed, providing clear, objective criteria, particularly concerning FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) Principle 9, the primary goal being the development and application of these objective criteria in the Ence conservation areas in the province of Huelva (Spain). One of the main criteria for habitat classification was correspondence with the habitats listed in Annex I of the Habitats Directive. The compatibility between forest exploitation management and conservation proposed by the Natura 2000 network encouraged us to use this methodology for the identification, classification and assessment of High Conservation Values considered in FSC forest certification: Principle 9; (3) The study encompasses 183 forest management units covering 52,022 ha, with a total of 11,847.45 ha being identified as High Conservation Value Areas. Through the identification and assessment of the conservation areas, the described methodology played a crucial role in demonstrating the positive impact of Ence’s certified forest management on the conservation of biological diversity; (4) This study demonstrates that an objective and reliable identification, assessment and monitoring methodology, with a proven high degree of accuracy in the location and characterisation of interesting and representative habitats in the region, can be implemented. Due to its objectivity, this strategy can be easily applied to other European sustainable forest management sites and possibly to other countries outside the EU.

The article reveals the basic concepts and opinions of scientists about the legal nature of the European Union, in particular, such as: a confederation – a temporary union of independent states, a supranational (superstate) integration formation endowed with power, an interstate association, which combines the features of an international intergovernmental organization and a state-like formation, and some others opinions. However, the author determines that she is addicted to the theory that the European Union can be recognized as a federation. Then the author examines the structure of the European Union and examines it from the side of the main features of a federal state, for instance: the existence of legal acts that form a «constitution», which by their nature are recognized above the legislation of each specific member state (it also refers to a two-level system of legislation), the presence of a two- level system of governments, the presence of a two-level judicial system, the presence of a representative body of government directly elected by society, the presence of its own citizens and territory, the existence of its own budget system and taxation of citizens, as well as the existence of certain police and law enforcement agencies. The author compares the European Union with certain modern countries to confirm his own thoughts about its similarities. Further, the author analyzes views of certain scientists, who claims that the European Union is not a federation, as an example, the absence of a unified armed forces, or the fact that each participating state is a sovereign state, and gives his own reasoning on these issues. Then the author gives his own opinion about why the European Union cannot be decisively recognized as a federation, in particular, relying on the fact that a federation is, first of all, an independent state. At the end of the article, the author summarizes and provides a conclusion throughout the research, paying attention to the main points of the entire article.

World War I can be seen as a crucial turning point in world history, leading to a transition from monarchical rule to democratic states, in particular in Europe. Since then, the concept of a representative democracy with a com- prehensive welfare state and high public expenditure quota has been thor- oughly implemented in almost all European countries. Moreover, despite the collapse of the Soviet union, the disastrous results of former fascist governments, and the current economic and political situation in countries like Venezuela, a vast majority of Europeans still seem to consider a “strong” and omnipresent government as crucial to guarantee freedom and a ‘rule of law’. The economist Hoppe strongly questions this status quo, believing that even monarchies could be more sustainable than current democracies and stating that ultimately a “private property order”, based on anarcho-capitalism, would be the best solution. By strongly questioning not only the concept of current welfare state democracies, but also by rejecting the concepts of monarchy and anarcho-cap- italism, we intend to find alternatives to protect human rights, freedom and eco- nomic prosperity, which are based on the ideas of F.A. von Hayek, Michael Polanyi, Elinor Ostrom and other liberal and libertarian thinkers. Keywords: democracy, monarchy, private property order, Hoppe, Hayek, human rights. JEL Classification: A12, B10, B13, B25, H10 Resumen: La primera guerra mundial puede ser considerada un punto de inflex- ión crucial en la historia mundial, iniciando la transición de gobiernos monárqui- cos hacía los estados democráticos, particularmente en Europa. Desde entonces, el concepto de la democracia representativa con un estado de bie- nestar integral y una alta cuota de gasto público se ha implementado exhaus- tivamente en casi todos los países europeos. Además, a pesar del colapso de la Unión Soviética, de los resultados desastrosos de los antiguos gobiernos fas- cistas y a pesar de la situación económica y política actual en países como Cuba, Corea del Norte y Venezuela, una gran mayoría de los europeos todavía parece considerar a un gobierno “fuerte” y omnipresente como crucial para garantizar la libertad y el ‘estado de derecho’. El economista H. Hoppe cuestiona fuertemente este status quo, creyendo que incluso las monarquías podrían ser más sostenibles que las democracias actuales y declara que, en última instancia, un “orden de propiedad privada”, basado en el anarcocapi- talismo, sería la mejor solución. Al cuestionar enérgicamente no sólo el con- cepto del estado de bienestar democrático sino también los conceptos de monarquía y anarcocapitalismo, pretendemos encontrar alternativas para pro- teger mejor los derechos humanos, la libertad y la prosperidad económica, a través de conceptos basados en las ideas de F.A .von Hayek, Michael Polanyi, Elinor Ostrom y otros pensadores liberales y libertarios. Palabras clave: democracia, monarquía, propiedad privada, Hoppe, Hayek, derechos humanos. Clasificación JEL: A12, B10, B13, B25, H10

Women in federal politics are under-represented today and always have been. At no time in the history of the federal parliament have women achieved equal representation with men. There have never been an equal number of women in any federal cabinet. Women have never held an equitable number of executive positions of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) or the Liberal Party. Australia has had only one female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and she was the recipient of sexist treatment in the parliament and the media. A 2019 report by Plan International found that girls and women, were “reluctant to pursue a career in politics, saying they worry about being treated unfairly.” The Report author said the results were unsurprisingwhen you consider how female politicians are still treated in Parliament and the media in this country, is it any wonder the next generation has no desire to expose themselves to this world? Unfortunately, in Australia, girls grow up seeing strong, smart, capable female politicians constantly reduced to what they’re wearing, comments about their sexuality and snipes about their gender.What voters may not always see is how women in politics respond to sexist treatment, or to bullying, or having to vote against their principles because of party rules, or to having no support to lead the party. Rather than being political victims and quitting, there is a ground-swell of women who are fighting back. The rage they feel at being excluded, bullied, harassed, name-called, and denied leadership opportunities is being channelled into rage against the structures that deny them equality. The rage they feel is building resilience and it is building networks of women across the political divide. This article highlights some female MPs who are “maintaining the rage”. It suggests that the rage that is evident in their public responses is empowering them to stand strong in the face of adversity, in solidarity with other female MPs, building their resilience, and strengthening calls for social change and political equality.Her-story of Women’s MovementsThroughout the twentieth century, women stood for equal rights and personal empowerment driven by rage against their disenfranchisement. Significant periods include the early 1900s, with suffragettes gaining the vote for women. The interwar period of 1919 to 1938 saw women campaign for financial independence from their husbands (Andrew). Australian women were active citizens in a range of campaigns for improved social, economic and political outcomes for women and their children.Early contributions made by women to Australian society were challenges to the regulations and of female sexuality and reproduction. Early twentieth century feminist organisations such The Women’s Peace Army, United Association of Women, the Australian Federation of Women’s Societies for Equal Citizenship, the Union of Australian Women, the National Council of Women, and the Australian Federation of Women Voters, proved the early forerunners to the 1970s Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM). It was in many of these early campaigns that the rage expressed in the concept of the “personal is political” (Hanisch) became entrenched in Australian feminist approaches to progressive social change. The idea of the “personal is political” encapsulated that it was necessary to challenge and change power relations, achievable when women fully participated in politics (van Acker 25). Attempts by women during the 1970s to voice concerns about issues of inequality, including sexuality, the right to abortion, availability of childcare, and sharing of household duties, were “deemed a personal problem” and not for public discussion (Hanisch). One core function of the WLM was to “advance women’s positions” via government legislation or, as van Acker (120) puts it, the need for “feminist intervention in the state.” However, in advocating for policy reform, the WLM had no coherent or organised strategy to ensure legislative change. The establishment of the Women’s Electoral Lobby (WEL), together with the Femocrat strategy, sought to rectify this. Formed in 1972, WEL was tasked with translating WLM concerns into government policy.The initial WEL campaign took issues of concern to WLM to the incoming Whitlam government (1972-1975). Lyndall Ryan (73) notes: women’s liberationists were the “stormtroopers” and WEL the “pragmatic face of feminism.” In 1973 Whitlam appointed Elizabeth Reid, a member of WLM, as Australia’s first Women’s Advisor. Of her appointment, Reid (3) said, “For the first time in our history we were being offered the opportunity to attempt to implement what for years we had been writing, yelling, marching and working towards. Not to respond would have felt as if our bluff had been called.” They had the opportunity in the Whitlam government to legislatively and fiscally address the rage that drove generations of women to yell and march.Following Reid were the appointments of Sara Dowse and Lyndall Ryan, continuing the Femocrat strategy of ensuring women were appointed to executive bureaucratic roles within the Whitlam government. The positions were not well received by the mainly male-dominated press gallery and parliament. As “inside agitators” (Eisenstein) for social change the central aim of Femocrats was social and economic equity for women, reflecting social justice and progressive social and public policy. Femocrats adopted a view about the value of women’s own lived experiences in policy development, application and outcome. The role of Senator Susan Ryan is of note. In 1981, Ryan wrote and introduced the Sex Discrimination Bill, the first piece of federal legislation of its type in Australia. Ryan was a founding member of WEL and was elected to the Senate in 1975 on the slogan “A woman’s place is in the Senate”. As Ryan herself puts it: “I came to believe that not only was a woman’s place in the House and in the Senate, as my first campaign slogan proclaimed, but a feminist’s place was in politics.” Ryan, the first Labor woman to represent the ACT in the Senate, was also the first Labor woman appointed as a federal Minister.With the election of the economic rationalist Hawke and Keating Governments (1983-1996) and the neoliberal Howard Government (1996-2007), what was a “visible, united, highly mobilised and state-focused women’s movement” declined (Lake 260). This is not to say that women today reject the value of women’s voices and experiences, particularly in politics. Many of the issues of the 1970s remain today: domestic violence, unequal pay, sexual harassment, and a lack of gender parity in political representation. Hence, it remains important that women continue to seek election to the national parliament.Gender Gap: Women in Power When examining federal elections held between 1972 and 2016, women have been under-represented in the lower house. In none of these elections have women achieved more than 30 per cent representation. Following the 1974 election less that one per cent of the lower house were women. No women were elected to the lower house at the 1975 or 1977 election. Between 1980 and 1996, female representation was less than 10 per cent. In 1996 this rose to 15 per cent and reached 29 per cent at the 2016 federal election.Following the 2016 federal election, only 32 per cent of both chambers were women. After the July 2016 election, only eight women were appointed to the Turnbull Ministry: six women in Cabinet and two women in the Outer Cabinet (Parliament of Australia). Despite the higher representation of women in the ALP, this is not reflected in the number of women in the Shadow Cabinet. Just as female parliamentarians have never achieved parity, neither have women in the Executive Branch.In 2017, Australia was ranked 50th in the world in terms of gender representation in parliament, between The Philippines and South Sudan. Globally, there are 38 States in which women account for less than 10 per cent of parliamentarians. As at January 2017, the three highest ranking countries in female representation were Rwanda, Bolivia and Cuba. The United Kingdom was ranked 47th, and the United States 104th (IPU and UNW). Globally only 18 per cent of government ministers are women (UNW). Between 1960 and 2013, 52 women became prime ministers worldwide, of those 43 have taken office since 1990 (Curtin 191).The 1995 United Nations (UN) Fourth World Conference on Women set a 30 per cent target for women in decision-making. This reflects the concept of “critical mass”. Critical mass proposes that for there to be a tipping balance where parity is likely to emerge, this requires a cohort of a minimum of 30 per cent of the minority group.Gender scholars use critical mass theory to explain that parity won’t occur while there are only a few token women in politics. Rather, only as numbers increase will women be able to build a strong enough presence to make female representation normative. Once a 30 per cent critical mass is evident, the argument is that this will encourage other women to join the cohort, making parity possible (Childs & Krook 725). This threshold also impacts on legislative outcomes, because the larger cohort of women are able to “influence their male colleagues to accept and approve legislation promoting women’s concerns” (Childs & Krook 725).Quotas: A Response to Gender InequalityWith women representing less than one in five parliamentarians worldwide, gender quotas have been introduced in 90 countries to redress this imbalance (Krook). Quotas are an equal opportunity measure specifically designed to re-dress inequality in political representation by allocating seats to under-represented groups (McCann 4). However, the effectiveness of the quota system is contested, with continued resistance, particularly in conservative parties. Fine (3) argues that one key objection to mandatory quotas is that they “violate the principle of merit”, suggesting insufficient numbers of women capable or qualified to hold parliamentary positions.In contrast, Gauja (2) suggests that “state-mandated electoral quotas work” because in countries with legislated quotas the number of women being nominated is significantly higher. While gender quotas have been brought to bear to address the gender gap, the ability to challenge the majority status of men has been limited (Hughes).In 1994 the ALP introduced rule-based party quotas to achieve equal representation by 2025 and a gender weighting system for female preselection votes. Conversely, the Liberal Party have a voluntary target of reaching 50 per cent female representation by 2025. But what of the treatment of women who do enter politics?Fig. 1: Portrait of Julia Gillard AC, 27th Prime Minister of Australia, at Parliament House, CanberraInside Politics: Misogyny and Mobs in the ALPIn 2010, Julia Gillard was elected as the leader of the governing ALP, making her Australia’s first female Prime Minister. Following the 2010 federal election, called 22 days after becoming Prime Minister, Gillard was faced with the first hung parliament since 1940. She formed a successful minority government before losing the leadership of the ALP in June 2013. Research demonstrates that “being a female prime minister is often fraught because it challenges many of the gender stereotypes associated with political leadership” (Curtin 192). In Curtin’s assessment Gillard was naïve in her view that interest in her as the country’s first female Prime Minister would quickly dissipate.Gillard, argues Curtin (192-193), “believed that her commitment to policy reform and government enterprise, to hard work and maintaining consensus in caucus, would readily outstrip the gender obsession.” As Curtin continues, “this did not happen.” Voters were continually reminded that Gillard “did not conform to the traditional.” And “worse, some high-profile men, from industry, the Liberal Party and the media, indulged in verbal attacks of a sexist nature throughout her term in office (Curtin 192-193).The treatment of Gillard is noted in terms of how misogyny reinforced negative perceptions about the patriarchal nature of parliamentary politics. The rage this created in public and media spheres was double-edged. On the one hand, some were outraged at the sexist treatment of Gillard. On the other hand, those opposing Gillard created a frenzy of personal and sexist attacks on her. Further attacking Gillard, on 25 February 2011, radio broadcaster Alan Jones called Gillard, not only by her first-name, but called her a “liar” (Kwek). These attacks and the informal way the Prime Minister was addressed, was unprecedented and caused outrage.An anti-carbon tax rally held in front of Parliament House in Canberra in March 2011, featured placards with the slogans “Ditch the Witch” and “Bob Brown’s Bitch”, referring to Gillard and her alliance with the Australian Greens, led by Senator Bob Brown. The Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and other members of the Liberal Party were photographed standing in front of the placards (Sydney Morning Herald, Vertigo). Criticism of women in positions of power is not limited to coming from men alone. Women from the Liberal Party were also seen in the photo of derogatory placards decrying Gillard’s alliances with the Greens.Gillard (Sydney Morning Herald, “Gillard”) said she was “offended when the Leader of the Opposition went outside in the front of Parliament and stood next to a sign that said, ‘Ditch the witch’. I was offended when the Leader of the Opposition stood next to a sign that ascribed me as a man’s bitch.”Vilification of Gillard culminated in October 2012, when Abbott moved a no-confidence motion against the Speaker of the House, Peter Slipper. Abbott declared the Gillard government’s support for Slipper was evidence of the government’s acceptance of Slipper’s sexist attitudes (evident in allegations that Slipper sent a text to a political staffer describing female genitals). Gillard responded with what is known as the “Misogyny speech”, pointing at Abbott, shaking with rage, and proclaiming, “I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man” (ABC). Apart from vilification, how principles can be forsaken for parliamentary, party or electoral needs, may leave some women circumspect about entering parliament. Similar attacks on political women may affirm this view.In 2010, Labor Senator Penny Wong, a gay Member of Parliament and advocate of same-sex marriage, voted against a bill supporting same-sex marriage, because it was not ALP policy (Q and A, “Passion”). Australian Marriage Equality spokesperson, Alex Greenwich, strongly condemned Wong’s vote as “deeply hypocritical” (Akersten). The Sydney Morning Herald (Dick), under the headline “Married to the Mob” asked:a question: what does it now take for a cabinet minister to speak out on a point of principle, to venture even a mild criticism of the party position? ... Would you object if your party, after fixing some areas of discrimination against a minority group of which you are a part, refused to move on the last major reform for that group because of ‘tradition’ without any cogent explanation of why that tradition should remain? Not if you’re Penny Wong.In 2017, during the postal vote campaign for marriage equality, Wong clarified her reasons for her 2010 vote against same-sex marriage saying in an interview: “In 2010 I had to argue a position I didn’t agree with. You get a choice as a party member don’t you? You either resign or do something like that and make a point, or you stay and fight and you change it.” Biding her time, Wong used her rage to change policy within the ALP.In continuing personal attacks on Gillard, on 19 March 2012, Gillard was told by Germaine Greer that she had a “big arse” (Q and A, “Politics”) and on 27 August 2012, Greer said Gillard looked like an “organ grinder’s monkey” (Q and A, “Media”). Such an attack by a prominent feminist from the 1970s, on the personal appearance of the Prime Minister, reinforced the perception that it was acceptable to criticise a woman in this position, in ways men have never been. Inside Politics: Leadership and Bullying inside the Liberal PartyWhile Gillard’s leadership was likely cut short by the ongoing attacks on her character, Liberal Deputy leader Julie Bishop was thwarted from rising to the leadership of the Liberal Party, thus making it unlikely she will become the Liberal Party’s first female Prime Minister. Julie Bishop was Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2013 to 2018 and Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party from 2007 to 2018, having entered politics in 1998.With the impending demise of Prime Minister Turnbull in August 2018, Bishop sought support from within the Liberal Party to run for the leadership. In the second round of leadership votes Bishop stood for the leadership in a three-cornered race, coming last in the vote to Peter Dutton and Scott Morrison. Bishop resigned as the Foreign Affairs Minister and took a seat on the backbench.When asked if the Liberal Party would elect a popular female leader, Bishop replied: “When we find one, I’m sure we will.” Political journalist Annabel Crabb offered further insight into what Bishop meant when she addressed the press in her red Rodo shoes, labelling the statement as “one of Julie Bishop’s chilliest-ever slapdowns.” Crabb, somewhat sardonically, suggested this translated as Bishop listing someone with her qualifications and experience as: “Woman Works Hard, Is Good at Her Job, Doesn't Screw Up, Loses Out Anyway.”For political journalist Tony Wright, Bishop was “clearly furious with those who had let their testosterone get the better of them and their party” and proceeded to “stride out in a pair of heels in the most vivid red to announce that, despite having resigned the deputy position she had occupied for 11 years, she was not about to quit the Parliament.” In response to the lack of support for Bishop in the leadership spill, female members of the federal parliament took to wearing red in the parliamentary chambers signalling that female members were “fed up with the machinations of the male majority” (Wright).Red signifies power, strength and anger. Worn in parliament, it was noticeable and striking, making a powerful statement. The following day, Bishop said: “It is evident … that there is an acceptance of a level of behaviour in Canberra that would not be tolerated in any other workplace across Australia" (Wright).Colour is political. The Suffragettes of the early twentieth century donned the colours of purple and white to create a statement of unity and solidarity. In recent months, Dr Kerryn Phelps used purple in her election campaign to win the vacated seat of Wentworth, following Turnbull’s resignation, perhaps as a nod to the Suffragettes. Public anger in Wentworth saw Phelps elected, despite the electorate having been seen as a safe Liberal seat.On 21 February 2019, the last sitting day of Parliament before the budget and federal election, Julie Bishop stood to announce her intention to leave politics at the next election. To some this was a surprise. To others it was expected. On finishing her speech, Bishop immediately exited the Lower House without acknowledging the Prime Minister. A proverbial full-stop to her outrage. She wore Suffragette white.Victorian Liberal backbencher Julia Banks, having declared herself so repelled by bullying during the Turnbull-Dutton leadership delirium, announced she was quitting the Liberal Party and sitting in the House of Representatives as an Independent. Banks said she could no longer tolerate the bullying, led by members of the reactionary right wing, the coup was aided by many MPs trading their vote for a leadership change in exchange for their individual promotion, preselection endorsements or silence. Their actions were undeniably for themselves, for their position in the party, their power, their personal ambition – not for the Australian people.The images of male Liberal Members of Parliament standing with their backs turned to Banks, as she tended her resignation from the Liberal Party, were powerful, indicating their disrespect and contempt. Yet Banks’s decision to stay in politics, as with Wong and Bishop is admirable. To maintain the rage from within the institutions and structures that act to sustain patriarchy is a brave, but necessary choice.Today, as much as any time in the past, a woman’s place is in politics, however, recent events highlight the ongoing poor treatment of women in Australian politics. Yet, in the face of negative treatment – gendered attacks on their character, dismissive treatment of their leadership abilities, and ongoing bullying and sexism, political women are fighting back. They are once again channelling their rage at the way they are being treated and how their abilities are constantly questioned. They are enraged to the point of standing in the face of adversity to bring about social and political change, just as the suffragettes and the women’s movements of the 1970s did before them. The current trend towards women planning to stand as Independents at the 2019 federal election is one indication of this. Women within the major parties, particularly on the conservative side of politics, have become quiet. Some are withdrawing, but most are likely regrouping, gathering the rage within and ready to make a stand after the dust of the 2019 election has settled.ReferencesAndrew, Merrindahl. Social Movements and the Limits of Strategy: How Australian Feminists Formed Positions on Work and Care. Canberra. Australian National University. 2008.Akersten, Matt. “Wong ‘Hypocrite’ on Gay Marriage.” SameSame.com 2010. 12 Sep. 2016 <http://www.samesame.com.au/news/5671/Wong-hypocrite-on-gay-marriage>.Banks, Julia. Media Statement, 27 Nov. 2018. 20 Jan. 2019 <http://juliabanks.com.au/media-release/statement-2/>.Childs, Sarah, and Mona Lena Krook. “Critical Mass Theory and Women’s Political Representation.” Political Studies 56 (2008): 725-736.Crabb, Annabel. “Julie Bishop Loves to Speak in Code and She Saved Her Best One-Liner for Last.” ABC News 28 Aug. 2018. 20 Jan. 2019 <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-28/julie-bishop-women-in-politics/10174136>.Curtin, Jennifer. “The Prime Ministership of Julia Gillard.” Australian Journal of Political Science 50.1 (2015): 190-204.Dick, Tim. “Married to the Mob.” Sydney Morning Herald 26 July 2010. 12 Sep. 2016 <http://m.smh.com.au/federal-election/married-to-the-mob-20100726-0r77.html?skin=dumb-phone>.Eisenstein, Hester. Inside Agitators: Australian Femocrats and the State. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1996.Fine, Cordelia. “Do Mandatory Gender Quotas Work?” The Monthly Mar. 2012. 6 Feb. 2018 <https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2012/march/1330562640/cordelia-fine/status-quota>.Gauja, Anika. “How the Liberals Can Fix Their Gender Problem.” The Conversation 13 Oct. 2017. 16 Oct. 2017 <https://theconversation.com/how-the-liberals-can-fix-their-gender-problem- 85442>.Hanisch, Carol. “Introduction: The Personal is Political.” 2006. 18 Sep. 2016 <http://www.carolhanisch.org/CHwritings/PIP.html>.Hughes, Melanie. “Intersectionality, Quotas, and Minority Women's Political Representation Worldwide.” American Political Science Review 105.3 (2011): 604-620.Inter-Parliamentary Union. Equality in Politics: A Survey of Women and Men in Parliaments. 2008. 25 Feb. 2018 <http://archive.ipu.org/pdf/publications/equality08-e.pdf>.Inter-Parliamentary Union and United Nations Women. Women in Politics: 2017. 2017. 29 Jan. 2018 <https://www.ipu.org/resources/publications/infographics/2017-03/women-in-politics-2017>.Krook, Mona Lena. “Gender Quotas as a Global Phenomenon: Actors and Strategies in Quota Adoption.” European Political Science 3.3 (2004): 59–65.———. “Candidate Gender Quotas: A Framework for Analysis.” European Journal of Political Research 46 (2007): 367–394.Kwek, Glenda. “Alan Jones Lets Rip at ‘Ju-liar’ Gillard.” Sydney Morning Herald 25 Feb. 2011. 12 Sep. 2016 <http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/alan-jones-lets-rip-at-juliar-gillard-20110224-1b7km.html>.Lake, Marilyn. Getting Equal: The History of Australian Feminism. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1999.McCann, Joy. “Electoral Quotas for Women: An International Overview.” Parliament of Australia Library 14 Nov. 2013. 1 Feb. 2018 <https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1314/ElectoralQuotas>.Parliament of Australia. “Current Ministry List: The 45th Parliament.” 2016. 11 Sep. 2016 <http://www.aph.gov.au/about_parliament/parliamentary_departments/parliamentary_library/parliamentary_handbook/current_ministry_list>.Plan International. “Girls Reluctant to Pursue a Life of Politics Cite Sexism as Key Reason.” 2018. 20 Jan. 2019 <https://www.plan.org.au/media/media-releases/girls-have-little-to-no-desire-to-pursue-a-career-in-politics>.Q and A. “Mutilation and the Media Generation.” ABC Television 27 Aug. 2012. 28 Sep. 2016 <http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s3570412.htm>.———. “Politics and Porn in a Post-Feminist World.” ABC Television 19 Mar. 2012. 12 Sep. 2016 <http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s3451584.htm>.———. “Where Is the Passion?” ABC Television 26 Jul. 2010. 23 Mar. 2018 <http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s2958214.htm?show=transcript>.Reid, Elizabeth. “The Child of Our Movement: A Movement of Women.” Different Lives: Reflections on the Women’s Movement and Visions of Its Future. Ed. Jocelynne Scutt. Ringwood: Penguin 1987. 107-120.Ryan, L. “Feminism and the Federal Bureaucracy 1972-83.” Playing the State: Australian Feminist Interventions. Ed. Sophie Watson. Sydney: Allen and Unwin 1990.Ryan, Susan. “Fishes on Bicycles.” Papers on Parliament 17 (Sep. 1992). 1 Mar. 2018 <https://www.aph.gov.au/~/~/link.aspx?_id=981240E4C1394E1CA3D0957C42F99120>.Sydney Morning Herald. “‘Pinocchio Gillard’: Strong Anti-Gillard Emissions at Canberra Carbon Tax Protest.” 23 Mar. 2011. 12 Sep. 2016 <http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/pinocchio-gillard-strong-antigillard-emissions-at-canberra-carbon-tax-protest-20110323-1c5w7.html>.———. “Gillard v Abbott on the Slipper Affair.” 10 Oct. 2012. 12 Sep. 2016 <http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-09/gillard-vs-abbott-on-the-slipper-affair/4303618>.United Nations Women. Facts and Figures: Leadership and Political Participation. 2017. 1 Mar. 2018 <http://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/leadership-and-political-participation/facts-and-figures>.Van Acker, Elizabeth. Different Voices: Gender and Politics in Australia. Melbourne: MacMillan Education Australia, 1999.Wright, Tony. “No Handmaids Here! Liberal Women Launch Their Red Resistance.” Sydney Morning Herald 17 Sep. 2018. 20 Jan. 2019 <https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/no-handmaids-here-liberal-women-launch-their-red-resistance-20180917-p504bm.html>.Wong, Penny. “Marriage Equality Plebiscite.” Interview Transcript. The Project 1 Aug. 2017. 1 Mar. 2018 <https://www.pennywong.com.au/transcripts/the-project-2/>.

The article emphasizes the importance of women's participation in the socio-political life of a country. While most European countries have already made some progress in the fight for gender equality, for most countries in different parts of the world, including in the Arab-Muslim world, gender equality remains unrealized. Nevertheless the understanding of the need for women's participation in public and political life is becoming increasingly clear. Equal representation of women in local governments, legislative and representative bodies is directly related to the economic and socio-political sustainable development of countries. The authors use the examples of Tunisia and Lebanon, which on one hand belong to the countries of the Arab world, and on the other hand, adhere to secular principles of government at the legislative level to analyze the historical development of ‘women’s' issues in countries where religion and politics are intertwined. The authors consider in detail that in these two countries traditions are still strong and religion is a powerful social and political factor, which influences the current state of gender equality and act as obstacles for women’s participation in politics at different levels of government.s.

The Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) concept is the most recent entry to discussions around how “nature” can be mobilized to render urban areas more resilient to the threat of climate change. The concept has been championed by the European Commission (EC) as a tool that can transform contemporary environmental, social and economic challenges into opportunities for innovation, bolstering Europe's position as a leader in climate change mitigation and adaptation. With its current research and innovation programme—Horizon 2020—the EC looks to position itself as the global NBS frontrunner, providing funding to cities to act as NBS demonstrator projects across the continent. These are expected to provide best-practice examples that can be replicated globally. This paper focuses on three Horizon 2020-funded NBS demonstrator projects: Connecting Nature, URBAN GreenUP and Grow Green, each of which brings together a suite of urban partners from both within and outside the European Union (EU). It examines the internal “politics” i.e., the aims and internal governance and implementation issues associated with these projects, and analyses how partners perceive the NBS concept. To engage with these aims, interviews were conducted with a diverse set of NBS “practitioners” working within the three projects. Analysis showed that the projects aim to influence climate-change resilient and sustainable urbanism through the process of retrofitting cities with small-scale green and blue interventions, as well as help the EU secure stronger diplomatic relations with neighboring non-EU countries and key international trade partners. It also illustrated that for many project partners, NBS is perceived to be a novel concept, because it re-frames pre-existing terms such as Green and Blue Infrastructure (GBI) and Ecosystem Services (ES) in a way that makes principles of urban greening more understandable to lay audiences and more politically palatable for urban governments. However, partners also warn that this framing of NBS has led to a narrow and idealized representation of nature; one that simultaneously undervalues biodiversity and oversells the capacity of natural processes to provide “solutions” to urban climate vulnerability and broader patterns of unsustainable urbanism.

It is January 1930 and the restless Southern Ocean is heaving itself up against the frozen coast of Eastern Antarctica. For hundreds of kilometres, this coastline consists entirely of ice: although Antarctica is a continent, only 2% of its surface consists of exposed rock; the rest is buried under a vast frozen mantle. But there is rock in this coastal scene: silhouetted against the glaring white of the glacial shelf, a barren island humps up out of the water. Slowly and cautiously, the Discovery approaches the island through uncharted waters; the crew’s eyes strain in the frigid air as they scour the ocean’s surface for ship-puncturing bergs. The approach to the island is difficult, but Captain Davis maintains the Discovery on its course as the wind howls in the rigging. Finally, the ship can go no further; the men lower a boat into the tossing sea. They pull hard at the oars until the boat is abreast of the island, and then they ram the bow against its icy littoral. Now one of the key moments of this exploratory expedition—officially titled the British, Australian, and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition (BANZARE)—is about to occur: the expedition is about to succeed in its primary spatial mission. Douglas Mawson, the Australian leader of the expedition, puts his feet onto the island and ascends to its bleak summit. There, he and his crew assemble a mound of loose stones and insert into it the flagpole they’ve carried with them across the ocean. Mawson reads an official proclamation of territorial annexation (see Bush 118-19), the photographer Frank Hurley shoots the moment on film, and one of the men hauls the Union Jack up the pole. Until the Australian Flags Act of 1953, the Union Jack retained seniority over the Australian flag. BANZARE took place before the 1931 Statute of Westminster, which gave full political and foreign policy independence to Commonwealth countries, thus Mawson claimed Antarctic space on behalf of Britain. He did so with the understanding that Britain would subsequently grant Australia title to its own Antarctican space. Britain did so in 1933. In the freezing wind, the men take off their hats, give three cheers for the King, and sing “God Save the King.” They deposit a copy of the proclamation into a metal canister and affix this to the flagpole; for a moment they admire the view. But there is little time to savour the moment, or the feeling of solid ground under their cold feet: the ship is waiting and the wind is growing in force. The men row back to the Discovery; Mawson returns to his cabin and writes up the event. A crucial moment in Antarctica’s spatial history has occurred: on what Mawson has aptly named Proclamation Island, Antarctica has been produced as Australian space. But how, exactly, does this production of Antarctica as a spatial possession work? How does this moment initiate the transformation of six million square kilometres of Antarctica—42% of the continent—into Australian space? The answer to this question lies in three separate, but articulated cultural technologies: representation, the body of the explorer, and international territorial law. When it comes to thinking about ‘turf’, Antarctica may at first seem an odd subject of analysis. Physically, Antarctica is a turfless space, an entire continent devoid of grass, plants, land-based animals, or trees. Geopolitically, Antarctica remains the only continent on which no turf wars have been fought: British and Argentinian soldiers clashed over the occupation of a Peninsular base in the Hope Bay incident of 1952 (Dodds 56), but beyond this somewhat bathetic skirmish, Antarctican space has never been the object of physical conflict. Further, as Antarctica has no indigenous human population, its space remains free of the colonial turfs of dispossession, invasion, and loss. The Antarctic Treaty of 1961 formalised Antarctica’s geopolitically turfless status, stipulating that the continent was to be used for peaceful purposes only, and stating that Antarctica was an internationally shared space of harmony and scientific goodwill. So why address Antarctican spatiality here? Two motivations underpin this article’s anatomising of Australia’s Antarctican space. First, too often Antarctica is imagined as an entirely homogeneous space: a vast white plain dotted here and there along its shifting coast by identical scientific research stations inhabited by identical bearded men. Similarly, the complexities of Antarctica’s geopolitical and legal spaces are often overlooked in favour of a vision of the continent as a site of harmonious uniformity. While it is true that the bulk of Antarctican space is ice, the assumption that its cultural spatialities are identical is far from the case: this article is part of a larger endeavour to provide a ‘thick’ description of Antarctican spatialities, one which points to the heterogeneity of cultural geographies of the polar south. The Australian polar spatiality installed by Mawson differs radically from that of, for example, Chile; in a continent governed by international consensus, it is crucial that the specific cultural geographies and spatial histories of Treaty participants be clearly understood. Second, attending to complexities of Antarctican spatiality points up the intersecting cultural technologies involved in spatial production, cultural technologies so powerful that, in the case of Antarctica, they transformed nearly half of a distant continent into Australian sovereign space. This article focuses its critical attention on three core spatialising technologies, a trinary that echoes Henri Lefebvre’s influential tripartite model of spatiality: this article attends to Australian Antarctic representation, practise, and the law. At the turn of the twentieth century, Scott, Shackleton, and Amundsen trooped over the polar plateau, and Antarctic space became a setting for symbolic Edwardian performances of heroic imperial masculinity and ‘frontier’ hardiness. At the same time, a second, less symbolic, type of Antarctican spatiality began to evolve: for the first time, Antarctica became a potential territorial possession; it became the object of expansionist geopolitics. Based in part on Scott’s expeditions, Britain declared sovereignty over an undefined area of the continent in 1908, and France declared Antarctic space its own in 1924; by the late 1920s, what John Agnew and Stuart Corbridge refer to as the nation-state ontology—that is, the belief that land should and must be divided into state-owned units—had arrived in Antarctica. What the Adelaide Advertiser’s 8 April 1929 headline referred to as “A Scramble for Antarctica” had begun. The British Imperial Conference of 1926 concluded that the entire continent should become a possession of Britain and its dominions, New Zealand and Australia (Imperial). Thus, in 1929, BANZARE set sail into the brutal Southern Ocean. Although the expedition included various scientists, its primary mission was not to observe Antarctican space, but to take possession of it: as the expedition’s instructions from Australian Prime Minister Bruce stated, BANZARE’s mission was to produce Antarctica as Empire’s—and by extension, Australia’s—sovereign space (Jacka and Jacka 251). With the moment described in the first paragraph of this article, along with four other such moments, BANZARE succeeded; just how it did so is the focus of this work. It is by now axiomatic in spatial studies that the job of imperial explorers is not to locate landforms, but to produce a discursive space. “The early travellers,” as Paul Carter notes of Australian explorers, “invented places rather than found them” (51). Numerous analytical investigations attend to the discursive power of exploration: in Australia, Carter’s Road to Botany Bay, Simon Ryan’s Cartographic Eye, Ross Gibson’s Diminishing Paradise, and Brigid Hains’s The Ice and the Inland, to name a few, lay bare the textual strategies through which the imperial annexation of “new” spaces was legitimated and enabled. Discursive territoriality was certainly a core product of BANZARE: as this article’s opening paragraph demonstrates, one of the key missions of BANZARE was not simply to perform rituals of spatial possession, but to textualise them for popular and governmental consumption. Within ten months of the expedition’s return, Hurley’s film Southward Ho! With Mawson was touring Australia. BANZARE consisted of two separate trips to Antarctica; Southward Ho! documents the first of these, while Siege of the South documents the both the first and the second, 1930-1, mission. While there is not space here to provide a detailed textual analysis of the entire film, a focus on the “Proclamation Island moment” usefully points up some of the film’s central spatialising work. Hurley situated the Proclamation Island scene at the heart of the film; the scene was so important that Hurley wished he had been able to shoot two hours of footage of Mawson’s island performance (Ayres 194). This scene in the film opens with a long shot of the land and sea around the island; a soundtrack of howling wind not only documents the brutal conditions in which the expedition worked, but also emphasises the emptiness of Antarctican space prior to its “discovery” by Mawson: in this shot, the film visually confirms Antarctica’s status as an available terra nullius awaiting cooption into Australian understanding, and into Australian national space. The film then cuts to a close-up of Mawson raising the flag; the sound of the wind disappears as Mawson begins to read the proclamation of possession. It is as if Mawson’s proclamation of possession stills the protean chaos of unclaimed Antarctic space by inviting it into the spatial order of national territory: at this moment, Antarctica’s agency is symbolically subsumed by Mawson’s acquisitive words. As the scene ends, the camera once again pans over the surrounding sea and ice scape, visually confirming the impact of Mawson’s—and the film’s—performance: all this, the shot implies, is now made meaningful; all this is now understood, recorded, and, most importantly, all this is now ours. A textual analysis of this filmic moment might identify numerous other spatialising strategies at work: its conflation of Mawson’s and the viewer’s proprietary gazes (Ryan), its invocation of the sublime, or its legitimising conflation of the ‘purity’ of the whiteness of the landscape with the whiteness of its claimants (Dyer 21). However, the spatial productivity of this moment far exceeds the discursive. What is at times frustrating about discourse analyses of spatiality is that they too often fail to articulate representation to other, equally potent, cultural technologies of spatial production. John Wylie notes that “on the whole, accounts of early twentieth-century Antarctic exploration exhibit a particular tendency to position and interpret exploratory experience in terms of self-contained discursive ensembles” (170). Despite the undisputed power of textuality, discourse alone does not, and cannot, produce a spatial possession. “Discursive and representational practices,” as Jane Jacobs observes, “are in a mutually constitutive relationship with political and economic forces” (9); spatiality, in other words, is not simply a matter of texts. In order to understand fully the process of Antarctican spatial acquisition, it is necessary to depart from tales of exploration and ships and flags, and to focus on the less visceral spatiality of international territorial law. Or, more accurately, it is necessary to address the mutual imbrication of these two articulated spatialising “domains of practice” (Dixon). The emerging field of critical legal geography is founded on the premise that legal analyses of territoriality neglect the spatial dimension of their investigations; rather than seeing the law as a means of spatial production, they position space as a neutral, universally-legible entity which is neatly governed by the “external variable” of territorial law (Blomley 28). “In the hegemonic conception of the law,” Wesley Pue argues, “the entire world is transmuted into one vast isotropic surface” (568) upon which law acts. Nicholas Blomley asserts, however, that law is not a neutral organiser of space, but rather a cultural technology of spatial production. Territorial laws, in other words, make spaces, and don’t simply govern them. When Mawson planted the flag and read the proclamation, he was producing Antarctica as a legal space as well as a discursive one. Today’s international territorial laws derive directly from European imperialism: as European empires expanded, they required a spatial system that would protect their newly-annexed lands, and thus they developed a set of laws of territorial acquisition and possession. Undergirding these laws is the ontological premise that space is divisible into state-owned sovereign units. At international law, space can be acquired by its imperial claimants in one of three main ways: through conquest, cession (treaty), or through “the discovery of terra nullius” (see Triggs 2). Antarctica and Australia remain the globe’s only significant spaces to be transformed into possessions through the last of these methods. In the spatiality of the international law of discovery, explorers are not just government employees or symbolic representatives, but vessels of enormous legal force. According to international territorial law, sovereign title to “new” territory—land defined (by Europeans) as terra nullius, or land belonging to no one—can be established through the eyes, feet, codified ritual performances, and documents of explorers. That is, once an authorised explorer—Mawson carried documents from both the Australian Prime Minister and the British King that invested his body and his texts with the power to transform land into a possession—saw land, put his foot on it, planted a flag, read a proclamation, then documented these acts in words and maps, that land became a possession. These performative rituals and their documentation activate the legal spatiality of territorial acquisition; law here is revealed as a “bundle of practices” that produce space as a possession (Ford 202). What we witness when we attend to Mawson’s island performance, then, is not merely a discursive performance, but also the transformation of Antarctica into a legal space of possession. Similarly, the films and documents generated by the expedition are more than just a “sign system of human ambition” (Tang 190), they are evidence, valid at law, of territorial possession. They are key components of Australia’s legal currency of Antarctican spatial purchase. What is of central importance here is that Mawson’s BANZARE performance on Proclamation Island is a moment in which the dryly legal, the bluntly physical, and the densely textual clearly intersect in the creation of space as a possession. Australia did not take possession of forty-two percent of Antarctica after BANZARE by law, by exploration, or by representation alone. The Australian government built its Antarctic space with letters patent and legal documents. BANZARE produced Australia’s Antarctic possession through the physical and legal rituals of flag-planting, proclamation-reading, and exploration. BANZARE further contributed to Australia’s polar empire with maps, journals, photos and films, and cadastral lists of the region’s animals, minerals, magnetic fields, and winds. The law of “discovery of terra nullius” coalesced these spaces into a territory officially designated as Australian. It is crucial to recognise that the production of nearly half of Antarctica as Australian space was, and is not a matter of discourse, of physical performance, or of law alone. Rather, these three cultural technologies of spatial production are mutually imbricated; none can function without the others, nor is one reducible to an epiphenomenon of another. To focus on the discursive products of BANZARE without attending to the expedition’s legal work not only downplays the significance of Mawson’s spatialising achievement, but also blinds us to the role that law plays in the production of space. Attending to Mawson’s Proclamation Island moment points to the unique nature of Australia’s Antarctic spatiality: unlike the US, which constructs Antarctic spatiality as entirely non-sovereign; and unlike Chile, which bases its Antarctic sovereignty claim on Papal Bulls and acts of domestic colonisation, Australian Antarctic space is a spatiality of possession, founded on a bedrock of imperial exploration, representation, and law. Seventy-four years ago, the camera whirred as a man stuck a flagpole into the bleak summit rocks of a small Antarctic island: six million square kilometres of Antarctica became, and remain, Australian space. Works Cited Agnew, John, and Stuart Corbridge. Mastering Space: Hegemony, Territory and International Political Economy. London: Routledge, 1995. Ayres, Philip. Mawson: A Life. Melbourne: Melbourne UP, 1999. Blomley, Nicholas. Law, Space, and the Geographies of Power. New York: Guilford, 1994. Bush, W. M. Antarctica and International Law: A Collection of Inter-State and National Documents. Vol. 2. London: Oceana, 1982. Carter, Paul. The Road to Botany Bay: An Essay in Spatial History. London: Faber, 1987. Dixon, Rob. Prosthetic Gods: Travel, Representation and Colonial Governance. Brisbane: UQP, 2001. Dodds, Klaus. Geopolitics in Antarctica: Views from the Southern Oceanic Rim. Chichester: Wiley, 1997. Dyer, Richard. White. London: Routledge, 1997. Ford, Richard. “Law’s Territory (A History of Jurisdiction).” The Legal Geographies Reader. Ed. Nicholas Blomley and Richard Ford. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001. 200-17. Gibson, Ross. The Diminishing Paradise: Changing Literary Perceptions of Australia. Sydney: Sirius, 1984. Hains, Brigid. The Ice and the Inland: Mawson, Flynn, and the Myth of the Frontier. Melbourne: Melbourne UP, 2002. Imperial Conference, 1926. Summary of Proceedings. London: His Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1926. Jacka, Fred, and Eleanor Jacka, eds. Mawson’s Antarctic Diaries. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1988. Jacobs, Jane. Edge of Empire: Postcolonialism and the City. London: Routledge, 1996. Pue, Wesley. “Wrestling with Law: (Geographical) Specificity versus (Legal) Abstraction.” Urban Geography 11.6 (1990): 566-85. Ryan, Simon. The Cartographic Eye: How the Explorers Saw Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996. Tang, David. “Writing on Antarctica.” Room 5 1 (2000): 185-95. Triggs, Gillian. International Law and Australian Sovereignty in Antarctica. Sydney: Legal, 1986. Wylie, John. “Earthly Poles: The Antarctic Voyages of Scott and Amundsen.” Postcolonial Geographies. Ed Alison Blunt and Cheryl McEwan. London: Continuum, 2002. 169-83. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Collis, Christy. "Australia’s Antarctic Turf" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture <http://www.media-culture.org.au/0403/02-feature-australia.php>. APA Style Collis, C. (2004, Mar17). Australia’s Antarctic Turf. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture,7,<http://www.media-culture.org.au/0403/02-feature australia.php>

Connecting I’ve moved house on the weekend, closer to the centre of an Australian capital city. I had recently signed up for broadband, with a major Australian Internet company (my first contact, cf. Turner). Now I am the proud owner of a larger modem than I have ever owned: a white cable modem. I gaze out into our new street: two thick black cables cosseted in silver wire. I am relieved. My new home is located in one of those streets, double-cabled by Telstra and Optus in the data-rush of the mid-1990s. Otherwise, I’d be moth-balling the cable modem, and the thrill of my data percolating down coaxial cable. And it would be off to the computer supermarket to buy an ASDL modem, then to pick a provider, to squeeze some twenty-first century connectivity out of old copper (the phone network our grandparents and great-grandparents built). If I still lived in the country, or the outskirts of the city, or anywhere else more than four kilometres from the phone exchange, and somewhere that cable pay TV will never reach, it would be a dish for me — satellite. Our digital lives are premised upon infrastructure, the networks through which we shape what we do, fashion the meanings of our customs and practices, and exchange signs with others. Infrastructure is not simply the material or the technical (Lamberton), but it is the dense, fibrous knotting together of social visions, cultural resources, individual desires, and connections. No more can one easily discern between ‘society’ and ‘technology’, ‘carriage’ and ‘content’, ‘base’ and ‘superstructure’, or ‘infrastructure’ and ‘applications’ (or ‘services’ or ‘content’). To understand telecommunications in action, or the vectors of fibre, we need to consider the long and heterogeneous list of links among different human and non-human actors — the long networks, to take Bruno Latour’s evocative concept, that confect our broadband networks (Latour). The co-ordinates of our infrastructure still build on a century-long history of telecommunications networks, on the nineteenth-century centrality of telegraphy preceding this, and on the histories of the public and private so inscribed. Yet we are in the midst of a long, slow dismantling of the posts-telegraph-telephone (PTT) model of the monopoly carrier for each nation that dominated the twentieth century, with its deep colonial foundations. Instead our New World Information and Communication Order is not the decolonising UNESCO vision of the late 1970s and early 1980s (MacBride, Maitland). Rather it is the neoliberal, free trade, market access model, its symbol the 1984 US judicial decision to require the break-up of AT&T and the UK legislation in the same year that underpinned the Thatcherite twin move to privatize British Telecom and introduce telecommunications competition. Between 1984 and 1999, 110 telecommunications companies were privatized, and the ‘acquisition of privatized PTOs [public telecommunications operators] by European and American operators does follow colonial lines’ (Winseck 396; see also Mody, Bauer & Straubhaar). The competitive market has now been uneasily installed as the paradigm for convergent communications networks, not least with the World Trade Organisation’s 1994 General Agreement on Trade in Services and Annex on Telecommunications. As the citizen is recast as consumer and customer (Goggin, ‘Citizens and Beyond’), we rethink our cultural and political axioms as well as the axes that orient our understandings in this area. Information might travel close to the speed of light, and we might fantasise about optical fibre to the home (or pillow), but our terrain, our band where the struggle lies today, is narrower than we wish. Begging for broadband, it seems, is a long way from warchalking for WiFi. Policy Circuits The dreary everyday business of getting connected plugs the individual netizen into a tangled mess of policy circuits, as much as tricky network negotiations. Broadband in mid-2003 in Australia is a curious chimera, welded together from a patchwork of technologies, old and newer communications industries, emerging economies and patterns of use. Broadband conjures up grander visions, however, of communication and cultural cornucopia. Broadband is high-speed, high-bandwidth, ‘always-on’, networked communications. People can send and receive video, engage in multimedia exchanges of all sorts, make the most of online education, realise the vision of home-based work and trading, have access to telemedicine, and entertainment. Broadband really entered the lexicon with the mass takeup of the Internet in the early to mid-1990s, and with the debates about something called the ‘information superhighway’. The rise of the Internet, the deregulation of telecommunications, and the involuted convergence of communications and media technologies saw broadband positioned at the centre of policy debates nearly a decade ago. In 1993-1994, Australia had its Broadband Services Expert Group (BSEG), established by the then Labor government. The BSEG was charged with inquiring into ‘issues relating to the delivery of broadband services to homes, schools and businesses’. Stung by criticisms of elite composition (a narrow membership, with only one woman among its twelve members, and no consumer or citizen group representation), the BSEG was prompted into wider public discussion and consultation (Goggin & Newell). The then Bureau of Transport and Communications Economics (BTCE), since transmogrified into the Communications Research Unit of the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts (DCITA), conducted its large-scale Communications Futures Project (BTCE and Luck). The BSEG Final report posed the question starkly: As a society we have choices to make. If we ignore the opportunities we run the risk of being left behind as other countries introduce new services and make themselves more competitive: we will become consumers of other countries’ content, culture and technologies rather than our own. Or we could adopt new technologies at any cost…This report puts forward a different approach, one based on developing a new, user-oriented strategy for communications. The emphasis will be on communication among people... (BSEG v) The BSEG proposed a ‘National Strategy for New Communications Networks’ based on three aspects: education and community access, industry development, and the role of government (BSEG x). Ironically, while the nation, or at least its policy elites, pondered the weighty question of broadband, Australia’s two largest telcos were doing it. The commercial decision of Telstra/Foxtel and Optus Vision, and their various television partners, was to nail their colours (black) to the mast, or rather telegraph pole, and to lay cable in the major capital cities. In fact, they duplicated the infrastructure in cities such as Sydney and Melbourne, then deciding it would not be profitable to cable up even regional centres, let alone small country towns or settlements. As Terry Flew and Christina Spurgeon observe: This wasteful duplication contrasted with many other parts of the country that would never have access to this infrastructure, or to the social and economic benefits that it was perceived to deliver. (Flew & Spurgeon 72) The implications of this decision for Australia’s telecommunications and television were profound, but there was little, if any, public input into this. Then Minister Michael Lee was very proud of his anti-siphoning list of programs, such as national sporting events, that would remain on free-to-air television rather than screen on pay, but was unwilling, or unable, to develop policy on broadband and pay TV cable infrastructure (on the ironies of Australia’s television history, see Given’s masterly account). During this period also, it may be remembered, Australia’s Internet was being passed into private hands, with the tendering out of AARNET (see Spurgeon for discussion). No such national strategy on broadband really emerged in the intervening years, nor has the market provided integrated, accessible broadband services. In 1997, landmark telecommunications legislation was enacted that provided a comprehensive framework for competition in telecommunications, as well as consolidating and extending consumer protection, universal service, customer service standards, and other reforms (CLC). Carrier and reseller competition had commenced in 1991, and the 1997 legislation gave it further impetus. Effective competition is now well established in long distance telephone markets, and in mobiles. Rivalrous competition exists in the market for local-call services, though viable alternatives to Telstra’s dominance are still few (Fels). Broadband too is an area where there is symbolic rivalry rather than effective competition. This is most visible in advertised ADSL offerings in large cities, yet most of the infrastructure for these services is comprised by Telstra’s copper, fixed-line network. Facilities-based duopoly competition exists principally where Telstra/Foxtel and Optus cable networks have been laid, though there are quite a number of ventures underway by regional telcos, power companies, and, most substantial perhaps, the ACT government’s TransACT broadband network. Policymakers and industry have been greatly concerned about what they see as slow takeup of broadband, compared to other countries, and by barriers to broadband competition and access to ‘bottleneck’ facilities (such as Telstra or Optus’s networks) by potential competitors. The government has alternated between trying to talk up broadband benefits and rates of take up and recognising the real difficulties Australia faces as a large country with a relative small and dispersed population. In March 2003, Minister Alston directed the ACCC to implement new monitoring and reporting arrangements on competition in the broadband industry. A key site for discussion of these matters has been the competition policy institution, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, and its various inquiries, reports, and considerations (consult ACCC’s telecommunications homepage at http://www.accc.gov.au/telco/fs-telecom.htm). Another key site has been the Productivity Commission (http://www.pc.gov.au), while a third is the National Office on the Information Economy (NOIE - http://www.noie.gov.au/projects/access/access/broadband1.htm). Others have questioned whether even the most perfectly competitive market in broadband will actually provide access to citizens and consumers. A great deal of work on this issue has been undertaken by DCITA, NOIE, the regulators, and industry bodies, not to mention consumer and public interest groups. Since 1997, there have been a number of governmental inquiries undertaken or in progress concerning the takeup of broadband and networked new media (for example, a House of Representatives Wireless Broadband Inquiry), as well as important inquiries into the still most strategically important of Australia’s companies in this area, Telstra. Much of this effort on an ersatz broadband policy has been piecemeal and fragmented. There are fundamental difficulties with the large size of the Australian continent and its harsh terrain, the small size of the Australian market, the number of providers, and the dominant position effectively still held by Telstra, as well as Singtel Optus (Optus’s previous overseas investors included Cable & Wireless and Bell South), and the larger telecommunications and Internet companies (such as Ozemail). Many consumers living in metropolitan Australia still face real difficulties in realising the slogan ‘bandwidth for all’, but the situation in parts of rural Australia is far worse. Satellite ‘broadband’ solutions are available, through Telstra Countrywide or other providers, but these offer limited two-way interactivity. Data can be received at reasonable speeds (though at far lower data rates than how ‘broadband’ used to be defined), but can only be sent at far slower rates (Goggin, Rural Communities Online). The cultural implications of these digital constraints may well be considerable. Computer gamers, for instance, are frustrated by slow return paths. In this light, the final report of the January 2003 Broadband Advisory Group (BAG) is very timely. The BAG report opens with a broadband rhapsody: Broadband communications technologies can deliver substantial economic and social benefits to Australia…As well as producing productivity gains in traditional and new industries, advanced connectivity can enrich community life, particularly in rural and regional areas. It provides the basis for integration of remote communities into national economic, cultural and social life. (BAG 1, 7) Its prescriptions include: Australia will be a world leader in the availability and effective use of broadband...and to capture the economic and social benefits of broadband connectivity...Broadband should be available to all Australians at fair and reasonable prices…Market arrangements should be pro-competitive and encourage investment...The Government should adopt a National Broadband Strategy (BAG 1) And, like its predecessor nine years earlier, the BAG report does make reference to a national broadband strategy aiming to maximise “choice in work and recreation activities available to all Australians independent of location, background, age or interests” (17). However, the idea of a national broadband strategy is not something the BAG really comes to grips with. The final report is keen on encouraging broadband adoption, but not explicit on how barriers to broadband can be addressed. Perhaps this is not surprising given that the membership of the BAG, dominated by representatives of large corporations and senior bureaucrats was even less representative than its BSEG predecessor. Some months after the BAG report, the Federal government did declare a broadband strategy. It did so, intriguingly enough, under the rubric of its response to the Regional Telecommunications Inquiry report (Estens), the second inquiry responsible for reassuring citizens nervous about the full-privatisation of Telstra (the first inquiry being Besley). The government’s grand $142.8 million National Broadband Strategy focusses on the ‘broadband needs of regional Australians, in partnership with all levels of government’ (Alston, ‘National Broadband Strategy’). Among other things, the government claims that the Strategy will result in “improved outcomes in terms of services and prices for regional broadband access; [and] the development of national broadband infrastructure assets.” (Alston, ‘National Broadband Strategy’) At the same time, the government announced an overall response to the Estens Inquiry, with specific safeguards for Telstra’s role in regional communications — a preliminary to the full Telstra sale (Alston, ‘Future Proofing’). Less publicised was the government’s further initiative in indigenous telecommunications, complementing its Telecommunications Action Plan for Remote Indigenous Communities (DCITA). Indigenous people, it can be argued, were never really contemplated as citizens with the ken of the universal service policy taken to underpin the twentieth-century government monopoly PTT project. In Australia during the deregulatory and re-regulatory 1990s, there was a great reluctance on the part of Labor and Coalition Federal governments, Telstra and other industry participants, even to research issues of access to and use of telecommunications by indigenous communicators. Telstra, and to a lesser extent Optus (who had purchased AUSSAT as part of their licence arrangements), shrouded the issue of indigenous communications in mystery that policymakers were very reluctant to uncover, let alone systematically address. Then regulator, the Australian Telecommunications Authority (AUSTEL), had raised grave concerns about indigenous telecommunications access in its 1991 Rural Communications inquiry. However, there was no government consideration of, nor research upon, these issues until Alston commissioned a study in 2001 — the basis for the TAPRIC strategy (DCITA). The elision of indigenous telecommunications from mainstream industry and government policy is all the more puzzling, if one considers the extraordinarily varied and significant experiments by indigenous Australians in telecommunications and Internet (not least in the early work of the Tanami community, made famous in media and cultural studies by the writings of anthropologist Eric Michaels). While the government’s mid-2003 moves on a ‘National Broadband Strategy’ attend to some details of the broadband predicament, they fall well short of an integrated framework that grasps the shortcomings of the neoliberal communications model. The funding offered is a token amount. The view from the seat of government is a glance from the rear-view mirror: taking a snapshot of rural communications in the years 2000-2002 and projecting this tableau into a safety-net ‘future proofing’ for the inevitable turning away of a fully-privately-owned Telstra from its previously universal, ‘carrier of last resort’ responsibilities. In this aetiolated, residualist policy gaze, citizens remain constructed as consumers in a very narrow sense in this incremental, quietist version of state securing of market arrangements. What is missing is any more expansive notion of citizens, their varied needs, expectations, uses, and cultural imaginings of ‘always on’ broadband networks. Hybrid Networks “Most people on earth will eventually have access to networks that are all switched, interactive, and broadband”, wrote Frances Cairncross in 1998. ‘Eventually’ is a very appropriate word to describe the parlous state of broadband technology implementation. Broadband is in a slow state of evolution and invention. The story of broadband so far underscores the predicament for Australian access to bandwidth, when we lack any comprehensive, integrated, effective, and fair policy in communications and information technology. We have only begun to experiment with broadband technologies and understand their evolving uses, cultural forms, and the sense in which they rework us as subjects. Our communications networks are not superhighways, to invoke an enduring artefact from an older technology. Nor any longer are they a single ‘public’ switched telecommunications network, like those presided over by the post-telegraph-telephone monopolies of old. Like roads themselves, or the nascent postal system of the sixteenth century, broadband is a patchwork quilt. The ‘fibre’ of our communications networks is hybrid. To be sure, powerful corporations dominate, like the Tassis or Taxis who served as postmasters to the Habsburg emperors (Briggs & Burke 25). Activating broadband today provides a perspective on the path dependency of technology history, and how we can open up new threads of a communications fabric. Our options for transforming our multitudinous networked lives emerge as much from everyday tactics and strategies as they do from grander schemes and unifying policies. We may care to reflect on the waning potential for nation-building technology, in the wake of globalisation. We no longer gather our imagined community around a Community Telephone Plan as it was called in 1960 (Barr, Moyal, and PMG). Yet we do require national and international strategies to get and stay connected (Barr), ideas and funding that concretely address the wider dimensions of access and use. We do need to debate the respective roles of Telstra, the state, community initiatives, and industry competition in fair telecommunications futures. Networks have global reach and require global and national integration. Here vision, co-ordination, and resources are urgently required for our commonweal and moral fibre. To feel the width of the band we desire, we need to plug into and activate the policy circuits. Thanks to Grayson Cooke, Patrick Lichty, Ned Rossiter, John Pace, and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments. Works Cited Alston, Richard. ‘ “Future Proofing” Regional Communications.’ Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Canberra, 2003. 17 July 2003 <http://www.dcita.gov.au/Article/0,,0_1-2_3-4_115485,00.php> —. ‘A National Broadband Strategy.’ Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Canberra, 2003. 17 July 2003 <http://www.dcita.gov.au/Article/0,,0_1-2_3-4_115486,00.php>. Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). Broadband Services Report March 2003. Canberra: ACCC, 2003. 17 July 2003 <http://www.accc.gov.au/telco/fs-telecom.htm>. —. Emerging Market Structures in the Communications Sector. 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Many Voices, One World: Towards a New More Just and More Efficient World Information and Communication Order. Paris: Kegan Page, London. UNESCO, 1980. Maitland Commission (Independent Commission on Worldwide Telecommunications Development). The Missing Link. Geneva: International Telecommunications Union, 1985. Michaels, Eric. Bad Aboriginal Art: Tradition, Media, and Technological Horizons. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1994. Mody, Bella, Bauer, Johannes M., and Straubhaar, Joseph D., eds. Telecommunications Politics: Ownership and Control of the Information Highway in Developing Countries. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1995. Moyal, Ann. Clear Across Australia: A History of Telecommunications. Melbourne: Thomas Nelson, 1984. Post-Master General’s Department (PMG). Community Telephone Plan for Australia. Melbourne: PMG, 1960. Productivity Commission (PC). Telecommunications Competition Regulation: Inquiry Report. Report No. 16. Melbourne: Productivity Commission, 2001. <http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiry/telecommunications/finalreport/>, accessed 17 July 2003. Spurgeon, Christina. ‘National Culture, Communications and the Information Economy.’ Media International Australia 87 (1998): 23-34. Turner, Graeme. ‘First Contact: coming to terms with the cable guy.’ UTS Review 3 (1997): 109-21. Winseck, Dwayne. ‘Wired Cities and Transnational Communications: New Forms of Governance for Telecommunications and the New Media’. In The Handbook of New Media: Social Shaping and Consequences of ICTs, ed. Leah A. Lievrouw and Sonia Livingstone. London: Sage, 2002. 393-409. World Trade Organisation. General Agreement on Trade in Services: Annex on Telecommunications. Geneva: World Trade Organisation, 1994. 17 July 2003 <http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/serv_e/12-tel_e.htm>. —. Fourth protocol to the General Agreement on Trade in Services. Geneva: World Trade Organisation. 17 July 2003 <http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/serv_e/4prote_e.htm>. Links http://www.accc.gov.au/pubs/publications/utilities/telecommunications/Emerg_mar_struc.doc http://www.accc.gov.au/speeches/2003/Fels_ATUG_6March03.doc http://www.accc.gov.au/telco/fs-telecom.htm http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/cita/Wbt/report.htm http://www.dcita.gov.au/Article/0,,0_1-2_3-4_115485,00.html http://www.dcita.gov.au/Article/0,,0_1-2_3-4_115486,00.html http://www.noie.gov.au/projects/access/access/broadband1.htm http://www.noie.gov.au/publications/NOIE/BAG/report/index.htm http://www.pc.gov.au http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiry/telecommunications/finalreport/ http://www.telinquiry.gov.au/final_report.html http://www.telinquiry.gov.au/rti-report.html http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/serv_e/12-tel_e.htm http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/serv_e/4prote_e.htm Citation reference for this article Substitute your date of access for Dn Month Year etc... MLA Style Goggin, Gerard. "Broadband" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0308/02-featurebroadband.php>. APA Style Goggin, G. (2003, Aug 26). Broadband. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 6,< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0308/02-featurebroadband.php>

The twentieth was, from one perspective, the democratic century — a span of one hundred years which began with no fully functioning democracies in existence anywhere on the planet (if one defines democracy as a political system in which there is both universal suffrage and competitive elections), and ended with 120 countries out of 192 classified by the Freedom House think tank as ‘democratic’. There are of course still many societies where democracy is denied or effectively neutered — the remaining outposts of state socialism, such as China, Cuba, and North Korea; most if not all of the Islamic countries; exceptional states such as Singapore, unapologetically capitalist in its economic system but resolutely authoritarian in its political culture. Many self-proclaimed democracies, including those of the UK, Australia and the US, are procedurally or conceptually flawed. Countries emerging out of authoritarian systems and now in a state of democratic transition, such as Russia and the former Soviet republics, are immersed in constant, sometimes violent struggle between reformers and reactionaries. Russia’s recent parliamentary elections were accompanied by the intimidation of parties and politicians who opposed Vladimir Putin’s increasingly populist and authoritarian approach to leadership. The same Freedom House report which describes the rise of democracy in the twentieth century acknowledges that many self-styled democracies are, at best, only ‘partly free’ in their political cultures (for detailed figures on the rise of global democracy, see the Freedom House website Democracy’s Century). Let’s not for a moment downplay these important qualifications to what can nonetheless be fairly characterised as a century-long expansion and globalisation of democracy, and the acceptance of popular sovereignty, expressed through voting for the party or candidate of one’s choice, as a universally recognised human right. That such a process has occurred, and continues in these early years of the twenty-first century, is irrefutable. In the Gaza strip, Hamas appeals to the legitimacy of a democratic election victory in its campaign to be recognised as the voice of the Palestinian people. However one judges the messianic tendencies and Islamist ideology of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it must be acknowledged that the Iranian people elected him, and that they have the power to throw him out of government next time they vote. That was never true of the Shah. The democratic resurgence in Latin America, taking in Venezuela, Peru and Bolivia among others has been a much-noted feature of international politics in recent times (Alves), presenting a welcome contrast to the dictatorships and death squads of the 1980s, even as it creates some uncomfortable dilemmas for the Bush administration (which must champion democratic government at the same time as it resents some of the choices people may make when they have the opportunity to vote). Since 9/11 a kind of democracy has expanded even to Afghanistan and Iraq, albeit at the point of a gun, and with no guarantees of survival beyond the end of military occupation by the US and its coalition allies. As this essay was being written, Pakistan’s state of emergency was ending and democratic elections scheduled, albeit in the shadow cast by the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December 2007. Democracy, then — imperfect and limited as it can be; grudgingly delivered though it is by political elites in many countries, and subject to attack and roll back at any time — has become a global universal to which all claim allegiance, or at least pay lip service. The scale of this transformation, which has occurred in little more than one quarter of the time elapsed since the Putney debates of 1647 and the English revolution first established the principle of the sovereignty of parliament, is truly remarkable. (Tristram Hunt quotes lawyer Geoffrey Robertson in the Guardian to the effect that the Putney debates, staged in St Mary’s church in south-west London towards the end of the English civil war, launched “the idea that government requires the consent of freely and fairly elected representatives of all adult citizens irrespective of class or caste or status or wealth” – “A Jewel of Democracy”, Guardian, 26 Oct. 2007) Can it be true that less than one hundred years ago, in even the most advanced capitalist societies, 50 per cent of the people — women — did not have the right to vote? Or that black populations, indigenous or migrant, in countries such as the United States and Australia were deprived of basic citizenship rights until the 1960s and even later? Will future generations wonder how on earth it could have been that the vast majority of the people of South Africa were unable to vote until 1994, and that they were routinely imprisoned, tortured and killed when they demanded basic democratic rights? Or will they shrug and take it for granted, as so many of us who live in settled democracies already do? (In so far as ‘we’ includes the community of media and cultural studies scholars, I would argue that where there is reluctance to concede the scale and significance of democratic change, this arises out of continuing ambivalence about what ‘democracy’ means, a continuing suspicion of globalisation (in particular the globalisation of democratic political culture, still associated in some quarters with ‘the west’), and of the notion of ‘progress’ with which democracy is routinely associated. The intellectual roots of that ambivalence were various. Marxist-leninist inspired authoritarianism gripped much of the world until the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the cold war. Until that moment, it was still possible for many marxians in the scholarly community to view the idea of democracy with disdain — if not quite a dirty word, then a deeply flawed, highly loaded concept which masked and preserved underlying social inequalities more than it helped resolve them. Until 1989 or thereabouts, it was possible for ‘bourgeois democracy’ to be regarded as just one kind of democratic polity by the liberal and anti-capitalist left, which often regarded the ‘proletarian’ or ‘people’s’ democracy prevailing in the Soviet Union, China, Cuba or Vietnam as legitimate alternatives to the emerging capitalist norm of one person, one vote, for constituent assemblies which had real power and accountability. In terms not very different from those used by Marx and Engels in The German Ideology, belief in the value of democracy was conceived by this materialist school as a kind of false consciousness. It still is, by Noam Chomsky and others who continue to view democracy as a ‘necessary illusion’ (1989) without which capitalism could not be reproduced. From these perspectives voting gave, and gives us merely the illusion of agency and power in societies where capital rules as it always did. For democracy read ‘the manufacture of consent’; its expansion read not as progressive social evolution, but the universalisation of the myth of popular sovereignty, mobilised and utilised by the media-industrial-military complex to maintain its grip.) There are those who dispute this reading of events. In the 1960s, Habermas’s hugely influential Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere critiqued the manner in which democracy, and the public sphere underpinning it, had been degraded by public relations, advertising, and the power of private interests. In the period since, critical scholarly research and writing on political culture has been dominated by the Habermasian discourse of democratic decline, and the pervasive pessimism of those who see democracy, and the media culture which supports it, as fatally flawed, corrupted by commercialisation and under constant threat. Those, myself included, who challenged that view with a more positive reading of the trends (McNair, Journalism and Democracy; Cultural Chaos) have been denounced as naïve optimists, panglossian, utopian and even, in my own case, a ‘neo-liberal apologist’. (See an unpublished paper by David Miller, “System Failure: It’s Not Just the Media, It’s the Whole Bloody System”, delivered at Goldsmith’s College in 2003.) Engaging as they have been, I venture to suggest that these are the discourses and debates of an era now passing into history. Not only is it increasingly obvious that democracy is expanding globally into places where it never previously reached; it is also extending inwards, within nation states, driven by demands for greater local autonomy. In the United Kingdom, for example, the citizen is now able to vote not just in Westminster parliamentary elections (which determine the political direction of the UK government), but for European elections, local elections, and elections for devolved assemblies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The people of London can vote for their mayor. There would by now have been devolved assemblies in the regions of England, too, had the people of the North East not voted against it in a November 2004 referendum. Notwithstanding that result, which surprised many in the New Labour government who held it as axiomatic that the more democracy there was, the better for all of us, the importance of enhancing and expanding democratic institutions, of allowing people to vote more often (and also in more efficient ways — many of these expansions of democracy have been tied to the introduction of systems of proportional representation) has become consensual, from the Mid West of America to the Middle East. The Democratic Paradox And yet, as the wave of democratic transformation has rolled on through the late twentieth and into the early twenty first century it is notable that, in many of the oldest liberal democracies at least, fewer people have been voting. In the UK, for example, in the period between 1945 and 2001, turnout at general elections never fell below 70 per cent. In 1992, the last general election won by the Conservatives before the rise of Tony Blair and New Labour, turnout was 78 per cent, roughly where it had been in the 1950s. In 2001, however, as Blair’s government sought re-election, turnout fell to an historic low for the UK of 59.4 per cent, and rose only marginally to 61.4 per cent in the most recent general election of 2005. In the US presidential elections of 1996 and 2000 turnouts were at historic lows of 47.2 and 49.3 per cent respectively, rising just above 50 per cent again in 2004 (figures by International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance). At local level things are even worse. In only the second election for a devolved parliament in Scotland (2003) turnout was a mere 48.5 per cent, rising to 50.5 in 2007. These trends are not universal. In countries with compulsory voting, they mean very little — in Australia, where voting in parliamentary elections is compulsory, turnout averages in the 90s per cent. In France, while turnouts for parliamentary elections show a similar downward trend to the UK and the UK, presidential contests achieve turnouts of 80-plus per cent. In the UK and US, as noted, the most recent elections show modest growth in turnout from those historic lows of the late 1990s and early Noughties. There has grown, nonetheless, the perception, commonplace amongst academic commentators as well as journalists and politicians themselves, that we are living through a ‘crisis’ of democratic participation, a dangerous decline in the tendency to vote in elections which undermines the legitimacy of democracy itself. In communication scholarship a significant body of research and publication has developed around this theme, from Blumler and Gurevitch’s Crisis of Public Communication (1996), through Barnett and Gaber’s Westminster Tales (2000), to more recent studies such as Lewis et al.’s Citizens or Consumers (2005). All presume a problem of some kind with the practice of democracy and the “old fashioned ritual” of voting, as Lewis et al. describe it (2). Most link alleged inadequacies in the performance of the political media to what is interpreted as popular apathy (or antipathy) towards democracy. The media are blamed for the lack of public engagement with democratic politics which declining turnouts are argued to signal. Political journalists are said to be too aggressive and hyper-adversarial (Lloyd), behaving like the “feral beast” spoken of by Tony Blair in his 2007 farewell speech to the British people as prime minister. They are corrosively cynical and a “disaster for democracy”, as Steven Barnett and others argued in the first years of the twenty first century. They are not aggressive or adversarial enough, as the propaganda modellists allege, citing what they interpret as supine media coverage of Coalition policy in Iraq. The media put people off, rather than turn them on to democracy by being, variously, too nice or too nasty to politicians. What then, is the solution to the apparent paradox represented by the fact that there is more democracy, but less voting in elections than ever before; and that after centuries of popular struggle democratic assemblies proliferate, but in some countries barely half of the eligible voters can be bothered to participate? And what role have the media played in this unexpected phenomenon? If the scholarly community has been largely critical on this question, and pessimistic in its analyses of the role of the media, it has become increasingly clear that the one arena where people do vote more than ever before is that presented by the media, and entertainment media in particular. There has been, since the appearance of Big Brother and the subsequent explosion of competitive reality TV formats across the world, evidence of a huge popular appetite for voting on such matters as which amateur contestant on Pop Idol, or X Factor, or Fame Academy, or Operatunity goes on to have a chance of a professional career, a shot at the big time. Millions of viewers of the most popular reality TV strands queue up to register their votes on premium phone lines, the revenue from which makes up a substantial and growing proportion of the income of commercial TV companies. This explosion of voting behaviour has been made possible by the technology-driven emergence of new forms of participatory, interactive, digitised media channels which allow millions to believe that they can have an impact on the outcome of what are, at essence, game and talent shows. At the height of anxiety around the ‘crisis of democratic participation’ in the UK, observers noted that nearly 6.5 million people had voted in the Big Brother UK final in 2004. More than eight million voted during the 2004 run of the BBC’s Fame Academy series. While these numbers do not, contrary to popular belief, exceed the numbers of British citizens who vote in a general election (27.2 million in 2005), they do indicate an enthusiasm for voting which seems to contradict declining rates of democratic participation. People who will never get out and vote for their local councillor often appear more than willing to pick up the telephone or the laptop and cast a vote for their favoured reality TV contestant, even if it costs them money. It would be absurd to suggest that voting for a contestant on Big Brother is directly comparable to the act of choosing a government or a president. The latter is recognised as an expression of citizenship, with potentially significant consequences for the lives of individuals within their society. Voting on Big Brother, on the other hand, is unmistakeably entertainment, game-playing, a relatively risk-free exercise of choice — a bit of harmless fun, fuelled by office chat and relentless tabloid coverage of the contestants’ strengths and weaknesses. There is no evidence that readiness to participate in a telephone or online vote for entertainment TV translates into active citizenship, where ‘active’ means casting a vote in an election. The lesson delivered by the success of participatory media in recent years, however — first reality TV, and latterly a proliferation of online formats which encourage user participation and voting for one thing or another — is that people will vote, when they are able and motivated to do so. Voting is popular, in short, and never more so, irrespective of the level of popular participation recorded in recent elections. And if they will vote in their millions for a contestant on X Factor, or participate in competitions to determine the best movies or books on Facebook, they can presumably be persuaded to do so when an election for parliament comes around. This fact has been recognised by both media producers and politicians, and reflected in attempts to adapt the evermore sophisticated and efficient tools of participatory media to the democratic process, to engage media audiences as citizens by offering the kinds of voting opportunities in political debates, including election processes, which entertainment media have now made routinely available. ITV’s Vote for Me strand, broadcast in the run-up to the UK general election of 2005, used reality TV techniques to select a candidate who would actually take part in the forthcoming poll. The programme was broadcast in a late night, low audience slot, and failed to generate much interest, but it signalled a desire by media producers to harness the appeal of participatory media in a way which could directly impact on levels of democratic engagement. The honourable failure of Vote for Me (produced by the same team which made the much more successful live debate shows featuring prime minister Tony Blair — Ask Tony Blair, Ask the Prime Minister) might be viewed as evidence that readiness to vote in the context of a TV game show does not translate directly into voting for parties and politicians, and that the problem in this respect — the crisis of democratic participation, such that it exists — is located elsewhere. People can vote in democratic elections, but choose not to, perhaps because they feel that the act is meaningless (because parties are ideologically too similar), or ineffectual (because they see no impact of voting in their daily lives or in the state of the country), or irrelevant to their personal priorities and life styles. Voting rates have increased in the US and the UK since September 11 2001, suggesting perhaps that when the political stakes are raised, and the question of who is in government seems to matter more than it did, people act accordingly. Meantime, media producers continue to make money by developing formats and channels on the assumption that audiences wish to participate, to interact, and to vote. Whether this form of participatory media consumption for the purposes of play can be translated into enhanced levels of active citizenship, and whether the media can play a significant contributory role in that process, remains to be seen. References Alves, R.C. “From Lapdog to Watchdog: The Role of the Press in Latin America’s Democratisation.” In H. de Burgh, ed., Making Journalists. London: Routledge, 2005. 181-202. Anderson, P.J., and G. Ward (eds.). The Future of Journalism in the Advanced Democracies. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2007. Barnett, S. “The Age of Contempt.” Guardian 28 October 2002. http://politics.guardian.co.uk/media/comment/0,12123,820577,00.html>. Barnett, S., and I. Gaber. Westminster Tales. London: Continuum, 2001. Blumler, J., and M. Gurevitch. The Crisis of Public Communication. London: Routledge, 1996. Habermas, J. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989. Lewis, J., S. Inthorn, and K. Wahl-Jorgensen. Citizens or Consumers? What the Media Tell Us about Political Participation. Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 2005. Lloyd, John. What the Media Are Doing to Our Politics. London: Constable, 2004. McNair, B. Journalism and Democracy: A Qualitative Evaluation of the Political Public Sphere. London: Routledge, 2000. ———. Cultural Chaos: News, Journalism and Power in a Globalised World. London: Routledge, 2006. Citation reference for this article MLA Style McNair, Brian. "Vote!." M/C Journal 10.6/11.1 (2008). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0804/01-mcnair.php>. APA Style McNair, B. (Apr. 2008) "Vote!," M/C Journal, 10(6)/11(1). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0804/01-mcnair.php>.

The twentieth was, from one perspective, the democratic century — a span of one hundred years which began with no fully functioning democracies in existence anywhere on the planet (if one defines democracy as a political system in which there is both universal suffrage and competitive elections), and ended with 120 countries out of 192 classified by the Freedom House think tank as ‘democratic’. There are of course still many societies where democracy is denied or effectively neutered — the remaining outposts of state socialism, such as China, Cuba, and North Korea; most if not all of the Islamic countries; exceptional states such as Singapore, unapologetically capitalist in its economic system but resolutely authoritarian in its political culture. Many self-proclaimed democracies, including those of the UK, Australia and the US, are procedurally or conceptually flawed. Countries emerging out of authoritarian systems and now in a state of democratic transition, such as Russia and the former Soviet republics, are immersed in constant, sometimes violent struggle between reformers and reactionaries. Russia’s recent parliamentary elections were accompanied by the intimidation of parties and politicians who opposed Vladimir Putin’s increasingly populist and authoritarian approach to leadership. The same Freedom House report which describes the rise of democracy in the twentieth century acknowledges that many self-styled democracies are, at best, only ‘partly free’ in their political cultures (for detailed figures on the rise of global democracy, see the Freedom House website Democracy’s Century). Let’s not for a moment downplay these important qualifications to what can nonetheless be fairly characterised as a century-long expansion and globalisation of democracy, and the acceptance of popular sovereignty, expressed through voting for the party or candidate of one’s choice, as a universally recognised human right. That such a process has occurred, and continues in these early years of the twenty-first century, is irrefutable. In the Gaza strip, Hamas appeals to the legitimacy of a democratic election victory in its campaign to be recognised as the voice of the Palestinian people. However one judges the messianic tendencies and Islamist ideology of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it must be acknowledged that the Iranian people elected him, and that they have the power to throw him out of government next time they vote. That was never true of the Shah. The democratic resurgence in Latin America, taking in Venezuela, Peru and Bolivia among others has been a much-noted feature of international politics in recent times (Alves), presenting a welcome contrast to the dictatorships and death squads of the 1980s, even as it creates some uncomfortable dilemmas for the Bush administration (which must champion democratic government at the same time as it resents some of the choices people may make when they have the opportunity to vote). Since 9/11 a kind of democracy has expanded even to Afghanistan and Iraq, albeit at the point of a gun, and with no guarantees of survival beyond the end of military occupation by the US and its coalition allies. As this essay was being written, Pakistan’s state of emergency was ending and democratic elections scheduled, albeit in the shadow cast by the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December 2007. Democracy, then — imperfect and limited as it can be; grudgingly delivered though it is by political elites in many countries, and subject to attack and roll back at any time — has become a global universal to which all claim allegiance, or at least pay lip service. The scale of this transformation, which has occurred in little more than one quarter of the time elapsed since the Putney debates of 1647 and the English revolution first established the principle of the sovereignty of parliament, is truly remarkable. (Tristram Hunt quotes lawyer Geoffrey Robertson in the Guardian to the effect that the Putney debates, staged in St Mary’s church in south-west London towards the end of the English civil war, launched “the idea that government requires the consent of freely and fairly elected representatives of all adult citizens irrespective of class or caste or status or wealth” – “A Jewel of Democracy”, Guardian, 26 Oct. 2007) Can it be true that less than one hundred years ago, in even the most advanced capitalist societies, 50 per cent of the people — women — did not have the right to vote? Or that black populations, indigenous or migrant, in countries such as the United States and Australia were deprived of basic citizenship rights until the 1960s and even later? Will future generations wonder how on earth it could have been that the vast majority of the people of South Africa were unable to vote until 1994, and that they were routinely imprisoned, tortured and killed when they demanded basic democratic rights? Or will they shrug and take it for granted, as so many of us who live in settled democracies already do? (In so far as ‘we’ includes the community of media and cultural studies scholars, I would argue that where there is reluctance to concede the scale and significance of democratic change, this arises out of continuing ambivalence about what ‘democracy’ means, a continuing suspicion of globalisation (in particular the globalisation of democratic political culture, still associated in some quarters with ‘the west’), and of the notion of ‘progress’ with which democracy is routinely associated. The intellectual roots of that ambivalence were various. Marxist-leninist inspired authoritarianism gripped much of the world until the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the cold war. Until that moment, it was still possible for many marxians in the scholarly community to view the idea of democracy with disdain — if not quite a dirty word, then a deeply flawed, highly loaded concept which masked and preserved underlying social inequalities more than it helped resolve them. Until 1989 or thereabouts, it was possible for ‘bourgeois democracy’ to be regarded as just one kind of democratic polity by the liberal and anti-capitalist left, which often regarded the ‘proletarian’ or ‘people’s’ democracy prevailing in the Soviet Union, China, Cuba or Vietnam as legitimate alternatives to the emerging capitalist norm of one person, one vote, for constituent assemblies which had real power and accountability. In terms not very different from those used by Marx and Engels in The German Ideology, belief in the value of democracy was conceived by this materialist school as a kind of false consciousness. It still is, by Noam Chomsky and others who continue to view democracy as a ‘necessary illusion’ (1989) without which capitalism could not be reproduced. From these perspectives voting gave, and gives us merely the illusion of agency and power in societies where capital rules as it always did. For democracy read ‘the manufacture of consent’; its expansion read not as progressive social evolution, but the universalisation of the myth of popular sovereignty, mobilised and utilised by the media-industrial-military complex to maintain its grip.) There are those who dispute this reading of events. In the 1960s, Habermas’s hugely influential Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere critiqued the manner in which democracy, and the public sphere underpinning it, had been degraded by public relations, advertising, and the power of private interests. In the period since, critical scholarly research and writing on political culture has been dominated by the Habermasian discourse of democratic decline, and the pervasive pessimism of those who see democracy, and the media culture which supports it, as fatally flawed, corrupted by commercialisation and under constant threat. Those, myself included, who challenged that view with a more positive reading of the trends (McNair, Journalism and Democracy; Cultural Chaos) have been denounced as naïve optimists, panglossian, utopian and even, in my own case, a ‘neo-liberal apologist’. (See an unpublished paper by David Miller, “System Failure: It’s Not Just the Media, It’s the Whole Bloody System”, delivered at Goldsmith’s College in 2003.) Engaging as they have been, I venture to suggest that these are the discourses and debates of an era now passing into history. Not only is it increasingly obvious that democracy is expanding globally into places where it never previously reached; it is also extending inwards, within nation states, driven by demands for greater local autonomy. In the United Kingdom, for example, the citizen is now able to vote not just in Westminster parliamentary elections (which determine the political direction of the UK government), but for European elections, local elections, and elections for devolved assemblies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The people of London can vote for their mayor. There would by now have been devolved assemblies in the regions of England, too, had the people of the North East not voted against it in a November 2004 referendum. Notwithstanding that result, which surprised many in the New Labour government who held it as axiomatic that the more democracy there was, the better for all of us, the importance of enhancing and expanding democratic institutions, of allowing people to vote more often (and also in more efficient ways — many of these expansions of democracy have been tied to the introduction of systems of proportional representation) has become consensual, from the Mid West of America to the Middle East. The Democratic Paradox And yet, as the wave of democratic transformation has rolled on through the late twentieth and into the early twenty first century it is notable that, in many of the oldest liberal democracies at least, fewer people have been voting. In the UK, for example, in the period between 1945 and 2001, turnout at general elections never fell below 70 per cent. In 1992, the last general election won by the Conservatives before the rise of Tony Blair and New Labour, turnout was 78 per cent, roughly where it had been in the 1950s. In 2001, however, as Blair’s government sought re-election, turnout fell to an historic low for the UK of 59.4 per cent, and rose only marginally to 61.4 per cent in the most recent general election of 2005. In the US presidential elections of 1996 and 2000 turnouts were at historic lows of 47.2 and 49.3 per cent respectively, rising just above 50 per cent again in 2004 (figures by International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance). At local level things are even worse. In only the second election for a devolved parliament in Scotland (2003) turnout was a mere 48.5 per cent, rising to 50.5 in 2007. These trends are not universal. In countries with compulsory voting, they mean very little — in Australia, where voting in parliamentary elections is compulsory, turnout averages in the 90s per cent. In France, while turnouts for parliamentary elections show a similar downward trend to the UK and the UK, presidential contests achieve turnouts of 80-plus per cent. In the UK and US, as noted, the most recent elections show modest growth in turnout from those historic lows of the late 1990s and early Noughties. There has grown, nonetheless, the perception, commonplace amongst academic commentators as well as journalists and politicians themselves, that we are living through a ‘crisis’ of democratic participation, a dangerous decline in the tendency to vote in elections which undermines the legitimacy of democracy itself. In communication scholarship a significant body of research and publication has developed around this theme, from Blumler and Gurevitch’s Crisis of Public Communication (1996), through Barnett and Gaber’s Westminster Tales (2000), to more recent studies such as Lewis et al.’s Citizens or Consumers (2005). All presume a problem of some kind with the practice of democracy and the “old fashioned ritual” of voting, as Lewis et al. describe it (2). Most link alleged inadequacies in the performance of the political media to what is interpreted as popular apathy (or antipathy) towards democracy. The media are blamed for the lack of public engagement with democratic politics which declining turnouts are argued to signal. Political journalists are said to be too aggressive and hyper-adversarial (Lloyd), behaving like the “feral beast” spoken of by Tony Blair in his 2007 farewell speech to the British people as prime minister. They are corrosively cynical and a “disaster for democracy”, as Steven Barnett and others argued in the first years of the twenty first century. They are not aggressive or adversarial enough, as the propaganda modellists allege, citing what they interpret as supine media coverage of Coalition policy in Iraq. The media put people off, rather than turn them on to democracy by being, variously, too nice or too nasty to politicians. What then, is the solution to the apparent paradox represented by the fact that there is more democracy, but less voting in elections than ever before; and that after centuries of popular struggle democratic assemblies proliferate, but in some countries barely half of the eligible voters can be bothered to participate? And what role have the media played in this unexpected phenomenon? If the scholarly community has been largely critical on this question, and pessimistic in its analyses of the role of the media, it has become increasingly clear that the one arena where people do vote more than ever before is that presented by the media, and entertainment media in particular. There has been, since the appearance of Big Brother and the subsequent explosion of competitive reality TV formats across the world, evidence of a huge popular appetite for voting on such matters as which amateur contestant on Pop Idol, or X Factor, or Fame Academy, or Operatunity goes on to have a chance of a professional career, a shot at the big time. Millions of viewers of the most popular reality TV strands queue up to register their votes on premium phone lines, the revenue from which makes up a substantial and growing proportion of the income of commercial TV companies. This explosion of voting behaviour has been made possible by the technology-driven emergence of new forms of participatory, interactive, digitised media channels which allow millions to believe that they can have an impact on the outcome of what are, at essence, game and talent shows. At the height of anxiety around the ‘crisis of democratic participation’ in the UK, observers noted that nearly 6.5 million people had voted in the Big Brother UK final in 2004. More than eight million voted during the 2004 run of the BBC’s Fame Academy series. While these numbers do not, contrary to popular belief, exceed the numbers of British citizens who vote in a general election (27.2 million in 2005), they do indicate an enthusiasm for voting which seems to contradict declining rates of democratic participation. People who will never get out and vote for their local councillor often appear more than willing to pick up the telephone or the laptop and cast a vote for their favoured reality TV contestant, even if it costs them money. It would be absurd to suggest that voting for a contestant on Big Brother is directly comparable to the act of choosing a government or a president. The latter is recognised as an expression of citizenship, with potentially significant consequences for the lives of individuals within their society. Voting on Big Brother, on the other hand, is unmistakeably entertainment, game-playing, a relatively risk-free exercise of choice — a bit of harmless fun, fuelled by office chat and relentless tabloid coverage of the contestants’ strengths and weaknesses. There is no evidence that readiness to participate in a telephone or online vote for entertainment TV translates into active citizenship, where ‘active’ means casting a vote in an election. The lesson delivered by the success of participatory media in recent years, however — first reality TV, and latterly a proliferation of online formats which encourage user participation and voting for one thing or another — is that people will vote, when they are able and motivated to do so. Voting is popular, in short, and never more so, irrespective of the level of popular participation recorded in recent elections. And if they will vote in their millions for a contestant on X Factor, or participate in competitions to determine the best movies or books on Facebook, they can presumably be persuaded to do so when an election for parliament comes around. This fact has been recognised by both media producers and politicians, and reflected in attempts to adapt the evermore sophisticated and efficient tools of participatory media to the democratic process, to engage media audiences as citizens by offering the kinds of voting opportunities in political debates, including election processes, which entertainment media have now made routinely available. ITV’s Vote for Me strand, broadcast in the run-up to the UK general election of 2005, used reality TV techniques to select a candidate who would actually take part in the forthcoming poll. The programme was broadcast in a late night, low audience slot, and failed to generate much interest, but it signalled a desire by media producers to harness the appeal of participatory media in a way which could directly impact on levels of democratic engagement. The honourable failure of Vote for Me (produced by the same team which made the much more successful live debate shows featuring prime minister Tony Blair — Ask Tony Blair, Ask the Prime Minister) might be viewed as evidence that readiness to vote in the context of a TV game show does not translate directly into voting for parties and politicians, and that the problem in this respect — the crisis of democratic participation, such that it exists — is located elsewhere. People can vote in democratic elections, but choose not to, perhaps because they feel that the act is meaningless (because parties are ideologically too similar), or ineffectual (because they see no impact of voting in their daily lives or in the state of the country), or irrelevant to their personal priorities and life styles. Voting rates have increased in the US and the UK since September 11 2001, suggesting perhaps that when the political stakes are raised, and the question of who is in government seems to matter more than it did, people act accordingly. Meantime, media producers continue to make money by developing formats and channels on the assumption that audiences wish to participate, to interact, and to vote. Whether this form of participatory media consumption for the purposes of play can be translated into enhanced levels of active citizenship, and whether the media can play a significant contributory role in that process, remains to be seen. References Alves, R.C. “From Lapdog to Watchdog: The Role of the Press in Latin America’s Democratisation.” In H. de Burgh, ed., Making Journalists. London: Routledge, 2005. 181-202. Anderson, P.J., and G. Ward (eds.). The Future of Journalism in the Advanced Democracies. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2007. Barnett, S. “The Age of Contempt.” Guardian 28 October 2002. < http://politics.guardian.co.uk/media/comment/0,12123,820577,00.html >. Barnett, S., and I. Gaber. Westminster Tales. London: Continuum, 2001. Blumler, J., and M. Gurevitch. The Crisis of Public Communication. London: Routledge, 1996. Habermas, J. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989. Lewis, J., S. Inthorn, and K. Wahl-Jorgensen. Citizens or Consumers? What the Media Tell Us about Political Participation. Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 2005. Lloyd, John. What the Media Are Doing to Our Politics. London: Constable, 2004. McNair, B. Journalism and Democracy: A Qualitative Evaluation of the Political Public Sphere. London: Routledge, 2000. ———. Cultural Chaos: News, Journalism and Power in a Globalised World. London: Routledge, 2006.

The need to sustain and/or create a collective identity is regularly seen as one of the cultural priorities of diasporic peoples and this, in turn, depends upon the existence of a uniquely diasporic form of communication and connection with the country of origin. Today, digital media technologies provide easy information recording and retrieval, and mobile IT networks allow global accessibility and participation in the redefinition of identities. Vis-à-vis our understanding of the proximity and connectivity associated with globalisation, the role of ICTs cannot be underestimated and is clearly more than a simple instrument for the expression of a pre-existing diasporic identity. Indeed, the concept of “e-diaspora” is gaining popularity. Consequently, research into the role of ICTs in the lives of diasporic peoples contributes to a definition of the concept of diaspora, understood here as the result of the dispersal of all members of a nation in several countries. In this context, I will demonstrate how members of the Bulgarian diaspora negotiate not only their identities but also their identifications through one of the most popular community websites, Facebook. My methodology consists of the active observation of Bulgarian users belonging to the diaspora, the participation in groups and forums on Facebook, and the analysis of discourses produced online. This research was conducted for the first time between 1 August 2008 and 31 May 2009 through the largest 20 (of 195) Bulgarian groups on the French version of Facebook and 40 (of over 500) on the English one. It is important to note that the public considered to be predominantly involved in Facebook is a young audience in the age group of 18-35 years. Therefore, this article is focused on two generations of Bulgarian immigrants: mostly recent young and second-generation migrants. The observed users are therefore members of the Bulgarian diaspora who have little or no experience of communism, who don’t feel the weight of the past, and who have grown up as free and often cosmopolitan citizens. Communist hegemony in Bulgaria began on 9 September 1944, when the army and the communist militiamen deposed the country’s government and handed power over to an anti-fascist coalition. During the following decades, Bulgaria became the perfect Soviet satellite and the imposed Stalinist model led to sharp curtailing of the economic and social contacts with the free world beyond the Iron Curtain. In 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall marked the end of the communist era and the political and economic structures that supported it. Identity, Internet, and Diaspora Through the work of Mead, Todorov, and boyd it is possible to conceptualise the subject in terms of both of internal and external social identity (Mead, Todorov, boyd). In this article, I will focus, in particular, on social and national identities as expressions of the process of sharing stories, experiences, and understanding between individuals. In this respect, the phenomenon of Facebook is especially well placed to mediate between identifications which, according to Freud, facilitate the plural subjectivities and the establishment of an emotional network of mutual bonds between the individual and the group (Freud). This research also draws on Goffman who, from a sociological point of view, demystifies the representation of the Self by developing a dramaturgical theory (Goffman), whereby identity is constructed through the "roles" that people play on the social scene. Social life is a vast stage where the actors are required to adhere to certain socially acceptable rituals and guidelines. It means that we can consider the presentation of Self, or Others, as a facade or a construction of socially accepted features. Among all the ICTs, the Internet is, by far, the medium most likely to facilitate free expression of identity through a multitude of possible actions and community interactions. Personal and national memories circulate in the transnational space of the Internet and are reshaped when framed from specific circumstances such as those raised by the migration process. In an age of globalisation marked by the proliferation of population movements, instant communication, and cultural exchanges across geographic boundaries, the phenomenon of the diaspora has caught the attention of a growing number of scholars. I shall be working with Robin Cohen’s definition of diaspora which highlights the following common features: (1) dispersal from an original homeland; (2) the expansion from a homeland in search of work; (3) a collective memory and myth about the homeland; (4) an idealisation of the supposed ancestral homeland; (5) a return movement; (6) a strong ethnic group consciousness sustained over a long time; (7) a troubled relationship with host societies; (8) a sense of solidarity with co-ethnic members in other countries; and (9) the possibility of a distinctive creative, enriching life in tolerant host countries (Cohen). Following on this earlier work on the ways in which diasporas give rise to new forms of subjectivity, the concept of “e-diaspora” is now rapidly gaining in popularity. The complex association between diasporic groups and ICTs has led to a concept of e-diasporas that actively utilise ICTs to achieve community-specific goals, and that have become critical for the formation and sustenance of an exilic community for migrant groups around the globe (Srinivasan and Pyati). Diaspora and the Digital Age Anderson points out two key features of the Internet: first, it is a heterogeneous electronic medium, with hardly perceptible contours, and is in a state of constant development; second, it is a repository of “imagined communities” without geographical or legal legitimacy, whose members will probably never meet (Anderson). Unlike “real” communities, where people have physical interactions, in the imagined communities, individuals do not have face-to-face communication and daily contact, but they nonetheless feel a strong emotional attachment to the nation. The Internet not only opens new opportunities to gain greater visibility and strengthen the sense of belonging to community, but it also contributes to the emergence of a transnational public sphere where the communities scattered in various locations freely exchange their views and ideas without fear of restrictions or censorship from traditional media (Appadurai, Bernal). As a result, the Web becomes a virtual diasporic space which opens up, to those who have left their country, a new means of confrontation and social participation. Within this new diasporic space, migrants are bound in their disparate geographical locations by a common vision or myth about the homeland (Karim). Thanks to the Internet, the computer has become a primary technological intermediary between virtual networks, bringing its members closer in a “global village” where everyone is immediately connected to others. Thus, today’s diasporas are not the diaspora of previous generations in that the migration is experienced and negotiated very differently: people in one country are now able to continue to participate actively in another country. In this context, the arrival of community sites has increased the capacity of users to create a network on the Internet, to rediscover lost links, and strengthen new ones. Unlike offline communities, which may weaken once their members have left the physical space, online communities that are no longer limited by the requirement of physical presence in the common space have the capacity to endure. Identity Strategies of New Generations of Bulgarian Migrants It is very difficult to quantify migration to or from Bulgaria. Existing data is not only partial and limited but, in some cases, give an inaccurate view of migration from Bulgaria (Soultanova). Informal data confirm that one million Bulgarians, around 15 per cent of Bulgaria’s entire population (7,620,238 inhabitants in 2007), are now scattered around the world (National Statistical Institute of Bulgaria). The Bulgarian migrant is caught in a system of redefinition of identity through the duration of his or her relocation. Emigrating from a country like Bulgaria implies a high number of contingencies. Bulgarians’ self-identification is relative to the inferiority complex of a poor country which has a great deal to do to catch up with its neighbours. Before the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union, the country was often associated with what have been called “Third World countries” and seen as a source of crime and social problems. Members of the Bulgarian diaspora faced daily prejudice due to the bad reputation of their country of origin, though the extent of the hostility depended upon the “host” nation (Marcheva). Geographically, Bulgaria is one of the most eastern countries in Europe, the last to enter the European Union, and its image abroad has not facilitated the integration of the Bulgarian diaspora. The differences between Bulgarian migrants and the “host society” perpetuate a sentiment of marginality that is now countered with an online appeal for national identity markers and shared experiences. Facebook: The Ultimate Social Network The Growing Popularity of Facebook With more than 500 million active members, Facebook is the most visited website in the world. In June 2007, Facebook experienced a record annual increase of 270 per cent of connections in one year (source: comScore World Metrix). More than 70 translations of the site are available to date, including the Bulgarian version. What makes it unique is that Facebook positively encourages identity games. Moreover, Facebook provides the symbolic building blocks with which to build a collective identity through shared forms of discourse and ways of thinking. People are desperate to make a good impression on the Internet: that is why they spend so much time managing their online identity. One of the most important aspects of Facebook is that it enables users to control and manage their image, leaving the choice of how their profile appears on the pages of others a matter of personal preference at any given time. Despite some limitations, we will see that Facebook offers the Bulgarian community abroad the possibility of an intense and ongoing interaction with fellow nationals, including the opportunity to assert and develop a complex new national/transnational identity. Facebook Experiences of the Bulgarian Diaspora Created in the United States in 2004 and extended to use in Europe two or three years later, Facebook was quickly adopted by members of the Bulgarian diaspora. Here, it is very important to note that, although the Internet per se has enabled Bulgarians across the globe to introduce Cyrillic script into the public arena, it is definitely Facebook that has made digital Cyrillic visible. Early in computer history, keyboards with the Cyrillic alphabet simply did not exist. Thus, Bulgarians were forced to translate their language into Latin script. Today, almost all members of the Bulgarian population who own a computer use a keyboard that combines the two alphabets, Latin and Cyrillic, and this allows alternation between the two. This is not the case for the majority of Bulgarians living abroad who are forced to use a keyboard specific to their country of residence. Thus, Bulgarians online have adopted a hybrid code to speak and communicate. Since foreign keyboards are not equipped with the same consonants and vowels that exist in the Bulgarian language, they use the Latin letters that best suit the Bulgarian phonetic. Several possible interpretations of these “encoded” texts exist which become another way for the Bulgarian migrants to distinguish and assert themselves. One of these encoded scripts is supplemented by figures. For example, the number “6” written in Bulgarian “шест” is applied to represent the Bulgarian letter “ш.” Bulgarian immigrants therefore employ very specific codes of communication that enhance the feeling of belonging to a community that shares the same language, which is often incomprehensible to others. As the ultimate social networking website, Facebook brings together Bulgarians from all over the world and offers them a space to preserve online memorials and digital archives. As a result, the Bulgarian diaspora privileges this website in order to manage the strong links between its members. Indeed, within months of coming into online existence, Facebook established itself as a powerful social phenomenon for the Bulgarian diaspora and, very soon, a virtual map of the Bulgarian diaspora was formed. It should be noted, however, that this mapping was focused on the new generation of Bulgarian migrants more familiar with the Internet and most likely to travel. By identifying the presence of online groups by country or city, I was able to locate the most active Bulgarian communities: “Bulgarians in UK” (524 members), “Bulgarians in Chicago” (436 members), “Bulgarians studying in the UK” (346 members), “Bulgarians in America” (333 members), “Bulgarians in the USA” (314 members), “Bulgarians in Montreal” (249 members), “Bulgarians in Munich” (241 members), and so on. These figures are based on the “Groups” Application of Facebook as updated in February 2010. Through those groups, a symbolic diasporic geography is imagined and communicated: the digital “border crossing,” as well as the real one, becomes a major identity resource. Thus, Bulgarian users of Facebook are connecting from the four corners of the globe in order to rebuild family links and to participate virtually in the marriages, births, and lives of their families. It sometimes seems that the whole country has an appointment on Facebook, and that all the photos and stories of Bulgarians are more or less accessible to the community in general. Among its virtual initiatives, Facebook has made available to its users an effective mobilising tool, the Causes, which is used as a virtual noticeboard for activities and ideas circulating in “real life.” The members of the Bulgarian diaspora choose to adhere to different “causes” that may be local, national, or global, and that are complementary to the civic and socially responsible side of the identity they have chosen to construct online. Acting as a virtual realm in which distinct and overlapping trajectories coexist, Facebook thus enables users to articulate different stories and meanings and to foster a democratic imaginary about both the past and the future. Facebook encourages diasporas to produce new initiatives to revive or create collective memories and common values. Through photos and videos, scenes of everyday life are celebrated and manipulated as tools to reconstruct, reconcile, and display a part of the history and the identity of the migrant. By combating the feelings of disorientation, the consciousness of sharing the same national background and culture facilitates dialogue and neutralises the anxiety and loneliness of Bulgarian migrants. When cultural differences become more acute, the sense of isolation increases and this encourages migrants to look for company and solidarity online. As the number of immigrants connected and visible on Facebook gets larger, so the use of the Internet heightens their sense of a substantial collective identity. This is especially important for migrants during the early years of relocation when their sense of identity is most fragile. It can therefore be argued that, through the Internet, some Bulgarian migrants are replacing alienating face-to-face contact with virtual friends and enjoying the feeling of reassurance and belonging to a transnational community of compatriots. In this sense, Facebook is a propitious ground for the establishment of the three identity strategies defined by Herzfeld: cultural intimacy (or self-stereotypes); structural nostalgia (the evocation of a time when everything was going better); and the social poetic (the strategies aiming to retrieve a particular advantage and turn it into a permanent condition). In this way, the willingness to remain continuously in virtual contact with other Bulgarians often reveals a desire to return to the place of birth. Nostalgia and outsourcing of such sentiments help migrants to cope with feelings of frustration and disappointment. I observed that it is just after their return from summer holidays spent in Bulgaria that members of the Bulgarian diaspora are most active on the Bulgarian forums and pages on Facebook. The “return tourism” (Fourcade) during the summer or for the winter holidays seems to be a central theme in the forums on Facebook and an important source of emotional refuelling. Tensions between identities can also lead to creative formulations through Facebook’s pages. Thus, the group “You know you’re a Bulgarian when...”, which enjoys very active participation from the Bulgarian diaspora, is a space where everyone is invited to share, through a single sentence, some fact of everyday life with which all Bulgarians can identify. With humour and self-irony, this Facebook page demonstrates what is distinctive about being Bulgarian but also highlights frustration with certain prejudices and stereotypes. Frequently these profiles are characterised by seemingly “glocal” features. The same Bulgarian user could define himself as a Parisian, adhering to the group “You know you’re from Paris when...”, but also a native of a Bulgarian town (“You know you’re from Varna when...”). At the same time, he is an architect (“All architects on Facebook”), supporting the candidacy of Barack Obama, a fan of Japanese manga (“maNga”), of a French actor, an American cinema director, or Indian food. He joins a cause to save a wild beach on the Black Sea coast (“We love camping: Gradina Smokinia and Arapia”) and protests virtually against the slaughter of dolphins in the Faroe Islands (“World shame”). One month, the individual could identify as Bulgarian, but next month he might choose to locate himself in the country in which he is now resident. Thus, Facebook creates a virtual territory without borders for the cosmopolitan subject (Negroponte) and this confirms the premise that the Internet does not lead to the convergence of cultures, but rather confirms the opportunities for diversification and pluralism through multiple social and national affiliations. Facebook must therefore be seen as an advantageous space for the representation and interpretation of identity and for performance and digital existence. Bulgarian migrants bring together elements of their offline lives in order to construct, online, entirely new composite identities. The Bulgarians we have studied as part of this research almost never use pseudonyms and do not seem to feel the need to hide their material identities. This suggests that they are mature people who value their status as migrants of Bulgarian origin and who feel confident in presenting their natal identities rather than hiding behind a false name. Starting from this material social/national identity, which is revealed through the display of surname with a Slavic consonance, members of the Bulgarian diaspora choose to manage their complex virtual identities online. Conclusion Far from their homeland, beset with feelings of insecurity and alienation as well as daily experiences of social and cultural exclusion (much of it stemming from an ongoing prejudice towards citizens from ex-communist countries), it is no wonder that migrants from Bulgaria find relief in meeting up with compatriots in front of their screens. Although some migrants assume their Bulgarian identity as a mixture of different cultures and are trying to rethink and continuously negotiate their cultural practices (often through the display of contradictory feelings and identifications), others identify with an imagined community and enjoy drawing boundaries between what is “Bulgarian” and what is not. The indispensable daily visit to Facebook is clearly a means of forging an ongoing sense of belonging to the Bulgarian community scattered across the globe. Facebook makes possible the double presence of Bulgarian immigrants both here and there and facilitates the ongoing processes of identity construction that depend, more and more, upon new media. In this respect, the role that Facebook plays in the life of the Bulgarian diaspora may be seen as a facet of an increasingly dynamic transnational world in which interactive media may be seen to contribute creatively to the formation of collective identities and the deformation of monolithic cultures. References Anderson, Benedict. L’Imaginaire National: Réflexions sur l’Origine et l’Essor du Nationalisme. Paris: La Découverte, 1983. Appadurai, Ajun. Après le Colonialisme: Les Conséquences Culturelles de la Globalisation. Paris: Payot, 2001. Bernal, Victoria. “Diaspora, Cyberspace and Political Imagination: The Eritrean Diaspora Online.” Global Network 6 (2006): 161-79. boyd, danah. “Social Network Sites: Public, Private, or What?” Knowledge Tree (May 2007). Cohen, Robin. Global Diasporas: An Introduction. London: University College London Press. 1997. Goffman, Erving. La Présentation de Soi. Paris: Editions de Minuit, Collection Le Sens Commun, 1973. Fourcade, Marie-Blanche. “De l’Arménie au Québec: Itinéraires de Souvenirs Touristiques.” Ethnologies 27.1 (2005): 245-76. Freud, Sigmund. “Psychologie des Foules et Analyses du Moi.” Essais de Psychanalyse. Paris: Petite Bibliothèque Payot, 2001 (1921). Herzfeld, Michael. Intimité Culturelle. Presse de l’Université de Laval, 2008. Karim, Karim-Haiderali. The Media of Diaspora. Oxford: Routledge, 2003. Marcheva, Marta. “Bulgarian Diaspora and the Media Treatment of Bulgaria in the French, Italian and North American Press (1992–2007).” Unpublished PhD dissertation. Paris: University Panthéon – Assas Paris 2, 2010. Mead, George Herbert. L’Esprit, le Soi et la Société. Paris: PUF, 2006. Negroponte, Nicholas. Being Digital. Vintage, 2005. Soultanova, Ralitza. “Les Migrations Multiples de la Population Bulgare.” Actes du Dolloque «La France et les Migrants des Balkans: Un État des Lieux.” Paris: Courrier des Balkans, 2005. Srinivasan, Ramesh, and Ajit Pyati. “Diasporic Information Environments: Reframing Immigrant-Focused Information Research.” Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 58.12 (2007): 1734-44. Todorov, Tzvetan. Nous et les Autres: La Réflexion Française sur la Diversité Humaine. Paris: Seuil, 1989.

One of the first challenges faced by new Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, was what to do with the former government’s controversial citizenship test. While a quick evaluation of the test shows that 93 percent of those who have sat it ‘passed’ (Hoare), most media controversy has focussed less on the validity of such a test than whether questions relating to Australian cricketing legend, Don Bradman, are appropriate (Hawley). While the citizenship test seems nothing more that a crude and populist measure imposed by the former Howard government in its ongoing nationalistic agenda, which included paying schools to raise the Australian flag (“PM Unfurls Flag”), its imposition seems a timely reminder of the challenge of understanding citizenship today. For as the demographic structures around us continue to change, so must our understandings of ‘citizenship’. More importantly, this fluid understanding of citizenship is not limited to academics, and policy-makers, but new technologies, the processes of globalisation including a globalised media, changing demographic patterns including migration, as well as environmental challenges that place pressure on limited resources is altering the citizens understanding of their own role as well as those around them. This paper aims to sketch out a proposed new research agenda that seeks to investigate this fluid and heterogenous nature of citizenship. The focus of the research has so far been Sydney and is enveloped by a broader aim of promoting an increased level of citizen engagement both within formal and informal political structures. I begin by sketching the complex nature of Sydney before presenting some initial research findings. Sydney – A Complex City The so-called ‘emerald city’ of Sydney has been described in many ways: from a ‘global’ city (Fagan, Dowling and Longdale 1) to an ‘angry’ city (Price 16). Sarah Price’s investigative article included research from the University of Western Sydney’s Centre of Culture Research, the Bureau of Crime Statistics and interviews with Tony Grabs, the director of trauma at St Vincent’s Hospital in inner city Darlinghurst. Price found that both injuries from alcohol and drug-related violence had risen dramatically over the last few years and seemed to be driven by increasing frustrations of a city that is perceived to be lacking appropriate infrastructure and rising levels of personal and household debt. Sydney’s famous harbour and postcard landmarks are surrounded by places of controversy and poverty, with residents of very backgrounds living in close proximity: often harmoniously and sometimes less so. According to recent research by Griffith University’s Urban Research Program, the city is becoming increasingly polarised, with the wealthiest enjoying high levels of access to amenities while other sections of the population experiencing increasing deprivation (Frew 7). Sydney is often segmented into different regions: the growth corridors of the western suburbs which include the ‘Aspirational class’; the affluent eastern suburb; the southern beachside suburbs surrounding Cronulla affectionately known by local residents as ‘the Shire’, and so on. This, however, hides that fact that these areas are themselves complex and heterogenous in character (Frew 7). As a result, the many clichés associated with such segments lead to an over simplification of regional characteristics. The ‘growth corridors’ of Western Sydney, for example, have, in recent times, become a focal point of political and social commentary. From the rise of the ‘Aspirational’ voter (Anderson), seen to be a key ‘powerbroker’ in federal and state politics, to growing levels of disenfranchised young people, this region is multifaceted and should not be simplified. These areas often see large-scale, private housing estates; what Brendan Gleeson describes as ‘privatopias’, situated next to rising levels of homelessness (“What’s Driving”): a powerful and concerning image that should not escape our attention. (Chamberlain and Mackenzie pay due attention to the issue in Homeless Careers.) It is also home to a growing immigrant population who often arrive as business migrants and as well as a rising refugee population traumatised by war and displacement (Collins 1). These growth corridors then, seem to simultaneously capture both the ambitions and the fears of Sydney. That is, they are seen as both areas of potential economic boom as well as social stress and potential conflict (Gleeson 89). One way to comprehend the complexity associated with such diversity and change is to reflect on the proximity of the twin suburbs of Macquarie Links and Macquarie Fields situated in Sydney’s south-western suburbs. Separated by the clichéd ‘railway tracks’, one is home to the growing Aspirational class while the other continues to be plagued by the stigma of being, what David Burchell describes as, a ‘dysfunctional dumping ground’ whose plight became national headlines during the riots in 2005. The riots were sparked after a police chase involving a stolen car led to a crash and the death of a 17 year-old and 19 year-old passengers. Residents blamed police for the deaths and the subsequent riots lasted for four nights – involving 150 teenagers clashing with New South Wales Police. The dysfunction, Burchell notes is seen in crime statistics that include 114 stolen cars, 227 burglaries, 457 cases of property damage and 279 assaults – all in 2005 alone. Interestingly, both these populations are surrounded by exclusionary boundaries: one because of the financial demands to enter the ‘Links’ estate, and the other because of the self-imposed exclusion. Such disparities not only provide challenges for policy makers generally, but also have important implications on the attitudes that citizens’ experience towards their relationship with each other as well as the civic institutions that are meant to represent them. This is particular the case if civic institutions are seen to either neglect or favour certain groups. This, in part, has given rise to what I describe here as a ‘citizenship surplus’ as well as a ‘citizenship deficit’. Research Agenda: Investigating Citizenship Surpluses and Deficits This changing city has meant that there has also been a change in the way that different groups interact with, and perceive, civic bodies. As noted, my initial research shows that this has led to the emergence of both citizenship surpluses and deficits. Though the concept of a ‘citizen deficits and surpluses’ have not emerged within the broader literature, there is a wide range of literature that discusses how some sections of the population lack of access to democratic processes. There are three broad areas of research that have emerged relevant here: citizenship and young people (see Arvanitakis; Dee); citizenship and globalisation (see Della Porta; Pusey); and citizenship and immigration (see Baldassar et al.; Gow). While a discussion of each of these research areas is beyond the scope of this paper, a regular theme is the emergence of a ‘democratic deficit’ (Chari et al. 422). Dee, for example, looks at how there exist unequal relationships between local and central governments, young people, communities and property developers in relation to space. Dee argues that this shapes social policy in a range of settings and contexts including their relationship with broader civic institutions and understandings of citizenship. Dee finds that claims for land use that involve young people rarely succeed and there is limited, if any, recourse to civic institutions. As such, we see a democratic deficit emerge because the various civic institutions involved fail in meeting their obligations to citizens. In addition, a great deal of work has emerged that investigates attempts to re-engage citizens through mechanisms to promote citizenship education and a more active citizenship which has also been accompanied by government programs with the same goals (See for example the Western Australian government’s ‘Citizenscape’ program ). For example Hahn (231) undertakes a comparative study of civic education in six countries (including Australia) and the policies and practices with respect to citizenship education and how to promote citizen activism. The results are positive, though the research was undertaken before the tumultuous events of the terrorist attacks in New York, the emergence of the ‘war on terror’ and the rise of ‘Muslim-phobia’. A gap rises, however, within the Australian literature when we consider both the fluid and heterogenous nature of citizenship. That is, how do we understand the relationship between these diverse groups living within such proximity to each other overlayed by changing migration patterns, ongoing globalised processes and changing political environments as well as their relations to civic institutions? Further, how does this influence the way individuals perceive their rights, expectations and responsibilities to the state? Given this, I believe that there is a need to understand citizenship as a fluid and heterogenous phenomenon that can be in surplus, deficit, progressive and reactionary. When discussing citizenship I am interested in how people perceive both their rights and responsibilities to civic institutions as well as to the residents around them. A second, obviously related, area of interest is ‘civic engagement’: that is, “the activities of people in the various organisations and associations that make up what scholars call ‘civil society’” (Portney and Leary 4). Before describing these categories in more detail, I would like to briefly outline the methodological processes employed thus far. Much of the research to this point is based on a combination of established literature, my informal discussions with citizen groups and my observations as ‘an activist.’ That is, over the last few years I have worked with a broad cross section of community-based organisations as well as specific individuals that have attempted to confront perceived injustices. I have undertaken this work as both an activist – with organisations such as Aid/Watch and Oxfam Australia – as well as an academic invited to share my research. This work has involved designing and implementing policy and advocacy strategies including media and public education programs. All interactions begin with a detailed discussion of the aims, resources, abilities and knowledge of the groups involved, followed by workshopping campaigning strategies. This has led to the publication of an ‘activist handbook’ titled ‘From Sitting on the Couch to Changing the World’, which is used to both draft the campaign aims as well as design a systematic strategy. (The booklet, which is currently being re-drafted, is published by Oxfam Australia and registered under a creative commons licence. For those interested, copies are available by emailing j.arvanitakis (at) uws.edu.au.) Much research is also sourced from direct feedback given by participants in reviewing the workshops and strategies The aim of tis paper then, is to sketch out the initial findings as well as an agenda for more formalised research. The initial findings have identified the heterogenous nature of citizenship that I have separated into four ‘citizenship spaces.’ The term space is used because these are not stable groupings as many quickly move between the areas identified as both the structures and personal situations change. 1. Marginalisation and Citizenship Deficit The first category is a citizenship deficit brought on by a sense of marginalisation. This is determined by a belief that it is pointless to interact with civic institutions, as the result is always the same: people’s opinions and needs will be ignored. Or in the case of residents from areas such as Macquarie Fields, the relationship with civic institutions, including police, is antagonistic and best avoided (White par. 21). This means that there is no connection between the population and the civic institutions around them – there is no loyalty or belief that efforts to be involved in political and civic processes will be rewarded. Here groups sense that they do not have access to political avenues to be heard, represented or demand change. This is leading to an experience of disconnection from political processes. The result is both a sense of disengagement and disempowerment. One example here emerged in discussions with protesters around the proposed development of the former Australian Defence Industry (ADI) site in St Marys, an outer-western suburb of Sydney. The development, which was largely approved, was for a large-scale housing estate proposed on sensitive bushlands in a locality that resident’s note is under-serviced in terms of public space. (For details of these discussions, see http://www.adisite.org/.) Residents often took the attitude that whatever the desire of the local community, the development would go ahead regardless. Those who worked at information booths during the resident protests informed me that the attitude was one best summarised by: “Why bother, we always get stuffed around any way.” This was confirmed by my own discussions with local residents – even those who joined the resident action group. 2. Privatisation and Citizenship Deficit This citizenship deficit not only applies to the marginalised, however, for there are also much wealthier populations who also appear to experience a deficit that results from a lack of access to civic institutions. This tends to leads to a privatisation of decision-making and withdrawal from the public arena as well as democratic processes. Consequently, the residents in the pockets of wealth may not be acting as citizens but more like consumers – asserting themselves in terms of Castells’s ‘collective consumption’ (par. 25). This citizenship deficit is brought on by ongoing privatisation. That is, there is a belief that civic institutions (including government bodies) are unable or at least unwilling to service the local community. As a result there is a tendency to turn to private suppliers and believe that individualisation is the best way to manage the community. The result is that citizens feel no connection to the civic institutions around them, not because there is no desire, but there are no services. This group of citizens has often been described as the ‘Aspirationals’ and are most often found in the growth corridors of Sydney. There is no reason to believe that this group is this way because of choice – but rather a failure by government authorities to service their needs. This is confirmed by research undertaken as early as 1990 which found that the residents now labelled Aspirational, were demanding access to public infrastructure services including public schools, but have been neglected by different levels of government. (This was clearly stated by NSW Labor MP for Liverpool, Paul Lynch, who argued for such services as a way to ensure a functioning community particularly for Western Sydney; NSWPD 2001.) As a result there is a reliance on private schools, neighbourhoods, transport and so on. Any ‘why bother’ attitude is thus driven by a lack of evidence that civic institutions can or are not willing to meet their needs. There is a strong sense of local community – but this localisation limited to others in the same geographical location and similar lifestyle. 3. Citizenship Surplus – Empowered Not Engaged The third space of citizenship is based on a ‘surplus’ even if there is limited or no political engagement. This group has quite a lot in common with the ‘Aspirationals’ but may come from areas that are higher serviced by civic institutions: the choice not to engage is therefore voluntary. There is a strong push for self-sufficiency – believing that their social capital, wealth and status mean that they do not require the services of civic institutions. While not antagonistic towards such institutions, there is often a belief is that the services provided by the private sector are ultimately superior to public ones. Consequently, they feel empowered through their social background but are not engaged with civic institutions or the political process. Despite this, my initial research findings show that this group has a strong connection to decision-makers – both politicians and bureaucrats. This lack of engagement changes if there is a perceived injustice to their quality of life or their values system – and hence should not be dismissed as NIMBYs (not in my backyard). They believe they have the resources to mobilise and demand change. I believe that we see this group materialise in mobilisations around proposed developments that threaten the perceived quality of life of the local environment. One example brought to my attention was the rapid response of local residents to the proposed White City development near Sydney’s eastern suburbs that was to see tennis courts and public space replaced by residential and commercial buildings (Nicholls). As one resident informed me, she had never seen any political engagement by local residents previously – an engagement that was accompanied by a belief that the development would be stopped as well as a mobilisation of some impressive resources. Such mobilisations also occur when there is a perceived injustice. Examples of this group can be found in what Hugh Mackay (13) describes as ‘doctor’s wives’ (a term that I am not wholly comfortable with). Here we see the emergence of ‘Chilout’: Children out of Detention. This was an organisation whose membership was described to me as ‘north shore professionals’, drew heavily on those who believed the forced incarceration of young refugee children was an affront to their values system. 4. Insurgent Citizenship – Empowered and Engaged The final space is the insurgent citizen: that is, the citizen who is both engaged and empowered. This is a term borrowed from South Africa and the USA (Holston 1) – and it should be seen as having two, almost diametrically opposed, sides: progressive and reactionary. This group may not have access to a great deal of financial resources, but has high social capital and both a willingness and ability to engage in political processes. Consequently, there is a sense of empowerment and engagement with civic institutions. There is also a strong push for self-sufficiency – but this is encased in a belief that civic institutions have a responsibility to provide services to the public, and that some services are naturally better provided by the public sector. Despite this, there is often an antagonistic relationship with such institutions. From the progressive perspective, we see ‘activists’ promoting social justice issues (including students, academics, unionists and so on). Organisations such as A Just Australia are strongly supported by various student organisations, unions and other social justice and activist groups. From a reactionary perspective, we see the emergence of groups that take an anti-immigration stance (such as ‘anti-immigration’ groups including Australia First that draw both activists and have an established political party). (Information regarding ‘anti-refugee activists’ can be found at http://ausfirst.alphalink.com.au/ while the official website for the Australia First political part is at http://www.australiafirstparty.com.au/cms/.) One way to understand the relationship between these groups is through the engagement/empowered typology below. While a detailed discussion of the limitations of typologies is beyond the scope of this paper, it is important to acknowledge that any typology is a simplification and generalisation of the arguments presented. Likewise, it is unlikely that any typology has the ability to cover all cases and situations. This typology can, however, be used to underscore the relational nature of citizenship. The purpose here is to highlight that there are relationships between the different citizenship spaces and individuals can move between groups and each cluster has significant internal variation. Key here is that this can frame future studies. Conclusion and Next Steps There is little doubt there is a relationship between attitudes to citizenship and the health of a democracy. In Australia, democracy is robust in some ways, but many feel disempowered, disengaged and some feel both – often believing they are remote from the workings of civic institutions. It would appear that for many, interest in the process of (formal) government is at an all-time low as reflected in declining membership of political parties (Jaensch et al. 58). Democracy is not a ‘once for ever’ achievement – it needs to be protected and promoted. To do this, we must ensure that there are avenues for representation for all. This point also highlights one of the fundamental flaws of the aforementioned citizenship test. According to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, the test is designed to: help migrants integrate and maximise the opportunities available to them in Australia, and enable their full participation in the Australian community as citizens. (par. 4) Those designing the test have assumed that citizenship is both stable and, once achieved, automatically ensures representation. This paper directly challenges these assumptions and offers an alternative research agenda with the ultimate aim of promoting high levels of engagement and empowerment. References Anderson, A. “The Liberals Have Not Betrayed the Menzies Legacy.” Online Opinion 25 Oct. 2004. < http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=2679 >. Arvanitakis, J. “Highly Affected, Rarely Considered: The International Youth Parliament Commission’s Report on the Impacts of Globalisation on Young People.” Sydney: Oxfam Australia, 2003. Baldassar, L., Z. Kamalkhani, and C. Lange. “Afghan Hazara Refugees in Australia: Constructing Australian Citizens.” Social Identities 13.1 (2007): 31-50. Burchell, D. “Dysfunctional Dumping Grounds.” The Australian 10 Feb. 2007. < http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21199266-28737,00.html >. Burnley, I.H. The Impact of Immigration in Australia: A Demographic Approach. Melbourne: Oxford UP, 2001. Castells, M. “European Cities, the Informational Society, and the Global Economy.” New Left Review I/204 (March-April 1994): 46-57. Chamberlain, C., and D. Mackenzie. Homeless Careers: Pathways in and out of Homelessness. Melbourne: RMIT University, 2002. Chari, R., J. Hogan, and G. Murphy. “Regulating Lobbyists: A Comparative Analysis of the United States, Canada, Germany and the European Union.” The Political Quarterly 78.3 (2007): 423-438. Collins, J. “Chinese Entrepreneurs: The Chinese Diaspora in Australia.” International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research 8.1/2 (2002): 113-133. Dee, M. “Young People, Citizenship and Public Space.” International Sociological Association Conference Paper, Brisbane, 2002. Della Porta, D. “Globalisations and Democracy.” Democratizations 12.5 (2005): 668-685. Fagan, B., R. Dowling, and J. Longdale. “Suburbs in the ‘Global City’: Sydney since the Mid 1990s.” State of Australian cities conference. Parramatta, 2003. Frew, W. “And the Most Polarised City Is…” Sydney Morning Herald 16-17 Feb. 2008: 7. Gleeson, B. Australian Heartlands: Making Space for Hope in the Suburbs. Crows Nest: Allen and Unwin, 2006. Gleeson, B. “What’s Driving Suburban Australia?” Australian Policy Online 15 Jan. 2004. < http://www.apo.org.au/webboard/results.chtml?filename_num=00558 >. Gow, G. “Rubbing Shoulders in the Global City: Refugees, Citizenship and Multicultural Alliances in Fairfield, Sydney.” Ethnicities 5.3 (2005): 386-405. Hahn, C. L. “Citizenship Education: An Empirical Study of Policy, Practices and Outcomes.” Oxford Review of Education 25.1/2 (1999): 231-250. Hawley, S. “Sir Donald Bradman Likely to Be Dumped from Citizenship Test.” ABC Local Radio Online. 29 Jan. 2008. < http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2007/s2148383.htm >. Hoare, D. “Bradman’s Spot in Citizenship Test under Scrutiny.” ABC Local Radio online. 29 Jan. 2008. < http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2149325.htm >. Holston, J. Insurgent Citizenship: Disjunctions of Democracy and Modernity in Brazil. California: Cloth, 2007. Jaensch, D., P. Brent, and B. Bowden. “Australian Political Parties in the Spotlight.” Democratic Audit of Australia Report 4. Australian National University, 2004. Mackay, H. “Sleepers Awoke from Slumber of Indifference.” Sydney Morning Herald 27 Nov. 2007: 13. NSWPD – New South Wales Parliamentary Debates. “South Western Sydney Banking Services.” Legislative Assembly Hansard, 52nd NSW Parliament, 19 Sep. 2001. Portney, K.E., and L. O’Leary. Civic and Political Engagement of America’s Youth: National Survey of Civic and Political Engagement of Young People. Medford, MA: Tisch College, Tufts University, 2007. Price, S. “Stress and Debt Make Sydney a Violent City.” Sydney Morning Herald 13 Jan. 2008: 16. Pusey, M. The Experience of Middle Australia: The Dark Side of Economic Reform. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003. White, R. “Swarming and the Social Dynamics of Group Violence.” Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice 326 (Oct. 2006). < http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/tandi2/tandi326t.html >. Wolfe, P. “Race and Citizenship.” Magazine of History 18.5 (2004): 66-72.

Introduction One of the first challenges faced by new Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, was what to do with the former government’s controversial citizenship test. While a quick evaluation of the test shows that 93 percent of those who have sat it ‘passed’ (Hoare), most media controversy has focussed less on the validity of such a test than whether questions relating to Australian cricketing legend, Don Bradman, are appropriate (Hawley). While the citizenship test seems nothing more that a crude and populist measure imposed by the former Howard government in its ongoing nationalistic agenda, which included paying schools to raise the Australian flag (“PM Unfurls Flag”), its imposition seems a timely reminder of the challenge of understanding citizenship today. For as the demographic structures around us continue to change, so must our understandings of ‘citizenship’. More importantly, this fluid understanding of citizenship is not limited to academics, and policy-makers, but new technologies, the processes of globalisation including a globalised media, changing demographic patterns including migration, as well as environmental challenges that place pressure on limited resources is altering the citizens understanding of their own role as well as those around them. This paper aims to sketch out a proposed new research agenda that seeks to investigate this fluid and heterogenous nature of citizenship. The focus of the research has so far been Sydney and is enveloped by a broader aim of promoting an increased level of citizen engagement both within formal and informal political structures. I begin by sketching the complex nature of Sydney before presenting some initial research findings. Sydney – A Complex City The so-called ‘emerald city’ of Sydney has been described in many ways: from a ‘global’ city (Fagan, Dowling and Longdale 1) to an ‘angry’ city (Price 16). Sarah Price’s investigative article included research from the University of Western Sydney’s Centre of Culture Research, the Bureau of Crime Statistics and interviews with Tony Grabs, the director of trauma at St Vincent’s Hospital in inner city Darlinghurst. Price found that both injuries from alcohol and drug-related violence had risen dramatically over the last few years and seemed to be driven by increasing frustrations of a city that is perceived to be lacking appropriate infrastructure and rising levels of personal and household debt. Sydney’s famous harbour and postcard landmarks are surrounded by places of controversy and poverty, with residents of very backgrounds living in close proximity: often harmoniously and sometimes less so. According to recent research by Griffith University’s Urban Research Program, the city is becoming increasingly polarised, with the wealthiest enjoying high levels of access to amenities while other sections of the population experiencing increasing deprivation (Frew 7). Sydney, is often segmented into different regions: the growth corridors of the western suburbs which include the ‘Aspirational class’; the affluent eastern suburb; the southern beachside suburbs surrounding Cronulla affectionately known by local residents as ‘the Shire’, and so on. This, however, hides that fact that these areas are themselves complex and heterogenous in character (Frew 7). As a result, the many clichés associated with such segments lead to an over simplification of regional characteristics. The ‘growth corridors’ of Western Sydney, for example, have, in recent times, become a focal point of political and social commentary. From the rise of the ‘Aspirational’ voter (Anderson), seen to be a key ‘powerbroker’ in federal and state politics, to growing levels of disenfranchised young people, this region is multifaceted and should not be simplified. These areas often see large-scale, private housing estates; what Brendan Gleeson describes as ‘privatopias’, situated next to rising levels of homelessness (“What’s Driving”): a powerful and concerning image that should not escape our attention. (Chamberlain and Mackenzie pay due attention to the issue in Homeless Careers.) It is also home to a growing immigrant population who often arrive as business migrants and as well as a rising refugee population traumatised by war and displacement (Collins 1). These growth corridors then, seem to simultaneously capture both the ambitions and the fears of Sydney. That is, they are seen as both areas of potential economic boom as well as social stress and potential conflict (Gleeson 89). One way to comprehend the complexity associated with such diversity and change is to reflect on the proximity of the twin suburbs of Macquarie Links and Macquarie Fields situated in Sydney’s south-western suburbs. Separated by the clichéd ‘railway tracks’, one is home to the growing Aspirational class while the other continues to be plagued by the stigma of being, what David Burchell describes as, a ‘dysfunctional dumping ground’ whose plight became national headlines during the riots in 2005. The riots were sparked after a police chase involving a stolen car led to a crash and the death of a 17 year-old and 19 year-old passengers. Residents blamed police for the deaths and the subsequent riots lasted for four nights – involving 150 teenagers clashing with New South Wales Police. The dysfunction, Burchell notes is seen in crime statistics that include 114 stolen cars, 227 burglaries, 457 cases of property damage and 279 assaults – all in 2005 alone. Interestingly, both these populations are surrounded by exclusionary boundaries: one because of the financial demands to enter the ‘Links’ estate, and the other because of the self-imposed exclusion. Such disparities not only provide challenges for policy makers generally, but also have important implications on the attitudes that citizens’ experience towards their relationship with each other as well as the civic institutions that are meant to represent them. This is particular the case if civic institutions are seen to either neglect or favour certain groups. This, in part, has given rise to what I describe here as a ‘citizenship surplus’ as well as a ‘citizenship deficit’. Research Agenda: Investigating Citizenship Surpluses and Deficits This changing city has meant that there has also been a change in the way that different groups interact with, and perceive, civic bodies. As noted, my initial research shows that this has led to the emergence of both citizenship surpluses and deficits. Though the concept of a ‘citizen deficits and surpluses’ have not emerged within the broader literature, there is a wide range of literature that discusses how some sections of the population lack of access to democratic processes. There are three broad areas of research that have emerged relevant here: citizenship and young people (see Arvanitakis; Dee); citizenship and globalisation (see Della Porta; Pusey); and citizenship and immigration (see Baldassar et al.; Gow). While a discussion of each of these research areas is beyond the scope of this paper, a regular theme is the emergence of a ‘democratic deficit’ (Chari et al. 422). Dee, for example, looks at how there exist unequal relationships between local and central governments, young people, communities and property developers in relation to space. Dee argues that this shapes social policy in a range of settings and contexts including their relationship with broader civic institutions and understandings of citizenship. Dee finds that claims for land use that involve young people rarely succeed and there is limited, if any, recourse to civic institutions. As such, we see a democratic deficit emerge because the various civic institutions involved fail in meeting their obligations to citizens. In addition, a great deal of work has emerged that investigates attempts to re-engage citizens through mechanisms to promote citizenship education and a more active citizenship which has also been accompanied by government programs with the same goals (See for example the Western Australian government’s ‘Citizenscape’ program ). For example Hahn (231) undertakes a comparative study of civic education in six countries (including Australia) and the policies and practices with respect to citizenship education and how to promote citizen activism. The results are positive, though the research was undertaken before the tumultuous events of the terrorist attacks in New York, the emergence of the ‘war on terror’ and the rise of ‘Muslim-phobia’. A gap rises, however, within the Australian literature when we consider both the fluid and heterogenous nature of citizenship. That is, how do we understand the relationship between these diverse groups living within such proximity to each other overlayed by changing migration patterns, ongoing globalised processes and changing political environments as well as their relations to civic institutions? Further, how does this influence the way individuals perceive their rights, expectations and responsibilities to the state? Given this, I believe that there is a need to understand citizenship as a fluid and heterogenous phenomenon that can be in surplus, deficit, progressive and reactionary. When discussing citizenship I am interested in how people perceive both their rights and responsibilities to civic institutions as well as to the residents around them. A second, obviously related, area of interest is ‘civic engagement’: that is, “the activities of people in the various organisations and associations that make up what scholars call ‘civil society’” (Portney and Leary 4). Before describing these categories in more detail, I would like to briefly outline the methodological processes employed thus far. Much of the research to this point is based on a combination of established literature, my informal discussions with citizen groups and my observations as ‘an activist.’ That is, over the last few years I have worked with a broad cross section of community-based organisations as well as specific individuals that have attempted to confront perceived injustices. I have undertaken this work as both an activist – with organisations such as Aid/Watch and Oxfam Australia – as well as an academic invited to share my research. This work has involved designing and implementing policy and advocacy strategies including media and public education programs. All interactions begin with a detailed discussion of the aims, resources, abilities and knowledge of the groups involved, followed by workshopping campaigning strategies. This has led to the publication of an ‘activist handbook’ titled ‘From Sitting on the Couch to Changing the World’, which is used to both draft the campaign aims as well as design a systematic strategy. (The booklet, which is currently being re-drafted, is published by Oxfam Australia and registered under a creative commons licence. For those interested, copies are available by emailing j.arvanitakis (at) uws.edu.au.) Much research is also sourced from direct feedback given by participants in reviewing the workshops and strategies The aim of tis paper then, is to sketch out the initial findings as well as an agenda for more formalised research. The initial findings have identified the heterogenous nature of citizenship that I have separated into four ‘citizenship spaces.’ The term space is used because these are not stable groupings as many quickly move between the areas identified as both the structures and personal situations change. 1. Marginalisation and Citizenship Deficit The first category is a citizenship deficit brought on by a sense of marginalisation. This is determined by a belief that it is pointless to interact with civic institutions, as the result is always the same: people’s opinions and needs will be ignored. Or in the case of residents from areas such as Macquarie Fields, the relationship with civic institutions, including police, is antagonistic and best avoided (White par. 21). This means that there is no connection between the population and the civic institutions around them – there is no loyalty or belief that efforts to be involved in political and civic processes will be rewarded. Here groups sense that they do not have access to political avenues to be heard, represented or demand change. This is leading to an experience of disconnection from political processes. The result is both a sense of disengagement and disempowerment. One example here emerged in discussions with protesters around the proposed development of the former Australian Defence Industry (ADI) site in St Marys, an outer-western suburb of Sydney. The development, which was largely approved, was for a large-scale housing estate proposed on sensitive bushlands in a locality that resident’s note is under-serviced in terms of public space. (For details of these discussions, see http://www.adisite.org/.) Residents often took the attitude that whatever the desire of the local community, the development would go ahead regardless. Those who worked at information booths during the resident protests informed me that the attitude was one best summarised by: “Why bother, we always get stuffed around any way.” This was confirmed by my own discussions with local residents – even those who joined the resident action group. 2. Privatisation and Citizenship Deficit This citizenship deficit not only applies to the marginalised, however, for there are also much wealthier populations who also appear to experience a deficit that results from a lack of access to civic institutions. This tends to leads to a privatisation of decision-making and withdrawal from the public arena as well as democratic processes. Consequently, the residents in the pockets of wealth may not be acting as citizens but more like consumers – asserting themselves in terms of Castells’s ‘collective consumption’ (par. 25). This citizenship deficit is brought on by ongoing privatisation. That is, there is a belief that civic institutions (including government bodies) are unable or at least unwilling to service the local community. As a result there is a tendency to turn to private suppliers and believe that individualisation is the best way to manage the community. The result is that citizens feel no connection to the civic institutions around them, not because there is no desire, but there are no services. This group of citizens has often been described as the ‘Aspirationals’ and are most often found in the growth corridors of Sydney. There is no reason to believe that this group is this way because of choice – but rather a failure by government authorities to service their needs. This is confirmed by research undertaken as early as 1990 which found that the residents now labelled Aspirational, were demanding access to public infrastructure services including public schools, but have been neglected by different levels of government. (This was clearly stated by NSW Labor MP for Liverpool, Paul Lynch, who argued for such services as a way to ensure a functioning community particularly for Western Sydney; NSWPD 2001.) As a result there is a reliance on private schools, neighbourhoods, transport and so on. Any ‘why bother’ attitude is thus driven by a lack of evidence that civic institutions can or are not willing to meet their needs. There is a strong sense of local community – but this localisation limited to others in the same geographical location and similar lifestyle. 3. Citizenship Surplus – Empowered Not Engaged The third space of citizenship is based on a ‘surplus’ even if there is limited or no political engagement. This group has quite a lot in common with the ‘Aspirationals’ but may come from areas that are higher serviced by civic institutions: the choice not to engage is therefore voluntary. There is a strong push for self-sufficiency – believing that their social capital, wealth and status mean that they do not require the services of civic institutions. While not antagonistic towards such institutions, there is often a belief is that the services provided by the private sector are ultimately superior to public ones. Consequently, they feel empowered through their social background but are not engaged with civic institutions or the political process. Despite this, my initial research findings show that this group has a strong connection to decision-makers – both politicians and bureaucrats. This lack of engagement changes if there is a perceived injustice to their quality of life or their values system – and hence should not be dismissed as NIMBYs (not in my backyard). They believe they have the resources to mobilise and demand change. I believe that we see this group materialise in mobilisations around proposed developments that threaten the perceived quality of life of the local environment. One example brought to my attention was the rapid response of local residents to the proposed White City development near Sydney’s eastern suburbs that was to see tennis courts and public space replaced by residential and commercial buildings (Nicholls). As one resident informed me, she had never seen any political engagement by local residents previously – an engagement that was accompanied by a belief that the development would be stopped as well as a mobilisation of some impressive resources. Such mobilisations also occur when there is a perceived injustice. Examples of this group can be found in what Hugh Mackay (13) describes as ‘doctor’s wives’ (a term that I am not wholly comfortable with). Here we see the emergence of ‘Chilout’: Children out of Detention. This was an organisation whose membership was described to me as ‘north shore professionals’, drew heavily on those who believed the forced incarceration of young refugee children was an affront to their values system. 4. Insurgent Citizenship – Empowered and Engaged The final space is the insurgent citizen: that is, the citizen who is both engaged and empowered. This is a term borrowed from South Africa and the USA (Holston 1) – and it should be seen as having two, almost diametrically opposed, sides: progressive and reactionary. This group may not have access to a great deal of financial resources, but has high social capital and both a willingness and ability to engage in political processes. Consequently, there is a sense of empowerment and engagement with civic institutions. There is also a strong push for self-sufficiency – but this is encased in a belief that civic institutions have a responsibility to provide services to the public, and that some services are naturally better provided by the public sector. Despite this, there is often an antagonistic relationship with such institutions. From the progressive perspective, we see ‘activists’ promoting social justice issues (including students, academics, unionists and so on). Organisations such as A Just Australia are strongly supported by various student organisations, unions and other social justice and activist groups. From a reactionary perspective, we see the emergence of groups that take an anti-immigration stance (such as ‘anti-immigration’ groups including Australia First that draw both activists and have an established political party). (Information regarding ‘anti-refugee activists’ can be found at http://ausfirst.alphalink.com.au/ while the official website for the Australia First political part is at http://www.australiafirstparty.com.au/cms/.) One way to understand the relationship between these groups is through the engagement/empowered typology below. While a detailed discussion of the limitations of typologies is beyond the scope of this paper, it is important to acknowledge that any typology is a simplification and generalisation of the arguments presented. Likewise, it is unlikely that any typology has the ability to cover all cases and situations. This typology can, however, be used to underscore the relational nature of citizenship. The purpose here is to highlight that there are relationships between the different citizenship spaces and individuals can move between groups and each cluster has significant internal variation. Key here is that this can frame future studies. Conclusion and Next Steps There is little doubt there is a relationship between attitudes to citizenship and the health of a democracy. In Australia, democracy is robust in some ways, but many feel disempowered, disengaged and some feel both – often believing they are remote from the workings of civic institutions. It would appear that for many, interest in the process of (formal) government is at an all-time low as reflected in declining membership of political parties (Jaensch et al. 58). Democracy is not a ‘once for ever’ achievement – it needs to be protected and promoted. To do this, we must ensure that there are avenues for representation for all. This point also highlights one of the fundamental flaws of the aforementioned citizenship test. According to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, the test is designed to: help migrants integrate and maximise the opportunities available to them in Australia, and enable their full participation in the Australian community as citizens. (par. 4) Those designing the test have assumed that citizenship is both stable and, once achieved, automatically ensures representation. This paper directly challenges these assumptions and offers an alternative research agenda with the ultimate aim of promoting high levels of engagement and empowerment. References Anderson, A. “The Liberals Have Not Betrayed the Menzies Legacy.” Online Opinion 25 Oct. 2004. http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=2679>. Arvanitakis, J. “Highly Affected, Rarely Considered: The International Youth Parliament Commission’s Report on the Impacts of Globalisation on Young People.” Sydney: Oxfam Australia, 2003. Baldassar, L., Z. Kamalkhani, and C. Lange. “Afghan Hazara Refugees in Australia: Constructing Australian Citizens.” Social Identities 13.1 (2007): 31-50. Burchell, D. “Dysfunctional Dumping Grounds.” The Australian 10 Feb. 2007. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21199266-28737,00.html>. Burnley, I.H. The Impact of Immigration in Australia: A Demographic Approach. Melbourne: Oxford UP, 2001. Castells, M. “European Cities, the Informational Society, and the Global Economy.” New Left Review I/204 (March-April 1994): 46-57. Chamberlain, C., and D. Mackenzie. Homeless Careers: Pathways in and out of Homelessness. Melbourne: RMIT University, 2002. Chari, R., J. Hogan, and G. Murphy. “Regulating Lobbyists: A Comparative Analysis of the United States, Canada, Germany and the European Union.” The Political Quarterly 78.3 (2007): 423-438. Collins, J. “Chinese Entrepreneurs: The Chinese Diaspora in Australia.” International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research 8.1/2 (2002): 113-133. Dee, M. “Young People, Citizenship and Public Space.” International Sociological Association Conference Paper, Brisbane, 2002. Della Porta, D. “Globalisations and Democracy.” Democratizations 12.5 (2005): 668-685. Fagan, B., R. Dowling, and J. Longdale. “Suburbs in the ‘Global City’: Sydney since the Mid 1990s.” State of Australian cities conference. Parramatta, 2003. Frew, W. “And the Most Polarised City Is…” Sydney Morning Herald 16-17 Feb. 2008: 7. Gleeson, B. Australian Heartlands: Making Space for Hope in the Suburbs. Crows Nest: Allen and Unwin, 2006. Gleeson, B. “What’s Driving Suburban Australia?” Australian Policy Online 15 Jan. 2004. http://www.apo.org.au/webboard/results.chtml?filename_num=00558>. Gow, G. “Rubbing Shoulders in the Global City: Refugees, Citizenship and Multicultural Alliances in Fairfield, Sydney.” Ethnicities 5.3 (2005): 386-405. Hahn, C. L. “Citizenship Education: An Empirical Study of Policy, Practices and Outcomes.” Oxford Review of Education 25.1/2 (1999): 231-250. Hawley, S. “Sir Donald Bradman Likely to Be Dumped from Citizenship Test.” ABC Local Radio Online. 29 Jan. 2008. http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2007/s2148383.htm>. Hoare, D. “Bradman’s Spot in Citizenship Test under Scrutiny.” ABC Local Radio online. 29 Jan. 2008. http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2149325.htm>. Holston, J. Insurgent Citizenship: Disjunctions of Democracy and Modernity in Brazil. California: Cloth, 2007. Jaensch, D., P. Brent, and B. Bowden. “Australian Political Parties in the Spotlight.” Democratic Audit of Australia Report 4. Australian National University, 2004. Mackay, H. “Sleepers Awoke from Slumber of Indifference.” Sydney Morning Herald 27 Nov. 2007: 13. NSWPD – New South Wales Parliamentary Debates. “South Western Sydney Banking Services.” Legislative Assembly Hansard, 52nd NSW Parliament, 19 Sep. 2001. Portney, K.E., and L. O’Leary. Civic and Political Engagement of America’s Youth: National Survey of Civic and Political Engagement of Young People. Medford, MA: Tisch College, Tufts University, 2007. Price, S. “Stress and Debt Make Sydney a Violent City.” Sydney Morning Herald 13 Jan. 2008: 16. Pusey, M. The Experience of Middle Australia: The Dark Side of Economic Reform. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003. White, R. “Swarming and the Social Dynamics of Group Violence.” Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice 326 (Oct. 2006). http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/tandi2/tandi326t.html>. Wolfe, P. “Race and Citizenship.” Magazine of History 18.5 (2004): 66-72. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Arvanitakis, James. "The Heterogenous Citizen: How Many of Us Care about Don Bradman’s Average?." M/C Journal 10.6/11.1 (2008). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0804/07-arvanitakis.php>. APA Style Arvanitakis, J. (Apr. 2008) "The Heterogenous Citizen: How Many of Us Care about Don Bradman’s Average?," M/C Journal, 10(6)/11(1). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0804/07-arvanitakis.php>.

There is a moment in Al Gore’s 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth devised to expose the sheer audacity of fossil fuel lobby groups in the United States. In their attempts to address significant scientific consensus and growing public concern over climate change, these groups are resorting to what Gore’s film suggests are grotesque distortions of fact. A particular example highlighted in the film is the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s (CPE—a lobby group funded by ExxonMobil) “pro” energy industry advertisement: “Carbon dioxide”, the ad states. “They call it pollution, we call it life.” While on the one hand employing rhetoric against the “inconvenient truth” that carbon dioxide emissions are ratcheting up the Earth’s temperature, these advertisements also pose a question – though perhaps unintended – that is worth addressing. Where does life reside? This is not an issue of essentialism, but relates to the claims, materials and technologies through which life as a political object emerges. The danger of entertaining the vested interests of polluting industry in a discussion of climate change and its biopolitics is countered by an imperative to acknowledge the ways in which multiple positions in the climate change debate invoke and appeal to ‘life’ as the bottom line, or inviolable interest, of their political, social or economic work. In doing so, other questions come to the fore that a politics of climate change framed in terms of moral positions or competing values will tend to overlook. These questions concern the manifold practices of life that constitute the contemporary terrain of the political, and the actors and instruments put in this employ. Who speaks for life? And who or what produces it? Climate change as a matter of concern (Latour) has gathered and generated a host of experts, communities, narratives and technical devices all invested in the administration of life. It is, as Malcom Bull argues, “the paradigmatic issue of the new politics,” a politics which “draws people towards the public realm and makes life itself subject to the caprices of state and market” (2). This paper seeks to highlight the politics of life that have emerged around climate change as a public issue. It will argue that these politics appear in incremental and multiple ways that situate an array of actors and interests as active in both contesting and generating the terms of life: what life is and how we come to know it. This way of thinking about climate change debates opposes a prevalent moralistic framework that reads the practices and discourses of debate in terms of oppositional positions alone. While sympathies may flow in varying directions, especially when it comes to such a highly charged and massively consequential issue as climate change, there is little insight to be had from charging the CPE (for example) with manipulating consumers, or misrepresenting well-known facts. Where new and more productive understandings open up is in relation to the fields through which these gathering actors play out their claims to the project of life. These fields, from the state, to the corporation, to the domestic sphere, reveal a complex network of strategies and devices that seek to secure life in constantly renovated terms. Life Politics Biopolitical scholarship in the wake of Foucault has challenged life as a pre-given uncritical category, and sought to highlight the means through which it is put under question and constituted through varying and composing assemblages of practitioners and practices. Such work regards the project of human well-being as highly complex and technical, and has undertaken to document this empirically through close attention to the everyday ecologies in which humans are enmeshed. This is a political and theoretical project in itself, situating political processes in micro, as well as macro, registers, including daily life as a site of (self) management and governance. Rabinow and Rose refer to biopolitical circuits that draw together and inter-relate the multiple sites and scales operative in the administration of life. These involve not just technologies, rationalities and regimes of authority and control, but also politics “from below” in the form of rights claims and community formation and agitation (198). Active in these circuits, too, are corporate and non-state interests for whom the pursuit of maximising life’s qualities and capabilities has become a concern through which “market relations and shareholder value” are negotiated (Rabinow and Rose 211). As many biopolitical scholars argue, biopower—the strategies through which biopolitics are enacted—is characteristic of the “disciplinary neo-liberalism” that has come to define the modern state, and through which the conduct of conduct is practiced (Di Muzio 305). Foucault’s concept of governmentality describes the devolution of state-based disciplinarity and sovereignty to a host of non-state actors, rationalities and strategies of governing, including the self-managing subject, not in opposition to the state, but contributing to its form. According to Bratich, Packer and McCarthy, everyday life is thus “saturated with governmental techniques” (18) in which we are all enrolled. Unlike regimes of biopolitics identified with what Agamben terms “thanopolitics”—the exercise of biopower “which ultimately rests on the power of some to threaten the death of others” (Rabinow and Rose 198), such as the Nazi’s National Socialism and other eugenic campaigns—governmental arts in the service of “vitalist” biopolitics (Rose 1) are increasingly diffused amongst all those with an “interest” in sustaining life, from organisations to individuals. The integration of techniques of self-governance which ask the individual to work on themselves and their own dispositions with State functions has broadened the base by which life is governed, and foregrounded an unsettled terrain of life claims. Rose argues that medical science is at the forefront of these contemporary biopolitics, and to this effect “has […] been fully engaged in the ethical questions of how we should live—of what kinds of creatures we are, of the kinds of obligations that we have to ourselves and to others, of the kinds of techniques we can and should use to improve ourselves” (20). Asking individuals to self-identify through their medical histories and bodily specificities, medical cultures are also shaping new political arrangements, as communities connected by shared genetics or physical conditions, for instance, emerge, evolve and agitate according to the latest medical knowledge. Yet it is not just medicine that provokes ethical work and new political forms. The environment is a key site for life politics that entails a multi-faceted discourse of obligations and entitlements, across fields and scales of engagement. Calculating Environments In line with neo-liberal logic, environmental discourse concerned with ameliorating climate change has increasingly focused upon the individual as an agent of self-monitoring, to both facilitate government agendas at a distance, and to “self-fashion” in the mode of the autonomous subject, securing against external risks (Ong 501). Climate change is commonly represented as such a risk, to both human and non-human life. A recent letter published by the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in two leading British medical journals, named climate change as the “biggest global health threat of the twenty-first century” (Morton). As I have argued elsewhere (Potter), security is central to dominant cultures of environmental governance in the West; these cultures tie sustainability goals to various and interrelated regimes of monitoring which attach to concepts of what Clark and Stevenson call “the good ecological citizen” (238). Citizenship is thus practiced through strategies of governmentality which call on individuals to invest not just in their own well-being, but in the broader project of life. Calculation is a primary technique through which modern environmental governance is enacted; calculative strategies are seen to mediate risk, according to Foucault, and consequently to “assure living” (Elden 575). Rationalised schemes for self-monitoring are proliferating under climate change and the project of environmentalism more broadly, something which critics of neo-liberalism have identified as symptomatic of the privatisation of politics that liberal governmentality has fostered. As we have seen in Australia, an evolving policy emphasis on individual practices and the domestic sphere as crucial sites of environmental action – for instance, the introduction of domestic water restrictions, and the phasing out of energy-inefficient light bulbs in the home—provides a leading discourse of ethico-political responsibility. The rise of carbon dioxide counting is symptomatic of this culture, and indicates the distributed fields of life management in contemporary governmentality. Carbon dioxide, as the CPE is keen to point out, is crucial to life, but it is also—in too large an amount—a force of destruction. Its management, in vitalist terms, is thus established as an effort to protect life in the face of death. The concept of “carbon footprinting” has been promoted by governments, NGOs, industry and individuals as a way of securing this goal, and a host of calculative techniques and strategies are employed to this end, across a spectrum of activities and contexts all framed in the interests of life. The footprinting measure seeks to secure living via self-policed limits, which also—in classic biopolitical form—shift previously private practices into a public realm of count-ability and accountability. The carbon footprint, like its associates the ecological footprint and the water footprint, has developed as a multi-faceted tool of citizenship beyond the traditional boundaries of the state. Suggesting an ecological conception of territory and of our relationships and responsibilities to this, the footprint, as a measure of resource use and emissions relative to the Earth’s capacities to absorb these, calculates and visualises the “specific qualities” (Elden 575) that, in a spatialised understanding of security, constitute and define this territory. The carbon footprint’s relatively simple remit of measuring carbon emissions per unit of assessment—be that the individual, the corporation, or the nation—belies the ways in which life is formatted and produced through its calculations. A tangled set of devices, practices and discourses is employed to make carbon and thus life calculable and manageable. Treading Lightly The old environmental adage to “tread lightly upon the Earth” has been literalised in the metaphor of the footprint, which attempts both to symbolise environmental practice and to directly translate data in order to meaningfully communicate necessary boundaries for our living. The World Wildlife Fund’s Living Planet Report 2008 exemplifies the growing popularity of the footprint as a political and poetic hook: speaking in terms of our “ecological overshoot,” and the move from “ecological credit to ecological deficit”, the report urges an attendance to our “global footprint” which “now exceeds the world’s capacity to regenerate by about 30 per cent” (1). Angela Crombie’s A Lighter Footprint, an instruction manual for sustainable living, is one of a host of media through which individuals are educated in modes of footprint calculation and management. She presents a range of techniques, including carbon offsetting, shifting to sustainable modes of transport, eating and buying differently, recycling and conserving water, to mediate our carbon dioxide output, and to “show […] politicians how easy it is” (13). Governments however, need no persuading from citizens that carbon calculation is an exercise to be harnessed. As governments around the world move (slowly) to address climate change, policies that instrumentalise carbon dioxide emission and reduction via an auditing of credits and deficits have come to the fore—for example, the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme and the Chicago Climate Exchange. In Australia, we have the currently-under-debate Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, a part of which is the Australian Emissions Trading Scheme (AETS) that will introduce a system of “carbon credits” and trading in a market-based model of supply and demand. This initiative will put a price on carbon dioxide emissions, and cap the amount of emissions any one polluter can produce without purchasing further credits. In readiness for the scheme, business initiatives are forming to take advantage of this new carbon market. Industries in carbon auditing and off-setting services are consolidating; hectares of trees, already active in the carbon sequestration market, are being cultivated as “carbon sinks” and key sites of compliance for polluters under the AETS. Governments are also planning to turn their tracts of forested public land into carbon credits worth billions of dollars (Arup 7). The attachment of emission measures to goods and services requires a range of calculative experts, and the implementation of new marketing and branding strategies, aimed at conveying the carbon “health” of a product. The introduction of “food mile” labelling (the amount of carbon dioxide emitted in the transportation of the food from source to consumer) in certain supermarkets in the United Kingdom is an example of this. Carbon risk analysis and management programs are being introduced across businesses in readiness for the forthcoming “carbon economy”. As one flyer selling “a suite of carbon related services” explains, “early action will give you the edge in understanding and mitigating the risks, and puts you in a prime position to capitalise on the rewards” (MGI Business Solutions Worldwide). In addition, lobby groups are working to ensure exclusions from or the free allocation of permits within the proposed AETS, with degrees of compulsion applied to different industries – the Federal Government, for instance, will provide a $3.9 billion compensation package for the electric power sector when the AETS commences, to enable their “adjustment” to this carbon regime. Performing Life Noortje Mares provides a further means of thinking through the politics of life in the context of climate change by complicating the distinction between public and private interest. Her study of “green living experiments” describes the rise of carbon calculation in the home in recent years, and the implementation of technologies such as the smart electricity meter that provides a constantly updating display of data relating to amounts and cost of energy consumed and the carbon dioxide emitted in the routines of domestic life. Her research tracks the entry of these personal calculative regimes into public life via internet forums such as blogs, where individuals notate or discuss their experiences of pursing low-carbon lifestyles. On the one hand, these calculative practices of living and their public representation can be read as evidencing the pervasive neo-liberal governmentality at work in contemporary environmental practice, where individuals are encouraged to scrupulously monitor their domestic cultures. The rise of auditing as a technology of self, and more broadly as a technique of public accountability, has come under fire for its “immunity-granting role” (Charkiewicz 79), where internal audits become substituted for external compliance and regulation. Mares challenges this reading, however, by demonstrating the ways in which green living experiments “transform everyday material practices into practices of public involvement” that (118) don’t resolve or pin down relations between the individual, the non-human environment, and the social, or reveal a mappable flow of actions and effects between the public realm and the home. The empirical modes of publicity that these individuals employ, “the careful recording of measurements and the reliable descriptions of sensory observation, so as to enable ‘virtual witnessing’ by wider audiences”, open up to much more complex understandings than one of calculative self-discipline at work. As “instrument[s] of public involvement” (120), the experiments that Mares describe locate the politics of life in the embodied socio-material entanglements of the domestic sphere, in arrangements of humans and non-human technologies. Such arrangements, she suggests, are ontologically productive in that they introduce “not only new knowledge, but also new entities […] to society” (119), and as such these experiments and the modes of calculation they employ become active in the composition of reality. Recent work in economic sociology and cultural studies has similarly contended that calculation, far from either a naturalised or thoroughly abstract process, relies upon a host of devices, relations, and techniques: that is, as Gay Hawkins explains, calculative processes “have to be enacted” (108). Environmental governmentality in the service of securing life is a networked practice that draws in a host of actors, not a top-down imposition. The institution of carbon economies and carbon emissions as a new register of public accountability, brings alternative ways to calculate the world into being, and consequently re-calibrates life as it emerges from these heterogeneous arrangements. All That Gathers Latour writes that we come to know a matter of concern by all the things that gather around it (Latour). This includes the human, as well as the non-human actors, policies, practices and technologies that are put to work in the making of our realities. Climate change is routinely represented as a threat to life, with predicted (and occurring) species extinction, growing numbers of climate change refugees, dispossessed from uninhabitable lands, and the rise of diseases and extreme weather scenarios that put human life in peril. There is no doubt, of course, that climate change does mean death for some: indeed, there are thanopolitical overtones in inequitable relations between the fall-out of impacts from major polluting nations on poorer countries, or those much more susceptible to rising sea levels. Biosocial equity, as Bull points out, is a “matter of being equally alive and equally dead” (2). Yet in the biopolitical project of assuring living, life is burgeoning around the problem of climate change. The critique of neo-liberalism as a blanketing system that subjects all aspects of life to market logic, and in which the cynical techniques of industry seek to appropriate ethico-political stances for their own material ends, are insufficient responses to what is actually unfolding in the messy terrain of climate change and its biopolitics. What this paper has attempted to show is that there is no particular purchase on life that can be had by any one actor who gathers around this concern. Varying interests, ambitions, and intentions, without moral hierarchy, stake their claim in life as a constantly constituting site in which they participate, and from this perspective, the ways in which we understand life to be both produced and managed expand. This is to refuse either an opposition or a conflation between the market and nature, or the market and life. It is also to argue that we cannot essentialise human-ness in the climate change debate. For while human relations with animals, plants and weathers may make us what we are, so too do our relations with (in a much less romantic view) non-human things, technologies, schemes, and even markets—from carbon auditing services, to the label on a tin on the supermarket shelf. As these intersect and entangle, the project of life, in the new politics of climate change, is far from straightforward. References An Inconvenient Truth. Dir. Davis Guggenheim. Village Roadshow, 2006. Arup, Tom. “Victoria Makes Enormous Carbon Stocktake in Bid for Offset Billions.” The Age 24 Sep. 2009: 7. Bratich, Jack Z., Jeremy Packer, and Cameron McCarthy. “Governing the Present.” Foucault, Cultural Studies and Governmentality. Ed. Bratich, Packer and McCarthy. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. 3-21. Bull, Malcolm. “Globalization and Biopolitics.” New Left Review 45 (2007): 12 May 2009 . < http://newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=2675 >. Charkiewicz, Ewa. “Corporations, the UN and Neo-liberal Bio-politics.” Development 48.1 (2005): 75-83. Clark, Nigel, and Nick Stevenson. “Care in a Time of Catastrophe: Citizenship, Community and the Ecological Imagination.” Journal of Human Rights 2.2 (2003): 235-246. Crombie, Angela. A Lighter Footprint: A Practical Guide to Minimising Your Impact on the Planet. Carlton North, Vic.: Scribe, 2007. Di Muzio, Tim. “Governing Global Slums: The Biopolitics of Target 11.” Global Governance. 14.3 (2008): 305-326. Elden, Stuart. “Governmentality, Calculation and Territory.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 25 (2007): 562-580. Hawkins, Gay. The Ethics of Waste: How We Relate to Rubbish. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2006. Latour, Bruno. “Why Has Critique Run Out of Steam?: From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern.” Critical Inquiry 30.2 (2004): 225-248. Mares, Noortje. “Testing Powers of Engagement: Green Living Experiments, the Ontological Turn and the Undoability and Involvement.” European Journal of Social Theory 12.1 (2009): 117-133. MGI Business Solutions Worldwide. “Carbon News.” Adelaide. 2 Aug. 2009. Ong, Aihwa. “Mutations in Citizenship.” Theory, Culture and Society 23.2-3 (2006): 499-505. Potter, Emily. “Footprints in the Mallee: Climate Change, Sustaining Communities, and the Nature of Place.” Landscapes and Learning: Place Studies in a Global World. Ed. Margaret Somerville, Kerith Power and Phoenix de Carteret. Sense Publishers. Forthcoming. Rabinow, Paul, and Nikolas Rose. “Biopower Today.” Biosocieties 1 (2006): 195-217. Rose, Nikolas. “The Politics of Life Itself.” Theory, Culture and Society 18.6 (2001): 1-30. World Wildlife Fund. Living Planet Report 2008. Switzerland, 2008.

There is a disparity between expectations that the members of a community will work together for the common good — and the stark reality that human beings form into groups, or parties, to engage in conflict with each other. This is particularly the case in so-called popular governments that include some wider political involvement by the people. In ancient Greece stasis, or endemic conflict between the democratic and oligarchic elements of a city was very common. Likewise, the late Roman Republic maintained a division between the populares and the optimates. In both cases there was violence as both sides battled for dominance. For example, in late republican Rome street gangs formed that employed intimidation and violence for political ends.In seventeenth century England there was conflict between those who favoured royal authority and those who wished to see more power devolved to parliament, which led to Civil War in the 1640s. Yet the English ideal, as expressed by The Book of Common Prayer (1549; and other editions) was that the country be quietly governed. It seemed perverse that the members of the body politic should be in conflict with each other. By the late seventeenth century England was still riven by conflict between two groups which became designated as the Whigs and the Tories. The divisions were both political and religious. Most importantly, these divisions were expressed at the local level, in such things as the struggle for the control of local corporations. They were not just political but could also be personal and often turned nasty as families contended for local control. The mid seventeenth century had been a time of considerable violence and warfare, not only in Europe and England but across Eurasia, including the fall of the Ming dynasty in China (Parker). This violence occurred in the wake of a cooler climate change, bringing in its wake crop failure followed by scarcity, hunger, disease and vicious warfare. Millions of people died.Conditions improved in the second half of the seventeenth century and countries slowly found their way to a new relative stability. The Qing created a new imperial order in China. In France, Louis XIV survived the Fronde and his answer to the rage and divisions of that time was the imposition of an autocratic and despotic state that simply prohibited the existence of divisions. Censorship and the inquisition flourished in Catholic Europe ensuring that dissidence would not evolve into violence fuelled by rage. In 1685, Louis expelled large numbers of Protestants from France.Divisions did not disappear in England at the end of the Civil War and the Restoration of Charles II. Initially, it appears that Charles sought to go down the French route. There was a regulation of ideas as new laws meant that the state licensed all printed works. There was an attempt to impose a bureaucratic authoritarian state, culminating in the short reign of James II (Pincus, Ertman). But its major effect, since the heightened fear of James’ Catholicism in Protestant England, was to stoke the ‘rage of party’ between those who supported this hierarchical model of social order and those who wanted political power less concentrated (Knights Representation, Plumb).The issue was presumed to be settled in 1688 when James was chased from the throne, and replaced by the Dutchman William and his wife Mary. In the official language of the day, liberty had triumphed over despotism and the ‘ancient constitution’ of the English had been restored to guarantee that liberty.However, three major developments were going on in England by the late seventeenth century: The first is the creation of a more bureaucratic centralised state along the lines of the France of Louis XIV. This state apparatus was needed to collect the taxes required to finance and administer the English war machine (Pincus). The second is the creation of a genuinely popular form of government in the wake of the expulsion of James and his replacement by William of Orange (Ertman). This means regular parliaments that are elected every three years, and also a free press to scrutinise political activities. The third is the development of financial institutions to enable the war to be conducted against France, which only comes to an end in 1713 (Pincus). Here, England followed the example of the Netherlands. There is the establishment of the bank of England in 1694 and the creation of a national debt. This meant that those involved in finance could make big profits out of financing a war, so a new moneyed class developed. England's TransformationIn the 1690s as England is transformed politically, religiously and economically, this develops a new type of society that unifies strong government with new financial institutions and arrangements. In this new political configuration, the big winners are the new financial elites and the large (usually Whig) aristocratic landlords, who had the financial resources to benefit from it. The losers were the smaller landed gentry who were taxed to pay for the war. They increasingly support the Tories (Plumb) who opposed both the war and the new financial elites it helped to create; leading to the 1710 election that overwhelmingly elected a Tory government led by Harley and Bolingbroke. This government then negotiated the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, with the Whigs retaining a small minority.History indicates that the post-1688 developments do not so much quell the ‘rage of party’ as encourage it and fan the fires of conflict and discontent. Parliamentary elections were held every three years and could involve costly, and potentially financially ruinous, contests between families competing for parliamentary representation. As these elections involved open voting and attempts to buy votes through such means as wining and dining, they could be occasions for riotous behaviour. Regular electoral contests, held in an electorate that was much larger than it would be one hundred years later, greatly heightened the conflicts and kept the political temperature at a high.Fig. 1: "To Him Pudel, Bite Him Peper"Moreover, there was much to fuel this conflict and to ‘maintain the rage’: First, the remodelling of the English financial system combined with the high level of taxation imposed largely on the gentry fuelled a rage amongst this group. This new world of financial investments was not part of their world. They were extremely suspicious of wealth not derived from landed property and sought to limit the power of those who held such wealth. Secondly, the events of 1688 split the Anglican Church in two (Pincus). The opponents of the new finance regimes tended also to be traditional High Church Anglicans who feared the newer, more tolerant government policy towards religion. Finally, the lapsing of the Licensing Act in 1695 meant that the English state was no longer willing to control the flow of information to the public (Kemp). The end result was that England in the 1690s became something akin to a modern public culture in which there was a relatively free flow of political information, constant elections held with a limited, but often substantial franchise, that was operating out of a very new commercial and financial environment. These political divisions were now deeply entrenched and very real passion animated each side of the political divide (Knights Devil).Under these circumstances, it was not possible simply to stamp out ‘the rage’ by the government repressing the voices of dissent. The authoritarian model for creating public conformity was not an option. A mechanism for lowering the political and religious temperature needed to arise in this new society where power and knowledge were diffused rather than centrally concentrated. Also, the English were aided by the return to a more benign physical environment. In economic terms it led to what Fischer terms the equilibrium of the Enlightenment. The wars of Louis XIV were a hangover from the earlier more desperate age; they prolonged the crisis of that age. Nevertheless, the misery of the earlier seventeenth century had passed. The grim visions of Calvinism (and Jansenism) had lost their plausibility. So the excessive violence of the 1640s was replaced by a more tepid form of political resistance, developing into the first modern expression of populism. So, the English achieved what Plumb calls ‘political stability’ were complex (1976), but relied on two things. The first was limiting the opportunity for political activity and the second was labelling political passion as a form of irrational behaviour – as an unsatisfactory or improper way of conducting oneself in the world. Emotions became an indulgence of the ignorant, the superstitious and the fanatical. This new species of humanity was the gentleman, who behaved in a reasonable and measured way, would express a person commensurate with the Enlightenment.This view would find its classic expression over a century later in Macaulay’s History of England, where the pre-1688 English squires are now portrayed in all their semi-civilised glory, “his ignorance and uncouthness, his low tastes and gross phrases, would, in our time, be considered as indicating a nature and a breeding thoroughly plebeian” (Macaulay 244). While the Revolution of 1688 is usually portrayed as a triumph of liberty, as stated, recent scholarship (Pincus, Ertman) emphasises how the attempts by both Charles and James to build a more bureaucratic state were crucial to the development of eighteenth century England. England was not really a land of liberty that kept state growth in check, but the English state development took a different path to statehood from countries such as France, because it involved popular institutions and managed to eliminate many of the corrupt practices endemic to a patrimonial regime.The English were as interested in ‘good police’, meaning the regulation of moral behaviour, as any state on the European continent, but their method of achievement was different. In the place of bureaucratic regulation, the English followed another route, later be termed in the 1760s as ‘civilisation’ (Melleuish). So, the Whigs became the party of rationality and reasonableness, and the Whig regime was Low Church, which was latitudinarian and amenable to rationalist Christianity. Also, the addition of the virtue and value of politeness and gentlemanly behaviour became the antidote to the “rage of party’”(Knights Devil 163—4) . The Whigs were also the party of science and therefore, followed Lockean philosophy. They viewed themselves as ‘reasonable men’ in opposition to their more fanatically inclined opponents. It is noted that any oligarchy, can attempt to justify itself as an ‘aristocracy’, in the sense of representing the ‘morally’ best people. The Whig aristocracy was more cosmopolitan, because its aristocrats had often served the rulers of countries other than England. In fact, the values of the Whig elite were the first expression of the liberal cosmopolitan values which are now central to the ideology of contemporary elites. One dimension of the Whig/Tory split is that while the Whig aristocracy had a cosmopolitan outlook as more proto-globalist, the Tories remained proto-nationalists. The Whigs became simultaneously the party of liberty, Enlightenment, cosmopolitanism, commerce and civilised behaviour. This is why liberty, the desire for peace and ‘sweet commerce’ came to be identified together. The Tories, on the other hand, were the party of real property (that is to say land) so their national interest could easily be construed by their opponents as the party of obscurantism and rage. One major incident illustrates how this evolved.The Trial of the High Church Divine Henry Sacheverell In 1709, the High Church Divine Henry Sacheverell preached a fiery sermon attacking the Whig revolutionary principles of resistance, and advocated obedience and unlimited submission to authority. Afterwards, for his trouble he was impeached before the House of Lords by the Whigs for high crimes and misdemeanours (Tryal 1710). As Mark Knights (6) has put it, one of his major failings was his breaching of the “Whig culture of politeness and moderation”. The Whigs also disliked Sacheverell for his charismatic appeal to women (Nicholson). He was found guilty and his sermons ordered to be burned by the hangman. But Sacheverell became simultaneously a martyr and a political celebrity leading to a mass outpouring of printed material (Knights Devil 166—186). Riots broke out in London in the wake of the trial’s verdict. For the Whigs, this stood as proof of the ‘rage’ that lurked in the irrational world of Toryism. However, as Geoffrey Holmes has demonstrated, these riots were not aimless acts of mob violence but were directed towards specific targets, in particular the meeting houses of Dissenters. History reveals that the Sacheverell riots were the last major riots in England for almost seventy years until the Lord Gordon anti-Catholic riots of 1780. In the short term they led to an overwhelming Tory victory at the 1710 elections, but that victory was pyrrhic. With the death of Queen Anne, followed by the accession of the Hanoverians to the throne, the Whigs became the party of government. Some Tories, such as Bolingbroke, panicked, and fled to France and the Court of the Pretender. The other key factor was the Treaty of Utrecht, brokered on England’s behalf by the Tory government of Harley and Bolingbroke that brought the Civil war to an end in 1713. England now entered an era of peace; there remained no longer the need to raise funds to conduct a war. The war had forced the English state to both to consolidate and to innovate.This can be viewed as the victory of the party of ‘politeness and moderation’ and the Enlightenment and hence the effective end of the ‘rage of party’. Threats did remain by the Pretender’s (James III) attempt to retake the English throne, as happened in 1715 and 1745, when was backed by the barbaric Scots.The Whig ascendancy, the ascendancy of a minority, was to last for decades but remnants of the Tory Party remained, and England became a “one-and one-half” party regime (Ertman 222). Once in power, however, the Whigs utilised a number of mechanisms to ensure that the age of the ‘rage of party’ had come to an end and would be replaced by one of politeness and moderation. As Plumb states, they gained control of the “means of patronage” (Plumb 161—88), while maintaining the ongoing trend, from the 1680s of restricting those eligible to vote in local corporations, and the Whigs supported the “narrowing of the franchise” (Plumb 102—3). Finally, the Septennial Act of 1717 changed the time between elections from three years to seven years.This lowered the political temperature but it did not eliminate the Tories or complaints about the political, social and economic path that England had taken. Rage may have declined but there was still a lot of dissent in the newspapers, in particular in the late 1720s in the Craftsman paper controlled by Viscount Bolingbroke. The Craftsman denounced the corrupt practices of the government of Sir Robert Walpole, the ‘robinocracy’, and played to the prejudices of the landed gentry. Further, the Bolingbroke circle contained some major literary figures of the age; but not a group of violent revolutionaries (Kramnick). It was true populism, from ideals of the Enlightenment and a more benign environment.The new ideal of ‘politeness and moderation’ had conquered English political culture in an era of Whig dominance. This is exemplified in the philosophy of David Hume and his disparagement of enthusiasm and superstition, and the English elite were also not fond of emotional Methodists, and Charles Wesley’s father had been a Sacheverell supporter (Cowan 43). A moderate man is rational and measured; the hoi polloi is emotional, faintly disgusting, and prone to rage.In the End: A Reduction of Rage Nevertheless, one of the great achievements of this new ideal of civility was to tame the conflict between political parties by recognising political division as a natural part of the political process, one that did not involve ‘rage’. This was the great achievement of Edmund Burke who, arguing against Bolingbroke’s position that 1688 had restored a unified political order, and hence abolished political divisions, legitimated such party divisions as an element of a civilised political process involving gentlemen (Mansfield 3). The lower orders, lacking the capacity to live up to this ideal, were prone to accede to forces other than reason, and needed to be kept in their place. This was achieved through a draconian legal code that punished crimes against property very severely (Hoppit). If ‘progress’ as later described by Macaulay leads to a polite and cultivated elite who are capable of conquering their rage – so the lower orders need to be repressed because they are still essentially barbarians. This was echoed in Macaulay’s contemporary, John Stuart Mill (192) who promulgated Orientals similarly “lacked the virtues” of an educated Briton.In contrast, the French attempt to impose order and stability through an authoritarian state fared no better in the long run. After 1789 it was the ‘rage’ of the ‘mob’ that helped to bring down the French Monarchy. At least, that is how the new cadre of the ‘polite and moderate’ came to view things.ReferencesBolingbroke, Lord. Contributions to the Craftsman. Ed. Simon Varney. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1982.Cowan, Brian. “The Spin Doctor: Sacheverell’s Trial Speech and Political Performance in the Divided Society.” Faction Displayed: Reconsidering the Impeachment of Dr Henry Sacheverell. Ed. Mark Knights. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. 28-46.Ertman, Thomas. Birth of the Leviathan: Building States and Regimes in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997.Fischer, David Hackett. The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History, New York: Oxford UP, 1996.Holmes, Geoffrey. “The Sacheverell Riots: The Crowd and the Church in Early Eighteenth-Century London.” Past and Present 72 (Aug. 1976): 55-85.Hume, David. “Of Superstition and Enthusiasm.” Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1985. 73-9. Hoppit, Julian. A Land of Liberty? England 1689—1727, Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000.Kemp, Geoff. “The ‘End of Censorship’ and the Politics of Toleration, from Locke to Sacheverell.” Faction Displayed: Reconsidering the Impeachment of Dr Henry Sacheverell. Ed. Mark Knights. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. 47-68.Knights, Mark. Representation and Misrepresentation in Later Stuart Britain. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005.———. The Devil in Disguise: Deception, Delusion, and Fanaticism in the Early English Enlightenment. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011.———. “Introduction: The View from 1710.” Faction Displayed: Reconsidering the Impeachment of Dr Henry Sacheverell. Ed. Mark Knights. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. 1-15.Kramnick, Isaac. Bolingbroke & His Circle: The Politics of Nostalgia in the Age of Walpole. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1992.Macaulay, Thomas Babington. The History of England from the Accession of James II. London: Folio Society, 2009.Mansfield, Harvey. Statesmanship and Party Government: A Study of Burke and Bolingbroke. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1965.Melleuish, Greg. “Civilisation, Culture and Police.” Arts 20 (1998): 7-25.Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty, Representative Government, the Subjection of Women. London: Oxford UP, 1971.Nicholson, Eirwen. “Sacheverell’s Harlot’s: Non-Resistance on Paper and in Practice.” Faction Displayed: Reconsidering the Impeachment of Dr Henry Sacheverell. Ed. Mark Knights. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. 69-79.Parker, Geoffrey. Global Crisis: War, Climate Change & Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century. New Haven: Yale UP, 2013.Pincus, Steve. 1688: The First Modern Revolution. New Haven: Yale UP, 2009.Plumb, John H. The Growth of Political Stability in England 1675–1725. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973.The Tryal of Dr Henry Sacheverell before the House of Peers, 1st edition. London: Jacob Tonson, 1710.

For the past twenty years, academics and other social commentators have, by and large, shared the view that the phase of modernity through which we are currently passing is defined by two interrelated catalysts of change: the physical movement of people and the virtual movement of information around the globe. As we enter the second decade of the new millennium, it is certainly a timely moment to reflect upon the ways in which the prognoses of the scholars and scientists writing in the late twentieth century have come to pass, especially since—during the time this special issue has been in press—the revolutions that are gathering pace in the Arab world appear to be realising the theoretical prediction that the ever-increasing “flows” of people and information would ultimately bring about the end of the nation-state and herald an era of transnationalism (Appadurai, Urry). For writers like Arjun Appadurai, moreover, the concept of diaspora was key to grasping how this new world order would take shape, and how it would operate: Diasporic public spheres, diverse amongst themselves, are the crucibles of a postnational political order. The engines of their discourse are mass media (both interactive and expressive) and the movement of refugees, activists, students, laborers. It may be that the emergent postnational order proves not to be a system of homogeneous units (as with the current system of nation-states) but a system based on relations between heterogeneous units (some social movements, some interest groups, some professional bodies, some non-governmental organizations, some armed constabularies, some judicial bodies) ... In the short run, as we can see already, it is likely to be a world of increased incivility and violence. In the longer run, free from the constraints of the nation form, we may find that cultural freedom and sustainable justice in the world do not presuppose the uniform and general existence of the nation-state. This unsettling possibility could be the most exciting dividend of living in modernity at large. (23) In this editorial, we would like to return to the “here and now” of the late 1990s in which theorists like Arjun Appaduri, Ulrich Beck, John Urry, Zygmunt Bauman, Robert Robertson and others were “imagining” the consequences of both globalisation and glocalisation for the twenty-first century in order that we may better assess what is, indeed, coming to pass. While most of their prognoses for this “second modernity” have proven remarkably accurate, it is their—self-confessed—inability to forecast either the nature or the extent of the digital revolution that most vividly captures the distance between the mid-1990s and now; and it is precisely the consequences of this extraordinary technological revolution on the twin concepts of “glocality” and “diaspora” that the research featured in this special issue seeks to capture. Glocal Imaginaries Appadurai’s endeavours to show how globalisation was rapidly making itself felt as a “structure of feeling” (Williams in Appadurai 189) as well as a material “fact” was also implicit in our conceptualisation of the conference, “Glocal Imaginaries: Writing/Migration/Place,” which gave rise to this special issue. This conference, which was the culmination of the AHRC-funded project “Moving Manchester: Literature/Migration/Place (2006-10)”, constituted a unique opportunity to gain an international, cross-disciplinary perspective on urgent and topical debates concerning mobility and migration in the early twenty-first century and the strand “Networked Diasporas” was one of the best represented on the program. Attracting papers on broadcast media as well as the new digital technologies, the strand was strikingly international in terms of the speakers’ countries of origin, as is this special issue which brings together research from six European countries, Australia and the Indian subcontinent. The “case-studies” represented in these articles may therefore be seen to constitute something of a “state-of-the-art” snapshot of how Appadurai’s “glocal imaginary” is being lived out across the globe in the early years of the twenty-first century. In this respect, the collection proves that his hunch with regards to the signal importance of the “mass-media” in redefining our spatial and temporal coordinates of being and belonging was correct: The third and final factor to be addressed here is the role of the mass-media, especially in its electronic forms, in creating new sorts of disjuncture between spatial and virtual neighborhoods. This disjuncture has both utopian and dystopian potentials, and there is no easy way to tell how these may play themselves out in the future of the production of locality. (194) The articles collected here certainly do serve as testament to the “bewildering plethora of changes in ... media environments” (195) that Appadurai envisaged, and yet it can clearly also be argued that this agent of glocalisation has not yet brought about the demise of the nation-state in the way (or at the speed) that many commentators predicted. Digital Diasporas in a Transnational World Reviewing the work of the leading social science theorists working in the field during the late 1990s, it quickly becomes evident that: (a) the belief that globalisation presented a threat to the nation-state was widely held; and (b) that the “jury” was undecided as to whether this would prove a good or bad thing in the years to come. While the commentators concerned did their best to complexify both their analysis of the present and their view of the future, it is interesting to observe, in retrospect, how the rhetoric of both utopia and dystopia invaded their discourse in almost equal measure. We have already seen how Appadurai, in his 1996 publication, Modernity at Large, looks beyond the “increased incivility and violence” of the “short term” to a world “free from the constraints of the nation form,” while Roger Bromley, following Agamben and Deleuze as well as Appadurai, typifies a generation of literary and cultural critics who have paid tribute to the way in which the arts (and, in particular, storytelling) have enabled subjects to break free from their national (af)filiations (Pearce, Devolving 17) and discover new “de-territorialised” (Deleuze and Guattari) modes of being and belonging. Alongside this “hope,” however, the forces and agents of globalisation were also regarded with a good deal of suspicion and fear, as is evidenced in Ulrich Beck’s What is Globalization? In his overview of the theorists who were then perceived to be leading the debate, Beck draws distinctions between what was perceived to be the “engine” of globalisation (31), but is clearly most exercised by the manner in which the transformation has taken shape: Without a revolution, without even any change in laws or constitutions, an attack has been launched “in the normal course of business”, as it were, upon the material lifelines of modern national societies. First, the transnational corporations are to export jobs to parts of the world where labour costs and workplace obligations are lowest. Second, the computer-generation of worldwide proximity enables them to break down and disperse goods and services, and produce them through a division of labour in different parts of the world, so that national and corporate labels inevitably become illusory. (3; italics in the original) Beck’s concern is clearly that all these changes have taken place without the nation-states of the world being directly involved in any way: transnational corporations began to take advantage of the new “mobility” available to them without having to secure the agreement of any government (“Companies can produce in one country, pay taxes in another and demand state infrastructural spending in yet another”; 4-5); the export of the labour market through the use of digital communications (stereotypically, call centres in India) was similarly unregulated; and the world economy, as a consequence, was in the process of becoming detached from the processes of either production or consumption (“capitalism without labour”; 5-7). Vis-à-vis the dystopian endgame of this effective “bypassing” of the nation-state, Beck is especially troubled about the fate of the human rights legislation that nation-states around the world have developed, with immense effort and over time (e.g. employment law, trade unions, universal welfare provision) and cites Zygmunt Bauman’s caution that globalisation will, at worst, result in widespread “global wealth” and “local poverty” (31). Further, he ends his book with a fully apocalyptic vision, “the Brazilianization of Europe” (161-3), which unapologetically calls upon the conventions of science fiction to imagine a worst-case scenario for a Europe without nations. While fourteen or fifteen years is evidently not enough time to put Beck’s prognosis to the test, most readers would probably agree that we are still some way away from such a Europe. Although the material wealth and presence of the transnational corporations strikes a chord, especially if we include the world banks and finance organisations in their number, the financial crisis that has rocked the world for the past three years, along with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the ascendancy of Al-Qaida (all things yet to happen when Beck was writing in 1997), has arguably resulted in the nations of Europe reinforcing their (respective and collective) legal, fiscal, and political might through rigorous new policing of their physical borders and regulation of their citizens through “austerity measures” of an order not seen since World War Two. In other words, while the processes of globalisation have clearly been instrumental in creating the financial crisis that Europe is presently grappling with and does, indeed, expose the extent to which the world economy now operates outside the control of the nation-state, the nation-state still exists very palpably for all its citizens (whether permanent or migrant) as an agent of control, welfare, and social justice. This may, indeed, cause us to conclude that Bauman’s vision of a world in which globalisation would make itself felt very differently for some groups than others came closest to what is taking shape: true, the transnationals have seized significant political and economic power from the nation-state, but this has not meant the end of the nation-state; rather, the change is being experienced as a re-trenching of whatever power the nation-state still has (and this, of course, is considerable) over its citizens in their “local”, everyday lives (Bauman 55). If we now turn to the portrait of Europe painted by the articles that constitute this special issue, we see further evidence of transglobal processes and practices operating in a realm oblivious to local (including national) concerns. While our authors are generally more concerned with the flows of information and “identity” than business or finance (Appaduri’s “ethnoscapes,” “technoscapes,” and “ideoscapes”: 33-7), there is the same impression that this “circulation” (Latour) is effectively bypassing the state at one level (the virtual), whilst remaining very materially bound by it at another. In other words, and following Bauman, we would suggest that it is quite possible for contemporary subjects to be both the agents and subjects of globalisation: a paradox that, as we shall go on to demonstrate, is given particularly vivid expression in the case of diasporic and/or migrant peoples who may be able to bypass the state in the manufacture of their “virtual” identities/communities) but who (Cohen) remain very much its subjects (or, indeed, “non-subjects”) when attempting movement in the material realm. Two of the articles in the collection (Leurs & Ponzanesi and Marcheva) deal directly with the exponential growth of “digital diasporas” (sometimes referred to as “e-diasporas”) since the inception of Facebook in 2004, and both provide specific illustrations of the way in which the nation-state both has, and has not, been transcended. First, it quickly becomes clear that for the (largely) “youthful” (Leurs & Ponzanesi) participants of nationally inscribed networking sites (e.g. “discovernikkei” (Japan), “Hyves” (Netherlands), “Bulgarians in the UK” (Bulgaria)), shared national identity is a means and not an end. In other words, although the participants of these sites might share in and actively produce a fond and nostalgic image of their “homeland” (Marcheva), they are rarely concerned with it as a material or political entity and an expression of their national identities is rapidly supplemented by the sharing of other (global) identity markers. Leurs & Ponzanesi invoke Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the “rhizome” to describe the way in which social networkers “weave” a “rhizomatic path” to identity, gradually accumulating a hybrid set of affiliations. Indeed, the extent to which the “nation” disappears on such sites can be remarkable as was also observed in our investigation of the digital storytelling site, “Capture Wales” (BBC) (Pearce, "Writing"). Although this BBC site was set up to capture the voices of the Welsh nation in the early twenty-first century through a collection of (largely) autobiographical stories, very few of the participants mention either Wales or their “Welshness” in the stories that they tell. Further, where the “home” nation is (re)imagined, it is generally in an idealised, or highly personalised, form (e.g. stories about one’s own family) or through a sharing of (perceived and actual) cultural idiosyncrasies (Marcheva on “You know you’re a Bulgarian when …”) rather than an engagement with the nation-state per se. As Leurs & Ponzanesi observe: “We can see how the importance of the nation-state gets obscured as diasporic youth, through cultural hybridisation of youth culture and ethnic ties initiate subcultures and offer resistance to mainstream cultural forms.” Both the articles just discussed also note the shading of the “national” into the “transnational” on the social networking sites they discuss, and “transnationalism”—in the sense of many different nations and their diasporas being united through a common interest or cause—is also a focus of Pikner’s article on “collective actions” in Europe (notably, “EuroMayDay” and “My Estonia”) and Harb’s highly topical account of the role of both broadcast media (principally, Al-Jazeera) and social media in the revolutions and uprisings currently sweeping through the Arab world (spring 2011). On this point, it should be noted that Harb identifies this as the moment when Facebook’s erstwhile predominantly social function was displaced by a manifestly political one. From this we must conclude that both transnationalism and social media sites can be put to very different ends: while young people in relatively privileged democratic countries might embrace transnationalism as an expression of their desire to “rise above” national politics, the youth of the Arab world have engaged it as a means of generating solidarity for nationalist insurgency and liberation. Another instance of “g/local” digital solidarity exceeding national borders is to be found in Johanna Sumiala’s article on the circulatory power of the Internet in the Kauhajoki school shooting which took place Finland in 2008. As well as using the Internet to “stage manage” his rampage, the Kauhajoki shooter (whose name the author chose to withhold for ethical reasons) was subsequently found to have been a member of numerous Web-based “hate groups”, many of them originating in the United States and, as a consequence, may be understood to have committed his crime on behalf of a transnational community: what Sumiala has defined as a “networked community of destruction.” It must also be noted, however, that the school shootings were experienced as a very local tragedy in Finland itself and, although the shooter may have been psychically located in a transnational hyper-reality when he undertook the killings, it is his nation-state that has had to deal with the trauma and shame in the long term. Woodward and Brown & Rutherford, meanwhile, show that it remains the tendency of public broadcast media to uphold the raison d’être of the nation-state at the same time as embracing change. Woodward’s feature article (which reports on the AHRC-sponsored “Tuning In” project which has researched the BBC World Service) shows how the representation of national and diasporic “voices” from around the world, either in opposition to or in dialogue with the BBC’s own reporting, is key to the way in which the Commission has changed and modernised in recent times; however, she is also clear that many of the objectives that defined the service in its early days—such as its commitment to a distinctly “English” brand of education—still remain. Similarly, Brown & Rutherford’s article on the innovative Australian ABC children’s television series, My Place (which has combined traditional broadcasting with online, interactive websites) may be seen to be positively promoting the Australian nation by making visible its commitment to multiculturalism. Both articles nevertheless reveal the extent to which these public service broadcasters have recognised the need to respond to their nations’ changing demographics and, in particular, the fact that “diaspora” is a concept that refers not only to their English and Australian audiences abroad but also to their now manifestly multicultural audiences at home. When it comes to commercial satellite television, however, the relationship between broadcasting and national and global politics is rather harder to pin down. Subramanian exposes a complex interplay of national and global interests through her analysis of the Malayalee “reality television” series, Idea Star Singer. Exported globally to the Indian diaspora, the show is shamelessly exploitative in the way in which it combines residual and emergent ideologies (i.e. nostalgia for a traditional Keralayan way of life vs aspirational “western lifestyles”) in pursuit of its (massive) audience ratings. Further, while the ISS series is ostensibly a g/local phenomenon (the export of Kerala to the rest of the world rather than “India” per se), Subramanian passionately laments all the progressive national initiatives (most notably, the campaign for “women’s rights”) that the show is happy to ignore: an illustration of one of the negative consequences of globalisation predicted by Beck (31) noted at the start of this editorial. Harb, meanwhile, reflects upon a rather different set of political concerns with regards to commercial satellite broadcasting in her account of the role of Al-Jazeera and Al Arabiya in the recent (2011) Arab revolutions. Despite Al-Jazeera’s reputation for “two-sided” news coverage, recent events have exposed its complicity with the Qatari government; further, the uprisings have revealed the speed with which social media—in particular Facebook and Twitter—are replacing broadcast media. It is now possible for “the people” to bypass both governments and news corporations (public and private) in relaying the news. Taken together, then, what our articles would seem to indicate is that, while the power of the nation-state has notionally been transcended via a range of new networking practices, this has yet to undermine its material power in any guaranteed way (witness recent counter-insurgencies in Libya, Bahrain, and Syria).True, the Internet may be used to facilitate transnational “actions” against the nation-state (individual or collective) through a variety of non-violent or violent actions, but nation-states around the world, and especially in Western Europe, are currently wielding immense power over their subjects through aggressive “austerity measures” which have the capacity to severely compromise the freedom and agency of the citizens concerned through widespread unemployment and cuts in social welfare provision. This said, several of our articles provide evidence that Appadurai’s more utopian prognoses are also taking shape. Alongside the troubling possibility that globalisation, and the technologies that support it, is effectively eroding “difference” (be this national or individual), there are the ever-increasing (and widely reported) instances of how digital technology is actively supporting local communities and actions around the world in ways that bypass the state. These range from the relatively modest collective action, “My Estonia”, featured in Pikner’s article, to the ways in which the Libyan diaspora in Manchester have made use of social media to publicise and support public protests in Tripoli (Harb). In other words, there is compelling material evidence that the heterogeneity that Appadurai predicted and hoped for has come to pass through the people’s active participation in (and partial ownership of) media practices. Citizens are now able to “interfere” in the representation of their lives as never before and, through the digital revolution, communicate with one another in ways that circumvent state-controlled broadcasting. We are therefore pleased to present the articles that follow as a lively, interdisciplinary and international “state-of-the-art” commentary on how the ongoing revolution in media and communication is responding to, and bringing into being, the processes and practices of globalisation predicted by Appadurai, Beck, Bauman, and others in the 1990s. The articles also speak to the changing nature of the world’s “diasporas” during this fifteen year time frame (1996-2011) and, we trust, will activate further debate (following Cohen) on the conceptual tensions that now manifestly exist between “virtual” and “material” diasporas and also between the “transnational” diasporas whose objective is to transcend the nation-state altogether and those that deploy social media for specifically local or national/ist ends. Acknowledgements With thanks to the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) for their generous funding of the “Moving Manchester” project (2006-10). Special thanks to Dr Kate Horsley (Lancaster University) for her invaluable assistance as ‘Web Editor’ in the production of this special issue (we could not have managed without you!) and also to Gail Ferguson (our copy-editor) for her expertise in the preparation of the final typescript. References Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalisation. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1996. Bauman, Zygmunt. Globalization. Cambridge: Polity, 1998. Beck, Ulrich. What is Globalization? Trans. Patrick Camiller. Cambridge: Polity, 2000 (1997). Bromley, Roger. Narratives for a New Belonging: Diasporic Cultural Fictions. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2000. Cohen, Robin. Global Diasporas. 2nd ed. London and New York: Routledge, 2008. Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1987. Latour, Bruno. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. Pearce, Lynne, ed. Devolving Identities: Feminist Readings in Home and Belonging. London: Ashgate, 2000. Pearce, Lynne. “‘Writing’ and ‘Region’ in the Twenty-First Century: Epistemological Reflections on Regionally Located Art and Literature in the Wake of the Digital Revolution.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 13.1 (2010): 27-41. Robertson, Robert. Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture. London: Sage, 1992. Urry, John. Sociology beyond Societies. London: Routledge, 1999. Williams, Raymond. Dream Worlds: Mass Consumption in Late Nineteenth-Century France. Berkeley: U of California P, 1982.

SCULLY: I said, I got the lab to rush the results of the Szczesny autopsy, if you're interested.MULDER: I heard you, Scully.SCULLY: And Szczesny did indeed drown, but not as the result of the inhalation of ectoplasm as you so vehemently suggested.MULDER: Well, what else could she possibly have drowned in?SCULLY: Margarita mix, upchucked with about 40 ounces of Corcovado Gold tequila which, as it turns out, she and her friends rapidly consumed in the woods while trying to reenact the Blair Witch Project.MULDER: Well, I think that demands a little deeper investigation, don't you?SCULLY: No, I don't.— The X-Files, “All Things” (0717) IntroductionMikel J. Koven argues that “The X-Files [1993-2002, films 2005, 2010, revived 2016-2018] was the American television series that defined the zeitgeist of the 1990s” (337) by tapping into “pre-millenium paranoia and the collapse of traditional beliefs” (338). In each episode, “True Believer” and FBI agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and his partner, the skeptical and rational Dr Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), travel through a post-Cold War American landscape that is manifesting varying levels of anxiety about the century to come. The series is preoccupied with a series of questions that have, by the second decade of the twenty-first century, come to be answered fairly definitively. Have aliens visited Earth? (Well, if you believe a team of Harvard scientists, maybe [see Freeman], but there is no evidence of alien colonisation just yet.) Does the US government have its citizens’ best interests at heart? (In its current incarnation, no.) Will climate change have monstrous consequences? (Yes, we’re seeing them.) What do we do about the shady forces operating in post-Soviet Union Russia? (God knows, but they seem to be doing a good job of changing the shape of “democracy” in an increasing number of countries.)These broader socio-political aspects of The X-Files have been explored in a number of studies (see Koven; Moses; Wildermuth). In this article, I focus in more closely on some of the ways in which the character of Scully can be read as a complex engagement with a particularly 1990s version of third-wave feminism. I suggest that the type of feminism embodied in the character of Scully taps into the zeitgeist of the 1990s, a decade characterised not only by a growing media-driven “backlash” against feminism (see Faludi), but also by emergent third wave of feminism driven by movements such as “Riot Grrrl” (centred on openly feminist bands like Bikini Kill and Huggy Bear) and the various, and often contested, feminisms endorsed by a new generation of writers like Susan Faludi, Naomi Wolf, and even Katie Roiphe. Part of Scully’s longevity as a feminist icon can be attributed to the fact that while she is not without her own contradictions and complexities, she emerged from a televisual landscape dominated by particularly insipid representations of professional women. Scully, with her combination of lively wit and serious scientific mind, represented a radical imagining of professional femininity in the 1990s.Working against the Backlash: Scully and the Power of ProfessionalismBy the late 1980s, the political gains made by the second-wave feminism in the 1960s and early 1970s had come increasingly under fire in a “backlash” that “worked to revoke the gains made by the feminist movement” (Genz and Brabon 53). L.S. Kim argues this backlash is reflected in the fact that while strong female characters had always been a feature of US television (e.g. Mary Tyler Moore), in the 1990s televisual landscape feminism was often made popular in a type of “postfeminist discourse in which it is acceptable to be pro-woman but not to be feminist” (319). The quintessential example of this trend was David E. Kelley’s series about a Boston lawyer, Ally McBeal (1997-2002), in which McBeal’s primary dilemma is presented as being that she has “too many choices, too much freedom, and too much desire” which leads to “never-ending searching and even to depression and dysfunction” (Kim 319). McBeal’s professional success never seems to compensate for her various romantic disappointments and these remain the focal point of Kelley’s series.Part of what sets Scully apart from a character like McBeal is her unerring professionalism, and her strong commitment to equality in her relationship with Mulder. Scully displays none of McBeal’s neuroses, and she is unapologetically feminist in her disposition. She also understands implicitly the pivotal role she plays in the partnership at the heart of the X-Files. Scully is, then, a capable, professional woman who not only remains professional at all times, but who also works as a powerful grounding force to her partner’s more outlandish approaches and theories. As series creator Chris Carter has been forced to concede on numerous occasions, without the rational and practical figure of Scully in the morgue to (usually) prove and (sometimes) disprove Mulder’s theories, The X-Files as we know them would cease to exist. In fact, and somewhat paradoxically, in order to best understand Scully as a character, one needs to recognise the significance of the relationship between Scully and Mulder that lies at the heart of the series. The sheer force of Scully’s professionalism, and its resistance to being conscripted straightforwardly into a traditional romantic plot, becomes an important contributor to the powerful sexual tension between Mulder and Scully that came to define the series. Scully also, as critics and commentators were quick to point out, takes on the traditionally masculine role of skeptical scientist on the series, with Mulder positioned in the typically feminine role of intuitive “believer” (in, among other things, aliens, Chupacabra, big foot, and psychic powers). There are, of course, problems with this approach, but for now it is enough to simply point out that this positioning of Mulder and Scully is an important feature of the internal structure of The X-Files and speaks to an awareness of, and desire to challenge, the traditional association of women with intuition and men with rationality. Indeed, Linda Badley points out that the relationship between the two agents is “remarkably egalitarian, challenging traditional gender roles as portrayed on television” (63).Scully and Mulder’s relationship, a relationship that is at once personal and professional, is also grounded in genuine equality and respect. Mulder never undermines Scully, he (occasionally) knows when to bow to her superior scientific reasoning, and his eventual love for his partner is based in his understanding that Scully’s skepticism offers the perfect counterpart to his openness to the paranormal. In fact, one might say that Mulder, at least in part, falls in love with Scully’s professionalism and with her commitment to scientific reasoning. Mulder admits as much himself in the film The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998): “as difficult and frustrating as it’s been sometimes, your goddamn strict rationalism and science have saved me a thousand times over. You kept me honest. You made me a whole person.” In this calculation, Scully is not only Mulder’s equal, she is his missing piece. While she might sometimes grumble about merely playing Watson to Mulder’s Holmes (see “Fight Club” [0720]), Scully’s role is much more important than this, and Mulder (and the viewer) knows it.In the context of the televisual landscape of the 1990s, this representation of Scully as a character who is every bit as intelligent and as integral to the action of the series as her male partner, was incredibly powerful. It marked Scully as a third-wave feminist character in an era dominated by women who seemed to conform to the kind of problematic post-feminism embodied by Ally McBeal. In a recent interview, Gillian Anderson acknowledged the significant role Scully played in opening up possibilities for the representation of women on television in the 1990s. She observed, “a lot of women felt that they saw something recognisable for the first time [in Scully and] there were a lot of young women whose eyes were opened to feeling like they were finally represented in some way on television” (Anderson in Idato n.p.) Many women saw themselves in this character, and there can be little doubt The X-Files spearheaded a shift towards a more representative approach to the writing of female roles in US television in which layered and complex characters such as Scully became the norm rather than the exception. Rosalind Gill, for example, notes that “quality television” has “evolved since the 1990s into a site of rich and complex representations of gender including Homeland, Veep, House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, Transparent, and The Good Wife” (620).One of the other pervasive positive effects associated with the character of Scully is that she functioned, and indeed continues to function, as a role model for women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). A recent report commissioned by 21st Century Fox, the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, and J. Walter Thompson Intelligence found that “Scully’s media depiction of a high-achieving woman in STEM asked a generation of girls and women to imagine new professional options… Scully also influenced a generation of young women to study and pursue careers in STEM” (3). Although this report is not entirely impartial (21th Century Fox owns The X-Files), it found that “among women who are familiar with Scully’s character, 91% say she is a role model for girls and women” (5). This finding tallies with those of a variety of earlier online observers who noticed Scully had become a touchstone character “who inspired an entire generation of young women to pursue medical, scientific, and law enforcement degrees as positions” (Consalvi). To an extent not seen before in the history of television, Scully became an important role model for young women in the STEM professions. Scully’s fictional professionalism helped to create a new generation of real-life female STEM professionals.But it is worth remembering that in other respects, Scully is a complicated feminist heroine. This is largely because The X-Files’ production team’s own feminist credentials were often less-than-inspiring. The series was created by a man, and was written and directed predominantly by men in all of its various filmic and televisual incarnations. As Anderson herself pointed out on her Twitter feed for 29 June 2017, of the 207 episodes of X-Files produced, only 2 were directed by women (fig. 1). Famously, when the X-Files began in the early 1990s, Anderson was paid far less than her co-star Duchovny and was even asked to stand behind him on camera. The actor agitated successfully for equal pay after three years in the role, and for the right to stand beside her televisual partner, rather than behind him, even if, somewhat astonishingly, Twenty First Century Fox also offered Anderson less than Duchovny to reprise her famous role in 2016. (Anderson eventually received equal pay for equal billing.)Fig. 1: Gillian Anderson tweet, 29 June 2017.It ought to be remembered, then, that Scully’s feminism is predominantly a construction of men, overlaid with the undoubted feminine empowerment brought to the role by Anderson. As far back as 1998, Linda Badley noticed that for Scully/Anderson “the transference of ‘feminist’ characteristics between character and star is unusually strong—to the extent that a discussion of one must refer to the other. And Anderson/Scully is instantly recognisable as an icon of popular feminism” (62). But in more recent years, Anderson has made even clearer her own feminist leanings. She has done this through the publication (with Jennifer Nadel) of the explicitly feminist We: The Uplifting Manuel for Women Seeking Happiness (2017); by taking up more explicitly feminist roles, such as that of Stella Gibson in the acclaimed BBC series The Fall (2013-present); and through her Twitter feed. The significance of Anderson’s online feminist presence is highlighted by Lauren Modery, who notes: “the next time you’re having a day where you’re not sure if you’re being the best feminist you can be, just ask yourself “what would Gillian Anderson do?” and go to her Twitter account” (Modery). Scully’s 1990s Feminism in a Twenty-First Century ContextFor much of the series, Scully’s feminism can be viewed as a form of the “New Feminism” that Stephanie Genz and Benjamin Brabon associate with the late 1990s and with Natasha Walter’s book The New Feminism (1998). This “New Feminism” attempts to break from second-wave feminism by decoupling the personal from the political (64). Badley, for example, points out that Scully’s feminism is strictly based on individual empowerment: “rather than challenge patriarchy directly or join forces with women activists, Scully channels her anger/ambition into fitting into the system” (70). But equally, Scully’s feminism could be seen as a prototype of the kind of “neo-liberal” feminism that theorists such as Angela McRobbie associate with the present moment, a feminism which “discards the older, welfarist and collectivist feminism of the past, in favour of individualist striving” (4). Certainly, over the course of the 25 years, The X-Files has been in existence, we have seen little evidence that Scully has female friends (or indeed, that she interacts with anyone much outside of Mulder and her family).When other women do enter the picture, such as when Mulder’s one-time lover and co-founder of the X-Files, Diana Fowley appears in the fifth season of the series (see “The End” [0520]), Scully is often positioned in an antagonistic relationship with them. In this context, it is notable that “All Things,” a seventh-season episode directed and written by Anderson, places Scully’s interaction with Colleen Azar, a woman from the American Taoist Healing Centre, at the centre of the narrative. Azar’s exhortations to Scully to “slow down” are presented as the wise words of a female ally in this episode, and Scully does well to heed them. This episode, consciously I think, works as a counter to the more typical representation of Scully as being in competition with women for Mulder’s interest, evident in episodes like “Alpha” (0616) and “Syzygy” (0313). In this respect, Anderson appears to be aligning Scully with a feminism that is much more inclusive than it appears in other, male-written, episodes.From the vantage point of the second decade of the twenty-first century, one of the more problematic elements The X-Files has to do with its representation of sex and sexuality. Sex, in the world of The X-Files, is very 1990s in orientation. In fact, it echoes the way in which sex operated in the Clinton impeachment: denial, denial, denial, even in the face of clear evidence it took place. We see this most obviously in “All Things,” which begins with a shot of Scully getting dressed in front of a mirror, that pans to a shot of an undressed Mulder in bed. This opening seems to suggest the two had spent the night together, but nothing overtly sexual actually takes place in the episode. Indeed, any sexual activity that ever takes place in the X-Files happens off camera, but it is nonetheless worth pointing out that while the equally solitary Mulder is repeatedly characterised in the series by his porn fetish, Scully’s sexuality is repeatedly denied or diminished in the series. Moreover, any overt expression of Scully’s sexuality (such as in “Milagro,” [0618] where she falls for a writer living next door to Mulder) typically ends badly, with Scully placed in peril by her sexual desires.Scully’s continued presence in the twenty-first century, however, means that while her character is rooted in what we might call a “1990s feminist disposition” (she prides herself on being a “woman in a man’s world”; she demonstrates little interest in stereotypically feminine pursuits such as shopping or make up; her focus is on work, rather than romance), she has also been allowed the room to grow and develop. Perhaps most notably, the 2018 Scully is allowed to embrace her sexuality. Sexual activity still appears off screen, of course, but in “Plus One” (1103), we see her actively pursue sex with Mulder (twice!), while her vibrator makes an unapologetic cameo appearance in “Rm9sbG93ZXJz” (1107). Given that we live in a decade saturated in sexual imagery, it makes no sense for 2018 Scully to be as chaste and buttoned up as she was in the 1990s.Finally, in a series in which the wild speculation of the conspiracy theories is almost always true, Scully’s feminist commitment to rationality, science and the power of logic might appear to be undermined at every turn. Badley, for example, reminds us that while Scully may “have medicine and the law on her side ... Mulder’s vision is validated by Chris Carter, as the prologue to nearly every episode reminds us” (67). This is highlighted in “Field Trip” (0621) when Scully wonders, “Mulder, can’t you just for once, just ... for the novelty of it, come up with the simplest explanation, the most logical one instead of automatically jumping to UFOs or Bigfoot or…” Mulder simply counters with:Scully, in six years, how … how often have I been wrong? No seriously, I mean, every time I bring you a case we go through this perfunctory dance. You tell me that I’m not being scientifically rigorous and that I’m off my nut, and then in the end who turns out to be right like 98.95 of the time? I just think I’ve ... earned the benefit of the doubt here.Interestingly enough, however, it is Scully who solves the mystery at the heart of this particular episode of X-Files—Mulder and Scully are indeed trapped inside a giant fungus, being slowly digested by its gooey secretions.And while Mulder’s viewpoint is most often endorsed in the series, the chaos of the Trump administration illustrates perfectly the dangers behind the valorisation of the irrational over the rational. In a decade in which rationality itself is coming under increasing threat—by “fake news”; through a hostility towards the science of climate change; in the desire to wind back further the gains of the feminist movement—we need to remember the importance of the strong and abiding relationship between rationality and feminism. This is a relationship that goes at least as far back as Mary Wollstonecraft’s (1759-1797) Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), is at the heart of the feminist gothic writings of women like Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823) and Mary Shelley (1797-1851). This commitment to the power of rationality lives on in the character of Dana Scully.Conclusion: Scully as Twenty-First-Century Feminist IconI have argued throughout this article that there are limitations of the kind of feminism embodied in Scully, but it is clear that she has come to represent a type of woman who refuses to let men dictate her behaviour, and who maintains her professionalism even under the most difficult of circumstances. A host of Scully memes now circulating on the web celebrate the character’s competence, intelligence, and compassion (figs. 2, 3, and 4). The character of Scully now exists far beyond the confines of the television screen and the imaginations of her predominantly male authors. Scully’s continuing relevance to twenty-first century feminists is reflected in this meme recently placed by Anderson on her Twitter account in response to the allegations of sexual misconduct directed at US Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanagh (fig. 5). Rarely have the 1990s seemed so relevant to the present moment.Fig. 2: Scully meme, Meme Generator.Fig. 3: Rustnsplinters, “Scully Motivational.” Deviant Art.Fig. 4: E.H. Redlum, “Scully: Meme Style.” Deviant Art.Fig. 5: Gillian Anderson tweet.ReferencesBadley, Linda. “Scully Hits the Glass Ceiling: Postmodernism, Postfeminism, Posthumanism, and The X-Files.” Fantasy Girls: Gender in the New Universe of Science Fiction and Fantasy Television. Ed. Elyce Rae Helford. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000. 61-90.Consalvi, Sydney. “The Scully Effect Continues: How The X-Files’ Dana Scully Changed Television Forever.” Odyssey. 9 Aug. 2016. 1 Dec. 2018 <https://www.theodysseyonline.com/scully-effect>.Faludi, Susan. Backlash: The Undeclared War against Women. London: Vintage, 1991.Freeman, David. “Scientists Say Mysterious ‘Oumuamua’ Object Could Be an Alien Spacecraft: Harvard Researchers Raise the Possibility That It’s a Probe Sent by Extraterrestrials.” NBCNews.com. 6 Nov. 2018. 1 Dec. 2018 <https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/scientists-say-mysterious-oumuamua-object-could-be-alien-spacecraft-ncna931381>.Genz, Stéphanie, and Benjamin A. Brabon. Postfeminism: Cultural Texts and Theories. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2009.Gill, Rosalind. “Post-Postfeminism? New Feminist Visibilities in Postfeminist Times.” Feminist Media Studies 16.4 (2016): 610-30.Idato, Michael. “Gillian Anderson on Why She’s Closing The X-Files after 25 Years.” The Sydney Morning Herald. 15 Jan. 2018. 1 Dec. 2018 <https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/times-up-gillian-anderson-on-why-shes-closing-the-xfiles-after-25-years-20180115-h0iapf.html>.Kim, L.S. “‘Sex and the Single Girl’ in Postfeminism: The F Word on Television.” Television and New Media 2.4 (Nov. 2001): 319-334.Koven, Mikel J. “The X-Files.” Essential Cult TV Reader. Ed. David Lavery. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2010. 337-343.McRobbie, Angela. “Notes on the Perfect: Competitive Femininity in Neoliberal Times.” Australian Feminist Studies 30:83 (2015): 3-20.Modery, Lauren. “Gillian Anderson Is the Feminist Twitter Hero We Need Right Now.” Birth. Movies. Death. 25 Jan. 2018. 1 Dec. 2018 <https://birthmoviesdeath.com/2018/01/25/gillian-anderson-is-the-feminist-twitter-hero-we-need-right-now>.Moses, Michael Valdez. “Kingdom of Darkness: Autonomy and Conspiracy in The X-Files and Millenium.” The Philosophy of TV Noir. Eds. Steven M. Sanders and Aeon J. Skoble. Lexington: U. of Kentucky P., 2008. 203-228.21stCentury Fox, the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, and J. Walter Thompson Intelligence. The ‘Scully Effect’: I Want to Believe… in STEM. 2018. <https://impact.21cf.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/03/ScullyEffectReport_21CF_1-1.pdf>.Wildermuth, Mark E. Gender, Science Fiction Television, and the American Security State: 1958-Present. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.X-Files: Fight the Future. Dir. Rob Bowman. Perf. Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny. 20th Century Fox. 1998.