Autobiographical International Relations: I, IR, edited by Naeem Inayatullah, London and New York, Routledge, 2011, 232 pp., $46.95 (paperback), ISBN 978-0-415-78143-5

Abstract While the study of populism has typically focused on national level, recent years have seen a growing body research populism’s local dimensions. Despite making important scholarly advances, this ‘localist turn’ yet to develop systematic account how intersects with localism. In note, we broach gap. By exploring right‐ and left‐wing populisms conceptualize ‘local’, as well localist sentiments can heighten or diminish appeal right left populist politics, establish general framework...

The majority of today’s authoritarian regimes have little hope promoting autocracy beyond their own borders, let alone to consolidated democratic countries. However, China and Singapore are two prominent examples non-democratic countries whose soft power arsenals given them some global appeal that enjoyed by most regimes. But what extent has China’s Singapore’s example influenced democracies in terms the latter wanting replicate political practices or even norms these regimes? In this...

For a movement that emerged to spotlight the crisis of liberal democracy, it did not take long for Occupy Movement find itself embroiled in its own democratic crisis. Occupy's story has exposed just how central or constitutive crises are democracy. But is such deleterious thing? Though scholars democracy have customarily given bad name, should we consider democracies be trouble when they met with crisis, themselves create crisis? According three volumes reviewed this article, can potential...

Abstract In recent years, a growing number of Australian local governments have reaffirmed their longstanding climate leadership by declaring emergency. Indeed, since 2016, when Melbourne's Darebin council became the world's first government to declare emergency, close 100 – or little under one fifth all taken extraordinary step and made similar declaration. But although these emergency declarations received widespread media scrutiny, precise nature obligations for remain unclear. there is...

The problem of machine learning systems demonstrating bias towards specific groups individuals has been studied extensively, particularly in the Facial Recognition area, but much less so Automatic Speech (ASR). This paper presents initial results on "Casual Conversations" – a publicly released 846 hour corpus designed to help researchers evaluate their computer vision and audio models for accuracy across diverse set metadata, including age, gender, skin tone. entire manually transcribed,...

Methodological nationalism – that is, the tendency to naturalize nation and national politics has long underpinned study of populism.1 Although this produced increasingly sophisticate...

Click to increase image sizeClick decrease size Notes on contributorMark Chou is an associate professor of politics at the Australian Catholic University, Melbourne. He founding co-editor Democratic Theory: An Interdisciplinary Journal (Berghahn).Notes1. Plattner, “Is Democracy in Decline?”; Kneuer and Demmelhuber, “Gravity Centres Authoritarian Rule.”2. Burnell Schlumberger, “Promoting – Promoting Autocracy?”; Barma Rattner, “China's Illiberal Challenge”; Ambrosio, “The Rise ‘China Model’...

Despite the growing consensus among local government scholars and practitioners that sector has now moved beyond 'Three Rs', there remains a trenchant perception in public debate when councils do more than provide narrow range of services to property they are overreaching. But what extent these views actually reflective Australian opinion? This article reports on findings new national survey analyses perceptions changing role Australia. It reaches three key findings. The first is Australians...

In light of recent political events, prominent scholars have argued that voters ignorant the issues should be disqualified from taking part in decisions potential to alter landscapes. As convincing as this literature is highlighting voter ignorance, it fails differentiate between local, state, and federal elections how levels knowledge are often scale-dependent. If level median ignorance not uniform one government next, then neither can reforms proposed combat it. article, I adapt Bell’s...

For two consecutive years, the Lowy Institute Poll has revealed just how little Australians seem to value democracy. This particularly been case for Australia's so-called Generation Y. Understandably, these findings have aroused dismay among media, policy and academic commentators, with many automatically assuming troubling nature of findings. Despite this, consideration given what results actually denote, they were not telling us about rationale justification behind Gen Y responses....

Participation, it has been said, is a central lynchpin of citizenship and democracy. Unfortunately, studies have shown for some time that political participation on the decline in most Western democracies. Particularly scholars policy analysts who define democracy purely as voting, party membership or terms narrow 'arena' definition politics, conclusion clear: levels illiteracy are rising, while declining. Yet, turn away from formal democratic politics conventional forms only one part...

Despite democracy's universal appeal, democracies have frequently suffered from debilitating crises, often of their own making. Sometimes, they even self-destructed. Why is this the case and how might we respond to that fail? In article, I review five recent works which provide new answers as well provocations these questions. particular, argue there are three interrelated categories reasons responses prevalent in literature on democratic failure. The first category intimates fail for do...

Does China’s vision for a New Silk Road constitute autocracy promotion? This critical commentary argues that while China may currently be showing no signs of promoting strictly defined, its broad-ranging economic, political, and cultural initiatives along will likely influence how foreign governments everyday people think act. Though still in infancy, the represents an ambitious new geopolitical project require scholars analysts to rethink both thesis concept promotion years ahead.

Fuelled by unparalleled recent development, China has necessity been reaching outward in search of foreign resources and international recognition. The three books reviewed this essay all speak to China's spectacular global ascendency the past two decades—and political consequences reactions that have followed. What unites these volumes—Tongdong Bai's China: Political Philosophy Middle Kingdom (2012), Peter Nolan's Is Buying World? (2012) William Callahan Elena Barabantseva's edited volume,...

A conventional story is often told about democracy. It a that begins somewhere in the West, some millennia ago. From there, or so this telling goes, democracy spread across continents; traversing from familiar epicenters of Western civilization—Athens, London, Washington, Versailles—to exotic and sometimes alien cultural landscapes East. The idea such model democracy, based on an essentially set ideals practices, could one day become universal was perhaps unthinkable to most democrats before...

In recent years, numerous Australian local councils have made headlines by deciding to cease or move the national Australia Day celebrations and citizenship ceremonies in recognition of dispossession trauma suffered Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander peoples. Focusing on controversial decision Yarra City Council Victoria cancel its 26 January celebration ceremony, this article examines key issues arising from urban culture war conflicts policy options available when faced with contentious...