James Walter is Emeritus Professor of Politics at Monash University, Melbourne, and Emeritus Professor of Australian Studies at Griffith University, Brisbane. He publishes widely in the fields of leadership, biography, intellectual history and policy studies.
Conservative parties have dominated Australian federal politics since the Second World War. Comin... more Conservative parties have dominated Australian federal politics since the Second World War. Coming to power in 1949 under Mr. (later Sir) Robert Menzies, the Liberal-Country party (L-CP) coalition held office continuously until 1972, when it was displaced by the reformist Australian Labor party (ALP) government of Mr. Gough Whitlam. Yet the Whitlam ALP government served for only three years before losing office in unusual and controversial circumstances in 1975, since which time the conservative coalition has again held sway. It is my purpose here to examine the leadership of Gough Whitlam and the effects he had upon the fortunes of the ALP government. But first, it is essential to sketch briefly the political history of the years before Whitlam came to power and the material conditions which the ALP administration encountered, for rarely can the success or failure of an administration be attributed solely to the qualities of an individual. In this case, the contingencies of situation and history were surely as relevant as the characteristics of leadership.
Page 1. THE FORUM Studying Political Leadersfrom a Distance: The Lessons of Biography' JAMES ... more Page 1. THE FORUM Studying Political Leadersfrom a Distance: The Lessons of Biography' JAMES A. WALTER Institute of Modern Biography Griffith University, Australia This essay reflects work in progress. It does not represent the culmination of inquiry, is perhaps little ...
What are the prospects of a revival of political psychology in Australia? The human capital to do... more What are the prospects of a revival of political psychology in Australia? The human capital to do so is certainly there; the second and third generation of ‘Melbourne school’ scholars are active and working today, and at a place like ANU there is some potential critical mass. Given the lack of sustained teaching, let alone postgraduate training in the area in Australia there is, however, no generation of talented and ambitious ‘Young Turks’ to provide the necessary drive and zest. If political psychology is to be re-built in this country, the initiative to do so will have to come from the existing reservoir of senior and mid-career scholars in Melbourne and Canberra. So either they join up and give the necessary push, or it is quite likely that this fertile subfield of Political Science will be lost to the Australian profession for a long time to come.
This paper is concerned with a genre – collective biography – and with contemporary history and p... more This paper is concerned with a genre – collective biography – and with contemporary history and politics. It deals primarily with questions of methodology relating to biography, prosopography and what is here deemed to be a ‘cohort study’. The underlying question is: how should we address relatively contemporary history, especially the contentious history of a period (1975 – 2000) of such fundamental change that ‘uncertainty ’ has been said to be its defining feature? I draw on early observations from an interview-based longitudinal study of those federal politicians first elected in 1977, and who were prominent participants in the political elite during the period in question. This cohort was interviewed in 1978, and again late in 2005 (when all but one of its members had retired from politics). The paper draws on this work-in-progress to sketch the possibilities and limitations of collective biography (including its overlap with and distinctions from oral- and social-histories) as...
This chapter characterizes the role of prime ministers as public leaders: of the government, thei... more This chapter characterizes the role of prime ministers as public leaders: of the government, their parties, and the nation. It reviews the current state of knowledge about prime ministers, signals its limitations and sets out the research agenda of the study. It argues that understanding and evaluating how prime ministers perform their leadership function requires delving into the interplay between personal, institutional and contextual factors. It maps out the design of the collaborative and comparative research project the remainder of the book reports on.
The dichotomy between presidential and Westminster systems produces distinctive interpretations o... more The dichotomy between presidential and Westminster systems produces distinctive interpretations of governmental transitions in Anglophone democracies. When all significant executive positions fall to the winning party, as in the US, there must be more attention to the details of transition than is required for a change of government in a parliamentary system, where the permanent civil service assures some continuity. Thus, the literature on presidential transitions is more extensive, and more systematic, than that on prime ministerial change (Burke, 2000; Kumar and Sullivan, 2003). Yet, over nearly 40 years, as a modernization of the Westminster executive has been imposed by the necessities of rapid start-ups and decisive leadership in a globalizing world, aspirant prime ministers have increasingly focused on transition planning, in contrast to the ad hocery of the past.
tag=1 data=What has happened to political ideas? by Professor James Walter tag=2 data=Walter, Jam... more tag=1 data=What has happened to political ideas? by Professor James Walter tag=2 data=Walter, James tag=3 data=Papers on Parliament, tag=5 data=23 tag=6 data=September 1994 tag=7 data=107-121. tag=8 data=POLITICS tag=13 data=IND
A collection of fifteen essays by well-known academics which together present a comprehensive dis... more A collection of fifteen essays by well-known academics which together present a comprehensive discussion of the main aspects of Australian intellectual life and social inquiry in the 20th century. By focusing on the period since 1920, the book avoids any direct engagement with the debate over the significance of the 1890s. The chapters fall into four main categories. There are overviews of intellectual life in Australia, looking at processes of professionalization, institutional networks, career patterns, overseas influences, and the relations between intellectuals and society at large. Some chapters are reminiscences of intellectual life for different generations of Australian scholarship; others deal with a particular group, school or ideology, and others discuss a disciplinary area.
Conservative parties have dominated Australian federal politics since the Second World War. Comin... more Conservative parties have dominated Australian federal politics since the Second World War. Coming to power in 1949 under Mr. (later Sir) Robert Menzies, the Liberal-Country party (L-CP) coalition held office continuously until 1972, when it was displaced by the reformist Australian Labor party (ALP) government of Mr. Gough Whitlam. Yet the Whitlam ALP government served for only three years before losing office in unusual and controversial circumstances in 1975, since which time the conservative coalition has again held sway. It is my purpose here to examine the leadership of Gough Whitlam and the effects he had upon the fortunes of the ALP government. But first, it is essential to sketch briefly the political history of the years before Whitlam came to power and the material conditions which the ALP administration encountered, for rarely can the success or failure of an administration be attributed solely to the qualities of an individual. In this case, the contingencies of situation and history were surely as relevant as the characteristics of leadership.
Page 1. THE FORUM Studying Political Leadersfrom a Distance: The Lessons of Biography' JAMES ... more Page 1. THE FORUM Studying Political Leadersfrom a Distance: The Lessons of Biography' JAMES A. WALTER Institute of Modern Biography Griffith University, Australia This essay reflects work in progress. It does not represent the culmination of inquiry, is perhaps little ...
What are the prospects of a revival of political psychology in Australia? The human capital to do... more What are the prospects of a revival of political psychology in Australia? The human capital to do so is certainly there; the second and third generation of ‘Melbourne school’ scholars are active and working today, and at a place like ANU there is some potential critical mass. Given the lack of sustained teaching, let alone postgraduate training in the area in Australia there is, however, no generation of talented and ambitious ‘Young Turks’ to provide the necessary drive and zest. If political psychology is to be re-built in this country, the initiative to do so will have to come from the existing reservoir of senior and mid-career scholars in Melbourne and Canberra. So either they join up and give the necessary push, or it is quite likely that this fertile subfield of Political Science will be lost to the Australian profession for a long time to come.
This paper is concerned with a genre – collective biography – and with contemporary history and p... more This paper is concerned with a genre – collective biography – and with contemporary history and politics. It deals primarily with questions of methodology relating to biography, prosopography and what is here deemed to be a ‘cohort study’. The underlying question is: how should we address relatively contemporary history, especially the contentious history of a period (1975 – 2000) of such fundamental change that ‘uncertainty ’ has been said to be its defining feature? I draw on early observations from an interview-based longitudinal study of those federal politicians first elected in 1977, and who were prominent participants in the political elite during the period in question. This cohort was interviewed in 1978, and again late in 2005 (when all but one of its members had retired from politics). The paper draws on this work-in-progress to sketch the possibilities and limitations of collective biography (including its overlap with and distinctions from oral- and social-histories) as...
This chapter characterizes the role of prime ministers as public leaders: of the government, thei... more This chapter characterizes the role of prime ministers as public leaders: of the government, their parties, and the nation. It reviews the current state of knowledge about prime ministers, signals its limitations and sets out the research agenda of the study. It argues that understanding and evaluating how prime ministers perform their leadership function requires delving into the interplay between personal, institutional and contextual factors. It maps out the design of the collaborative and comparative research project the remainder of the book reports on.
The dichotomy between presidential and Westminster systems produces distinctive interpretations o... more The dichotomy between presidential and Westminster systems produces distinctive interpretations of governmental transitions in Anglophone democracies. When all significant executive positions fall to the winning party, as in the US, there must be more attention to the details of transition than is required for a change of government in a parliamentary system, where the permanent civil service assures some continuity. Thus, the literature on presidential transitions is more extensive, and more systematic, than that on prime ministerial change (Burke, 2000; Kumar and Sullivan, 2003). Yet, over nearly 40 years, as a modernization of the Westminster executive has been imposed by the necessities of rapid start-ups and decisive leadership in a globalizing world, aspirant prime ministers have increasingly focused on transition planning, in contrast to the ad hocery of the past.
tag=1 data=What has happened to political ideas? by Professor James Walter tag=2 data=Walter, Jam... more tag=1 data=What has happened to political ideas? by Professor James Walter tag=2 data=Walter, James tag=3 data=Papers on Parliament, tag=5 data=23 tag=6 data=September 1994 tag=7 data=107-121. tag=8 data=POLITICS tag=13 data=IND
A collection of fifteen essays by well-known academics which together present a comprehensive dis... more A collection of fifteen essays by well-known academics which together present a comprehensive discussion of the main aspects of Australian intellectual life and social inquiry in the 20th century. By focusing on the period since 1920, the book avoids any direct engagement with the debate over the significance of the 1890s. The chapters fall into four main categories. There are overviews of intellectual life in Australia, looking at processes of professionalization, institutional networks, career patterns, overseas influences, and the relations between intellectuals and society at large. Some chapters are reminiscences of intellectual life for different generations of Australian scholarship; others deal with a particular group, school or ideology, and others discuss a disciplinary area.
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