School of Social and Political Sciences - Theses
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ItemThe 1969 Conference for Left Action: Marxist theory and practice in Australia's new left( 2014)The 1969 Left Action Conference brought together 800 people of the Old and New Lefts to discuss revolutionary strategies, like “self-management” and “workers’ control” made popular in the French uprising of 1968. The thesis provides a snapshot of a unique period of Australian history. I examine the conference debates to understand theory and practice in 1960s Australia, after tracing the development of a new movement of Marxist radicals. Impatient for revolution, could the new left generation challenge conservative Australia and the Stalinist communist parties? The period 1967-1969 is a window on a radical experience which made a significant contribution to the overhaul of the conservative and repressive ways of 1950s Australia. Marxism revived, alongside a liberatory politics; the key element – anti-Stalinism, anti-domination, anti-manipulation, power and control inspired hope. After the conference new struggles and new debates flourished; an anti-war Moratorium movement united social forces to fight conscription and war and created a new momentum for change. Unfortunately political organisation then fragmented. The thesis draws on the experiences of the time to assess success and failure and the relevance of old and new ideas.
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ItemLove in the Luhmannian world: differentiation and dissonance in the semantics of modern intimacy( 2014)One of the most profitable insights to emerge from the numerous debates which surrounded the decline of modernization theory was the understanding that the various social trends associated with the notion of “modernity” need not converge. In response to a concern that the generalized process concepts which had hitherto governed our understanding of modern society (such as “rationalization,” “individualization,” or “secularization”) painted a unilinear, monological picture of social change insensitive not only to regional differences, but to points of tension and dissonance within specific societies themselves, more pluralistic accounts of modernity attempted to highlight that the institutional characteristics, functional imperatives, and symbolic structures of modern societies may prove incompatible with each other, or may at the very least exist in states of disharmony. Despite this insistence, the sociological study of romantic love has largely continued to operate with a conception of society that minimizes the importance of divergent or conflictual trends. Intimate relations, considered by many to be dependent factors within accounts of social change, are often analyzed in light of broader social patterns without due consideration of the ways in which their own internal logic may contradict this attribution. Acknowledging this deficiency, this thesis seeks to build on the insights of differentiation theory by focusing on the ways in which romantic love may both consolidate and contradict the dominant semantic forms and organizational structures of modern society. In line with the theoretical apparatus of Niklas Luhmann, it seeks to present modern love as a self-referential set of social semantics, to analyze the status of intimate systems within contemporary society, and to explore the ways in which an empirical account of romantic relations may be enhanced by the insights of sociological systems theory. In so doing, it argues that love is a phenomenon which demands a multifaceted, pluralistic, and in many ways paradoxical understanding of modernity itself.
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ItemThe discussion of myth in Dialectic Of Enlightenment: myth and the unfinished task of enlightenment( 2014)My thesis examines the discussion of myth in Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno’s Dialectic Of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments. Contesting Habermas’ influential reading of Dialectic Of Enlightenment as a ‘totalising critique of reason,’ I argue that Horkheimer and Adorno entwine two concepts of myth into a highly original study of philosophical self-reflection. I call the first concept of myth ‘allegorical’; it stems from aesthetics. I call the second concept of myth ‘anthropological’. In chapter 1 I first provide a brief outline of Dialectic Of Enlightenment and the mainstream Anglophone commentaries on the book. I then argue that the Anglophone mainstream has largely overlooked a concept of self-reflection which is to be found through a detailed examination of Horkheimer and Adorno’s critique of modern reason, a critique which is built, in large part, around the particular theme of myth. In Chapter 2 I unpack Horkheimer and Adorno’s allegorical reading of myth, a reading which treats the figure of Odysseus sailing past the Sirens as an allegory for the ‘myth’ of instrumental reason. Odysseus is here presented as an exemplar of the isolated, alienated subject of the modern world whose ability for thought and reflection is conditioned by the dehumanising instrumental reason of modern industrialised society. In a line of thought that is modelled upon aesthetics, I argue that this reading of myth illuminates a potential for qualitatively new forms of self-reflection and human solidarity. In chapter 3 I present Horkheimer and Adorno’s anthropological reading of myth. Myth in this reading is ‘myth’ seen through the eyes of the modern anthropologist; it is a kind of symbolic support for customs, traditions and kinship bonds of pre- or non-modern cultures. Through an innovative reading of Homer’s Odyssey as documenting the cultural memory of an early stage of settled European civilisation, Horkheimer and Adorno unravel the Homeric memory of traces of this anthropological concept of myth reaching into our species’ distant past. Upon this basis, I argue that Horkheimer and Adorno’s interpretation of the Odyssey becomes a highly original attempt to establish an anthropological underpinning for the concept of self-reflection which is sketched out in the authors’ allegorical reading of myth. Finally, I conclude that Horkheimer and Adorno’s discussion of myth presents a valuable perspective on philosophical self-reflection which has been largely overlooked in the mainstream secondary literature on Dialectic Of Enlightenment.
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ItemControlling hawala in Australia: a study of Australia’s post-9/11 anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing regulatory framework for remittance systems( 2014)After the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 (9/11), a group known as the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) updated its international Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorism Financing (AML/CTF) guidelines. This placed pressure on countries to update their own AML/CTF regulatory frameworks to ensure compliance with international best practices. Included in the revised, post-9/11 guidelines was the requirement to regulate “hawala”, a little known yet widespread informal money transfer system, which was identified as an AML/CTF risk after 9/11 but not explicitly included in pre-9/11 guidelines. This thesis asks how Australia regulated hawala as part of its post-9/11 AML/CTF regulatory framework. However, I argue that we first need to examine why Australia regulated hawala after 9/11, as the motivation for this influenced the overall shape of the regulatory framework. To answer these key questions, this thesis draws on available open source data, including government documents, parliamentary committee reports, media releases and internal government reports obtained under Freedom of Information Act requests. I contend that while hawala was considered an AML threat before 9/11, the pressure to maintain a positive international regulatory and economic reputation drove Australia’s post 9/11 regulatory reform and, consequently, the regulation of hawala. As a result, Australia’s post-9/11 AML/CTF regulatory framework for hawala only met the basic standards of the international best practices and did not display a strong understanding of hawala or how to effectively regulate it. Moreover, much of the detailed research conducted into hawala in Australia before 9/11 was ignored during the AML/CTF policy development process.
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ItemNietzsche's preface to philosophy( 2014)Nietzsche's philosophical practice is best understood as a set of practical exercises in preparation for the transformation of modern social life. Rather than providing pedagogical dogma or verifiable theses about the world, Nietzsche's life and work serve as an example of an attempt to abolish philosophy as an autonomous practice. His writings are examples of experiments and spiritual exercises with the aim of positing new tasks for his readers who are tasked with embarking on an adventure of subjective metamorphosis. As the title of this thesis asserts, Nietzsche’s work is best understood as a preface to a new philosophy, to which, after a thorough re-evaluation of the philosophical tradition, Nietzsche only provides some basic foundational co-ordinates. The thesis elaborates this by focusing on Nietzsche’s earliest philosophical writings, which serve as orienting guidelines to interpret his more mature re-elaborations of similar ideas, and hence as a foundation upon which to begin philosophizing in a different way. In addition, the thesis discusses Nietzsche’s own Prefaces to some of his books, in which he articulates his philosophical practice most clearly in order to re-affirm the experimental and provisional nature of most of his central ideas. The thesis itself is therefore also a preface to this future philosophy, and future inquiry, insofar as it highlights the preliminary and preparatory nature of Nietzsche’s philosophical practice. In this way the thesis both seeks to articulate the framework in which Nietzsche's philosophy becomes coherent and examines the ways in which Nietzsche's texts perform the redefinition and deconstruction of philosophy he attempted to complete by provoking a similar attempt in the reader.