“Secure in our Identity”

Regional Threat and Opportunity in Australian Election Discourse, 1993 and 1996

Dados Bibliográficos

ID20595461
AutoresStephanie Brooke (0000-0001-7841-6530, The University of Melbourne, autor correspondente), Stephanie Younane Brookes
Ano2012
Volume58
Fascículo4
Páginas542-556
Data de publicação2012-12-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoAustralian Journal of Politics & History (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0004-9522 • E-ISSN: 1467-8497
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1467-8497.2012.01652.x
OpenAlexW1986803294
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas7

Anxiety about the Asia‐Pacific region has held an evocative place in the Australian imagination, and has featured in federal elections since Federation. This article explores discussions of regional opportunity and threat in the spoken campaign language of Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating, and his Liberal opponents, in the 1993 and 1996 elections. This language forms part of an ongoing project by Australian political leaders to provide voters with a secure identity by managing regional threat: from extending “civilisation” in the first half of the twentieth century; to the image of Australia as a benevolent stabilising force in an unstable region following the Second World War; and the contested frameworks of engagement and opportunity from the 1980s onwards. While specific constructions of regional threat have changed since federation, leaders' discursive reassurances have remained remarkably consistent over 110 years

Civilization · Identity (music) · Immigration · Media studies · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Prime minister · Sociology · Australian History and Society · Commonwealth, Australian Politics and Federalism · Gender Studies · Law · Multilingual Education and Policy