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Intellectual History Commons

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Selected Works

Terence H Irving, Dr (Terry)

Public sphere

Publication Year

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Intellectual History

The Public Sphere And Party Change: Explaining The Modernization Of The Australian Labor Party In The 1960s, Terry Irving, Sean Scalmer Jan 2014

The Public Sphere And Party Change: Explaining The Modernization Of The Australian Labor Party In The 1960s, Terry Irving, Sean Scalmer

Terence H Irving, Dr (Terry)

This article argues that the modernization of the Australian Labor Party was not inevitable or necessary. The party did not modernize because it was overly dominated by trade unions, because society had changed, or because class was no longer central. Instead the transformation of the party was the result of a series of political struggles, in which the modernizers grasped new resources in the changing public sphere - the dynamic new media of post-war Australia.


Challenges To Labour History, Terry Irving Jan 2014

Challenges To Labour History, Terry Irving

Terence H Irving, Dr (Terry)

The decline of the labour movement in the 1980s and 1990s robbed labour history of its elan as 'history with a social purpose', and the rise of postmodernism devalued the attempt by labour historians to grasp social reality as a whole. Today there is a commonly expressed feeling that labour history is experiencing a crisis. The first three essays in this volume are historiographical; then four essays engage with the challenges posed by post-modernism and cultural theory; and finally four essays present examples of the ways in which theoretical reappraisals can shape the writing of labour history.