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Article Excerpt
ABSTRACT
The Department of Political Science at the University of Melbourne is the oldest political studies department in Australia. It had its origins in the pioneering efforts of William Macmahon Ball in the interwar period, culminating in the establishment of a dedicated program in Political Science in 1939. Ball was appointed the inaugural professor in 1949. This article examines the formation of the Department at Melbourne, highlighting Ball's founding vision of strength through diversity. The Departmental history is placed within a legacy that is traced back to the foundations of the University in 1853. Though not a tradition in the customary sense, the argument rests on the identification of three themes--breadth of scholarly field, analytical focus on society and public engagement--that can be used to link the Department of Political Science into a longer history of political studies at the University of Melbourne.
Keywords: W. Macmahon Ball; political science; public culture; social liberalism; Australian social sciences
INTRODUCTION (1)
The Department of Political Science at the University of Melbourne is the oldest political studies department in Australia. It had its origins in the groundbreaking efforts of William Macmahon Ball during the 1930s, culminating in the establishment of a dedicated program in Political Science in 1939. Macmahon Ball ('Mac Ball' or simply 'Mac') was appointed foundation professor of Political Science in 1949. The Department has a dynamic tradition of research and training, pioneering work on Australian politics, international relations, political sociology and political psychology, among other areas. Academics and alumni from the Department have gone on to become prominent figures in the academy in Australia and overseas, in public affairs and politics at all levels, in the print and electronic media, and in public controversy across the decades. Mac's founding vision was of strength through diversity and a steadfast commitment to the importance of informed vigorous debate for a healthy public culture.
The figure of Mac B all is the obvious point of departure for an historical reflection on the links between Australian political studies and the University of Melbourne. Mac's pioneering efforts in the establishment of the discipline of political science at the University are milestones in the history of political studies in Australia. In terms of disciplinary history, Mac began his famous course on Modern Political Institutions in the early 1930s: the first dedicated political science subject offered at the University of Melbourne. He was the driving force behind the establishment of a department of Political Science in 1939, initially administered within the History School. The Department became fully established with the appointment of Mac as the foundation professor in 1949; it was the first department of political science in Australia. While many politics departments in Australia have been transmogrified or amalgamated over recent years, the Melbourne department to this day retains both its disciplinary distinctiveness and organisational robustness.
The perseverance of Melbourne Political Science as a vibrant independent department can be attributed in no small measure to Mac's legacy and his founding vision. Diversity, not orthodoxy, has ensured the Department's ongoing vitality and distinctiveness across the decades and changing circumstances. Paradoxically, the strength of the Department as a distinct 'disciplinary' entity has resided in an adherence to neither a particular school of thought nor a specific methodological orientation but rather to a non-specific plural culture. Tested at times, this culture of diversity and tolerance has enabled the Department to maintain its own identity and to flourish. There is no Melbourne School of Political Science in the strict sense; neither canon nor singular disciplinary tradition. Nonetheless, the Department has made extremely important and highly significant contributions to political studies in Australia and elsewhere since its gestation through Mac Ball's efforts in the interwar period. This story of political studies at Melbourne has never been told.
A PREHISTORY
Political studies in Australia have a long link with the University of Melbourne, extending back to the very foundation of the University. In his brief history of political science in Australia, Don Aitkin cites William Edward Hearn, the foundation professor of History and Political Economy at Melbourne, as the first person to hold a university position in the field or 'something akin to it'. While Aitkin notes the renown of Hearn's publication on government, he also maintains that, 'no tradition of political science as a university discipline developed at Melbourne, or indeed any other Australian university, in the nineteenth century' (2) . Aitkin observes that the study of politics and government during this period may have been encountered within courses of study in law, philosophy and history but only incidentally. However, Aitkin's proviso here of the incidental character of political studies in the academy can be questioned. While there may have been no tradition per se of political science inaugurated by Hearn at Melbourne, his work offers an interesting and initial staging point for tracing the contribution of the University and its alumni to Australian political studies prior to Mac.
Assessments of Hearn's place have varied. He has been described as the 'first Australian economist' (3) , as an unoriginal economist (4) and as, 'exceptional both for his productivity and his prominence in public affairs' (5). Whether the Commerce Faculty at the University would still claim heritage rights is a moot point, though his portrait heads the gallery of notables in the present day History Department hall of fame. Hearn wrote a number of scholarly tomes while at Melbourne as well as becoming, somewhat controversially, a member of the Legislative Council in the Victorian parliament; shifting from Professor to Dean enabled him to circumvent the University statutes that embargoed professors from parliamentary service. His major economics work, Plutology (6), had a notable impact on W.S. Jevons and Alfred Marshall (7), and its contribution to industrial organization is still debated today (8). His work on politics, The Government of England (9), was well regarded at the time and went into a second edition. Hearn also published a sociological study, The Aryan Household (10). This work is cited in Bob Connell's analysis of classical sociological theory where he describes it as a prime example of nineteenth century bold sociological abstraction executed by an evolutionary social scientist working in 'far away' colonial Melbourne (11). Hearn's other major work, The Theory of Legal Duties and Rights (12), outlines the principles that informed his practical endeavours to codify the laws of Victoria (13).
I am not so much interested in a critical evaluation of Hearn's work but, rather, wish to draw several themes to the fore through his example. First, there is the obvious range of scholarly endeavour to which Hearn committed pen to paper. This is indicative of the broad job description facing a professor in a small new university in the colonial setting. This predicament was to continue well into the twentieth century, even into the 1960s and perhaps beyond, in political studies departments in particular. There is the element of smallness of scale involved here that necessitates versatility across a range of areas. While small scale generates strengths, especially in the Antipodean case, it can also produce pathologies: what Alan Davies called 'small country blues' (14). Nonetheless, small scale means that more complex divisions of labour in the academy or, if you like, sharp disciplinary boundaries, are not always possible given resource limitations. Breadth becomes a necessity, sometimes with less than ideal results, but at other times producing novel insight cutting across predetermined and self-referential perspectives.
Second, and this is linked to the first, the wide-ranging character of Hearn's work was not simply an outcome of the job description. Peter Groenewegen and Bruce McFarlane argue that there is a systematic conceptual relationship that links Hearn's Plutology with his other two major works, The Government of England and The Aryan Household. Hearn's evolutionary theory is identified as the social theoretical thread that draws together these various studies. According to Groenewegen and McFarlane, this 'interdependence in Hearn's work--combining as it did history, economics, politics, law and jurisprudence--is perhaps one reason why his lectures, disorganised as they were said to be, were able to inspire those students who attended them with a deep curiosity and interest in the study of society' (15). Among these students were Alfred Deakin and Henry Bourne Higgins who were greatly influenced by Hearn's evolutionist views on social progress, though without sharing his free trade position (16). The theme here is the attention drawn to the wider agenda of society through a social philosophical lens and how this attracts and inspires students.
Third is the theme of engagement in public affairs. Hearn was prominent in public life in an array of contexts including adult education, royal commissions, public service organization, the Church of England, and as a member of the Legislative Council representing the Central Province. Hearn's engagement in public affairs was not without controversy. Inside the academy, his dogged attempts to enter parliament in defiance of university regulation certainly upset the University authorities (17). In town,...
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