Cirrus@Austlit

'Political history looms large in this issue, with focus on the democratic process and on the state as a guarantor of ‘security’. Carolyn Holbrook continues an inquiry that – as she shows – has engaged others in recent years: what use have political elites made of the term ‘security’? She traces one of this word’s meanings – ‘citizens’ economic and social wellbeing’ – in Australians’ discussions, between the world wars, about initiating a national insurance scheme. Influenced by F.D. Roosevelt’s policies, a ‘security discourse was deployed alongside the existing language of thrift, good character and national efficiency, and slowly began to replace it’. But how to finance national insurance? And would it complement or compete with expenditure on rearmament? Answered either way, the question pointed to bipartisan commitment, in the 1940s, to expanding the responsibilities of the national government. Holbrook shows that in justifying massive immigration between 1947 and 1951, governments referred to both ‘economic’ and ‘military’ security. This ‘malleable’ term ‘expresses human aspirations, justifies the role of the state in the lives of its citizens, and moulds citizens’ expectations to the ideological proclivities of the state’, she concludes.' (Editorial introduction)