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William W BostockSchool of Government, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, AustraliaAbstract: Psychiatrists have long had involvement with the political process, both individually and as a profession. They have made valuable contributions to debate over such issues as war, conflict, terrorism, torture, human rights abuse, drug abuse, suicide and other public health issues. However, they have also been complicit in some gross atrocities. Over several years there has been debate over the Australian Government's treatment of asylum seekers, and the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists took the unusual step of publicly criticizing the Australian Government's policy on grounds of its toxicity leading to a diagnosis of collective depression syndrome, particularly among child detainees, but also adult detainees. The official Ministerial response was to deny that collective depression exists and to assert that the concept is meaningless. Can this intervention by psychiatrists be interpreted as a product of earlier political behaviors by psychiatrists? The willingness of psychiatrists to cooperate with other professions, notably psychologists, pediatricians, physicians and lawyers, is noted, as is presence of minority voices within the Australian psychiatric profession. The significance of the debate over the mental condition of asylum-seeking detainees is that its outcome has implications for how Australia sees itself and is seen by the rest of the world, that is, its national identity.Keywords: collective depression syndrome, psychiatric profession, political intervention, asylum seeker, Australian national identity

In der jüngsten Vergangenheit kam es zu gewalttätigen Vorfällen in Form von Angriffen auf zivile Ziele und zu politischen Attentaten in Ländern, in denen es gewöhnlich nicht erwartet wird. Dies hat es notwendig erscheinen lassen, das Interesse an dem alten Konzept des "kollektiven Bewusstseins" wieder zu beleben. In diesem Artikel werden das Konzept in seiner gegenwärtigen Reformulierung als "kollektiver Geisteszustand" und Versuche individueller Akteure, diesen Zustand zu kontrollieren, zu verändern und anderweitig zu nutzen, diskutiert. Es wird gefolgert, dass die Berücksichtigung "kollektiver Geisteszustände" und deren Effekt auf und Nutzbarkeit durch individuelle Akteure essenziell für Erklärungen in den Sozialwissenschaften ist. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs020317 ; Recent violent events such as attacks on civilian targets and political assassinations in countries not usually susceptible to these have created a need to revive interest in the ancient concept of collective consciousness. In this article, the concept in its current reformulation as collective mental state, and the attempts of individual agents to control, shift and otherwise manage it, are examined. It is concluded that allowance for the unmeasurable and unpredictable qualitative factors of the collective mental state and the effect upon it of individual agency is essential in social science explanations. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs020317 ; Los recientes actos violentos, tales como ataques a objetivos civiles y asesinatos políticos en países en los que habitualmente no sucedían este tipo de situaciones, han creado la necesidad de revitalizar el interés por el antiguo concepto de conciencia colectiva. En el presente artículo se examinan tanto el concepto en su reformulación actual: estado mental colectivo; así como los intentos de agentes individuales por controlarlo, modificarlo o utilizarlo en su favor. Se propone que en las explicaciones de las Ciencias Sociales es esencial tomar en cuenta tanto los imprevisibles e inmedibles factores cualitativos ...

In der jüngsten Vergangenheit kam es zu gewalttätigen Vorfällen in Form von Angriffen auf zivile Ziele und zu politischen Attentaten in Ländern, in denen es gewöhnlich nicht erwartet wird. Dies hat es notwendig erscheinen lassen, das Interesse an dem alten Konzept des "kollektiven Bewusstseins" wieder zu beleben. In diesem Artikel werden das Konzept in seiner gegenwärtigen Reformulierung als "kollektiver Geisteszustand" und Versuche individueller Akteure, diesen Zustand zu kontrollieren, zu verändern und anderweitig zu nutzen, diskutiert. Es wird gefolgert, dass die Berücksichtigung "kollektiver Geisteszustände" und deren Effekt auf und Nutzbarkeit durch individuelle Akteure essenziell für Erklärungen in den Sozialwissenschaften ist.

Quiet revolution is a term that was used to describe the fundamental transformation of Quebec society in the 1960s: a profound and permanent process that took place with very little violence or other outward signs of resistance. Australia's higher education sector also underwent a profound transformation in the 1990s, also with strangely little protest or even debate, so that it could also reasonably be called a quiet revolution. This paper examines what changed as a result of the revolution, why it occurred, and why it occurred largely in silence. The answers to these questions about the revolution in higher education provide an interesting case study of the complex interaction between policy, organisation and society.