Australian Peace Movement 1960 - 67
A Study of Dissent
by Ralph V. Summy 1971
The thesis purports to examine a movement of political dissenters - the Australian peace movement - from the time of the November 1959 Melbourne Peace Congress to approximately one year after the November 1966 Federal elections. After a definition and exploration of basic terms and concepts used throughout the text, the study is divided into three major sections.
The first section briefly reviews the history of the Australian peace movement prior to the 1959 Melbourne Congress, before delving into a detailed account of that Congress - an event that laid the foundation for the formal, organised movement that emerged.
The second part undertakes to describe and analyse the organisational framework, policies and activities of the movement in two states, Western Australia and Queensland. The modus operandi of the groups in these two states are viewed as two distinct prototypes of organisational patterns existing in other states.
Finally, the thesis depicts the broad developmental pattern of the Australia-wide movement during the first eight years of the past decade. In this respect, the main thane concentrates on the organic nature of an evolving movement where changes were registered in issue-orientation, types of dissenters, sources of financial support, degree of social control encountered from the macro-society, and in the militancy of the tactics and outlook of the movement's participants. The description our analysis centres mainly on events that occurred in New South Wales and Victoria. It concludes with an account of the schism affecting the entire movement that followed in the wake of the 1966 election denouement.
Australian Peace Movement 1960 - 67: A Study of Dissent
Ralph V. Summy was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, USA. His family came from the heart of the 'Pennsylvania Dutch' country where he was first exposed to peace values. He received a full scholarship to Phillips Exeter Academy and then graduated from Harvard (AB). In 1960 he became the Director of the Greater Boston Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE), but after coming under investigation for his political activities by the Senate Internal Security Sub-Committee headed by Senator Dodd, he decided to emigrate to Australia. He joined the staff of the Department of Government at the University of Queensland, teaching courses in American political thought and American political institutions and behaviour before introducing in 1976 and 1977 a couple of courses on nonviolent politics. Shortly thereafter he initiated and directed for many years that University's interdisciplinary peace & conflict studies program. On retiring at the end of 1996, he accepted the Directorship of the Matsunaga Institute for Peace, University of Hawaii. He is now permanently retired from both institutions but continues to do research on the topics of nonviolence and peace movements, fields in which he has written numerous books and articles. He is a past member of the Council of the International Peace Research Association, and from 1998 to 2008 he was convenor or co-convenor of IPRA's Nonviolence Commission. In 1977 he founded the journal Social Alternatives and after 30 years on the editorial collective continues to serve on its Advisory Board. At the end of 2004 he was invited to join the Australian Centre for Peace & Conflict Studies at the University of Queensland as an adjunct professor. The Centre represents the latest extension of peace research and peace education at the University with which he identifies. In 2010, he became Adjunct Professor at the University of Sydney's Centre for Peace & Conflict Studies (CPACS).