Sympathy for the Devil?: Australian Unionism and Public Opinion

Public opinion on trade unions is influenced by a variety of factors, including direct experiences of industrial conflict, socialisation, the consonance of union behaviour with values and norms, and the general climate of debate, opinion and propaganda. Union sympathy (general support for unions) slowly declined between the 1940s and the 1960s, deteriorated sharply during the early 1970s, and recovered slowly under the Accord. The deterioration after the 1940s may be attributable to anti-communism's association with anti-unionism. The deterioration during the 1970s was associated with a significant rise in industrial conflict and the slow improvement in sympathy during the 1980s and 1990s was probably linked to the Accord-related fall in it. The decline in union density since the early 1980s cannot be directly attributed to a shift in union sympathy. Despite low levels of disputation in the late 1990s, however, union sympathy then appeared weaker than in the 1940s. Its low level in Australia, compared to other countries, may partly reflect the influence of anti-communism, but especially of arbitration, which rendered strikes illegitimate.     

Whose Mandate? Policy Promises,Strong Bicameralism and Polled Opinion

The political theory of Australian politics has been dominated, since the election of a Liberal-National Party government in 1996, by claims and counterclaims about electoral mandates. The government has privileged its position in the House of Representatives; opposition parties have pointed to their support in the Senate. This paper provides a historical re-examination of the meanings and merits of mandate theories; it outlines the difficulties posed by strong bicameralism for any mandate theory; and it shows how the rise of survey research has strengthened some claims to a mandate, especially in bicameral systems, while weakening others.     

Measuring or Creating Attitudes? Seventy Years of Australian Public Opinion Polling about Indonesia

This article critically evaluates the relationship between public opinion polling and foreign affairs. It plots key trends in public opinion polls of Australian attitudes towards Indonesia from the 1940s to the present day. Despite variations in polling companies and questions, Australian attitudes to Indonesia appear surprisingly stable, especially since the 1970s. Reading across multiple polls over this period reveals that, both as a mass and among individuals, Australians held complex views in which positive appraisals of Indonesian people and culture co-existed with an underlying fear of Indonesia as a potential military threat. Yet rather than accepting these findings at face value, this article calls for nuanced scrutiny of the role played by polling companies and the media in the construction and representation of so-called “public” opinion. Sensitive to recent developments in the historiography of public opinion polling, it suggests that public opinion polls not only attempted to measure Australian attitudes towards Indonesia, but also helped construct Indonesia as an object of popular and political concern.     

Australian Public Opinion on the Israel–Palestine Conflict: Implications in the Context of Arab Revolutions

This article examines the relationship between public opinion and foreign policy making in Australia by turning to the findings of a national survey of Australian public opinion on the Israel–Palestine conflict. The survey findings suggest that the Australian government's policy on the Israel–Palestine conflict is inconsistent with public opinion, and such disparity is explained here in terms of the lack of public attachment to the conflict, the limited media and the absence of any notable public advocacy for policy change. This explanation is informed by in-depth interviews conducted with current and former members of parliament and senior public servants. The article also explores the implications of the survey's findings in relation to the significant political changes taking place across the Middle East region. It suggests that these events may be creating an impetus for policy change that endorses Palestinian self-determination, for which there is significant support among the Australian public.     

Italian Public Opinion in the Atomic Age: Mass-market Magazines Facing Nuclear Issues (1963–1967)

Through the analysis of a wide range of Italian mass-market magazines and a selection of public opinion surveys, this essay investigates widespread images and perceptions about nuclear issues in Italy during the Sixties. It considers the views of Italians about nuclear weapons within foreign policy debates, as well as the wide range of fears expressed about the atomic bomb. The article also analyses the image of anti-nuclear movements, as well as Italians’ views on disarmament and the easing of international relations after 1962. Deeply influenced by ideological divides and filtered through the mechanisms of mass culture – which tended to trivialise the bomb – these widespread representations of nuclear issues offer a unique perspective on Italians’ beliefs, fears, and hopes during a time of deep socio-economic change and shifting political equilibriums in the country.     

T. A. Coghlan,London Opinion and the Politics of Anglo- Australian Finance, 1905–09

This article examines the interactions between the opinions of London financiers and politics in New South Wales and the Commonwealth of Australia at the onset of the twentieth century. It focuses in particular on the appointment and early activities of Timothy Augustine Coghlan, who, with several breaks, held the post of agent-general for New South Wales between 1905 and 1926, although he is better known as a pioneering statistician and economic historian. In particular the article examines the context surrounding his appointment, his attempts to improve his state's image and his reflections on the way debt curtailed Australian independence. Through this the article contributes to the ongoing debate surrounding Cain and Hopkins' writings on structural and relational power and the ‘rules of the game’, arguing that these are useful starting points for the analysis of a pervasive politics of finance within the British World.     

Shadow and Light: Louis-Xavier Eyma (1816–76) and French Opinion of the United States during the Second Empire

This article is a study of a neglected yet significant French writer on the United States, Louis-Xavier Eyma (1816–76). In the period of the Second Empire (1852–70), Eyma wrote more about the United States than any other author, and was recognised as a reliable and influential guide to US society. What makes his career particularly interesting is that his work defies any simple categorisation. Whilst elements of his writings smack of anti-Americanism, he wrote with admiration about many aspects of US democracy and society. At the same time, he did not belong to the group of liberal writers who, according to some scholars, used praise of the United States as a coded means of criticising repressive government at home. Eyma was a staunch monarchist who opposed the introduction of democracy in his native France. Eyma's career demonstrates the complexity of French attitudes towards the United States, and points towards the need for a comprehensive study of French writing about the United States in the period of the Second Empire.     

Studies in the Politics of Environmental Protection: The Historical Roots of the British Clean Air Act, 1956: III. The Ripening of Public Opinion, 1898–1952

Abstract

This is the last of three articles about the campaign to abate smoke in the cities of England which began early in the 19th century and culminated in the Clean Air Act 1956. It describes the third sustained wave of activity by lobbies for smoke abatement and the way the public conscience was raised to a level which made it practicable to bring in laws to control domestic as well as industrial smoke. The impediments to this evolution of public opinion were (a) social: the Englishman's sentimental attachment to an inefficient and wasteful way to heat and cook in his home; (b) technological: the practical difficulties in producing a solid smokeless fuel which could be used in an open grate; and (c) administrative: the difficulties in enforcing laws against smoke when smoke could be neither defined nor measured with the precision necessary in a court of law.     

Studies in the Politics of Environmenta Protection: The Historical Roots of the British Clean Air Act, 1956: I. The Awakening of Public Opinion over Industrial Smoke, 1843–1853

Abstract

This is the first of three articles about the campaign to abate smoke in the cities of England. It began early in the 19th centnry and culminated in the Clean Air Act, 1956. Between 1844 and 1850 no fewer than six Bills were introduced into parliament to compel furnaces to ‘consume their own smoke’. All failed to pass into law although enough was known about the science and technology of combustion to justify legislation for furnace used to raise steam-power. In 1853 Palmerston succeeded in putting on the statute book the first really elfective clean air act for the metropolis of London. It did not cover dwelling houses; the campaign to bring the e under the law—to be described in the second essay—had to await improvements in the design of domestic grates. It was during the decade 1843–1853 that the public conscience was awakened to the need for laws to protect the environment against pollution.