Transnationalism and expatriate political engagement: the case of the Italian and French voting in Australia

The aim of this article is to provide an appreciation and analysis of the expatriate connectivity of Italian and French citizens from their place of residence in Australia through their respective elections in their home countries. Specifically, the article examines the case of Italians in Australia voting in the 2013 Italian elections and equally that of French citizens in Australia voting in the French presidential and the following legislative elections in 2017. The article examines the voting patterns there might be between those voting in their home country (Italy and France) and those voting in external electoral colleges (in this case, the relevant Australian college). The article shows that those living abroad—in this case, Australia—provide different political choices and less surprising low voting participation compared to the domestic districts. It also highlights that the transnational community can be, and is, influenced by the political context of their host country, which will be different from that which occurs in their home country.     

Attitudes Towards Divided Government and Ticket-splitting in Australia and the United States

Divided party government has become a frequent occurrence in both the United States and Australia in recent years. In the United States, Morris Fiorina has argued that this result is intentional on the part of the voters, who do not fully trust either party to govern by itself. We test this theory in both the United States and Australia by comparing the voting patterns of those who prefer divided versus united party government. It is hypothesised that Fiorina's theory will actually work better in Australia than in the United States, due to the presence of a strong party system as well as a voting system for the Australian Senate that facilitates strategic voting on behalf of small parties. Indeed, near-identical logistic regression models demonstrate that Australians' attitudes about divided government are a very significant predictor of straight-ticket voting even when a host of other factors is controlled for, whereas in the United States such attitudes are insignificant.     

The challenges to democracy and citizenship surrounding the vote to Italians overseas

In 2003, a presidential decree enacted legislation guaranteeing Italian voters overseas the right to postal voting as well as parliamentary representation within their respective electoral constituency. The electoral weight of the overseas-based constituent had a remarkable effect on the 2006 election results. In the tightest vote in the Republic's history, the vote of overseas Italians, which was one of the decisive features of the election, helped provide the winning centre-left coalition with a slender majority in the Senate. Election results notwithstanding, the question of whether to grant the vote to Italians overseas has faced challenges of a procedural, normative and political nature. What may have been initially seen as a democratic right may well be cast aside as it poses challenges to overseas electoral relationships with the Italian national polity, Italian citizenship and multinational allegiances, diasporic identity, electoral participation and political representation in homeland political institutions. The overseas vote for Italians may be contested further in the near future, which could translate into a radical rethink of its validity and democratic global extension.     

The Voting Rights of Incarcerated Australian Citizens

Drawing on and combining political science and legal frameworks, this article explores the validity of disenfranchising Australian prisoners. The authors examine and critically assess the various arguments used in Australia by both legislators and High Court Justices to defend the practice of disenfranchisement. Such arguments are assessed against liberal democratic principles as well as jurisprudence arising from cases in settings that provide protection for electoral rights in formal charters of rights. The authors show that in settings that entrench voting rights in the Constitution, any infringement attracts strict scrutiny from the courts. Courts insist that any abridgement of voting rights should serve a legitimate government purpose and be proportionate to that purpose. The arguments made for prisoner disenfranchisement by legislators in the Australian context invariably fail both parts of this test.     

Australian Coastal Management and Climate Change

The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) raised public awareness of the need to consider climate change in coastal management and gained international recognition when it received a joint award of a Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. The raised awareness of climate change surrounding the work of the IPCC was in large part responsible for the focus of the recent Australian national inquiry into coastal management in the context of potential climate change impacts on the coast, conducted by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Climate Change, Water, Environment and the Arts. In the same year the then Minister of Climate Change, Senator Penny Wong, and the Department of Climate Change released a major government report Climate Change Risks to Australia's Coast and set up a national Coasts and Climate Change Council to provide advice to the government. This paper provides a review and analysis of the extent to which climate change issues, within the context of the broader global change debate, have influenced Australian coastal management through its legislation, policies and practice. In particular, the paper focuses on the impact of recent national reports and state government legislative and policy changes and draws conclusions on future directions for Australian coastal management.     

A transnational history of immigration restriction: Natal and New South Wales, 1896–97

This article investigates the creation of Natal's 1897 Immigration Restriction Act and traces the legislative connections between southern Africa and Australia. It describes Natal's anti-Indian agitation of 1896–97 and argues that the colony's government initially sought to solve the ‘Asiatic question’ by adopting a racial immigration bill passed in New South Wales in 1896. However, the threat of violent extra-legal action by white settlers convinced the Natal government to replace this bill with one that made no direct reference to race. Natal ministers realised that racial legislation would face constitutional obstacles and were anxious to enact a restrictive immigration law without delay. The new Act was partly modelled on American immigration legislation and, though not explicit on race, its educational test was primarily designed to restrict Indian immigration. The Natal law was in turn used as the basis for Australian immigration legislation. Given these transnational connections, Natal's response to the ‘Indian question’ should be placed in a global context.     

Party commitment,vote switching and liberal decline in Australia∗

Electoral outcomes are determined in part by voters who switch their political allegiance between elections. Though the subject of extensive study in other countries, this floating vote has received comparatively little attention in Australia. This paper uses 1967 and 1979 survey data to analyse vote switching in Australian elections. We argue, firstly, that turnover tables based on recalled voting are, as research in other countries has shown, inaccurate reflections of the election result. As an alternative, we propose a measure of ‘potential’ vote switching based on the concept of lifetime voting. Secondly, using this concept of lifetime voting to derive a measure of party commitment allows the construction of a three‐fold typology of Australian voters — partisans, marginals and switchers. Finally, a longitudinal analysis of the voting patterns of these three groups indicates a gradual erosion of electoral commitment to the Liberal party, whereas Labor has largely retained its partisan base.     

Did the minority Gillard government keep its promises? A study of promissory representation in Australia

When the Gillard government formed a minority government in 2010 many commentators argued that the government would be unable to fulfil its mandate. Despite this, the Gillard government was able to pass a record amount of legislation – comparable to previous majority-led governments – suggesting the government was effective at negotiating legislative passage. Less understood is whether the Gillard government was able to keep its election promises given the constraints of minority government. This is an important empirical and normative question. In their most basic form elections are designed to allow the public to hold politicians and political parties to account for their past performance. Central to this is whether parties have fulfilled the promises they made at the previous election. But how do parties express election promises to citizens and are they likely to fulfil these promises? Does minority government status make a difference? We examine these questions in the first contemporary Australian study of promise fulfilment, examining promises made and promise fulfilment of the Gillard minority government (2010–2013). We adopt the methods of the Comparative Party Pledges Project (CPPP). Consistent with the international literature, we find that the Gillard government fulfilled most of its election promises suggesting minority government status did not have a large effect on promise fulfilment.     

Postmaterialist and Economic Voting in Australia, 1990-98

Recent research in Australian sociology and political science has debated the extent to which postmaterialist values and economic self-interest shape voting in federal elections. Some researchers have argued that postmaterialist values have partly displaced materialist concerns with physical security and economic well-being in Australian public life. This displacement, coupled with the adoption by major political parties of postmaterialist 'quality of life' issues such as the environment, has meant that voting in Australia has come to be more dependent on postmaterialist values than on perceptions of economic interest. Other research, however, has found no relationship between postmaterialist values and voting behaviour, while economic evaluations remain a strong determinant of voting behaviour. Part of the disagreement reflects methodological differences in the research. But different methodological problems compromise each of the previous studies. In this paper we use data from the 1990, 1993, 1996 and 1998 Australian Election Studies to investigate postmaterialist and economic voting in the Commonwealth House of Representatives and the Senate. Using various statistical methods, we first explore bivariate relationships between key variables and then use multivariate models of postmaterialist and economic voting to adjudicate between the contending positions.     

Elections Without Cues: The 1999 Australian Republic Referendum

In the November 1999 referendum on the republic, the Australian electorate was asked to make a complex, technical choice about the system of government, in the absence of clear partisan cues. How did voters resolve this dilemma? Although those in favour of replacing the Queen as head of state made up three-quarters of the electorate, they were divided on the method of election for the head of state, effectively resulting in three separate groups of voters. Four hypotheses are tested to explain voting in the referendum. The most important influence on voting was views about whether or not to sever the link with Britain, followed by the positive and negative aspects of the proposed change, and the cues presented by the leaders of the respective 'yes' and 'no' campaigns. Voters' knowledge of politics was also important. Overall, the interaction between compulsory voting and lack of political knowledge among large sections of the electorate served to divide republicans, and caused the proposition to fail. Pairing the republic with an unpopular change to the preamble of the Constitution also depressed the 'yes' vote.     

Arab uprisings and the changing frontiers of transnational citizenship: Voting from abroad in political transitions

The uprisings that swept the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region beginning in December 2010 set in motion a series of political transitions. One of the most striking elements in the post-spring 2011 experiences of the countries affected has been not only the holding of elections, but also the expansion of expatriate voting (EV) rights to include out-of-country voting (OCV). A close examination of the processes through which the right to OCV was secured and the forms of its implementation reveals an intriguing parallel with the depth of the respective country transitions. This article explores the involvement of emigrant civil society in securing OCV rights and in the process of voting from abroad, thereby expanding our understanding of the role of such rights in the critical category of countries in transition. The cases reveal how the extension of the right to vote from abroad redraws political boundaries. However, they also make clear that expanding the physical boundaries of participatory nationality does not necessarily translate into more meaningful transnational citizenship.     

The global spread of preferential voting: Australian institutional imperialism?

In recent years, a number of countries have adopted versions of the ‘Australian’ electoral system of preferential voting for both national and sub‐national elections. This article examines the diffusion of preferential voting systems around the world. It distinguishes between various types of preferential voting manifested in both majoritarian (eg alternative vote) and proportional (eg single transferable vote) contexts. It then examines the empirical record of the adoption of preferential voting in Europe, North America and the Pacific, identifying three ways in which the ‘Australian’ system has been transferred to other countries, via colonial transplanting, international imitation, and normative appeal. While the first two approaches have been traditionally influential, in recent years the normative appeal of preferential voting systems has become paramount. This is in part because of the globalisation of electoral assistance, which has provided an important opportunity for the diffusion of what have been, until recently, distinctively ‘Australian’ electoral procedures.     

The ‘hip pocket nerve’ and electoral volatility in Australia and Great Britain

Over the course of the post‐war period, Australian voting behaviour has manifested a marked degree of aggregate stability, whereas British voting patterns have become increasingly volatile. Since class voting has declined at a similar rate in both countries, it cannot explain this divergence. This article suggests that the explanation is to be found in the differential electoral impact of the two countries' macroeconomic performance in this period. Conventional wisdom notwithstanding, the state of the economy, as measured by the rates of inflation and unemployment, is shown to have been a less influential force in Australian general elections than in British ones. The greater aggregate volatility in Britain, in other words, would seem to reflect‐the electorate's greater sensitivity to its ‘hip pocket nerve’, especially when it is touched by inflation. Why this same relationship does not characterize Australian commonwealth elections can be speculated upon, but is a puzzle that remains to be solved.     

The patrol officers and Tom Kabu

In 1946, Tom Kabu returned to the Gulf of Papua determined to reinvent the communities of the Purari Delta. A man of quiet determination, in the first few years he and his followers resisted the assistance of the Australian Administration in Papua and New Guinea. Kabu's popularity in the villages of the Purari, coupled with his independent stance, caused resentment within the local expatriate community. The field staff working for the Department of District Services and Native Affairs especially felt threatened by Kabu's influence and sought to regain government control by opposing his ventures. Through the study of patrol reports written by these officers, this paper seeks to examine the reasons for this resentment and the methods employed by the officers to crush Kabu's company.     

Western Australian electoral reforms: Labor finally succeeds

Australian electoral systems have a history of malapportionment, designed to give added voting weight to rural and remote areas. However, by 2000, all Australian jurisdictions except Western Australia had adopted voting equality within specified tolerances. This paper provides a brief analysis of the Gallop Labor government's efforts to reform the Western Australian system, drawing primarily on interviews with key players involved in the debates, including parliamentary members of the political parties involved. Quotations in this paper are drawn from these interviews, which were conducted in August 2004.     

Political party support in the Korean fifth republic: An ecological analysis 1981–1985

The absence of surveys detailing the voting intentions and past voting behaviour of Koreans has left obscure important aspects of party development during the Fifth Republic. Ecological analysis of district level voting returns for the 1981 and 1985 National Assembly elections is used to find two distinct patterns of voter continuity. In 1985 the ruling Democratic Justice Party was able to hold its 1981 voters while attracting considerable support from former opposition party voters. The opposition parties, in contrast, showed great turmoil, lost voters being compensated for by gains from other parties. These two patterns are attributed to a pro and anti‐government cleavage in Korean society. The pro‐government voters had a natural home in the ruling party while the anti‐government voters lacked a single focus and, hence, were more volatile.     

The Australian ballot: Not the secret ballot

Australian historical and political science academic accounts of the ‘secret ballot’ often describe it as being designed in Australia and first applied in Victoria in 1856. Narratives often focus on Chartists and radicals finding fertile ground in the New World for ideas that had met insurmountable resistance in the Mother Country. But this concentration on the ‘British story’ has led to a misconception in this country: that the secret ballot was first tried in Australia. This comes from conflating the ‘Australian ballot’ with the ‘secret ballot’. Voting by ballot, in ‘secret’—that is, not by a show of hands, on the voices or signed voting paper—was in use in America and Europe well before being implemented in Australia. This was the secret ballot many demanded for Australia, but they got something else: the Australian ballot, wholly original, with identifying features—such as the government printed ballot paper—previously unimagined. The Australian ballot was not the world's first secret ballot; it was much more important than that.     

How Do Unionists Vote? Estimating the Causal Impact of Union Membership on Voting Behaviour from 1966 to 2004

This paper explores the voting patterns of trade union members in Australian elections conducted between 1966 and 2004 and finds that, on average, 63% of trade union members vote for the Australian Labor Party. Despite the fact that union membership declined from around half of the workforce in the early 1980s to a quarter of the workforce in the early 2000s, unionists have not become more pro-Labor. Analysing unionists' voting behaviour by gender, it is found that male unionists were more pro-Labor than female unionists in the 1960s, but that the reverse is true today. Recognising that union membership may be endogenous with respect to political ideology, this study instruments for union membership and concludes that the observed association between union membership and voting reflects a causal relationship.     

Colonising Italians: Italian Imperialism and Agricultural ‘Colonies’ in Australia, 1881–1914

The historiography of Australian imperialism before the First World War has often neglected a context wider than the relationship with Great Britain. Yet this era also implicated non-British governments and their emigrants. Despite their small numbers, Italian settlers are significant for highlighting Italy's empire-building and Australia's struggles for national and imperial unity. Italy's foreign policies after 1901 opened commercial opportunities across its diasporic networks, which included subsidising agricultural ‘colonies’ in Australia. The contemporary discourses of sectarianism and racism voiced before Federation articulated political and popular resistance against Italian immigrants. The rhetoric shifted after Federation as state governments examined the issue of land tenure for closer settlements (small agricultural farms), appealing to an argument about serving unemployed Australians before approving foreign settler schemes. The history leading up to two Italian projects in Western Australia and Queensland in 1907 allows reflections on Italy's diaspora colonisation and Australian responses to foreign imperialism.     

Valence politics and immigrant voting in the 2013 Australian election

Using data from the 2013 Australian Election Study, this article investigates voting patterns among Australian voters from non-English-speaking backgrounds (NESB). It reveals that a valence politics model – comparing images of the two major parties and their leaders, partisan attachments, and judgements about party performance on economic issues – outperforms rival models. That is, it provides a powerful explanation of the decisions NESB voters made. In deciding between competing parties in the 2013 election, NESB voters resembled Australian voters who emigrated from English-speaking backgrounds and Australian-born voters. The findings of this article offer new insights into electoral research in Australia, indicating that previous studies have underestimated the important role of the valence politics model in explaining voting patterns among Australian voters. The article also provides plausible explanations for the convergence between various cohorts of voters in the 2013 election.