Contestability of Australian Federal Elections

Using data on federal elections for both the Upper and Lower Houses in Australia and the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI), we explore whether the contestability/concentration varies across elections. Our results show significant movements in contestability over time. The results also imply a smaller degree of concentration than we would expect to find in a two-party system. To the extent that the Upper House (Senate) – until the 2004 election – is not controlled by the executive, this implies a greater level of political competition, and choice for voters, than that associated with two-party systems.     

Shades of Orange: The Electoral Geography of Ukraine's 2004 Presidential Elections

Two American geographers and noted specialists on the electoral geography of post-Soviet Russia and Ukraine describe and analyze the three rounds of Ukraine's pivotal and highly contested presidential elections in late 2004. In an effort to shed light on the underlying demographic and socio-economic correlates of the vote (e.g., age, income, urban/rural residence, language/ethnicity), the authors pay special attention to changes among the rounds, providing background to widespread allegations of electoral fraud in round two (first runoff). Finally, they summarize results of bivariate and multivariate regression analyses that reveal which among the various correlates contribute most to explaining differences in the vote. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: H10, O18, R10. 6 figures, 5 tables, 26 references.     

Electoral and partisan influences on Australian fiscal policy from Menzies to Hawke

I examine the controversial questions of whether or not partisanship and electoral motives shape the fiscal policies of Australian governments. I also extend the partisan model of policy choice for the Australian case. Specifically, using time‐series data for the financial years 1962–63 through 1989–90,1 explore partisan and electoral influences on the overall fiscal stance and the personal income transfer payments of the Commonwealth government Results indicate that, net of the influences of inertia in the policy process and of variations in economic forces, partisanship and elections play significant roles in determining both overall fiscal policy and income transfer outlays. Analyses reveal that fiscal policies become more expansionary across the electoral cycle while Labor and coalition governments have large but diminishing partisan effects cm policy over their terms in office.     

Electoral Disproportionality and Bias Under the Alternative Vote: Elections to Australia's House of Representatives

Studies of electoral disproportionality and bias under Australia's alternative electoral system have mainly relied on the two-party preferred (2PP) vote totals for all electorates, irrespective of whether these are needed to determine the election outcome there. We argue that separate analyses should be undertaken for two groups of electorates – where the determination is made using the first-preference (FP) votes and where the 2PP redistributed votes are needed because no candidate wins a majority of FP votes, illustrating this with an analysis of the 2007 House of Representatives election results.     

Electoral politics in the Australian Journal of Political Science: A review

Australia’s constant experimentation with electoral system design, and its effects on voter behaviour, have been consistent themes in the Australian Journal of Political Science and its predecessor, Politics, for half a century. This article examines this research in the context of three areas: electoral institutions; election campaigns; and voter behaviour. Three distinct stages in the research are identified, starting with basic fact-gathering, then progressing to the application of rigorous methods and evidence to real-world questions. In the third stage, scholarly attention has been devoted to placing Australia within a comparative framework. An underlying theme in the research is Australian exceptionalism in electoral politics.     

Electoral and Partisan Forces in the Roosevelt Era: The U.S. Congressional Elections of 1938

Since nearly all studies of U.S. congressional elections test competing theories with data from the postwar era, we know very little about the applicability of contemporary theories to elections in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This paper takes a first step in exploring theories of electoral politics in the historical context of the 1938 elections. I believe a closer look at this particular election is valuable for a variety of reasons. First, turnover among incumbents in 1938 was extremely high by contemporary standards, yet no systematic explanation for the record number of losses exists. Additionally, this political era was characterized by intense polarization between Congress and the president even though the Democrats controlled both institutions. An extended analysis of this historical era can also explore the role strategic challengers played in the electoral arena before the emergence of candidate-centered elections. By exploring these significant events, I shed light on an otherwise neglected aspect of American political development.     

The Influence of the Ethnic Composition of Australian Federal Electorates on the Parliamentary Responsiveness of MPs to their Ethnic Sub-constituencies

This paper examines the parliamentary responsiveness of Australian MPs with respect to their ethnic constituents in the official arena of representation, the federal parliament. It first reviews the notion of representation and discusses the twofold influence that ethnicity may exert on the representational behaviour of elected representatives: the ethnicity of the electorate and the ethnicity of the elected representative. It then presents and discusses the results of a content analysis of the parliamentary interventions of MPs from 12 ethnic electorates and 10 non-ethnic electorates between 1983 and 1996. On the basis of this analysis, two indexes were constructed, the ethnic reference ratio and the ethnic distance ratio in order to compare the responsiveness of MPs to their ethnic constituents. The findings suggest that the ethnicity of the electorate does have an influence on ethnic responsiveness in absolute terms but less so in relative terms. In other words, MPs from ethnic electorates generally make more ethnic-related interventions than MPs from non-ethnic electorates, but not as much as the proportion of ethnic constituents in these electorates would suggest they should make. The ethnicity of the electorate also influences the types of ethnic issues MPs make, with those from ethnic seats more likely to make constituency-related issues. The marginality of the seat, especially in ethnic electorates, rather than the political party to which the representative belongs, would appear to have a bigger influence on the degree and type of responsiveness. Finally, the ethnicity of the MP does have an influence in both the degree and type of ethnic responsiveness.     

Voter Behaviour in Rural Areas: A Study of the Farrer Electoral Division in Southern New South Wales at the 1998 Federal Election

The National (Country) Party, traditional beneficiary of a countrymindedness ethos in rural and regional Australia, suffered a significant electoral setback at the 1998 federal election from a new conservative force in Australian politics, the One Nation Party. One Nation has been characterised as the party of the ‘old’ Australia, those least able to cope with the pace of recent social and economic changes, rationalisation and centralisation of services and the exodus of people from rural and regional areas. Such a characterisation is supported by findings from this study of the geography of voting and the social correlates of One Nation's support base in the Farrer electoral division in south‐western New South Wales.     

Virtual Campaigning: Australian Parties and the Impact of the Internet

This paper examines the impact of the Internet, specifically the World Wide Web (WWW) and e-mail on Australian parties in two key areas: (1) party communication: what exactly are parties using their Websites for? and (2) party competition: does the Internet lower the threshold for smaller parties to communicate their message compared with the traditional media? We examine these questions with two types of data--a questionnaire of party communication staff and content analysis of a representative sample of party Websites. Our findings show, first, that Australian parties have taken a fairly cautious approach to the new medium, using it primarily as an information storehouse rather than putting it to more innovative use. Second, while almost all Australian parties have a Web presence, there is a divide between those parties with parliamentary representation and those without in terms of their site quality and visibility on the Web. The study concludes by interpreting the findings in the context of research on parties' use of the Internet worldwide.     

An Amnesty Assessed. Human Impact on Shipwreck Sites: the Australian Case.

In 1993 a nationwide amnesty was declared in Australia, calling for members of the public who were in possession of historic shipwreck relics to declare them to their respective State cultural heritage management agencies. The amnesty was instituted in response to an amendment in the Commonwealth Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976 , which introduced 'blanket protection' for all shipwrecks and associated relics in Commonwealth waters which were at least 75 years old. This paper reports on a recent assessment of the process, consequences and implications of the amnesty, and discusses the significance of the results.
© 2008 The Author     

The Impact of Neoliberalism and New Managerialism on Development Volunteering: An Australian Case Study

Within the large volume of research on aid and development there has been limited study of international development volunteering generally and the ways in which it has been affected by neoliberalism. Development volunteering has undergone a resurgence over the past decade and some new forms of volunteering have emerged, but state-sponsored development programs are still a key form. These programs were relatively immune from neoliberal ideas and managerial practices until the early 2000s. An interesting puzzle is why neoliberal principles were operationalised in Australia's volunteering program at the same time as it, and other donor states, softened this focus in the rest of their aid program. These shifts in Australia's development volunteering programs have changed the logic, forms and outcomes of development volunteering.     

关于但丁文艺复兴先驱的三次大辩论及其政治意义

本文围绕着但丁文艺复兴先驱问题的三次大辩论,揭示其文艺复兴运动性质的转变:以复兴古典文化为宗旨的早期文艺复兴运动是如何转变成为以建立自由公民共和国为目标的政治运动的.这三次大辩论,不仅反映出早期人文主义者们思想的矛盾,也透露出他们思想的发展和日渐成熟的信息.辩论者用来评价但丁是否符合先驱的几个标准(古典学权威、新文化的开拓者、优秀的共和国公民、共和国的保卫者),分别代表了不同时期人文主义者们的政治态度.但丁最终被奉为文艺复兴运动先驱这件事,因而具有非常重要的政治意义.尤为重要的是,文艺复兴运动的宗旨是在但丁文艺复兴先驱的大辩论中确立的,这也说明了从研究古籍的文化运动向以建立自由公民共和国为目标的政治运动的转变是具有其内在深厚政治传统的,不尽是外敌入侵佛罗伦萨所造成的自然结果.     

(Re)assessing Parliamentary Policy Impact: The Case of the Australian Senate

A recent article in this Journal suggested that assumptions about the legislative influence of the Australian Senate may overstate its de facto power. Stanley Bach indicated that compromise with the Senate was relatively rare, and pointed out that most successful Senate amendments were government amendments. This paper provides an alternative view. We suggest that legislative influence is more subtle than Bach acknowledged, and that it is necessary to dig deeper in the data to fully understand the Senate's role. We therefore supplement his analysis in two ways: (1) through tracking the ultimate outcome of government defeats in the Senate; and (2) through analysis of two case study bills. We find that in confrontations with government the Senate ‘wins’ the great majority of the time. This shapes government behaviour in the chamber, such that many government amendments actually respond to non-government concerns. The most important element of Senate influence is therefore ‘soft power’– exercised through negotiation – backed up only in extremis by the ‘hard power’ of government defeat. This holds important lessons for the study of legislative influence more broadly, as well as demonstrating the true power of the Australian Senate.     

关于英国企业家乡绅化现象的争论与反思

马丁·威纳等人认为英国的反工业文化导致了企业家精神的丧失和乡绅化,进而导致英国经济衰落.本文首先梳理介绍了威纳、巴内特等人的观点,分析了文化衰退论兴起的社会、政治原因;其次介绍了围绕企业家乡绅化问题展开的争论和各种观点;最后指出用文化衰退论解释英国衰落问题必然遇到的悖论,但是由此引发的争论却说明一个民族必须不断对自己的传统与经验进行反思,以从中得到警醒和启示.     

Labourists and the welfare lobby: the relationship between the Federal Labor Party and the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS)

The Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) and the federal ALP have often been depicted as political allies due to the relative symmetry of their ideological positions. However, this article argues that their relationship is far more complex than an alliance would suggest, and has always involved a mixture of both cooperation and conflict. On the one hand, the ALP seems to expect political loyalty from ACOSS, but has never been willing to cede ACOSS the same influence granted to core interest-group allies such as the ACTU. Equally, ACOSS appears to have greater expectations of, and makes greater demands on, the ALP than Liberal–National Coalition governments, but is not willing to trade away its party-political independence in return.