Electoral bias in Australia 1980–1993: The impact of the 1983 electoral amendments

This paper examines the amount and sources of electoral bias at federal elections in Australia from 1980 to 1993. The main conclusion reached is that the changes to electoral legislation introduced between the 1983 and 1984 elections did not, as has previously been widely accepted, merely act to neutralise the then‐existing bias towards the Liberal and National coalition parties but actually resulted in a bias towards the Australian Labor Party. Most of the bias arose from the differential geographic concentration of voters, to which a contributing influence was a ‘size effect’ caused by increasing the number of members of parliament However, the introduction of a boundary redistribution criterion which requires equality in electorate enrolments over time (rather than immediately) has also introduced an inbuilt bias arising from differential enrolment levels into the post‐1983 electoral system. This bias has favoured the ALP at every one of the four elections held under the new system.     

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.     

A revisionist interpretation of the impact of Queensland's electoral scheme

In December 1989 Queensland voters changed their government from National Party to Labor Party. Labor had been out of office since August 1957, a record period of opposition for a major party. How is that very lengthy Labor period in the wilderness to be explained? The orthodox interpretation is that there has been a gerrymander in Queensland. This article argues, however, that Queensland's electoral system is the same as that of other mainland states. While it is true that electorates are malapportioned in Queensland (and in Western Australia), nevertheless the method of single member electorates with preferential voting is in use for all mainland states. Such a system does not translate a party's percentage of votes into a similar percentage of seats in the Legislative Assembly. The elections of 1956 and 1989 each saw Labor getting a first preference vote in excess of 50 per cent— with which Labor won in excess of 60 per cent of the seats. At no election between these dates did Labor secure a majority of votes, either first preference or two party preferred.     

Campaign spending in the new south Wales legislative assembly elections of 1984

The relationship between campaign spending at the constituency level and the level of voting support for the two main party political groupings, Labor and the coalition, is examined by means of multiple regression analysis. Results confirm that the pattern of spending influences the pattern of voting, rather than simply reflecting it, and emphasise that how money is spent, in terms of the forms of advertising used, is significant in determining voter response.     

Swings and Roundabouts? Patterns of Voting for the Australian Labor Party at State and Commonwealth Lower House Elections, 1901-96

Federation for Australia in 1901 was closely followed by the rise of the mass party, an organisation with the potential to reduce the regional differentiation that federalism is designed to protect. Loyalty to party can submerge local issues in nationally based partisanship, and the Australian Labor Party (ALP) may have performed precisely this role, particularly if voters have not differentiated between voting for the ALP at state and Commonwealth elections. This article examines the pattern of electoral support for the ALP at state and Commonwealth elections since 1901 and finds that an apparent similarity in long-term voting support masks important variations both within and between states. The potential for mass party loyalty to create uniform voting responses across the federation has been strongly moderated by the diversity inherent in the federal system.     

L’eclatement de l’offre politique: Les elections europeennes de juin 1999

The European elections in France in June 1999 were held in a context dominated by the confused state of national political parties, and against the background of the continuing Kosovo crisis. The elections reflected to a considerable degree the fragmentary nature of party politics in France. The Left is composed of a coalition of diverse parties, including the Greens (Verts), while the Right is in disarray, both in the mainstream and on the margins. This article provides an analytical overview of the campaign and results.     

Interest rates and the 2004 Australian Election

During the October 2004 Australian federal election campaign the expected or possible effect of the election outcome on interest rates was a key point of differentiation between the Australian Labor Party and the Liberal–National Party coalition. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, we examine whether this effect was a significant factor in the election outcome, as measured by the percentage swing towards the coalition in each electorate. Second, we use standard methodology from financial economics to examine whether the election outcome had an effect on interest rates. Contrary to media coverage of the campaign, we find that the election result did have an effect on interest rates but that the possibility of interest rate changes was not a dominant factor in the election result.     

Issue competition between Green and social democratic parties in majoritarian settings: the case of Australia

The emergence of green parties has injected new lines of competition into national party systems, with discernible issue competition effects for established, ideologically-proximate social democratic parties. Despite a burgeoning literature on green and social democratic issue competition tactics in settings where coalition government is common, we have less understanding of these same effects in settings where majority government is the norm. Using the case of the Australian Greens and the Australian Labor Party, we explore issue competition dynamics in a polity where the majoritarian electoral system reduces opportunities for coalition formation. We find that the absence of strong electoral imperatives for either party to enter coalitions has encouraged them to compete adjacent to one another, rather than in direct competition.     

Compulsory voting,turnout and party advantage in Australia∗

Who votes or does not vote in a voluntary system has long been thought to have distinct benefits for different political parties. High turnout has been seen as aiding parties of the left, low turnout parties of the right. Although Australia has a compulsory system of voting, this paper shows tha there are still party advantages and disadvantages associated with the 5 percent of the eligible electorate who fail to vote. When turnout is high, Labor makes a net gain in votes, and when turnout is low, the Liberal‐National coalition benefit. Making estimates of nonvoting in Britain and applying them to Australia indicates that this pattern would persist if voluntary voting were applied to Australia, giving the Liberal‐National coalition an inbuilt advantage.     

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.     

An unlikely alliance: the 1907 Ukrainian–Jewish electoral coalition

This paper contextualises a political alliance between Ukrainian and Jewish national activists in Austrian Galicia during the 1907 parliamentary elections, Austria's first elections with universal manhood suffrage. This alliance represented a milestone in the making of a new paradigm of Ukrainian–Jewish relations. Ironically, the Ukrainian and Jewish nationalists, portrayed elsewhere as staunch enemies, were uniquely able to overcome the profound social, religious, political, and cultural barriers separating the two communities. Ukrainian nationalists recognised the potential of a nationalised Jewish community to undermine Polish hegemony in Galicia, while some Zionists saw the potential to elect Jewish parliamentary representatives in rural Ukrainian districts where Poles and Jews competed for the districts' second mandate. The alliance mobilised the Ukrainian and Jewish electorate around shared slogans and goals. It was a qualified success, leading to a more powerful national Ukrainian faction as well as the first Zionist faction in any European parliament. Although the two sides failed to repeat the alliance in the subsequent elections in 1911, the coalition sparked a new sense of history for both communities. It created a pro‐Ukrainian discourse in Jewish politics, and a pro‐Zionist one in Ukrainian politics. The alliance also exposes Zionism as a response to the European‐wide nationalist revivalism rather than a reaction to rampant turn‐of‐the‐century racial anti‐Semitism.     

The dual endorsement in the federal electorate of Riverina, 1966

The dual endorsement in Riverina was the result of several circumstances: the Labor Party was unlikely to win the seat; Newman, though he agreed to contest the election, had no strong parliamentary ambition and no antipathy to a second candidate; the electorate was large enough to justify dividing the effort and expense of the campaign. In the face of these circumstances the State Executive, when pressed by the Electorate Council and the endorsed candidate, agreed to Solly's endorsement. However, political conditions proved to be unfavourable to Labor in the elections and the experiment of endorsing two candidates failed, or rather, was not properly put to the test, since it was not necessary to distribute preferences. Underlying this failure is the absence of any evidence to support the belief that the presence of two candidates will increase a party's vote. Since 1949, Labor's real problem in Riverina has been a lack of enough Labor voters—dual endorsement or not. It is probably unlikely that the A.L.P. will repeat the experiment of endorsing two candidates in the near future; perhaps even less likely that the curious circumstances in Riverina will occur in other electorates.     

Citizen Emperor. Napoleon in Power

Abstract

The recent Italian elections have taken place under a new proportional system, but have confirmed and even strengthened the main trends already at work since the beginning of Italy's political transition. The center-left coalition has won by the slightest margin, thus ensuring the third alternation in power since 1994. The system's extreme competitiveness underscores its full-fledged bipolar format, the eclipse of center parties, and the continuing electoral stagnation and political integration of extreme left and right. These trends coexist with a party system fragmentation whose level is within the standard of other European systems of moderate pluralism and this fragmentation is, moreover, kept at bay by the coordination ensured by the majority bonus seats provided through the electoral law. At the same time, the main parties show persistently low levels of structural consolidation, that tend to hinder the stability and effectiveness of coalition cabinets. This problem might paradoxically have been sharpened by systemic competitiveness through a negative impact on coalitional discipline and the maximization of destabilizing effects of the smallest changes in electoral and parliamentary behavior.     

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.     

Anomalies in red and blue: Exceptionalism in American electoral geography

Red and Blue America has become the spatial metaphor for an electoral divide on two main dimensions – a nonmetropolitan Red and a larger metropolitan Blue, and a traditionalist Red and a more modern Blue. In this paper, we evaluate the validity and consistency of this conventional wisdom, using both the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections results by county. While previous research has underscored the overall pattern and its accuracy, we choose instead to explore mainly the anomalous results: “metropolitan” or “modern” areas that President Bush carried, and “nonmetropolitan” and “traditional” areas that Democrats won. We develop a typology of the anomalous counties and carry out a simple analysis of characteristics that help show how and why they are anomalous. We then compare the 2000 and 2004 results to discover anomalous areas, counties which switched parties or which became more or less partisan. Trends between 2000 and 2004 suggest a weakening of the metropolitan and nonmetropolitan dimension but a deepening of the cultural one, although we note as well that most of the electorate does not place itself at these partisan extremes. We relate these findings to longer term structural changes in American society, and to Republican strategies to mobilize insecure voters. Finally, we lay out an agenda to look at a sample of counties, using qualitative methods, in order to understand these anomalous results.     

Geography and Election Results: Disproportionality and Bias at the 1993–2004 Elections to the Australian House of Representatives

The Alternative Vote system used for elections to the Australian House of Representatives is generally believed to disadvantage the Australian Labor Party in contests with the Liberal and National parties. However, most analyses on which such conclusions are based over-simplify the situation by not separating out the translation of votes into seats according to whether the election outcome in a district is determined using the first-preference or two-party preferred (2PP) votes. Analyses of bias at five recent elections which recognise that separation find little bias against either party in the districts where the determination used the 2PP votes (i.e. no candidate received a majority of the first preferences), but considerable bias in those where the outcome was decided on first-preferences. Furthermore, that bias was not in one direction, but rather favoured the largest party in each of those contests. The reason for this is identified in the geography of support for the two parties, which produces the equivalent of a ‘cracked gerrymander’ in sufficient districts to have a significant impact on the outcome.     

多伦多华人商业的发展演变及其社会影响

论文分析了加拿大华人移民构成的变化和地理分布、加拿大多伦多华人商业发展与演变及其理论与社会意义,并以"劳动力市场排斥论""文化差异论"和"多因素相互作用论"等社会学理论解释了为何在多伦多众多的少数民族中,华人经营的商业最为发达、自给程度最高。华人人口的持续增长,促使华人商业出现了与30年前迥然不同的经营模式,既对当地的经济发展做出了很大贡献,也对城市规划和社区生活带来了一定的冲击和影响。而随着移民人数的增加和社会文化的多元化,传统的、单向的"归化"模式已经不合时宜,取而代之的应该是一种新的双向的甚至是多向的"相互融合"的社会发展方式。     

Party Leaders,the Media,and Political Persuasion: The Campaigns of Evatt and Menzies on the Referendum to Protect Australia from Communism

Abstract

The 1951 referendum campaign to ban communism produced a massive shift of public opinion, from Yes to No. This article attempts to explain why. It examines the political appeals and rhetoric of the Liberal and Labor Party leaders, their coverage across the entire metropolitan press, and their use of radio. Breaking with earlier interpretations, it argues that Evatt's campaign encompassed wider issues than civil liberties, suggests that Menzies' campaign was damaged by unruly meetings and shows that neither side appealed exclusively to ‘reason’ or to ‘passion’. Ultimately, the success of the No campaign rested on its capacity to mobilise most Labor voters and to attract some Liberals. This was an extraordinary achievement, but it was secured using routine forms of electioneering.     

Self-elimination

As sea levels rise, more and more refugees arrive at our gates, only to find them closed. And many more of us may become refugees ourselves. Open borders might help ease the suffering, but if elections in places like Israel, India or Hungary are any indication, the trend is now towards producing and maintaining more homogeneous national cultures rather than opening borders to those seeking refuge. Ethnonationalism involves both exclusionary and inclusionary processes. This editorial looks at the recent elections in Israel to consider what such inclusion might entail and why the struggles over identity can be contentious enough to make a governing coalition fail.     

A STRUCTURAL EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF METROPOLITAN LABOR DEMAND*

ABSTRACT. This paper uses a large data base to study metropolitan labor demand functions. The data are disaggregated by two-digit SICs in manufacturing for SMS As, and are corrected for changing SMSA boundaries. Labor demand elasticities are estimated for factor and commodity prices, transportation costs, state and local taxes and expenditures, and production-function shifters. Estimates from different years allow one to test Le Chatelier's principle in the context of interregional change.