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Various electronic voting channels have been introduced across a range of countries. In some countries these new channels have proved uncontroversial, while in others, they remain contentious and have even been abandoned. Relatively little is known about whether and why voters have confidence in new and old voting channels. Australia provides a useful case for researching these issues, since it is a mature democracy in which election processes and outcomes are widely accepted. The 2013 Australian Election Study results show that in this context, voters have most confidence in paper-based voting and least in voting via smartphones. Positive political attachments, ease of voting and familiarity with technology are all associated with higher levels of confidence in voting channels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 26 November 2022 the Andrews Labor Government was reelected for a third term in the State of Victoria. The starting point for this paper is its decision during the pandemic to seemingly break with neoliberal political orthodoxy, by boldly and deliberately leveraging the state's balance sheet to avoid recession, using debt-funded record levels of spending, particularly on infrastructure, as a means of doing so. The paper argues that in decisively embracing a neo-Keynesian budget strategy, the Andrews government did not actually break with the recent neoliberal past. It turbo charged it, with the dramatical increase in debt-funded spending being used to finance a massive expansion of an intricate network of private monopoly contractors operating everything from ports, tollways and public transport, to policy advice, jails and road maintenance. The paper concludes that over the last four decades of policy reform, Victoria has been transformed into a 'Rentier State'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many academic and popular writers have argued that ‘compulsory voting’ is an illusion in Australia because it is not compulsory to fill out the ballot-paper. This is the orthodox assumption. I argue that this view is mistaken, and that the duty to vote clearly includes the marking of the paper. Whether and how the requirement is able to be enforced is a completely different question from whether it is indeed a requirement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Corporate political activity by large firms has increased in a range of western countries and in Australia. There has also been an increased tendency for large firms to lobby individually on firm-centred agendas. Both trends have seen large firms engaging in institutional adaptation, primarily through developing dedicated government relations functions (GRF). The last research on this topic in Australia was thirty years ago (Bell and Warhurst [1993]. "Business Political Activism and Government Relations in Large Companies in Australia." Australian Journal of Political Science 28: 201–220.) and this paper updates this earlier research. It also frames the relevant developments as an important set of institutional challenges, not only for government relations (GR) managers within corporate hierarchies, but also in interacting with and influencing other key institutional interlocutors, especially government policy makers. The way in which GR managers deal with such challenges through building supportive relations with key internal and external interlocutors, and especially how this shapes the business-government relationship more broadly, is a key focus of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Australian Journal of Political Science is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Path dependence has become a multi-disciplinary concept, employed across various literatures to explain why the past matters for decision-making. Debate within 'new institutionalist' scholarship has provided a detailed critique of the term over several decades. Some scholars argue that it is hampered by poor conceptual clarity and highlight its limitations in explaining institutional reform. Yet, this paper demonstrates how neglecting antecedent conditions and associated decision pathways is particularly inappropriate for politico-spatial issues like disaster risk and natural resource governance. Doing so risks omitting key material and perceptual contingencies influencing contemporary institutions. Examining southeast Queensland's flooding disaster of 2011, the paper proposes that path contingency provides a useful theoretical bridge between institutionalist theories of stability and reform, and the geographic contexts within which disaster risk governance proceeds. The analysis then addresses the potential generalisability of path contingency beyond its application to disaster management, for consideration across a broader range of institutionalist research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The referendum to establish a Voice to Parliament for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples failed to receive popular support from the Australian public. Questions as to why the referendum was unsuccessful have been put forward following the outcome. As we analyse the defeat, it is useful to look back at the two other referendums in Australia’s history that addressed inclusion and recognition of our First Peoples, 1967 and 1999, and compare factors which lead to their respective outcomes. Drawing on qualitative sources, this paper posits an argument which connects received national values to Australia’s unwillingness to go beyond inclusion and recognise that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have inherent rights to be involved in decisions that affect them. Australian ‘egalitarianism’ presents a barrier to greater Indigenous recognition, and referenda regarding Indigenous rights are impacted by discourses of ‘equality’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia is increasingly regarded as out of step in the global effort to combat climate change. Even the Australian Labor Party (ALP) Government, considered the climate-friendly alternative to the conservative Coalition, failed to deliver robust climate action from 2007 to 2013. This paper aims to validate the promising progressive rhetoric of the ALP Government from 2007 to 2013 to understand whether its commitment to climate action was genuine. It incorporates mixed methods to verify ALP attitudes to the environment and demonstrate the incidence of changing attitudes. This paper finds that the ALP deviated from ecocentrism in its framing of environment priorities towards a weak ecological modernisation approach to mitigation. This inconsistency suggests that climate change mitigation was an arbitrary priority for the ALP, rather than a cornerstone of its party platform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Australian Journal of Political Science is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In a recent article in Australian Journal of Political Science, Dale and Goldfinch present 'standard' journal-based publication and citation rankings of Australasian political science departments designed to complement what they characterise as the multidisciplinary, historical, qualitative and humanistic political science of the region. However, the 'highly cited' articles in their top-ranked political science department belong to quantitative psychology. Through unravelling why their study favours the opposite of that which it was meant to detect, this paper alerts political scientists to the hidden perils of accepting 'standard' Institute of Scientific Information-based approaches to citation counting as valid measures of research 'quality'. It exposes the veiled bibliometric assumption that the 'best' social science is quantitative research, notes that incongruous citation scores may inform the distribution of block funding and departmental appointment processes, and warns against using 'standard' data to unintentionally self-police the future shape of Australasian political science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What do PhD candidates and supervisors say about the quality of PhD training, the supervisory experience, and post-PhD career prospects? With little research into the quality of Australian politics and international relations PhD programmes, and the impacts of COVID-19 exacerbating concerns about academic job prospects, we need to evaluate the quality of PhD training. This paper reports on two mirrored surveys of PhD candidates (n = 109) and supervisors (n = 55) in Politics and International Relations from twenty-three Australian universities. The survey, conducted in 2022, drew on a 2013 survey of Australian PhD candidates in these disciplines, allowing for temporal comparisons. We find that methods training is perceived as largely non-existent or insufficient. We also find that there is a lack of job preparedness training built into the PhD programme, whether for academic or non-academic careers. Finally, we highlight ongoing gendered disparities that negatively impact female candidates and supervisors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Like many liberal democracies, there is a gender gap in the Australian Parliament. While there has been growing momentum to increase the number of female parliamentarians in the national legislature, the Parliament of Australia continues to be a male dominated domain. This paper investigates the factors that contribute to maintaining the gender gap by focusing on the ambitions of young women to become a member of the national parliament. We find that the appeal of becoming a parliamentarian for young women is significantly curtailed by beliefs that the institution maintains stereotypical gender norms as well as a masculine, and misogynistic, culture. Furthermore, we find that young women believe they lack the skills and confidence required to occupy public office which further diminishes their political ambition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large corporations in Australia have shifted from limited to more fulsome engagement in political activity (CPA) in recent decades. The paper argues that this reflects corporate institutional change in response to wider changes in the environment that have included growing government intervention, increased industry concentration and intra-sectoral competition, and a more complex and challenging discursive and issues environment. Quantitative and regression-based analysis of the drivers of CPA are employed and the analysis is extended and deepened with material drawn from interviews with twenty-five corporate government relations professionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Post-election reviews provide an opportunity for political parties to diagnose the reasons for their success or failure. Since 2019, the reviews conducted by the Australian Labor and Liberal parties have been made public, and they provide an ideal opportunity to test their explanations against the evidence. This paper identifies six explanations for the 2022 Australian federal election outcome and tests them using the 2022 Australian Election Study survey. Both reviews correctly identify the importance of leadership and the pandemic in shaping the election result but underplay the importance of independents and of climate change. Both reviews over-estimate changes in voting among women and immigrants. Overall, the reviews are only partially accurate in explaining the election result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Australian Journal of Political Science is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Australian Journal of Political Science is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Australian Journal of Political Science is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Referendums differ from general elections in the choices that are offered to voters and in the cues that are available to them to reach a decision. This difference makes the quantity and quality of the information that is available during a referendum campaign crucial to the outcome. This paper uses a unique panel survey to examine the role of the campaign in shaping the outcome of the October 2023 Voice to Parliament referendum. We find that the political cues offered to voters – reflected most prominently in voters' views about the major party leaders – were the most important campaign effects shaping the result. Interpersonal communication also mattered, but government-supplied information and mass media exposure had no effect. The findings highlight the central role that a campaign driven by elites plays in shaping the outcome of a referendum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Australian Journal of Political Science is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Australian Journal of Political Science is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Scientific warnings about impending climate disaster and experts' advocacy for more and better climate science have been largely unsuccessful for advancing evidence-based policy in Australia. Continuing expectations to the contrary stem from a reliance on the supposed ability of science to prime political understandings of climate change. This paper shows how scientists undermine this 'deficit model' ideal by conflating types and uses of evidence and expertise in policymaking. These tactics are unconvincing for conservative opponents, for whom climate science is far from the last word on what climate change means. This paper examines experts' rhetorical tactics through the eyes of conservative policymakers and, thereby, proposes a strategy more likely to effect resilient climate adaptation and mitigation policies in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to increased awareness and impact of domestic violence, women's safety in the domestic sphere has become a prominent problem in Australian politics. In an analysis of criminal injuries compensation (CIC) processes in WA, this paper highlights a specific aspect of national policy failure in relation to safety for women who have experienced domestic and family violence. It establishes policy impetus to acknowledge a right to protection by the state within the domestic sphere, then discusses the history and relevance of state responsibility/obligations for victims of crime compensation and demonstrates how the failure to comply with the nationally endorsed plan to address domestic violence places some women at risk of further harm. The example of WA's victims of crime compensation processes highlights the high level of female domestic violence victims using the scheme and important intersectional issues pertinent for Indigenous women. The paper points to how a specific failure of policy implementation may be addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Australian Journal of Political Science is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Beginning explorations of civil society organisations (CSOs) from a democratic, political, or regulatory perspective potentially overlooks important aspects of CSO activity. Instead, this paper takes CSOs in action as its starting point – specifically, Australian CSOs responding to the needs of people and communities during the crisis of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. Working between reflections by Australian CSO leaders during the pandemic and selected literature, a multi-grounded theory approach is used to produce a novel theoretical contribution – a typology of 10 distinct CSO activities. These 10 activities are divided into three categories: (1) The 'Big Three' activities – advocate systemically, deliver service and build capacity; (2) 'Business As Usual' activities – engage community, manage organisation and work collaboratively; and (3) 'Enabling' activities – conduct research, coordinate network, hold space and provide funding. The final three activities are revealed as being less integrated into the broader CSO literature than their more commonly explored counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum joined the 37 other referendums which have been defeated since federation, out of a total of 45 referendums. In contrast to the 1967 referendum on Indigenous Australians, which attracted a record majority of 90.8 percent, the Voice referendum gained just 39.9 percent support. This paper uses a large, nationally representative survey to explain voting in the Voice referendum and to compare it with the 1999 republic referendum. The results show that the absence of bipartisanship on the Voice resulted in voters prioritizing the potential risks of constitutional change over the prospect of better outcomes for Indigenous people. In the absence of bipartisanship, voters opted for safety over change – as they did in the 1999 republic referendum and in other unsuccessful referendums. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Australian Journal of Political Science is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Australian Journal of Political Science is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This collection of papers focuses on the domestic and international politics of Australia's recent engagement with Asia. The theme of Asian engagement appears to be of particular pertinence to the current study of Australian politics given numerous pronouncements that we are entering an 'Asian century' during which key Asian economies will gain greater ascendancy and certain Asian states will come to play a more prominent role in global politics. We employ the idea of 're-engagement' in order to show how engagement with Asia has been turned to again and again by Australian governments, albeit in different political and strategic contexts. This collection aims to consider the politics of re-engagement from a number of different theoretical positions, as well as from a number of different perspectives (be it international relations/foreign policy, domestic politics, identity politics, or from the perspective of bilateral Asian partners). Emphasis is placed not simply on the foreign policy prerogatives behind re-engagement but also on the implications of the 'Asian century' for domestic politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the 1983 changes to the electoral rules for Australian Senate elections using the Single Transferable Vote (STV) was a new procedure for determining the transfer of vote surpluses. The adoption of this modified ('inclusive') Gregory method has tended to be overlooked in the literature, yet as this article shows—using both hypothetical and real-world examples—it incorporates an anomaly that could have significance for electoral outcomes. This has important implications not only with regard to whether the 'correct' candidate is elected, but also for wider social choice debates over the quasi-chaotic nature of STV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite being the most tangibly impacted by the first-order effects of a warming climate, much of Australia's agricultural regions have remained relatively conservative in their views on climate change and the need for adaptation. This paper aims to understand how the experience of an extreme climate event like the 2017–2020 drought might shift opinions and values on these issues within agricultural communities. Through in-depth interviews with 20 graziers across Northwest NSW during the worst days of the drought, we found that various psychological lock-ins, historical memories of resilience, and local cultural values appeared to be undermining the perception of their vulnerability, while enhancing perceptions of their ability to endure. Such discursive constructions appear to explain why a jarring climatic event like the 2017–2020 drought was failing to produce a noticeable shift in their views. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Australian Journal of Political Science is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Australian Journal of Political Science is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Australian Journal of Political Science is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Australian Journal of Political Science is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Scott Morrison's government was consistently accused of taking inadequate climate change action, despite facing sustained domestic and international criticism. However, there has not yet been sustained scholarly attention paid to the relationship between Morrison's championship of the coal industry, the specific masculinity of Morrison's leadership style, and the ways in which climate change was narratively constructed by Scott Morrison as Prime Minister. This research argues that gendered and racialised logics underpinned the climate change policy and rhetoric of the Morrison Government. This is demonstrated through an analysis of three narratives that were consistently articulated by Morrison, demonstrating Morrison's unwavering defence of fossil fuel industries and the specific Australian exceptionalism of his climate inaction. This paper further recognises that specific expressions of political masculinity may continue to hinder meaningful climate change action in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grace Tame's 2021 Australian of the Year (AOTY) award directed public attention towards sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), as did Australia Day award recipients Donna Carson in 2004 and Rosie Battie in 2015. We use mixed-method textual analysis of a corpus of prime minister's Australia Day speeches between 1990 and 2021 to show how conservative Liberal Party prime ministers have narrated a discourse of idealised national identity to manage activist demands regarding SGBV policy. We quantitatively find that prime ministers promote masculine and heteronormative representations of Australian identity and then develop a qualitative typology of conservative SGBV frames employed by prime ministers that gloss over SGBV as a pressing and chronic policy issue and position idealised Australian femininity to condone and obscure SGBV. This paper builds upon scholarship on public policy and gendered nationalism to explain this pattern of SGBV problem definition and framing by conservative prime ministers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Australian Journal of Political Science is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Australian Journal of Political Science is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Australian Journal of Political Science is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper analyses how the size and socio-economic diversity of their electorate affect parliamentarians' legislative behaviour. We study the Australian senate, which wields considerable legislative influence and is marked by large differences in the size and socio-economic makeup of the districts that senators represent. We demonstrate that as the size of their district increases, senators ask more questions and introduce more bills and amendments. By contrast, senators become less active as the diversity of their electoral district increases. The paper thus establishes that size and diversity of electorates have significant effects on legislative behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years the concept of 'governance' has become a widely used concept within political science discourse. Although the meanings of 'governance' are contested, its position of influence is rarely questioned. This paper contends that the term exercises a prescriptive influence that shapes understandings about how governing should be interpreted and executed in the current era. The paper begins by examining briefly several prominent 'narratives of governance' that currently frame contemporary understandings of the term's significance. Attention then turns to an analysis of the return of 'governance', conceptually speaking, to the discourse of political science in Australia. The paper identifies when this began to occur and then examines the conceptual load that scholars expected 'governance' to carry at that time. These meanings are then counterpoised against the currently dominant cluster of meanings noted earlier in the paper to illustrate that they are not the only ways of interpreting how 'governance' should be understood. Furthermore, it will also be suggested that these hegemonic meanings represent a trajectory that, paradoxically, de-politicises what was once a clearly politicised term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Australian Journal of Political Science is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Australian Journal of Political Science is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Australian Journal of Political Science is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)