Political consumerism: buying better to free slaves?

  Modern slavery is hard to define and quantify, with public understandings of the problem often built through stories presented in news, government reports, awareness campaigns, and entertainment media. The political narrative of… Continue reading

The end of the old order? From left-right to open-closed politics

Jonathan Wheatley explains the shifting positions of voters on economic matters and matters of culture. He writes that between 2015 and 2017 support for Britain’s main parties became much more predicated on issues of… Continue reading

What did the (UK) coalition government do for women?

Much of the progress made towards gender equality under the coalition government was offset by the impact of austerity on women, writes Anna Sanders. While a number of gender equality policies were brought forward… Continue reading

Policy competition between the Greens and the Australian Labor Party

How do the Australian Greens and the Labor Party each use policies to appeal to voters? Do the Labor and Liberal parties adopt broadly similar policy positions? Are the Greens just ‘tree tories’?… Continue reading

Growth in online petitioning in Australia: The case of Change.org

Australians are enthusiastic online petitioners, certainly more enthusiastic than the Australian Government. Despite the fact that online petitioning is increasingly common, our government’s online petition site does not approach the standard set by… Continue reading

What is in a click?

Every year I ask my new crop of students the same thing: ‘Is clicking “Like” on Facebook political participation’? This is inevitably unpacked by way of a series of ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘maybe… Continue reading

The Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey: One year on

On 8 December 2017, Australia became the 26th country in the world to change the definition of marriage to include same-sex unions. In so doing, it became only the second advanced democracy to… Continue reading

Do Australians want parties to fulfil their election promises? Not as much as listening to people or experts.

This post is based on Voters’ preferences for party representation: Promise-keeping, responsiveness to public opinion or enacting the common good recently published in the International Political Science Review. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0192512118787430 Annika Werner is Research… Continue reading

Female Comediennes are Changing Politics

They say, ‘laughter is the best medicine.’ This is true in politics as well as daily life. In fact, the rules of laughter (when are we allowed to laugh, how much can you… Continue reading

Senate vacancy rules, turnover and the party professionalisation of the Senate

Senate casual vacancies are not rare occurrences in Australia.  Since 1901, there have been some 140 such events. The first senate casual vacancy arose within less than 18 months of the establishment of… Continue reading