Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T16:19:41.643Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 12 - Building Trust through a Revolving Door of Leaders:

The Poisoned Chalice

from Part II - By the People

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2022

Ashley Weinberg
Affiliation:
University of Salford
Get access

Summary

This chapter draws upon Australian prime ministers and their attempt to (re)build trust through their actions regarding two long-term policy issues, asylum-seekers and climate change, as well as an immediate major event occurring during their respective prime ministerships. To help us further ground this analysis, we draw upon data from three prime ministers’ press conferences, examining their responses to questioning within the theoretical lens of trust. The research reveals that building or rebuilding trust is essential in any relationship, but especially so today in terms of political leadership in liberal democracies. They illustrate how competence is regarded as crucial in building trust with colleagues and the public, while integrity is especially important for leaders who enter the job with less perceived legitimacy than a leader who was elected and hence has a mandate to implement their policy platform. Crucially though, a leader who ignores integrity does so at their own peril, as it gives a potential challenger ammunition for a tilt at the leadership position. The leadership needs to send positive messages of unity rather than division and individual aspirations if trust is to be built or rebuilt. In earlier research, we revealed that what one says and how one says it can be important. Politicians who tended to acknowledge successes due to the collective group of their own party, rather than themselves, benefitted greatly in the situations at hand. Thus, (re)building trust becomes more important than ever for political leaders but, perhaps, also more difficult than ever.

Type
Chapter
Information
Psychology of Democracy
Of the People, By the People, For the People
, pp. 265 - 285
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Badie, B. (2013). Transnationalizing diplomacy and global governance. In Kerr, P. and Wiseman, G. (Eds.), Diplomacy in a globalising world, pp. 85102. New York, USA: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Beeson, M. (2014). Issues in Australian Foreign Policy: July to December 2013, Australian Journal of Politics and History, 60(2), 265278.Google Scholar
Blind, P. K. (2010). Building trust in government: Linking theory with practice. In Cheema, G.S. and Popovski, V. (Eds.), Building trust in government: Innovations in governance reform in Asia, United Nations University Press, Tokyo.Google Scholar
Carlin, R. (2014). What’s not to trust? Rubrics of political party trustworthiness in Chile and Argentina. Party Politics, 20(1), 6377.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davies, S. E. (2017). Asylum-seekers and Australia’s security. In Beeson, M. and Hameiri, S. (Eds.), Navigating the new international disorder: Australia in world affairs 2011–2015, pp. 108122. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Eidenfalk, J. and Woodcock, S. (2019). ‘I’LL BE BACK…’: The chance of a political comeback as party leader, Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 7(1), 402422 doi:10.5964/jspp.v7i1.993Google Scholar
Elliott, L. (2017). The environment in Australia’s foreign policy. In M.Beeson and S.Hamerri (Eds.), Navigating the new international disorder: Australia in world affairs 2011–2015, pp. 176191. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Evans, M., Halupka, M. and Stoker, G. (2019). Trust and democracy in Australia. In Evans, M., Grattan, M. and McCaffrie, B. (Eds.), From Turnbull to Morrison: The trust divide, pp. 1735. Carlton Vic: Melbourne University Press.Google Scholar
Evans, M. and McCaffrie, B. (2014). ‘Rudderless’ – perceptions of Julia Gillard’s domestic statecraft. In Aulich, C. (Ed.), The Gillard governments, pp. 303321. Carlton Vic: Melbourne University Press.Google Scholar
Foa, R. S. and Mounk, Y. (2016). The democratic disconnect. Journal of Democracy, 27(3), 517. doi:10.1353/jod.2016.0049CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gyngell, A. (2017). Fear of abandonment: Australia in the world since 1942. Carlton Vic: LA Trobe University Press.Google Scholar
Harris Rimmer, S. (2019). Foreign policy under the coalition: Turbulent times, dwindling investments. In Evans, M., Gratton, M. and McCaffrie, B., From Turnbull to Morrison: The trust divide, pp. 5974. Carlton Vic: Melbourne University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, P., Dirks, K., Cooper, C. and Ferrin, D. (2006). When more blame is better than less: The implications of internal vs. external attributions for the repair of trust after a competence- vs. integrity-based trust violation. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 99, 4965.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lees-Marshment, J. (2012). Political marketing and opinion leadership: Comparative perspectives and findings. In Helms, L. (Ed.), Comparative political leadership, pp. 165185. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Linnane, K. (2015). Issues in Australian foreign policy: July to December 2015, Australian Journal of Politics and History, 62(2), 268281.Google Scholar
Macintosh, A. and Denniss, R. (2014). Climate change. In Aulich, C. (Ed.) The Gillard governments, pp. 195219. Carlton Vic: Melbourne University Press.Google Scholar
McCaffrie, B. (2019). Trust me, I’m the prime minister: Prime ministerial statecraft under Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison. In Evans, M., Grattan, M. and McCaffrie, B. (Eds.), From Turnbull to Morrison: The Trust Divide, pp. 354369. Carlton Vic: Melbourne University Press.Google Scholar
McCaffrie, B. (2016). Operation Sovereign Borders. In Aulich, C. (Ed.), From Abbott to Turnbull: A new direction?, pp. 197220. West Geelong: Echo Books.Google Scholar
Miles, M., Huberman, M. and Saldaña, J. (2014). Qualitative data analysis: A methods sourcebook (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA, USA: Sage.Google Scholar
Pew Research Center. (2019). Public Trust in Government: 1958–2019, www.pewresearch.org/politics/2019/04/11/public-trust-in-government-1958-2019/.Google Scholar
Phillips, J. (2015). Asylum seekers and refugees: what are the facts?, Parliamentary Library Research Paper, Parliament of Australia, https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/library/prspub/HGNW6/upload_binary/HGNW6.pdf;fileType=application/pdf#search=%22asylum%20seekers%20and%20refugees%22.Google Scholar
Rudd, K. (2018). The PM years. Sydney: Pan McMillan Australia.Google Scholar
Sheridan, G. (2011). Gillard’s No-Fly Mess Exposes Her Frailty, The Australian, 12 March.Google Scholar
Steketee, M. (2015, 9 October). Four-year terms could be the key to political stability. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved from www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-09/steketee-four-year-terms-could-be-key-to-political-stability/6839864.Google Scholar
Sydney Morning Herald (2015). Tony Abbott leadership challenge: Transcript of Malcolm Turnbull’s blistering speech, (14 September 2015). Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved from www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-leadership-challenge-transcript-of-malcolm-turnbullsblistering-speech-20150914-gjmace.html.Google Scholar
Talberg, A. (2016). The climate policy carousel. In Aulich, C.(Ed.), From Abbott to Turnbull: A new direction?, pp. 145170. West Geelong: Echo Books.Google Scholar
Tomlinson, E. and Mayer, R. (2009). The role of causal attribution dimensions in trust repair. The Academy of Management Review, 34(1), 85104.Google Scholar
Walsh, M. (2014). The Gillard Government, the Coalition and Asylum Seekers. In Aulich, C. (Ed.), The Gillard governments, pp. 125140. Carlton Vic: Melbourne University Press.Google Scholar
Webb, P., Poguntke, T. and Kolodny, R. (2012). The presidentialization of party leadership? Evaluating party leadership and party government in the democratic world. In Helms, L. (Ed.), Comparative political leadership, pp. 7798. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Weller, P. (2014). The variability of prime ministers. In Rhodes, R. A. W. and ‘t Hart, P. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of political leadership, pp. 489502. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wile, R. (2013). Australia’s New Prime Minister Wants to Immediately Dismantle His Country’s Fight against Climate Change, Business Insider Australia, 13 September 2008, www.businessinsider.com.au/tony-abbott-climate-change-policy-2013-9?r=USandIR=T [Date accessed 12 April 2020].Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×