This chapter is the one most strongly underpinned by the behavioural approach outlined in Chapter 3. It examines existing models for understanding why Australians vote the way they do and evaluates whether new models explain an increase in voter support for minor parties and a diminishing of strong identification with the major parties. The research is largely based on sample surveys of individuals, and the Australian findings are related to general models of voter behaviour developed internationally. These findings and models can usefully be measured against the expectations of voter behaviour contained in rival theories of democracy (Chapter 1). To the extent that the findings and models suggest voting is related to class, gender and other socio-economic identities, they also contribute to an understanding of the critical theories outlined in Chapter 4. Given that the newer models of voting suggest a breaking down of sociological explanations, the connections with post-structuralism are also clear (see Chapter 5).

Foreign policy and international politics are often conceived of as separate from, or even above, domestic politics. This book has challenged that view by noting the links between the domestic and international spheres (see Chapter 6). This chapter rounds off the exercise by considering the international and domestic influences on Australia’s foreign policies. In addition to broad international factors, the chapter discusses the roles of domestic political institutions and the political behaviour of key individuals and groups in shaping Australian foreign policies (see Chapters 2 and 3). Critical theorists would, of course, point to the huge structural socio-economic differences between, say, China and Samoa as a key factor in Australia’s different interactions with each (see Chapter 4), while discourse theorists would argue that some international issues become recognised and others obscured via the discourses of ‘threat’, ‘security’, ‘cooperation’, and so on. This chapter also links back to Chapter 1. Both chapters suggest the difficulty of holding on to nationally bounded meanings of ‘the people’ and ‘democracy’ in a world that is increasingly connected.

While different versions of democratic theory often deal with political institutions like parliaments and elections in broad terms (see Chapter 1), none can avoid giving at least some attention to such institutions. As groups of people begin to make decisions about some aspect of their lives, they inevitably will begin to develop more or less formal rules about how those decisions are made, how they can be changed, and so on. Democratic intentions can be thwarted by these rules and values. The institutionalists discussed in this chapter pay systematic attention to the ways in which different institutional rules, procedures and cultures affect the processes and outcomes of political and policy decisions. As with democratic theories, there is a range of institutional approaches to politics and policy-making – the ‘old institutionalism’, as well as the normative, rational choice, historical, empirical, network, sociological, constructivist and feminist variations of ‘new institutionalism’. This chapter assesses the strengths and limitations of these various varieties of institutionalism.

One of the big international political economy debates concerns whether individual states can pursue their own approaches to taxing and spending, or whether they are forced into uniform policy approaches by global economic, political and legal forces (see Chapter 6). This debate has important implications for a range of other approaches to understanding politics. If international forces do determine policy, then any attention paid to domestic political behaviour, institutions and discourses (Chapters 2, 3 and 5) seems misplaced. Indeed, the very idea of democratic control of these major policy areas is cast into doubt (Chapter 1). The key determinants of taxing and spending are purely structural and international (see Chapters 5 and 6). This chapter addresses these issues directly, and makes the case that domestic factors are the key to understanding Australian government policies on spending and taxing; it also argues that alternative policies could have been adopted.

This chapter suggests that governance can be improved by active collaboration with citizens in decision-making processes. Its focus on structured exercises of participation and deliberation is influenced deeply by the emergence of theories of deliberative democracy (Chapter 1). In suggesting that government decision-making can be improved through more deliberative state–citizen interaction, it also argues for institutional change (see Chapter 2). Whether citizens or governments actually conform to the norms and expectations of deliberation outlined in this chapter is a critical issue that could be explored through behaviouralist approaches (Chapter 3), while the growing discourse of deliberation and collaboration provides fertile ground for exploration using discourse theory and post-structuralist approaches. Do collaborative techniques establish policy ‘truths’ that exclude other possibilities (see Chapter 5)? Critical theorists (Chapter 4) would ask whether collaboration addresses deep issues of power inequality any more effectively than other institutions and processes.

Critical theorists fundamentally challenge the premise that Australia is a democratic system. For critical theorists, the approaches of institutionalists and behaviouralists alike divert attention from the deeper structures of power and inequality in countries like Australia. Critical theorists would thus read the material in Chapters 1 to 3 of this book with limited interest. The two schools of critical theory discussed in this chapter – Marxism and feminism – argue that what political scientists need to focus on is the pervasive class and/or gender relations that shape political outcomes. For Marxists, class inequalities in capitalist societies allow those who own and control productive capital to exercise political power over the larger class of workers who do not. For feminists, politics is dominated by masculine assumptions and interests, at the expense of those of women. Marxists and feminists thus both stress the role of deep structures in shaping politics, and see a restricted role for individuals or groups to exercise political agency. This chapter explores the ways in which those with different Marxist and feminist perspectives explain these deep structures.

Sometimes the study of Australian politics is described as being atheoretical and unreflective about the approaches that underpin analysis (Crozier 2001, p. 17). In this book, we deliberately foreground some of the major theoretical traditions and approaches that exist in and underlie Australian political inquiry. We do this for two reasons: first, we believe that political theory has a rich history and presence in Australia (Stokes, cited in Crozier 2001); and second, by focusing on these approaches we can better understand the diversity and distinctness of Australian political science.

Elsewhere, Gerry Stoker and David Marsh (2010, p. 3) have surveyed the field to show how each different approach to political inquiry ‘combines a set of attitudes, understandings and practices that define a certain way of doing political science’. We have included four of their seven approaches here to foreground the variety of mainstream and critical political science found in Australian scholarship: institutionalism, behaviouralism, critical theories such as feminism and Marxism, and discourse approaches. These approaches can be heuristic devices for students of political science to see and understand how different approaches will often lead to different research topics and questions. For example, taking an institutional approach will produce a focus on political structures, while adopting behaviouralism will concentrate on the agency of political actors.

This chapter again emphasises the fruitfulness of an institutional approach to understanding public policy controversies (see Chapter 2). Among other institutional factors discussed here, federal arrangements are critical, as are the long-standing connections between public, private and community health service funders and providers. The relatively settled policy commitment to universal public health insurance (Medicare), as well as the continuing contest between the major parties over health policy emphases, might be seen to point to the ways in which policy can be constrained and enabled by mass political behaviour (see Chapter 3), or to the state’s role as a collective capitalist committed to ensuring a healthy labour force (Chapter 4). A discourse theory approach, taking Foucault’s lead (see Chapter 5), might well interpret the chapter as revealing the normalising techniques of a range of institutions in the governance of large populations.

The provision and fi nancing of health care constitute a fi eld that holds a unique position in Australian politics and social policy. It has been a sticking point in a constitutional amendment, a trigger for a double dissolution, a mechanism for delivering the social wage and it is currently one of the only non-means-tested social services available to all Australian citizens. It is intensely and constantly contested by all levels of government and by multiple stakeholders.

Australia is identified commonly as a ‘democracy’. Such an identification can be questioned on two levels. One concerns whether or not Australia actually measures up to democratic standards. That level is discussed at length in later parts of this book. The other, dealt with in detail in this chapter, concerns the issue of what exactly constitutes a democracy. The chapter identifies seven different approaches to the ‘rule by the people’: direct participatory democracy, republican democracy, representative democracy, elite democracy, pluralist democracy, deliberative democracy and liberal democracy. Some of these approaches – for example, liberal and representative democracy – are consistent with each other. Others – such as direct democracy and elite democracy – cannot be reconciled. Whichever of these versions of democracy we adopt, this chapter suggests the difficulty of applying them to Australia without considering the impact of international factors such as globalisation and migration.

Focusing on electoral rules fundamentally is about understanding the institutions in play that structure the electoral behaviour of candidates, parties and voters. Thus Chapter 2 on institutionalism helps us to understand both why these rules are necessary and why they have developed in particular ways. Historical institutionalism and path dependency are important here. The sometimes fierce debate over rules between different parties in parliament can lead to electoral change that either narrows or broadens the opportunities for new electoral competitors. Chapter 1 on democratic theories helps us to understand the principles behind different electoral arrangements, while Chapter 3 suggests ways of studying how and why some of these principles are translated into different electoral rules at federal, state and local levels.

Australia’s electoral laws are fundamental to the nation’s democratic legitimacy. From the electoral laws flow the form and style of representation, the relative strength of political parties, the formation of government and the development of policy positions. In representative democracies, the structure of a state’s electoral laws plays a critical role in determining the nature and form of political discourse and parliamentary representation. The electoral laws establish who can vote and whether people are compelled to vote, how many representatives are to be chosen from which areas, who is in charge of the conduct of elections and how votes are counted. Because adjustment or manipulation of these elements can have severe positive or negative consequences for the viability of political parties, attempts to make changes often are debated fiercely. While Australia has a professional and non-partisan electoral administration, and generally clean and fair elections, this chapter argues that electoral laws are heavily controlled by a Labor and Coalition party cartel.

Parliaments are among the fundamental institutions of Australian democracy (see Chapter 2). In this chapter, following on from arguments raised in Chapter 1, Uhr and Abjorensen suggest that the democratic law-making function of parliaments ought to be underpinned by principles of deliberation. This chapter also draws on wider theories of democracy (Chapter 1) and demonstrates the relevance of the approaches found in the ‘new institutionalism’ (see Chapter 2). The chapter, like most of those in this section of the book, challenges the view of many critical theorists that political institutions do not really count for much against the larger power structures embedded in Australian society (Chapter 4).

Parliaments are often derided as talking shops, but what they talk about tells us much about the political communities they represent. Members of parliament talk about many issues, particularly in relation to the three core parliamentary functions we emphasise in this chapter: political representation, law-making and government accountability. At their best, parliaments are deliberative assemblies, with members talking not just among themselves but with the citizens they represent, about laws to benefi t the community and ways of holding governments accountable.

Australian courts – and the High Court in particular – are another political institution (Chapter 2) that plays an important role in Australian politics. Given the gender and status of judges, the courts often have been sites for the reproduction of social structures that produce social inequality in Australia (see Chapter 4). The fact that judges are neither elected nor answer to an elected body means that the courts play a curious role in any democracy (Chapter 1). At the same time, judges often uphold democratic rights, sometimes against elected parliaments that want to restrict them. These apparent paradoxes make the behaviour of judges an appropriate focus of study for behaviouralist political science (Chapter 3). The legal system is also replete with discourses on ‘rights’ and other terms, which produce and reproduce subject positions that are part of governance in Australia (Chapter 5). Rights discourse is, of course, international, reminding us that the politics of courts is simultaneously domestic and international (see Chapter 6).

Political socialisation deals with identity or subject formation, which is a central concern of those who engage in discourse theories and post-structuralism (Chapter 5). Before going to these theories, however, readers might first engage with Chapters 1 and 3. Democratic theories and behaviouralism both tend to assume stable identities, or subjectivities, into which citizens become socialised through the processes discussed in this chapter. Chapters 1 and 3 might be followed by a consideration of critical theorists (Chapter 4), who also assume the existence of stable identities or subjectivities, and who see them as binding people into unequal and unfair social structures. Chapter 5, though, must be read by those interested in the study and processes of political socialisation, for the ways in which discourse theories and post-structuralism contest both the existence of stable identities or subjectivities and the processes by which these are held to be formed.

This chapter examines political socialisation, the process by which individuals come to possess and exhibit particular political views or behaviours – for example, about party allegiance, political interest or perspectives on issues such as the welfare state, defence or unionism. It employs a historical lens, with the first subject of inquiry being the discipline of political socialisation itself; this emerged in the late 1950s, encountered the 1960s and was all but abandoned by the 1980s, before being tentatively revived in more recent years. This is essential to prevent confusion over the use of a term that has a somewhat contentious history, and to elicit meaning about what is meant by socialisation.

Chapter 6 discussed the ways in which the issue of climate change revealed differences in international politics theories. This chapter balances that international focus with a detailed account of the domestic politics of climate change and other environmental issues. The chapter emphasises institutional factors, such as Australia’s bicameral national parliament and federal structures (see Chapter 2). It also points to the broader power exerted by major business interests on Australian politics, recalling the critical theories discussed in Chapter 4. The operations of environmental and other pressure groups and the impact of voters in the 2010 federal election point to the need for behavioural research on this issue (Chapter 3), while the chapter also suggests the importance of understanding the circulation of discourses around ‘water’, ‘climate change’, ‘polluters’ and ‘economic growth’ (see Chapter 5).

Modern states face many wicked problems – policy issues that are complex, multidimensional and seemingly intractable, and that go beyond the capacity of any single government agency or portfolio (Australian Public Service Commission 2007). Garnaut (2008d, p. xviii) refers to them as ‘diabolical problems’. Reconciling environmental sustainability and global economic competitiveness, which remain the over-arching and primary priorities of the modern state, is a wicked problem. The tensions between the priorities of economic growth and environmental protection result in part from differing normative perspectives regarding the relationship between the natural environment and the national economy.

Any good understanding of the relationship between political institutions and societal actors in Australia must include a focus on the presence and influence of groups (see Chapters 2 and 3). Pressure groups have to be accounted for in contemporary theories of democracy (Chapter 1). In contrast to the previous chapter, this chapter makes the case that pressure groups, rather than parties, increasingly are the main link between citizens and government. This claim would hardly surprise pluralist theorists; however, whether the operation of pressure groups and lobbyists in Australia conforms to their broader assumptions about the way pluralist democracy should work is another matter (see Chapter 1). This chapter explores how open different institutions are to engagement with pressure groups and lobbyists. It highlights the dilemma for governments about whether to regulate the access and influence of groups and lobbyists, and how such regulation is affected by the prevailing political context (see Chapter 2).