The Australian Greens: Party Organisation and Political Processes

The Greens challenge the Australian two‐party system by promoting an alternative political agenda and by facilitating democratic processes. Their recent successes in federal and state elections suggest that the party itself deserves closer scrutiny. This paper shows how the Greens are organisationally different from other parties currently active in Australian politics due to both their internal processes and their parliamentary practices. Recent theories of parties argue that party organisation has changed significantly for major parties, adopting an electoral‐professional or cartel model that centralises power and decision‐making in party representatives within parliaments. This paper shows how a smaller party uses identity formation processes to establish a distinctive organisational style. We examine the Greens' party organisation by analysing the interdependent relationships between the party membership, the state and national offices, and Green MPs. The paper is based on original research including in‐depth interviews undertaken with state and federal Greens members of parliaments.     

Transitions between Formations and Organisations: An Historical Perspective on the Political Representation of Australian Farmers

The political representation of Australian farmers merits more attention from an historical perspective. Drawing upon the existing wealth of organisational histories it is argued that one can identify a number of shifts in the dominant organisational form or strategy pursued by primary producers in seeking political representation over time. Each phase has its own logic and rationale rooted in a range of historical conditions. The article identifies the importance of the pattern of social interaction, economic conditions and the prevailing political process in catalysing transitions between "phases" of representation. It concludes that the current debate over representation amongst primary producers and rural communities should be interpreted as the precursor to yet another phase of representation.     

Initiative-Resistance and the Australian Party System

In the first half of the twentieth century, writing about Australian political parties was strongly influenced by the novelty of government — and the policy agenda — being led by the political arm of organised labour. This was reflected in the tendency for commentators to treat Labor as the driving force in Australian politics and policy, and to see non-Labor as playing a predominantly reactive and oppositional role. Following strong criticism, the “initiative-resistance thesis”, as this perspective was termed, lapsed. Here we revisit the concept, tracking its origins, use, and ultimate demise in the 1960s, and reconsider its validity and relevance, particularly in light of its affinity with the international literature on the “impact of parties”. While initiative-resistance was never a “thesis” as such, and critics have overstated the hold it enjoyed in early accounts, we argue that there is merit to a version reformulated in clear propositional terms. Critics may also have overstated its weaknesses. We illustrate this by focusing on one of the main original criticisms: the need to do justice to the separate identity of the National Party in understanding an essentially two-party system.