Political Science Research Internships and Political Science Education

This article reports on the evaluation of political science research internships and considers their costs and benefits for a political science education. Students indicated high levels of appreciation of the inaugural Political Science Research Internship Unit at the University of Western Australia in terms of its contribution to their personal development and work experience. A substantial number of interns gained insights into the policy process through this form of experiential learning. Many came to appreciate the contingency and the normative dimensions of knowledge in the policy process. Whereas about half of the students found the transition from the seminar room to the policy world difficult, the other half were more successful in applying their theoretical knowledge to practical experiences. The article also indicates how this evaluation informs future course design.     

Effects of Public Opinion and Political System Characteristics on State Policy Outputs

Rather than competing with socioeconomic variables as directdeterminants of state policy, political system characteristicsmay operate as mediating factors that either facilitate or impedethe translation of constituency preferences into policy. Inthis study, the state opinion liberalism index presented byGerald Wright, Robert Erikson, and John Mclver is incorporatedin multiplicative regression models as a measure of citizenpreferences to address this theoretical reformulation. Althoughpervasive empirical corroboration is not found for the reconceptualizedrole for political variables, political system characteristicsdo demonstrate significant effects on state policy. In addition,suggesting that public officials responddirectly to citizenpreferences, evidence ispresentedon democratic representationwithin the states.     

Degrees of influence: Educational inequality in policy representation

Education plays an important role in the political, social and economic divisions that have recently characterised Western Europe. Despite the many analyses of education and its political consequences, however, previous research has not investigated whether government policy caters more to the preferences of the higher educated than to the preferences of the lower educated. We address this question using an original dataset of public opinion and government policy in the Netherlands. This data reveals that policy representation is starkly unequal. The association between support for policy change and actual change is much stronger for highly educated citizens than for low and middle educated citizens, and only the highly educated appear to have any independent influence on policy. This inequality extends to the economic and cultural dimensions of political competition. Our findings have major implications for the educational divide in Western Europe, as they reflect both a consequence and cause of this divide.     

Policy Preferences and Political Distrust: A Comparison of Norway, Sweden and the United States

Many modern democracies have experienced a decrease in citizen support for government in recent decades. This article examines attitudes toward public policy as a plausible theoretical explanation for this phenomenon. The connection between public policy and support for the political regime has received considerable academic attention in the United States. Yet very little comparative work has examined whether citizens' policy preferences are related to a decline in diffuse support across different political systems. This article offers a clearer, more concise theoretical specification of the hypothesized relationship between public evaluations of policy outputs and support for the political regime. After specifying the theoretical concerns more succinctly, the article analyzes data from Norway, Sweden and the United States for the quarter century from the late 1960s to the early 1990s. The analysis reveals that shifts in evaluations of foreign policy and race-related policies help explain change in political trust for all three countries despite differences in the political systems. Moral issues, such as abortion, however, have no impact on political trust in any of the countries.     

THE OLD AND NEW GUARDS: A FACTOR IN THE LIBERALISATION OF AUSTRALIA'S RESTRICTIVE IMMIGRATION POLICY*

Abstract: Prior to the second world war, the White Australia policy had been secure as the foundation stone of Australia's immigration policy. In the post-war period, however, the policy came under increased critical scrutiny. The result was the gradual liberalisation of Australia's restrictive immigration policy. There are many factors which can be held accountable for the dismantling of the White Australia policy. A certain factor was the rise of a new educated professional generation in the post-war period. Their new positions in an expanding middle management environment enforced a desire to be well informed and responsible. As a consequence, the new generation found defects in national policy and the most visible was White Australia. This new generation called for a re-evaluation of, and alternatives to, the policy through the formation of public organisations and through their increasing power in Australian decision-making bodies, especially the public service and the major political parties.     

Vom strategischen Nutzen des Wissens für die Politikberatung

In recent years, the field of political consulting and policy advice has gained growing attention and, thus, has been subject of important debates regarding its key concepts and theoretical foundations. This paper sets out to defend the authors' original thesis which has been challenged in the course of these debates. We argue that, along with classical oneway modes of consultation, a new way of interaction between political decision makers and consultants has emerged. The knowledge deriving from these cooperative discourses is not merely an external source for the preparation and legitimation of political decisions. It is integral part of the policy process and may unfold its potential as long as it meets the standards of epistemic and political robustness.     

Voter responses to refugee arrivals: Effects of settlement policy

In this paper we leverage a sudden shift in refugee settlement policy to study the electoral consequences of refugee settlements. After the 2013 Norwegian parliamentary election, the newly elected right-wing government made a concerted effort to spread newly arrived immigrants across the country, with the consequence that some municipalities with limited experience in settling refugees accepted to do so. We propose that such policy changes have political consequences, increasing the salience of immigration issues and shifting voters’ preferences to the right. We further propose that successful refugee integration can move (parts of) the electorate to the left, with stronger political polarization as a possible effect of the policy change. Applying difference-in-differences techniques, we find no evidence of unidirectional shifts in voter sentiments, but support for the hypothesis of stronger political polarization.     

Public policy analysis in Washington and Ottawa

Policy analysis in the U.S. and Canada tends to follow the methods of systems analysis and takes into account variables relating to substantive matters as well as political and administrative constraints that governments face in pursuing different alternatives.Comparative analysis of the political effectiveness of the two governments in implementing the results of analysis indicates that Canada has built-in constitutional advantages. Comparative assessment of bureaucratic skills in policy analysis and policy implementation suggests that the American system is relatively weaker in terms of implementation, but relatively stronger in terms of policy analytical skills. This is followed by an assessment of the attempts made by the U.S. government to improve its policymaking structures through the setting up of the Domestic Council and the reorganized OMB, and the Canadian attempts to improve its policymaking capabilities through a reorganized Cabinet committee system and the strengthening of the Privy Council Office.The final section suggests that analysis of values and norms should be an integral part of policy analysis. The scope of policy analysis should be extended to include long-term economic and political analyses.     

Co‐production: Option or Obligation?

Co‐production is an idea being discussed in the international public management literature but less so in New Zealand and Australia. Co‐production rejects the idea of service delivery to passive users, proposing instead they be treated as active participants in the production of outcomes. As partners in delivery, users bring resources, skills and capabilities to their interactions with providers. Co‐production requires providers to share power and negotiate the interaction. There are strong managerial reasons for adopting co‐production to improve effectiveness and efficiency. But the political reasons for adopting co‐production are even stronger because of trends of many decades towards greater citizen participation. These reasons oblige public managers in Australasia to adopt co‐production in many fields of policy as part of the future.     

Newspapers and Budgeting: The Effects of Media Coverage on Local Expenditure Decisions

The media play an important role for the political agenda. It is less clear, however, how strong the media impact is on political decisions. This article pursues a different approach from the one commonly used in the media–policy research tradition. Instead of focusing on the relationship between the content of the media agenda and the political agenda, it is argued here that from a broader policy perspective, media pressure on the incumbents is a more relevant variable. Media pressure is measured as media competition and media coverage. Furthermore, the article investigates the effect of media variables on budgetary decisions in different spending areas, and compares the relationships between media pressure and policy under various economic, political and institutional conditions. This allows the authors to investigate which factors hinder and promote media influence on policy. The units of analysis are the Danish municipalities, which are similar political units with different newspaper coverage. Coverage by local newspapers is intense in some municipalities, but absent in others. As expected, the authors find that in municipalities with intensive coverage from local newspapers, local politicians do feel a stronger media pressure. However, when it comes to budgetary decisions, almost no observable effects of media pressure are found, either generally or in favourable political, economic or institutional settings.     

Sorry mates: Reconciliation and self-determination in Australian aboriginal health

In this article I examine the political relations between Aboriginal communities and government in the development of Australian Aboriginal health policy. How do government policymakers interpret the concept of Aboriginal self-determination? What does reconciliation mean in the context of Aboriginal health? The article is based on 12 months of ethnographic research in southeast Australia with key stakeholders in the Aboriginal community-controlled health sector as well key stakeholdes in regional, state, and national (Commonwealth) government. The research was a response to the call for anthropologists to engage in ethnographic studies of colonial relations.¹ I argue that although Australian health policy today is premised on community-government partnerships, contemporary relationships are still, fundamentally, rooted in and informed by Australia’s colonialist history with all of its attendant institutions, structures, and practices.     

Policy on innovation in Australia: Divergence in definitions,problems, and solutions

Innovation has joined the mainstream in many nations as governments search for new ways to tackle challenging societal and economic problems. But Australia is seen to be lagging on innovation policy. Is this related to how governments define innovation? What do they regard as the problem they are addressing? What proposed solutions follow from this? This paper examines how Australian governments have defined innovation over four decades, signalling their policy intentions about how to make the nation more innovative. Definitions of innovation are analysed using 79 Australian (national level) policy documents published from 1976 to 2019. Close reading of these documents suggests two main definitions: innovation as technology, and innovation as culture. Topic modelling uncovers more differentiated themes, shows how definitions change over time, and demonstrates an association between definitions and political parties in government. The divergent approaches suggest a lack of coherence and continuity to policy on innovation in Australia.

Points for practitioners

• Innovation has expanded and broadened in its definition and governments and policymakers have paid increasing attention to it.
• In Australia, there are two main definitions of innovation used in policy—one related to technology and one related to culture.
• The technology view of innovation can be further divided into a focus on businesses or a focus on research and development (R&D).
• Different innovation definitions, problems, and solutions dominate at different times, with Coalition governments tending to favour business and technology over culture, and Labor governments doing the opposite.
• There are divergent approaches to policy on innovation in Australia which suggest a lack of coherence and consistency in policy over the long term.

     

Churches as Societal Veto Players: Religious Influence in Actor-Centred Theories of Policy-Making

The article argues that the study of western democracies benefits from a conceptualisation of Christian churches as societal veto players characterised by three features: their power, which depends on their potential for mobilisation; their preferences, which can be deduced from churches' official statements and which are often outside the political spectrum; and their coherence, which determines the size of their indifference curve. Conceptualised as societal veto players, churches can be included in actor-centred theories of policy-making. Particular attention should be paid to veto points, church–state relations and religious parties, as these are the features of the political system that affect churches' behaviours. A comparative study of churches' roles in stem-cell policies illustrates the use of the concept. The study shows that the Catholic Church is a ‘stronger’ veto player than protestant churches, but that this stronger role can have paradoxical effects on the resulting policies and the policy process.     

The (ir)relevance of unemployment for labour market policy attitudes and welfare state attitudes

Typically, associations between being unemployed and policy attitudes are explained with reference to economic self-interest considerations of the unemployed. Preferences for labour market policies (LMP) and egalitarian preferences are the prime example and the focus of this study. Its aim is to challenge this causal self-interest argument: self-interest consistent associations of unemployment with policy preferences are neither necessarily driven by self-interest nor necessarily causal. To that end, this article first confronts the self-interest argument with a broader perspective on attitudes. Given that predispositions (e.g., value orientations) are stable and influence more specific policy attitudes, it is at least questionable whether people change their policy attitudes simply because they get laid off. Second, the article derives a non-causal argument behind associations between unemployment and policy attitudes, arguing that these might be spurious associations driven by individuals’ socioeconomic background. After all, the entire socioeconomic background of a person is simultaneously related to both the risk of getting unemployed (‘selection into unemployment’) and distinct political socialisation experiences from early childhood onwards. Third, this article uses methods inspired by a counterfactual account on causality to test the non-causal claims. Analyses are carried out using the fourth wave of the European Social Survey and applying entropy balancing to control for selection bias. In only two of the 31 analysed countries do unemployment effects on egalitarian orientations remain significant after controlling for selection bias. The same holds for effects on active LMP attitudes with the exception of six countries. Attitudes towards passive LMP are to some degree an exception since effects remain in a third of the countries. Robustness checks and Bayes factor replications showing evidence for the absence of unemployment effects support the general impression from these initial analyses. After discussing this article's results and limitations, its broader implications are considered. On the one hand, the article offers a new perspective on the conceptualisation and measurement of unemployment risk. On the other hand, its theoretical argument, as well as its treatment of the resulting selection bias, can be broadly applied. Thus, this article can contribute to many other research questions regarding the (ir)relevance of individual life events for political attitudes and political behaviour.     

反思刑法“严打“方针维护社会长治久安

近20年来,全国范围内统一组织开展了3次"严打"运动,社会上对"严打"方式和效果都有不同看法.文章对此进行了全面的分析,认为国家根据社会治安情况,在一个时期对犯罪采取严厉的打击方针是有理论和实践根据的.但是,"严打"必须是一贯性的方针,而不能是临时性的措施;应当在法治范围内进行,而不应该冲破法律的限制;同时,对刑罚的功能也应当有个客观正确的评价,国家不能过分依赖刑罚治理社会.     

Irregular immigrants in Australia and the United States — Rights,realities, and political mobilization

This article considers the gap between the universal promise of human rights and the reality of the rights enjoyed by irregular immigrants in liberal democracies such as Australia and the United States. Against the idea that stronger international rights enforcement mechanisms will automatically improve the position of irregular immigrants, it argues that international law currently provides a warrant for the way in which countries like Australia and the United States treat irregular immigrants. After developing this argument, the article explores how irregular immigrants might employ the language of rights more effectively in their political mobilizations.     

Leadership and Institutional Reform: Engineering Macroeconomic Policy Change in Australia

This article seeks to enhance the actor perspective on major policy reforms. It builds upon the literature on "policy entrepreneurs" and addresses its explanatory vagueness by specifying five hypotheses outlining the actions that proponents of major policy change need to take in order to be effective in forging departures from existing, path-dependent policies and to overcome entrenched opposition to reforms. These hypotheses on "reformist political leadership" (after Blondel) are applied to the four attempts to reform key aspects of macroeconomic policy in Australia under the first two Labor governments led by Robert J. Hawke.     

An exploratory case study focusing on the creation,and development of a new political brand: The case of Aam Aadmi Party

In the backdrop of India's rising prominence in BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), understanding of its political environment, electoral competition, and constituent parties with their political ideologies contesting to form government attracts immense interest from the researchers in political science, political marketing, and public policy. Although literatures in political marketing are more than two decades mostly carried out in developed democratic systems like the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, India as a posttransition democracy received relatively less attention. The article has been conceptualized in the context of 2014 Indian general elections Lok Sabha 2014 as an attempt to study application of political marketing principles in a cross‐cultural democracy. The author has probed the emergence of new political party Aam Aadmi Party riding on the success of Janlokpal (civil society movement), the marketing approach used by Aam Aadmi Party, essentially positioning and branding strategies, during the national elections and party institutionalization. Research strategy followed secondary research of published data for examining the new party creation from a marketing perspective.     

Political Involvement and the Development of Political Attitudes

Political socialization research so far has focused primarily on the direction of attitudes among children and youngsters. The preconditions for the development of political attitudes among these age groups have been neglected. In theoretical discussions cognitive development has been offered as a major prerequisite. In the article it is posited that political involvement is a second major prerequisite.
The effects of political involvement are examined with respect to four aspects of political attitudes among Danish school children: the ability to express attitudes, the correlation between indicators of a particular attitude, the stability of attitudes, and the correlation between different attitudes. Except for the stability of attitudes, results are clear. Political involvement is related to the formation of attitudes. The effect of political involvement is stronger than the effect of any of the traditional socio-economic variables ordinarily considered in socialization research.