The Howard Government: The Extent to which Public Attitudes Influenced Australia's Federal Policy Mix

This article focuses on the interaction between government policy and public attitudes in order to explain why the Howard government was reasonably pragmatic given that it maintained enough popular support to win four successive federal elections from 1996, and why such a relationship is crucial to evaluating policy trends in Australia's liberal democracy in terms of understanding both policy possibilities and limitations no matter how flawed or divisive certain policies may appear to be.     

PARENT EDUCATION AFTER SEPARATION/DIVORCE

As part of a Canadian best practices evaluation of parent education for divorcing parents, this study assessed program effects on postseparation parenting. Statistically significant changes from pretest to 4 to 6 month follow-up were evident on all scales related to conflict between former partners, whereas changes related to positive and cooperative parenting were less conclusive. All parents experienced a reduction in conflict that places children in the middle of the conflict by the follow-up stage. Low-moderate-conflict parents experienced more increases in adaptive parenting.     

Reactions to Perceived Fairness: The Impact of Mortality Salience and Self-Esteem on Ratings of Negative Affect

In correspondence with terror management theory, the findings of two experiments show that reminders of death lead to stronger effects of perceived fairness on ratings of negative affect. Furthermore, in line with the theory's self-esteem mechanism, results of Experiment 1 suggest that state self-esteem may mediate this relationship between mortality salience and fairness. In further correspondence with the self-esteem mechanism, findings of Experiment 2 reveal that introducing an activity (after reminders of death and before the fairness manipulation) with which people can reaffirm positive conceptions of themselves leads people to react less strongly to variations in fairness than not introducing such a self-affirmation activity. These findings suggest that people react especially strongly to perceived fairness when they are in need for a boost in their self-esteem. Implications for the psychology of fairness are discussed.     

How (Not) to Form a Progressive Alliance: Lessons from the History of Left Cooperation

Britain’s political parties can be divided into two blocs: a ‘progressive bloc’ of parties on the left/centre‐left, and a ‘reactionary bloc’ of those on the right/centre‐right. In three of the last four general elections, the progressive bloc won an appreciably larger share of the popular vote than its reactionary rival. Yet its greater internal fragmentation has been repeatedly punished under first past the post, leading to what is now over a decade of Conservative‐led governments. This has prompted growing pressure to form a ‘progressive alliance’ between Labour, Liberal Democrats, Greens, and their Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish nationalist competitors. This article sheds a historical and international light on these demands, examining the difficulties other similar efforts at progressive cooperation have faced across the world. It considers how progressive alliances have previously sought to overcome geographical, ideological, and social divides between their constituent members, and draws some salutary lessons for British progressives today.     

Intersectionality and women's political citizenship: the case of Mauritius

This paper analyses the impact of intersectionality and multiple identities on women's political citizenship in Mauritius. Mauritius is commonly known as a ‘rainbow nation’ with its multiethnic population marked by ethnic or communal divisions. Communalism dominates the Mauritian political system and institutions, intensifying during elections when the different communal groups compete for representation in parliament. The paper argues that the strong emphasis attributed to ethnic and communal representation by the Mauritian political system and structures marginalises women's political citizenship. Political candidates are often sponsored by religious and sociocultural organisations that are male dominated whereas the women's lobby is weak in comparison to the communal lobby. The paper thus contends that the communal dimension in Mauritian politics carries a significant gendered dimension. Communalism has made the political system very resistant to change, despite the fact that it marginalises women.     

Russia’s local government in the process of authoritarian regime transformation: incentives for the survival of local democracy

In 2003, the authorities of Russia launched a comprehensive reform of local government. One of the elements of this reform was the replacement of the previously predominant form of local government, characterised by the presence of directly elected mayors, with the council-manager model. While originally motivated largely by the desire to enhance the efficacy of local government, the reform was implemented concurrently with Russia’s transition to electoral authoritarianism, with the council-manager model emerging as a major tool of authoritarian transformation. This study uses the data from 79 capitals of Russia’s regions in order to identify those factors that facilitated the survival of directly elected mayors in these cities. The analysis reveals that the past trajectories of regime transitions at the regional level in the form of elite settlement, economic resourcefulness, and the lack of politically motivated deference to the federal authorities contributed to the survival of local democracy in Russia.     

Recalibrating social protection: Electoral competition and the new partisan politics of the welfare state

This article investigates the new party politics of welfare states with a particular focus on electoral competition. The argument is that welfare state politics are no longer just about more or less, but involve trade-offs among ‘new’ versus ‘old’ social rights, and hence social investment versus social consumption. However, party priorities on these issues are highly dependent upon their electoral situation. As electoral competition becomes more intense, parties focus more on vote maximisation than on their traditional policy goals. For left parties, this means focusing more on social investment, which appeals to their growing constituency of progressive sociocultural professionals, and less on defending the traditional income maintenance programmes favoured by their core blue-collar voters. Centre-right parties, on the other hand, should hesitate to retrench old social rights when electoral competition intensifies because they need to prioritise their appeal to culturally conservative working-class voters over their traditional fiscally conservative policy profiles. Using a new dataset and a recently published measure of electoral competitiveness, the article shows that as electoral competition intensifies, left governments are willing to prioritise social investment by reducing pension rights generosity in order to expand programmes for new social risks, while centre-right governments by contrast avoid retrenchment of pension rights and pension expenditures. The findings demonstrate that this relationship is moderated by the presence of a credible radical right challenger, which increases the electoral risk of welfare state recalibration.     

社会治理创新的结果差异研究--基于多项目实践过程的实证分析

从主体-客体分析视角出发,构建地方政府、社会力量、创新项目三个维度的社会治理创新结果影响因素研究模型,通过采用多值定性比较分析方法对30个社会治理创新案例进行分析,探究影响社会治理创新结果差异的因素及路径模式。研究发现:社会治理创新结果差异是多种因素的交叠效应;项目影响力是社会治理创新结果差异的基础性条件;公民参与对社会治理创新结果差异影响不显著;稳定存续型、内生动力持久型、阶段性目标主导型和治理效果不佳型是影响社会治理创新结果差异的主要路径模式。     

Is the Future of Electoral Reform Local?

The Electoral Reform Society has recently published two reports putting the case for electoral reform in local government. These suggest acceptance, in the wake of defeat in the 2011 Alternative Vote referendum, that the group's ultimate goal of change to the Westminster electoral system is unlikely to be fulfilled soon and that a more gradual strategy is therefore needed. This paper examines this shift by asking three questions. First, is Westminster electoral reform really a dead letter? Second, is local electoral reform more likely—and, if so, just how much more likely? Third, would local electoral reform matter in itself?