The science of welfare: Adam Smith's political thought. Understanding Adam Smith's political thought helps us to understand how liberal subjects live and are governed today. Little has been written about Smith's political thought, therefore this project offers the first complete account of his politics and his unique science- and welfare-based approach to statecraft.
Electronic Voting and Electoral Inclusion: Implications for South Australia. South Australia is unique in having a highly concentrated urban population, a large Aboriginal population living in remote regions, and non-compulsory voting enrolment. The voting inclusion of all South Australians therefore presents a number of challenges. The project explores the potential of electronic voting to improve voting access among residents of isolated and remote regions of South Australia. Levels and cau ....Electronic Voting and Electoral Inclusion: Implications for South Australia. South Australia is unique in having a highly concentrated urban population, a large Aboriginal population living in remote regions, and non-compulsory voting enrolment. The voting inclusion of all South Australians therefore presents a number of challenges. The project explores the potential of electronic voting to improve voting access among residents of isolated and remote regions of South Australia. Levels and causes of non-voting will be established using qualitative and quantitative research methods. Results will be assessed against a comprehensive literature analysis of the use of eVoting world-wide. Finally, recommendations for future directions will be made.Read moreRead less
Is Compulsory Voting Defensible? If it can be demonstrated that, under the right conditions, compulsory voting is an acceptable solution to the escalating problem of declining turnout in industrialised, voluntary-voting systems, then the Australian regime will provide the ideal starting point from which to produce guidelines for the successful adoption and management of compulsory voting. Since Australia has, arguably, the best managed and tolerated compulsory voting regime in the world, the pro ....Is Compulsory Voting Defensible? If it can be demonstrated that, under the right conditions, compulsory voting is an acceptable solution to the escalating problem of declining turnout in industrialised, voluntary-voting systems, then the Australian regime will provide the ideal starting point from which to produce guidelines for the successful adoption and management of compulsory voting. Since Australia has, arguably, the best managed and tolerated compulsory voting regime in the world, the project has potentially enormous national significance in terms of publicising, promoting and exporting our electoral expertise. The project will also position Australian scholarship at the forefront of rapidly expanding global interest in the practice.Read moreRead less
A Colonial and Conceptual History of Asymmetric Warfare and Security. War and terrorism feature prominently in popular, political and scholarly perceptions of Australia's colonial past and its geopolitical future. Our understanding of what constitutes war and terrorism emerged from a long colonial and conceptual history of Western international and political thought. The national and community benefits of this program of research derive precisely from its ability to link the uniqueness of Austra ....A Colonial and Conceptual History of Asymmetric Warfare and Security. War and terrorism feature prominently in popular, political and scholarly perceptions of Australia's colonial past and its geopolitical future. Our understanding of what constitutes war and terrorism emerged from a long colonial and conceptual history of Western international and political thought. The national and community benefits of this program of research derive precisely from its ability to link the uniqueness of Australia's colonial history to its global context, and to use both to provide new insight into current debates on terrorism and security that are integral to Australia's capacity to interpret itself to the rest of the world.Read moreRead less
The First 'Liberals': Stoicism in the Enlightenment. This project will provide the first systematic study of the profound yet hitherto under-appreciated influence of classical Stoicism on the political thought of the European Enlightenment, particularly liberal thought. It will show that the Stoics provided the first properly developed theory of personal rights and were the first to successfully promulgate the values of universalism, impartiality, egalitarianism, tolerance and cosmopolitanism. I ....The First 'Liberals': Stoicism in the Enlightenment. This project will provide the first systematic study of the profound yet hitherto under-appreciated influence of classical Stoicism on the political thought of the European Enlightenment, particularly liberal thought. It will show that the Stoics provided the first properly developed theory of personal rights and were the first to successfully promulgate the values of universalism, impartiality, egalitarianism, tolerance and cosmopolitanism. It will then trace the transmission and interpretation of such values in early modern thought and demonstrate the manner in which Enlightenment figures like Locke, Smith, Wollstonecraft, Kant and Jefferson were directly influenced by the emancipatory political thought of the Stoics. Read moreRead less
An Intellectual History of Political Corruption. The project will bring expert historical and conceptual knowledge to bear on the shortcomings of current policy debates, thereby suggesting new possibilities for re-defining and clarifying the problem of corruption and the meaning of good governance.