Hiding in Plain Sight: 'Associated Entities' and Australian Democracy. Associated Entities (AEs) are organisations that are formally linked to political parties. This project aims to examine how AEs interact with Australian democracy by investigating their impact on elections, the law, and party system dynamics. This project expects to generate new knowledge about the impact of these nearly 200 key political actors, with a particular focus on how they are able to elude significant scrutiny of th ....Hiding in Plain Sight: 'Associated Entities' and Australian Democracy. Associated Entities (AEs) are organisations that are formally linked to political parties. This project aims to examine how AEs interact with Australian democracy by investigating their impact on elections, the law, and party system dynamics. This project expects to generate new knowledge about the impact of these nearly 200 key political actors, with a particular focus on how they are able to elude significant scrutiny of their activities. Expected outcomes include a new typology of AEs, a new financial index to measure their impact, and proposals to improve their regulation. The key benefits generated include: a strengthened campaign finance regime, and enhanced transparency and integrity to Australia's democracy.Read moreRead less
Australian Parliamentary Speech: How Deliberative? How Representative? . This project aims to assess the Australian Parliament’s representativeness and quality of debate from 1901-2020. It expects to generate new tools and knowledge about the development and workings of parliament using innovative quantitative text analysis methods. Expected outcomes include analysis of the relationship between representation (class, gender etc) and policy outcomes, an information-based measure of parliamentary ....Australian Parliamentary Speech: How Deliberative? How Representative? . This project aims to assess the Australian Parliament’s representativeness and quality of debate from 1901-2020. It expects to generate new tools and knowledge about the development and workings of parliament using innovative quantitative text analysis methods. Expected outcomes include analysis of the relationship between representation (class, gender etc) and policy outcomes, an information-based measure of parliamentary speech and a standardised dataset of Hansard. This should provide significant benefits to the scholarly community by removing cost and time barriers and build capacity for international collaborations. The objective information generated can contribute to public discussion about the efficacy of parliamentary debate.Read moreRead less
Populism’s Heartlands: Place, Identity, and Localism in Populist Politics. This project aims to investigate how populism intersects with localism through systematic, comparative, and in-depth empirical study of three populist parties inextricably associated with ‘heartlands’ in Australia, Germany and Spain. This project expects to generate new knowledge about how populists utilise the language of localism and how people’s attachment to place shapes their support for populists. Expected outcomes ....Populism’s Heartlands: Place, Identity, and Localism in Populist Politics. This project aims to investigate how populism intersects with localism through systematic, comparative, and in-depth empirical study of three populist parties inextricably associated with ‘heartlands’ in Australia, Germany and Spain. This project expects to generate new knowledge about how populists utilise the language of localism and how people’s attachment to place shapes their support for populists. Expected outcomes of the project include a new understanding of how populism and localism affect one another; and identification of how right and left populist support are differently affected by community engagement and participation. Benefits include the identification of local interventions to lessen the appeal of exclusionary populisms.Read moreRead less
Government Popularity, Political Responsiveness and Democracy in Australia. This project aims to understand what affects government popularity and how this shapes the health of democracy. What citizens are concerned about and how their concerns are satisfactorily addressed is central to an effective democracy and to responsible government. The project expects to generate new knowledge about the operation of democracy by identifying the factors that shape government popularity and how and in what ....Government Popularity, Political Responsiveness and Democracy in Australia. This project aims to understand what affects government popularity and how this shapes the health of democracy. What citizens are concerned about and how their concerns are satisfactorily addressed is central to an effective democracy and to responsible government. The project expects to generate new knowledge about the operation of democracy by identifying the factors that shape government popularity and how and in what ways governments respond to them. Expected outcomes include a comprehensive understanding of how democracy in Australia functions, which should provide the benefit of insight into how Australian democracy might be reformed to better meet the expectations of the public at a time of declining public trust in politics. Read moreRead less
Strengthening political representation in an era of democratic change. This project aims to understand and strengthen how politicians represent their constituents. As trust in politics declines, there is more pressure on politicians to engage with citizens. Understanding how these demands are reshaping the representative work of politicians is crucial to building trust and legitimacy in modern democracies. By interviewing and observing Australian politicians, this research will build important k ....Strengthening political representation in an era of democratic change. This project aims to understand and strengthen how politicians represent their constituents. As trust in politics declines, there is more pressure on politicians to engage with citizens. Understanding how these demands are reshaping the representative work of politicians is crucial to building trust and legitimacy in modern democracies. By interviewing and observing Australian politicians, this research will build important knowledge about the dynamics, demands and practices of contemporary representation. A national and international audit of novel ways to engage constituents will lead to valuable resources that politicians and citizens can use to assess and improve representative relationships, enabling stronger democratic institutions.
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Global Governing Gaps and Accountability Traps for Solar Energy and Storage. The climate crisis has spurred the global race for renewables, dramatically increasing solar energy and lithium-ion storage battery use. This project investigates the global governance of these technologies environmental and social impacts. This is significant because regulation lags technology: there are governance 'gaps' for protecting
communities, ecosystems, and developing states, and accountability 'traps' that pri ....Global Governing Gaps and Accountability Traps for Solar Energy and Storage. The climate crisis has spurred the global race for renewables, dramatically increasing solar energy and lithium-ion storage battery use. This project investigates the global governance of these technologies environmental and social impacts. This is significant because regulation lags technology: there are governance 'gaps' for protecting
communities, ecosystems, and developing states, and accountability 'traps' that prioritise governance processes over outcomes. The project examines how solar and storage production, use, and disposal is governed and whether governance initiatives can account for harm. The expected outcomes are to determine whether global governance can regulate renewables, with benefit for improving global protection rules.Read moreRead less
Civilisationist Mobilisation, Digital Technologies and Social Cohesion. Civilisational populist rulers polarise societies mainly along religious lines. They also interfere with their emigrants, mobilising supporters against other expatriates. This project aims to advance knowledge of authoritarian states' transnational influence on social cohesion and inter-group conflict. By studying Islamist and Hindutva civilisationist mobilisations, their reach into their emigrants via digital technologies, ....Civilisationist Mobilisation, Digital Technologies and Social Cohesion. Civilisational populist rulers polarise societies mainly along religious lines. They also interfere with their emigrants, mobilising supporters against other expatriates. This project aims to advance knowledge of authoritarian states' transnational influence on social cohesion and inter-group conflict. By studying Islamist and Hindutva civilisationist mobilisations, their reach into their emigrants via digital technologies, and their impact on Turkish and Indian groups in Australia, the project aims to assist policy makers and community groups by generating conceptual frameworks, benchmarking data, and recommendations for making policies to deal with this phenomenon's negative effects and for developing intervention strategiesRead moreRead less
Mapping & Harnessing Public Mistrust: Constitutional Values Survey 2023-27. Declining public trust is well recognised as a problem of democratic government, including in Australia. However solutions are more elusive, confounded by the reality that mistrust and distrust play not just negative, but positive roles in our existing political and constitutional traditions. This project aims to be the first to comprehensively map the positive values of mistrust in citizen political attitudes and experi ....Mapping & Harnessing Public Mistrust: Constitutional Values Survey 2023-27. Declining public trust is well recognised as a problem of democratic government, including in Australia. However solutions are more elusive, confounded by the reality that mistrust and distrust play not just negative, but positive roles in our existing political and constitutional traditions. This project aims to be the first to comprehensively map the positive values of mistrust in citizen political attitudes and experience, building on previous Constitutional Values Surveys (2008-21) to test new measures of the content of trust including a first-ever longitudinal study of changing trust over time. The results will inform concrete solutions to three key policy reform dilemmas, providing better answers for sustaining public trust overall.
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Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE230101175
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$429,744.00
Summary
Contested Geographies of Terrestrial Carbon. National pledges to tackle climate change rely heavily on land to sequester and store carbon. How competing ideas about land use are negotiated and institutionalised in the climate regime is critical to effective, just and legitimate climate responses. This project aims to explain the political economy of the science and policy of land-based climate mitigation, generating new knowledge on who promotes carbon sinks and why. The expected project outcome ....Contested Geographies of Terrestrial Carbon. National pledges to tackle climate change rely heavily on land to sequester and store carbon. How competing ideas about land use are negotiated and institutionalised in the climate regime is critical to effective, just and legitimate climate responses. This project aims to explain the political economy of the science and policy of land-based climate mitigation, generating new knowledge on who promotes carbon sinks and why. The expected project outcomes include guidelines to advance more just and sustainable land use through improved carbon accounting practices, using an innovative approach that combines stakeholder interviews, discourse analysis, and expert elicitation. These outcomes will notably benefit rural communities and farmers.Read moreRead less
Global Governance, Eco-Justice, and International Grievance Mechanisms. Despite their global use, there is no evidence that grievance mechanisms provide remedies for people and ecosystems harmed by international development projects. This project aims to investigate whether grievance mechanisms provide eco-justice, where communities seek to be recognised and participate, can lead full lives safe from undue environmental risk, in ecosystems that can regenerate and repair. This is significant give ....Global Governance, Eco-Justice, and International Grievance Mechanisms. Despite their global use, there is no evidence that grievance mechanisms provide remedies for people and ecosystems harmed by international development projects. This project aims to investigate whether grievance mechanisms provide eco-justice, where communities seek to be recognised and participate, can lead full lives safe from undue environmental risk, in ecosystems that can regenerate and repair. This is significant given increasing environmental conflict and deaths at project sites around the world. Examining over 430 original claims to the Multilateral Development Banks’ mechanisms over 25 years, and four case studies, the project aims to determine whether the mechanisms deliver eco-justice, and can improve global rules for remedy.Read moreRead less