Advancing Genocide Forecasting: New Definition, Methods, and Forecasts. The project intends to develop a new method of forecasting to improve the international community’s and Australia's ability to anticipate and prevent genocide. The project is designed to build on work in the Atrocity Forecasting Project since 2009, and to bring together political science and computer science. To address well-known problems the project plans to reconceptualise genocide as extreme targeted mass killing, increa ....Advancing Genocide Forecasting: New Definition, Methods, and Forecasts. The project intends to develop a new method of forecasting to improve the international community’s and Australia's ability to anticipate and prevent genocide. The project is designed to build on work in the Atrocity Forecasting Project since 2009, and to bring together political science and computer science. To address well-known problems the project plans to reconceptualise genocide as extreme targeted mass killing, increasing definitional clarity and data reliability. Combining a better concept with cutting-edge computer science forecasting approaches, the project aims to produce new annual forecasts, pushing accuracy further. Expected project outcomes will provide new understanding and a better tool for genocide prevention.Read moreRead less
Applying satellite luminosity data to analyse the redistributive aspects of corruption and rent-seeking. This project applies satellite luminosity data as a proxy for regional economic activity to analyse the redistributive effects of political rent-seeking, corruption and the shadow economy. This project will identify the beneficiaries of rent-seeking, the sources of these rents and political institutions that reduce rent-seeking activities.
Bridling Autocrats: Limiting Executive Power in Authoritarian Polities. This project will analyse the dynamics of elite politics in authoritarian polities, focusing in particular upon how members of the elite try to constrain would-be dictators. By showing the different patterns of elite politics in different types of authoritarian systems, the project will interrogate one of the most curious aspects of contemporary international politics, why so many authoritarian regimes have been able to stab ....Bridling Autocrats: Limiting Executive Power in Authoritarian Polities. This project will analyse the dynamics of elite politics in authoritarian polities, focusing in particular upon how members of the elite try to constrain would-be dictators. By showing the different patterns of elite politics in different types of authoritarian systems, the project will interrogate one of the most curious aspects of contemporary international politics, why so many authoritarian regimes have been able to stabilise themselves in an era commonly seen as being one of democratic advance. Understanding authoritarian elite politics and their implications for regime survival is of significant policy interest.Read moreRead less
Strategies for the stabilisation of authoritarian rule: Russia in comparative perspective. This project will explore why authoritarian rule has been consolidated in post-Soviet Russia. By analysing this in a comparative context, the project will also explore why so many countries are characterised by non-democratic political systems in this so-called age of democracy.
'Political' public servants: challenges, risks and rewards. The current ministerial and parliamentary staff system in Australia, established by the Member of Parliament Staff Act 1984, created a mechanism by which public servants can disengage from the public service while working as ministerial and parliamentary staffers, and later re-engage with the public service. This project will explore the phenomenon of the so-called 'political public servant' and the nature of impartiality and partisansh ....'Political' public servants: challenges, risks and rewards. The current ministerial and parliamentary staff system in Australia, established by the Member of Parliament Staff Act 1984, created a mechanism by which public servants can disengage from the public service while working as ministerial and parliamentary staffers, and later re-engage with the public service. This project will explore the phenomenon of the so-called 'political public servant' and the nature of impartiality and partisanship, asking whether these attributes are easily adopted and discarded or whether in fact they coexist within a subset of 'hybrid' public servants.Read moreRead less
Deliberative democracy in the public sphere: achieving deliberative outcomes in mass publics. This project will systematically explore ways in which citizens can engage more deeply with complex policy issues without the need to resort to massive expenditure on running multiple deliberative forums, such as citizens' assemblies. It will identify the language is needed to deliberatively inform and the vehicles for providing that information.
What Australia Thinks: A History of Australian Public Opinion Polls. Opinion polls are an increasingly prominent and problematic part of politics in modern societies. This project is expected to produce an Australian history that documents and explains the diverse and changing methods, priorities and styles of the pollsters since polling was introduced to Australia in 1941. It aims to examine the growing media coverage of the polls, their impact, and the controversies they have engendered as wel ....What Australia Thinks: A History of Australian Public Opinion Polls. Opinion polls are an increasingly prominent and problematic part of politics in modern societies. This project is expected to produce an Australian history that documents and explains the diverse and changing methods, priorities and styles of the pollsters since polling was introduced to Australia in 1941. It aims to examine the growing media coverage of the polls, their impact, and the controversies they have engendered as well as the performances of polls in predicting voter behaviour. Combining archival research, oral histories and quantitative methods, the project aims to enrich our understanding of the nature, consequences and history of polling nationally and transnationally. It also aims to produce a database containing over 75 years of poll results.Read moreRead less
Parties and Participation: Evolving Australian Party Membership. The project aims to provide new insights into how political party membership is evolving and how citizens and parties engage with each other today. The decline of party memberships is usually equated with the death of parties as participatory organisations and the erosion of their crucial role as vehicles for democratic linkage. Applying a new theoretical framework integrating individual, party and state perspectives, this project ....Parties and Participation: Evolving Australian Party Membership. The project aims to provide new insights into how political party membership is evolving and how citizens and parties engage with each other today. The decline of party memberships is usually equated with the death of parties as participatory organisations and the erosion of their crucial role as vehicles for democratic linkage. Applying a new theoretical framework integrating individual, party and state perspectives, this project plans to examine how membership is structured, how it is practised, what it means today and why membership is declining. Combining organisational analysis with survey and focus group data in an innovative mixed-methods research design, it aims to evaluate what parties can do to secure their future role in Australian democracy and to foster democratic participation through new modes of partisan engagement.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE130100309
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$372,065.00
Summary
The politics of party reform: who benefits from the democratisation of political parties? Political parties are currently implementing internal reforms to address public disaffection and membership decline, but with relatively little success. To find out why, this research analyses who or what drives these reforms, who benefits from them and whether they are responsive to citizens' demands and how people want to engage with parties today.
Crowdsourcing political engagement. This project aims to examine the transformation of political activism and citizen-led campaigning in the digital age in Australia. Many arguments have been made concerning the way 21st century ‘digital disruption’ is transforming our everyday lives. The project plans to focus on how crowd-sourced forms of political engagement are facilitated by digital tools that let citizens share political information and calls to action. In particular, it aims to identify t ....Crowdsourcing political engagement. This project aims to examine the transformation of political activism and citizen-led campaigning in the digital age in Australia. Many arguments have been made concerning the way 21st century ‘digital disruption’ is transforming our everyday lives. The project plans to focus on how crowd-sourced forms of political engagement are facilitated by digital tools that let citizens share political information and calls to action. In particular, it aims to identify the extent and character of crowd-sourcing e-tactics: petitioning, boycotting, buycotting and micro-donations. The project intends to adjudicate on the proposition that crowd-sourced means of political engagement offer a qualitatively different type of political engagement.Read moreRead less