Political participation in Australia: contingency in the behaviour and attitudes of citizens

ABSTRACT

This article explores the idea that a citizen's relationship with their polity is contingent on and liable to change under certain conditions. The assessment of the prospects for political reform requires an understanding of the contingent nature of political engagement. Drawing from a survey of a representative sample of Australians three insights emerge. First, although many Australian citizens are not directly engaged in political actions beyond voting most do present a ‘standby’ role that suggests potential to engage. Second, willingness to shift patterns of engagement may depend on general orientations towards the polity and we find extensive evidence of negative understanding of the political system as well as more positive endorsement of representative political practices. Our third finding is that citizens might be prepared to change their relationship with the polity depending on the kind of politics that is offered; hence providing a creative space for political reform.

本文对一种观点——公民与政治的关系取决于具体环境的变化——做了分析。评估政治改革的前景需要了解政治参与因时就地的特点。作者根据对澳大利亚人一个有代表性样本的调查，得到了三个认识。第一，尽管许多澳大利亚公民并不直接参与选举之外的政治活动，但大多数人都选择了旁观，这是潜在的参与。第二，转变参与方式的意愿取决于一般的政治取向，我们发现很多人对政治制度持负面理解而对代表性政治实践持正面肯定的态度。第三，公民是否准备改变其与政治的关系，要看他们面对的是哪类政治，因此，这其中也就包含了政治革新的空间。

KEYWORDS:

• political participation
• representative democracy
• stealth democracy
• sunshine democracy

Notes on contributors

Mark Evans is Professor and Director of the Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis, University of Canberra.

Gerry Stoker is Professor of Governance at the Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis at the University of Canberra.

Notes

1 For historical overviews of the evidence for Australia, see McAllister (2011), Pietsch, Graetz, and McAllister (2010), Marsh and Miller (2012) and Brown (2012).

2 For the comparative evidence, see Pharr and Putnam (2000), Dalton (2008), Stoker (2006), Torcal and Montero (2006), Hay (2007), Norris (2011), Marsh and Miller (2012) and Papadopoulos (2013).