Persuasion and resistance: A survey experiment on messaging for and against One Nation
Lecture/seminar
Since the May 2025 federal election, One Nation's primary vote has risen sharply across published polling. If an election were held today, it would likely be the second-largest bloc in the House of Representatives. What drives this surge — and what, if anything, suppresses it — remains contested,…
Does U.S. Nuclear Arms Control Diplomacy Affect Allied Perceptions of U.S. Extended Deterrence? Evidence from Cross-National Survey Experiments
Lecture/seminar
This project explores how U.S. nuclear arms control diplomacy with nuclear-armed adversaries—such as Russia and China—affects the credibility of extended nuclear deterrence in the eyes of U.S. allies. Although arms control is widely viewed as a critical tool for managing nuclear risks between…
Artificial Intelligence, False Information, Trust in Elections and Satisfaction with Democracy in Australia
Lecture/seminar
The proliferation of false information and the rapid diffusion of generative artificial intelligence (AI) pose mounting challenges to democracy. Deepfakes, synthetic news, and AI-powered personalised political advertising are reshaping information ecosystems, raising concerns about how citizens…
Democratic Commitment and the Partisan Cost of Electoral Accountability
Lecture/seminar
Why do electorates often fail to hold transgressing electoral officials accountable? Two leading explanations point to either a lack of democratic commitment or to the partisan costs of acting on such commitments, but rarely separate these mechanisms. Bermond Scoggins and Marc Jacob develop a…
One year into Trump 2.0
Panel discussion
Join us in this discussion to unpack the wild ride of Trump’s second term and what’s next on the political rollercoaster.One year into Donald Trump’s second presidency, The Australian National University will host a timely panel examining what Trump 2.0 means for American democracy and the…
Authoritarian Consolidation in Times of Crisis: Venezuela under Nicolás Maduro… and now Delcy Rodríguez
Lecture/seminar
This presentation first introduces the book Authoritarianism Consolidation in Times of Crisis: Venezuela under Nicolás Maduro, edited by John Polga-Hecimovich and Raúl Sánchez Urribarrí. Published in April 2025, the book adopts a comparative perspective, focusing on how authoritarian…
Clarity of Alternatives: How Perceived Party Policy Differences Shape Economic Voting
Lecture/seminar
Economic voting theory posits that voters reward or punish governments based on their economic performance. While clarity of responsibility has been shown to condition this relationship, less attention has been paid to how perceived policy differentiation between parties shapes it. Dr Thiago da…