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…
Repression, Religion, and Regime Loyalty in Nazi Germany
Lecture/seminar
Measuring regime support in closed autocracies is challenging due to preference falsification and censorship. Professor Alexander De Juan introduces a novel behavioral measure of regime loyalty based on expressions of allegiance in 600,000 soldier obituaries published in Nazi Germany (1939–1944).…
Ambition Without Revolution: The Global South Emerging Power’s Pursuit of Influence Inside the Liberal International Order (LIO)
Lecture/seminar
This presentation aims to investigate the motivation-behaviour-outcome dynamics of the Global South emerging powers’ approach toward the Liberal International Order (LIO). The rise of the Global South has a different connotational affiliation, such as ‘Rise of the Rest’ or ‘Revisionism’. Lately,…
Undergraduate Political Science Curriculum Design in Five Democracies
Lecture/seminar
Most published research on political science curriculum design focuses on the United States, leaving unclear whether findings generalise internationally. This paper analyses 218 programs at 140 universities across five English-speaking democracies: Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and the…