Interpretive Political Science as a Tool for Understanding Policy Making in Practice (Sarah Ball, Melbourne)
Seminar
Policy-making is an ongoing process of negotiation and mediation of meaning but this side of policy often goes unnoticed, made up of ‘hundreds of practical judgments, the everyday, taken-for-granted-routines and practices’ (Wagenaar). This research draws on key concepts from Bevir and Rhodes’s…
Authoritarianism, Elections, and Partisan Sorting
Seminar
There has been a great deal of recent attention to democratic backsliding and growing authoritarian around the world. What’s missing, however, is an account of how authoritarianism can become a major determinant of voting in democratic nations. Using three decades of election survey data in the U.S…
Precolonial states and postcolonial democratisation
Seminar
Existing studies suggest that historical states have been an impediment to democratisation because they resisted the colonial transmission of nascent democratic institutions. However, I argue that existing theories do not explain democratisation in “late-decolonized states” well, which were…
Book Launch: 'The Radical Jewish Tradition: Revolutionaries, resistance fighters and firebrands'
Book launch
Before the Second World War, the majority of Jews were working class and part of a wider struggle alongside their non-Jewish comrades on the left. The book celebrates Jewish radicalism from the Tsarist Empire to Poland and Germany, from London to New York. To illuminate this background, the issue…
High Court & Supreme Court oral argument: Interruptions, interventions, judicial strategy, & the effect of institutional rules
Seminar
This presentation compares the apex courts of Australia and the United States. There are a number of highly significant institutional differences between the two courts, including the powers of the Chief Justice, length of oral argument, and variable panel sizes. Yet, there are similar patterns in…
A China Shock or a Multinational Shock? The Role of MNC Value Chains in the Trade Shock
Seminar
Countries do not directly trade, firms do. Multinational firms (MNCs) account for most of the value of global imports and exports. How do MNC trade and investment behaviors in emerging markets affect electoral outcomes in advanced economies? To address this question, we examine the ownership…
Reciprocal Communication and Political Deliberation on Twitter
Seminar
Social media platforms such as Twitter/X and Reddit are increasingly important for political communication: opinion leaders and influencers use social media for one-to-many communication, but these spaces also enable ordinary citizens to form opinions by engaging in one-to-one discussion about…