Young adults and politics: investigating factors influencing voter decision making

Many parallels have been drawn between politics and marketing; however, the application of consumer behavior decision making to voter decision making is still an important research focus. Results from general elections around the world show that the turnout among young adults tends to be lower than in the general electorate, suggesting low interest and involvement in politics. This qualitative study investigated low-involvement decision making of young adult voters in Australia. Data were compiled from semistructured face-to-face interviews conducted with 29 young adults to explore their views, and NVivo software was used to assist with thematic analysis. Findings suggest that with low-involvement voter decision making, perceived knowledge and passive information seeking are important factors. Exposure to the media also plays an important role, and young voters rely more on traditional media such as newspapers and television than on social media for current political information.

Results from Australia's 2014 report card on physical activity for children and youth

Background: 

Neoliberalism, economic restructuring and policy change : precarious housing and precarious employment in Australia

Housing, employment and economic conditions in many nations have changed greatly over the past decades. This paper explores the ways in which changing housing markets, economic conditions and government policies have affected vulnerable individuals and households, using Australia as a case study. The paper finds a substantial number and proportion of low income Australians have been affected by housing and employment that is insecure with profound implications for vulnerability. Importantly, the paper suggests that in Australia the economic gains achieved as a consequence of mining-related growth in the early 2000s were translated as greater employment security for some on low incomes, but not all. Enhanced access to employment in this period was differentiated by gender, with women largely missing out on the growth in jobs. For the population as a whole, employment gains were offset by increased housing insecurity as accommodation costs rose. The paper finds low income lone parents were especially vulnerable because they were unable to benefit from a buoyant labour market over the decade 2000–2010. They were also adversely affected by national policy changes intended to encourage engagement with paid work. The outcomes identified for Australia are likely to have been mirrored in other nations, especially those that have embraced, or been forced to adopt, more restrictive welfare and income support regimes.

Retrials of persons acquitted of indictable offences in England and Australia: exceptions to the rule against double jeopardy

Jury directions in relation to the issue of consent in trials of sexual offence cases are mandated in two jurisdictions in Australia (Victoria and the Northern Territory). The Australian Law Reform Commission, in conjunction with the New South Wales Law Reform Commission, has recommended that provisions similar to those in Victoria should be contained in relevant legislation in all States and Territories. However, a recent series of cases in Victoria has revealed significant problems in relation to the mandatory jury directions. These difficulties have generated increasingly elaborate and complex directions. The complexity of these directions not only presents considerable challenges for judges but also may overwhelm, rather than assist, members of the jury. The Court of Appeal of Victoria has called for "urgent and wholesale reform". In the light of these concerns, it is suggested that the Victorian mandatory directions do not provide a model for other jurisdictions. Rather, the Victorian experience can be seen as a cautionary tale of the problems and pitfalls of such directions. Recently, the Victorian government has passed the Jury Directions Act 2013. This Act sets out "guiding principles" that should determine the content, and use, of jury directions. These guiding principles should form the basis for any jury directions with respect to sexual offences.

Integrated practice in the early years in Australia: The assumptions, omissions and contradictions of policy reform

The aim of this article is to examine current national early years’ policy reform, which emphasises the importance of service integration, national quality standards and a quality knowledge base for educators concerning the provision of early childhood education and care. Using Queensland, Australia, as an example, a policy discourse analysis identifies two problematics of implementing current national policy – the early childhood education and care problematic and the integration problematic. The article argues that speedy implementation of a national policy in order to meet national targets has unintended consequences for the knowledge base of educators and the possibility of collaboration within service provision. Although government commitment in this area is evident, these consequences and the current difficulties surrounding integration are the result of the lack of a specific integration strategy, and government investment focussed on the development of an integrated workforce.

Cost and outcomes associated with participating in the community fireguard program: experiences from the Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria, Australia

There is increasing recognition of the importance of shared responsibility between community and government in supporting community preparedness in disaster risk reduction programs. However, there is limited evidence to support decision making about how best to allocate resources. This paper presents an economic analysis of the Community Fireguard Program coordinated by the Country Fire Authority in Victoria, Australia. The economic analysis evaluates the costs and benefits of the Community Fireguard program (estimated in 2012 Australian dollars) to determine the efficiency of the program in terms of its outcomes of loss of life and property loss in the event of a bushfire. We take a societal perspective, including all costs and benefits regardless of who bears the costs, who receives the benefits or who provides the resources. The analysis uses data from a previous review of the program and estimates of costs and benefits over ten years, assuming each region faces a 10-year risk of major bushfire and the CFG group learnings would last ten years. Totalled over ten years, the cost per Fireguard Group for the program is $10,884, with a range of $2697-$19,071, and in the event of a major bushfire the predicted savings from reduced property loss is $732,747 and from reduced fatality $1.4 million. Even if the risk of major bushfire event in a region were one in 100 years, the estimated cost savings in a 100-year period is $217,116 per group. The value of the psychosocial impacts was not calculated, as quantitative data are currently not available.

Measuring community and service provider attitudes to child sexual abuse in remote indigenous communities in Western Australia

This study aimed to evaluate a scale to measure attitudes to child sexual abuse (CSA) in remote Australian Indigenous communities. The scale was developed to gauge attitudes that may be inhibiting the reporting of cases of CSA to police, as well as to evaluate whether interventions that focused on collaborative relationships between community members and police resulted in changes in attitudes. Participants included service providers living outside the community (58%), community members (living within the community; 9%), and service providers who were also community members (33%); 18% of participants identified as Indigenous. Principal components analysis revealed a nonintuitive six-factor solution that did not support the original four concepts. Four intuitive factors emerged from an abridged version of the scale: entrenched issues, personal understanding and knowledge, communication between community and government, and community action. The scale detected significant differences between community status and between Indigenous status groups on some factors.

Neoliberalism, economic restructuring and policy change: precarious housing and precarious employment in Australia

 Housing, employment and economic conditions in many nations have changed greatly over the past decades. This paper explores the ways in which changing housing markets, economic conditions and government policies have affected vulnerable individuals and households, using Australia as a case study. The paper finds a substantial number and proportion of low income Australians have been affected by housing and employment that is insecure with profound implications for vulnerability. Importantly, the paper suggests that in Australia the economic gains achieved as a consequence of mining-related growth in the early 2000s were translated as greater employment security for some on low incomes, but not all. Enhanced access to employment in this period was differentiated by gender, with women largely missing out on the growth in jobs. For the population as a whole, employment gains were offset by increased housing insecurity as accommodation costs rose. The paper finds low income lone parents were especially vulnerable because they were unable to benefit from a buoyant labour market over the decade 2000–2010. They were also adversely affected by national policy changes intended to encourage engagement with paid work. The outcomes identified for Australia are likely to have been mirrored in other nations, especially those that have embraced, or been forced to adopt, more restrictive welfare and income support regimes.

The Intersection of Economics and Politics in a Small OPEC Country: the Case of Ecuador, 1990 - March 2014

Today, crude oil remains a vital resource all around the world. This non-renewable resource powers countries worldwide. Besides serving as an energy source, crude oil is also the most important component for different world economies, especially in developing countries. Ecuador, a small member of the OPEC oil cartel, presents a case where its economy is oil dependent. A great percentage of the country¿s GDP and government¿s budget comes from oil revenues. Ecuador has always been a primary exporter of raw materials. In the last centuries, the country experienced three important economic booms: cacao, bananas, and, ultimately, crude oil. In this sense, the country has not been able to fully industrialize and begin to export manufactured goods, i.e., Ecuador suffers from the Dutch disease. The latter has deterred Ecuador from achieving broad-based economic development. Given crude oil¿s importance for the Ecuadorian economy, the government has always tried to influence the oil industry in search of profits and benefits. Therefore, this thesis, explores the question: how and to what extent have political interventions affected the oil industry in Ecuador from 1990 until March 2014? In general, this thesis establishes an economic history context during the last twenty-four years, attempting to research how political interventions have shaped Ecuador¿s oil industry and economy. In the analysis, it covers a period where political instability prevailed, until Rafael Correa became president. The thesis examines Ecuador¿s participation in OPEC, trying to find explanations as to why the country voluntarily left the organization in 1992, only to rejoin in 2007 when Correa rose to power. During the ¿Revolución Ciudadana¿ period, the thesis researches reforms to the Law of Hydrocarbons, variations in the relations with other nations, the controversy surrounding the Yasuní-ITT oil block, and the ¿Refinería del Pacífico¿ construction. The thesis is an Industrial Organization detailed case study that analyzes, updates, and evaluates the intersection of economics and politics in Ecuador¿s crude oil industry during the last 24 years. In this sense I have consulted past theses, newspaper articles, books, and other published data about the petroleum industry, both from a global and Ecuadorian perspective. In addition to published sources, I was able to interview sociologists, public figures, history and economics academics, and other experts, accessing unique unpublished data about Ecuador¿s oil industry. I made an effort to collect information that shows the private and public side of the industry, i.e., from government-related and independent sources. I attempted to remain as objective as possible to make conclusions about the appropriate Industrial Organization policy for Ecuador¿s oil industry, addressing the issue from an economic, social, political, and environmental point of view. I found how Ecuador¿s political instability caused public policy to fail, molding the conduct and market structure of the crude oil industry. Throughout history, developed nations have benefited from low oil prices, but things shifted since oil prices began to rise, which is more beneficial for the developing nations that actually possess and produce the raw material. Nevertheless, Ecuador, a victim of the Dutch disease due to its heavy reliance on crude oil as a primary product, has not achieved broad-based development.

Party Elites and the Search for Credibility : Plaid Cymru and the SNP as New Parties of Government

Peer reviewed

The altar and the throne alliance. The Russian Orthodox Church vs. the government in Russia. OSW STUDIES 54, 2016-01-04

The Russian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate (ROC), the largest religious community in Russia, plays an essential role in the process of the cultural and national self-identification of the Russian people. Being a socio-political institution with a centuries-long history, it possesses great symbolic capital and enjoys public respect, which has been used for political purposes. Since Vladimir Putin regained the presidency in 2012, in order to strengthen the political regime in Russia the Kremlin has begun to extensively draw upon conservative ideology and promote the traditional moral and social values which the Church is viewed as the guardian of. This has resulted in establishing closer relations between the secular government and the ROC, as well as in a greater engagement of ROC hierarchs and organisations in domestic and foreign policy issues. This situation exposes the ROC to criticism for being excessively involved in politics, and in the longer term, to the risks linked to potential destabilisation of the governmental system in Russia.

Selection and passage of county land preservation voter referendum: The role of government

County jurisdictions in America are increasingly exercising self-government in the provision of public community services through the context of second order federalism. In states exercising this form of contemporary governance, county governments with "reformed" policy-making structures and professional management practices, have begun to rival or surpass municipalities in the delivery of local services with regional implications such as environmental protection (Benton 2002, 2003; Marando and Reeves, 1993). ^ The voter referendum, a form of direct democracy, is an important component of county land preservation and environmental protection governmental policies. The recent growth and success of land preservation voter referendums nationwide reflects an increase in citizen participation in government and their desire to protect vacant land and its natural environment from threats of over-development, urbanization and sprawl, loss of open space and farmland, deterioration of ecosystems, and inadequate park and recreational amenities. ^ The study's design employs a sequential, mixed method. First, a quantitative approach employs the Heckman two-step model. It is fitted with variables for the non-random sample of 227 voter referendum counties and all non-voter referendum counties in the U.S. from 1988 to 2009. Second, the qualitative data collected from the in-depth investigation of three South Florida county case studies with twelve public administrator interviews is transformed for integration with the quantitative findings. The purpose of the qualitative method is to complement, explain and enrich the statistical analysis of county demographic, socio-economic, terrain, regional, governance and government, political preference, environmentalism, and referendum-specific factors. ^ The research finds that government factors are significant in terms of the success of land preservation voter referendums; more specifically, the presence of self-government authority (home rule charter), a reformed structure (county administrator/manager or elected executive), and environmental interest groups. In addition, this study concludes that successful counties are often located coastal, exhibit population and housing growth, and have older and more educated citizens who vote democratic in presidential elections. The analysis of case study documents and public administrator interviews finds that pragmatic considerations of timing, local politics and networking of regional stakeholders are also important features of success. Further research is suggested utilizing additional public participation, local government and public administration factors.^

Crises and Crisis Generations: International Conflict and Military Participation in Politics

Why do states facing high levels of international threat sometimes have militaries that are heavily involved in politics and at other times relatively apolitical, professional militaries? I argue that the answer to this puzzle lies in a state's history of 'acute' international crises rather than its 'chronic' threat environment. Major international crises lead to professionalization and de-politicization of militaries in both the short- and long-term. International crises underscore the need for the military to defend the state and highlight military deficiencies in this regard. Accordingly, major international crises lead to military professionalization and withdrawal from politics in order to increase military effectiveness. This effect persists years, and decades, later due to generational shifts in the officer corps. As the "Crisis Generation" of officers become generals, they bring with them a preference for professionalization and de-politicization. They guide the military towards abstention from politics. I test this theory using a new global dataset on military officers in national governing bodies from 1964-2008 and find strong support for the theory. Major international crises lead to two waves of military withdrawal from government, years apart. Further statistical analysis finds that this effect is most strongly felt in the non-security areas of governing, while in some cases, international crises may lead to militaries increasing their involvement in security policy-making. Further, international crises that end poorly for a state — i.e., defeats or stalemates — are found to drive more rapid waves of military withdrawal from government. The statistical analysis is supported by a case illustration of civil-military relations in the People's Republic of China, which demonstrates that the crisis of the Korean War (1950-53) led to two waves of military professionalization and de-politicization, decades apart. The first occurred immediately after the war. The second wave, occurring in the 1980s, involved wholesale military withdrawal from governing bodies, which was made possible by the ascent of the "Crisis Generation" of officers in the military, who had served as junior officers in the Korean War, decades prior.