Jack Vowles

The Rise of New Politics and Market Liberalism in Australia and New Zealand

The rise of ‘New Politics’ concerns since the 1970s parallels the rise in popularity of market liberalism. Although often considered to be opposites, both goals have been pursued vigorously and simultaneously by social democratic governments in Australia and New Zealand. This article examines the circumstances of this unlikely marriage and, by applying multivariate analysis to election survey data collected in each country in 1990, examines the implications of these apparently contradictory policies for public opinion and party support. We conclude that value orientations associated with New Politics have mixed associations with party support. Postmaterialist and materialist value orientations are linked to attitudes towards the specifically Australasian old left strategy of ‘domestic defence’. The findings suggest that the effects of value change are more far-reaching in New Zealand, where social liberalism may have overtaken collectivism as the dominant value cleavage in the party system.

Electoral System Change, Generations, Competitiveness and Turnout in New Zealand, 1963–2005

In 1996, New Zealand changed its electoral system from single-member plurality (SMP) to a Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system. This article addresses the effects on turnout of electoral system change, generational differences and national and district-level competitiveness. Both theory and cross-sectional empirical evidence indicate that turnout should be higher after the change to MMP. Yet turnout has declined. Most of this turns out to be an effect of lag effects generated by longer-term trends of declining competition, and generational experiences. MMP has shifted the main focus of electoral competition from the district to the national level, with consequent changes in turnout distribution. Electoral boundary changes also have negative effects under MMP, and most MMP elections have taken place after an electoral redistribution.

Vote Compass in the 2014 New Zealand election: Hearing the voice of New Zealand voters

Vote Compass – an online voter education tool originating in Canada – was used for the first time in New Zealand during the 2014 general election. During its inaugural run, over 330,000 New Zealanders visited the Vote Compass website to answer 30 policy- or issue-based questions. In return, respondents received a report on how close their views were to 10 political parties seeking office. Due to the large sample size, these data provided Television New Zealand with unique insights into voters’ views that could also be related to party policies and campaign events by academic commentators. After explaining the nature of the tool and describing the composition of the New Zealand-based team, this article examines the implications that Vote Compass has for party responsiveness and political marketing. In particular, we note the importance of Vote Compass not just for market-oriented policy, but for the overall leadership brand, including its ability to deliver on promised goods. The article also reflects on the contribution that the tool makes to voter engagement and democracy in general. Lastly, it provides a summary of the overall Vote Compass data from the main survey items and marketing-related post-election survey data in an appendix for academics to use in their own research and teaching in future.

The New Zealand Election Study

Achievement of well-being, the advancement of social equity, and the advancement of social inclusiveness in New Zealand society depend, among other things, on a robust and healthy democracy. At the beginning of the twenty-first century New Zealand cannot take the quality of its democratic performance for granted. Since 1984 electoral turnout has fallen signiticantly. and those less likely to participate in elections are disproportionately concentrated among Maori, the young, and those on lower incomes. General public cynicism about politicians and Parliament is high. Membership of political parties is low compared with twenty or thirty years ago. People advocated the change to a new election system, Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) because they believed MMP would promote better representation, higher political accountability, increase turnout, and perhaps in the longer term reduce the adversarial nature of politics. Changes to the Maori electorates were also expected to increase the effectiveness of Maori representation. The current phase of the New Zealand Election Study is designed to rigorously assess the consequences of the change to MMP on the health of New Zealand

Did the Polls Influence the Vote? a Case Study of the 1999 New Zealand General Election

Following the 1999 election in New Zealand, a Bill was introduced into Parliament to prevent the publication of polls during the month prior to a general election. Two parties, New Zealand First and National, feared that polls had adversely influenced their electoral performances. The claim is reviewed, the methodologies used to estimate the effects of polls on the vote discussed, and a test is applied for New Zealand in 1999. The data is from a pre- and post-election panel, the pre-election component based on rolling cross-sections estimated on a daily basis throughout the campaign. It finds evidence for a small but very significant polling effect.

Electoral Systems and Proportional Tenure of Government: Renewing the Debate

Debates between advocates of the two major alternative forms of electoral system often proceed at cross-purposes. In parliamentary systems, governments not only wield executive power, they strongly influence the agenda of the legislature and in some cases dominate it. The core literature on electoral systems focuses almost entirely on the relations between vote shares and legislative seat shares, leaving government formation aside. Yet the main debate about democratic accountability focuses on representative government, of which a representative legislature is at most only one part.

Virtuous Circle or Cul de Sac? Social Capital and Political Participation in New Zealand

Declining turnout in recent elections highlights the decline of political participation in New Zealand. Political participation and othe R forms of non-political civic engagement, such as membership in civic associations, are said to be part of a wider rubric: social capital. According to this theory, associations act as ‘schools of democracy’ that foster values such as civic engagement and trust. New Zealand government usage of social capital in public policy is based on overseas studies. But this theory has not been thoroughly tested. Previous individual-level analyses have simply correlated membership and/or trust with indicators of political participation. This study seeks to more precisely approximate social capital’s ‘school of democracy’ explanation by interacting individuals’ levels of associational activity with their levels of trust. We find only some very weak expected relationships between these interacted variables and forms of political participation. In the context of Putnam’s distinction between ‘bridging’ and ‘bonding’ forms of social capital, we also compare Maori and othe R New Zealanders. In the company of researchers overseas, we challenge the assumption that the decline in political participation is related to declining social capital.

COMPARING DISTRICT MAGNITUDE EFFECTS UNDER ORDINAL AND NOMINAL BALLOT STRUCTURES IN NON‐PARTISAN ELECTIONS: THE 2004 LOCAL ELECTIONS IN NEW ZEALAND

Elections under the single transferable vote (STV) electoral system comprise a ‘generally neglected’ area of research, part of a class of ordinal systems ‘relatively less well understood’ than their nominal alternatives (Bowler and Grofman 2000: 6). Many electoral systems experts find STV of great interest because it provides incentives for a richer range of behaviours than other electoral systems (Bowler 1996). But there are relatively few STV systems in use, making it difficult for comparative studies of electoral systems to draw inferences about the effects of STV’s ordinal ballot structure on voting and on electoral outcomes when compared to nominal alternatives. There are few cases of STV in national and subnational jurisdictions: Ireland, Malta, the Australian Senate and Tasmania. There are historical and contemporary examples in local government in the United States (Amey 1993), Canada (Johnston and Koene 2000) and New Zealand (Watson 2003). But it is rare to encounter sufficiently reliable data with which to apply systematic analysis of STV outcomes in comparison to those of alternative systems. This paper analyses a dataset that permits comparison between some effects of ordinal voting under STV with nominal voting under single-member and multi-member plurality rules, under more or less the same conditions. The data have another unique characteristic. Because the elections in question are usually non-partisan, findings will reflect how the different systems affect voter behaviour without the intervening variable of party candidate selections. In the minority of cases where parties or groupings of candidates are involved, these effects can also be tested. But many of the questions normally asked in the electoral systems literature about the relationships between proportional representation and the structure of party competition and indices of proportionality cannot be addressed here. The focus is on something more rarely analysed: differences between the effects of ordinal and nominal ballot structures with variations in district magnitude within both systems, and where the contests are mainly non-partisan, and therefore largely lacking cues that voters can use to reduce information costs. Another objective is an assessment of the outcomes of the experiment permitting this research opportunity: a recent legal option that has made it possible for territorial local authorities in New Zealand to opt between STV or plurality elections. Testing claims that STV would address declining turnout and under-representation of certain groups is needed for practical reasons, as well as being of theoretical interest. The

Delegates Compared: A Sociology of The National, Labour, and Social Credit Party Conferences, 1983

Parties may represent interests determined through “class situation” or “status situation”, and they may recruit their following respectively from one or the other. But they need to neither purely be “class” nor purely “status” parties. In most cases they are partly class parties, and partly status parties, but sometimes they are neither …“

Legislative accountability in a mixed-member system

Accountability of representatives to electors is a key indicator of democratic health. In mixed-member systems, the coexistence of two kinds of representation provides the opportunity to test competing claims with minimal confounding factors. There is debate about the relative accountability of constituency and list MPs, and in particular, concerning dual candidacy, where individuals can stand for both constituency and list seats. Analysing New Zealand elections since 1999, with comparisons back to the previous single-member plurality system, this article examines the effects of dual candidacy, legislative turnover and the cases where constituency or electorate MPs have lost their seats, but remained in Parliament as list members. 代表对选民负责乃民主是否健康的一个关键指标。在混合成员制下，两类代表的共存为比较单纯地检验其竞争的主张提供了机会。不过，选区及名单议员的相对责任，尤其在一个个体可以既代表选区又代表名单席位的情况下的责任，对此是有争议的。本文分析了新西兰1999年以来的选举，并与之前的单一成员多数选举制做了对比，还考察了双重候选人制的效果、议员的流动、以及选区或议员落选但依然是国会名单成员的情况。