The Electoral and Political Implications of Reserved Seats for Indigenous Australians

Bibliographic Data

ID6233957
AuthorsGlynn Evans (The University of Adelaide), Lisa Hill (0000-0002-9098-7800, The University of Adelaide)
Year2012
Volume47
Issue3
Pages491-505
Publication date2012-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAustralian Journal of Political Science (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1036-1146 • E-ISSN: 1363-030X
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10361146.2012.704004
OpenAlexW2060558721
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited7

Reserved seats for Indigenous Australians have been proposed as a means by which to stimulate the relatively low voting participation of Indigenous citizens and to afford them more effective representation in parliament. Yet, the idea of dedicated Indigenous seats is regularly rejected by committees of inquiry and there are significant obstacles to their establishment. One of these obstacles is the lack of agreement or understanding about how dedicated seats would work in practice. We aim to help clarify this issue by testing in a modelling experiment how reserved seats might affect the outcome of elections and the composition of the Federal Parliament. We then assess the relative merits of each model for ease of implementation and likely acceptability for both the public and political elites and find that there are viable models with good chances of finding acceptance

Biology · Democracy · Electoral politics · Indigenous · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Law · Political and Economic history of UK and US