Sceptical partisans

How citizens think about political finance

Bibliographic Data

ID6234571
AuthorsZim Nwokora (0000-0002-2171-9319, The University of Melbourne, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume50
Issue1
Pages73-92
Publication date2015-01-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAustralian Journal of Political Science (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1036-1146 • E-ISSN: 1363-030X
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10361146.2014.989810
OpenAlexW2084078653
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited21

This article investigates how citizens form their opinions on political-finance issues. Two distinct mechanisms are elaborated. First, citizens may be 'faithful followers', adopting positions that reflect their partisan loyalties. Second, citizens may be 'sceptical' and lean against cues from their party leaders. Drawing on a survey of Australian attitudes to political finance, I assess the extent to which predictions from these theories are observed in reality. The evidence suggests that Australians interpret political finance as 'sceptical partisans', broadly sceptical of political elites, while retaining partisan loyalties that are triggered when two conditions are satisfied: the issue has obvious partisan implications, but encouragement of partisan impulses does not threaten the competitiveness of elections.本文探讨了公民如何形成对政治献金的态度。学者们提供了两个不同的机制。首先,公民可以是"忠实的追随者",选择反映其党派忠诚性的立场。其次,公民可以凭着其党派领导人的暗示,持怀疑的态度。笔者将澳大利亚人对政治献金的态度同以上理论假设做了比对。有证据表明,澳大利亚人视政治献金为"拉帮结伙",大体上对政治精英心存怀疑,不过又保持其党派忠诚。只要满足两个条件,忠诚就会出现:话题有着明显的党派含义,但党派冲动并不威胁选举的竞争性。Keywords: citizenspolitical financepublic opinioncartel parties Notes1 They consider scepticism as a dependent variable but not as an independent variable.2 Zaller's specification is not tightly bounded. He states that political elites 'include politicians, higher-level government officials, journalists, some activists and many kinds of experts and policy specialists' (Citation2006: 6). The problem is not so much Zaller's definition, however, as the fact that any categorisation is likely to be contestable.3 In 2013–14, the Liberal–National government in Queensland introduced reforms to reverse the changes its Labor predecessor launched.4 The survey questions are included in the appendix.5 Both 'climate change and the environment' and 'interest rates' are traditionally middle-ranking issue priorities for Australians, with the first being one that left-leaning individuals prioritise more and the second an issue to which right-leaning individuals give higher priority (McAllister and Clark Citation2008).6 Respondents were told, as part of each question, about current arrangements. See Q7(a)–(e) in the appendix for details.7 Scores for the 'laissez-faire' question were reversed before the summation.8 The use of dummy variables for scepticism is less than ideal because it is tapped as an ordinal category, but the measure has only three categories so treating it as a continuous variable would be a worse alternative.9 Gender and age are also weak predictors (older males are most sceptical

Campaign finance · Economics · Epistemology · Government (linguistics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Skepticism · Sociology · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Gender Politics and Representation · Law · Political Influence and Corporate Strategies · Public Administration

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