Australian Politics in the Twenty-First Century

Dr Stewart Jackson is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney, Australia. He researches green and environmental parties in the Asia–Pacific region. He also has research interests in the structure and composition of social movement mobilisations in Australia. His previous book, The Australian Greens: From Activism to Australia's Third Party, was published in 2016, and he is currently working on a new monograph on the life and times of Australian antinuclear activist and former Greens Senator, Jo Vallentine. Dr Joff Lelliott is a political scientist at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, specialising in Australian politics. He previously spent ten years teaching public policy and political science at the University of Queensland, again specialising in Australian politics. He has extensive experience teaching Australian and overseas public servants about political institutions and their interaction with the public service and public policy. He has also written widely in the mainstream media on political and social issues. Before academia, he worked as a public servant and then as a Public Policy Advisor in financial services. Dr Shannon Brincat is a Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia. His research focuses on international relations theory; recognition and cosmopolitanism; dialectics; and climate change. He has been the editor of a number of collections and has articles published in the European Journal of International Relations, Review of International Studies, Constellations and Antipode, among others. He is the co-founder and co-editor of the journal Global Discourse. Dr Josephine Bourne is a Lecturer in the Department of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland. Her research explores the nature of Indigenous leadership in the Indigenous-State political interface through the design and use of contemporary governance mechanisms. Josephine has a background in working with State and Commonwealth governments and civil society organisations to explore constitutional reform options and treaty-making with First Nations peoples in the 21st Century. Dr Nick Economou is an Australian political scientist and former Senior Lecturer in the School of Political and Social Inquiry at Monash University, where he taught Australian politics and governance from 1992 to 2021. He was the Sir Robert Menzies lecturer in Australian Studies at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies (London University) between 1995 and 1996. Nick is a habitual commentator on Australian politics and a pundit on behalf of a number of media outlets that have included the ABC, the BBC and various newspapers. Nick's research interests include Australian national and state governance; federal, state and local elections and electoral systems; and the role and behaviour of Australia's political parties.

• 1. Introduction to 21st-century Australian politics; 2. The Australian Federation: from colony to Commonwealth; 3. The legislature: representative democracy; 4. The executive: functions, power and accountability; 5. The 'rulebook': national governance and the Australian Constitution; 6. Bureaucracy: the APS and public policy; 7. Elections, the electoral system and the Australian voter; 8. The origins and evolutions of the major parties; 9. The minor parties and independents; 10. Follow the leader: political leadership in Australia; 11. The Fourth Estate: news media in the digital age; 12. Having a voice: citizen participation and engagement; 13. Conclusion.