Changing Orientations Toward Australian Democracy

Abstract

The Australian Citizens' Parliament (ACP) addressed a single broad issue - the nation's political system. How did participation in this unique event influence participants' orientations toward that system?

We begin by describing our approach to measuring attitude change - involving an extended version of Q methodology. We then identify the basic orientations that Australians have toward politics and examine how those changed over the course of the ACP. We find that participants' orientations changed significantly, most notably through increased contentment with Australia's liberal democracy. This finding is perhaps a bit surprising in the context of a process that subjected aspects of Australia's political system to critical scrutiny. We consider the factors that might have accounted for this shift, as well as their implications.