Australia: The State of DemocracyFederation Press, 2009 - 322 pagine On many criteria, Australia has been a pioneering democracy. As one of the oldest continuing democracies, however, a health check has long been overdue. Since 2002 the Democratic Audit of Australia, a major democracy assessment project, has been applying an internationally tested set of indicators to Australian political institutions and practices.The indicators derive from four basic principles--political equality, popular control of government, civil liberties and human rights and the quality of public deliberation. Comparative data are taken from Australia's nine jurisdictions, as well as from three comparator democracies, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, to identify strengths, weaknesses and opportunities for reform.Some of the findings are disturbing. For example, Australia has fallen well behind in the regulation of private money in elections and in controlling the use of government or parliamentary resources for partisan benefit. Transparency and accountability have suffered from relatively weak FOI regimes and from executive dominance of parliaments.For those studying democracy or wanting to reform Australian politics, The State of Democracy provides a wealth of evidence in a well-illustrated and highly accessible format. Internationally, it is an important contribution to the democracy assessment literature and pushes into new areas such as the intergovernmental decision-making of federalism. |
Sommario
6 | |
11 | |
December 2006 | 57 |
FIGURES | 74 |
REPRESENTATIVE AND ACCOUNTABLE GOVERNMENT | 99 |
CIVIL SOCIETY AND POPULAR PARTICIPATION | 207 |
DEMOCRACY BEYOND THE STATE AND FEDERALISM | 277 |
311 | |
Parole e frasi comuni
Aboriginal accountability Administration Amendment asylum seekers Audit Discussion Paper Australian democracy Australian Democrats Australian governments branch stacking campaign Canada Canberra candidates cent citizens citizenship COAG Commission Commissioner Committee Commonwealth compulsory voting Constitution corruption Council cultural decisions deliberative deliberative democracy Democratic Audit detention disabilities disclosure discrimination donations election electoral ethnic example federal level freedom government advertising High Court House of Representatives Howard Government human rights immigration increased independent Indigenous Australians inquiry issues journalists jurisdictions Labor Government legislation major Minister ministerial NGOs Northern Territory Ombudsman organisations Parliament of Australia parliamentary political parties protection public funding public sector Queensland Racial reform relation representation responsibility role Rudd Government Senate sexual Social South Australia South Wales Sydney Table Tasmania treaties United Kingdom Victoria voters voting Western Australia whistleblowers women Zealand