Australia’s Evolving Democracy edited by Mark Evans, Patrick Dunleavy and John Phillimore is a comprehensive audit of Australian democracy, unpacking its stable political system and the challenges it faces. Though it could stand to benefit from deeper comparative analysis, this is an important, timely and nuanced volume that will appeal both to experts and wider audiences, writes Mark Bennister.

Australia’s Evolving Democracy: A New Democratic Audit. Mark Evans, Patrick Dunleavy and John Phillimore (eds.). LSE Press. 2024.

A timely audit of Australian democracy

With the Australian federal election due by May 2025, it is an appropriate time for a health check on the state of Australian democracy. Within a context of global democratic backsliding, most notably in the US, Australia’s Evolving Democracy: A new Democratic Audit is a timely and important publication.

Indeed, editors Mark Evans, Patrick Dunleavy and John Phillimore initially situate this audit within the context of recent political turmoil in the UK and US, with destabilising political shifts such as Brexit or obvious polarisation as with Donald Trump’s election for a second term as US president. These are countries from which Australia has historically drawn not just inspiration, but structural arrangements too. A hybrid system often termed “Washminster” or the “platypus system” (a combination of two incongruous parts that should not exist) has seemed to endure and thrive as a liberal democracy “within a severely darkening world”. Australia’s “balanced model” with elements of two different systems has co-existed without snarling up a functioning political system. This model, with compulsory voting, strong federalism and proportional representation on the one hand, and Westminster traditions of strong central tax-raising powers and monarchical legacies of a settler history on the other, makes Australia a fascinating and often understudied liberal democracy. In such challenging political times Mark Evans asks, in an accompanying piece, what lessons Australia may provide for the UK, potentially flipping the traditional roles around.

This model, with compulsory voting, strong federalism and proportional representation on the one hand, and Westminster traditions of strong central tax-raising powers and monarchical legacies of a settler history on the other, makes Australia a fascinating and often understudied liberal democracy.

The book examines the roots of Australian stability and the current state of affairs, including political difficulties. Australia’s slow response to the climate emergency and having been unable to further minority indigenous rights in the 2023 Voice Referendum do however point to significant fault lines. McAllister and Biddle found that one of the key reasons for the failure of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum was a lack of bipartisanship, despite widespread public support for better outcomes for Indigenous Australians. This absence of bipartisanship on the Voice resulted in voters prioritizing the potential risks of constitutional change over the prospect of better outcomes for Indigenous people, a topic explored in Chapter Four. Tensions within the system are evident, and like other liberal democracies, Australia has seen a significant decline in public trust in political institutions driven by multiple factors. The book argues that it is the balanced model of democracy that has kept this relative stability, but Australia should not be complacent. 

Strengths and challenges of Australia’s model

Australia’s Evolving Democracy follows the tradition of the Democratic Audit framework first established by Stuart Weir and David Beetham in the 1990s. A variant on Australia was published in 2009, and Evans, Dunleavy and Phillimore’s volume is a welcome addition to the series. The great strengths of the book are both the comprehensive evaluation that provides a broad picture in (relatively) real time of the state of democracy, and the benefits of standalone chapters dealing with key aspects. The book is well organised into five sections: Foundations; National Politics, Federal Government, State and Local Politics, Challenges and Change. Each of the 26 chapters can be downloaded open access (or of course you can tackle the whole thing). The list of contributors is impressive, with well-regarded experts such as Michelle Grattan on the Voice Referendum, John Butcher on policymaking, Richard Eccleston on Tasmania, and Rob Manwaring on South Australia. Other notable contributors include Patrick Weller, John Halligan, and John Dryzek.  

The book is nuanced and detailed for scholars of Australian politics while also accessible to new entrants wishing to gain knowledge of key components of the Australian political system

The book is nuanced and detailed for scholars of Australian politics while also accessible to new entrants wishing to gain knowledge of key components of the Australian political system. The SWOT analyses (a planning tool which seeks to identify the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of a project) and other tools ensure that there is an emphasis on evaluation and assessment throughout. The data visualisation, utilising clear tables and graphs, is helpful without being overbearing and presents a good balance, supplying relevant material to support the commentary (eg number of councils) and trends (eg decline in unionisation 1986-2022). Each chapter presents a puzzle which frames the structure and content, adding a critical edge that would otherwise be largely descriptive. For example, Chapter Six on political parties frames the evaluation around the puzzle “what does democracy require for political parties and a party system?” The chapter then addresses each aspect to provide a clear outline. 

The book is naturally inward looking, concentrating on the functioning of democratic institutions at various levels and the extent of pluralism. Apart from some situating of Australia in the context of other liberal democracies in the final chapter by the editors (28) and contextualisation in the opening two chapters, there is little evaluation of Australia’s international standing. While such emphasis on domestic issues and democratic functioning is understandable given the exercise is one of an internal democratic audit, it is also a weakness. With only two chapters in the final section, there was perhaps some scope for a specific comparative chapter lifting the insightful comparative data from the concluding chapter to create a stand-alone “Australian democracy compared” chapter before the concluding the one on “challenges”. 

Addressing public discontent to maintain a healthy democracy

Discussion of Australian republicanism is reduced to a rather short section in Chapter Three by Harry Hobbs, perhaps representing the lack of salience of the issue even after the succession of King Charles III. However, Anthony Albanese did appoint an assistant minister for the republic and has signalled a referendum may be a second-term issue. It would be useful to consider if such ambivalence over republicanism and the failure of the Voice referendum demonstrates a continuation of conservative values that the government may challenge or succumb to. Moreover, is this at odds with the evolving democracy discussed throughout – is Australia now looking beyond the US and UK, and how does it relate to its regional neighbours? The focus on process and democratic institutions sidelines any in-depth analysis of values, though Chapter 15 on government policy making by John Butcher is a helpful gem, posing a series of policy questions throughout. A chapter on class and social inequality as in the UK Audit of 2018 would also have been welcome. 

The editors’ verdict on Australia’s democracy is that it is still robust, but requires reimagining and reflection to address its citizens’ discontent. With such a comprehensive audit, this book presents strong evidence to support this conclusion. The failure of the Voice referendum was a significant setback for the country in terms of strengthening the protection of minority rights and ensuring that Australia moves towards becoming a country at ease with its Indigenous communities. Indeed, Australia should avoid any complacency over its democracy that may come with the high participation rate from compulsory voting, a lack of polarised parties, stable federal arrangements, and a balanced political system. Public dissatisfaction, low trust levels, and frustration with a lack of government responsiveness need to be addressed to ensure that Australian democracy continues to evolve, rather than stall or flounder. 

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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