© 1993 World Association for Public Opinion Research
CONSERVATIVE CYNICISM: POLITICAL CULTURE IN AUSTRALIA*
Abstract
Though not without its critics, the concept of political culture is potentially of much value in aiding the explanation of political processes and behavior. Unfortunately, however, basic data on political culture remains scarce for many countries, Australia among them. Although there is a good deal of impressionistic literature outlining the contours of the Australian political culture, broadly defined, very little systematic evidence has been adduced to test the many assertions made in these writings. This paper injects some empirical substance into the argument. Using the Australian National Social Science Survey 1984–87 panel, based on a nationwide sample of 1311 respondents, it presents evidence on five dimensions of mass political culture in Australia, namely, attitudes towards reliance on government, the responsiveness of government, citizen duty, authoritarianism and federalism. In addition to outlining the basic distributions of public opinion on these dimensions, the paper uses multivariate analysis to investigate both the causes and consequences of these attitudes.
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