This study presents a measure of federal constitutional values as a dimension of federal political culture derived from four key features of federal systems. Tested in six federal and two non-federal countries, we find the measure is stable and taps enduring values, including confirmation that citizens who support devolutionary reform have stronger federal constitutional values. Defining federalism success as a system where citizens have strong federal constitutional values and high satisfaction with their current polycentric system, our results find Switzerland and Canada being the most viable, followed by the United States, Australia, and Germany, while Belgium is not very successful. In the non-federal countries, substantial support for devolution and possibly federalism is found in France, but devolution is more contested in the United Kingdom. The results affirm the importance of public attitudes and political culture in understanding the performance of federal political systems and public support for federalist-type reforms.
This article examines the strength of support for direct democracy among Australian citizens, both in general and, in a world-first, across different specific topics. Analysing data from the Australian Constitutional Values Survey, we investigate whether that support is higher among people who are more educated and politically interested (in line with a ‘cognitive mobilisation’ hypothesis) or those who are dissatisfied with politics, with low levels of political trust (‘political disaffection’). The article finds that Australians widely support the use of direct democracy, but especially with respect to constitutional issues and matters of principle that they feel they can readily engage with, whereas parliaments are still seen as best placed to decide more technical matters. The article also finds that support for direct democracy is strongest among politically disaffected citizens, in ways that suggest greater use of direct democracy may have a role to play in addressing decline in political trust in Australia.
Reforming Australia’s federation is a critical but elusive goal, as the system is plagued by service delivery failures, blame-shifting and inefficiency. The principle of subsidiarity, which aims to localise decision-making and strengthen communities, is sometimes invoked to guide reform efforts, but so far has had little substantive impact. This article argues that previous efforts have applied a decentralist interpretation of subsidiarity as ‘decision-making as close to the people as possible’, which is too narrow, and that taking a broader approach focussing on supportive elements of the principle would be more successful in the Australian context. This argument is supported by an analysis of how supportive subsidiarity aligns constitutionally and institutionally with Australia’s federal structure, and through data from a large-N public attitude survey indicating that supportive subsidiarity is valued more highly than the decentralist interpretation.
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