Political Culture Essay on Australian Constitutional Entities

Question

Task: Prepare a political culture essay critically discussing the Australian political culture.

Answer

Introduction:
Different behaviours, perceptions and attitudes of the national people across the world help in developing democratic rights. The political culture essayaims to discuss the Australian political culture elaborately. The essay also aims to discuss the impact of cynicism and apathy on the development of political rights. It also discussed the different types of federalism followed by the Australian People.

Values of Essay:
It clearly described the political culture of the Australia and concept of federalism maintained by the Australian national people. Australian people have maintained a stable liberal democratic political culture under the Australian Constitution. Australia has maintained a mixed governmental system including the relevant information regarding monarchy of Australian constitutional and Australian federation and democracy the role of the individual separation of the political power. Federalism is the Governmental system that is divided between more than one constituent entities by the written Australian constitution.

Australian constituent entity of Australia comes in the form of a regional state or province. It provided a clear concept regarding the impact of apathy and cynicism in the development of Australian political rights. Cynicism increases the high level of uncertainty, lowers the trust level, reduces the chance of social support for bringing changes and lowers the commitment level. It is also considered asa threat to political democracy. It reduces the trust of the people in governmental activities. Political apathy is specific feelings of disinterest towards the political system, elections, public meetings, political events and voting. It makes the concept of political democracy. It is the strength of the essay. The entire information of the essay totally depends on the qualitative research policy and the essay gathered the entire information through secondary resources like journals, articles and Australian policy databases. It is the main weakness of the essay.

Discussion:
Australian Political culture and type of Australian federalism followed by the nation:
This specific part of the essay aims to describe the type of Australian federalism maintained by the national people and the details regarding Australian political culture.

In the view of the Holland & Wright (2017, p.560), Australian political culture has maintained Western Democracy. The Australian Government also follows the tradition of liberal democracy. The ideal type of masculinity image is maintained by the Australian political culture. The Australian people maintain the Cooperative federalism structure. Australian Government is sharing the powers of law-making activities between state governments and the commonwealth.

Australian Government also focused on both tiers of the Australian Government to influence them to do their political activities (including policy areas, rivers, education and health management) cooperatively to achieve good political outcomes. The “Council of Australian Government” was established in the month of May 1992. The membership of COAG comprises state premiers, Prime Minister, Territory Chief Ministers and The President of the Association of Local Government of Australia. In the Australian political circumstance, the main role and responsibility of the COAG is to take an appropriate initiative to facilitate the cooperative activities between all governmental levels on Australian policy development areas to improve the national image and significance. Fenna (2012) states that people involved in

Australian Politics have maintained Pragmatic Federalism. It indicates that the respective roles and powers of the states and Commonwealth have evolved in giving the proper response to pressing problems, prevailing the political dynamic and policy agendas. The pragmatic Federalism system is clearly explained the important aspect of the Australian federalism system and it explains the trend towards the centralisation of authority.

In the view of Holland &Wright (2017, p.561) Australian Cooperative Federalism allows the Australian policy to meet the requirements and needs of communities and certain public areas. It increases the ability of the constitution to embrace the concept of a diverse population in a singletype ofpolitical system of Australia. It also provides appropriate space to people for maintaining their cultural differences. It also embraces the concept of democratic participation. It also indicates that Australian people can vote for other parties in politics at different governmental levels.

Federalism gives freedom to Australian people to move to other states either people unhappy with the current condition of the Government and their activities (Fenna, 2019, p.31). It provides a concept to the Australian Government to improve their political activities and services to compete with other jurisdictions. The division of the power between state, central, commonwealth and constituent entities reduce the chance of becoming an oppressive and authoritarian national Government (Holland & Wright, 2017, p.561). The cooperation between the different levels of government provides the chance to scrutinise the Australian policy effectively. However, apart from having many benefits, Federalism sometimes increases intergovernmental conflict. In Australia, the federal government has sometimes intervened the traditional policies and regulations of states. It increases the chance of bureaucracy.

It creates the situation of overlapping powers and responsibilities between the multiple governments and it creates the situation of inconsistency and duplication. Moreover, it increases the cost of bureaucracy.

The entire discussion depicts that the federalism framework of Australia is a relevant and integral part of the political culture of Australia since the time 1901. Democracy is also an important part of the concept of Australian Federalism. Political cultural values of Australia focused on respect, freedom, equality of opportunity and fairness in the community to maintain a secure, peaceful and prosperous place for the Australian people to live (homeaffairs.gov.au2021). The article by Fenna (2012, P.581) also stated that Australian political personalities have considered Australian Federalism as the role and responsibility of the entire society instead of considering as the Australian Constitutions’ function.

Cynicism and apathy:
This section aims to explain cynicism and apathy and to discuss whether cynicism and apathy is a part of a healthy democracy or not.

In the concept of political science, political apathy is the process of the feeling of apathy or disinterest towards political views. It is also considered to be a lack of interest of people to participate in the different political activities. Apathy is the most insidious enemy of democracy in the environment of a growing number of societies. Inclusive participation is the main antidote to political apathy. Inclusive participation prepares societies, communities and entire countries to address the political apathy forge solutions and compromises and engage in deliberations and constructive criticism. Political apathy is not considered to be a part of a healthy democracy (aph.gov.au2014). However, inclusive participation of the people and political parties helps entire communities and societies develop the activities and functioning form of Democracy for Government, Civil society and corporations. Political apathy leads to stagnation and low voter turnout in a state government. It also leads to the loss of democracy.

Democracy is a healthy government “by the people, of the people and for the people”. Cynicism and Apathy have been persuasive in the political culture of America. Based on the evidence, it determines that the majority number of Australian people disengaged with the Australian political system (aph.gov.au2021). Negativity and Cynicism are positively associated with the perceptions of the third party and it is related to the voting intent and voting efficacy. It determines that cynicism has both negative impacts and positive impactsassociations with the efficacy of voting. On the other side, apathy is also related to the reduced amount of voting efficacy and the voting efficacy is positively associated with the intention of voting (peo.gov.au2021). It is evident that the Australian people are going to become increasingly cynical about Australian politics (Koerth, 2019). In certain circumstances, political actors and politicians play internal games for increasing the points merely. In Australia, the majority number of politicians and political actors abuse each other privileges and lie with impunity.

Opdycke et al. (2013, p.76) states that the Youth culture of Australia is often represented as the face of political apathy. It is evident from the research of Australian democracy that distrust and disillusionment entirely suppressed 80% of people among some communities in Australia (Harrington, 2021). It is increasing the dissatisfaction and political apathy among the young generation of Australia. It is concluded that Apathy and cynicism is the ultimate enemy of the democratic system. Apathy and cynicism can also lead to reducing inclusive activities and inclusive participation of national people while developing democratic rights in the Australian Country.

Cynicism and its negative impacts on healthy democracy:
This section aims to explain the term “cynicism” and how it creates a negative impact on a healthy democracy.

In the view of Koerth (2019), Cynicism is mainly characterised by the general distrust level in the motives of other people. It can manifest the result of distrust and disillusionment towards political views. It stated that when the trust of national people reduced towards the governmental activities and governmental system. It increases the cynicism in the political system. It also decreases the concept of inclusive participation in governmental activities. It is evident that public trust level in the American Governmental activity has plummeted from 1964 to 2016.

Cynicism both has positive and negative impacts on the government. The growth rate in the cynicism scale is directly associated with increased support for extremist candidates and outsiders who have the ability to break the political taboos. Moreover, Growth in Cynicism is also associated with the decreased support for incumbents. It increases the distrust between the Australian politicians (Rooduijn et al., 2017, p.137). It reduces the intention of politicians to do their job together to solve the problems regarding political rights and political activities. It is also associated with the decreasing rate of support for large scales governmental programs such as public education programs, health care reform programs and climate change adaptation programs. The decreasing rate of inclusivity leads to the decreased rate of sustainable and peaceful living condition of people across the entire world.

It concluded that cynicism is entirely unhealthy for Australian democratic society and it is called as a significant and potential threat for the Australian democratic society. However, Cynicism is not healthy for the democratic system and it also acts as a political motivator. It increases the focus of the people to cast vote for an eligible political leader. It can also increase the inclusivity of people towards political activity (Koerth, 2019). However, an increased rate of distrust among the Australian citizen towards the Australian government can reduce the participation of Australian people to develop political democratic rights.

Positive aspect of cynicism in developing political democracy rights:
This part aims to clearly describe the positive aspect and impact of cynicism in developing political democracy rights. In the view of Dowd (2019), the cynicism of Donald Trump has been proved that it is right. Cynicism is also considered to be a political motivator. In the view of the election of United States, majority number of democrats of United States declared their hearings were monotonous and momentous. Moreover, the majority of people lost their trust in the political activities of the former president of the United States, Donald Trump (Dowd, 2019). The majority of people think that the initiatives and activities of Donald Trump destroyed the national security of America. It increased the rate of participation of national people in casting votes for the eligible president of the United States.

The growth of the independent-identified voters is fuelling the growth of Cynicism. However, cynicism is sometimes considered to be a good thing when it is considered to be skepticism. However, cynicism can also damage the health of the democracy (UN News, 2013). Moreover, political cynicism and political information efficacy can also be affected by the presence of media in the lives of citizens of a country and state. Based on the view of the majority number of political critics, cynicism cannot be considered as the upcoming future of democracy and politics.

It concluded it is important to increase the trust among the politicians, political actors and people of the nation towards the governmental activity to re-build the democracy and to make a positive impact on the development of political democratic rights. Political cynicism can also be considered as the political motivator to enhance the future of the politics productive and bright.

Conclusion:
Based on the overall analysis, it concluded that the political culture of Australia has maintained Western Democracy.
Cooperative federalism has been maintained by the Australian people to influence each level of the Government to do their best activities to bring changes in the political system of Australia. Apathy and Cynicism is the insidious enemy of the democracy. It reduces the inclusivity and inclusive participation of nation people in developing democratic rights. It reduces the participation of politicians to figure out the appropriate solution for any problems regarding national security. It sometimes acts as a political motivator to bring positive changes in the political activities of the nation. ?

References:
aph.gov.au2014, Alex Oliver "Are Australians Disenchanted with Democracy?" – Parliament of Australia, viewed 29 September, 2021, https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/pops/pop62/c02.

aph.gov.au2021, Chapter 1 – Parliament of Australia, viewed 29 September, 2021, https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Former_Committees/reffed /reffed/report/c01.

Collett, E., 2021, Federalism - Frequently Asked Questions | Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law, viewed 29 September, 2021, http://www.gtcentre.unsw.edu.au/resources/federalism/frequently-asked-questions.

Dowd, M. 2019. Maureen Dowd: Trump’s cynicism has been proved right. viewed 21 September 2019, https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/us/maureen-dowd-trump-s-cynicism-has-been-proved-right-1.4115980

Fenna, A., 2012. Centralising dynamics in Australian federalism. Political culture essay Australian Journal of Politics & History, Vol.58, no.4, pp.580-590.

Fenna, A., 2019. The centralization of Australian federalism 1901–2010: Measurement and interpretation. Publius: The Journal of Federalism, Vol.49, no., pp.30-56.

Harrington, S., 2021, Australians couldn't care less about politics? Really?, viewed 29 September, 2021, https://theconversation.com/australians-couldnt-care-less-about-politics-really-53875.

Holland, J. & Wright, K.A., 2017. The double delegitimatisation of Julia Gillard: Gender, the media, and Australian political culture. Australian Journal of Politics & History, vol.63 no.4, pp.588-602.

homeaffairs.gov.au2021, Australian values, viewed 29 September, 2021, https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about-us/our-portfolios/social-cohesion/australian-values.

Koerth, 2019. In American Politics, Everyone’s A Cynic. viewed 29September, 2021, https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/in-american-politics-everyones-a-cynic/ Opdycke, K., Segura, P. & Vasquez, A.M., 2013. The effects of political cynicism, political information efficacy and media consumption on intended voter participation. Colloquy, Vol. 9, pp.75-97.

peo.gov.au2021, Australian system of government - Parliamentary Education Office, viewed 29 September, 2021, https://peo.gov.au/understand-our-parliament/how-parliament-works/system-of-government/australian-system-of-government/.

Rooduijn, M., Van der Brug, W., De Lange, S.L. & Parlevliet, J., 2017. Persuasive populism? Estimating the effect of populist messages on political cynicism. Politics and Governance, Vol.5, no.4, pp.136-145.

UN News, 2013. Apathy, democracy's most insidious enemy, can be remedied with inclusive participation – UN chief, viewed 29September, 2021, https://news.un.org/en/story/2013/09/449022-apathy-democracys-most-insidious-enemy-can-be-remedied-inclusive-participation