Research
Here, you can find works in progress, peer reviewed publications, and selected public reports.
Works in Progress
Legislators talk less about the future as they age
With Chris Hanretty and Vesa Koskimaa. (forthcoming, email me for a copy)
Conditionally accepted at the The Journal of Politics (2025)
Abstract: Many have argued that democracies suffer from short-termism. We investigate one possible determinant of short-termism: the age of elected representatives. Ageing is associated with various attitudinal and behavioural features that could change politicians’ temporal focus, but the direction of this effect remains unclear, with different largely survey-based study settings yielding different results. To study this link, we introduce an unobtrusive measure of politicians’ temporal focus. We measure the temporal focus of speech in four Westminster-style legislative chambers (the Australian Senate, the Canadian House of Commons, the Dáil Éireann, and the United Kingdom House of Commons) over a period of several decades. We model the proportion of speech focused on the future as a smooth function of politicians’ age. Controlling for party, cohort, governmental status and period effects, we find that, in all parliaments studied, politicians’ future focus declines slowly between 50 and 65 years of age, decreasing more rapidly thereafter.
Rise of the monster acts: growth in legislative complexity in Australia since the 1980s
With Keith Dowding. (available here)
Revise and Resubmit at the Journal of Public Policy (2025)
Abstract: How complex should the law be? Recent efforts by legal and political institutions in Australia have sought to define and combat the issue, largely focusing on ad hoc drafting solutions and plain language law. We complement this work with a system-level measure, which considers the interdependence among separate pieces of legislation. Using data from the Australian Law Reform Commission, we show that patterns of legislation conformed to expected statistical bounds until the end of the 1970s. After which, subsequent parliaments diverged, coinciding with the emergence of large and complex ‘monster acts’ that were far more likely to receive a disproportionate number of amendments. We provide an illustrative survey of the Australian monster acts, argue their complexity creates problems for public policy at a local and systemic level, and discuss the implications of our research for managing complexity in lawmaking for democratic governance.
Term lengths and legislators’ temporal focus
With Chris Hanretty. (available here)
Under Review
Abstract: Politicians concerned about re-election have reasons to favour present benefits over future benefits when those benefits arrive after the next election. This suggests that longer term lengths can increase politicians’ ability to focus on the future. We investigate the effects of term length on politicians’ future focus, as inferred from their legislative speech. We study future focus in the Australian Senate, where, following “double dissolution” elections, legislators are elected either to short (three-year) or long (six-year terms). We study all double dissolution elections in the period 1974-2019, testing the association between longer terms and future focus. We then study very particular circumstances in the 2016-2019 Senate, where four senators were promoted from short to long terms as a result of the ineligibility of those elected ahead of them, allowing a difference-in- difference specification. We find no substantively or statistically significant effect of an increase in term length on individual legislators’ future focus.
Ideology and Docket Management in the High Court of Australia
With Tonja Jacobi, Zoë Robinson and Russell Smyth. (available here)
Under Review
Abstract: Does judicial ideology affect the process of agenda-setting in the High Court of Australia? Applications for “special leave” to appeal are the primary method through which the High Court manages its caseload, analogous to certiorari at the U.S. Supreme Court. Acceptance rates are low (10–15%) and the consequences of rejection for litigants are high, since the Court rules as the final court of appeal in all areas of Australian law, including constitutional matters. To process special leave applications, the Court selects small, variably sized, panels of justices to adjudicate, deciding cases primarily via oral argument or summary disposition. However, the specific criteria for panel selection is nowhere explicitly documented, and by practice, the Chief Justice chooses the size and composition of the special leave panels. We argue this creates clear potential for ideological bias to impact case outcomes. Applying novel methods, we demonstrate that, despite substantial variability in the ideological composition of special leave panels, there is very limited evidence that panels are selected strategically to limit the success of applications in particular areas of law, and that there is no evidence that ideological composition has any impact on the success of special leave applications. Our findings contribute to a growing literature on the politics of judicial agenda setting outside the United States.
Parliamentary Debate and Job Market Signaling in Westminster Systems
Under Review
Abstract: This article examines parliamentary speech as a job-market signal in Westminster systems, where ministers are selected from the legislature under conditions of informational asymmetry. Building on signaling theory, it argues that party leaders use visible, effortful parliamentary activites—such as frequent speechmaking—as proxies for latent qualities like political aptitude and commitment. Using data from Australia, Canada, Ireland, and the UK, it finds that a one standard deviation increase in first-term speech rate is associated with a 27% [95% CI: 19, 36] increase in the risk of ministerial promotion. The relationship is role-specific (predicting ministerial but not whip appointments) and robust to confounds such as elite education, gender, and prior experience. These findings contribute to the literatures on ministerial selection and parliamentary debate by reframing parliamentary speech as a strategic investment. They also challenge critical conceptions of the Westminster model by showing how fused executive–legislative dynamics shape ministers’ career incentives and institutional understanding.
Under Review
Abstract: The descriptive representation literature has not yet settled on an effective method to describe and summarize under-representation among multiple subgroups of the population simultaneously. I propose a method based on the Gallagher index (used in measures of proportionality of electoral systems) to measure multigroup representation as disproportionality from population benchmarks. I then apply the measure to the representation of professional experience in the Australian Parliament (1985-2020) to show that, while the representation of women has improved significantly since the 1980s, the representation of professional experience has declined slightly. The method and findings contribute to a nascent literature that is concerned with the consequences of complex descriptive representation (for example, the interplay of gender and occupation) for the quality of democratic outcomes.
Complex hypergraph analysis of Australian MPs’ professional connections, 1947-2019
With Eve Cheng and Danny Cocks.
Abstract: We propose a suite of methods to analyse the professional networks of MPs, showing how to analyse weak-tie connections between legislators and the connections between background characteristic attributes. Applied to a novel dataset on the backgrounds of Australian MPs in the Australian Labor Party and the Liberal Party of Australia (1947-2019), we show that our approach can help to describe and explain the decline in working-class and trade unionist MPs from the Labor Party, the homogeneous elitism of the mid-20 century Liberal Party, and the increasing similarity of both parties’ professional networks, occurring in the period of party cartellisation from the 1980s onward. Our paper’s findings show that our method has clear potential for broader applications in the study of political representation, diversity, and elite political networks.
Publications
With Nicolás de la Cerda, Ryan Bakker, Ruth Dassonneville, Seth Jolly, Jelle Koedam, Jonathan Polk, Jill Sheppard, and Roi Zur.
The Journal of Politics (2025)
Abstract: We examine the cross-national comparability of expert placements of political parties on the economic left-right dimension using a novel dataset combining data from Europe, Latin America, Australia, Israel, Canada, and the United States. Using anchoring vignettes and Bayesian Aldrich-McKelvey Scaling (BAM), we assess evidence of geographic and expert-level differential item functioning (DIF) in how experts interpret the left-right scale. We find statistically significant but substantively small variations in how experts perceive party positions cross-nationally, particularly in terms of directional bias and the spread of their ideological placements. While the correlation between “raw” survey scores and DIF-corrected estimates is high (0.991), we observe meaningful deviations for individual parties, with larger discrepancies between rather than within regions. These results indicate that the economic left-right dimension exhibits broad consistency in expert understanding across countries, yet researchers should still exercise caution when making cross-national comparisons, particularly across regions where expert perceptions show greater variation.
DOI: 10.1086/736578
The Parliamentary Voting Behaviour of ‘Teal’ Independent MPs
Australian Journal of Political Science (2025)
Abstract: I examine the voting behaviour of teal independent MPs in Australia’s 47th Parliament, addressing ongoing debates about whether these MPs function as effectively as a cohesive party. Using data from the Parliament of Australia’s Divisions database, I apply party cohesion measures and an optimal classification analysis to assess parliamentary voting patterns. The findings show that the teal independents, while formally unaffiliated, exhibit significant cohesion, though falling short of registered parties. This study also reveals the impact of a record-sized crossbench on the structure of parliamentary voting, with a new policy dimension emerging that separates minor parties and independents from major party dynamics. These findings contribute to the discussion of ‘party-ness’ and the evolving role of independents in parliamentary systems.
DOI: 10.1080/10361146.2025.2498152
Policy Success and Failure in Australia
With Keith Dowding and Marija Taflaga.
Australian Journal of Public Administration (2025)
Abstract: This paper introduces the seven articles in the symposium on policy success and failure together with a short introduction to the large literature on policy success and failure. The issue brings together an analysis of success and failure within seven discrete policy domains, including Indigenous policy; immigration; foreign policy; water; government roll-outs; education; and foreign aid. Previous case studies have not looked as systematically at both success and failure within the same policy domain, and so the direct comparison in a most similar systems framework has not previously been adopted. Each paper sets its own criteria for what it considers success and failure, allowing for the forthcoming analyses to remain relevant to their specific context and parameters. However, despite their differences, the papers reflect on the importance of institutions, implementation processes—specifically their attentiveness to the on-ground conditions and target groups—political dimensions, time, expectations, and memory. This suggests that while it may be difficult to compare across policy domains, our within-policy domain comparison reveals that good governance, despite some failures, is not a lost art.
Institutional Design and the Predictability of Judicial Interruptions at Oral Argument
With Tonja Jacobi and Zoë Robinson.
Journal of Law and Courts (2024)
Abstract: Examining oral argument in the Australian High Court and comparing to the U.S. Supreme Court, this article shows that institutional design drives judicial interruptive behavior. Many of the same individual- and case-level factors predict oral argument behavior. Notably, despite orthodoxy of the High Court as “apolitical,” ideology strongly predicts interruptions, just as in the United States. Yet, important divergent institutional design features between the two apex courts translate into meaningful behavioral differences, with the greater power of the Chief Justice resulting in differences in interruptions. Finally, gender effects are lower and only identifiable with new methodological techniques we develop and apply.
DOI: 10.1017/jlc.2023.23
Comparative Exceptionalism? Strategy and Ideology in the High Court of Australia
With Tonja Jacobi and Zoë Robinson.
American Journal of Comparative Law (2024)
Abstract: This Article provides a rare comprehensive empirical assessment of oral argument outside of the United States. Drawing on a novel dataset over twenty-six years (1995–2019), comprising nearly one million speech episodes at oral argument in Australia’s apex court, the High Court of Australia, we are able to compare patterns of judicial behavior found in the U.S. Supreme Court to a comparable Western liberal democracy with a long tradition of judicial independence. There are a number of highly significant institutional differences between the Australian context and the U.S. Supreme Court, including a Chief Justice with additional power at oral argument, unlimited time for the length of argument, and variable panel sizes. Nevertheless, the Article finds evidence of similar patterns between Australian High Court and U.S. Supreme Court Justices. Importantly, this includes engaging in judicial advocacy on behalf of the side of the case that they ultimately support, contradicting the jurisprudential orthodoxy that the Australian judiciary is apolitical. In addition, numerous other factors that have been shown to be highly influential in the American context are also shown to be powerful in the Australian context, most notably judicial ideology, gender, and experience. This suggests that while striking institutional differences can impact oral argument and make arguments look very different, we can nonetheless discern similar underlying patterns of judicial behavior that can be recognized as strategic advocacy. All this suggests that neither system is “exceptional”—judicial advocacy may simply be part and parcel of having a strong independent judiciary.
DOI: 10.1093/ajcl/avad038
Judicial Ideology in the Absence of Rights: Evidence from Australia
With Zoë Robinson and Jill Sheppard.
Journal of Law and Courts (2022)
Abstract: Research on judicial behavior has yet to systematically examine the extent to which ideology affects voting behavior outside of rights-based issues. This study explores the predictive effect of judicial ideology on judicial votes in a country without a bill of rights: Australia. We develop an ex ante measure of judicial ideology and use original data on every Australian High Court decision between 1995 and 2019 to test whether, and in which types of cases, votes of Australia’s justices align with their ideology. The results show that ex ante ideology is predictive of voting behavior, regardless of policy area.
DOI: 10.1086/716187
With Zoë Robinson and Russell Smyth.
Australian Journal of Political Science (2021)
Abstract: We examine whether Justices appointed to the High Court of Australia are more likely to find in favour of the Federal Government when the Prime Minister who appointed them is in office than when subsequent Prime Ministers are in office, over the period 1995 to 2019. We find evidence of a loyalty effect, even when subsequent Prime Ministers are of the same political party as the Prime Minister who appointed them. We distinguish between Justices appointed by Labor and Liberal Prime Ministers and show that the loyalty effect holds for Justices appointed by the Howard and Turnbull governments. These findings are important because they are central to the understanding of judicial independence and the rule of law.
DOI: 10.1080/10361146.2021.1998346
Speaker Time in an Adversarial System
With Keith Dowding and Marija Taflaga
Bäck, H., Fernandes, J. and Debus, M. (eds.) The Politics of Legislative Debate (2021)
Abstract: This chapter examines speeches in the Australian House of Representatives from 1990-2019. Our findings are primarily determined by the nature of Australia’s Westminster-style system, where the government tends to dominate proceedings. We find strong party effects, government versus opposition effects, and strong ministerial effects on the amount and duration of speeches. The descriptive statistics demonstrate that women and less experienced parliamentarians speak less than male and experienced ones. The gender effect also holds when controlling for ministerial selection. The latter is likely to be explained by men being given more important and prestigious ministerial portfolios. We also find that opposition MPs speak more on average than non-ministers on the government side. However, that is mostly a statistical artifact of their necessarily being fewer opposition MPs, but the rules give both sides of the House approximately equal time to speak. While both gender and seniority are predictive of how much people speak, this is mediated by the fact ministers speak more.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198849063.003.0008
The Ordering of Gambling Severity and Harm Scales: A Cautionary Tale
With Kate Sollis, Marisa Paterson and Nick Biddle.
Journal of Gambling Issues (2020)
Abstract: Question-order effects are known to occur in surveys, particularly those that measure subjective experiences. The presence of context effects will impact the comparability of results if questions have not been presented in a consistent manner. In this study, we examined the influence of question order on how people responded to two gambling scales in the Australian Capital Territory Gambling Prevalence Survey: The Problem Gambling Severity Index and the Short Gambling Harm Screen. The application of these scales in gambling surveys is continuing to grow, the results being compared across time and between jurisdictions, countries, and populations. Here we outline a survey experiment that randomized the question ordering of these two scales. The results show that question-order effects are present for these scales, demonstrating that results from them may not be comparable across jurisdictions if the scales have not been presented consistently across surveys. These findings highlight the importance of testing for the presence of question-order effects, particularly for those scales that measure subjective experiences, and correcting for such effects where they exist by randomizing scale order.
Querying the Gender Dynamics of Interruptions at Australian Oral Argument
With Tonja Jacobi and Zoë Robinson.
UNSW Law Review (2020)
DOI: 10.3316/informit.621595939800004
With Marisa Paterson and Megan Whitty
Journal of Gambling Studies (2020)
Abstract: The prevalence of gambling harm among active duty military personnel is a largely unexplored topic. With different forms of social gambling often found within (or in close proximity to) military bases around the world, understanding the extent of gambling activities and consequent harms occurring within military contexts warrants further attention. This review aims to identify, describe and thematically synthesise published literature on gambling harm and related issues among active duty military personnel. Scoping review methods were applied in order to understand this relatively under-researched population and understand appropriate avenues for future research. A systematic multi-database text word search, incorporating search results from Scopus, Pubmed, Web of Science, PsychInfo, and the Journal Military Medicine, was conducted. A total of 11 sources met inclusion criteria, all originating from the United States of America. The results suggest a distinct gap in the current international literature on this topic. Despite gambling’s long and colourful association with defence downtime, research into gambling harm prevalence rates in relation to what could be considered a high-risk group is limited. Findings reveal that strategies to identify and address gambling harm within this population are severely lacking from the published literature and non-existent outside North America. Implications for understanding and addressing gambling harm among active duty personnel and directions for future research are discussed.
DOI: 10.1007/s10899-020-09951-4
Ideology, Grandstanding, and Strategic Party Disloyalty in the British Parliament
With Jon Slapin, Justin Kirkland, Joseph Lazzaro and Tom O’Grady.
American Political Science Review (2018)
Abstract: Strong party discipline is a core feature of Westminster parliamentary systems. Parties typically compel members of Parliament (MPs) to support the party regardless of MPs’ individual preferences. Rebellion, however, does occur. Using an original dataset of MP votes and speeches in the British House of Commons from 1992 to 2015, coupled with new estimations of MPs’ ideological positions within their party, we find evidence that MPs use rebellion strategically to differentiate themselves from their party. The strategy that MPs employ is contingent upon an interaction of ideological extremity with party control of government. Extremists are loyal when their party is in the opposition, but these same extremists become more likely to rebel when their party controls government. Additionally, they emphasize their rebellion through speeches. Existing models of rebellion and party discipline do not account for government agenda control and do not explain these patterns.
Could Rainfall Have Swung the Result of the Brexit Referendum?
With Baris Arı.
Political Geography (2018)
Abstract: Previous studies have shown that weather conditions may affect voter turnout, sometimes in ways that could plausibly swing the result of a close election. On the day of Britain’s EU Referendum, the presence of torrential rain in the South-East of England and Northern Ireland raised concern in the media that voter turnout could be affected in a manner that favoured the Vote Leave campaign. To test this assertion, this paper takes data at the polling district level and overlays interpolated rainfall data using geographic information system (GIS) technology. Despite widespread expectations to the contrary, our analysis shows that the rain had the greatest effect on the leave vote, reducing the Brexiteer tally by as many as 4618 votes in one district. We find that if the referendum had taken place on a sunny day, there would have been a small increase in the margin of victory for Vote Leave.
DOI: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2018.05.009
Public Reports
With Marisa Paterson and Matt Taylor (2019)
Abstract: The Australian National University (Anu) Centre for Gambling Research (CGR) was funded by the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Gambling and Racing Commission to conduct the 2019 ACT Gambling Survey. The overarching objective of the 2019 ACT Gambling Survey is to assist monitoring by the ACT Gambling and Racing Commission of the social and economic impacts of gambling in the ACT. The survey design allows comparison with data collected in the 2009 and 2014 ACT prevalence studies. It also allows new trends in gambling behaviour, such as online gambling, to be measured, and provides data on topics of particular current interest. The Anu CGR partnered with the Social Research Centre to conduct the survey. The Social Research Centre was responsible for data collection, using computer-assisted telephone interviewing. The Anu CGR analysed the data and drafted this report. The 2019 survey saw 10 000 ACT adult residents interviewed over a 6-week period (April–May 2019). Participants provided detailed information on their gambling participation, expenditure and harm (including harm from significant others’ gambling) during the past 12 months. Select groups of participants were asked about attitudes towards gambling, help-seeking behaviour, physical and mental wellbeing, financial hardship, and online expenditure.
Review of the Northern Territory Code of Practice for Responsible Gambling
With Marisa Paterson, Matt Gray, Megan Whitty, Anna Lethborg and Scott Pennay (2019)
Abstract: This report presents the findings of the review of the Northern Territory (NT) Code of Practice for Responsible Gambling 2016 (the Code) conducted by the Australian National University for the NT Government. The NT Code of Practice for Responsible Gambling sets out minimum requirements that gambling providers are mandated to implement to reduce harms associated with gambling in the NT. The Code includes harm minimisation measures across 10 different categories. Gambling operators must implement and comply with these measures as part of their licensee conditions. The review involved venue observations, a survey of gambling venue staff, depth interviews with venue staff, depth interviews with NT Government compliance officers and a public submission process. The review found that the NT Code is one of the more comprehensive of the Australian codes, with several of the measures included in the NT Code absent from some of the other state and territory codes. Overall, the review revealed a significant level of venue noncompliance with the Code. There was also considerable variability in the implementation of measures in venues that were compliant. These findings point to a lack of adequate enforcement of the Code, as well as significant issues with training and implementation.