Political Organisations and Participation Research Group

The formidable @joshsunman.bsky.social brought me with him to provide some historical and comparative context for One Nation's surge in the polls.

This is a desperate attempt to remain in the public eye. Australia shouldn't buy into it Canavan can tell the kind of pomposity Australians loathe.

I spoke to Jenna Price for this cracking piece in the Canberra Times on Pauline Hanson’s latest Islamophobic tirade

Jenna takes Hanson to task, and doesn’t miss ⬇️

www.canberratimes.com.au/story/917875...

Women’s Pathways to Power: Cracking the Glass Ceiling Women’s Pathways to Power: Cracking the Glass Ceiling provides an interdisciplinary study of the lingering impediments obstructing women’s access to power to attain democratic equality, comprising the...

Check it out here & order for libraries

This new book Women’s Pathway to Power arrived today - edited by my great friend @acarson.bsky.social

'I am shocked': Unpacking One Nation's spectacular rise in the polls Pauline Hanson's One Nation has seen the fastest polling rise in modern Australian politics. What is going on?

🚨 I spoke to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) with some colleagues about One Nation’s meteoric rise

Some really good data visualisation in this Story Lab piece

www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02...

Some thoughts from @cazuarina.bsky.social and I about some of the key elements and drivers involved in the complex issue of information integrity, with a particular focus on climate change and energy in Australia. Timely with the Select Committee into this issue having new public hearings this week.

Can One Nation turn its polling hype into seats in parliament? History shows it will struggle Pauline Hanson’s party has been dysfunctional and scandal-ridden for its entire existence. Capitalising on strong polling will mean changing decades-old patterns.

🚨 New article by me and Jordan McSwiney in The Conversation about One Nation’s long history of dysfunction, infighting and scandal, and why this is will be one of the biggest barriers to the party translating its polling surge into electoral success

theconversation.com/can-one-nati...

What Sofia is too modest to explicitly say in her post below, is that - in addition to our PRR youth wings book - she has a solo one coming out with OUP in June on grassroots women in the PRR:

global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Great to see this piece in @themandarin.bsky.social discussing our (w Maria Maley) study on how the APS internally communicated (and learnt?) about Robodebt
doi.org/10.1080/1350...

From cute dogs to Turning Point: the journey of an influencer aiming to breathe rightwing Christian values into Australian politics Emboldened by major successes in the US and UK, the conservative Christian organisation Turning Point has its sights set on Australia’s political ecosystem

Could Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point really gain traction in Australia? I spoke to Tory Shepherd from @theguardian.com for this piece ✍️

www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

The five spatial political logics of populism: An analytical framework and research agenda for studying the populist politicisation of space from the local to the transnational - Benjamin De Cleen, Be... How does populism interact with space? While it is increasingly acknowledged that populism operates across geographical scales from the local to the transnation...

🔥 NEW ARTICLE ALERT 🔥

The five spatial political logics of populism: An analytical framework and research agenda for studying the populist politicisation of space from the local to the transnational

in @bjpir.bsky.social with Benjamin de Cleen & Panos Panayotu
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

A discreet intellectual network has been reshaping the world for 70 years. Here's how A constant battle of ideas reshapes the world we live in, and few groups have been more successful in winning the war than the little-known Atlas Network.

...'a global network of free-market think tanks to target the "intellectuals" in society, and to market their ideas like toothpaste to win the "battle for ideas"...'

www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01...

#auspol #thinktanks #agendasetting

Heatwave poses threat to workers - ABC listen Australians have been finding different ways to cope with the extreme heat this week.

You can hear the ACTU and myself talk about the impact of heatwaves and high temperatures on workers on ABC AM this morning. www.abc.net.au/listen/progr...

Racism, Amplification, and Mainstreaming | 4 | News media and the Aust This chapter critically explores the relationship between news media and the far right. The role of news media in the amplification, mainstreaming and

🚨 Chuffed to see my new chapter with Jordan McSwiney published

Racism, Amplification and Mainstreaming: News Media and the Australian Far Right

The chapter features in a vital new book ‘The Far Right and the Media’, brilliantly edited by Imogen Richards 🥳

www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edi...

Marian Sawer

In the run up to Australia Day the annual culture war is being waged against 'the elites trying to steal our day'. This time it has combined with outrage about Australian Research Council funding of an Indigenous project called Change the date? johnmenadue.com/post/2026/01...

I also have something really nice to share, the first article from our hi vis workwear and workers project is out — a collaboration with Jesse Adams Stein and Bettina Frankham, all from the Faculty of Design & Society at @utsengage.bsky.social
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

New year and new article out in @ausjpolsci.bsky.social with Mark Chou, Rachel Busbridge & Luke Dean: Mapping the ‘fringe’ in Australian local politics

We provide the first systematic analysis of fringe candidates in the 2024 NSW & VIC local government elections. 🧵

Planning to start a PhD in Media and Communications in 2026? Come work with me and others at the @qutdmrc.bsky.social! ✨

Given the bad cold that I've had for the past few days (in the midst of the Australian summer 🤦‍♀️), waking up to this email was particularly sweet...

Coming soon in @ejprjournal.bsky.social: our YOUMEM study on gender differences in motivations for joining youth wings of young women and men ✨

A new era of ‘minimal social democracy’? Comparing UK Labour under Keir Starmer - British Politics British Politics - This article examines the policy and ideological orientation of Keir Starmer’s Labour government following its landslide victory at the 2024 UK General Election. Through a...

Rob Manwaring and I are in British Politics this January. We examine the policy and ideological orientation of Keir Starmer’s Labour government through a comparative analysis with five recent centre-left governments. It's open access too!

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Which groups mobilise on #climate policy in Australia?

📣 Darren Halpin and I have a new paper out in @environmentalpol.bsky.social that systematically maps who mobilises on climate policy in Australia, what side of the issue they fall on, and in which arenas they mobilise.

Key finding include 🧵

Gonna need to add a bit more to this work in progress, huh?

How meaningful is the Labor 2PP in the teal seats? For the final blog post of 2025, I wanted to look at a question that has come up regularly in the comments, and on psephological websites: how meaningful is the two-party-preferred vote, particular…

Today's blog post is my last one for the year and it examines the question of whether the 2PP (Labor vs Liberal) is meaningful in seats where it is a Liberal vs Independent contests (mostly the teal seats) #auspol

🌈 Very excited to share my new article with @barrieshannon.com in the Australian Journal of Political Science

‘Mainstreaming LGBTQIA+ hate: the far right’s anti-gender countermovement in Australia’

url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/q4GHCROND2...

Here is our conversation article accompanying the launch of our report!

After 3 years and 5,322 emails (and counting) our Encyclopedia of Political Communication is finally out at @elgarpublishing.bsky.social

📚 Three volumes
⭐ 431 entries
🎓 581 wonderful authors from across the world

A very short 🧵

Was great to work on this report with Adele Webb and @maxgroemping.bsky.social! I learnt a lot working on this report, and I'm glad it's out there in the world.

An interesting alternative to the Oz social media ban - youth-led movements trying to reshape big tech and harmful practices

The Nationals and expanding the parliament Recent reporting, and my own experience, indicates that the federal Labor government is seriously considering an expansion in the size of the Australian federal parliament, echoing the previous exp…

Today's blog post dives into history and looks at how the Coalition has responded to past Labor moves to expand the size of the parliament, why the attitude of the National Party changed between 1948 and 1983, and what that has to do with redistribution rules. #auspol

Podcast #159 – The Labor factions Ben was joined this week by Osmond Chiu, Per Capita research fellow and contributor editor for the Labor Left magazine Challenge, to discuss the factions of the Australian Labor Party. Read Osmond&…

This week's Tallyroom podcast is essential listening for understanding the modern Australian Labor Party.

👏 friends of POP: host @benraue.com in conversation with @redrabbleroz.bsky.social

www.tallyroom.com.au/63678