A history of the first five decades of one of Australia's leading universities.Griffith University's first students arrived on its leafy bush campus in March 1975. Without the pedigree of age, Griffith set out from the start to be different.Drawing on interviews with over 150 staff and students, as well as wide-ranging documentary sources, Patrick Weller investigates what the university as an institution stands for: its goals, its activities, its values and...

Why is cabinet government so resilient? Despite many obituaries, why does it continue to be the vehicle for governing across most parliamentary systems? Comparing Cabinets answers these questions by examining the structure and performance of cabinet government in five democracies: the United Kingdom, Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Australia. The book is organised around the dilemmas that cabinet governments must solve: how to develop the formal rules and practices that can brin...

International Organizations (IOs) are vital institutions in world politics in which cross-border issues can be discussed and global problems managed.This path-breaking book shows the efforts that small states have made to participate more fully in IO activities. It draws attention to the challenges created by widened participation in IOs and develops an original model of the dilemmas that both IOs and small states face as the norms of sovereign equality and the right to develop coi...

It was a very different Kevin Rudd who returned to office in 2013. Kevin 07 was a fresh face and a new image: the convivial, Mandarin-speaking nerd who seemed so different from past leaders and who held so much potential. By 2013 Rudd retained some of his popularity but none of his novelty. The Opposition could say nothing derogatory about him that his colleagues had not already said. A series of policy grenades had to be defused. His second term was to be short, brutal and nasty. Yet, des...

International organizations (IOs) matter. This book uncovers the regular working world of IOs, examining whether, to what extent, and how these 'global governing bodies' can act independently of the will of states. This book explores this issue by asking who or what shapes their decisions; how and when decisions are made; how players interact within an IO; and how the interactions vary across IOs. The Working World of International Organizations examines three working groups in t...

Prime ministers are presented as ever-more powerful figures; at the same time they seem to fail more regularly. How can the public image be so different from the apparent experience? This book seeks to answer this conundrum. It examines the myth that prime ministers are growing more powerful or that prime ministerial government has replaced cabinet government, and explores the way that prime ministers work and how they use the available levers of power to build support across the political...

International organisations (IOs) often receive a bad press, seen as intrusive, domineering and unresponsive to the needs of the people and countries they are meant to serve. The best way to understand the operation of these international organisations is to bring together those who represent their countries at IOs and those who have been working at IOs at various capacities and then to listen to their experiences.This book develops an alternative approach to the analysis of IOs th...

This book explores how the governmental elites in Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa understand their Westminster system. It examines in detail four interrelated features of Westminster systems. Firstly, the increasing centralisation in collective, responsible cabinet government. Second, the constitutional convention of ministerial and collective responsibility. Third, the role of a professional, non-partisan public service. And finally, parliament's relationship to ...

For years, the prospect of parliamentary reform has been a hot-button issue in Canada. More and more Canadians find themselves frustrated with how Parliament works (or doesn't) and end up increasingly checked out from politics as a whole, feeling like their voices don't matter to those in power.When he introduced the "Reform Act" bill in 2013, Conservative MP Michael Chong brought the issue of parliamentary reform to the forefront, proposing changes that would empower MPs and hold ...

HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED... ... what emotions really influence where your cross goes on the ballot paper? ... whether people are claiming to vote when they haven't? ... which party's supporters are the kinkiest in bed? In the run-up to the most hotly contested and unpredictable election in a generation, this exhilarating read injects some life back into the world of British electoral politics. Sex, Lies and the Ballot Box sheds light on some of our more unusual voting trends, ranging from wh...

Exam board: AQALevel: A-levelSubject: PoliticsFirst teaching: September 2017First exams: Summer 2018 (AS) Summer 2019 (A-Level)Written by experienced teachers Nick Gallop and Paul Fairclough, this Student Guide for Politics:-Identifies the key content you need to know with a concise summary of topics examined in the AS/A-level specifications-Enables you to ...

Winner of the Political Book of the Year Award 2015The UK Independence Party (UKIP) is the most significant new party in British politics for a generation. In recent years UKIP and their charismatic leader Nigel Farage have captivated British politics, media and voters. Yet both the party and the roots of its support remain poorly understood. Where has this political revolt come from? Who is supporting them, and why? How are UKIP attempting to win over voters? And ...