Pacific Affairs: An International Review of Asia and the Pacific

Volume 73, No. 2

 

Australian Democracy and the Compound Republic
By Graham Maddox

 

Abstract

Acknowledged as a post-Enlightenment country, Australia is evidently unencumbered by pre-modern institutions or ideologies. The dominant interpretation of the Australian polity is as a "liberal" nation, structured with constitutional impediments to collectivist action and accommodating to individualist policies. Characterization of Australia as "a compound republic" both reinforces constitutional brakes on coherent government action and forestalls moves to change the constitution into some novel republican form. Yet this paper argues that there is a legitimate collectivist tradition in Australian political history that should not be allowed to be stifled by the dominance of individualist constructions of the polity.