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Public opinion research has shown that voters accept many falsehoods about politics. This observation is widely considered troubling for democracy—and especially participatory ideals of democracy. I argue that this influential narrative is nevertheless flawed, because it misunderstands the nature of political understanding. Drawing on philosophical examinations of scientific modelling, I demonstrate that accepting falsehoods within one's model of political reality is compatible with—and indeed can positively enhance—one's understanding of that reality. Thus, the observation that voters accept many political falsehoods does not necessarily establish that they lack political understanding. I then address three worries: that voters cannot generally engage in such political modelling; that political modelling obscures facts that are crucial to political understanding; and that successful political modelling would require knowing that one's model contains falsehoods. My responses reveal how, going forward, we should measure political ignorance; and they highlight the standing importance of participatory democracy.

The Commonwealth of Australia

January to June 2003


Paul D. Williams
School of Politics and Public Policy, Griffith University New South Wales

January to June 2003


Sean Scalmer
Politics and International Relations, Macquarie University Victoria

January to June 2003


Nick Economou
Monash University Queensland

January to June 2003


John Wanna
School of Politics and Public Policy, Griffith University Western Australia

January to June 2003


Harry C. J. Phillips
International, Cultural and Community Studies, Edith Cowan University
David Black
John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library, Curtin University of Technology South Australia

January to June 2003


Andrew Parkin
Political and International Studies, Flinders University Tasmanian Political Chronicle

January to June 2003


Richard Herr
School of Government, University of Tasmania Northern Territory

January to June 2003


David Garment
Faculty of Law, Business and Arts, Northern Territory University Australian Capital Territory

January to June 2003


Gwynneth Singleton
Canberra

Published Online: 22/08/2015 ; This essay highlights productive ways in which scholars have reanimated the concept of structural power to explain puzzles in international and comparative politics. Past comparative scholarship stressed the dependence of the state on holders of capital, but it struggled to reconcile this supposed dependence with the frequent losses of business in political battles. International relation (IR) scholars were attentive to the power of large states, but mainstream IR neglected the ways in which the structure of global capitalism makes large companies international political players in their own right. To promote a unified conversation between international and comparative political economy, structural power is best conceptualized as a set of mutual dependencies between business and the state. A new generation of structural power research is more attentive to how the structure of capitalism creates opportunities for some companies (but not others) vis-à-vis the state, and the ways in which that structure creates leverage for some states (but not others) to play off companies against each other. Future research is likely to put agents – both states and large firms – in the foreground as political actors, rather than showing how the structure of capitalism advantages all business actors in the same way against non-business actors.

Alongside Saint Thomas Aquinas, the thought of Saint Augustine stands as one of the central fountainheads of not only theology but Western social and political theory. In the twentieth century especially, Augustine has been pivotal to the development of modern and contemporary political and social construction. Schools of 'Augustinianism' proliferated, especially in French, German, and English, and debated critical questions around the relationship of the church and state, war, justice, ethics, virtue, and the life of citizenship, interpreted through a lens provided by Augustine. Political Augustinianism examines these modern political readings of Augustine, providing an extensive account of the pivotal French, British, and American strands of interpretation. Fr. Michael J.S. Bruno guides the reader through these modern strands of interpretation, examines their historical, theological, and socio-political context, and discusses the hermeneutical underpinnings of the modern discussion of Augustine's social and political thought

How do political elites persist? Populist movements highlight the continued tension between citizens and political elites. This article reviews some recent research on political selection and inequality. I consider political inequality as the persistent political selection of specific individuals or their relatives over time. Empirical historical research employing statistical analysis of natural experiments can help to understand the connection between specific democratic institutions, such as elections or lotteries, and political selection, political behaviour, or political inequality over time. Some democratic features enable elites to persist, yet there is much variation in political inequality over time and space. Further research could aim to disentangle institutional causes of this variation from determinants of institutional choice.