What is politics for? (original) (raw)
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The Rise and Fall of Post-Politics in Aotearoa New Zealand
MA Thesis, 2019
Documenting the historical sequence running from the post-war ‘New Deal’ and corresponding economic boom up until the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, this thesis outlines the rise of post-politics internationally. With the collapse of the former Soviet-states signalling the left’s capitulation to neoliberal capital under the guise of the ‘third way’, this period marked the ostensible ‘End of History’ and the dawn of post-politics. Here, politics is no longer about contestation, antagonism or disagreement but is reduced to its purely administrative function, whereby its primary purpose is to facilitate the continuous and successful operation of the economy. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of Chantal Moffe, Jacques Rancière, Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek, this thesis demonstrates that post- politics does not result in the evisceration of politics but, rather, the repression of politics. The outcome of this is the inevitable return of the repressed, this being politics ‘proper’. In the wake of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 and the emergence of Occupy, Trump, Brexit, and numerous other revolts and uprisings, this period signals the fall of post-politics and the ‘Rebirth of History’, witnessing the emergence of politics ‘proper’. An explicit exercise in self-clarification, this thesis ultimately documents the international rise and fall of post-politics, exploring how this maps onto the local context in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Drawing on Dylan Taylor’s identification of a ‘third phase’ of Aotearoa/New Zealand’s left, characterised by a potential ‘period of renewal’, this thesis seeks to inquire into whether this trend has continued. Given that Taylor’s thesis was completed immediately prior to the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, an ‘updating’ is therefore required to account for the events of the last ten years. Coinciding with international fall of post-politics, this thesis ultimately identifies the emergence of a new politics outside of the parliamentary sphere, potentially indicative of a ‘fourth phase’ of Aotearoa/New Zealand’s left.
Ministerial Advisers, Politicization and the Retreat from Westminster: The Case of New Zealand
Public Administration
Political advisers are an established third element in a number of Westminster-styled jurisdictions, as they are in New Zealand ' s institution of executive government. In this paper we report the initial fi ndings of a research project focusing on the role and accountabilities of ministerial advisers in New Zealand. We locate these fi ndings in the context of a growing body of international and comparative research on the role and accountabilities of non civil-or public-service advisers within political executives and comment on the extent to which the fi ndings affi rm or refute the view that the ' third element ' constitutes a threat to the continued application of Westminster principles and practices in New Zealand ' s system of government -once described as more Westminster than Westminster. In doing so, we highlight defi ciencies in standard conceptions of politicization and argue that there is a need to more clearly differentiate between its procedural and substantive dimensions.
Democratic representation is an analytically productive vantage point for examining the differences between classically liberal and neoliberal demands for performing indigeneity. As legal contexts have shifted from being classically liberal to neoliberal, multicultural democratic representation has changed markedly, especially in its core conceptions of what constitutes alliances, representation, and culture. These transformations become visible when issues of democratic representation are at stake, especially in cases of indigenous self-representation, such as when indigenous Māori politicians are representing their indigenous Māori constituents. In this article, I compare two different historical moments in the New Zealand parliament – the turn of the 20 th century and the turn of the 21 st century – to contrast being an indigenous democratic representative in a liberal era and being an indigenous democratic representative in a neoliberal era. Through this comparison, I shed light on the ways in which neoliberal perspectives in legal contexts have changed the role of indigenous politicians.
The insides and outsides of parliamentary politics
Social Studies of Science, 2020
This introduction to a special issue on parliaments identifies a tendency in STS to look for politics either inside or outside mainstream democratic institutions. Summarising the insights of the four contributions to the special issue, the introduction argues that – in light of current challenges to dominant modes of doing politics across the globe – the task for STS scholars is neither to renew faith in what is happening in various legislatures, nor to look for alternatives elsewhere. Rather it is to carefully explore how their multiple insides and outsides are being connected, and what possibilities those connections offer as we continue to navigate spaces defined by the Panopticon and the Parliament as the twin diagrams of modernity.
Auckland, New Zealand – fair game for central party politics
Local Government Studies, 2019
This paper explores the influence of central party politics in Auckland local government, in New Zealand's largest city, following the 2010 amalgamation. Political parties have been an accepted and dominant presence in European representative democratic local government, throughout the 20 th century. Not so, however, in New Zealand and Australia, where citizens have 'flocked to the banner "Keep Politics out of Local Government". Our analysis of the self-declared party accreditation status of candidates and elected members demonstrates that political affiliation, at least in the main centre Auckland, is on the rise, counter to assumptions that New Zealand local government is largely removed from central politics.
Surprise, surprise: the New Zealand general election of 2017
Kōtuitui: New Zealand Journal of Social Sciences Online, 2018
This article analyses the 2017 general election in New Zealand and draws out some of its implications. The final outcome was a surprise, and its implications momentous. Events strengthened Labour under a new leader and weakened the Green and New Zealand First parties, making it possible for Labour to become a viable coalition formateur. Comparing campaign public polling results, at least some of the polls were 'wrong', but all added to the excitement and uncertainty. Coupled with a new Labour Party leader, that uncertainty and excitement had mobilising effects that affected the young, but not the old. Finally, this article analyses the changes to the party system, nationwide , and in the Māori electorates, assessing the degree of two-party dominance, and draws out implications for debates about the threshold for representation. ARTICLE HISTORY
The future of parliamentary politics
2018
Political scientists have a mixed record in predicting the political future; and so, as political scientists, we won't engage in expansive 'futurology' and 'guestimates' about the future of Parliament in this chapter. Instead, in exploring the future of parliamentary politics, we will invoke the words often attributed to Albert Einstein: 'The future is an unknown, but a somewhat predictable unknown. To look to the future we must first look back upon the past'. If we can identify what parliament was and is, and what it did and still does - which has been the central connecting thread interwoven in the preceding chapters - then we can provide a basis for exploring what we might expect parliament to be and do in the future. Individually, the 30 chapters of this book have explored what parliament does and why it does what it does. Collectively, these chapters provide an overarching assessment of the contemporary significance of the UK parliament in the UK'...