State influences on Australian federal voting, 1946-1998

Abstract

The extent of state influences on federal voting behaviour in Australia has been debated for many years. In this paper, I address the issue by presenting results based on multilevel analyses from an extensive investigation of postwar Australian elections. This not only covers the complete postwar period, but also improves on previous research by using the most advanced analytical techniques (multilevel modelling) available for making use of survey data in this context. This makes it possible to draw some definitive conclusions.In addition to examining the overall extent of state effects over the period, I also explore a possible explanation by suggesting why one particular aspect of the institutional framework (the representation entitlements of the states) would tend to give small state effects, and use the multilevel results to investigate some hypotheses that follow from this suggestion.