Research in the Department of Political Studies

Contents

- Introduction
- The New Zealand Election Study
- Campaign Media Content Analysis
- Equal Employment Opportunities in New Zealand
- Universities and the New Politics of Regional
- Development
- Leadership and Political Change
- China's Foreign Policy

Introduction

The academic staff in the Political Studies Department at the University of Auckland are expected to devote equal amounts of their time to research and teaching.  This ensures that all staff are engaged in current scholarly discussions and debates, both nationally and internationally, and that their teaching is closely informed by the best available research.  Members of the staff have research expertise in International Relations, Political Theory, New Zealand Politics, Comparative Politics, and Public Policy.  Through their research activities, the academic staff make significant theoretical and evidence-based contributions to knowledge of politics.  Often, staff deliberately work to ensure that social science research findings inform the actions of politicians, policy advisors, and activists.    

In terms of the quality of its research activities, the Department of Political Studies is the highest ranked in New Zealand.  A good number of the academic staff have earned international reputations based on the quality of their books and journal articles.  The department’s research productivity also compares extremely well with similar departments in Australia and, despite its small size, it is clearly a high performer when compared against the full range of departments in other places, such as the United States and Britain.  At any given time, members of the academic staff are engaged in a range of research project which are often funded fully or in part from external funding sources, such as the Royal Society of New Zealand’s Marsden Fund, the Foundation for Research, Science, and Technology, and other contestable funds run by government agencies.  Some projects are also funded through research contracts with government or non-government organisations, and several staff have developed on-going collaborative relations with researchers in other countries. 

Wherever possible, the department encourages graduate students to engage in supervised research work leading to theses and dissertations that make original contributions to knowledge.  In addition, academic staff are encouraged to include high-performing graduate students in their research teams.  The resulting scholarly interchange among staff and students makes for a energetic and exciting research environment.  Here, we highlight several on-going and recently-completed research projects led by members of the academic staff.  Elsewhere on this website, you can find out more about the research interests of individual staff and the research work of current, or recently completed, BA(Hons.), MA, and Ph.D. candidates.   

The New Zealand Election Study

Jack Vowles and Raymond Miller have been researching New Zealand elections and parties for many years, and have been working together in the New Zealand Election Study (NZES) since 1993. The NZES is New Zealand's national election study. Its main data comes from sample surveys of the New Zealand electorate both before and after our triennial general elections, as well as surveys of candidates. The NZES asks fundamental questions about how New Zealanders perceive the political process. Through the analysis of political behaviour over five successive New Zealand elections, it has monitored a transition between electoral systems. Other work focuses on Mäori political behaviour (with Ann Sullivan in Mäori Studies), campaign effects, social capital, and turnout. The NZES research is also linked to a campaign content media research programme supported by the Marsden fund. Professor Vowles is also a member of the Planning Committee of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES), which brings together comparable data from election studies around the world (www.cses.org). More details, including publications and downloadable datasets, can be found on our website (www.nzes.org). NZES data is now being used by researchers around the world, and theses drawing on NZES data are currently being supervised at Masters and PhD levels.

Campaign Media Content Analysis

With support from the Marsden Fund, Jack Vowles and Joe Atkinson are using the 2002 New Zealand General Election as a case study to provide evidence and analysis that will contribute to the international effort to answer an important question: how and in what ways does media campaign coverage (especially television) exert positive or negative effects on the democratic process? Does media consumption set off a ‘virtuous circle’ or a ‘spiral of cynicism’? Is there too much emphasis on politics as a ‘horse race’ and not enough on the substantive issues that need debate? To this end, the research combines data from media use and voter preferences in the New Zealand Election Study (NZES) voter dataset with an exhaustive analysis of the campaign media content of network television, metropolitan newspapers, and asample of national (commercial and state-owned) radio. Analytical comparisons will be carried out across-media, across time and across nations. Scholars from the Netherlands and the United States are also involved in the project. It is the subject of a PhD thesis in progress, and is generating data that provides scope for further advanced research.

Framework for the Future: Equal Employment Opportunities in New Zealand

Michael Mintrom and Jacqui True, working on contract to the Human Rights Commission, recently delivered a major report, Framework for the Future: Equal Employment Opportunities in New Zealand. Getting it right in the workplace is the ideal for the vast majority of employers and employees. But how do we know that equal employment opportunities (EEO) are being achieved in New Zealand? This report provides the first broad overview of the status of EEO across public and private sectors and allows for an international comparison of legislation, policy and practices.  The findings show that the reality for many New Zealanders does not match the rhetoric of a “fair go for everyone at work.”  The report has received considerable attention in the media and in policymaking circles.  Michael Mintrom and Jacqui True are now applying insights learned from this project both in the courses they teach and in their on-going research activities.   Judie McGregor, the EEO Commissioner at the Human Rights Commission has said: “The report will be an important reference for employers, employees, equal opportunities agencies, human resource practitioners, policy analysts and researchers. It is stuffed with statistics, research and information from New Zealand and overseas. It points to strategies for future activities.  All of us have an interest in the framework outlined to help New Zealand achieve equality in the workplace”.  The full report and other related documents can be found here.

Universities and the New Politics of Regional Development

Michael Mintrom is currently working on this project, which is funded by the Vice Chancellor’s Strategic Development Fund.  Politicians, business people, and academics often proclaim the importance of research universities to regional development.  Increasingly, knowledge is treated as a crucial resource, and one that regions can nurture to their economic advantage.  But what happens to local politics when research-based knowledge is given a central place in regional development strategies?  The project assesses recent changes in the ideas and actions of stakeholders concerning regional development.  It examines partnerships between universities and other public and private sector entities that have arisen since 1990 in four regions on the Pacific Rim.  For political scientists, the research is intended to offer novel answers to the age-old question of ‘who governs?’  For policy practitioners it will offer insights into the dynamics of public-private partnerships and how universities can best support local entrepreneurship and regional development.

Leadership and Political Change

Raymond Miller and Michael Mintrom are currently editing a book on leadership and political change.  The book is intended to provide students, academic researchers, political and policy practitioners, and the informed public with a comprehensive and up-to-date analysis of the role and influence of political leadership in New Zealand. Although a number of books have been published on recent New Zealand prime ministers and other political leaders, they tend to be single-actor narratives and are frequently the work of political journalists. In contrast, the scholarly literature on political leadership in New Zealand, as distinct from the life and times of particular leaders, is remarkably small. Contributors to the book project are exploring leadership in relation to a number of current issues, including national identity; the adaptation of traditionally adversarial styles of leadership to the more consensual political requirements of coalition government under MMP; Mäori conceptions of political ‘chieftanship’, especially in relation to contemporary interpretations of the Treaty of Waitangi and Mäori rights; emerging leadership among new immigrant groups, the role of the media in setting and controlling the political agenda; and elite opinion and the debates over globalization and regional development.   This project has been supported, in part, by the New Zealand Leadership Institute.

China's Foreign Policy

Jian Yang and Stephen Hoadley are currently conducting research to support the writing of a book on China's foreign policy provisionally entitled China's Foreign Policies: Towards Comprehensive National Security.   This book is intended for readers who find it difficult to understand China's foreign policy in terms of non-Chinese paradigms or to apply Western international relations and foreign policy analysis concepts to China's foreign policies.  This work will help university scholars and students and policy analysts to bridge this intellectual gap.  The book reviews China's foreign policy since the end of the Cold War and examines China's often conflictual relations with neighbouring East Asian countries, Russia and the United States.  It then investigates China's policies as a newly influential player in international institutions such as the UN and the WTO.  Specific issues to be highlighted include China's trade, aid, resource,and environmental policies and China's unique approach to international law and human rights.  Also highlighted is how external policies arise from, and are linked to, China's domestic institutions and political dynamics.  Research for the book will draw freely on material published by Chinese scholars and policy analysts to validate observations by established Western writers.  A section on research methodology should prove useful to specialist researchers.