CONSERVATIVE CYNICISM - POLITICAL-CULTURE IN AUSTRALIA

Though not without its critics, the concept of political culture is po tentially of much value in aiding the explanation of political process es and behavior. Unfortunately, however, basic data on political cultu re remains scarce for many countries, Australia among them. Although t here is a good deal of impressionistic literature outlining the contou rs of the Australian political culture, broadly defined, very little s ystematic evidence has been adduced to test the many assertions made i n these writings. This paper injects some empirical substance into the argument. Using the Australian National Social Science Survey I984-87 panel, based on a nationwide sample Of I3II respondents, it presents evidence on five dimensions of mass political culture in Australia, na mely, attitudes towards reliance on government, the responsiveness of government, citizen duty, authoritarianism and federalism. In addition to outlining the basic distributions of public opinion on these dimen sions, the paper uses multivariate analysis to investigate both the ca uses and consequences of these attitudes.