Defence, Foreign Affairs and Public Opinion

Abstract

For most of the twentieth century, with the exception of the two world wars, defence and foreign affairs were rarely the subject of vigorous political contestation. This has resulted in a long-running bipartisanship in Australian politics, which in practice has excluded these policy areas from robust political discussion or scrutiny. Such bipartisanship has sustained relatively low public interest in foreign and defence issues, and the public has for the most part possessed limited knowledge about the strategic options available and has expressed few firm views on defence policy. The period since 2001 has seen a change in both the Australian public’s engagement with defence and foreign affairs issues, as well as how they are debated by political elites. In parallel with these changes, advances in public opinion polling on issues related to foreign and defence policy have opened up opportunities to gain a stronger understanding of Australian attitudes. This book utilises this wealth of public opinion poll data to examine ordinary Australians’ views about defence and foreign affairs in-depth, and over an extended period. Chapter 1 delineates the empirical, conceptual and methodological contours of the book’s case studies, and outlines the prior research which has examined the role of public attitudes towards the institutions of defence and foreign affairs.