Labour parties ideas transfer and ideological positioning : Australia and Britain compared

Edwards, Belinda M.; Beech, Matt

Abstract

As part of this special issue examining policy transfer between the Labour Parties in Australia and Britain, this paper seeks to explore the relationship between the two on ideological positioning. In the 1990s there was substantial ideas transfer from the Australian Hawke-Keating government to Blair ‘New Labour’ in Britain, as both parties made a lunge towards the economic centre. This paper analyses how the inheritors of that shift, the Rudd/Gillard government in Australia and the Milliband and Corbyn leaderships in Britain, are seeking to define the role and purpose of labour parties in its wake. It examines the extent to which they are learning and borrowing from one another, and finds that a combination of divergent economic and political contexts have led to strikingly limited contemporary policy transfer.

Citation

Edwards, B. M., & Beech, M. (2016). Labour parties ideas transfer and ideological positioning : Australia and Britain compared. Policy studies : the journal of the Policy Studies Institute, 37(5), 486-498. https://doi.org/10.1080/01442872.2016.1188914

• Acceptance Date: May 8, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Jun 22, 2016
• Publication Date: Sep 2, 2016
• Deposit Date: May 12, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 9, 2018
• Journal: Policy studies
• Print ISSN: 0144-2872
• Electronic ISSN: 1470-1006
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 37
• Issue: 5
• Pages: 486-498
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01442872.2016.1188914
• Keywords: Australian Labor Party; British Labour Party; Rudd, Kevin, 1957-; Gillard, Julia; Miliband, Ed; Crisis
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/437895
• Publisher URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01442872.2016.1188914
• Additional Information: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Policy studies on 22/06/2016, available online: http://wwww.tandfonline.com/10.1080/01442872.2016.1188914