Political Party Organisation and the Australian Far Right

Abstract

This thesis examines the organisational dynamics of Australian far-right political parties at the time of the 2019 Australian federal election. This election represents a high-water mark for far-right electoral competition in Australia, with eight far-right parties including Pauline Hanson’s One Nation collectively standing more than 200 candidates around the country. Despite the unprecedented showing, the results for the far-right were muted, and since the election several of the parties have folded. Taking a mixed-method approach I combine digital social network analysis, qualitative content analysis and semi-structured interviews with party elites to analyse how Australian far-right parties manage their internal organisation and cope with problems of collective choice, organisational governance, and mobilisation. I argue that like their counterparts in Europe, Australian far-right parties are highly centralised and poorly institutionalised organisations, dependent on their party leaders, and with few opportunities for members to participate in party life. Instead, these parties rely on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and their interconnectedness with the non-party sector of the Australian far right, to attract and energise supporters. They emphasise the mobilisation of partisans through specific mobilising frames, such as anti-Muslim racism, rather than party building. The Australian far right’s electoral stagnation is, I argue, a product of poor organisation and leadership, rather than a lack of demand for far-right ideas in Australia.