Abstracts Political Science

NATIONAL IDENTITY IN MULTICULTURAL SOCIETIES: THE POLITICAL USE OF NATIONAL IDENTITY IN AUSTRALIA 1996–2007

by David Philip Richards

When, in March 1996, the Howard Government emerged victorious in the Australian federal election, it was the first such victory by the coalition of the Liberal and National Party at the federal level since 1980. This coalition would go on to win a further four elections and, when John Howard was finally defeated at the polls in December 2007, he had become the nation’s second longest serving Prime Minister. Among all the doubtlessly important determinants of Howard’s political success, there is one that sets him apart from his predecessors in the Australian conservative tradition: his frequent and impassioned appeals to Australia’s history and national identity. This thesis addresses two principal questions, one to do with history, the other with social theory. The historical question asks what factors account for this successful realignment between politicians and national identity. The theoretical question concerns national identity itself, as a more general phenomenon in social life. Social theorists have long debated the relative priority of mass, bottom-up, grass-root social processes in constituting and shaping the substance of national identity, relative to the attempts of cultural, political, ideological and economic elites to shape and mould national identity to serve their own ideological and material ends. In brief, there is common ground in the view that national identity, as a product of social artifice is constructed. What is less clear, is the extent to which it is constructable, and if so, who has the power to do the constructing, and under what circumstances. This thesis will contribute to an understanding of the conditions under which national identity becomes malleable, allowing it to be more easily appropriated by enterprising politicians. The evidence to test my premise will come principally from a case study of John Howard’s political career.