The Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia has, for several years, supported a series of Post-election workshops and books. The workshops bring together a team of around 22 to 25 comprising academics and practitioners to present and debate their points of view about the most recent national election. Normally workshops have been held 6-8 weeks after the national election when memories are still fresh and some data are available from empirical surveys. The Workshop includes academics who are experts on the politics of their States, others who are leading experts on key interest groups and social movements, especially unions, business, migrants and women, writers on political leadership, political culture, campaigning, media – print, electronic and ‘new’, and opinion polls, and the Australian Election Study group.
The 2010 Workshop is the latest in a series of post-election workshops and books that the Academy has supported. Previous workshops have resulted in a series of publications which have been well received by the academic and general communities:
- The Politics of Retribution: the 1996 Federal Election (Allen and Unwin, 1997)
- Howard’s Agenda: the 1998 Australian Election (University of Queensland Press, 2000)
- 2001: The Centenary Election (University of Queensland Press 2002)
- Mortgage Nation: the 2004 Australian Election (Australian Public Intellectuals Network, 2005)
- Kevin07: The 2007 Australian election – a two-part special issue of Australian Cultural History (Marian Simms [ed.], 2009).