New politics and partisan alignment: Values, Ideology and Elites in Australia

Since the emergence of New Politics issues, there has been considerable debate about their potential for creating party system realignment. However, this debate has largely ignored the role of political elites in responding to changes in mass electorates. In this paper, we develop a model of realignment based on values and ideology which takes party elites into account. The model is tested using data that are based on national voter and parliamentary candidate surveys collected in Australia during the 1990 federal election. A realignment hypothesis predicts that the contemporary Australian party system is being replaced by a system reflecting New Politics/Old Politics conflict. An adaptation hypothesis predicts that the existing parties are adapting to New Politics concerns. The results show more support for the adaptation hypothesis and although a potential for realignment exists, postmaterial values and environmental ideologies have as yet insufficiently penetrated both elites and masses to bring this about. The results have major implications for the development of party alignments in other advanced societies.