Suchergebnisse

When Jane Mansbridge's (1999) article was first submitted, more than 80% of the world's parliaments featured less than 20% women (IPU 2015). Calculating the parliamentary presence of ethnic and cultural minorities and Indigenous peoples has proved more difficult (Protsyk 2010). This is despite the adoption of two United Nations Declarations, on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities (1992) and on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007. In Aotearoa New Zealand, the representation of women and Māori (the Indigenous peoples) was comparatively better than global averages. In 1996, 29% of parliamentarians were women and 14% were Māori. By 2020, these figures had increased to 48% and 21%, respectively, while in the cabinet, women made up 40% of ministers and Māori accounted for 25%. Reported as the country's historically most diverse parliament and cabinet (Curtin 2020), it appears that both new (proportional representation) and old (reserved seats for Māori) institutional mechanisms had achieved near proportionality, and a heterogeneity of experiences, potentially enhancing opportunities for deliberation.

New Zealand was one of a handful of countries that held a national election in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. Its policy response stood out as remarkably successful. Indeed, several years on from the onset of the crisis, in 2023 New Zealand still retained a record of no excess deaths. While New Zealanders were voting on October 17, 2020, their country had only recorded 25 confirmed deaths out of a population of five million. Then, support for the government's crisis management was at its height. Labour, the leading party in the incumbent coalition government, secured a historic election victory. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern had taken up the metaphor of the New Zealand people as 'a team of five million' facing the Covid-19 threat together. This book seeks to explain the success of the government's strategy through an analysis of the election campaign and outcome. The authors also address the limits of this approach and the extent to which some voters felt alienated rather than connected with the 'team'. The election outcome was a big short-term swing of the electoral pendulum. It did not generate a reset of the party system. Three years on, as the 2023 election loomed into sight, the party system looked much as it did prior to the pandemic, and Labour's success in 2020 was about to be dramatically reversed.

The number of referenda taking place in established democracies has been increasing, but oftentimes the use of referenda is controversial. This paper utilises two New Zealand national probability mail surveys collected before (2015; n = 901) and after (2016; n = 1350) the controversial flag change referendums initiated by Prime Minister John Key. We found that support for referenda increased from 54.5% in 2015 to 70.7% in 2016. We examined how demographics, party vote, political attitudes, and support for changing the flag related to change in support for referenda Younger age groups and those with moderate levels of education had larger increases in support for referenda. We did not find any evidence of 'loser effects' as National voters and flag change supporters were just as likely to increase in support for referenda as other voters and those opposing change, respectively. In summary, the results of this paper show that despite controversy, referenda have become more popular, especially among certain groups.

Abstract
Does the day of the week an email is sent inviting existing participants to complete a follow-up questionnaire for an annual online survey impact response rate? We answer this question using a preregistered experiment conducted as part of an ongoing national probability panel study in New Zealand. Across 14 consecutive days, existing participants in a panel study were randomly allocated a day of the week to receive an email inviting them to complete the next wave of the questionnaire online (N = 26,126). Valid responses included questionnaires completed within 31 days of receiving the initial invitation. Results revealed that the day the invitation was sent did not affect the likelihood of responding. These results are reassuring for researchers conducting ongoing panel studies and suggest that, once participants have joined a panel, the day of the week they are contacted does not impact their likelihood of responding to subsequent waves.

Linked data presents different social and ethical issues for different contexts and communities. The Statistics New Zealand Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI) is a collection of de-identified whole-population administrative datasets that researchers are increasingly using to answer pressing social and policy research questions. Our work seeks to provide an overview of the IDI, associated issues for Māori (the Indigenous peoples of New Zealand), and steps to realise Māori data aspirations. In this paper, we first introduce the IDI including what it is and how it developed. We then move to an overview of Māori Data Sovereignty. Our paper then turns to examples of organisations, agreements, and frameworks which seek to make the IDI and data better for Māori communities. We then discuss the main issues with the IDI for Māori including technical issues, deficit-framed work, involvement from communities, consent, social license, further data linkage, and barriers to access for Māori. We finish with a set of recommendations around how to improve the IDI for Māori, making sure that Māori can get the most out of administrative data for our communities. These include the need to build data researcher capacity and capability for Māori, Māori data co-governance and accountability, reducing practical and skill barriers for access by Māori and Māori organisations, providing robust, consistent and transparent practice exemplars for best practice, and potentially even abolishing the IDI and starting again. These issues are being worked through via Indigenous engagement and co-governance processes that could provide useful exemplars for Indigenous and community engagement with linked data resources.