Shaun Wilson

Survey data are widely used to estimate the prevalence of belief in conspiracy theories and to test hypotheses about the correlates, causes, and consequences of these beliefs. However, concerns have been raised about equating endorsements of conspiracy theories with sincere belief in them. In a survey of 1,044 Australians, we found that endorsement of six pre-existing conspiracy theories ranged from 10% to 19%, and that 7% of participants endorsed two that were clearly contradictory together. In addition, 10% of participants endorsed a highly bizarre raccoon army conspiracy theory that we invented, which we interpreted as evidence of insincerity. Endorsement of this conspiracy theory was a strong predictor of endorsing the pre-existing conspiracy theories, including the two contradictory ones together. Moreover, at debriefing, 13% of participants reported that they had responded insincerely in the survey, and this response was also a strong predictor of endorsing the pre-existing conspiracy theories, including the two contradictory ones together. Overall, our results suggest that surveys can produce inflated estimates of the prevalence of belief in conspiracy theories, which raises serious questions about how research on conspiracy theories—and misinformation more broadly—has frequently equated endorsement with belief.

The referendum on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament in Australia resulted in defeat for the Yes case on October 14, 2023, by a margin of 40% to 60%. The referendum proposed a constitutional amendment to establish a representative body made up of Indigenous Australians to advise federal parliament on matters affecting the Indigenous community. Polling suggested that the referendum would defy the poor record of mid‐term referendums, but the No campaign prevailed. Assessments of this defeat are important to understanding future prospects for reconciliation between Indigenous and non‐Indigenous Australians. This article develops several hypotheses about factors driving the No result, testing them with a representative sample of 1204 voters conducted in October 2023. Results suggest that the No vote was driven by Coalition partisanship, low trust in media and politics, and most of all, weaker perceptions of No voters of the discrimination faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.

This article draws on two surveys of international students in Sydney and Melbourne, undertaken in 2019 and during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns. Using the concept of bounded agency, we identify how the challenges of living in one of the world’s most expensive rental housing markets impact students’ perceptions of their academic attainment. We find housing insecurity, unaffordability and condition, amplified by financial stress, contribute significantly to student anxiety about their studies. These relationships differ by student background and education. We argue students’ agency to meet their educational ambitions in Australia is constrained by the cost of housing and the housing choices they consequently make to mitigate financial stress. Our findings suggest the importance of ‘town’ or non-institutional aspects of the international student experience on their satisfaction and academic outcomes. We call for further research to explore these relationships in other global contexts.

International students are an important global cohort of ‘noncitizens’ whose experiences are central concerns for urban sociologists and migration scholars. Drawing on survey fieldwork conducted among international students in the private rental sector in Sydney and Melbourne during 2019, this article provides new knowledge about the hardships experienced by international students who report financial stress. Using a modified scale developed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, we highlight the accelerating role of high levels of financial stress in producing disruptive events such as housing evictions and fears of homelessness, as well as reliance on inadequate housing like ‘hot-bedding’. Financial stress is significantly more likely for students from low-GNI (gross national income) countries and higher stress reduces wellbeing. Access to paid employment, however, does not ‘protect’ against higher financial stress. We conclude that higher education policymakers need tools and policies to prevent disruptive life events among international students related to financial stress, particularly those associated with housing.

Critical Junctures in Mobile Capital - edited by Jocelyn Pixley March 2018

It is an indisputable reality that the English‐speaking welfare states have retreated from their distinct postwar welfare state compromises in ways that prompt many to wonder what is still liberal about the liberal welfare states. Considering developments in minimum wage institutions and politics in five liberal welfare states, this article argues that the apparent renewed politicization of the minimum wage – driven by legislative action and activist campaigns from below – is an inevitable consequence of the twin policies of labour market deregulation and workfare‐centred social policies. A larger electorate of low‐paid workers, including those in full‐time work, combined with rising concerns from the public about the extent and injustice of poverty wages are important factors drawing renewed attention to the politics and policy of minimum wages. However, I also show that policymakers have additional incentives to embrace higher minimum wages: the economic orthodoxy in favour of low minimum wages has steadily lost credibility, and legislating for wage increases enables a predistributive strategy with the potential to shift the burden of addressing inequalities from fiscally‐strained governments to employers. Drawing on policy and political developments from across Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the USA, I make the claim that the politicization of minimum wages offers genuine insight into the future battles over what is ‘liberal’ about the liberal welfare states.

Most workers look forward to better jobs across their careers, but in an age of rising inequality and insecurity at work, some are willing to accept an inferior job in order to avoid joblessness. We use the Work Orientations III survey from the 2005 International Social Survey Programme to explore such ‘downward flexibility’ and develop several regression models specified for 19 OECD countries to test hypotheses and explore macro- and individual-level variations. Workers in liberal ‘labour market regimes’ are more tolerant of downward adaptations, in line with evidence that these regimes produce strongly institutionalized norms of flexibility. Tolerance of a worse job is also higher among those with weak labour market positions (low-income respondents, women and young people). Further macro-level analysis suggests that the ‘model’ country with the most downwardly flexible workers would be rich and unequal, with weak unions and low levels of social protection and industrial rights.

Growing global integration, combined with the collapse of Soviet Communism, created major challenges for centre-left politics in the democratic world. This article considers two transformative Labour Party-led experiments that refurbished the welfare states of Australia and the United Kingdom, respectively. In Australia, this includes the Hawke–Keating (1983–1996) and Rudd–Gillard (2007–2013) Governments, and in the United Kingdom, the ‘New Labour’ Blair–Brown Governments (1997–2010). We present a comparative political economy of these welfare reforms, one that draws on both the policy transfer and policy diffusion literatures. By the 1980s, both parties faced three problems related to national economic decline, the ideological challenge to Keynesianism, and the decline of the traditional working-class electorate. We argue both parties developed common electoral and governing strategies aimed at winning support for a market-driven social-democratic program. Policy simultaneously compensated voters for market inequalities and deepened market relations. Focusing on how labour governments managed post-industrial change, responded to inequalities, advanced quasi-markets, and negotiated with union partners, we argue these experiments produced increasingly contradictory results that left both parties electorally and ideologically depleted. Despite important similarities, we note differences – starting points, discrete events and institutional variations have mattered to reform paths and their consequences.