Comparing the Dynamics of Party Leadership Survival in Britain and Australia: Brown, Rudd and Gillard

Abstract

This article examines the interaction between the respective party structures of the Australian Labor Party and the British Labour Party as a means of assessing the strategic options facing aspiring challengers for the party leadership. Noting the relative neglect within the scholarly literature on examining forced exits that occur; and attempted forced exits that do not occur, this article takes as its case study the successful forced exits of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, and the failure to remove Gordon Brown. In doing so the article challenges the prevailing assumption that the likely success of leadership evictions are solely determined by the leadership procedures that parties adopt. Noting the significance of circumstances and party cultures, the article advances two scenarios through which eviction attempts can be understood: first, forced exits triggered through the activation of formal procedures (Rudd and Gillard); second, attempts to force an exit by informal pressures outside of the formal procedures which are overcome by the incumbent (Brown).

Understanding Power-Sharing within Political Parties: Stratarchy as Mutual Interdependence between the Party in the Centre and the Party on the Ground

“…They describe, for example, shared models of authority for candidate selection in which both levels play an important role. Recent work on leadership selection also suggests that many parties have adopted practices in which both levels of the party play an influential role (Cross and Pilet 2015; Pilet and Cross 2014); and, as Bennister and Heppell (2016) note, there is often a tension between the two groups.…”

The Labour Party leadership election: The Stark model and the selection of Keir Starmer

“…profiling the candidates and the campaigning period, before offering explanations as to who won and why by examining their bases of support and their mandate to lead (Drucker 1976 , 1984 ; Alderman and Carter 1993 , 1995 ; Heppell 2010a , b ; Heppell et al 2010 ; Heppell and Crines 2011 ; Dorey and Denham 2011 , 2016 ; Quinn 2016 ; Crines et al 2018 ; Heppell and McMeeking 2021 ). Alongside these agency-driven accounts are more institutionally orientated analyses, which have concentrated on the importance of the rules for selecting the party leader, including debates on nomination procedures; ejection procedures; membership participation and the trade union link (Drucker 1981 ; Alderman and Carter 1994 ; Quinn 2002 , 2004 , 2005 , 2010 , 2018 ; Jobson and Wickham-Jones 2011 ; Pemberton and Wickham-Jones 2013 ; Wickham-Jones 2014 ; Bennister and Heppell 2016 ; Johnston et al 2016 ).…”

Heir Apparent Prime Ministers in Westminster Democracies: Promise and Performance

“…As Patrick Weller (2012) has argued, the likelihood that a party leader, and prime minister, is ousted by an intra-party challenger, is essentially the result of different sets of rules which shape the choice of strategies adopted by potential challengers. In a more recent study, Mark Bennister and Tim Heppell (2016) have contended that the reasons for party leader and prime ministerial survival are more complex and include different party cultures and political circumstances. However, both approaches help explain why the number of ‘usurpers’ has been incomparably higher in Australia than in the other three countries.…”