Australian Journal of Political Science For Peer Review Only Court Politics in a F ederal Polity Journal: Australian Journal of Political Science Manuscript ID: CAJP-2014-0109.R1 Manuscript Type: Original Article Keywords: court politics, core executive, Queensland, Bligh government URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cajp Email:
[email protected] Page 1 of 31 Australian Journal of Political Science 1 1 Court politics 2 3 4 COURT POLITICS IN A FEDERAL POLITY 5 6 7 8 Introduction 9 Australian political scientists have explored the core executive only episodically. XXXX 10 11 and Wanna’s (2009) review of the literature including textbooks, journalism, biographies and 12 13 memoirs led them to conclude there was little research on Australian executive politics; it was 14 For Peer Review Only 15 16 ‘almost devoid of theory, even controversies’. Other characteristics include: the predominance of 17 18 realpolitik in accounts of executive power and a tendency to emphasise ‘practice over theory, 19 20 commentary over fieldwork, and teaching over research’ (XXXX and Wanna 2009, 129-30). 21 22 Weller (2005, 37) concurs. He notes the academic literature provides ‘slim pickings for a reader 23 24 who wants to know how the executive system of government works in Australia’. The challenge for 25 26 27 Australian political scientists, therefore, is to provide theoretically informed studies of the political 28 1 29 executive based on original fieldwork. Strangio, ‘tHart and Walter (2013) also call for a greater 30 31 focus on the political executive. They exhort the next generation of scholars to pursue an 32 33 ‘integrated approach to the study of prime ministerial leadership, focusing on the interplay 34 35 between political circumstances, institutional possibilities, individual characteristics and social 36 37 38 relations at the apex of executive government’ (Strangio et al.