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The Public Sphere And Party Change: Explaining The Modernization Of The Australian Labor Party In The 1960s, Terry Irving, Sean Scalmer

Terence H Irving, Dr (Terry)

This article argues that the modernization of the Australian Labor Party was not inevitable or necessary. The party did not modernize because it was overly dominated by trade unions, because society had changed, or because class was no longer central. Instead the transformation of the party was the result of a series of political struggles, in which the modernizers grasped new resources in the changing public sphere - the dynamic new media of post-war Australia.