Jennifer Curtin

Jennifer Curtin is Professor of Politics and Inaugural Director of the Public Policy Institute at the University of Auckland–Waipapa Taumata Rau. She researches New Zealand and Australian politics, gender politics, policy analysis, and political leadership. She leads the Gender Responsive Analysis and Budgeting project (available from: www.grab-nz.ac.nz) and her research features regularly in a range of media outlets.

orcid http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9786-5868

A Team of Five Million? »

The 2020 ‘Covid-19’ New Zealand General Election

Publication date: June 2024
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…

A Populist Exception? »

The 2017 New Zealand General Election

Publication date: August 2020
The ‘spectre of populism’ might be an apt description for what is happening in different parts of the world, but does it apply to New Zealand? Immediately after New Zealand’s 2017 general election, populist party New Zealand First gained a pivotal role in a coalition with the Labour Party, leading some international observers to suggest it represented a populist capture of the government. The leader of New Zealand First, Winston Peters, justified his…

Double Disillusion »

The 2016 Australian Federal Election

Publication date: April 2018
This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the 2016 Australian federal election. Won by the Liberal–National Coalition by the slimmest of margins, the result created a climate of political uncertainty that threatened the government’s lower house majority. While the campaign might have lacked the theatre of previous elections, it provides significant insights into the contemporary political and policy challenges facing Australian democracy and society today. In…

A Bark But No Bite »

Inequality and the 2014 New Zealand General Election

Publication date: August 2017
Based on New Zealand Election Study (NZES) data from a sample of 2,830 eligible voters, A Bark But No Bite explores a puzzle. While there was a lot of talk about inequality before the 2014 general election in New Zealand, and during the campaign, concern about inequality appeared to have no tangible effect on the election outcome. This book shows that, by its attention to the concerns of middle ground voters, the National Government had reduced the potential of…