About the Australian Election Study
The Australian Election Study aims to provide a long-term perspective on stability and change in the political attitudes and behaviour of the Australian electorate. The surveys investigate the changing social and attitudinal bases of Australian politics as the society changes. In addition to these long-term goals, the AES examines the political issues and personalities in each specific election and evaluates their importance in shaping the election result.
The AES routinely collects data among a nationally representative sample of voters and among major party candidates standing for election. Both the voter and candidate instruments combine a common set of questions. More details on the general methodology used are detailed in the relevant sections for the voter and candidate studies. Specific information about the methods used for a particular election are available from the downloadable documents for that election.
The studies have been running as a series of surveys beginning in 1987 that have been timed to coincide with Australian Federal elections. In addition, a survey was also conducted in conjunction with the 1999 Referendum on the Republic and the 2023 Voice to Parliament Referendum. The series also builds on the Australian National Political Attitudes Surveys conducted in 1967, 1969 and 1979, providing a unique half-century long perspective on Australian political behaviour.
All of the datasets and the associated documentation are freely available for download and analysis through the Studies & Data page and on Dataverse.
The Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES)
The AES was a founding member of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) group, a collaborative program of cross-national research among election studies conducted in over fifty states. Established in 1996, the CSES has conducted five waves of data collection, with the fifth completed in 2022. Australia has been part of all five waves.
The CSES is composed of three tightly linked parts:
– a common module of public opinion survey questions included in each participant country’s post-election study,
– district level data are reported for each respondent, including electoral returns, turnout, and the number of candidates, and
– system or ‘macro’ level data report aggregate electoral returns, electoral rules and formulas, and regime characteristics.
This design allows researchers to conduct cross-level, as well as cross-national analyses, addressing the effects of electoral institutions on citizens’ attitudes and behavior, the presence and nature of social and political cleavages, and the evaluation of democratic institutions across different political regimes.
The Comparative Candidate Survey (CCS)
The AES was a founding member of the Comparative Candidate Survey, a joint multi-national project with the goal of collecting data on candidates running for national parliamentary elections in different countries using a common core questionnaire to allow for cross-country comparison. Data collection comprises surveys among candidates as well as relevant context information concerning the constituency of the candidate and the political system at large.
Partly as a result of recent changes in the functioning of political parties as intermediaries between citizens and the state, individual candidates – their activities, attitudes and beliefs – have become a most attractive and promising research object. To respond to this growing importance CCS surveys parliamentary candidates at national legislative elections in as many different countries as possible.
The CCS focuses on the relationships between the candidate, the party and the voters. Campaigning is a major topic in this core questionnaire, but other domains like recruitment and carrier patterns, issues and ideology, and democracy and representation are also included in the questionnaire. CCS is conducted in modules that are in the field about five years.
Collaboration
The Australian Election Study is run as a national collaborative project between the Australian National University and Griffith University. Ian McAllister founded the project in 1987 and has been involved with it ever since. Many scholars have contributed to the project over the series of 14 surveys fielded since 1987. The Principal Investigators on the 1987 to 2025 Australian Election Study surveys include: Clive Bean, Sarah Cameron, David Denemark, Rachel Gibson, David Gow, Simon Jackman, Roger Jones, Toni Makkai, Ian McAllister, Anthony Mughan, Juliet Pietsch, and Jill Sheppard. In addition, several generations of early career scholars have contributed to the project. The survey data is used widely by researchers around Australia and internationally, in comparative research. The survey is fielded in collaboration with the Social Research Centre and made accessible to the research community with the support of the Australian Data Archive. The study has received funding from the Australian Research Council. The project is led by Ian McAllister (ANU) and Sarah Cameron (Griffith University).
Professor Ian McAllister is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at The Australian National University and Co-Director of the Australian Election Study. He has previously held positions at the University of Strathclyde, the University of Manchester, and the University of New South Wales. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and a corresponding member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His scholarly research covers comparative political behaviour, postcommunist politics and Northern Ireland and Australian politics. His recent books include Australian Public Opinion, Defence and Foreign Policy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), The Australian Voter (University of New South Wales Press, 2011) and Political Parties and Democratic Linkage (Oxford University Press, 2011). He was Chair of the Comparative Study of Electoral System project from 2004 to 2009 and is currently co-editor of the Oxford University Press series on the project. He was editor of the Australian Journal of Political Science from 2004 to 2010.
Dr Sarah Cameron is a political scientist at Griffith University’s School of Government and International Relations and Co-Director of the Australian Election Study. Her research focuses on voter behaviour, attitudes towards democracy, Australian and comparative politics. She has contributed to the Australian Election Study since 2013. Her research has been published in leading journals including Electoral Studies, European Political Science Review and Parliamentary Affairs. She is lead author of the series of Australian Election Study reports, including The 2025 Australian Federal Election and Trends in Australian Political Opinion. She is regularly interviewed by national and international media, including BBC World News’ coverage of Australian elections. Her research has been recognised with awards including the 2021 Mayer Journal Prize and the 2024 Australian Political Studies Association Marian Simms Policy Engagement Award. She has held previous academic appointments at the University of Sydney and Visiting Fellowships at Harvard University and the Australian National University.