Democracy in a Divided Australia - Matthew Lesh

Australia has a new political, cultural, and economic elite. The class divides of yesteryear have been replaced new divisions between Inners and Outers. This divide is ripping apart our political parties, national debate, and social fabric.

Inners are highly educated inner-city progressive cosmopolitans who value change, diversity, and self-actualisation. Inners, despite being a minority, dominate politics on both sides, the bureaucracy, universities, civil society, corporates, and the media. They have created a society ruled by educated elites – that is, ruled by themselves.

Outers are the instinctive traditionalists who value stability, safety, and unity. Outers are politically, culturally, and economically marginalised in today’s graduate-dominated knowledge society era. Their voice is muzzled in public debate, driving disillusionment with the major parties, and record levels of frustration, disengagement, and pessimism.

In an era of global political upheaval, Democracy in a Divided Australia is the first empirically grounded investigation of Australia’s political tribes, the capture of policymaking by a new elite, and charting of a path forward in a divided nation built on the five pillars of Liberal Populism: Egalitarianism, Localism, Freedom, Dignity and Unity.