The election in review: New book analyses the pandemic election and the Labour-win
A new book 'Politics in a Pandemic: Jacinda Ardern and the 2020 Election', edited by Professor Stephen Levine, looks back at the unprecedented and unique election year.
Politics in a Pandemic is the latest in an election series which goes back to 1987. Since that year, each national election has been followed by Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington’s Political Science and International Relations programme’s post-election conference, allowing reflections and insights on the election. Each conference results in a book that provides a permanent record of the election—what happened and why—with conference presentations augmented by additional perspectives and analysis from a range of experts and commentators. The book is the eighth in the series to be published by Victoria University Press, and the ninth that Professor Levine has edited.
This edition has a wide range of contributors, from politicians (including party leaders), media, and national and international academics. Alongside Professor Levine, staff Dr Ayca Arkilic, Dr Simon Chapple, Professor Robert Ayson, Professor Nigel S. Roberts, and Professor Michael Macauley have contributed chapters, as well as alumni including Hon. Chris Hipkins, journalist Henry Cooke, Campbell Garrett, Bonnie Hayvice, Tina Marie Barton, Dr Sandra Hendrica Bickerton and Dr Aljoscha Kertez, and Honorary Doctorate recipient Colin James.
For the 2020 election, the book really needed to capture the atmosphere and mood of the pandemic election year. “The title of the book and the cover photo of the Prime Minister in a mask says it all,” says Professor Levine. “I attempted to preserve that atmosphere, of a country under siege from a pandemic, in the preface and in the book’s opening chapter, ranging across the year. Memories fade and these election books attempt to record what happened while it’s all still fresh.”
The book reflects on events during Jacinda Ardern’s first term as Prime Minister, and how that played into the televised election debates and Labour’s re-election, with chapters on the Christchurch shooting, housing, the economy, and COVID-19, as well as the two referendums (cannabis and euthanasia), and social media and online politics.
Politics in a Pandemic offers external perspectives on the election, including, for the first time, a view from Chile. There is also a look into two electorate races from the perspective of parliamentary interns (from Professor Levine’s Parliamentary Internship Programme): Master of Politics graduates Campbell Garrett, who worked in Labour MP Kieran McAnulty’s office, and Bonnie Hayvice, working with Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick.
The book’s closing chapter, by Professor Levine, gives an appraisal of Ardern’s leadership based on an academic framework for leadership qualities, an assessment usually carried out after a politician has left office.
Professor Levine sums up the book (and the experience of organising it): “When you put together a book and a team of contributors, you don’t know what they will say or the different perspectives that will come out. In this case, to get so many positive interpretations of the Government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, and of Jacinda Ardern’s leadership, reflects the outcome of the voting—New Zealand’s first one-party government since the introduction of MMP.”