Support for the monarchy in Australia is at its highest level since the 1990s thanks to the arrival of new royal family members and a declining number and frequency of royal scandals, new research reveals.
Published in the Australian Journal of Political Science, the research – based on 46 years of public opinion data on the importance of, and whether to retain, the monarchy – shows that support for the monarchy has been rapidly improving since the early 2000s.
In 1998, a year before the republic referendum, 34 percent of Australians believed Australia should 'definitely become a republic', but by 2013 (the birth year of Prince George) this had dropped to 26 percent.
The data also reveals a number of new insights about Australian public opinion toward the monarchy, including:
"Interestingly, the monarchy has become more popular in a better educated, more affluent and less religious Australia. This defies previous expectations that support for the monarchy would be in an inexorable decline," said doctoral candidate Luke Mansillo, from the University of Sydney's Department of Government and International Relations.
"Cultural events, such as royal marriages and the hype surrounding the birth of Prince George and Princess Charlotte, have fuelled many Australians' desire to keep their monarchy. These events have enabled younger cohorts of Australians to develop more positive attitudes towards the monarchy and have repaired older cohort's attitudes," he said.
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