Contrary to some media reporting, the Occupy Sydney movement has a focused and coherent political agenda, researchers from the University of Sydney believe.
Based on 180 field interviews undertaken at the November 5 rally in Sydney, a research team from the University鈥檚 have discovered that the movement's position is focused on concerns about the social and political impact of capitalism on Australian and global society.
鈥淭he movement in Australia has been characterised as incoherent by the media and commentators,鈥 researcher Dr Stewart Jackson said, 鈥渂ut it has a strong critique of the impacts of capitalism on social inequality and on politics. There鈥檚 a concern that money politics and the impact of large multinationals have reduced the effectiveness of Australian democracy.鈥
Despite some reports that the movement is a small core of 鈥榩rofessional protesters鈥 the researchers found that it is comparatively diverse. The average age of protestors is 39, two-thirds are employed, with the remainder spread between students, retired and the unemployed.
鈥淭he majority of participants are not part of core organising groups but individuals concerned about the issues the movement has raised,鈥 Dr Jackson said.
Participants tend to be drawn from the left of Australian politics, with large numbers of Greens supporters, but also many who have lost faith in party-politics altogether. Co-researcher argues that the movement鈥檚 comparatively negative media representation comes from the political cynicism of participants.
鈥淢embers have a quite negative view of the performance of Australian democracy. Because of this, their protest actions are not targeted at government, but at awareness in the wider community to bring about change from the bottom up,鈥 Dr Chen said.
While Australians are quite cynical about politicians, they tend to have a high regard for the Australian democratic system overall. Because of this protests tend to focus on government action.
鈥淲here protests are more diffuse in their focus, and don鈥檛 have specific policy goals, it鈥檚 easy to discount the protest as irrational but the inability of governments to address the economic problems of the United States and Europe shows that these worries have a real foundation,鈥 Dr Jackson observed.
The University of Sydney is hosting a of the Occupy movement on Wednesday November 16.
[Republished from the November 7 .]