Testing the precepts of republican political theory against citizen attitudes, beliefs and practices.

Quite apart from the constitutional debate over whether Australia should become a republic, republican political theory has recently experienced something of a revival in the Australian context through the work of Philip Pettit in the Reshaping Australian Institutions Project at the Australian National University. This article outlines the fundamental assumptions of this version of republican theory and then proceeds to test them empirically with sample survey data which explore citizen attitudes, beliefs and practices on these questions. The results indicate that the tenets of republication theory are widely accepted by the Australian public, but that this endorsement does not translate strongly into behavioural outcomes. The article concludes with a discussion of why this might be the case and of the wider implications of these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]