Information/update:

I attempted to nominate for the senate in the last federal election in Australia, but got 0 support in terms of interest on the website and so thought better of it. This is llikely significantly a marketing failure, but I have other reasons for proceeding slowly. My minimum requirement to proceed was 10% website signatures (10-15 of 100 needed), but it did not happen.

If the iron in the fire doesn't even heat up, it's not going to do much for you.

In Australia the registration of a political party is a completely different and separate process to the nomination of a candidate, and I will not do the former until I have done the latter. This applies at both the state government level in the House of Representatives and at the Federal level for the Senate (although more signatures are required for a senate nomination: 100 versus 2 for the House of Representatives or the Lower House.)

I was recently informed by the NSWEC that even unregistered political parties have duties regarding disclosure and management of funds, but as the website has not received any interest I have not yet appointed a party agent.

The funding page on the Progress Party website is for me as an independent nominee only.

The easiest and most sensible way to proceed is to gain interest - and preferably nomination - as an independent nominee, and then use position and any influence that comes with it to motivate the party registration and agent appointment. Remember that for a political party it is policies and people/relationships that matter most (Probably closely followed or even matched by economics and leadership. More on leadership below).

Of Anti-democratic Pork-barelly Behaviours

Of course existing parties and MPs in parliament tend to promote an anti-independent culture based upon motives that are about their own position and are clearly anti-democratic. This is made easy to sustain since people unfortunately often operate on the atavistic and anti-progressive principle of hierarchy and ranks-based or 'hard yards' credibility. The latter is no foil to lack of integrity and opportunism, and is in most cases really just a version of tall poppy syndrome and drunken egalitarianism.

True innovators and leaders (whatever they are) usually are not thoroughgoing egalitarians at heart. Otherwise they wouldn't bother trying to be and do better. It's self-evident if you think about it. Moreover, like it or not (they don't care if you don't) innovators and change-makers skip steps and often have an entirely different skills-and-capabilities set that makes such skipping entirely sensible. Fundamentalist egalitarian thinkers often seem to believe every barn-sweeper has to give every genius permission to succeed and flourish. This idea - of course - makes no sense whatsoever. It's not really an idea for highly intelligent people. I have seen such hyper-egalitarian mindsets reflected by senior, seasoned MPs in major parties. None of them lasted, and none became PMs.

It's on about the same level of coherence as the idea that moral beliefs and faith are a substitute for intelligence, talent, and competence. Being equal in the eyes of someone's magical imaginary friend is not really being in any meaningful way equal. This is just uncontroversially true.

No. That's anti-progressive and degenerate. Being nice and kind still have value, although being kind: more so. But tall poppy syndrome is rubbish and not to be tolerated.

MPs and major parties don't want their voter based eroded by independents. Especially if it deserves to be, and is thus at high risk! Then of course there's salary protectionism and careerism. It's probably not always good that someone has been trained in university as a career politician. In fact it could be a serious problem.

Why do you think they pork barrel?

In fact that's a bit more complicated in the case of cookers. They are literally insane dominionists who are also usually very tribal and mates-rates type thinkers. It's all about holy-rolling with a gang of likeminded delusionals for those folk. That's why they're not big leadership material. That's why they'll never achieve global scope of influence.

They might, however, seriously mess up your homeland for everyone else. Consider the Iranian IRGC, for just one of many examples. Look what is happening in the US with evangelical Christofascists.

Of Party Registration, Party Agents, and Factionalism

I'd consider the opposite strategy of party registration first, but I have noticed a few things:

- It's a labour-intensive process that can easily be a huge waste of time for someone nominating as an independent.

- Policies become more collaborative and democratic (within sensible limits for coherence and continuity) as parties grow and commensurate internal dynamics can become cumbersome and counterproductive. This is not as much of a problem for established parties that have established mandates and dialectical momentum, but for fledgling parties it is a big problem. I would estimate that 80-90% of new parties die quickly from infighting, fifth-columnism, difficult relationships, egos, and members with mental disorders and personality disorders (the latter is HUGE, and cannot be underestimated.)

- There's also the issue of coups and other instabilities introduced by problem actors, saboteurs, sticky-beaks, and general loonies.

A lot of this can be alleviated with judicial and experiences management and people-vetting, and by getting people to sign on on the basis of the policy platform either semi-contractually or otherwise, end booting trouble makers early ("Feel free to start your own party! The Weird Sociopath Party, perhaps? Buh-bye.") However, it's better overall to first get a support base of potential voters who like your policies as an independent (and listening carefully to educated, feedback and requests is important). There is then a responsibility to the voter base to be consistent within reason.

Essentially - initially agility and staying on message with policy is more important than party infrastructure. That said - fairly soon a solid team is crucial.

A factional fledgling party is never going to become a going concern. I don't mean constructive critical appraisal, intelligent disagreement, and devil's advocates and such dynamics where everyone is on the same page. I mean willfully invidious sabotage and factional fights.

Of Leadership, Management, and Mixed-Methods Research

I have been watching the field of leadership studies for many decades, and have always found it to be curious and not a little strange. Management research is probably far more scientific, but even management discipline can be flakey. It's one field where the quantitative-qualitative research divide is most telling. Nothing much is achieved without good quantitative research, but there's the perennial sense that key qualitative properties of groups, group dynamics, and individuals is hard to access this way. Ergo the 'rise' of mixed methods research.

Social and performance psychology plus health psychology are probably the way forward, but operationalisation of variables has to be very good, and management, health, and social psychology are fields of applied psychology where the theory crisis really bites.

As for leadership, as an analytic philosopher and philosopher of psychology I believe it's very possible that anti-realism about leadership might be appropriate. No - really. Maybe it's not even real. Maybe it's a label for what happens when a person works with others a certain way, or even is accidentally successful despite themselves (this would involve a nominalist or fictionalist view of leadership.) But people talk about leaders all of the time. So leadership - whatever it is - must be real. Right?

People talk about God all of the time too. I can't say that makes her real, and neither can they.

Maybe leadership just means 'successful grifting', 'successful bullying', or 'successful manipulation' (there are certainly journal articles that promote the latter option!)

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