Shaping comparative advantage: the evolution of trade and industry policy in Australia

This paper provides an overview of Australia’s experience with trade and industry policy since Federation in light of the dilemmas facing a small, rich, remote, resource-based economy. It focuses on the attempt to diversify away from a dependence on the export of primary products and to move beyond – while still also continuing to exploit – the country’s natural comparative advantage. It examines the rise and decline, purpose and effects, of protectionism; moments of experimentation with interventionist industry policy; and effects of the mining boom. In doing so, it considers Australia’s particular economic circumstances and factor endowments in light of competing notions of comparative advantage and the appropriate role of government in promoting economic development and competitiveness.     

Approaching regimes: Australia,Canada, and environmental policy

Study of regimes has become an increasingly important feature of empirical studies of the bases of world order. Much research has focused on the dynamics and internal working of regimes in a number of different policy areas. The determinants of the approaches of states to regimes, however, have been relatively neglected. Using findings from Australian and Canadian approaches to the international environmental regime, this paper explores seven sets of factors that are argued to be crucial to understanding responses: the ecological‐economic milieu of states, the developmental attributes of a regime, bureaucratic politics within national governments, the influence of governmental structures such as federalism, interest group activity, the foreign policy orientations of states, and the regime capabilities of states. Regimes are an enduring feature of international society, but neglect of the complexity and variety of national approaches can lead to ineffectual policy recommendations.     

Fiddling for outcomes: traditional music,social capital,and arts policy in Northern Ireland

Arts development policies increasingly tie funding to the potential of arts organisations to effectively deliver an array of extra‐artistic social outcomes. This paper reports on the difficulties of this work in Northern Ireland, where the arts sector, and in particular the so‐called ‘traditional arts’, have been drawn into a politically ambiguous discourse centred on the concepts of ‘mutual understanding’ and, more recently, ‘social capital’. The paper traces the recent history of these policies and the difficulties in evaluating the social outcomes of arts programs. The use of the term ‘social capital’ in the work of Putnam and Bourdieu is considered. The paper argues, through a rereading of Bourdieu’s articulation of the ‘forms’ of capital and Eagleton’s ‘ideology of the aesthetic’, the concept of social capital can be released from its current neoliberal trappings by imagining a reconnection of the concepts of ‘capital’ and ‘the aesthetic’.     

Agricultural policy in Australia: deregulation,bipartisanship and agrarian sentiment

This paper provides an overview of the development of agricultural policy in Australia from a complex web of government intervention in the sector in the first half of the 20th century to the deregulation of the past 40 years. It highlights the close interrelationship between agricultural policy and manufacturing policy as well as the areas in which agricultural policy has been distinctive, namely the largely bipartisan nature of agricultural policy development and the strong cultural attachment across the community to farmers in general and family farming in particular. Recent policy debates suggest that agricultural policy will remain a sector apart in terms of the broadly bipartisan nature of policy and the ongoing influence of non-economic considerations. Australia will retain its comparative advantage in agricultural exports into the future and policymakers will need to continue to balance policies that support the economic performance of the sector with those that reflect community expectations of support for the farming community more broadly.     

Becoming the State in Northern Australia: Urbanisation,Intra‐Indigenous Relatedness,and the State Effect

In Australia's Northern Territory, the Larrakia have been involved in a decades‐long effort to gain recognition as traditional owners through Land Rights and Native Title legislation. From one perspective, their claims have failed to achieve the entitlement and recognition grounded in these governmental regimes (Scambary 2007; Povinelli 2002). However, over the past decade the Larrakia Nation Aboriginal Corporation (LNAC) and the Larrakia Development Corporation (LDC) have emerged as locally powerful corporate bodies that pursue programs and exercise forms of power on behalf of the Larrakia that can be understood in terms of state and governmental practice. Through suburban development, a night patrol, educational and vocational training, a radio station, and through forms of policy research and statistical enumeration, the Larrakia nation have emerged in the eyes of many as a de facto Aboriginal ‘state’ in the Darwin region. This paper explores the intra‐Indigenous relations through which these practices have emerged, and analyses the extent to which the LNAC might be understood as a kind of ‘state’ within a state, responsible for world‐shaping activities of knowledge production, housing and health outreach, vocational training and education, and policing. Focussing on the forms of ‘stateness’ that accrue to the Larrakia Nation in Darwin through its policing, knowledge production, and outreach programs for Aboriginal campers, the article explores the differential articulation of Aboriginal groups with the state. It concludes by asking how such differences matter in contexts of planned urbanisation in the Northern Territory.     

Tourism and Foreign Investment in Australia: Trends,Prospects and Policy Implications

Processes of internationalisation and structural economic change have had profound impacts on the pattern of regional economic activity in Australia. The 1980s was a decade of rapid growth in foreign investment, reoriented to the property and services sector, including tourism. It was also a boom time for international tourism, which emerged as the nation's leading export industry. In addition to the national gateway city of Sydney, the rapidly growing coastal cities of Gold Coast and Cairns in Queensland emerged as major international tourism destinations underpinned by significant levels of foreign investment, particularly from Japan. The 1980s boom years for tourism and foreign investment are revised and raises policy implications raised for the longer-term development of tourism and the role of foreign investment.     

Integrating Geomorphological Assessments and Oral Histories in Catchment Management: Implications for the Mulgrave River,Northeastern Australia

The dramatic decline in the integrity of Australian river systems in recent decades has seen the development of landcare and catchment management groups across the continent as the main facilitators of river rehabilitation works. There is growing concern for the need to develop adaptive management frameworks that assist informed decision making through the integration of social and geomorphological knowledge into catchment planning. In the Mulgrave River Catchment of northeastern Queensland, difficult management decisions have to be made with limited access to knowledge of natural processes and baseline geomorphological data. To date management decisions have been based almost exclusively on oral histories that state that point bars are accreting and the river is becoming shallower due to bank erosion. As a result bank stabilisation and removal of sand from within the channel have been recommended in the absence of any geomorphological assessments. This study compares oral histories of river bank erosion in the Mulgrave River with geomorphic evidence to highlight the need for integrated landscape scenario planning. The results of grain size analysis of bank and bed material from 27 locations, involving 47 samples, suggest that bank erosion cannot be delivering sediments to point bars. Furthermore, qualitative analysis of historic parish maps and aerial photographs shows that there has only been moderate bank erosion at three locations along the Mulgrave River since European settlement. The study demonstrates the important role that geomorphological investigations have for catchment management and the need for management frameworks that integrate geomorphological processes and landholder priorities for sustainable river management.     

Grounded capital: venture financing and the geography of the Internet industry, 1994-2000

Despite the rhetoric in the popular and business press trumpetingthe removal of ‘the limitations of geography’, anumber of researchers have demonstrated that rather than simplydispersing, the Internet in fact exhibits an uneven spatialpattern throughout the United States and world. Using a combinationof interview and regression methodologies, this article arguesthat the regional distribution of venture capital investingplayed a central role in determining the location of new Internetstartups. This was largely due to the premium that entrepreneursplaced on one of the hallmarks of venture capital, i.e. speed,and the reliance of venture capitalists upon local networksand knowledge for their investments. The ability to providethese types of value-added inputs in a timely manner is greatlyassisted by geographic proximity. Rather than being an easilymoved and fungible commodity, venture capital investing dependsupon non-monetary inputs such as knowledge about possible investmentsand prefers to be close to companies in order to monitor andassist them. Thus, despite telecommunications technologies andglobal financial markets that have vastly expanded the geographicrange of economic interaction, regions remain central to economicdevelopment in the current economy.     

Democratic constraint and embrace: Implications for progressive non-government advocacy organisations in Australia

The advocacy work of non-government organisations can be either constrained or embraced by government attitudes and practices. Although it is widely accepted that NGOs are an essential component of a healthy and robust democracy, serving as essential intermediaries between community and government, and providing a voice for marginalised groups to make claims on governments between elections, the current dominance of the public choice paradigm in public administration has seen the legitimacy of NGOs come under attack. Questions have been raised about the representativeness of NGOs and the legitimacy of their standing as policy advocates. As a result of this shift many disadvantaged groups that had taken years to organise themselves sufficiently to have a voice have found themselves increasingly constrained and excluded from the policy-making process. The threats that many NGOs are now facing have the effect of reducing government accountability, sustaining existing inequities and, ultimately, diminishing the quality of Australian democracy.     

The executive lawmaking agenda: Political parties,prime ministers,and policy change in Australia

In Westminster systems, governments enjoy a privileged position in the lawmaking process that they can use to deliver on their campaign promises and achieve their policy goals. What policy areas do governments seek to affect through lawmaking? How stable is the executive lawmaking agenda? How responsive is that agenda to changes triggered by elections or by transitions in prime minister? This study uses a dataset of 3982 Australian bills introduced between 2000 and 2017 to answer these questions. While it finds considerable stability in the policy content of executive lawmaking agendas, the analysis also indicates that Australia's executive lawmaking agenda is more responsive to changes in prime minister than to changes in the party in power. As the first application of the comparative policy agendas approaches to government bills in Australia, this article offers new insights into executive lawmaking priorities during an especially turbulent period in Australian politics.     

Neoliberalism and gender equality policy in Australia

After a Coalition electoral victory in 2013, the Australian Office for Women was returned from the periphery to the centre of government. This was contrary to the expectation that women’s policy will be given greater salience under governments of the left rather than of the right. To unpack this puzzle, we examine institutional arrangements and policy directions under successive Labor and Coalition governments in Australia, including the abolition of intergovernmental bodies concerned with gender equality. We find that the influence of neoliberalism has resulted in a blurring of patterns of partisan difference over gender equality policy. There are some continuing partisan differences but also a common pattern of increased emphasis on international and regional rather than domestic policy. The notable exception to this pattern is in the area of gender-based violence.     

Human capital, cluster formation, and international relocation: the case of the garment industry in Japan, 1968-98

This article examines the changing roles of human capital inthe process of the formation of industrial clusters, changesin marketing channels, and the relocation of the industrialbase to less developed areas and abroad, based on a case studyof a garment cluster in postwar Japan. We found, among otherthings, that experience as local traders played a major rolein the cluster formation. However, formal schooling assumesgreater importance in later stages, when direct transactionswith large customers replaced transactions with local merchants,and the international relocation of the production base becamea major management issue.     

Public opinion and policy responsiveness: the case of same-sex marriage in Australia

This article examines congruence between public opinion and politicians’ positions on same-sex marriage in the Australian House of Representatives from 2012 to 2016. In contrast median voter theorem and other office-motivated frameworks, Australian federal politicians have largely ignored majority opinion, which has been supportive of same-sex marriage for a decade. Using a unique dataset (n?=?601,550) of voter preferences collected during the 2013 federal election, and collated Hansard and media data, we compare public opinion on same-sex marriage with politicians’ public positions. We find a status quo bias, suggesting the influence of special interest groups in this policy area. Yet, we also find parliamentarians are responsive to public opinion once it reaches a critical level, and that very low opposition to same-sex marriage in an electorate predicts policy support from its MP, which varies by party and over time.     

Science as culture and leisure: cultural policy,industry and scientific culture in the Canadian context

Government ministries of industry have long been promoters, co‐producers and even sometimes producers of cultural policy – from local and regional development strategies to initiatives that fund cultural organizations to support emerging fields such as the technological arts. This article explores the relationship between cultural policy‐making, science museums and industry ministries in Canada. More specifically, this article investigates the emergence and institutionalization of scientific culture policy as a result of advocacy by science centres in the 1980s. Beyond the delineation of scientific culture as a field and of the contribution of industry ministries to cultural policy, this article highlights the entrepreneurial strategies of cultural organizations and their impact on policy and facilities, thus suggesting that cultural organizations are not just passive instruments of social regulation and reform.     

Winners and losers: Industry policy and gender concerns in the clothing industry

This article is broadly concerned with the federal government's industry policy in relation to women machinists in the clothing industry. From analysis of various reports and a series of face‐to‐face interviews with 120 people representing government, business and unions, as well as workers in various sections of the industry, I argue that the government's approach to restructuring this industry has not adequately incorporated an understanding of the issues facing the women who make up the majority of employees. The federal government's current textile, clothing and footwear (TCF) industry plan has failed to sufficiently address women's frequently disadvantaged position. In regard to the clothing industry, I will show that although there have been gradual gains for women, major victories are scarce, particularly for the growing number of outworkers.