Multiple agents,blame games and public policy-making: the case of local government reform in New South Wales

Politicians often use ‘independent experts’ to avoid blame for contentious public policy. The use of multiple agents, however, has attracted relatively little attention. We extend the blame-avoidance literature to identify additional opportunities and risks that arise when multiple agents are used to support/oppose particular public policies. We then test our propositions using evidence from recent local government reforms in New South Wales. The picture which emerges is largely one of confusion whereby independent agents provide contradictory opinions, attempt to shift blame to one another, and dispute interpretations of earlier advice. We conclude our analysis with a discussion of the salient factors for successful pursuit of the multiple-agent variant of the blame games.     

The ‘drive and talk’ as ethnographic method

Anthropologists have long embraced the value of the ‘walk and talk’ ethnographic method, which is an interactive means of generating research insights in situ – on site. In this article, we propose that there is room for an expanded appreciation of the ‘drive and talk’ method. While driving and talking with their interlocutors, researchers can elicit information prompted by features in the landscape and the environment that might be otherwise forgotten or overlooked if the interview context was set in a fixed location. To demonstrate the utility of this approach, this article explains the empirical and phenomenological (sensorial and experiential) insights yielded by driving and talking with interlocutors in a South Australian wine-growing region. Automobility has the advantage over ambulation when it comes to accessing landscapes at the scale of the farm, which is where environmental management decisions are on heightened display.     

Water Management in Post-colonial Darjeeling: The Promise and Limits of Decentralised Resource Provision

Water crises are spreading across the length of South Asia at an alarming rate, and some of the pockets of stress include unexpected locations such as Darjeeling, West Bengal, where rainfall is plentiful. This article explores the problems of post-colonial water management in the former British hill station to illuminate the prospects for integrated resource provision. We argue that to improve the scope of water distribution and provision, post-colonial townships such as Darjeeling need to acknowledge and address the multiple ways in which people get water from the centralised supply as well as the decentralised solutions that have arisen through community organisation in collectives known as samaj. Notably, the samaj have a distinct character based on histories of colonial neglect that prompted villages throughout the Darjeeling region to solve socioeconomic problems independently of centralised systems. The discussion overlaps the numerous resource pathways with the plethora of social and political organisations operating in Darjeeling to argue that municipalities would do well to harness the varied ways in which water flows through the township. Integrated within larger questions of sustainable development in India’s urbanising townships, the text offers a glimpse into the possibilities for more holistic and equitable water management.     

The Maoist conflict in Nepal: a Himalayan perdition?

What have been the consequences of the Maoists’ decade-long campaign in Nepal? The rebellion that emerged in 1996 can be understood as symptomatic of the nation's struggle for democracy with its origins in the nation's social and economic inequalities, and in the failure of parliamentary democracy in Nepal. However the conflict has important regional and international dimensions. The conflict has been disconcerting for China and India, particularly given the increased U.S. involvement in Nepali affairs in the current context of the war on terror. Had the war occured half a century earlier in the era of Third World independence movements, it may have been viewed differently.     

Touching Down: Labour, Globalisation and the Airline Industry

This paper explores the recent history of cabin crew in the airline industry. It argues that as companies have become more complex and interconnected during the process of globalisation in the 1990s, a dialectic has been at work that provides workers with a newfound power. Lessons are drawn from the British Airways cabin crew strike of 1997, in which workers successfully resisted attempts to remove union recognition. These involve questions of action at global and local scale, and new strategies devised by the union concerned. Lastly, the paper discusses the post-September 11, 2001 climate and suggests that cabin crew have an opportunity to reaffirm their indispensability to airline safety.