| Abstract: | It is good to see more work being done on the institutionalising of ‘identity politics’, as in Elizabeth Fells' article ‘The Proliferation of Identity Politics in Australia’ in the March 2003 issue of this journal (Fells 2003). However, some assumptions in that article result in seriously misleading conclusions. I examine these here, taking the example of women's portfolios. Fells uses allocation of ministerial portfolios as an indicator of government responses to identity politics and, following Moon and Fletcher (1988), of policy innovation and policy substance. She acknowledges that governments may respond to demands that they be active in a particular area by creating portfolio responsibilities without establishing separate ministries. She suggests, however, that failure to establish a separate ministry to support the portfolio could be seen as a failure to ‘institutionalise a long-term commitment’. Hence she announces her intention to exclude from her analysis the creation of portfolios without ministries, such as the Commonwealth Status of Women portfolio, for which both the Prime Minister and a Minister Assisting the Prime Minister have responsibility (Fells 2003, 104). |
