Improving Federalism: Drivers of Change,Repair Options and Reform Scenarios

The Academy of Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA) and the Institute of Public Administration Australia (IPAA) hosted a ‘Policy Roundtable on Federalism’ on the 17–18 May 2007 at the University of Canberra. Around 50 attended the roundtable comprising politicians, Commonwealth and state public servants, and academics. The roundtable was provided with a number of background papers including the Hollander‐Patapan article and another produced by staff of the Commonwealth Grants Commission entitled ‘Trends in Commonwealth‐State Financial Relations: a Grants Commission Perspective’. The roundtable focused not only on issues and challenges but, more practically, on options and how to make federalism work better.     

BOOK NOTES

Book reviewed in this article: official Year Book of the Commonwealth of Australia, No. Business and Procedures of the House of Representatives. H. J. Hofstra . New Techniques of Budget Preparation and Management. C. E. Hawley and R. G. Weintraub (eds). Administrative Questions and Political Answers. R. A. Irish . A Businessman's Views of the Administration H. G. Gelber . Australia, Britain and the E.E.C., 1961 to 1963. M. W. Raffel . Planning by the North Canterbury Hospital Board. J. William Fulbright . Prospects for the West. E. M. Kassalow . National Labor Movements in the Postwar World. Bruce H. Millen . The Political Role of Labor in Developing Countries. J. Edward Gerald . The Social Responsibility of the Press. Sanford A. Lakoff . Equality in Political Philosophy. hilip Mullenbach . Civilian Nuclear Power. H. V. Livermore . A New History of Portugal. Nikola Balog . Administrative Management of Public Enterprises. Mumtaz Soysal . Public Relations in Administration: II. The Influence of the Public on the Operation of Public Administration, Excluding Electoral Rights.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed in this article: Owen Hughes, Public Management and Administration: An Introduction Byong‐man Ahn, John Halligan and Stephen Wilks (eds.), Reforming Public and Corporate Governance: Management and the Market in Australia, Britain and Korea Fred Argy, Where to From Here? Australian Egalitarianism Under Threat Richard Woolcott,The Hot Seat: Reflections on Diplomacy from Stalin's Death to the Bali Bombings Bent Flyvbjerg, Rationality and Power Bent Flyvbjerg, Making Social Science Matter Denis Murphy, Roger Joyce, Margaret Cribb and Rae Wear (eds.), The Premiers of Queensland Ciaran O'Faircheallaigh, A New Approach to Policy Evaluation: Mining and Indigenous People Michael Pusey, The Experience of Middle Australia. The Dark Side of Economic Reform     

A Call to Action—The Essential Role of Advocacy

Editor's Note: The Perspectives featured in this issue of Public Administration Review were adapted from May 2016 commencement addresses: Anna Maria Chavez, the CEO of the Girl Scouts of the USA, spoke on the 12th at Arizona State University's College of Public Service and Community Solutions; Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Leader in the United States House of Representatives spoke on the 7th at New York University's Wagner School of Public Service; and Tommy Thompson, the former Governor of Wisconsin and Secretary of Health & Human Services, spoke on the 15th at the University of Wisconsin's La Follette School of Public Affairs. These Perspectives reaffirm the highest principles of American public administration: that by and large, government is NOT the problem, and quite often indeed holds the solution; that effective and helpful public policy depends on informed expert opinion and research; and that those who enter public service should do so with a commitment to the notion that America best fulfills its promise when we seek the well‐being of all people, including the least fortunate. We chose these messages from among a wealth of commencement speeches because while they come from leaders with quite different political views, background, and experience, taken together they offer a coherent and inspiring call to public service. Dan Feldman, Perspective and Commentary Editor     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article: Patrick Weller and Michelle Grattan , Can Ministers Cope? Australian Federal Ministers at Work, Richmond, Hutchinson of Australia, 1981. Sol Encel , Peter Wilenski and Bernard Schaffer (eds), Decisions: Case Studies in Australian Public Policy V. Seymour Wilson , Canadian Public Policy and Administration — Theory and Environment Peter Sheldrake and Russell Linke (eds), Accountability in Higher Education C. A. Tisdell , Science and Technology Policy: Priorities of Governments Richard Pryke , The Nationalised Industries: Policies and Performance since 1968     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed: Timothy Conlan, From New Federalism to Devolution: Twenty‐Five Years of Intergovernmental Reform Martin PainterCollaborative Federalism: Economic Reform in Australia in the 1990s Douglas C. Foyle, Counting the Public In: Presidents, Public Opinion andForeign Policy Gerda Falkner, EU Social Policy in the 1990s: Towards a Corporatist Policy Community Maria Amparo, Cruz‐Saco, and Carmelo Mesa‐Lago, (eds.) Do Options Exist? The Reform of Pension and Health Care Systems in Latin America Janine R. Wedel, Collision and Collusion: The Strange Case of Western Aid to Eastern Europe 1989–1998     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article: John W. Cell . British Colonial Administration in the Mid-nineteenth Century: the Poky Making Process. W. J. Byrt , People and Organisations. M. Burnet . Walter and Eliza Hall Institute J. M. Powell . The Public Lands of Australia Felix; settlement and land appraisal in Victoria, 1834–91, with special reference to the Western Plains Cabot L. Jaffee and Lawrence B. Carney . Problems in Public Utility Management: An In-Basket Training Exercise. Lloyd G. Reynolds . Western Economics in Non-Western Economies. J. A. Bristow and C. F. Fell . Bord Na Mona: A Cost-Benefit Study.     

Recovering the Craft of Public Administration

Public sector reform has rarely dropped off the political agenda of Western governments, yet the old craft skills of traditional public administration remain of paramount importance. The pendulum has swung too far toward the new and the fashionable reforms associated with New Public Management and the New Public Governance. It needs to swing back toward bureaucracy and the traditional skills of bureaucrats as part of the repertoire of governing. This article discusses the skills of counseling, stewardship, practical wisdom, probity, judgment, diplomacy, and political nous. Although these skills are of wide relevance, the article focuses on their relevance in Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand. It concludes that the next bout of reforms needs to recover the traditional craft skills. It is not a question of traditional skills versus the new skills of New Public Management or New Public Governance; it is a question of what works, of what skills fit in a particular context.     

STUDYING THE STATES

The Bannon Decade: The Politics of Restraint in South Australia. Edited by Andrew Parkin & Allan Patience Trials in Power: Cain, Kirner and Victoria 1982–1992. Edited by Mark Considine & Brian Costar Keeping them Honest: Democratic Reform in Queensland. Edited by Andrew Hede , Scott Prasser & Mark Neylan The Tasmanian Parliamentary Accord & Public Policy: Accommodating the new politics? Edited by Marcus Haward & Peter Larmour Affairs of State: Politics in the Australian States and Territories. By Scott Bennett     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed in this article: Arthur Tange: Last of the Mandarins Peter Edwards Australian Social Attitudes. The First Report Shaun Wilson, Gabrielle Meagher, David Denemark and Mark Western (eds) Terms of Trust: Arguments over Ethics in Australian Government John Uhr Making Public Policy: Institutions, Actors, Strategies Mark Considine The Life and Death of Harold Holt Tom Frame Head of State: the Governor‐General, the Monarchy, the Republic and the Dismissal David Smith Westminster Legacies: Democracy and Responsible Government in Asia and the Pacific Haig Patapan, John Wanna and Patrick Weller (eds) The Governance of Public and Non‐Profit Organisations: What do boards do? Chris Cornforth (ed) Australia Unsettled: The Legacy of ‘Neo‐liberalism’ Dennis Woodward Challenges to State Policy Capacity: Global Trends and Comparative Perspectives Martin Painter and Jon Pierre (eds)     

Epistemic Community or Tower of Babel? Theoretical Diffusion in Public Administration

This article takes a comparative look at the development of the public administration discipline in three countries: Australia, Brazil and Canada. The nature of the international public administration academic community is assessed through content analysis of articles in the Australian Journal of Public Administration (AJPA), Revista de Administração Pública (RAP), and Canadian Public Administration (CPA). The method is based on that used by existing United States (US) research, allowing for comparison with that national context. The focus is on the diffusion of theoretical approaches between these national contexts, assessing whether the international public administration discipline better approximates an epistemic community, in which theoretical approaches move seamlessly between the national contexts; or a ‘Tower of Babel’, in which the different national contexts remain largely isolated.     

Prisoners as Customers or Clients?

Is the market for prisons or prisoners? The question remains unresolved by the debate between Sue Vardon, former Director-General, Department of Correctional Services, South Australia, and Patrick Weller, former Chairman, Corrective Services Commission, Queensland, in the March issue of this journal. Both asked whether prisoners are customers or clients of corrective service agencies. The distinction between clients as customers and clients as consumers in service delivery has important implications for the performance management of prisons, yet was ignored in the Vardon/Weller interchange. This distinction has implications for prisons and public services generally.     

Trends in Australian and Canadian Public Service Perceptions from an Employee Survey Perspective

A comparative analysis of results from the 2011 Institute of Public Administration Australia and Institute of Public Administration of Canada surveys of public service leaders is mapped against related public sector employee survey tools results. Alignment of past results with current leader perceptions shows remarkable consistency across the jurisdictions over time. This overarching coherence points to two broad hypotheses: either senior public service leaders possess a common set of preoccupations in the modern global context, or a more critical perspective would question the shortcomings of the instruments given that remarkable change has occurred that one would expect should have driven result variance. Regardless of the conclusion brought to this preliminary analysis, ongoing identification and mapping of senior leader perceptions through such tools is celebrated as an important contribution to ongoing public service organizational health.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed in this article: Jane E. Fountain, Building the Virtual State: Information Technology and Institutional Change Alan Charles Raul, Privacy and the Digital State: Balancing Public Information and Personal Privacy Elaine Ciulla Kamarck and Joseph S. Nye, Jr. (eds.), Governance.com: Democracy in the Information Age Peter John Perry, Political Corruption in Australia: A Very Wicked Place? Adrienne Héritier, Dieter Kerwer, Christopher Knill, Dirk Lehmkuhl, Michael Teutsch, and Anne‐Cecile Douillet, Differential Europe: The European Union Impact on National Policy‐making Susan C. Stokes, Mandates and Democracies: Neoliberalism by Surprise in Latin America Matthew Flinders, The Politics of Accountability in the Modern State     

Perspectives on the Capacity of the Australian Public Service and Effective Policy Development and Implementation

It is a long held tradition of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA) to invite speakers to address the Fellow's Colloquium as part of the annual symposium, with an aim to spark discussion and debate on a controversial and contemporary topic. In 2010 the debate was focused on the question of whether there had been a degradation of the professional capacity of the Australian Public Service (APS) with regard to effective policy development and implementation. The contributions of each of the four panel members are reproduced here, in part, and they reflect the diverse perspectives which informed a robust and compelling debate. Janine O'Flynn, the editor of these contributions, argues that any claim of degradation is based on rumour rather than hard evidence, and she sets out how we might think about policy capacity from a public sector management perspective. Sue Vardon, the former CEO of Centrelink and the architect of a transformation change program which redefined the delivery of public services in Australia, reflects on the strengths of the APS, but points out the current stresses that it now finds itself under. Anna Yeatman, an expert in political theory and its application to citizenship and public policy, argues that in the last twenty years we have witnessed degradation in the work of government and that this has impacted on policy capacity. Lyn Carson, an expert in deliberative democracy, points to the unrealised capacity that could come from increasing citizen involvement. Policy capacity is degraded, she argues, because we have systems that are neither deliberative nor representative. Individually these contributions spark their own controversies; together they ask us to consider the question in different ways.     

On James Burnham’sThe Machiavellians

Sidney Hook, senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, is emeritus professor of philosophy and former head of the All-University Department at New York University. Among the thirty books he has written or edited are Education for Modern Man, Pragmatism and the Tragic Sense of Life,and Philosophy and Public Policy.Most recently, he has written Marxism and Beyondand his autobiography, Out of Step: An Unquiet Life in the 20th Century.This article will be used as an introduction to a new edition of James Burnham’s The Machiavelliansto be published by Regnery Gateway, Inc.     

REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article. Review Article: Reflections on Labor Jenny Hocking & Colleen Lewis It's Time Again: Whitlam and Modern Labor. Peter Bridgman and Glyn Davis Restructuring Australia: Regionalism, republicanism and reform of the nation‐state Wayne Hudson and A J Brown (eds) Renegotiating the Environment: The Power of Politics Jenny Stewart & Grant Jones Holding Power to Account: Accountability in Modern Democracies Richard Mulgan The V.I.P. Affair 1966–67. The Causes, Course and Consequences of a Ministerial and Public Service cover‐up Ian Hancock     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article: L. F. Crisp . Australian National Government. Longmans, 1965. T. H. Kewley . Social Security in Australia: The development of Social Security and Health Benefits from 1900 to the present.* Leonard Tierney . Children Who Need Help: A study of child welfare policy and administration in Victoria. Desmond Farley . Social Insurance and Social Assistance in Ireland. Institute of Public Administration, Dublin, 1964. Raymond E. Callahan . Education and the Cult of Efficiency: A Study of the social forces that have shaped the administration of the public schools. H. E. Maiden . The History of Local Government in New South Wales. Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1966. Katharine West . Power in the Liberal Party. F. W. Cheshire, Melbourne, 1965. Pp. 289. B. Yuill . An Outline of Organizational Principles for Management.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:
Citizen Participation in Government. Edited by MARGARET MUNRO-CLARK
The Business of Government: Western Australia: 1983–1990. Edited by ALLAN PEACHMENT (Leichhardt
Exemplary Public Administrators: Character and Leadership in Government. Edited by TERRY COOPER and N. DALE WRIGHT
Ethics in Public Service. Edited by RICHARD A. CHAPMAN
Public Sector Management in Australia. By JOHN WANNA, CIARAN O'FAIRCHEALLAIGH & PATRICK WELLER
Service Delivery and Public Sector Marketing. Edited by CIARAN O'FAIRCHEALLAIGH, PETER GRAHAM & JENI WARBURTON
The Contracting State. By IAN HARDEN