Once more into surplus: Reforming expenditure management in Australia and Canada

Canadian and Australian federal government budgets have returned to surplus. Over the past two decades both countries have undertaken financial management and budgetary reforms in an effort to control expenditure growth and public debt. They exchanged ideas, borrowed techniques, and shared reform experiences. Yet during the mid-1980s and early 1990s they displayed markedly different levels of success in expenditure control. This article explains why relatively similar instruments of expenditure control and financial management produced different outcomes in Australia and Canada. The analysis suggests that budgetary techniques will have marginal impact unless they are congruent with broader policy management systems and administrative cultures. The comparative analysis provides important lessons for budget reformers in all jurisdictions.     

Reparations,Once Again

Reparations whether to blacks for slavery, or to Indians for land theft, or to settle any number of other conflicts, has an interesting political background. Analysts on the left, who are usually no friend of private property rights, nevertheless rely on this doctrine to support their case for reparations. Those on the right, in contrast, who supposedly defend the institution of property rights, jettison them when it comes to reparations. It is only libertarians, such as the present authors, who both favor private property rights in general, and, also, apply them to the issue of reparations, who are logically consistent.

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Public Management 1996: Once More Unto the Breach

Reviewing public administration in Australia was once akin to watching glaciers — you knew there was movement and something was happening beneath the surface, but detection required patient observation over a long period of time.     

Redesigned British Army: smaller,with more reserves

Government decisions to reduce the defence budget and lower strategic ambitions have prompted the British Army to undertake its most radical reorganisation for 50 years. The long-term viability of the project relies on the successful withdrawal from combat operations in Afghanistan and a significant increase in the utility of the army's reserve forces.     

Canadian Federalism in the 1990s: Once More in Question

Failure to ratify the Meech Lake Accord in 1990 has produceda constitutional crisis in Canada and sharpened the polarizationbetween Quebec and the rest of Canada. The future of Canadianfederalism and of Canada as a nation is now in question. Proceduralfactors contributing to the failure of Meech Lake included flawsin the constitutional amendment process, inadequate public involvement,distrust of executive federalism, inept political leadership,and ratification of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. Morefundamental factors, however, involve significant social andpolitical changes within Quebec and the rest of Canada. Thecrisis is expected to reach a peak by the fall of 1992 whenQuebec may hold a referendum on sovereignty.     

Strikes are more common in countries with majoritarian electoral systems

Strikes are more common in those OECD countries where the legislature is elected in single member districts (SMD) than in those where it is elected by proportional representation (PR). Furthermore, more working days are lost due to industrial conflict in countries with SMD. I suggest a politico-economic explanation for these rarely noticed empirical regularities. Further empirical testing – including controls drawn from previous strike research – reveals that they hold up in a variety of econometric specifications.     

Natural disaster news and communities of feeling: the affective interpellation of local and global publics

This paper engages with contemporary debates around the mediation of distant suffering by examining the ways in which news selection and reporting interpellate audiences into communities of feeling, in which affective belonging is structured by multimodal rhetorical strategies. Concepts drawn from discursive psychology and systemic-functional linguistics (appraisal theory) are used to show how news coverage of natural disasters positions audiences affectively. Analysis of Australian print media coverage of the 2009 Australian bushfires and the 2010 Haiti earthquake will be used to show how this process differs for local and international events. The paper contributes to debates on the “emotionalisation” of public culture by exploring the precise functions of affect within disaster reporting; in particular, how the production of various kinds of affects in the wake of a disaster shapes local and global publics.     

Turkey: more domestic turbulence ahead

President Erdogan is likely to regard Turkey's 1 November election as a vindication and implicit electoral endorsement of the authoritarian methods he has increasingly adopted in recent years. There is a high risk of an escalation in civil unrest, as young Kurds seek greater cultural and political rights.     

Pakistan: a more positive trajectory

The past 18 months have been an atypically salutary period for Pakistan. Democracy has deepened, civilian–military relations have been stable, the economy has grown and foreign relations have been conducted with relative maturity and civility. While Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif does face some political turbulence and the country's long-term challenges remain substantial, Pakistan's overall outlook is improving.