Unequal Voices: ‘Strategic’ Consultation in South Australia

In 2006, the South Australian government undertook the largest consultation ever to take place in the state. Over 1600 South Australians were involved with the consultation on the revision of South Australia's Strategic Plan (SASP). This ‘big‐picture’ consultation was a significant attempt to connect with, and gain feedback from, the South Australian ‘community’ on the Rann government's vision for the state. This article is the first formal evaluation of the 2006 consultation on the SASP. To critically evaluate the consultation process, this article uses Pratchett's framework which examines participative processes through the two principles of responsiveness and representativeness. The article concludes that the state government's rhetoric about the success of the consultation obscures a number of deficiencies and tensions that underpinned the consultation process. This critique of the South Australian consultation provides some key insights for the current trend for strategic planning at the state level in Australia.     

Notes on the Canadian exception: security certificates in critical context

This paper attempts to place the Canadian security certificate program in critical context. The program is a mechanism of arbitrary detention targeted to non-citizens the state has certified as ‘threats’ to national security. As a mechanism of arbitrary detention the program fully locates Canadian policies inside of, and not in some manner external to, the worst abuses and ‘exceptional practices’ associated with the ‘global war on terror’. To place this program in critical context, the author draws upon the notion of ‘exception’. Although the security certificate program does invoke an exceptional practice in the terms made legible in recent discussions in critical security studies, it also points to ways in which critical discussions of ‘exception’ might be deepened and complicated. To this end, the paper put forwards the notion of the ‘legal complex’ to highlight the mundane and often contested ways in which the exception is invoked to certify which racialized bodies might be governed as political citizens and which will be governed as ‘bare life’.     

Policy learning and change during crisis: COVID-19 policy responses across six states

Whereas policy change is often characterized as a gradual and incremental process, effective crisis response necessitates that organizations adapt to evolving problems in near real time. Nowhere is this dynamic more evident than in the case of COVID-19, which forced subnational governments to constantly adjust and recalibrate public health and disease mitigation measures in the face of changing patterns of viral transmission and the emergence of new information. This study assesses (a) the extent to which subnational policies changed over the course of the pandemic; (b) whether these changes are emblematic of policy learning; and (c) the drivers of these changes, namely changing political and public health conditions. Using a novel dataset analyzing each policy's content, including its timing of enactment, substantive focus, stringency, and similar variables, results indicate the pandemic response varied significantly across states. The states examined were responsive to both changing public health and political conditions. This study identifies patterns of preemptive policy learning, which denotes learning in anticipation of an emerging hazard. In doing so, the study provides important insights into the dynamics of policy learning and change during disaster.     

Quasi‐welfare,associationalism and the social division of citizenship

It is widely acknowledged that in many advanced capitalist societies, the role and structure of the welfare state has undergone substantial changes in recent decades. Arguments continue about the precise causes, and about the trajectory and impact of those changes. One particular strand in the debate has concerned the nature of the transformation of the welfare state in relation to the wider economy, and whether these changes reflect a ‘post‐Fordist’ welfare regime; while another important theme concerns the consequences of cultural and social differentiation, and the extent to which ‘postmodernism’ entails a fundamental dissolution of conventional assumptions about social policy. Radical reconstruction of the institutions, and questioning of the functions of welfare states, are resulting in more complex and heterogeneous patterns of social provision. At the same time, increased theoretical emphasis on, and popular demand for, choice, consumerism and diversity represent a significant challenge to, and perhaps the abandonment of, longstanding precepts about universalism in welfare. This article reviews some of the key themes in this debate, and supports arguments that predict that the universalist goals and principles of welfare are likely to be displaced by moves towards a ‘marketised’ system of quasi‐welfare in an atomised, anomic and fragmented society. The article addresses several issues: first, it briefly discusses some of the main implications of recent theorising about post‐Fordism and postmodernism; secondly it considers the emergence and consequences of’ quasi‐markets’ in social policy; and finally it challenges the claim that the revival of ‘associationalism in civil society offers a remedy for some of the principal (alleged) defects of the welfare state.     

Complicating the “holy grail”, simplifying the search: a critique of the conventional problematisation of social immobility in elite legal education and the profession

This article challenges the conventional problematisation of and response to insufficient socio-economic diversity in elite legal education and the legal profession. I contend that the entrenched socio-economic stratification of admissions, the undergraduate experience, final degree classification, and career trajectories turns on elite institutions’ failure to recognise that education and educational proxies neither explain the core of socio-economic inequality nor are they the linchpin for improving social mobility. I draw on a case study of an elite UK university’s undergraduate Law programme. My argument proceeds in three parts. Firstly, I contend that justifiable commitment to “meritocracy” continues to be unjustifiably implemented via the indeterminate critical values of “potential” and “talent”, which undermines the meritocratic aim. Secondly, I explain how the inadequacy of the educational proxies employed for socio-economic disadvantage undermines the ability of targeted responses to achieve real improvements, and I call for the adoption of poverty-based proxies. Thirdly, I suggest that the search for mechanisms to increase diversity proceeds on the mistaken assumption that complex problems require complex solutions, which overlooks the transformative potential of “micro-adjustments” or “nudges”. I propose both universal and targeted micro-adjustments, which focus on fostering a universal diversity of excellence; bringing disadvantaged students within the “community of practice” to become expert in critical learning methods and assessment criteria; and enhancing disadvantaged students’ social and cultural capital.