REFORM OF INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS IN AUSTRALIA: THE POLITICS OF FEDERALISM AND THE NON-POLITICS OF MANAGERIALISM

A remarkable process of reform of intergovernmental arrangements was initiated in Australia in 1990 designed, according to its proponents, 'to improve our national efficiency and international competitiveness and to improve the delivery and quality of services governments provide'. Unlike previous 'new federalisms' in Australia (and elsewhere) the reform process on this occasion was neither totally unilateral, nor top-down in design and implementation. Rather, while reflecting the commonwealth (federal) government's frustrations at the limits imposed by the federal system on its political power and administrative capacity, the process intentionally was cooperative, incorporating all state and temtory government leaders, and including representatives of local government. In the context of a review of the origins, nature and objectives of the reform initiative, this article points both to the valuable innovations embodied in its processes, and to the risks of reduced political access and citizen participation created by its attempts to apply 'single-government' managerialist principles to the redesign of intergovernmental arrangements in federal systems. Political and bureaucratic objectives, combined with a lack of adequate appreciation of federal principles, led, in our view, to an attempt to supplant participatory politics with relatively less accessible and responsive managerial structures.     

Mixed Motives: Economic,Social, and Normative Motivations in Business Compliance

This article develops theoretical understanding of the motives of business firms and their managers for compliance. First, we develop a typology to conceptualize and measure business motives relevant to compliance behavior. We distinguish between three categories of motives: economic, social, and normative. We hypothesize, however, that business firms and their managers do not divide into types motivated exclusively by singular priorities. We expect each firm to hold a constellation of plural motives. Moreover, we expect that economic and social motives are more alike between regulatees within the same regulatory regime than normative motives. Second, we conduct a preliminary test of the plausibility of our typology of motives and our theory of constellations of plural motives using data from a survey of the thousand biggest companies in Australia. Finally, we conclude that the path from fundamental interests or motives to behavior is filled with constraints and contingent factors at the individual, organizational, and structural levels.     

Employers,the state and the politics of institutional change: Vocational education and training in Austria,Germany and Switzerland

An in‐depth comparison of Austria, Germany and Switzerland shows that the employers' constellation and the elites of the public education administration affect patterns of institutional change. If large firms are the dominant actors and collaborate with elites in the public education administration, institutional change follows a transformative pattern. If small and medium‐sized firms are in a strong position and have the power to influence public elites according to their interests, self‐preserving institutional change results. The article also shows that it is not so much trade unions as small and medium‐sized firms that act as a brake on transformative change. The article adds to the literature of institutional change by arguing that specifying and explaining patterns of institutional change requires that sufficient scope be allowed for actors' creative handling of institutions. It also suggests that in order to differentiate between self‐preserving and transformative change, one has to specify the important institutional dimensions that sustain an institution. The article combines Mill's method of agreement and difference.     

SNAKES AND LADDERS: UPPER‐MIDDLE CLASS MALE OFFENDERS TALK ABOUT ECONOMIC CRIME*

This paper explores the ways in which male offenders in professional‐status occupations prior to conviction construct and justify money‐related crime. We report a detailed analysis, based in grounded theory and critical social‐psychological discourse analysis, of a loosely‐structured group interview with four offenders. The men constructed justifications for their offenses in terms of “breadwinning” for their immediate family and economic responsibility toward their extended “family” of employees and creditors. They represented their post‐conviction decline in social status as being “dragged down” by envious “boys” in the state apparatus. They positioned themselves on moral high ground, despite having been inappropriately sent to the working class world of prison (“Dante's Inferno”). We contrast these accounts with those of less privileged male offenders.     

Regional development policies and the constructions of gender equality: The Swedish case

Abstract.  This article uses a discursive approach to analyze how gender equality has and is being constructed and given meaning in the context of Swedish regional policy. Drawing on Carole Bacchi's 'What's the Problem? Approach', we explore how arguments concerning the new forms of regional policy are assigning different categories of people different subject positions and, in particular, we focus on the kind of subject positions that are being given to women as a group in this context. The discourse being shaped in national policy is, however, interpreted in specific contexts. Accordingly, we compare the way this new discourse is being (re)interpreted and (re)constructed and the subject positions being ascribed to women in the regional development partnerships and growth strategies in two Swedish regions: Västerbotten and Jönköping. Finally, we draw attention to how both the form and the content of Swedish regional development policies create great difficulties for politicizing gender as a power dimension in society. We suggest that regional politics has become de-politicized and argue for the need for it to be re-politicized with gender included as a conflict dimension.     

INFORMATION‐SHARING AND CONFIDENTIALITY IN SOCIAL POLICY: REGULATING MULTI‐AGENCY WORKING

In recent years, there has been growing concern in the UK that local services aimed at risky or vulnerable people are ineffective, because of agencies’ persistent failure to share information about their clients. Despite considerable national policy effort to encourage better information‐sharing, previous research indicates that there are many cases where information is still not shared when it should be, or where it is shared when it should not be, with potentially devastating results. This article uses data from the largest empirical study of local information‐sharing yet undertaken to examine four policy sectors where multi‐agency working has come to the fore. It shows that variations in their information‐sharing and confidentiality practices can be explained by neo‐Durkheimian institutional theory and uses insights from this theory to argue that current policy tools, which emphasize formal regulation, are unlikely to lead to consistent and acceptable outcomes, not least because of unresolved conflicts in values and aims.