School of Social and Political Sciences - Theses
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ItemThe women on the hill : an ethnographic study of deinstitutionalization(University of Melbourne, 1995)
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ItemFeels like home : young people's lived experiences and meanings of home(University of Melbourne, 2008)
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ItemFactors affecting the utilization of post acute care by the elderly in Singapore(University of Melbourne, 2007)
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ItemSelf-regulation : a conceptual frame for intervention with young offenders within the justice system in Singapore(University of Melbourne, 2006)
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ItemSelf-regulation : a conceptual frame for intervention with young offenders within the justice system in Singapore(University of Melbourne, 2006)
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ItemThe status of women in Islam : a case study of Pakistan(University of Melbourne, 1999)
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ItemRegulating the risks of elder abuse in Australia : the changing nature of government responses(University of Melbourne, 2008)This thesis presents a policy analysis of Federal and State Government responses to elder abuse utilising three data sources, an extensive literature review, analysis of key government documents and interviews with expert stakeholders. Historical, sociological and criminological frameworks are used to explore contemporary responses to the abuse and neglect of older Australians. Modelling undertaken to estimate the current and projected scale of elder abuse predicted that there were 87,000 cases in 2007, that there would be 120,000 by 2017 and 200,000 by 2037. The ageing of the Australian population justifies the development of a more concerted and nationally co-ordinated strategy. Despite considerable contest between prevention and protection advocates, Australian Governments since the mid 1990s have adopted a fairly comprehensive and consistent policy framework involving prevention, investigation and case management, access to justice, legal and financial protections for older people without mental capacity, regulation and sanctions. This thesis argues that these six elements are likely to form the basis of future development and explores the utility of the responsive regulation thesis in such development. Several gaps in existing responses are identified, namely the lack of victim support services, the inadequate funding base, the low level of community and professional education and ambiguities about agency response responsibilities. Reforms needed over the next decade to address these gaps are identified.
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ItemMotherhood Statements: A discursive institutionalist analysis of the implementation of breastfeeding policy in Victoria( 2018)This thesis investigates the role of discourse in policy implementation in policymaking contexts characterised by few formal policy institutions. It does this by analysing the case study of the implementation of breastfeeding policy in the state of Victoria, using a discursive institutionalist framework specifically adapted for understanding policy implementation. Data about the case study was gathered through review of a corpus of breastfeeding policy documents and through semi-structured interviews with 19 key implementers of breastfeeding policy. The interview data was processed using a mixed deductive inductive coding approach based on grounded theory. The data was analysed through the lens of Schmidt’s (2008, 2011) discursive institutionalism, incorporating concepts from implementation theory. Several significant findings resulted from the data analysis. Firstly, it was found that in policymaking contexts with a few formalised policy institutions, discourse produces new institutions which mould how actors implement policy. The two types of new institution which have emerged in the Victorian breastfeeding sector are breastfeeding policy – an intertextual construct produced through the interrelationships of the mass of texts used by implementers – and the role descriptions of the non-public service actors involved in implementing breastfeeding policy. The findings showed these roles could be formalised, as in job descriptions of healthcare professionals, or informal, as in norms about being a good mother. Secondly, it was found that informal institutions are discursively arranged into relationships with each other, where one group defined by an institution is allowed to act in prescribed ways towards another group defined by an institution. The relationships between these groups are therefore power relations, and emerge out of attempts to solve the ‘problem’ of women failing to establish or maintain breastfeeding – a problem which is constituted by a conflict between individuals’ experiences and discursive ideals. As actors attempt to solve this problem, ideational structures proliferate in the form of narratives which explain the problem and proffer solutions to it. However, sometimes these narratives conflict with each other, producing additional discursive problems which must then be solved in turn. The most common solution to these problems involved prescribing courses of actions two institutionally defined groups may take with respect to each other. Further, it was found that, in addition to Schmidt’s (2008, 2011) identification of ‘communicative’ and ‘coordinative’ discourses, a ‘public’ discourse could be identified, where actors in the public sphere (who may be media figures or members of the public) speak to political actors about public policy, its purpose, and its effectiveness. This thesis is the first study to apply discursive institutionalism specifically to a problem of policy implementation. It therefore represents a new extension of critical policy theory into implementation studies. As detailed above, it generates a number of new findings about how policy implementation happens in institutional voids, which may also be applicable to other policymaking contexts. This thesis has also generated insights about how policy implementation happens that can form the basis of future theory-building of policy implementation as a discursive process.
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ItemBigData: Can virtue ethics play a role?( 2015)Big Data is a term for masses of information that is usually heterogeneous, usually from multiple sources, in multiple formats and at a scale of at least terabytes, and often substantially larger. It may be a data stream, or an assemblage of exiting large, not necessarily homogeneous datasets; both often contain large personal data content and thus can invoke ethical issues. As a result of rapid disintermediation of wide areas of the economy and daily life, and the growing data and information intensity that has both enabled this and is creating many fresh forms of Big Data on a real time basis, it is important to ensure that the implications are understood by the communities affected. This had not occurred until recently in the areas of government surveillance (Mathews & Tucker, 2014), and when it did had a massive impact across the world. Expectations were changed (See Fig.1) and the emergent power asymmetries emphasized. Concerns over the ethical and power implications are now reverberating, with Australia moving to consolidate ever stronger asymmetric information powers over the community (http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search _Results/Result?bId=s969), and the term ‘Snowden Effect’ has now achieved currency (https://freesnowden.is/frequently-asked-questions/).