School of Social and Political Sciences - Research Publications
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ItemSubmissions to the 2020 Convention(AGPS, 2008)
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ItemVictoria's regional management forums: a comparative review( 2008)Victoria’s Regional Management Forums were established in 2005 to facilitate collaboration between Victorian Government departments and local government in each of Victoria’s eight administrative regions. The Forums are chaired by departmental Secretaries, and comprise the Chief Executive Officers of local government as well as senior representatives from state government departments. The role of the Forums is to: • Identify and address critical issues facing the region; • Encourage cooperation between departments and with councils; and • Work with statutory authorities, businesses and local communities to deliver key priorities. This paper considers Victoria’s Regional Management Forums alongside other similar collaborative governance structures, such as Queensland’s Regional Managers’ Coordination Networks, Tasmania’s Partnership Agreements, Western Australia’s Regional Development Commissions and the United Kingdom’s Local Strategic Partnerships. The paper concludes that the Forums have successfully established a collaborative relationship between state government and local governments, providing a mechanism for constructive, regular dialogue. Nevertheless, if Regional Management Forums are to be successful in the longer term, they will need to move beyond their existing functions of information sharing, networking and the implementation of selected regional initiatives. A key component of this broadened approach should be the development of integrated approaches to regional development.
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ItemRegulatory failures and regulatory solutions: a characteristic analysis of meta-regulation( 2006)Meta-regulation has developed as a method of harnessing the self-regulatory capacity within regulated sites whilst retaining governmental authority in determining the goals and levels of risk reduction that regulation should achieved. This paper critically analyses the capacity of meta-regulation to resolve chronic regulatory challenges through subjecting the approach to a ‘characteristic’ analysis where the challenges of securing compliance are discussed in light of an appreciation of both the nature of regulatory policymaking as well as economic and social pressures that shape the normative orientation of a regulated site. Meta-regulation shows considerable potential, yet remains vulnerable because of its disassociation of compliance from context. The paper explores how under adverse conditions, the “regulation practice gap” widens and the rigour of a meta-regulatory approach may see it used as a political solution to a legitimacy problem rather than as a carefully thought through approach to an agreed upon critical risk
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ItemExperts don't know everything: Governance issues associated with transport and disadvantage( 2007)Public transport planning in an urban context has a relatively straightforward objective: maximise public transport patronage, in order to minimise the economic costs of road traffic congestion and the environmental damage associated with particulate and greenhouse gas emissions. To a large extent, this can be addressed by ‘experts’ using a range of technical skills such as demand forecasting, service planning and contracting.However, rather than patronage growth or modal shift, the objective of public transport provision in rural and regional areas is usually to address social disadvantage.This objective is not effectively achieved using a rationalist ‘expert’ model of decision-making, as the relevant information and resources required to develop solutions are diffuse. Without reference to other sources of knowledge, traditional transport data will provide only limited capacity to determine where transport services are ‘needed’. The full suite of knowledge required to adequately address social disadvantage resides with local communities, networks, institutions and actors. It is the way this knowledge is harnessed that will ultimately determine the success of any strategy in addressing social disadvantage – governance is at the heart of any attempt to respond to social disadvantage.In rural transport, it is not just the knowledge that is diffuse. Rather the assets and other resources needed to implement the solutions are often beyond the control of government, and in the hands of autonomous actors driven by a range of motives. The local school bus might be under contract with the government, but the taxi service operates independently as a small business, the community buses are operated by local agencies, and volunteer transport depends on local goodwill. In Victoria, in an attempt to address transport disadvantage, radical new governance approaches have been trialled through the Transport Connections program. In this program, local partnerships w
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ItemCommunity strength, innovation and learning: new evidence from Victoria( 2007)This paper investigates the role played by networks in learning regions. In particular, it explores the relationship between community strength and innovation in regional Victoria, Australia. The literature on innovation is increasingly pointing to the important role played by local and regional governance mechanisms in driving innovation. The effectiveness of formal structures governing learning regions is underpinned by informal networks. Networks are important as collective learning depends on a continuous flow of information and exchange, and this is built on relationships of stability and trust. Recent Victorian government research presents a unique opportunity to explore the role played by community strength, which can broadly be characterised as the strength of networks. The Victorian Indicators of Community Strength are 14 indicators that provide detailed data at the local government level. To test the theory of a connection between community strength and innovation across regional Victoria, patent data is used as a proxy measure for innovation. This data is then cross-referenced with various social and economic data sets, including the indicators of community strength. The analysis shows that among regional Local Government Areas in Victoria 56% of the variation in the patent rate can be explained by the combination of population density, tertiary education rates and various indicators of community strength, whereas just 23% of the variation in the patent rate can be explained by population density and tertiary education rates alone. Independent of population density and tertiary education levels, there is a statistically significant correlation between the number of patents registered per capita and several of the indicators of community strength. In particular, there is a significant positive correlation between the patent rate and the percentage of the population who are members of an organised group.
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ItemImproving Local Transport Outcomes Through Partnerships and Joined Up Government( 2006)Local transport services in Victoria are funded, planned and delivered by multiple agencies representing the transport, education, health and community services portfolios. This fragmentation in service delivery has led to sub-optimal asset utilisation, under-utilisation of existing capacity and services that are not necessarily aligned with community need.The Victorian Government has funded a number of small-scale partnership-based projects that are designed to facilitate cooperation and collaboration amongst community organisations, transport providers and local government. These projects are starting to achieve some impressive results though better utilisation of existing transport resources and the development of innovative new approaches and transport services.However, the potential of the projects has been constrained by the rigidities in existing government policy frameworks, as well as governance structures which restrict joined-up action across government departments.In light of this experience with local transport, this paper will explore the challenges and opportunities associated with local partnerships and joined-up government.
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ItemBefore citizenship: liberalism's colonial subjects(Canberra: Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA) & Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies (RSPAS), The Australian National University, 2006)This paper is concerned with the way colonial states established limited forms of access to civic and political life for their subjects. The issue of how colonial subjects were constructed as political and civil subjects is not well understood and one aim of this paper is to propose a new and hopefully more productive way of understanding the relationship between colonial subjects and their colonizers. This might be understood as a new lens through which colonial debates around native participation may be read and understood, or a new ear to some of the nuances of colonial language and concern. At the same time as saying this it must be recognized that the colonial state, and those subject to it, were not homogeneous. Marked differences existed between the early and late periods of colonial rule in British India, just as also between British colonialism in India and Africa, or British colonial rule in India and that practiced by, say, the French in Algeria. The case study for this research has been British rule in India in the second part of the nineteenth century. This should be borne in mind when considering conclusions drawn here and the extent to which they might reasonably be generalized to other colonial contexts. The paper is divided into three sections. Section I provides a brief sketch of nineteenth century British liberal political thought in respect of colonialism and the projection of British rule offshore. Its aim is not to provide a comprehensive review of this topic but rather to indicate some of the broader views and assumptions that animated colonial administration from the latter part of the nineteenth century forward (for a more comprehensive review, see Moore, 1966; Sullivan, 1983). Key amongst these was the idea that liberty rights and political participation were the preserve of societies that had reached a mature level of civilization; for those that had not, despotic government was not only preferable but indeed desirable. Postcolonial the
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ItemRed Tape and the War on Terror: exploring the regulatory aftermath of September 11th(University of Sydney, 2008)
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ItemThe Real World of 'Community Empowerment' in International Development(Monash University, 2007)
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ItemFamilism and Modernity amongst Young Chinese: An Exploration into Multiple Modernities(Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA) & Research School of Pac, 2006)