Economic Rationalism in Canberra: A Nation-Building State Changes Its MindThroughout the world since the 1970s, state and public sector reform has been driven by a conservative agenda emphasising notions of 'streamlining' and 'rationalisation'; Australia has been no exception. Michael Pusey undertakes a detailed analysis of top bureaucrats in Canberra who have been responsible for this recasting of national policy. He concludes that economist rationalist view dominate each of the key ministries, and have altered the traditional balance between the economy, the state and society. The book also discusses the social significance of economic rationalisation and public sector reform from a theoretical perspective, contributing to contemporary understanding of modernisation, public morality and citizenship in the new global order. |
Contents
Preface | vii |
Canberra in the balance | 1 |
The politics of meaning and the meaning of politics | 13 |
Method and purpose | 23 |
Images of contemporary Australia | 29 |
Problems and obstacles | 33 |
Windows and images | 37 |
Conclusion | 43 |
Intellectuals and vertical structural integration | 126 |
Rationalisation and lateral structural integration | 134 |
the formal restructuring of Bastille Day 1987 | 146 |
Conclusion | 153 |
Rationalisation and modernity what has happened to the states deliberative capacity? | 159 |
the earlier normative context of reform | 160 |
What has happened to the states deliberative capacities? | 169 |
The demoralisation of the career service | 182 |
Profiles of Canberras political administrators | 45 |
Social backgrounds | 47 |
Political orientations | 56 |
Enter the economic rationalists | 59 |
Government and administration under Hawke | 64 |
Technocrats? | 67 |
Conclusion | 74 |
The inner triangle | 76 |
The central agencies | 81 |
The marketoriented departments | 90 |
The program and service departments | 97 |
Conclusion | 106 |
The instrumentation of state power | 111 |
The state changing its mind or reforming the top of the Public Service | 113 |
The depoliticisation of the politicisation of an apolitical career service | 188 |
Crisis of the state or crisis of modernity? | 195 |
Integrity under stress the Lucky Country enters the world economy | 208 |
Relative autonomy of the state? | 211 |
Responding to vulnerability up the creek or down the Murray? | 218 |
Vulnerability culture and identity | 224 |
evaluations and choices | 234 |
Methods and procedures | 245 |
Major economic trends 197588 | 258 |
Major events 197590 | 260 |
Notes and References | 263 |
| 301 | |
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Economic Rationalism in Canberra: A Nation-Building State Changes its Mind Michael Pusey No preview available - 1991 |
Common terms and phrases
Aberbach Aboriginal Affairs action Alain Touraine Australian Australian Labor Party backgrounds Bastille Day Canberra categories of departments cent central agency staff Centre changes Chapter civil society context coordinating crisis criteria culture Culture of Australia defined democracy deregulation discourse economic rationalism economic rationalists economists élite experience factors federal Finance formal functions GPS schools Habermas Hawke Government Hawke Labor images integration intellectual interests interview Question John Dawkins Jürgen Habermas Labor government Lucky Country market departments market-oriented departments ment Niklas Luhmann nomic norms OECD organisations orientation PM&C political Prime Minister private sector problems program and service program departments Public Administration public policy public sector rationalisation reforms relative autonomy Resources and Energy respondents Senior Executive Service service departments social sciences Social Security structure Sydney theory tion top bureaucrats top public servants trade unions Treasury University values wage Whitlam