Policy Agendas in Australia

265 Pages·2017·5.82 MB·English

by  Keith Dowding

Policy
Agendas in
Australia
Keith Dowding
Aaron Martin
Policy Agendas in Australia
Keith   Dowding • A aron   Martin
Policy Agendas
in Australia
Keith   Dowding Aaron   Martin
Australian National University University of Melbourne
Canberra, Australia Australia
ISBN 978-3-319-40804-0 ISBN 978-3-319-40805-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-40805-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016953725
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A
CKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Australian Policy Agendas Project began when Peter John came as
a Visiting Fellow to the ANU Research School in the Social Sciences to
work with Keith Dowding. Peter was working on the UK policy agenda
project (that led to Policy Agendas in British Politics , Palgrave 2013) and
suggested that an Australian branch of the franchise be set up. Keith
recruited Aaron Martin and Andrew Hindmoor. The latter set up an anal-
ysis of the governor-general speeches (see Dowding et al. 2010, below).
Dowding and Martin were awarded an Australian Research Council grant
(ARC Discovery Award DP 110102622); the full-scale project was set in
motion. Andy stepped back from the project and from studying Australian
politics when he moved from the University of Queensland to Sheffi eld
University, but we are grateful to include work that Andy was originally
involved in. Both the ANU and Melbourne University fi nancially sup-
ported the project through small grants in addition to the ARC funding.
Coding work was conducted at both the ANU and the University
of Melbourne. Adam Packer was the Research Offi cer for two years,
and provided oversight of the research assistants in Canberra; Andrew
Gibbons performed that function in Melbourne. Coders included Yasmi
Adriansyah, Cara Becker, Jeremiah Brown, Ariel Chen, David Cross,
Ciannon Cazaly, Nick Faulkner, Andrew Gibbons, Richard Iles, Chris
Lewis, Chris Maitland, and Adam Packer. Dowding, Hindmoor, and
Martin also did some coding, as described in the Appendix. We thank all
these people for their help in contributing to the project.
Other work spun off this project included some work on immigration
policy and the mining tax, and some involving machine-learning coding
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
techniques, and we thank Paul Boulus, Juliet Pietsch, and Dan Angus for
discussion and ideas here. However, in the main these case studies and
machine-learning work do not contribute directly to the results reported
here. Scott Adler and Peter John each separately came out to Australia
to advise on aspects of the project and to work with us on some spin-off
ideas, and we thank them for their input at that stage.
In the early stages of the project we held a workshop at the University
of Queensland with Australian experts in various policy fi elds. We would
like to thank Linda Botterill, Geoff Cockfi eld, Steve Dovers, Richard
Eccleston, Alan Fenna, Suzanne Grant, Ian Marsh, Matt McDonald, Will
Sanders, Paul Smyth, and Ian Ward, most of whom subsequently wrote
articles for a special issue of the A ustralian Journal of Public Administration
72 (2) 2013. We are grateful to the workshop participants for helping us
understand major themes in Australian public policy and develop a better
sense of how the policy agendas project is viewed by many people who do
not work within its ambit. It was there we realized the importance of the
attention–content distinction we discuss in Chapter 2 .
Papers from the project were presented at the Australian Political
Science Association conference in 2011, 2013, and 2015; the Comparative
Agendas conference in France in 2012; the Political Studies Association;
the American Political Science Association and the Public Policy Network
(Australia) conferences in 2013; and the Melbourne School of Government
in 2014. Many people have generously given their time to read portions of
the book, some who spotted patterns that we had not picked up. We thank
everyone who has commented at various stages, at conferences, in work-
shops, and in written comments on aspects of the book. These include
Perri 6, Frank Baumgartner, Shaun Bevan, Linda Botterill, Paul Cairney,
Geoff Cockfi eld, Stephen Dovers, Richard Eccleston, Alan Fenna, Anne
Gelling, Suzanne Grant, Will Jennings, Adrian Kay, Matt Macdonald,
Simon Marginson, Ian Marsh, Derek McDougall, John Murphy, Juliet
Pietsch, Will Sanders, Campbell Sharman, Paul Smyth, Rodney Tiffen,
John Wanna, Chris Wlezien, and Sally Young. We are especially grateful to
Andrew Hindmoor, Peter John, Bryan Jones, and Scott Adler for reading
complete drafts of the book.
Rhonda Evans very kindly hosted Aaron Martin at the Edward E. Clark
Center for Australian and New Zealand Studies (University of Texas,
Austin) in 2015.
The book is entirely original, but some material is based on work found
in the following articles. We thank the publishers and our co-authors for
allowing us to redeploy some material and ideas.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii
Keith Dowding, Andrew Hindmoor, Richard Iles and Peter John
(2010) ‘Policy Agendas in Australian Politics: The Governor-General’s
Speeches, 1945–2008’, A ustralian Journal of Political Science , 45 (4),
533–57.
Keith Dowding, Nick Faulkner, Andrew Hindmoor and Aaron Martin
(2012) ‘Change and Continuity in the Ideology of Australian Prime
Ministers: The Governor-General’s Speeches (1946–2010)’, A ustralian
Journal of Political Science , 47 (3), 455–72.
Keith Dowding, Andrew Hindmoor and Aaron Martin (2013)
‘Australian Public Policy: Attention, Content and Style’, Australian
Journal of Public Administration , 72 (2), 82–8.
Aaron Martin, Keith Dowding, Andrew Hindmoor and Andrew
Gibbons (2014) ‘The Opinion–Policy Link in Australia’, Australian
Journal of Political Science , 49 (3), 499–517.
Keith Dowding, Andrew Hindmoor and Aaron Martin (2016) ‘The
Policy Agendas Project: Theory, Measurement, and Findings’, J ournal of
Public Policy , 36 (1), 31–46.
We also thank Jemima Warren from Palgrave for commissioning this
book. We thank Anne Gelling for copy editing and organizing our manu-
script, asking some pertinent questions, and also for keeping Dowding’s
life on track.
Aaron would like to thank Keith Dowding for what has been an
immensely enjoyable and educational process writing the book together.
He would also like to offer his profound gratitude and thanks to his sup-
portive family and in particular Laura and Graciela for bringing so much
joy to life away from the offi ce.
Dowding doesn’t thank anyone else because he is a grumpy old bastard.
Keith Dowding and Aaron Martin
April 2016
C
ONTENTS
1 Introduction 1
Part I Theory and Measurement of the Policy Agendas Project 11
2 The Policy Agenda: Attention, Content, and Style 1 3
3 Theories and Concepts 33
Part II Australian Politics 5 7
4 Political Institutions and Policy in Australia 59
Part III Agendas Within Formal Institutions 85
5 Executive and Legislative Agendas 8 7
6 Describing Legislative Patterns 129
ix
x CONTENTS
7 Opposition Agendas 1 49
Part IV Outside Infl uence: Media and Public Agendas 1 71
8 The Media Agenda 173
9 The Public Agenda 2 03
Part V Conclusion and International Comparisons 2 29
10 Conclusion and Comparative Lessons 2 31
Appendix: Data, Coding, and Coder Reliability 247
Name Index 2 57
Subject Index 2 59
L F
IST OF IGURES
Fig. 5.1 Executive and legislative attention by government
term: general macroeconomic issues (economics) 9 4
Fig. 5.2 Executive and legislative attention by government
term: commerce 97
Fig. 5.3 Executive and legislative attention by government
term: foreign trade 98
Fig. 5.4 Executive and legislative attention by government
term: labour and immigration 100
Fig. 5.5 Executive and legislative attention by government
term: health 102
Fig. 5.6 Executive and legislative attention by government
term: education 103
Fig. 5.7 Executive and legislative attention by government
term: social welfare 1 04
Fig. 5.8 Executive and legislative attention by government
term: civil rights 105
Fig. 5.9 Executive and legislative attention by government
term: transport 1 07
Fig. 5.10 Executive and legislative attention by government
term: community development and housing 108
Fig. 5.11 Executive and legislative attention by government
term: environment 109
Fig. 5.12 Executive and legislative attention by government
term: energy 111
Fig. 5.13 Executive and legislative attention by government
term: defence 1 12
xi