Australian manufacturing industry policy : 1965-1985

Abstract

The thesis argues that Australian federal governments have failed to produce coherent policies for the development of manufacturing. It is further argued that the principal reason for this failure was fragmentation: industrial, bureaucratic, political and ideological. The argument is sustained by formulating a general empirical model of the policymaking system, and then showing how its particular structural form in Australia produced the effects described. A lack of collective will among industry organisations, poor bureaucratic coordination and ideological confusion combined to produce inconsistent and disjointed responses to changes in the economic environment. The study raises, and sheds some light on, a number of theoretical issues: the nature of policy, the problem of collective action, and the role of ideas in political systems.