New Wheels for Deakin's Chariot: Continuity and Change in Australian Intergovernmental Management

Abstract

The Commonwealth government's domination of federal structures, systems and processes raises questions about the federal system's capacity to respond to Australia's immediate and long-term policy issues. This research is predicated on the proposition that the effectiveness of federal structures and processes depends on the capacity of officials to find ways around political constraints and deliver outcomes despite the constraints imposed by political, jurisdictional and organisational interests. We know little about how the bureaucracy manages the balance between the continuity necessary for systemic stability while building a capacity for change. Accordingly, this research addresses the question of how the practice of intergovernmental management by Commonwealth and state government officials affects continuity and change in the Australian federal system. The conceptual framework is provided by federal dynamics theory, which contributes a new perspective to the study of intergovernmental management by focusing on the way federal structures and ideas combine and interact to inform the strategies adopted by intergovernmental managers. Empirical data is derived from a series of elite interviews across Commonwealth and state central and line departments and agencies. The data shows that, in their pursuit of systemic change and resilience, officials consciously balance their ministers' and jurisdictions' specific positions and interests with a depoliticised commitment to making the system work despite the politics. The data shows how these separate perspectives jointly inform their work in committees, working groups and networks. For example, officials responded to the abolition of a number of ministerial councils in 2013 by developing informal networks that contributed to systemic change and resilience in the relevant policy areas. The thesis argues that the strategies that go into such network building, and the other tasks of intergovernmental management, suggest a new set of ideational factors is needed to understand the bureaucracy's role. The research contributes the concept of 'practice modes' to the study of federal dynamics, to explain the link between federalism's institutional and ideational layers. These are contextually set ways in which officials work with colleagues in their own and other jurisdictions, drawing on formal and informal structures and processes to produce ideas and values that legitimate and frame their approach. Officials apply these values and ideas to policy issues, using and sometimes pushing back against political and structural constraints. The findings challenge conventional thinking about intergovernmental management on a number of fronts. First, instead of the tendency to infer the bureaucracy's interests and motives from the constitutional, legal and political structures and processes that constrain them, the research demonstrates that officials play an active role as rule makers, breakers, shapers and keepers. Second, this research challenges the assumption that executive federalism and vertical fiscal imbalance close down the options and opportunities for change available to federal reformers. Finally, the research shows that the demands of complex policy challenges, and the need to apply technical expertise to processes of national harmonisation and coordination, have generated a diversity of views and strategies that caution against simplistic 'central versus line,' or 'states versus Commonwealth' bifurcations. This research also shows that a focus on the interaction between actors, institutions and ideas has great relevance for intergovernmental management and its policy functions. The role played by the bureaucracy contributes to the federal system's resilience and capacity, through the exercise of personal agency in support of ministerial and jurisdictional policies and interests, on the one hand, and stewardship over the federal system on the other. Show more