'Economic rationalism' in Canberra and Canada: Public sector reorganisation, politics, and powerHerman Schwartz
Australian Economic History Review, 2003, vol. 43, issue 1, pages 45-65 Abstract: Australian public sector institutions and public sector labour relations experienced intense change during the 1980s and 1990s. Proponents of restructuring sought to insert market-like pressures into areas formerly governed by bureaucratic mechanisms. This reversed a trend towards continual growth in state provision of non-market based social protection and social welfare, and continual growth in the public sector's share of the economy. The politics and content of Australian public sector restructuring under Labor and then the Liberals substantially resembled restructuring efforts in two Canadian provinces. In all three examples, political pacts between unions in the exposed and non-exposed sectors, and between organised labour and capital, determined the direction of change. But the level of institutional robustness of these various actors determined both the pace and effectiveness of change. Weak employer organisations and unions incapable of sustaining pacts in Canada produced wider oscillations in policy content that attained less substantive success than in Australia. Copyright Blackwell Publishers Ltd and the Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand 2003. Downloads: (external link) Related works: Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Australian Economic History Review is edited by Stephen L Morgan and Martin Shanahan More articles in Australian Economic History Review from Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd and the Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand |
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