EXPERIMENTING WITH A ‘WHOLE OF GOVERNMENT’ APPROACH

Louise Humpage

Policy Studies, 2005, vol. 26, issue 1, 47-66

Abstract: This article bridges a gap in the literature by considering the application of a whole of government approach to indigenous issues in advanced economy societies. It highlights that indigenous disadvantage may be considered one of the ‘wicked problems’ to which whole of government approaches are best suited. Using the example of capacity building initiatives targeting indigenous peoples, it documents the mixed records of the New Zealand and Australian governments regarding whole of government coordination and collaboration. The article argues that a whole of government approach to capacity building allowed indigenous New Zealanders and Australians to develop their corporate governance capabilities. But conceptual limitations saw the notion of whole of government being used more as a management tool than an instrument of governance that could potentially address the long-standing political claims of indigenous New Zealanders and Australians. As a result, the jurisdictional governance issues central to indigenous desires for greater devolution of decision-making authority were not adequately addressed. In concluding that the whole of government represents yet another example of a generic policy discourse being applied to indigenous peoples, the article indicates that the relative disadvantage they face remains unlikely to be resolved until a conceptual framework for whole of government is developed which accounts for indigenous cultural and political specificity.

Date: 2005
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01442870500041744 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:cposxx:v:26:y:2005:i:1:p:47-66

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/cpos20

DOI: 10.1080/01442870500041744

Access Statistics for this article

Policy Studies is currently edited by Toby James

More articles in Policy Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().