The workshop will comprise eight sessions based around sub-themes. For all sessions, presenters will have prepared advanced drafts of papers, copied and distributed beforehand to all participants. Presenters will speak to their papers, briefly identifying the major points and arguments. A discussant will be appointed for each session and will highlight commonalities, differences and issues raised in the papers, before opening discussion to other participants. All participants will be expected to attend all sessions to to engage constructively with presenters.
The March 2010 election will bring 16 years of Labor Government in NSW to a close. This workshop represents a timely opportunity to achieve five objectives, using NSW as a case study:
- to assess the extent to which the politics and public policy of Australia’s largest state have changed over the past two decades;
- to identify the causes of change and stability in NSW state politics and public policy;
- to apply some of the newly dominant concepts in political science and policy analysis, in order to assess critically their explanatory strength in the Australian state context;
- to undertake an unusually comprehensive overview of the patterns of politics and public policy-making in one Australian jurisdiction.
- to provide presenters with high level feedback on papers that will later be included in a major publication.
Rationale for Objectives
During NSW Labor’s 16 years in office, much seems to have changed in Australian state politics and public policy. The major political parties have faced declining memberships, internal conflicts and growing challenges from Independents and minor parties such as the Greens. Legislation governing parties, campaigning and elections have been rewritten and parties have adapted to new campaign media. Ministries and the public sector have been reshaped several times and come under increased regulatory scrutiny. Federal governments under Howard, Rudd and Gillard have intervened significantly in major traditional state policy responsibilities, including education, industrial relations and health
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At the same time, major new academic interpretations of key political institutions, actors and processes have emerged within Australia and internationally. Political parties, for example, are now routinely interpreted using Richard Katz and Peter Mair’s ‘cartel party model’, a model that was freshly published when Labor won office in 1995. Concepts such as ‘policy networks’ and ‘governance’ have become central to debates about public policy making. Some older concepts, such as ‘party convergence’ have gained new leases of life over the same period. Certain individual aspects of these developments have been analysed at state level in Australia; however, this workshop provides an unusual opportunity to produce a systematic analysis by bringing together scholarly experts working on a comprehensive study of contemporary NSW politics and policy.
Rationale for Workshop Approach
The workshop will comprise eight sessions based around sub-themes. For all sessions, presenters will have prepared advanced drafts of papers, copied and distributed beforehand to all participants. Presenters will speak to their papers, briefly identifying the major points and arguments. A discussant will be appointed for each session and will highlight commonalities, differences and issues raised in the papers, before opening discussion to other participants. All participants will be expected to attend all sessions to to engage constructively with presenters.
This combination of structured and unstructured input on advanced papers will provide informed debate and high-level feedback to presenters. Notes of the discussion in each session will be made and provided to presenters. Presenters will be able to incorporate this feedback into the final versions of their chapters for a co-edited book on the workshop topic.
Rationale for Workshop Participants
All the presenters at the workshop are experts in their fields who have already agreed to contribute chapters to the book. Most of the presenters will not have worked together, or even met each other, before the workshop. The workshop will promote a genuinely inter-disciplinary understanding of NSW politics and public policy, with presenters drawn from across political science, history, education, geography, geology, law, sociology and economics. The presenters are at various stages in their careers, from Early Career Researchers to Emeritus Professors.
Apart from the listed presenters, the conveners will invite a small number of experts to each session to provide additional feedback. These additional participants will include relevant practitioners, such as party campaign staff, parliamentarians, journalists and public sector officials. The cost of these additional participants attending sessions will be met by the conveners from other sources and are not included in the budget.
The conveners have informed all the presenters that we are planning the workshop and have invited them to attend.