British administrators, Australian federalism and economic policy in the 1930s

Abstract

This article is a contribution to the study of the relationship between transnational linkages between nation states and federal forms of government. It addresses two main bodies of political science literature. The first deals with the power of multinational corporations and transnational agencies such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. One group of authors highlights the asymmetric power relations between dominant advanced industrialised countries and primary exporting, capital importing dependent nations.1 Others emphasise the complexity and variability of such relations between nation states. They distinguish between sensitivity to transnational political and economic agents and vulnerability to foreign monetary and political regimes.2 The IMF and the World Bank have been singled out for considerable scrutiny by critics of the new international economic order. For example, Hayter and Payer have argued that these multilateral agencies are dominated by the banks and governments of the United States and other developed nations, that use their financial power to shape the domestic economic policies of borrower nations. Loans and debt rescheduling are linked to deflationary fiscal and monetary policies that include tight credit, balanced budgets, reduced welfare spending and cuts in real wages. At the same time the economies of the debtor nations are opened up to penetration and exploitation by multinational corporations.3 These critics underestimate the importance of shifts in power resources and bargaining strength. Their approach also fails to recognise the variable patterns of influence that have developed between state structures and privatesector actors in separate though interdependent nations. This brings us to the second body of literature, which deals with the implications of federal forms of government. Discussion of such issues has been mainly in terms of the most appropriate division of powers and constitutional forms, given the ethnic and cultural, socio-economic and geographic characteristics of particular societies. Recently, greater atten