Innovative state strategies in the Antipodes: Enhancing the ability of governments to govern in the global context

Abstract

Australia and New Zealand began engaging with the globalised economic environment from the 1960s through a gradual process of adaptation. Both countries began dismantling the ‘protective state’, spawning new governance practices and some new institutions. While the core political institutions of Westminster governance remained largely unchanged, they have proved particularly resilient and adaptive to change. The most pronounced impact of globalisation was evidenced through changed policy orientations and institutional behaviour at the national and sub-national levels. We focus on recent policy innovations in the fields of science and technology and tertiary education. Both cases indicate that these nations, governed at the time by parties of different political complexion, have anticipated and responded to globalisation in similar ways. We argue that these comparable policy responses can, at one level, be explained as responses to the imperatives of globalisation and international markets. However, at another level, they indicate that the ‘nation-building’ state has not disappeared but remains active in shaping and redirecting market mechanisms.