Policy Orthodoxy Research Articles

Between market and state: the evolution of Australia’s economic statecraft

For nearly four decades, Australia’s domestic and international economic policies were anchored by the promotion of open, transparent, and rules-based market exchange. This was considered the best way to increase both Australia’s prosperity and its security, and that belief guided Canberra’s approach to economic statecraft. However, emerging concerns about the vulnerabilities arising from economic interdependence, and the increasingly blurry line between economics and security amid great power rivalry between China and the United States, have placed Australian policy orthodoxy in a difficult position. In this paper, we investigate how these dynamics are shaping change and continuity in Australia’s economic statecraft, and in doing so offer three contributions. First, to advance the emerging comparative economic statecraft research agenda, we propose a modified concept of economic statecraft that captures a wider range of activities undertaken by non-great powers and a distinction between state-based and market-based actions which allows for within- and cross-case comparisons. Second, empirically, we sketch the historical evolution of Australia’s approach and examine three salient domains in which it has recently pursued new economic statecraft initiatives. Finally, in evaluating recent change and continuity, our third contribution is to identify new variables that may illuminate the conditions under which states adapt their prevailing approach to economic statecraft.

Breaking with Orthodoxy? German Fiscal Policy in the Shadow of Covid-19

ABSTRACT The Covid pandemic confronted the Merkel IV government with unprecedented fiscal challenges. We argue that the government’s response to these challenges constitutes a break with established patterns of German fiscal policy orthodoxy in at least three areas. First, the government suspended the debt brake and gave up the ‘Schwarze Null’ without much debate. Second, it implemented a fiscal rescue package that struck a new balance between the interests of the export and the domestic sector. Third, the government supported a coordinated fiscal response on the European level thereby giving way to debt pooling across EU member states. The article traces the groundwork for these changes that was laid in the first two years of the government and then compares the German fiscal response to Covid-19 with German policy during the Financial Crisis. We conclude by discussing whether Germany has shifted to a new fiscal policy regime.

Things That Become Visible, for a While, Can Leave a Residue Comment on "Ensuring Global Health Equity in a Post-pandemic Economy".

Professor Labonté's editorial is an important intervention that reiterates the stark socio-economic and health inequities that were exposed and perpetuated during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic to call on the public health community to hold politicians to account for their promises of 'building back better.' The editorial makes present how quickly pandemic promises seem to have become dislodged by an ostensibly endless cycle of political and economic crises. But it also expresses a hope that lessons from the pandemic will eventually serve to challenge prevailing (economic) policy orthodoxy and feed a collective demand for more progressive social, economic and environmental justice-oriented politics.

‘I’m just a pebble in the pond’: exploring the lived legacies of art for reconciliation

ABSTRACT Since the 1998 Good Friday/Belfast Agreement, the arts have been promoted as capable of reconciling communities in Northern Ireland. In keeping with cultural policy orthodoxies in Britain and Ireland, practitioners are expected to provide even more information on the contribution of their work to this agenda. However, short-term evaluation processes entrench bureaucratic systems of arts administration that occlude, and even hinder, the complex, long-term legacies of particular applied arts projects. This article instead argues that situating participant experience within the broader material conditions of inequality and scarcity they face offers a better account of the transformative power of such projects.

Diversifying the compact city: A renewed agenda for geographical research

The compact city has become part of the policy orthodoxy in dealing with climate change and other sustainability challenges, and scholars from a diverse set of disciplines have informed this policy through empirical research. In this paper, we argue that attuning research in this field to key perspectives and concepts in human geography and critical urban studies can help ‘diversify’ understandings of compact urbanism in ways that advance social and ecological justice. We show that the compact city has been conceived primarily through the lens of territorially bounded physical urban form, and thereby many of its social, political, and ecological implications are overlooked. Based on this critique, we propose a renewed agenda for compact urbanism that rearticulates it as a strategy for sustainable transformation by bridging socio-material and relational approaches and engaging the human geographical toolbox. Three entry points for this agenda are highlighted: (1) commoning the compact city; (2) metabolism of compact cities; and (3) antagonism in the compact city.

‘Blind alley’ to ‘steppingstone’? Insecure transitions and policy responses in the downturns of the 1930s and post 2008 in the UK

ABSTRACT Even before the crisis of 2008, the growing insecurity of young people’s transitions from school into work had been of concern to many observers in the UK. During the crisis itself, young people were disproportionately unemployed and concentrated in insecure employment sectors. Policy makers refrained from any labour market intervention insisting that the flexible nature of this work prevented higher unemployment. In unemployment, benefits entitlements were reduced and became subject to greater conditionality to counter a perceived crisis of social dependency. These changes have often been discussed in terms of the rise of neo-liberalism and the breakdown of post-war labour market securities. This article takes a complementary but different comparison with the 1930s, when similar liberal policy orthodoxies dominated. The evidence assembled shows significant continuities and contrasts in how youth unemployment was interpreted and responded to in the social security system and in wider labour market policies. In doing so, it illustrates the distinctive features of contemporary neo-liberalism and contributes to debates on youth unemployment, benefits and insecure work.

Can a Complicated “Consensus” Survive a Dose of Populist Poison? Exploring the Potential Impact of Brexit and Trumpism on the Developed Country Approach to Trade Law and Policy

Abstract Among wealthier, so-called “developed” nations, a consistent and shared policy orientation on trade has generally prevailed over the last three quarters of a century. This consensus has been hallmarked by the promotion of freer trade facilitated by a state-centric, rules-based legal system. While most wealthy countries appear to desire a continued fidelity to that policy orthodoxy, the United Kingdom’s (UK’s) ‘Brexit’ decision and the United States’ (US’) increasingly antagonistic stance toward World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement beg the question as to whether fissures in the consensus are forming. This paper examines the depth of the perceived consensus and the degree to which US and UK actions signify a turning point. As part of this examination, populism’s role in promoting change in the US, UK and beyond, is explored.

Africa’s “youth employment” crisis is actually a “missing jobs” crisis

AbstractMotivationThe Sustainable Development Goals target decent work for all, including youth, by 2030. In sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA), however, a “youth employment crisis” is now central to public and policy discourse. Consequently, the idea of “investing in youth” grows in importance, leading to a proliferation of interventions targeted to and specific to youth.PurposeThis article interrogates the framing of the problem as a “youth employment” crisis.Approach and MethodsThe article brings together evidence from a range of sources and disciplines, indicates where the evidence supports the current policy orthodoxy and where it does not, and maps out an alternative framing. Five pillars of the dominant narrative about youth employment are identified: demography, violence and civil unrest, training and skills, rural economy and urban economy. Three critical dimensions of Africa’s broader employment crisis are highlighted: economic risk, stability and protection.FindingsThe dominant narrative about Africa’s youth employment crisis foregrounds young people themselves, and strongly suggests that the crisis is all (and often only) about them. Little about the employment crisis, however, is youth‐specific. The “it’s all about the youth” framing ignores that young people are caught up in a broader “missing jobs crisis” that reflects fundamental structural constraints within African economies. In other words, the problem is with the economy, not the young people.Policy implicationsThe emphasis on youth‐specific targeting and youth‐specific interventions is largely misplaced. Instead of initiatives that only or specifically target youth, priority should be given to broader structural issues which have the potential to deliver better and larger results, for both young people and others. Reframing the problem from a youth employment crisis to a missing jobs crisis is a necessary first step. We provide a counter‐narrative to support this shift.

Minsky’s moment? The rise of depoliticised Keynesianism and ideational change at the Federal Reserve after the financial crisis of 2007/08

How did potentially transformative ideas about the way economies should function become enlisted in policy frameworks that produced few major changes to policy orthodoxy at the Federal Reserve after the financial crisis of 2007/08? IPE scholarship has tended to answer this question by identifying the limited purchase of Keynesian ideas in policy circles. In so doing, however, the existing literature has left unexplained the central role of Keynesianism in the Federal Reserve’s ideational framework. To fill a gap in this literature, this article argues that ideas fill different functions (cognitive and normative) in the policy process and proposes a new explanatory model, ‘depoliticised Keynesianism’, for understanding the role that Keynesian ideas played in ideational change at the Federal Reserve after the financial crisis of 2007/08. Using in-depth interviews with current and former Federal Reserve officials, and a quantitative text analysis of Federal Open Market Committee meeting transcripts between 1981 and 2014, it traces the rise of depoliticised Keynesianism to policymakers’ normative commitment to depoliticisation and a cognitive interpretation of Keynesian ideas.

The paradox of illicit economies: survival, resilience, and the limits of development and drug policy orthodoxy

ABSTRACT The illicit drug crops opium and coca are conventionally regarded as sources of instability, an ‘evil’ that breeds fragility and violence. Fragile states are supposed to be most vulnerable to their production and consequent harms. Yet by looking into the local contexts of the world’s leading opium and coca producers – Afghanistan, Myanmar, Colombia and Bolivia – these illicit crops are found to also be sources of stability, even drivers of economic growth. They enable marginalized communities and territories abandoned by the state to be reinserted into national and global markets. Within so-called ‘fragile’ and conflict-affected areas are displaced and dispossessed households adopting innovative and unorthodox strategies for coping and survival in changing and insecure environments. This paper maps out an approach, useful for examining the resilience that has emerged amidst violence and uncertainty in illicit-crop-producing territories, and which can hopefully tackle the continuing disconnect between drugs and development policy.

Contingent Keynesianism: the IMF’s model answer to the post-crash fiscal policy efficacy question in advanced economies

Belying the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF’s) reputation as a bastion of neo-liberal policy orthodoxy, this article analyses important yet contingent transformations in IMF fiscal policy thinking which constituted a key intervention in international austerity debates. Applying only to advanced economies, and in the specific post-crash conditions, the Fund came to champion fiscal policy as a more potent and effective counter-cyclical tool. Analysis focuses on alterations to modeling assumptions and analytical techniques, beginning before the crash but accelerating after it, which intellectually bolstered this view. It finds the Fund’s rediscovery of some older (Keynesian) assumptions was both longer in germination and more enduring than some have recognized. It also charts the reconciliation of this contingent Keynesianism to ‘congenital’ IMF concerns for fiscal sustainability. It highlights the variety of economic insights, often with vastly differing policy implications, found within the Fund, and indeed within mainstream macroeconomics. It builds on work questioning the stability, consistency, and coherence of economic ideas suggested by the paradigm framework, and identifies limitations of a paradigm lens for understanding incremental IMF ideational change. It contributes to politics of economic ideas scholarship in highlighting the importance of economic method and modeling assumptions as sites of contestation within gradual but meaningful ideational change.

Ajit Singh (1940–2015), the Radical Cambridge Economist: Anti‐imperialist Advocate of Third World Industrialization

Ajit Singh (1940–2015), the Radical Cambridge Economist: Anti‐imperialist Advocate of Third World Industrialization

Talking heresy about ‘quality’ early childhood education and care for children in poverty

This paper considers the socially progressive function of a model of ‘quality’ early childhood education and care widely prescribed to address child poverty across England and the USA. Ubiquitous, it is imbued with a sense of objectivity, secureness and practicality. We question these foundations. Then using data from practitioners in both countries, we contrast expectations about this model of ECEC as an unmitigated good building resilience to ‘break cycles of disadvantage’, with the everyday experiences and frustrations of practitioners pursuing it. Their data suggest this model of ‘quality’ has limitations and some heresy is required about this policy orthodoxy.

An exploration of the interaction between global education policy orthodoxies and national education practices in Cambodia, illuminated through the voices of local teacher educators

This research is based on a multi-disciplinary and multi-levelled analysis of evidence to present the case that education reform needs to be contextualised far more widely than is currently practised. It focuses on the voices of Cambodian local teacher trainers through interviews over a five-year period. Interview data is triangulated against academic sources, national policy documents and classroom observations. The research reveals how notions of globalisation and knowledge economy have led to education being driven by measurable outcomes resulting in simplified educational policies that have a negative impact on teacher development. By allowing the Khmer teacher trainers to articulate their opinions on a wide range of themes, the interviews provide evidence to support historical and cultural theories proposed by academics working in the social sciences in Cambodia. This approach identifies that a deeper contextual analysis should enable teacher development programmes to be more closely aligned to national contexts.

Limits on State-Funded Bailouts in the EU Bank Resolution Regime

In the post-crisis environment, the new European policy orthodoxy insists on avoiding state-funded bailouts of banks in distress under all but the most exacting circumstances. This is reflected in the two distinct but interrelated sets of norms governing bank resolution actions: the Commission’s norms on state aids in the banking sector as reflected in the Banking Communication of July 2013; and the new special resolution regime for credit institutions and investment firms adopted in May 2014 in the form of the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive. The paper discusses the anti-bailout objective of the two frameworks, the way in which this is reflected in their operative provisions, and the degree to which the latter result in a truly binding regime, or admit exceptions and variations. It is shown that the overall effect of the provisions is to render outright bailouts almost impossible. Even when an intervention is permitted, this may take place only in prescribed forms and at a late stage within the resolution system’s financing cascade, which insists on substantial bail-in of ailing banks’ private claimholders, amounting to at least 8% of total liabilities, as a prior condition. The only exception is precautionary recapitalization; but this applies only to solvent institutions and cannot cover past losses. It may be wondered, however, whether a policy of strict insistence on bail-in in all cases of undercapitalization is wise. The problem has recently come to a head due to the troubles of the Italian banking system, with its huge pile of bad assets and numerous weak banks, including the NPL-infested Monte dei Paschi di Siena. The Italian banking system has a sufficient volume of bail-inable junior debt, thus making bail-in technically feasible. But at what cost?

European football clubs and football betting among the youths in Nigeria

European football clubs are very popular social realities in Nigeria. Their existence and activities shape social relations, process and outcomes of well-being as well as socio-economic and policy orthodoxies. Unfortunately, social trajectories of well-being, economic ramifications and policies remain poorly understood in Nigeria. What some people are aware of is the popularity of the clubs and not the intensification of associated implications and policy remits in existential environments of their social spaces. This is particularly important as the domains of European football clubs’ presence in developing countries, especially Nigeria, are largely nascent and haphazard. Against this background, this article examined the phenomenon of football betting as an ancillary of European football clubs’ presence among the youths in Nigeria. This article makes important contribution to understanding of ways European football identities are interlinked to the increased popularity of betting syndicates especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. Research questions engaged include; what is the pattern involved in football betting among the youths? What are the factors facilitating football betting among the youths and What are the perceived developmental implications relative to well-being and social health in Nigeria? The Social Exchange theoretical tradition was adopted as theoretical framework. Data collection triangulated quantitative method (questionnaires) and qualitative methods. Relevant findings were made and valid conclusions were reached and presented in this article.

Re-imagining Africa as a Knowledge Economy: Premises and Promises of Recent Higher Education Development Initiatives

Africa is being re-imagined as a knowledge economy, and higher education (HE) systems have been propelled into the centre of national economic plans and strategies. This paper provides an analysis of four recent major initiatives directed to the revitalisation of HE in sub-Saharan Africa: the Pan African University (2010), the Africa Higher Education Centers of Excellence Project (2014), The Kigali Communiqué on Higher Education for Science, Technology and Innovation (2014), and the Dakar Declaration and Action Plan on Revitalising Higher Education for Africa’s Future (2015). Guided by critical frame analysis, we examined assumptions and expectations of these regionally/globally structured HE development agendas. The findings show that, while there is a convergence of thinking on the promise for economic transformation held by invigorated HE sectors in Africa, there are uncritically adopted premises about how this transformation is to be achieved. In particular, we find that the promise held out for economic transformation through HE is at risk of failing through the inadequate contextualisation of global policy orthodoxies to African conditions, and that some of the premises about the nature and scale of the economic transformation required to make the re-imagined Africa a reality need to be reconsidered.

American Foreign Policy and the 2016 Presidential Election

Voters in the 2016 Presidential election face an unconventional choice. Long gone are the tried and true foreign policy positions voters could count on from Democratic and Republican candidates. In their place are two candidates who represent something different to the electorate. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has expressed a foreign policy vision that embraces a pro-military, muscular approach to the national security challenges the US faces. Far from a progressive set of policies, Clinton has taken positions GOPers can embrace. For his part, Donald Trump has no significant foreign policy experience and has articulated a world view that represents a break with American foreign policy orthodoxy and historic Republican positions. In the pages that follow, the reader will see in clear terms the foreign policy choices they have between Clinton and Trump in the 2016 Presidential Election.

Interculturality, postethnicity and the Aboriginal Australian policy future

Though now under some challenge, the policy orthodoxy in Australian Aboriginal affairs since the 1970s has been progressive in its social justice orientation, postcolonial in its amelioration of the colonial legacy, and culturalist in its privileging of ethnicity. In this paper I argue that its attempt to recover the past in the face of increasing postethnicity is becoming counter-productive, by stultifying cultural adaptation and compromising individuals’ capacity to engage with modernity. The notions of interculturality and postethnicity point to coexisting ancestral cultures, an imagined, symbolic national Aboriginality, and deep intersection with settler-Australia and the world, and so cultural ‘changing-sameness’ and simultaneous ‘bothness’. The paper argues that a dialectic of public policy and Aboriginal identity politics resists this lived reality, with negative effects. It proposes that a way forward is to engage more fully with the lived reality.

Work Clubs and the Big Society: reflections on the potential for ‘progressive localism’ in the ‘cracks and fissures’ of neoliberalism

The heavily derided concept of the Big Society has largely been expunged from the political lexicon. But its rationalities and techniques live on through a number of related policy initiatives to reduce state spending, discourage 'dependency', engage communities and promote pluralism of providers in local service delivery. This article looks at the experiences of, and outcomes from, one Big Society initiative - Work Clubs in a large city in northern England. Drawing on qualitative interviews with Work Club staff and beneficiaries, it aims to locate practice within debates about the extent to which the Big Society is either a neoliberal 'flanking measure' (Jessop, 2002) or a potential site for 'progressive localism’ (Williams et al., 2014). The paper contends that both readings are possible. Work Clubs simultaneously challenge prevailing policy orthodoxies around punitive forms of welfare-to-work whilst remaining woefully underresourced to meet the challenge of tackling worklessness in urban areas by alternative means. This suggests the need for theoretical frameworks of neoliberalism capable of critiquing the political economy of the Big Society and related initiatives without ignoring the progressive potential within.