Happy Monday! Something a bit left-of-centre for your Monday morning read. An essay by the famous (and controversial!) political scientist Francis Fukuyama, which outline his views around the decay of the public administration (and public policy) in the United States.
(We hesitate to mention that we are not endorsing his views by publishing, only offering them up for reflection.)
This post is a reblog from the website Foreign Affairs.
Read MoreCo-design, co-production and other terms which emphasise that governments cannot solve social problems from a top down-perspective are becoming increasingly common place. However, given the power differences involved can we truly 'co-create'? Below, Mark Evens explores the emerging popularity of co-design. Professor Evans is the Director of the Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis, University of Canberra. His piece originally appeared on the Policy Space.
Read MoreYesterday we outlined the problem which PTP aims to address. Below, we explain how PTP is working to fill skill and knowledge gaps in policy networks. This is an extract from a forthcoming article on PTP's framework and the lessons it offers for other 'boundary spanning' initiatives.
Read MoreAustralia has experienced a number of high profile policy implementation failures in recent years, such as the 'Pink bats' scheme. Implementation, as a separate part of the policy process and as a scholarly endeavour, is creeping back onto the radar (thankfully). Today's post by Charlotte Sausman, Eivor Oborn and Michael Barrett discus orignally appared on the Politics and Policy Journal Blog as an overview of the paper - Policy translation through localisation: implementing national policy in the UK
Read MoreWith the next Power to Persuade Symposium coming up, we thought it would be useful to revisit why this initiative exists and what it is we do. This will be a two part post, the first (below) focuses on the problem PTP aims to address. The next post outlines our vision and mission of how we do this.
Read MoreIn the latest Social Policy Whisperer, Dr Ben Spies-Butcher discusses the implications of the perceived (and sometimes rhetorical) differences between "social" and "economic" policy. How do we bring these two debates together?
Read MoreIncreasing employment participation is critical to improving living standards, individual well-being, and equality. In this post, Michael Keating (former Head of the Department of Employment and Industrial Relations) looks at concrete proposals to boost employment participation. This post originally appeared on the Pearls and Irritations blog.
Read MoreHow do we determine who has a legitimate claim to income support - their 'deservingness'? And how can we reduce stereotyping while increasing workforce participation? In this post, social and economic policy analyst Peter Davidson looks to international research for some clues. This post originally appeared on Peter's Need to Know blog.
Read MoreIn this post, Alex Baumann, from University of Western Sydney, examines how programs aimed at 'empowering' or 'engaging' public housing tenants and other service users too often ignore the experience and perspective of the people they are intended to support, and how the failure of poorly designed or implemented programs is unfairly blamed on service users
Read MoreJeff Thompson is community development manager at a disability service provider in the ACT. In this post he explains the implications of the NDIS for existing service providers in an environment that favours the “new” over the known.
Read MorePeople who are unemployed can be made to feel worthless, stigmatised, unwanted and lonely. Tracey Robbins discusses how we can seek to understand the loss of identity and loneliness people can feel as a result of being unemployed, and reset the way we work together as a community to help people find a way out of loneliness and possibly, find work too.
Read MoreThis year’s ACOSS conference – Towards the Common Good – took place at Technology Park, Sydney, June 24–26. Rik Sutherland from St Vincent de Paul reports.
Read More“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Almost 300 years later, this proverbial insight by Benjamin Franklin has lost none of its pertinence. On the contrary: in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia we want to show not only that preventative policy pays off in Benjamin Franklin’s sense, but that prevention can help us to avoid social follow-up costs. This post is by Hannelore Kraft is premier of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and first appeared on the Policy Network.
Read MoreThe 'new' nanny trial has been hailed as a solution for flexible child care by the Federal government. But is it a solution and for whom? What do children, families and nannies need to make this 'solution' work well? Our guest today, Elizabeth Adamson (@eama221) from the Social Policy Research Centre, explores these issues as she takes us through details of the nanny trial.
Read MoreCare work, whether paid or unpaid, remains disproportionately carried out by women. With more and more women participating in the paid workforce and working non-standard hours alongside men, a care crisis has emerged globally. Who is caring for those that need it now? Who will provide care in the future? In this guest post, Emeritus Professor Fiona Williams from the University of Leeds explains the 'chains and drains' of global care and presents some alternative policy solutions that favour gender equity and workers' rights.
Read MoreIn its fourth successful year, Power to Persuade’s (PTP) annual symposium is not only going national but is also branching out to include a forum on gender and contemporary policy. Headed up by Lara Corr (@corr_lara), a gender inequity focused public health and social policy scholar, alongside Gemma Carey and Kathy Landvogt (co-directors of PTP), this ground-breaking forum will hit the big issues of how women and policy mix (or don’t) in the current policy climate. Beyond that, the forum, which will be known as PTP:Gender, will explore how to do policy differently by taking a feminist perspective. Save the date for the 17th September, 9-3.30pm, Australian National University, Canberra
Read MoreWhere does evidence stand in the war on ideas within government? What are the barriers to evidence-based policy-making and what does a strategic, innovative, evidence-based policy system look like when you’ve got one?
Read More‘This post comes from Oxfam’s James Whitehead (on Twitter @james_whitehead) via From Poverty to Power, the blog written and maintained by Duncan Green (@fp2p), strategic adviser for Oxfam Great Britain and author of ‘From Poverty to Power’.
Read MoreDr Melissa Stoneham and her colleagues at the Public Health Advocacy Institute WA (PHAIWA) at Curtin University last year looked at the portrayal of Indigenous health in selected Australian media. Their findings were not just valuable for media outlets but for people and organisations working in research, policy development and advocacy.
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