H K Colebatch
Biographic Data
| ID | 3696784 |
|---|---|
| NAME | H K Colebatch |
| GIVEN NAMES | H K |
| FAMILY NAME | Colebatch |
| SIGNATURE | COLEBATCH H K |
| AFFILIATIONS | UNSW Sydney |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4895-4877 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 35 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 247 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 35 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1975 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Beyond the Policy Cycle
Understanding Australian policies on public health using social and political science theories: Reflections from an Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia Workshop
There is strong, and growing, evidence documenting health inequities across the world. However, most governments do not prioritize policies to encourage action on the social determinants of health and health equity. Furthermore, despite evidence concerning the benefits of joined-up, intersectoral policy to promote health and health equity, it is rare for such policy approaches to be applied systematically. To examine the usefulness of political a…
Policy, learning and regime change: Western concepts and CEE experience
This article offers an outsider’s perspective on the place of policy in the analysis of governing in Central and Eastern Europe, both before the change from a communist to a post-communist order, and since. It explores the way in which ‘policy’ is used as a construct in both the practice of governing and the analysis of that practice. It argues that we have to recognise multiple strands – authority, structured interaction, and collective problema…
The Role of Theories in Policy Studies and Policy Work: Selective Affinities between Representation and Performation
In this article, we intend to take a few steps to mending the disconnect between the academic study of policy processes and the many practices of professional and not‐so‐professional policy work. We argue, first, that the “toolkit” of academically warranted approaches to the policy process used in the representative mode may be ordered in a family tree with three major branches : policy as reasoned authoritative choice, policy as association in p…
Is Public Management Neglecting the State
Public management is a domain of research that is now roughly three decades old. Researchers in this area have made important advances in understanding about the performance of public organizations. But questions have been raised about the scope and methods of public management research (PMR). Does it neglect important questions about the development of major institutions of the modern state? Has it focused unduly on problems of the advanced demo…
Knowledge, Policy and the Work of Governing
Learning about Learning: Discovering the Work of Policy
The development of policy rests on skilled practice by knowledgeable practitioners – ‘policy work’ – and it is important to know what skills and knowledge this work calls upon, and where these are learned. Although there is substantial academic knowledge and courses in this field, many practitioners will argue that policy work is ‘as much an art as a science’ and is something that ‘you learn as you go’. This article reports on an exploratory stud…
Patrick Weller, executive government and the practice of governing in Australia
Evidence and meaning in policy making
In 2011, Sense About Science launched a campaign backed by various celebrities, academics and other public figures entitled Ask for Evidence, 'saying that consumers, voters and patients should demand evidence for scientific and medical claims to counter a tide of misinformation' (Sense About Science, 2011).The campaign website provides examples of people asking for evidence on public claims in such disparate policy areas as video game addiction, …
Making sense of governance
Governance is a term which is widely, but not always precisely, used, and this article seeks to clarify what the term is being used to mean. In particular, it is concerned with whether it denotes a particular mode of government, or whether is a broad category encompassing all modes of government. It focuses on the arguments about political practice on which the original claims about governance were based, and the evidence that there has been a ch…
Interpretation in the Analysis of Policy
Interpretation is a critical element in both the analysis and the accomplishment of governing, and taking an interpretive approach to policy should not be seen as a methodological option for consenting adults, but as an integral element of political analysis. Understanding governing (whether by practitioners or analysts) raises questions about the shared meaning which makes action valid, and makes a reality of ‘the government’. This calls for att…
Problems, policy and politics: Making sense of Australia's ‘ice epidemic’
Drug policy is a complex and controversial policy domain and traditional models of the policy process which present policy making as a process of authoritative problem solving by governments deny the complexity of the policy process in the real-world. An alternative perspective is to engage with the idea of policy-making as an ongoing process of managing the problematic, with multiple participants and competing perspectives. Kingdon's ‘multiple s…
Evidence and policy: Discourses, meanings and practices
Valuing Public Value: Recognising and Applying Knowledge About the Governmental Process
Rhodes and Wanna (2007) have criticised Moore's argument for ‘public value’ as an organising construct for public managers, claiming that it is confused, ill‐informed, ignores the central dynamic of political life, and demands that public managers become ‘Platonic guardians’, making it totally inappropriate for use in Australia. This article examines Moore's analysis and Rhodes and Wanna's critique, and explores the relevance for the argument of …
Governance as a conceptual development in the analysis of policy
The current interest among political scientists in collaborative and deliberative ways of governing has emerged as part of a discourse about ‘governance’, originating with claims that the practice of governing is changing, that rule by the application of state power is being transformed into the collaborative accomplishment of order through a process of negotiation among a range of participants, government and non-government, and that consequentl…
Immigration Under New Labour by Will Somerville
Policy Analysis for Practice: Applying Social Policy, by Paul Spicker
Governing through institutionalised networks: The governance of Sydney Harbour
What work makes policy
Risk and Governance in Water Recycling: Public Acceptance Revisited
Public acceptance is often seen as a key reason why water-recycling technology is (accepted or) rejected. A common assumption is that projects fail because the general public is unable to comprehend specialist information about risk and the belief that if the public were better informed, they would accept change more readily. This article suggests that rhetoric about acceptance is counterproductive in progressing sustainability as it does not add…
A 'Talent for Bureaucracy: A.F. Davies and the Analysis of Government in Australia
In an address in 2003, Senator Kim Carr cited A.F. Davies' much-quoted observation that Australians have ‘a characteristic talent for bureaucracy’ (Carr 2003: 3). He referred to the achievements of bureaucrats like Nugget Coombs, then went on to discuss questions of accountability, values and political control in the Australian public service. How could the public service be responsive and responsible, and contribute to the maintenance of a democ…
Policy analysis, policy practice and political science
Bridgman and Davis have responded to criticism of their widely-used model of the policy process as a cycle, ‘a series of interlocking steps’ by describing it as ‘pragmatic’, a ‘toolkit’, ‘not a theory’. This article asks what makes for ‘practical knowledge’ of the policy process. It identifies the theoretical basis for the ‘policy cycle’ model, and asks how this model relates to research on policy and to policy practitioners' own knowledge. It ar…
Through a Glass Darkly: Policy development on higher degree completions in Australia
A contemporary issue in higher education policy--the completion of research degrees in Australian universities--is reviewed from the perspective of an informed policy consumer--an academic working in the policy studies field who has pastoral responsibility for PhD students. The article investigates the way that the framing of the policy question, and the policy response, draws on research on the experience of PhD students, and puts forward an alt…
Introduction: RCAGA and Agendas for Change in Australian Government Administration
Government and Governmentality: Using Multiple Approaches to the Analysis of Government
This article analyses a single case in the application of government authority to illustrate a central analytical problem for political science--what is meant by 'government'--and uses two divergent analytic approaches. The established 'liberal instrumentalist' framework is contrasted with the 'governmentality' approach, derived from Foucault, which stresses the complexity of the processes through which government is 'assembled' from a complex of…
What work makes policy
Is Public Management Neglecting the State
Public management is a domain of research that is now roughly three decades old. Researchers in this area have made important advances in understanding about the performance of public organizations. But questions have been raised about the scope and methods of public management research (PMR). Does it neglect important questions about the development of major institutions of the modern state? Has it focused unduly on problems of the advanced demo…
Evidence and policy: Discourses, meanings and practices
Policy analysis, policy practice and political science
Bridgman and Davis have responded to criticism of their widely-used model of the policy process as a cycle, ‘a series of interlocking steps’ by describing it as ‘pragmatic’, a ‘toolkit’, ‘not a theory’. This article asks what makes for ‘practical knowledge’ of the policy process. It identifies the theoretical basis for the ‘policy cycle’ model, and asks how this model relates to research on policy and to policy practitioners' own knowledge. It ar…
Making sense of governance
Governance is a term which is widely, but not always precisely, used, and this article seeks to clarify what the term is being used to mean. In particular, it is concerned with whether it denotes a particular mode of government, or whether is a broad category encompassing all modes of government. It focuses on the arguments about political practice on which the original claims about governance were based, and the evidence that there has been a ch…
Evidence and meaning in policy making
In 2011, Sense About Science launched a campaign backed by various celebrities, academics and other public figures entitled Ask for Evidence, 'saying that consumers, voters and patients should demand evidence for scientific and medical claims to counter a tide of misinformation' (Sense About Science, 2011).The campaign website provides examples of people asking for evidence on public claims in such disparate policy areas as video game addiction, …
Learning about Learning: Discovering the Work of Policy
The development of policy rests on skilled practice by knowledgeable practitioners – ‘policy work’ – and it is important to know what skills and knowledge this work calls upon, and where these are learned. Although there is substantial academic knowledge and courses in this field, many practitioners will argue that policy work is ‘as much an art as a science’ and is something that ‘you learn as you go’. This article reports on an exploratory stud…
Government and Governmentality: Using Multiple Approaches to the Analysis of Government
This article analyses a single case in the application of government authority to illustrate a central analytical problem for political science--what is meant by 'government'--and uses two divergent analytic approaches. The established 'liberal instrumentalist' framework is contrasted with the 'governmentality' approach, derived from Foucault, which stresses the complexity of the processes through which government is 'assembled' from a complex of…
The Role of Theories in Policy Studies and Policy Work: Selective Affinities between Representation and Performation
In this article, we intend to take a few steps to mending the disconnect between the academic study of policy processes and the many practices of professional and not‐so‐professional policy work. We argue, first, that the “toolkit” of academically warranted approaches to the policy process used in the representative mode may be ordered in a family tree with three major branches : policy as reasoned authoritative choice, policy as association in p…
Valuing Public Value: Recognising and Applying Knowledge About the Governmental Process
Rhodes and Wanna (2007) have criticised Moore's argument for ‘public value’ as an organising construct for public managers, claiming that it is confused, ill‐informed, ignores the central dynamic of political life, and demands that public managers become ‘Platonic guardians’, making it totally inappropriate for use in Australia. This article examines Moore's analysis and Rhodes and Wanna's critique, and explores the relevance for the argument of …
Governance as a conceptual development in the analysis of policy
The current interest among political scientists in collaborative and deliberative ways of governing has emerged as part of a discourse about ‘governance’, originating with claims that the practice of governing is changing, that rule by the application of state power is being transformed into the collaborative accomplishment of order through a process of negotiation among a range of participants, government and non-government, and that consequentl…
Problems, policy and politics: Making sense of Australia's ‘ice epidemic’
Drug policy is a complex and controversial policy domain and traditional models of the policy process which present policy making as a process of authoritative problem solving by governments deny the complexity of the policy process in the real-world. An alternative perspective is to engage with the idea of policy-making as an ongoing process of managing the problematic, with multiple participants and competing perspectives. Kingdon's ‘multiple s…
Risk and Governance in Water Recycling: Public Acceptance Revisited
Public acceptance is often seen as a key reason why water-recycling technology is (accepted or) rejected. A common assumption is that projects fail because the general public is unable to comprehend specialist information about risk and the belief that if the public were better informed, they would accept change more readily. This article suggests that rhetoric about acceptance is counterproductive in progressing sustainability as it does not add…
The Concept of Regulation in the Analysis of an Organised World
Much academic analysis of regulation presents it in the terms used by the practitioners–as an intentional, two‐player game. But an action‐based analysis would show it as a social process involving a range of participants and frameworks of meaning, with the term “Government regulation” being applied retrospectively. This approach yields better analysis of the action, and also a better guide to action
Knowledge, Policy and the Work of Governing
Interpretation in the Analysis of Policy
Interpretation is a critical element in both the analysis and the accomplishment of governing, and taking an interpretive approach to policy should not be seen as a methodological option for consenting adults, but as an integral element of political analysis. Understanding governing (whether by practitioners or analysts) raises questions about the shared meaning which makes action valid, and makes a reality of ‘the government’. This calls for att…
Governing through institutionalised networks: The governance of Sydney Harbour
Theory and the analysis of Australian politics
Sharman's 1989 APSA Presidential Address is a welcome critique of the interpretation of Australian politics, but the questions that it raises need to be taken further. The importance of Australian political experience in the formation of an indigenous political tradition is recognised, but it is misleading to see it as stemming from the desire to limit executive power. This article explores the nature of this indigenous governmental tradition, an…
Structure and Action as Constructs in the Practice of Public Administration
In this paper we first examine the dominant instrumental paradigm of organization, and the critique to which it has been subjected from both social action theory and a more structural analysis of organizational life. Secondly, we draw on critical theory to construct an alternative paradigm. This addresses some of the problems left by critiques of the dominant paradigm, focuses on the relationship between structure and action, and the way in which…
Organizational meanings of program evaluation
Rethinking the Policy Process
Organisation and political analysis
The advent of the Hawke government may not warrant the title of ‘The Revolution in Australian Politics’, but it has raised questions about organisation and power, and the way in which these are handled in political science. This paper begins by identifying what is considered problematic in the political practices which are seen as distinctive in the Hawke government. It outlines the elements of the paradigm of organisation which underlies much po…
Access and the Study of Local Services: A Kenyan Case
Structure and Action as Constructs in the Practice of Public Administration
In this paper we first examine the dominant instrumental paradigm of organization, and the critique to which it has been subjected from both social action theory and a more structural analysis of organizational life. Secondly, we draw on critical theory to construct an alternative paradigm. This addresses some of the problems left by critiques of the dominant paradigm, focuses on the relationship between structure and action, and the way in which…
Organisation and political analysis
The advent of the Hawke government may not warrant the title of ‘The Revolution in Australian Politics’, but it has raised questions about organisation and power, and the way in which these are handled in political science. This paper begins by identifying what is considered problematic in the political practices which are seen as distinctive in the Hawke government. It outlines the elements of the paradigm of organisation which underlies much po…
Recent work on the concept of the state
Stephen Bornstein, David Held and Joel Krieger (eds), The State in Capitalist Europe, London, Allen and Unwin, 1984, pp.170. $24.95 (paper). Gregor McLennan, David Held and Stuart Hall (eds), The Idea of the Modern State, Milton Keynes, Open University Press, 1984, pp.240. $28.95 (paper)
The Concept of Regulation in the Analysis of an Organised World
Much academic analysis of regulation presents it in the terms used by the practitioners–as an intentional, two‐player game. But an action‐based analysis would show it as a social process involving a range of participants and frameworks of meaning, with the term “Government regulation” being applied retrospectively. This approach yields better analysis of the action, and also a better guide to action
Theory and the analysis of Australian politics
Sharman's 1989 APSA Presidential Address is a welcome critique of the interpretation of Australian politics, but the questions that it raises need to be taken further. The importance of Australian political experience in the formation of an indigenous political tradition is recognised, but it is misleading to see it as stemming from the desire to limit executive power. This article explores the nature of this indigenous governmental tradition, an…
Organizational meanings of program evaluation
Policy
This book investigates policy as a concept in use - an idea that both practitioners and outside observers use to make sense of public life, and to participate effectively in it. It is concerned to analyze the way that the policy process works rather than to describe particular sorts of policy, and it does this by addressing the core questions: what do we mean by policy? who makes it? where is it made? what is it for? how does it relate to "politi…
Rethinking the Policy Process
The 2001 Public Policy Network Conference
Through a Glass Darkly: Policy development on higher degree completions in Australia
A contemporary issue in higher education policy--the completion of research degrees in Australian universities--is reviewed from the perspective of an informed policy consumer--an academic working in the policy studies field who has pastoral responsibility for PhD students. The article investigates the way that the framing of the policy question, and the policy response, draws on research on the experience of PhD students, and puts forward an alt…
Introduction: RCAGA and Agendas for Change in Australian Government Administration
Government and Governmentality: Using Multiple Approaches to the Analysis of Government
This article analyses a single case in the application of government authority to illustrate a central analytical problem for political science--what is meant by 'government'--and uses two divergent analytic approaches. The established 'liberal instrumentalist' framework is contrasted with the 'governmentality' approach, derived from Foucault, which stresses the complexity of the processes through which government is 'assembled' from a complex of…
A 'Talent for Bureaucracy: A.F. Davies and the Analysis of Government in Australia
In an address in 2003, Senator Kim Carr cited A.F. Davies' much-quoted observation that Australians have ‘a characteristic talent for bureaucracy’ (Carr 2003: 3). He referred to the achievements of bureaucrats like Nugget Coombs, then went on to discuss questions of accountability, values and political control in the Australian public service. How could the public service be responsive and responsible, and contribute to the maintenance of a democ…
Policy analysis, policy practice and political science
Bridgman and Davis have responded to criticism of their widely-used model of the policy process as a cycle, ‘a series of interlocking steps’ by describing it as ‘pragmatic’, a ‘toolkit’, ‘not a theory’. This article asks what makes for ‘practical knowledge’ of the policy process. It identifies the theoretical basis for the ‘policy cycle’ model, and asks how this model relates to research on policy and to policy practitioners' own knowledge. It ar…
Governing through institutionalised networks: The governance of Sydney Harbour
What work makes policy
Risk and Governance in Water Recycling: Public Acceptance Revisited
Public acceptance is often seen as a key reason why water-recycling technology is (accepted or) rejected. A common assumption is that projects fail because the general public is unable to comprehend specialist information about risk and the belief that if the public were better informed, they would accept change more readily. This article suggests that rhetoric about acceptance is counterproductive in progressing sustainability as it does not add…
Immigration Under New Labour by Will Somerville
Policy Analysis for Practice: Applying Social Policy, by Paul Spicker
Governance as a conceptual development in the analysis of policy
The current interest among political scientists in collaborative and deliberative ways of governing has emerged as part of a discourse about ‘governance’, originating with claims that the practice of governing is changing, that rule by the application of state power is being transformed into the collaborative accomplishment of order through a process of negotiation among a range of participants, government and non-government, and that consequentl…
Valuing Public Value: Recognising and Applying Knowledge About the Governmental Process
Rhodes and Wanna (2007) have criticised Moore's argument for ‘public value’ as an organising construct for public managers, claiming that it is confused, ill‐informed, ignores the central dynamic of political life, and demands that public managers become ‘Platonic guardians’, making it totally inappropriate for use in Australia. This article examines Moore's analysis and Rhodes and Wanna's critique, and explores the relevance for the argument of …
Evidence and meaning in policy making
In 2011, Sense About Science launched a campaign backed by various celebrities, academics and other public figures entitled Ask for Evidence, 'saying that consumers, voters and patients should demand evidence for scientific and medical claims to counter a tide of misinformation' (Sense About Science, 2011).The campaign website provides examples of people asking for evidence on public claims in such disparate policy areas as video game addiction, …
Making sense of governance
Governance is a term which is widely, but not always precisely, used, and this article seeks to clarify what the term is being used to mean. In particular, it is concerned with whether it denotes a particular mode of government, or whether is a broad category encompassing all modes of government. It focuses on the arguments about political practice on which the original claims about governance were based, and the evidence that there has been a ch…
Interpretation in the Analysis of Policy
Interpretation is a critical element in both the analysis and the accomplishment of governing, and taking an interpretive approach to policy should not be seen as a methodological option for consenting adults, but as an integral element of political analysis. Understanding governing (whether by practitioners or analysts) raises questions about the shared meaning which makes action valid, and makes a reality of ‘the government’. This calls for att…
Political science (33 works) · Sociology (30 works) · Law (24 works) · Law (22 works) · Public Administration (21 works) · Public Administration (20 works) · Public Policy and Administration Research (19 works) · Computer Science (18 works) · Politics (15 works) · Economics (14 works)