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Leadership and Institutional Reform: Engineering Macroeconomic Policy Change in Australia
Author(s) -
Goldfinch Shaun,
Hart Paul ‘t
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
governance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.46
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1468-0491
pISSN - 0952-1895
DOI - 10.1111/1468-0491.00215
Subject(s) - vagueness , opposition (politics) , politics , economics , order (exchange) , public administration , political economy , political science , economic system , philosophy , linguistics , law , fuzzy logic , finance
This article seeks to enhance the actor perspective on major policy reforms. It builds upon the literature on “policy entrepreneurs” and addresses its explanatory vagueness by specifying five hypotheses outlining the actions that proponents of major policy change need to take in order to be effective in forging departures from existing, path‐dependent policies and to overcome entrenched opposition to reforms. These hypotheses on “reformist political leadership” (after Blondel) are applied to the four attempts to reform key aspects of macroeconomic policy in Australia under the first two Labor governments led by Robert J. Hawke.