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Branding and Franchising a Public Policy: The Case of the Gateway Review Process 2001–2010
Author(s) -
Marsh David,
Fawcett Paul
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
australian journal of public administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.524
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1467-8500
pISSN - 0313-6647
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8500.2011.00729.x
Subject(s) - gateway (web page) , politics , process (computing) , public policy , focus (optics) , public relations , phenomenon , policy transfer , business , public administration , political science , law , computer science , world wide web , operating system , physics , optics , quantum mechanics
One of the more interesting features of contemporary policy‐making is the way in which certain policies and administrative processes have been branded. While this is not yet a common feature, it does appear to be one that is increasing in importance. This article looks at the phenomenon through a consideration of one particularly interesting case; the Gateway Review Process (subsequently Gateway), a policy with a related set of administrative processes which is both branded and franchised. Gateway also seems a successful example of a much more common feature of contemporary policy making: policy transfer. It has been transferred from the UK to five Australian jurisdictions, New Zealand and Holland. This article examines the extent to which the branding, and indeed the franchising, of Gateway is responsible for the putative success of that transfer. We begin with a very brief consideration of the literature on branding and franchising to situate our discussion, before outlining the ways in which branding and politics intersect. In the main part of the article we focus on the branding of public policy and on the Gateway case.