Bulletin n. 2/2006
September 2006
CONTENTS
  • Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government
  • Section B) Global governance and international organizations
  • Section C) Regional integration processes
  • Section D) Federalism as a political idea
    • Braun Dietmar
    Between Market-Preserving Federalism and Intergovernmental Coordination: The Case of Australia
    in Swiss Political Science Review - Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft - Revue suisse de science politique , Volume 12, Issue 2, Summer 2006 ,  2006 ,  1-36
    This article investigates Australia's economic success since the 1990s. As this was set in motion by fundamental political reforms, it asks to what extent Australian-type federalism has been an important factor in the reform process. By using two approaches - the market-preserving federalism approach of Weingast, which stresses the virtues of "limited government", decentralisation and competition together with the intergovernmental coordination approach of Scharpf which argues for a "problem-solving" orientation of territorial actors -, the structure of Australian federalism, changes in the working of the federal system in the 1990s, and effects on policy-making are scrutinised. The article demonstrates that a particular combination of a rather centralised federal structure and a particular type of intergovernmental coordination, i.e. collaboration, supplemented by the strong influence of new public management ideas, has been conducive to political reforms in Australia. This suggests that a decentralised and competitive version of federalism, as defended by Weingast, is not a necessary condition for embarking on a successful reform path in federal countries. In future research, both approaches or analytical dimensions should be used in order to better understand the relationship of intergovernmental relations and policy reforms.
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