PhD Presentation: Get a good job that pays good money: Drifting from welfare to work on Australian social security

This presentation showcases a PhD research project by Jacob Priergaard that investigates how institutional structures of unemployment policy impede meaningful reform in Australia.

Abstract:

Australia’s working-age unemployment policies are not adequately supporting the most disadvantaged people they are supposed to serve. The policies are complex, highly conditional and paid at rates that keep people in poverty. Yet, when opportunities for reform emerged in recent decades, policymakers have made only minor adjustments. While much of the literature attributes this inertia to ideological and political factors, there has been limited exploration of the role that institutional arrangements play in shaping and constraining policy change. This thesis addresses this gap through analysis of how the institutional structures of unemployment policy impede meaningful reform. To better understand how and why the system came to look this way, this thesis presents an historical institutional analysis of Australian unemployment policies between 1983 and 2018, drawing on both documentary analysis and interviews with policymakers. This thesis finds that changes in the earlier period of the study left the institutional structure of policy and service delivery fragmented across multiple administrative bodies. This fragmentation meant that policy-making processes became more contested between administrative organisations. Moreover, the policy advocacy environment also became more fragmented, with access to decision-makers becoming less formally structured and increasingly contingent on prior relationships between advocates and political actors. This pattern enabled increasing influence from anti-welfare actors. These factors made it more complicated for unemployed people to access payments and services, and limited their engagement in policy-making processes. The easiest path to policy change in this environment thus became tinkering with individual parts of this fragmented system, resulting in the complexity and inconsistency characterising unemployment policy by 2018. The implications are clear: future opportunities for reform will be contingent on the ability to either navigate or resolve this institutional fragmentation.

Bio:

Jacob Priergaard is a scholar in the Policy and Governance Department of the Crawford School of Public Policy. His research looks at how institutions shape public policy-making with a focus on social protection. Prior to commencing the PhD, Jacob worked in the Australian Public Service, most recently with the Commonwealth Department of Health and Services Australia.

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To join in-person:

Venue: Seminar room 8, JG Crawford Building, 132 Lennox Crossing, Acton 2601 (ANU Crawford School of Public Policy)

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