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Privatisation is a strategic policy restructuring the relationship between the state and the market, the public and the private, and hence, the political and the economic. It opens non-capitalist spaces to capital accumulation and creates new markets for international competition. Privatisation alters a society’s relationship to public goods, services and rights by commodification practices, and turns into a highly controversial reform in economic restructuring. This paper discusses how privatisation gained priority in Greece with the economic crisis. It incorporates the concept of depoliticisation to offer a new perspective on the analysis of the economic plans, programmes and documents that Greece signed with international creditors for the sake of its economic recovery. It claims that depoliticisation functioned as a strategy for putting privatisation policies onto the agenda by simply reproducing the elusive separation between the political and the economic. The paper argues that introducing extensive privatisation policies through internationally agreed-upon documents confirms the attempt to erode the political character of the process in order to (i) present such policies as a technical, economic imperative, (ii) externalise political decisions, and (iii) limit public discontent. The depoliticisation and privatisation processes reinforce each other in widening the state-market divide.

Through an evaluation of an institution-wide curriculum change process, this paper analyses how strategic policy is variously enacted in departmental communities. Linguistic ethnography of public, institutional and internal policy documents illuminates departments’ engagement with the change process. With curriculum change positioned as a disorienting dilemma, transformational learning theory provides a lens to analyse the departments’ alignment with the intention of the curriculum change policy. The paper explores the extent to which departments transformed from a disciplinary content-based and high-stakes examination approach to the curriculum to incorporating broader institutional aims and active learning theories into disciplinary language, pedagogy and practices. Three stages of engagement are identified through an evaluation rubric, offering a framework to assess curriculum change initiatives. Implications for educational leaders include the need to integrate institutional strategy with disciplinary experts and expertise and the importance of language adoption as a precursor to implementation.

This study investigates how to cultivate high-level innovative relents by the integration of science and education in China from a strategic policy perspective. Specifically, why should scientifica...

This study established a model for developing a strategic policy for unmanned autonomous ships. The decision matrix was used to develop policy programs, and SWOT analysis was employed to summarize ...

Governments develop policies that set strategic directions on matters of national significance, referred to in this paper as strategic policies. Australia’s Commonwealth Government develops and inf...

Over the last decade, the scholarship and practice of international relations in Australia has become increasingly preoccupied with ‘great power competition’ between its long-term ally, the United ...

Does Australia have a ‘strategic policy’? Australia’s debate has seen an inflation of the use of the term ‘strategic policy’, often used synonymously with ‘defence policy’ and ‘strategic guidance’ ...

The aim of this paper is to offer an empirically grounded conceptualization of the dialogical relationship between spatial planning and place branding in the context of regionalization. The analysis displays the discursive nature of such relationship by highlighting the intertwining of spatial planning with place branding as strategic actions devoted to, and included in, regional development processes. The analysis is based on two cases in Sweden. The first is linked to the emergence of the brand ‘Stockholm, the Capital of Scandinavia’, and the other is linked to the emergence of the brand ‘Swedish Lapland’. By combining data collected longitudinally, these cases represent two contrasting examples of dialogical relationships that materialize through two distinct yet somehow similar strategic processes of regionalization. Based on the two cases, the paper presents and discusses an empirically driven, albeit conceptual, model that highlights the dialogical relationship of regionalization as regional strategic policy and points out its spatial and political evolutionary features.

Using Samuels’ [(2007). Securing Japan: The current discourse. The Journal of Japanese Studies, 33(1), 125–152] political categories of Japanese perspectives on strategic policy, this article argue...

This paper investigates how Chinese elites understand the proper role of their nation vis-a-vis its ‘periphery’ and how this self-understanding shapes Chinese strategic policy toward neighboring st...

The aim of this article is to explore Olympic-led sport policy changes (as part of Olympic legacy) for China triggered by the 2008 Summer Olympics and the 2022 Winter Olympic Games. Although there has been a burgeoning of research interest in analysing Olympic-triggered changes and legacies, with focus on various areas such as economic, sociocultural, and environmental issues, little is known about the changes that the hosting of the Olympics Games stimulates in a host nation’s sport policy. Drawing from policy document analysis, the paper reveals that the two Olympic Games collectively helped to expand the role and value of sport in China and to elevate the status of mass sport. In terms of policy, China’s two bidding experiences led to a streamlining of policy making and legacy planning processes for sporting mega events. The paper ends with a discussion of the implications associated with strategic policy planning for future Olympics hosts.

This paper develops a cluster-led strategic policy framework to assess the strategic positioning of key global logistics cities in Asia, most of which are affected by the ‘Belt and Road (B&R) Initi...

If the United States’ main strategic policy priority on the Korean peninsula has been preventing the North Korea from developing a nuclear capability, US policy has failed manifestly. How did we get here? What is it about the ideas that lie behind the creation of US policy towards North Korea that seem to rule out, time and time again, the possibility that casting aside preconditions and engaging in serious attempts at dialogue with North Korea might once more be worth a try, with the stakes so high? In this article, I argue that a social logic of risk led to a very specific construction of the North Korean threat in US foreign policymaking under Obama, which constrained the options policymakers believed to be open to them.

Strategic trade policy has become an important tool used by countries to increase domestic welfare. Ma and Ulph (2012) further this discussion by analyzing strategic advertising policy in international oligopoly markets. They find that it is always optimal for a home government to subsidize advertising for exports, whether firms compete in a Cournot- or Bertrand-type game. By extending their analysis to include the Cournot-Bertrand model, we find that an advertising subsidy is not always optimal for the home country. In some cases, the optimal strategic policy is an advertising tax.

A decade of transformation that emerged following a period of inertia and insularity in Irish education, the 1960s is widely regarded by scholars as representing a paradigm shift in education policy. Marked by a more interventionist, strategic policy approach, this period resulted in significant democratisation of education, particularly at post-primary level. Based on an analysis of key primary sources, many of which are here examined for the first time, this article argues that this step change in policy, the impact of which should not be underestimated, would not have been possible without the deep-seated commitment of a number of politicians and policy advisers committed to the democratisation of post-primary education.

Although many policy process and diffusion theories follow the premise that scientific and technological knowledge plays a crucial role in a wide variety of policy fields, very few empirically assess the impact that institutional and process-relevant factors may have on the position of science within a process. The present study addresses the question of what role science plays in policy processes. To answer this, we apply the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) and investigate three complementary assumptions using a qualitative comparison of four cases: the ACF claims that scientific experts can take very different positions in the policy process, depending on how conflictive or consensus-oriented the relations among actors and coalitions are within a so-called policy subsystem. Put differently, the type of subsystem impacts on the position of science within the process. The results show that subsystem-specific factors impact upon whether scientific representatives act at the periphery of a process or as ...

Diplomatic activity between Franks and Muslim rulers during the period of the Crusades is well known to modern scholars, yet the question of their place as anomalous or as a shared strategic policy...

In Germany's compensatory mixed electoral system, alternative electoral routes lead into parliament. We study the relationship between candidates' electoral situations across both tiers and policy representation, fully accounting for candidate, party and district preferences in a multi-actor constellation and the exact electoral incentives for candidates to represent either the party or the district. The results (2009 Bundestag election data) yield evidence of an interactive effect of closeness of the district race and list safety on candidates' positioning between their party and constituency.

In late 2011 and early 2012, the Obama administration rolled out its most significant strategic policy decision: the ‘rebalancing’ of its foreign- and defence-policy priorities towards Asia. The ad...

This article describes how the governance arrangements of the 2.2 billion Euro water safety programme Room for the River are enabling a transition towards integrated river basin management in the Netherlands. We observe that in terms of integrating multiple objectives and spatial scales, the programme design and multi-level governance processes in the programme have enabled the establishment of integrated plans and designs. We conclude that Room for the River plays an important role in a transition to integrated river basin management in the Netherlands through practical implementation of the strategic policy vision for integrated water management. Also, through application of a mixed centralized–decentralized governance approach, the programme has tackled governance pitfalls related to centralized planning approaches that previously impeded integrated water management. Although several of the governance lessons of the programme are being adopted by, for example, the Delta Programme, we have identified a ...

Strategic-cultural studies continue to proliferate, but scholars still cannot agree on fundamental matters like what a strategic culture is and what it does. This article examines the debates about strategic culture at the philosophical level – especially the debate between Alistair Iain Johnston, who prefers a positivist approach, and Colin Gray, who champions interpretivism – and finds that most conceptual models suffer from one of two general problems (and some models exhibit both). Existing models tend to be stated in a manner which is too coherent, meaning they can't account for occasional strategic-behavioural inconsistencies, and/or they suggest too much continuity and cannot thereby adequately account for changes in strategic policy over time. Instead, a model is offered which treats a singular strategic culture as containing multiple co-existing strategic subcultures. These subcultures each present a different interpretation of a state's international social/cultural context – who a state's ‘frie...

Australia has long been a key ally of the United States in the Asia-Pacific, and it has welcomed US announcements of a ‘pivot’ towards the region in the face of a rising China. Canberra will lend political support, provide US forces with greater strategic depth, and offer selective military contributions, particularly in the eastern Indian Ocean and the Malacca and Lombok Straits. However, Benjamin Schreer and Sheryn Lee argue that, barring a dramatic change in the strategic environment, Australia will retain its focus on the immediate neighbourhood and will remain sceptical of attempts to construct an anti-Chinese coalition.

The Henry Tax Review is a work in progress, but it has already advanced sufficiently to constitute an important case study of state capacity in Australia. Using the Henry Tax Review as a case study, this paper sheds light on the question of whether the national political system is capable of devising and implementing long-term reforms. Whilst specific policy failures inevitably have a contingent dimension in the form of poor strategy and leadership or unfavourable economic conditions, the paper discusses the erosion of institutional and relational structures which, arguably, has diminished systemic political capacity. This is tantamount to a structural weakening of state capacity in Australia, a development which has the potential to erode the potential of any government to enact significant strategic policy change.

The bipartisan Congressional Strategy Posture Commission offered numerous recommendations to reduce what it labeled “the nuclear danger.” The Obama Administration has pursued some of these recommendations via its policy documents, such as the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, its budgets, and plans. There is reason, however, for several concerns in this regard. These involve the high priority placed on nuclear force reductions at the potential expense of other national goals, including deterrence and assurance; the maintenance of the flexibility and resilience of the U.S. force posture necessary to meet deterrence and assurance requirements now and in the future; continued support for U.S. strategic defensive capabilities given Russian opposition; and apparent interest among some in the Administration to move increasingly toward what has been termed a policy of Minimum Deterrence.

This article explores the way in which the European Union structures and programmes can be adapted to support integrated local development. A focus on the local level will ensure that strategic policy priorities are addressed in the most effective manner. A refocusing of the European Union's policy objectives and budget is proposed, along with a mechanism to support interventions at the local level.

The United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) has been a military success but a strategic messaging failure. The United States’ relationships across Africa cannot be boiled down to military affairs. This paper argues that Africa has many more opportunities than challenges and thus requires a more balanced foreign policy solution from Washington DC than a new military command. For the military engagement that does need to take place, a more low-profile approach would benefit the United States in Africa.

One might have expected Spain to have been less than enthusiastic about President Sarkozy's Mediterranean initiative of 2007–08, given that it implied criticism of the Barcelona Process in which Spain had been so prominent. Yet Franco–Spanish rivalry has not come to the fore as a result of it. Acceptance, adaptation and eventual support have been the keynotes to the Spanish response, notwithstanding some ongoing differences in outlook between the two countries. A political accommodation has been reached, with France guaranteeing Spain a visible, though not substantial, role in the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM). This builds upon earlier Franco–Spanish collaboration in the context of EU Mediterranean Policy, as well as close bilateral co-operation in various other policy domains, including migration and counter-terrorism. Collaboration with France also finds explanation in the wider EU context where it is now more difficult for any single country (even France) to achieve strategic policy changes. Beside...

This article considers Hugh White's assessment of how China's rise is changing Asia's international order. It particularly welcomes White's intervention as a break from Australian International Relations scholarship's collective tendency to disengage from serious debates about public policy. It argues that while White's claims are plausible, the outcomes he paints are not as likely as he believes due to Chinese domestic economic and social constraints, the continuing ability of the CCP leadership to act autonomously of societal pressure and America's ability to politically manage its regional dominance. The article concludes by noting the absence of public debate about what China's rise means for Australia and the region and joins White in asserting the need to recognize that every strategic policy option it faces will impose new costs on Australia.

UN peacekeeping rose to prominence as an instrument of international action based on its enacting a root metaphor that promised the reversal of politics as usual and the creation of a more equitable world. Practices developed in traditional peacekeeping created a culture of peacekeeping that reinforced this root metaphor through a linking of strategic policy to actions in operations. This article argues that developments in the way that peacekeeping has been used are undermining the root metaphor such that the cultural inversions associated with peacekeeping are increasingly difficult to maintain, if they can be continued at all. The result is that peacekeeping has been sliding toward recreating earlier practices of imperial policing by placing the concerns of international actors ahead of those of the local communities in which peace operations take place.

This paper examines developments in social housing management, governance and delivery in the Republic of Ireland during the last decade, using evidence from two rounds of research conducted in 1997 and 2007 on seven social rented estates, located in a variety of regions. Among the three most significant developments in this regard, the reconceptualisation of the housing management function has had the most positive impact on the views of tenants. Some aspects of the externalisation of social housing provision, such as the growth of the housing association sector and the use of PPP arrangements for social housing regeneration, have also been positive, but the future of this externalisation agenda is uncertain. The impact of the various reforms to the management of the social housing service, such as advent of strategic policy making and performance monitoring, has been uneven in some cases and uniformly low in others.

During the postwar ‘golden age’ of economic growth, Argentina, Korea and Spain promoted the development of their motor industries by restricting imports, licensing investment, imposing a high level of local sourcing for parts, and supporting their own national champions. These strategic policies took advantage of economies of scale, achieving significant increases in output, and creating dynamic competitive advantage. Sudden liberalisation or the high volatility of the macroeconomic environment could jeopardise the process of structural change. Gradual evolution of policy-making and the cumulative learning of capabilities by the national champions were crucial for long-term success. The present research supports both List's classical defence of protection for infant industries in medium–large economies and more recent claims in favour of strategic policy.

This article proposes that the eventual outcomes of local government strategic policy deliberations can often reflect the interplay between “expert” administrative staff, democratically elected politicians, and the community they jointly serve. A multi-site case study approach, to examine the generation of local government strategy related to a niche economic activity concludes that broadly conceptualized opinion congruence can sometimes be threatened by substantial pockets of stakeholder vested interest. As such, “expert” and “political” opinion reflects a caution based on both historical experience and political expediency; while community opinion displays an optimism based on eager anticipation of an unknown future.

The establishment of an African military command by the United States reflects the growing focus of the United States on Africa in the US National Security Strategy, which appears to be continuing under new US President Barack Obama. This article deals with several questions. What is the stated US National Security Strategy pertaining to Africa? What national interests does the United States have in Africa? What is the United States officially saying about its objectives in Africa and what has it actually been doing to date? And what are other opinion makers saying about US military involvement in Africa? Finally, it looks at the question of US perceptions of possible rivals in Africa and at potential scenarios for conflict before making a series of conclusions about the threats and opportunities posed by AFRICOM for Africa, and recommendations for a response to AFRICOM on the part of policymakers in South Africa.

Presidents facing strategic policy questions would be as well served by flipping a coin as relying on the prescience of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analysis. This conclusion may be reached up...

There is an expectation that many cities in Australia may experience higher temperatures and reduced rainfall in the future. Hence, to support water policy analysis there is a need for predicting water demand and how it changes in response to climate change. This paper describes a methodology to develop a model that explains month-to-month variability in water demand due to climate and weather, on the basis of using statistical methods. To achieve this, we use time series data of historical water use volumes and climate data from relevant weather stations. Applying this model together with hypothetical climate change scenarios, but without community adaptation scenarios, the results indicate that water demand will change moderately and, as may be expected, it is most sensitive to evaporation and temperature, followed by rainfall. With such scenarios, demand is shown to increase by as much as 10–20%, but more realistic climate sequences are required to provide reliable estimates. Given availability...

This article has had a brief but chequered history. I was initially invited to comment on this issue, partly because of my earlier criticisms (Keenan, 2008b) of Sean McFate's role and writing on as...

US policy on peacekeeping in the Middle East is not unitary but derives from the intersection between US strategic policy in the Middle East and US attitudes to peacekeeping in general. During the cold war, the United States supported UN and multinational peacekeeping and observer missions as a means of stabilizing conflicts and avoiding superpower confrontation. In the period between the end of the cold war and 9/11, peacekeeping was minimally relevant in the region. Since 9/11, counter-terrorism concerns and broader efforts to stabilize the region have led the United States to support ambitious NATO, UN and European Union peace operations in the region.

Since the Chinese government began implementing economic reforms in the late 1970s, China has undergone profound economic change and growth. However, this growth has not been equitable, and the present economic gap between east and west China is wide. The Tibetans, a minority group in the ‘west’, are in a particularly dire situation. Although China's strategic policy of developing the west has provided many business opportunities, Tibetans are poorly equipped to respond to and take advantage of these opportunities. The reasons restricting effective market participation are complex and difficult to assess. There are no easy answers. Many political, social, cultural and environmental factors explain the difficulties encountered by Tibetan communities. However, by studying current educational practice with a focus on secondary education in Tibetan areas of China, this paper argues that poor education is among crucial factors explaining the inability of Tibetans to compete economically with non-Tibetan migrants.

This article was first written in 1976 as a classified RAND Corporation input into a major study that was commissioned by then-Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger to develop a comprehensive, all-source classified history of the Soviet-American strategic arms competition from 1945 to 1972. The intent of the original document was to outline the key internal and external factors that shaped the strategic policy choices of the Brezhnev regime, address the broad strategic objectives that guided those choices, consider the characteristics and deployment rationales of the third-generation ICBM programs that most visibly dominated them, and highlight the principal features of the force development style that they seemed to represent. The document was recently declassified by the Department of Defense and approved for public release in response to a request submitted to the Department under the Freedom of Information Act. It is being published now as it originally appeared, with only cursory editing for styl...

Strategic Consequences of India's Economic Performance Sanjaya Baru. New Delhi: Academic Foundation, 2006. $59.95. 496 pp. Indian foreign and strategic policy has changed markedly in the decade and...

This article examines the current environment for cross‐border relations and ongoing North American economic integration. Cross‐border relations are seen as a “two‐level game” in which policy makers attempt to balance competing domestic interests with the formation of compatible cross‐border coalitions capable of reconciling policy differences. Absent a strategic policy consensus, their focus reverts to its default mode: the management of discrete issues through decentralized institutions and networks of established relationships among policy‐makers and related interests. Security continues to trump trade facilitation. Canada‐US cooperation on border issues risks being ambushed by unresolved US‐Mexico conflicts and their echoes in US domestic politics. The most promising response to these circumstances is a persistent commitment to purposeful incrementalism until senior decision‐makers in each country have accumulated enough political capital to embark on a more ambitious agenda.

The outlines of the Bush administration's strategic policy direction were visible in some of the relatively early statements on the subject by the newly-elected president. For example, in his speec...

Understanding the inner dynamics influencing the ongoing process of economic reform in China, especially the flexibility achieved by government bureaux is important for strategic policy makers in I...

A former Bush administration Pentagon official clears the air about the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review, which set in motion far‐reaching changes designed to align U.S. strategic policy with the different realities and threats of the contemporary security environment.

A review of the past 20 years in Quebec reveals the extent of the social and economic change that has occurred there. Such change has demanded the redefinition of service delivery in the public, para‐public and, indeed, the private sectors. Quebec has shifted from a period centred, by and large, on growth, to a period of streamlined spending and optimum resource use. The Surete du Quebec has had to adapt its management methods to this situation while dealing with numerous, major reforms. These changes have led to the establishment of the Development and Training Branch and helped to determine its mission, strategic policy directions, and action plans. Who we are, what we do, how we do it, and what results we are seeking are some of the questions that this paper prepared by the Development and Training Branch of the Surete du Quebec, the Quebec, Canada Provincial Police Force, addresses.

Local government can play a significant role in facilitating better housing outcomes, but this role is seldom recognised by the sector itself or higher levels of government. This article examines the potential for Australian local governments to play an enhanced housing role by examining the range of initiatives undertaken by 21 metropolitan councils in New South Wales (NSW), Queensland, and Victoria. It argues that many councils now demonstrate significant innovation and leadership in addressing local housing needs, but that these efforts are often frustrated by poor planning frameworks and a lack of strategic policy at both State and Federal levels.

Within the last few decades, two principal debates have emerged with regard to cemetery management policy in the UK: cemetery conservation and the adequacy of planning for burial needs. This paper ...

Studies on economic globalisation and the nation-state regularly conclude that globalisation increasingly dominates national policies at least in the OECD world, thus eroding the state's acting capacities. This article argues, taking Germany's S&T policies since the 1970s as a case study, that during the last three decades national policies have not been increasingly affected by globalisation but that changes in a policy field have primarily occurred because of Europeanisation processes and national internal factors. In fact, the empirical evidence reveals a very complex and sophisticated pattern of factors acting on strategic policy decisions. Consequently, it can be concluded that political room for manoeuvre still exists in times of globalisation though it strongly depends on a more differentiated set of parameters than often suggested.