<p>This thesis explores the politics of changing discourses around the youth question in New Zealand’s postwar (1950-1965) and near-contemporary history (1990-2005). Building on a modified Foucaultian framework, it examines for both periods anxieties over young people’s relationships with home, school and the wider society. It also contrasts the two periods to illustrate the ideological shift from the welfare state to neoliberalism, as it was played out through youth-related discourses. This thesis goes beyond the moral panic approach, especially regarding the postwar period. It will demonstrate that rethinking what is conventionally condensed and marginalised as ‘context’ is key to understanding the politics of youth discourses. Postwar debates about young people, because youth were conceived as being in social crisis, served to expose ideological differences that the welfare state had ostensibly overcome. That in turn destabilized the apparent moral consensus and opened up opportunities for resistance and subversion. By contrast, the liberal and emancipatory discourse of society in the 1990s and early 2000s served to insulate neoliberal politics from volatile public concerns. This in turn paradoxically provides a stronger and more efficient foundation for social control over youth.</p>
<p>This thesis argues that a Weberian process of bureaucratisation poses a serious threat in itself to the central values and ideals of liberal democracy. Such a threat arises not only from the bureaucratic pathology of 'goal displacement' of substantive ends by instrumental means, but also, because of this pathology, its tendency to mask and embed ideological challenges to liberal democracy. An effective liberal political constitution is therefore necessary to maintain the democratic control of bureaucracy while exploiting the efficiency benefits of bureaucratic administration. Such a political constitution is in fact contained in the Westminster tradition of liberal constitutionalism, based on the principles of parliamentary sovereignty, ministerial responsibility and political neutrality. Through this theoretical lens, the thesis proceeds to examine the trajectory of public sector reforms against the changing political contexts in New Zealand over the past 20 years and its constitutional implications. The NPM reforms in New Zealand, whether intended or unintended, displaced the political and constitutional safeguards implicit in the traditional model of public service with managerial norms which simultaneously serve to embed the neoliberal ideology. Despite the claim of NPM reformers to control bureaucracy, the paradoxical effects of the reform have been to accelerate the process of bureaucratisation and attenuate democratic control. Recent initiatives aimed to address some apparent weaknesses of NPM, have not changed the fundamentals of the managerial system, and thus fail to reverse this trend of declining democratic control of bureaucratic power. A reassertion of the fundamental norms of the Westminster system is recommended to arrest this decline of liberal democracy.</p>
<p>This thesis explores the politics of changing discourses around the youth question in New Zealand’s postwar (1950-1965) and near-contemporary history (1990-2005). Building on a modified Foucaultian framework, it examines for both periods anxieties over young people’s relationships with home, school and the wider society. It also contrasts the two periods to illustrate the ideological shift from the welfare state to neoliberalism, as it was played out through youth-related discourses. This thesis goes beyond the moral panic approach, especially regarding the postwar period. It will demonstrate that rethinking what is conventionally condensed and marginalised as ‘context’ is key to understanding the politics of youth discourses. Postwar debates about young people, because youth were conceived as being in social crisis, served to expose ideological differences that the welfare state had ostensibly overcome. That in turn destabilized the apparent moral consensus and opened up opportunities for resistance and subversion. By contrast, the liberal and emancipatory discourse of society in the 1990s and early 2000s served to insulate neoliberal politics from volatile public concerns. This in turn paradoxically provides a stronger and more efficient foundation for social control over youth.</p>
<p>This thesis argues that a Weberian process of bureaucratisation poses a serious threat in itself to the central values and ideals of liberal democracy. Such a threat arises not only from the bureaucratic pathology of 'goal displacement' of substantive ends by instrumental means, but also, because of this pathology, its tendency to mask and embed ideological challenges to liberal democracy. An effective liberal political constitution is therefore necessary to maintain the democratic control of bureaucracy while exploiting the efficiency benefits of bureaucratic administration. Such a political constitution is in fact contained in the Westminster tradition of liberal constitutionalism, based on the principles of parliamentary sovereignty, ministerial responsibility and political neutrality. Through this theoretical lens, the thesis proceeds to examine the trajectory of public sector reforms against the changing political contexts in New Zealand over the past 20 years and its constitutional implications. The NPM reforms in New Zealand, whether intended or unintended, displaced the political and constitutional safeguards implicit in the traditional model of public service with managerial norms which simultaneously serve to embed the neoliberal ideology. Despite the claim of NPM reformers to control bureaucracy, the paradoxical effects of the reform have been to accelerate the process of bureaucratisation and attenuate democratic control. Recent initiatives aimed to address some apparent weaknesses of NPM, have not changed the fundamentals of the managerial system, and thus fail to reverse this trend of declining democratic control of bureaucratic power. A reassertion of the fundamental norms of the Westminster system is recommended to arrest this decline of liberal democracy.</p>
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