Federal–State Relations and Tourism Public Policy, New South Wales, Australia

Abstract

In Australia, it has become academic dogma that federalism is a problem rather than an asset. Nevertheless, federalism has significant advantages and is likely to remain an important model for systems of government worldwide. In the case of tourism, overlapping jurisdictions, multiple accountabilities and countervailing power are generally seen to impede effective tourism policy development. This paper goes beyond criticisms of federalism, to investigate the dynamics of federal-State relations in an effort to understand how cooperation in the tourism policy arena can be improved. Using a case study of New South Wales, this paper examines the effects of government personalities, political cycles, shifts in organisational structures and divergent interpretations of globalisation on governments' interest in cooperation.

Progress in tourism planning and policy: A post-structural perspective on knowledge production

“…Craik, 1991;Lickorish, 1991), the nature of intergovernmental relations (cf. Dredge & Jenkins, 2003;Jenkins & Sorensen, 1996;Pforr, 2006) and business-government relationships (cf. Carroll, 1991;Jenkins, 2000;Lickorish, 1991).…”

Archetypal Approaches to Implementation and their Implications for Tourism Policy

“…1997;TosunandJenkins 1998;Bramwell and Lane 2000;Jefferies 2001). However, despite its importance there are surprisingly few studies in tourism that explidtly focus on implementation issues and difficulties (e.g., Go et al 1992;Akehurst et al 1994;Baum 1994;Ioannides 1995;Briassoulis 1999;Pechlaner and Sauerwein 2002;Zhang et al 2002;Dredge and Jenkins 2003;Kerr 2003;Treuren and Lane 2003;Dodds 2007), and even fewer that draw directly on the extensive theory that exists outside of the field of tourism studies in the public policy and planning literature where it is a significant research theme (Aithiyaman 1995;Dredge and Jenkins 2007;Hall2008).…”

Hearing the authentic voice of stakeholders? Implications for governance of tourism strategy-making

“…This criticism is to some extent anticipated by a number of scholars who discount the possibility that there is a single framework of understanding that can explain such relationships but argue instead for "thick description" (Geertz, 1973), drawing on broader theories of social, political and economic change (Dredge & Jenkins, 2003), and linking networks to their social context (Bramwell & Meyer, 2007) to show that how actors respond to policies depends on networks of relations and is bounded by social conventions, values and power relations (Bramwell, 2006).…”

“…"Institutional" approaches to public policy-making found in the literature are helpful in as much as they show how the distribution of power within political systems is affected by the formal rules, conventions and procedures that operate within public institutions (John, 2012;Stevenson et al, 2008) and demonstrate the impact of this on the various components of the tourism management system (Elliott, 1997;Dredge & Jenkins, 2003;Tyler & Dinan, 2001a;Tyler & Dinan, 2001b). However, whilst they demonstrate that policy emerges from a political rather than a rational process (Veal, 2002), their focus on the effects of socially constructed norms fails to take adequate account of the dynamic effect of the power of particular interest groups (John, 2012) and, as a result, they are not fully able to explain why policies change.…”