Federalism Paper Review

Wanna, J 2007, Improving Federalism Drivers for Change, Repair Options and Reform Scenarios, Australian ledger of Public Administration, vol. 66, no. 3, pp. 275 279. Purpose The generator aims to present an over moot of the proceedings from a roundtable discussion on federalism. The paper aims to inform readers of the views of participants by reporting on discussion points on the subject of improving federalism, by means of consideration of issues and challenges and options for reform.The informant contrasts the different federalism characteristics discussed. Confused and competitive interactions occur between federal, state and local political science with attendant impacts on service delivery. In particular much of the dysfunction in the current clay stems from uncertainty around roles and an argumentative approach to dividing resources and defining responsibility. Federalism was in long term decline and a product of changing market forces from national and international pre ssure and global communication reducing regional identify.Overlapping policy interaction and involvement of the tiers of government was presented as an impediment to effective delineation of roles. Federalism provided great accountability through change magnitude scrutiny by multiple government and review of achievements particularly in contentious areas. Participants agreed federalism would be improved by gradual change. The author discussed the idea change should digest on advancing the current situation rather than whole-scale reform through a new ikon of strategic pragmatism. The group considered that fiscal issues drive a shift to centralism.Improving federalism requires better relations, through increased clarity of roles and responsibilities and levels of trust, possibly formalised through agreements and structural rationalisation. Evidence The paper presents findings as observations from discussions initially. The author introduces uncited references and discusses out-o f-door and individualized views. The discussion of participants views are not quantified specifically and references are made to most, many judgement, those who believed. The origin of sources is unclear.For example some commentators is unclear as to whether these were participants or external views. Summarised statements appeared to be discussions of the participants merged with personal opinion. Page 275, 276 and 277. Page 276Pages 275 277Page 276Page 278 Observations The author initially expresses an observational account of the proceedings of the meeting in a neutral manner. This approach gradually transitions into an academic piece that draws on the authors extensive fellow feeling of the field and his personal views together with unreferenced discussion of academic positions.The paper is confusing at times and patently aims to presents the outcomes and discussion points of a meeting initially but soon changes to uncited external examples, statements and personal opinion. Whilst the author references the tables deliberations and discussions, these are unquantified references to participants opinions and refer simply to many or most participants. The author seems to have a bias toward a principled view of federalism with support for a fusion of pragmatic sanction and principled approaches.The paper appears contradictory in parts. For example, an observation was made that there was a widely held view that roles and responsibilities needed to be specified. It was later stated that the jury was still out on whether this was a worthwhile goal, which appeared to be a personal view rather than reporting on discussions. In concluding the author draws on a range of options for specific reform that were not introduced earlier in the paper.