Ideas and Influence: Social Science and Public Policy in Australia.

• Author: Baehler, Karen
• Position: Book review

IDEAS AND INFLUENCE: SOCIAL SCIENCE AND PUBLIC POLICY IN AUSTRALIA Edited by PETER SAUNDERS and JAMES WALTERS, UNSW PRESS, 2005.

What next after neoliberalism? What alternative worldviews are emerging to take its place? What can social science contribute to the shaping of those alternatives? Ideas and Influence explores these questions broadly and within specific sectors of social policy, and in so doing, contributes to the development of a post-neo-liberal agenda for policy-relevant social science research and outreach.

This volume is more coherent and integrated than many edited volumes, thanks in part to an effective introduction that weaves key themes from the chapters together, and also thanks to the efforts of most of the chapter authors to address not only the content of their assigned policy areas, but also the question of how past and future social science can exert influence over policy in each of those areas. The book is especially strong on historical and cross-country comparisons, which helps the reader place current Australian social policy on a sort of global timeline. It describes how trends in social science and policy approaches have evolved unevenly across different countries over the past hundred years, but with an overall trajectory toward neo-liberal approaches in the developed, English-speaking countries. The historical accounts of public policy's relationship to social science in the areas of indigenous affairs (Chapter 9), economic policy (Chapter 2), and gender-related policy (Table 8.1) are especially informative.

The book's contribution to policy thinking and action may be viewed from several perspectives. Both academic and practitioner readers will find the book useful for its thoughtful summaries of developments within specific social policy areas in Australia; New Zealand readers will find it useful for making comparisons across the Tasman. In addition, it could serve as the opening move toward a research-planning exercise for social scientists in Australia and elsewhere. Toward that end, most of the chapter authors offer more or less specific recommendations about future research questions, which range from the effects of high effective marginal tax rates on the behaviour of actual and potential welfare beneficiaries to the implications of counter-terrorism measures for the future of democracy.

The book's thoughtfully written introduction also provides a good launching pad for a revitalised debate about the...