Most institutional history moves slowly. One explanation for the slow movement of ideas, customs and practices is that political communication, like other forms of interaction, often operates in a circular or self-referential manner. This chapter, by focusing on social movements, explores how we can circumvent or break out of these circular patterns of communication, how institutions can become more responsive to new issues, ideas and challenges, and how social forces can reshape and influence the rules and procedures of institutions. Social movements can play a crucial role in challenging the slow movement of institutional history. There is general agreement among social theorists that the collective action by social movements ‘involves a specific type of socially conflictual relationship’ and that the types of social movement include the ‘classical’ workers' movement at the turn of the century, the student and civil rights movements in the 1960s and the ‘new social movements’ which, in the 1970s and 1980s, focused on or rediscovered questions of the environment, women's rights and peace (Renon 1994: 599). In the area of social movements the notion of the slow movement of institutional history is by definition subjected to a challenge: ‘Most social theorists agree that this mode of collective action [social movements] involves a specific type of socially conflictual relationship’ (Renon 1994: 599).

Sociology has spawned widely diverging views about the role of social movements. For a long time many sociologists felt that social movements did not exercise a positive influence on political debates.

The presentation of the arguments in this book so far suggests the following causal chain. Expert communities provide intellectual frameworks. They also play a key role in design, innovation and discovery. Some of these frameworks and discoveries are eventually adopted either by political parties or by social movements. On occasion the social movements are not only quicker off the mark in taking up new ideas, they are themselves innovators. On other occasions political parties pre-empt any initiative being taken up by social movements. In the case of environmental issues, there are situations in which political parties have been so slow in adapting to changes in outlook that new political parties have been formed to articulate some of the concerns of environmentalists, including the so-called ‘new politics’ parties (Müller-Rommel 1989). Established parties have generally adapted to the new situation and taken on many of the green issues (Papadakis 1989; 1993; McAllister and Studlar 1995). Both political parties and social movements play a crucial role in setting the agenda for politics. The media, though they have their own particular preoccupations (namely, simplifying and selling news), are a significant agency for the agenda-setters. As noted in chapter 13, the media draw on a variety of sources: the expertise of scientists and the arguments of intellectuals as well as information provided by established parties, by governments and by social movements. Information from the media is crucial in framing and forming public opinion.

The Australian Democrats were founded in May 1977. The former Australia Party and the South Australian Liberal Movement played an important part in their formation. Their first leader, Don Chipp, had been a minister in the federal Liberal government. His leadership was crucial to the success of the new party: ‘Chipp presented a quixotic figure and pledged, in characteristically earthy language, to “keep the bastards honest”. Although … the policies of the Australian Democrats should not be discounted, the initial appeal of the party seemed to owe more to Chipp's ability to tap idealism and disenchantment than to rational commitment to Democrat policies’ (Shamsullah 1990: 167).

The Australian Democrats are a national party with ancillary state divisions. The National Executive comprises the president, two deputy presidents, the leader and deputy leader of the party in the Senate, and two representatives from each division. All these officers are elected by a ballot of party members. In addition to the emphasis on participatory democracy, the Democrats insist on involvement by party members in deciding on policy guidelines.

Policy proposals, formulated by various committees, are published in the official journal. They become party policy only if supported by a majority of members: ‘Policies shall be formulated with the maximum participation of members and shall finally be determined by the direct and equal say of the membership by a voluntary postal vote’ (Australian Democrats National Constitution July 1978: 3; and July 1993: 5). Thus policy-making is a continuous process.

Since the nineteenth century, there has been growing disquiet about the consequences of human action on the natural environment. The emergence of mass social movements, political parties and interest groups focusing primarily on environmental issues is a fairly recent phenomenon, and it provides empirical instances of the means by which politics deals with the consequences of human action. It allows us to explore the significance of theories of social change and of adaptation by political institutions. It creates opportunities to assess how our political system works in practice, and whether or not governments can deal effectively with new challenges. It enables us to consider the possibilities for innovation even though we still carry a great deal of baggage handed down to us. It suggests that we can draw on well-established principles in order to try to improve the quality of life. In sum, environmental politics serves as a stimulus for innovative institutional responses.

Environmental Politics

The new movements and political organisations represent one of the most significant sources of political change in advanced industrial societies for the following reasons. They reflect shifts in values and perceptions (like the endorsement of ‘quality of life’ and ‘postmaterialist’ values associated with concern about the environment, peace and nuclear disarmament: Inglehart 1990). Support for groups attempting to represent these new concerns rose steadily throughout the advanced, industrialised world in the 1980s, particularly among the young and those with tertiary education (Curtice 1989; Müller-Rommel 1989; Poguntke 1989; Papadakis 1993).

Can contemporary political institutions and organisations respond effectively to challenges like the disquiet about the environment? Can they defuse the conflict between environment and development, and then implement ideas like sustainable development? This chapter and the following one focus on concepts developed by social and political theorists which have guided discussions about the limits and likelihood of political action in general. This chapter will begin by giving further consideration to the notion of institutions. I will also concentrate on how social and political theorists frame their analyses of institutions and organisations. Do they, for instance, assign to political institutions and organisations a ‘central’ status in the social system? The final part of this chapter will centre on the relevance of traditional concepts for analysing institutions, and on the tendency of social and political theorists to formulate problems in dichotomous terms. Chapter 5 will then consider the problems of communication between political institutions and other social systems, and explore the possibilities for overcoming these difficulties.

Defining Institutions

There has been a renaissance in the study of institutions influenced by writers like March and Olsen (1984; 1989) and by many others (Evans et al. 1985; Brennan and Buchanan 1985; Hall 1986; Shepsle 1989; North 1990; Ostrom 1990). This literature views institutions as structures, comprising rules and standardised procedures, for shaping both individual and collective behaviour. This includes political behaviour and other forms of social behaviour and communication between individuals.

The perception of local government as the third and least relevant tier of government in urban planning is changing. The expansion of the role of local government in social and physical planning in the 1980s has led to a revolution in Australian town halls and the emergence of a more complex pattern of partnerships between governments, infrastructure authorities and the private sector. These changes are a response to the impact of global forces on Australian urban development which have resulted in dramatic population and economic changes in local areas. The relationship of global/local change is the essential framework for any meaningful analysis of local government and the urban debate.

Australia is not alone in experiencing change in inter-government relations as a result of world-wide trends in globalisation and internationalisation:

World-wide trends in the trade of agricultural and mining products, the shift in the location of industrial/manufacturing activities, the growing importance of the financial and service sectors, the dominance of multinational interests and the communications revolution have especially impacted on Australian local communities.

A valuable though unintended consequence of the important debate now under way on the future of Australian cities, particularly on how to plan metropolitan areas, is the way it has highlighted how little we know about the role played by households in urban development. Surprisingly little is published on the household's place in urban social structures, both in Australia and elsewhere, and even less is available on the way households act as a force to help form and transform cities and towns. With the household being the major institution upon which ‘social’ (as against ‘economic’ and ‘political’) aspects of urban growth and change are based, knowing little about this institution inevitably thwarts a fuller understanding of urban development and this, in turn, blocks the formulation of more adequate urban planning.

Such ignorance is particularly disconcerting at this time because the current debate on Australian cities cites the actions of households as a major cause of today's urban problems. This is especially apparent in the urban consolidation debate, where advocates of the policy are expressing alarm at the continuing movement of large numbers of households to the metropolitan fringe and at their disinterest in living in well-established, well-serviced, but depopulating, inner and middle suburbs.

Few people who each day battle traffic jams, suffer from pollution, or face shortages of services in far-flung suburbs appreciate how much the modern urban landscape is a creation of the past. At the start of the twentieth century Australia's major cities had either already developed a low-density townscape with significant decentralisation of housing and jobs, or were beginning to sprawl at the edge of their old, compact core. This low-density physical form was built in an attempt to avoid the sort of urban problems which can develop in a high-density setting. As city populations grew, heavy investment in public transport and infrastructure was needed if this land-extensive housing stock was to be replicated and improved. During the twentieth century, improvements in public transport encouraged commuting and the creation of new suburbs, but the system eventually became congested. Jobs came to be increasingly located away from the old downtown and commuters began to switch to private transport. Road building enabled cities to sprawl further and eventually outrun their public transport systems. The costs mounted up over time as the provision of infrastructure lagged behind population growth and the dependence of new, distant suburbs on cars saw an increase in the volume of traffic and associated disamenities.

Since 1990 cities have returned to the national policy agenda after a long absence. Not since the heady days of Whitlam and the Department of Urban and Regional Development (DURD) has a national government seen it necessary to develop explicit policies and programs for the cities. This chapter analyses the national ideas and policies of the 1990s and some of the debates about them against the background of the recent history of national involvement in urban policy and the broader direction of public policy in contemporary Australia. In particular, the relation of the general debates about economic rationalism to the contemporary developments in national urban policy are explored.

National Urban Policy: 1968–1989

The story of national urban and regional policy from the late 1960s to the late 1980s can be divided into three main phases: a ‘social democratic’ phase under Whitlam; what can be loosely called a ‘libertarian’ phase under Fraser, and a ‘corporatist’ phase under Hawke.

The Whitlam urban program was conceived in an era when there was general confidence in the capacity of government to undertake reform. There was broad agreement about what was wrong with our cities and what needed to be done. While many bemoaned the ‘great Australian ugliness’ of the suburbs, no one seriously challenged the Australian preference for house and garden and the fringe urban growth that resulted.

Analysis of urban problems and policies cannot be confined to the big Australian cities, but needs to consider their relationship to the rest of this continent. Regional development presents itself as one possible route for ameliorating the problems of big-city growth and for promoting a more balanced and satisfactory settlement pattern for Australia as a whole. This chapter explores this possibility.

Initially certain objections must be confronted. First, it is often said that regional development and urban dispersal policies have been tried and have failed. Secondly, and more particularly, it will be claimed that there are neither the necessary resources nor the political will to push policies of this kind in the likely economic climate of the 1990s. Regional development as a prescription for urban problems is unfashionable in political circles, except among the enthusiasts for the development of particular towns or regions. The prevailing doctrine of market-led growth appears to rule out any striking public initiatives.

The Federal government views regional issues primarily in terms of encouraging economic restructuring and public service economy, and has confined its positive interventions to the advocacy of urban consolidation in the big cities through its ‘better cities’ projects and in other ways. State governments are less active in promoting regional development than was once the case, although with some exceptions.

We have seen from the preceding chapters that the mainland capital cities in Australia have grown rapidly in the post-war period. Although only Sydney and Melbourne are large by international standards all of them are now of a size and complexity exceeding the imagination or expectations of the political leaders who at the end of the nineteenth century arranged the distribution of powers between the States and Commonwealth.

In defining the Constitutional responsibilities of the different levels of government at the end of the nineteenth century, urban issues appear not to have been raised (Deakin 1963). In the discussions which took place it was implicitly assumed that the States would continue with the responsibilities each had as colonies for urban affairs. As sovereign States they would each continue to oversee the distribution of functions between the towns and cities which formed their urban systems and they would each exercise whatever powers they chose over the form and structure of the towns and cities within their territories.

Local Government

The question of local government and its powers never arose. Local government was unevenly developed in the colonies. In some Australian colonies, communities had local government imposed on them, whereas in others colonists strenuously opposed it.

Questions about the funding of urban infrastructure have become more topical in recent years as governments providing infrastructure have sought to limit their financial commitments. The evidence of the cutback in public investment is clear. Real gross fixed capital expenditure by the public sector was the same in 1991–1992 as in 1984–1985 and fell from 6.6 per cent to 5.5 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). For public enterprises, which are very largely concerned with provision of infrastructure, there was a fall of 6 per cent in real gross fixed capital expenditure over the same period.

One reason is a change in the prevailing economic orthodoxy in the government, and another is the recession. As a result of the former, revenue from taxes, fines and fees fell from 30.7 per cent of GDP in 1984–1985 to 30.2 per cent in 1991–1992. As a result of the latter there was an increase in government expenditure on personal benefits from 9.9 per cent of GDP in 1984–1985 to 11 per cent in 1991–1992, and real GDP, which had risen by 20.5 per cent between 1984–1985 to 1989–1990, was lower in the following two years.

One of the planks of the increasingly neoclassical policies followed by government since 1980 is a reduction in the size of the government sector, because of a belief that lower taxes will stimulate private investment.

In recent years urban issues which have attracted little attention or sense of urgency since the Whitlam era have risen up the political agenda again. One immediate reason is official concern about the public costs of urban growth, accompanied by the goal of making Australian cities more economically efficient and competitive in terms of the global economy. A second reason has been rising concern over environmental issues which are essentially urban in origin (air, water and noise pollution which are problems of big cities and the environmental impacts and worsening congestion caused by motor traffic). A third, more muted but very real cause of social concern is the impact of unemployment, increasing poverty, inequality of housing provision and living conditions upon associated levels of crime and conflict.

The time is thus ripe for a fresh exploration of the issues and problems bound up with the current growth and functioning of Australian cities. All the major concerns – economic, environmental and social – are examined here in a fresh and original manner. It is not to be expected that a simple or single solution can be found for this diverse range of problems; indeed, one of the conclusions which emerges from several chapters is that the currently fashionable doctrine of creating more compact cities (‘urban consolidation’) as the best cure for urban problems is inadequate for this purpose.