Steven Lukes and the ‘Three-Dimensional’

Power of Neoliberal Discourse:

A Case Study of Australian Policy

Documentation

A thesis being submitted for the degree of

Master of Research

at

Western Sydney University

by
Billy Pringle
Institute for Culture and Society

May 2017

1
Statement of Authentication

I declare that:

This Master of Research thesis is, to the best of my knowledge, original, and has not been submitted
previously, either in whole or in part, for a degree at this or any other institution.

The content of this thesis is the result of research which has been undertaken since the official
commencement date of the approved research program, and all sources of information have been
duly cited in the text. All support (editorial and otherwise) by third parties has been also been
acknowledged.

Billy Pringle

Date: 13/05/2017

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 Table of Contents

ABSTRACT 5

INTRODUCTION 6

POWER THROUGH POLICY 7

WHY LUKES? 8

A DISCURSIVE APPROACH 9

CHAPTER OVERVIEW 10

CHAPTER 1: THREE DIMENSIONAL POWER 13

THE ONE-DIMENSIONAL VIEW 14

THE TWO-DIMENSIONAL VIEW 14

THE THREE-DIMENSIONAL VIEW 15

CASE STUDIES OF THE THREE-DIMENSIONAL VIEW 17

CRITIQUES AND SHORTCOMINGS 22

͚INFLUENCING͛, ͚SHAPING͛ AND ͚DETERMINING͛ 28

POWER AS PROCESS 29

CONCLUSION 31

CHAPTER 2: NEOLIBERALISM AND GOVERNMENT DISCOURSES OF ECONOMICS IN AUSTRALIA 32

ECONOMIC RATIONALISM 33

͚MICROECONOMIC REFORM͛ 39

COMPETITION POLICY 40

NEOLIBERAL AUSTRALIA AND THE WELFARE STATE 44

͚NEOLIBERALIZATION͛ AND THE INVASION OF NEOLIBERALISM INTO NON-ECONOMIC SPHERES 46

CONCLUSION 48

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CHAPTER 3: EXPLORING THE ARTICULATION OF NEOLIBERAL DISCOURSE IN GOVERNMENT POLICY

49

READING POLICY 49

WHY CHOOSE THE RESPONSE? 52

COMMISSION OF THE HARPER REVIEW AND CONTEXT OF THE RESPONSE 54

RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE HARPER REVIEW 55

THEMES OF ANALYSIS 57

ANALYSIS OF THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT RESPONSE TO THE COMPETITION POLICY REVIEW 57

CONSUMER/PRODUCER THEME 58

AGENCY OF ECONOMY THEME 65

CONCLUSION 68

CHAPTER 4: DISCUSSING THE RESPONSE THROUGH THE LENS OF LUKES͛ THREE DIMENSIONAL

VIEW 70

IMPLICATIONS OF THE RESPONSE 71

TECHNIQUES OF ͚SHAPING͛ 76

APPLYING LUKES͛ FRAMEWORK 78

CONCLUSION 82

CONCLUSION 84

REFERENCES 87

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 Abstract

Steven Lukes’ ‘three-dimensional’ theory of power offers an empirical, process-oriented and

discourse-focused framework for studying ‘power over’ and the manipulation of interests in

the context of political power. Despite receiving a lot of attention and critique in the

immediate wake of its publication in 1973, Lukes’ second edition, which expands, revises

and defends his theory in response to this critique, has been all but overlooked in recent

studies of political discourse and neoliberal hegemony, with many authors instead favouring

Marxist or Foucauldian approaches. This thesis tests the usefulness of Lukes’ framework, by

applying it to the use of discourse in the Australian Government Response to the Competition

Policy Review. In particular, it focuses on the processes by which interests can be influenced,

shaped or determined: an issue that Lukes only briefly discusses, but that critically informs

his theoretical approach, by focusing on a particular moment of policy formation. The

Response is a recent piece of pro-competition policy documentation, and is informed by a

history of neoliberal and economic rationalist rhetoric. While Lukes’ framework has seen

numerous case studies, most of these focus on the impact of domination, and are therefore

retrospective. As a recent document, most of the policies the Response discusses have not yet

been enacted, therefore it represents an attempt to influence the interests of readers, while not

yet having a broad impact. This provides a new perspective on Lukes’ framework, and

expands it to allow for analysis of prospective cases of domination.

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 Introduction

This thesis is the culmination of a long held interest in Steven Lukes’ theory of power. I was

introduced to this theory early in my undergraduate study and was immediately struck by its

simplicity and readability. In addition, as an actor-centred account of power through the

manipulation of interests and beliefs, Lukes’ theory seemed able to explain a wide variety of

circumstances where peoples’ actions do not seem to conform to the interests one might

ascribe them. This was particularly intriguing to me in the wake of the Global Financial

Crisis, when voters continued to elect governments that opposed large-scale regulations of

the financial system and espoused the neoliberal values that led to the collapse (Aalbers,

2013). Clearly, these values of deregulation, marketisation and entrepreneurship were so

pervasive, and appealed to so many, that even a massive failure of the system they supported

could not disrupt them.

Lukes himself, in the second edition of his book Power: A Radical View (2005), cites

the ubiquity of neoliberal values, assumptions and policies – “a mega-instance of

‘hegemony’” (2005, p. 10) – as justification for the continued relevance of his theory.

However, few studies (if any) have answered the call to arms to explore the ‘three-

dimensional’ power of neoliberalism. While the rise of Euro-scepticism in much of Europe,

and the ultranationalist and protectionist ‘Alt-Right’ in the US represents a chink in the

armour of neoliberal hegemony to some, these movements retain much of the individualistic,

econocentric and small government language of their predecessors (Peters, 2017). The

rhetoric of neoliberalism remains prevalent as ever, and so too does the importance of

understanding its many manifestations.

Lukes’ theory of power asserts that “A exercises power over B… by influencing,

shaping or determining his [sic] very wants” (2005, p. 27). He argues that what seems on the

surface to be willing compliance to authority may actually be the result of subtle

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manipulation and ‘shaping’ of beliefs, values and ‘interests’, which can lead people to

support circumstances (or figures) that render them disadvantaged or powerless. The term

‘shaping’ is used by Lukes 11 times in his text, but he only ever alludes to what it might

mean, instead relying on commonly held understanding to ground this central process of his

theory.

This thesis seeks to explore ‘three-dimensional’ approach to analysing neoliberal

hegemony. It will also address the ‘black box’ of ‘shaping’ within Lukes’ theory, by

exploring the discourse of government policy documentation. It argues that policy documents

discursively construct agendas, interests and priorities, and that policy authors attempt to

facilitate certain readings of their documents, while impeding others. This use of discourse

can be understood as an attempt to ‘shape’ the beliefs of readers. By understanding this

process, it is possible to better explore Lukes’ theory.

Power Through Policy

As Ball (1993) notes, policy “changes the possibilities we have for thinking

‘otherwise’” (p. 15). I would argue that policy attempts to change these possibilities, and that

the effectiveness of this attempt is determined by how the policy is interpreted and acted

upon, and the contexts in which these occur. In either case, it is a useful focus to explore how

actors attempt to gain compliance and support from those over whom they have power. For

any theory of political power to be valid, it must be able to consider the power of policy, and

Lukes’ approach is no exception. By exploring how actors, issues and agendas are

represented in policy (through analysis of discourse in policy documentation), it is possible to

to highlight how policy authors and governments attempt to facilitate certain readings and

responses to policy while impeding others, and therefore, how they attempt to influence the

opinions and values of the audience. This audience may include other policy makers,

bureaucrats, community or industry groups, or members of the public, all of whom will

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interpret, respond to, and contest this influence in different ways. Therefore, selecting a

single group and attempting to retrace a clear process of influence cannot properly explain

the initial ‘shaping’.

I have chosen to analyse the Government Response to the Competition Policy Review

(hereafter ‘the Response’), as this document engages with contemporary policy initiatives –

many of which rely on neoliberal values and assumptions – while also responding to, and

reformulating, the recommendations of the Australian Competition Policy Review (hereafter

‘the Harper Review’). As a recent document (published in 2015), many of the policies that it

forecasts have not yet been enacted, therefore it represents a clear attempt to ‘change the

possibilities for thinking otherwise’, while not yet having a broad impact. This provides a

new perspective on Lukes’ framework.

Why Lukes?

This question has been posed to me numerous times throughout the course of my

research, and is usually followed by the question ‘why not Foucault?’. After all, while Lukes’

theory was well regarded after its initial publication, it is significantly less well known today,

and has been criticised for its narrowness in the wake of the work of Michel Foucault (Lukes,

2005). The short answer to this question is simply that I am very interested in Lukes’ theory

and have been for a long time, and this thesis will hopefully offer the chance to explore the

strengths and weaknesses of his approach, and build on his framework to include a more

thorough account of the attempt to exert power, not just the impact of power. The long

answer is as follows. Lukes’ theory offers a clear and concise account of power as

domination, that draws in to question the concepts of ‘compliance’ and ‘interests’, while

retaining a focus on actors. It conceives of power as a process, which allows it to be

effectively applied to other social and political processes: in this case, the development of

policy. Foucault’s work is useful to understand the role of discourse in producing social

8
actors, and to see knowledge not as neutral but as a structure of power that in turn structures

the realities of those constituted by it. However, it conceives of power very broadly: “Power

is everywhere; not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere”

(Foucault, 1978, p. 93). This makes it difficult to interrogate more specific relationships,

without seeing them as the product of a broader network of power. After all, if both A and B

are constituted by the social realities in which they exist, then exploring the way in which A

affects B seems like a far less significant venture (Dowding, 2006). It is not that A dominates

B but that the social realities of power constitute B as subject to A. Similarly, this sees power

as less dynamic, not as a process through which one person affects another, but as a structure

in which both people are situated.

Despite this, there is much that a Foucauldian perspective offers that is present, but

less explicit, in Lukes’ framework. In particular, a focus on discourse is crucial in looking

beyond overt displays of power to understand the subtle ways in which people understand

their interests and roles in society, and how this can be manipulated.

A Discursive Approach

This thesis utilises a discourse analysis approach to explore the articulation of

neoliberal discourse, and the representation of interests, actors and agendas in policy

documentation. Discourse analysis explores the way that language and representation

conveys, reproduces and constructs meaning, and in doing so, challenges or reinforces ideas

and beliefs (Fairclough, Mulderrig & Wodak, 2011). Lincoln argues that: “Discourse

supplements force in several important ways, among the most important of which is

ideological persuasion” (Lincoln, 2014, p. 2). To properly understand ‘ideological

persuasion’ one must understand discourse.

Discourse analysis looks beyond the actions of powerful groups, and the positions that

they occupy, to the language, values, traditions and symbols through which their power is

9
conveyed. It explores the way in which these discursive practices are repeated and

normalised to construct social realities (Lincoln, 2014). For example, Kahu and Morgan

(2007) discuss the construction of women’s identities in New Zealand government policy

documentation, finding that the discourse consistently treats motherhood as “inevitable and

undesirable” while treating employment as “essential to individual well-being and a duty of

citizenship” (2007, p. 134), thereby attempting to improve women’s productive capacity as

workers.

This thesis takes a broad approach to the methodology of discourse analysis, striking

a balance between ‘hard’ linguistic analysis, and ‘soft’ analysis of power, values and

assumptions. This has facilitated the use of work by Fairclough (2013) and Gee (2011) to

engage in a close reading of text and examine how actors are represented by both the

language and the syntax of the text, while also considering these linguistic events within a

broader context of power relationships, that sees values, ideologies and beliefs as affected by

language and communication (Lincoln, 2014). In the Response, economic forces are given

agency and abstracted from the people and groups who enact them by filling the position of

the subject in the structure of sentences. In addition, the specific interests of different groups

are made invisible by ‘framing’ them as ‘consumers’ or ‘producers’, and ‘recontextualising’

social issues as economic issues (Gordon, 2015). I have identified these discursive themes as

the ‘consumer/producer’ theme and the ‘agency of economy’ theme.

Chapter Overview

Chapter 1 explores Lukes’ theory and engage with other authors who have made use

of his approach as well as those who have offered critiques of it. It also highlights the

relevant strengths of Lukes’ approach for this work, and identifies the shortcomings that this

work seeks to address. It begins with an account of the one-, two- and three-dimensional

views of power, and a case study used by Lukes to illustrate the three-dimensional view. It

10
then explores three main critiques of Lukes’ work, and his responses, before presenting a

fourth critique, that this thesis addresses: the ‘black box’ of ‘shaping’. Finally, it discusses the

strengths of the framework and highlights its applicability to the policy process.

Chapter 2 examines the history of neoliberal discourse and policies in Australia and

focus on the way in which this discourse has attempted to represent different actors and

issues. It traces the use of managerial and econocentric rhetoric through the adoption and

promotion of ‘economic rationalism’ in the 1970s and 1980s, into the period of ‘economic

reform’ in the 1990s and 2000s. It also discusses the centrality of ‘competition’ in the years

following the Hilmer Review, and how this informs both the Harper Review and the

Response. Finally, it problematises the ‘neoliberal-ness’ of Australia, suggesting instead the

concept of “neoliberalization” (Aalbers, 2013). This concept helps to explain the seemingly

contradictory robustness of Australia’s welfare state and marketisation of its non-economic

spheres, through a processual understanding of neoliberal discourse. Chapter 2 also provides

the discursive themes that are used as lenses for analysis in Chapter 3, namely the

‘consumer/producer’ theme, and the ‘agency of economy’ theme.

Chapter 3 engages with policy theory to justify the choice of documentation and the

discursive approach of this thesis. It argues that policy is a process and that the Government

Response to the Competition Policy Review can be seen as a single ‘moment’ within this

process. It then undertakes a discourse analysis of the Response using the themes highlighted

in Chapter 2. This analysis shows that the Response overwhelmingly constructs the public in

economic terms, and therefore constructs their interests in this same light. It also shows that

economic forces and processes are given agency in the document, which treats them as self-

regulating and also makes invisible the actors who implement these processes.

Chapter 4 explores the implications of the findings in Chapter 3, focusing on the way

in which the Response attempts to foreground certain actors and issues, while backgrounding

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others. It relocates the Response in a broader history of neoliberal discourse and power,

noting that the document ‘translates’ this discourse to achieve the specific agendas of its

(invisible) authors. It also argues that, in foregrounding some interests and backgrounding

others, the Response attempts to ‘shape’ the beliefs, values and desires of its audience.

Chapter 4 then discusses the way in which this case study can be understood using Lukes’

framework, and offers ways to expand the framework so that the complex processes of

‘shaping’ are given more focus. The thesis concludes with a summary of its core arguments

and its additions to the field before discussing possible ways to expand on the research

herein.

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 Chapter 1: Three Dimensional Power

This chapter explores Steven Lukes’ ‘three-dimensional view’ of power and its applicability

to the study of the policy process. This theory emerged out of an ongoing debate in U.S

political theory during the mid 20th century, about how best to study political power. Lukes

argues that power is not only exercised through overt decision making and covert “non-

decision making” (Lukes, 2005, p. 22), but also through the “influencing, shaping or

determining” of people’s beliefs, values and opinions (Lukes, 2005, p. 16). While Lukes and

others have used this approach to problematise the concept of prima facie consent to power

by identifying and explaining instances of domination1 in which those who are dominated

become complicit in their own powerlessness, the process through which this occurs, and

particularly, the nature of “influencing, shaping” and “determining”, is never clearly

illustrated. This is significant, as one of the great advantages of Lukes’ approach is its

capacity to see power as a process, rather than merely a structure or ‘state’. By leaving this

part of the process unexplained, Lukes relies on a common-sense understanding of his terms,

which weakens the analytical capacity of his theory.

This chapter begins by summarising Lukes’ theory before exploring several uses and

critiques of his approach to highlight its strengths, weaknesses and shortcomings, and to

1
Lukes primarily uses the terms ‘power’ and ‘domination’ to refer to this phenomenon, but notes in his second

edition that he is describing a narrow subspecies of power, and that powerlessness does not necessarily equate to

domination. I will use these terms as Lukes does for the sake of brevity, and to remain conversant with his work,

however I do so cautiously, as they are obviously simplistic terms.

13
contextualise this thesis. It then discusses the way in which this thesis seeks to expand Lukes’

approach and address some of these shortcomings.

In its original context, Lukes’ three-dimensional view applied Gramscian concepts of

‘hegemony’ and manipulation to expand on two other theories of political power: that of the

self-proclaimed ‘pluralists’ (referred to by Lukes as the one-dimensional view), and that of

their critics (referred to as the two-dimensional view).

The One-Dimensional View

This approach, first asserted by Robert Dahl (1961) came about as a challenge to the

position of many Marxist theorists of the early to mid 20th century, who asserted that US

society was governed by a ‘ruling elite’ (Lukes, 2005). In his case study of political decision-

making in a US city, Dahl attempted to empirically map the distribution of power among

different political actors by determining the ‘successes’ and ‘failures’ of various ‘key’ (as

opposed to ‘routine’) political actions (Bachrach & Baratz, 1962). He found that, because

different groups were successful in different issue areas at different times, no single group

could be considered ‘ruling’. In addition, because of the plurality of positions and ideologies

held by the many different groups, Dahl asserted that every voter could find some form of

political representation, and that the system was therefore pluralistic. By focusing on actual

observable conflicts, Dahl argued that his approach was empirically verifiable, rather than

merely being theoretically sound (Lukes, 2005).

The Two-Dimensional View

Bachrach and Baratz critiqued this view, which they saw as being too narrow, and

reproducing the biases of the system to which it is applied (1962, 1970, cited in Lukes, 2005).

They argued that power is expressed not only through decisions made in the political arena,

but also through decisions about which potential issues are allowed into the political arena,

and which are kept out, which they refer to as “non-decisions” or decisions made to avoid or

14
suppress conflict (Lukes, 2005, p. 22). This ‘second face’ of power, as they called it, is active

when potential grievances are suppressed or undermined before they are able to enter a public

forum, which in turn maintains a sanitised and ‘safe’ political agenda, that presents an

illusion of pluralism without ever risking real challenges to the status quo (Lukes, 2005, p.

20). They also argued that this second face can be empirically studied by observing issues

that are present in public discourse (either through protests and demonstrations, or simply in

fora that are not politically ‘recognised’), but are absent from the political agenda, thereby

meeting the same standard of verifiability as the one dimensional view. They conceded,

however, that if no grievance could be found in either the ‘official’ discourse or the

‘unofficial’ discourse, then the observer has no evidence on which to operate and must

therefore accept that there is genuine consensus. The three-dimensional view attempts to

solve this problem.

The Three-Dimensional View

Lukes’ theory expands on the two-dimensional view in three major ways. First, it

finds both the one- and two-dimensional views focus too much on overt or ‘actual behaviour’

(Lukes, 2005, p. 25). The two-dimensional view notes that power is often exercised beyond

the realms of overt decision-making. But according to Lukes it still attempts to construct the

second face of power as the active and conscious efforts, by powerful agents, to suppress

dissident opinions and protect the endemic structures of power. This ignores the structural

aspects of this power that are reinforced and normalised through repeated compliance and

patterned behaviours which, rather than being a product of individual actions, are in fact

maintained by factors on a systemic level and are often manifested through individual

inaction (Lukes, 2005, p. 26).

The second point of difference is the question of overt and ‘observable’ conflict.

Lukes asserts that, while power is indeed expressed through the process of undermining and

15
suppressing certain debates to maintain a ‘safe’ political agenda, it is also present in the

subtle process of influencing and shaping the concerns and desires of a group or individual so

that their opinions more closely reflect one’s own. This can be seen in the way that climate

change debates are often redirected by discussing job loss or the impact of energy divestment

on national economies. Not only does this maintain a ‘safe’ discourse, it also attempts to

shape public opinion towards environmental solutions by constructing them as a ‘cost’ on the

economy (Goodstein, 1995).

Lukes’ third point of concern comes from the proponents of the two-dimensional

view (namely Bachrach & Baratz, 1970, cited in Lukes, 2005) who suggest that, if an issue is

not present in either the political agenda or in the public discourse, then it cannot be

meaningfully observed. This relates to the second point, as it reinforces the focus on

‘observable’ conflict and assumes that the absence of observable conflict is equivalent to

consensus. For Lukes, however, the most interesting and insidious form of power is manifest

when people are prevented from realising their own grievances by having their concerns and

desires so deeply influenced that they accept their own domination and even become

complicit in it, either by believing that it is natural or by believing that it is in some way

beneficial. Lukes maintains that, while this may resemble consensus, there is in fact a latent

conflict (which may never actually arise) between the interests of the powerful and the “real

interests” of the people they dominate (Lukes, 2005, p. 28, original emphasis). Moreover, he

argues that these ‘real interests’ are empirically recognisable to researchers even when they

go unnoticed by those who possess them.

This feature of Lukes’ theory is a target of extensive critique from himself and others,

and therefore warrants closer inspection later in the chapter. In his original body of work,

Lukes only goes as far as to say that any discussion of interests requires some amount of

normative moral and political judgements, and that these judgements are undertaking as

16
much by the proponents of the one- and two-dimensional views who suggest that interests are

the domain of personal wants or desires, even when these are systemically suppressed, as by

Lukes himself who suggests that wants or desires may be a product of a dominating system,

and that ‘real interests’ refer to what people would prefer were they capable of deciding

freely (Lukes, 2005, p. 37-38). Lukes argues that this can be empirically studied. This

conception of interests highlights the ‘impact’-centred approach taken by Lukes. While

interests are indeed important, it is also crucial to consider the way in which powerful actors

represent the interests of those over whom they exert power, and that this focus does not

require an account of which interests are ‘real’.

Case Studies of the Three-Dimensional View

Despite the assertion of empirical value, Lukes does not undertake his own case study

to support his theory. Instead, he expands on Crenson’s The Un-Politics of Air Pollution: A

Study of Non-Decisionmaking in the Cities (1971, cited in Lukes, 2005). While Crenson’s

case study seeks to prove the validity of the second face of power, Lukes argues that it also

supports the third. In the book, Crenson undertakes a comparative analysis of two

neighbouring cities in the US state of Indiana: Gary and East Chicago. While both cities are

comparable in employment rates, major industries, average income etc., they passed air

pollution control ordinances 13 years apart: East Chicago in 1949, and Gary in 1962.

According to Crenson, the major difference between the two towns is the presence of

US Steel in Gary. While Gary is a one-company city with strong party organisation, East

Chicago has several smaller companies, and no strong party organisation (Crenson 1971,

cited in Lukes, 2005, p. 45). Crenson’s thesis is that US Steel effectively prevented the issue

of air-pollution being raised, despite never entering the political arena, simply by the strength

of its powerful reputation. He also notes that when anti-pollution activists would campaign

for action, US Steel executives would avoid debate and simply agree that air pollution was an

17
issue, thus undermining activists’ attempts to galvanise political opinion against them.

Crenson reinforces this thesis with comparative analysis of interviews with political leaders

from 51 cities. He finds that the issue of air pollution is less likely to arise in cities with

strong industry representation, and less likely again in situations where industry does not take

a clear stand. (Crenson 1971, p. 145, 124, cited in Lukes, 2005, p. 46).

Lukes notes that Crenson’s case study goes beyond the two-dimensional view in

several ways, and thus provides an empirical basis for his own view of power. First, it seeks

to investigate “’things that do not happen”’ (Crenson, 1971, p. vii, cited in Lukes, 2005, p.

44), and is thus not constrained by ‘actual behaviour’ (Lukes, 2005, p. 25), whether overt or

covert. Second, it is concerned with the systemic deployment of power, rather than the

behaviour of individual agents. Third, it focuses on ways in which demands are prevented

from being properly articulated, not merely kept out of the political agenda: “’Local political

forms may even inhibit citizens’ ability to transform some diffuse discontent into an explicit

demand” (Crenson, 1971, p. 23 cited in Lukes, 2005, p. 47-48).

While Crenson’s case study does not clearly articulate Lukes’ argument (and in

particular, stops short of asserting that the citizens of Gary have been dominated or

manipulated into advocating against their interests) it does meet the two core requirements of

Lukes’ framework (as it exists in the first edition). It identifies and justifies the existence of a

“relevant counterfactual” (Lukes, 2005, p. 44) scenario in which the citizens of Gary would

have acted differently were they not subject to the influence of US Steel. It also identifies the

mechanisms by which US Steel exercises power over the citizens and politicians of the city,

specifically through the implicit threat of job loss, the preemptive responses from policy

makers and voters and the abstention by US steel from a robust debate on air pollution.

In the second edition of Power: A Radical View (2005), Lukes notes several other

case studies undertaken in the intervening years that support his theory in pursuit of their own

18
conclusions. Nussbaum (2000, cited in Lukes, 2005) and Sen (1984, cited in Lukes, 2005)

both use the example of survey data carried out by the All-India Institute of Hygiene and

Public Health in 1944, a year after the Great Bengal Famine. The survey asked widows and

widowers affected by the famine to describe their health. Despite the significantly worse rates

of health and nutrition among women, only 2.5% of widows described their health as ‘ill’ or

‘indifferent’, compared to 48.5% of widowers (Lukes, 2005). Nussbaum also cites examples

of other Indian women to illustrate the compliance in domination. One who, after being

violently abused by an alcoholic husband, did not acknowledge that she had been wronged

(Nussbaum, 2000, p. 21, cited in Lukes, 2005, p. 137). While another worked at a brick kiln

with no chance of being promoted or taught new skills, but nonetheless saw her position as

natural (p. 140, cited in Lukes, 2005, p. 137).

Lukes also cites several case studies from Foucauldian theorists who, in attempting to

explore Foucault’s approach to power, also articulate the sort of domination which Lukes

investigates. In discussing the works of Bordo (2003), Donzelot (1979), Flyvberg, (1998) and

Hayward (2000, all cited in Lukes, 2005), He has this to say:

I have cited these various examples (from among countless others) of Foucault-

inspired work with two purposes. The first is to show that they begin to explore subtle

forms of the securing of willing compliance, in which people are enlisted into wider

patterns of normative control, often acting as their own ‘overseers’, while believing

themselves, sometimes falsely, to be free of power, making their own choices,

pursuing their own interests, assessing arguments rationally and coming to their own

conclusions.

Lukes, 2005, p. 106

While these case studies were undertaken with various theoretical approaches, there were

also several works carried out that utilised Lukes’ perspective (see Komter, 1989; Vogler

19
1998). Most notable among them is Gaventa’s (1980) Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence

and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley.

Gaventa’s book examines the history of the Tennessee-Kentucky Cumberland Plateau

in the Appalachian region of the US. The region was ‘colonized’ in the late 19th century as a

coal mining area by a London based company, which was still very influential in the area at

the time of publication (1980). Gaventa discusses the numerous bloody skirmishes between

miners and company enforcers and local police that occurred over demands for workers’

rights. These clashes were interspersed with long periods of negative peace and some non-

violent acts of resistance. Gaventa engages with the events from a one-, two- and three-

dimensional perspective to show how these views reveal and conceal certain aspects of power

and how the three dimensions can inform and reinforce each other (1980): a point to which

Lukes himself only alludes.

Gaventa’s methodological approach involves historical analysis, which allows him to

contrast relatively ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ periods over the region’s history, and thereby

justify the relevant counterfactual scenario to the presence of three-dimensional power. It also

provides a clear example of the processual nature of the three-dimensional view. He

concludes that the severe punishment suffered by the mining communities in response to their

attempts to resist the power of the company, or negotiate better conditions, worked to make

change seem impossible or too costly. He argues that the long periods of negative peace in

the valley’s history were not out of compliance, but out of a sense of powerlessness and

defeat that begets acceptance in the face of no alternatives. In this sense, the dominated

workers of the valley are not ‘complicit’ in their powerlessness, but they begin to see it as

unchangeable (1980). Gaventa’s methodology of historical analysis makes for a useful

addition to Lukes’ framework by revealing more ‘observable’ evidence of three-dimensional

power through the contrasting of periods of ‘normality’ and ‘abnormality’, while

20
foregrounding the processual nature of power and focusing on specific ‘moments’ within this

history. This shows the way in which one dimensional power can lead to two- and three-

dimensional power. The overt power of the company (for example, to quell rebellions) can

limit the possible actions of the community, and affect how they perceive their capacity to

resist. However, Gaventa focuses on these overt actions rather than any discursive aspect of

this relationship. In addition, like the other aforementioned case studies, Gaventa contrasts

the interests and behaviours of the ‘powerless’ group with a priori interests that he attributes

them. The first set of interests is then retroactively attributed to the choices (including actions

and inactions) of the powerful. This focus on the ‘powerless’ overlooks the way in which the

‘powerful’ represent interests and agendas in the first instance, and therefore simplifies the

‘shaping’ processes, as Lukes does.

In the decade since Lukes’ second edition, others have also broadened his framework.

Hathaway (2016), in drawing from Gaventa’s more recent ‘Powercube’ project (also based

on the three-dimensional view), seeks to build a clearer evaluative framework that remains

faithful to the key theoretical themes of Lukes’ approach. In doing so, he incorporates

elements of Foucauldian theory that recognise the potential for discourse and social structures

to empower actors, while retaining a focus on how these actors then utilise this power to

achieve their goals. For example, he argues that a party is not responsible for the structures

and discourses that see elected governments as legitimate, but upon being elected the party

uses these structures and discourses to legitimise their agenda and actions, while

delegitimising the agendas and actions of others, such as dissidents (Hathaway, 2016).

Hathaway outlines several discourse-focused approaches for identifying and

analysing three-dimensional power (‘invisible’ power in the powercube lexicon). These

interrogate the “logical or empirical fitness of a belief that empowers, or is used by, an actor”

(Hathaway, 2016, p. 127), rather than judging these beliefs against the ‘real interests’ of the

21
powerless2. In addition, he favours a historical approach that emphasises “the contribution of

an actor to formal rules, informal rules and societal outcomes over time” (Hathaway, 2016, p.

123) as a way of interrogating discourse. This too highlights the processual potential of the

three-dimensional view, and makes it a focus of the framework.

While not providing a case study of his own, Hathaway’s historical and discursive

emphasis expands Lukes’ (and Gaventa’s) work, and begins to explore the role of ‘shaping’

in the power process. He takes a broad, theoretical approach, but notes the importance of

analysing specific discursive moments in order to better understand the development of

power over time. His “regime evolution” approach (Hathaway, 2016, p. 122) is beyond the

narrow scope of this study, but the work herein can be seen as a close analysis within a

broader historical landscape. While this thesis was not inspired by Hathaway’s work, it is

generally cooperative with his approach and could be used by future projects that attempt to

chart a longer history of policy discourse in Australia.

These aforementioned works have applied Lukes’ theory (whether deliberately or not)

to a variety of cases, and in doing so have highlighted the versatility and strengths of the

approach. However, there has also been significant critique of the three-dimensional view.

Critiques and Shortcomings

Lukes’ theory has seen many contestations, few of which can be addressed fully

within the scope of this thesis. Instead, I will address three critiques that are materially useful

for this work, and that exemplify three common criticisms of Lukes’ approach.

In his work, Peter Morriss (2006) highlights some important issues with the ‘intuitive

idea’ of power on which the one- two- and three-dimensional views are based, that “A has

2
I began my case study before discovering Hathaway’s work, so my methodology is not directly based on any
of these approaches. However, Chapter 2 of this thesis coincidently addresses the historical use and evolution of
discourse in a similar way to that which Hathaway recommends.

22
power over B to the extent that he [sic] can get B to do something that B would not otherwise

do” (Dahl, 1957, cited in Lukes, 2005, p. 16). While Lukes’ theory uses the vocabulary and

assumptions of the debate with which it engages, these criticisms are nonetheless

constructive. In fact, Lukes accepts and responds to many of them in his second edition.

Morriss (2006) argues that this underlying concept of power, falls short on several accounts.

First, it only analyses the exercise of power, ignoring the capacity of power, thus committing

the “exercise fallacy” (Morriss, 2002, pp.14-7, cited in Morriss, 2006, p. 130-131). He states

that those who have power to make decisions that affect others have this power whether the

decision is made or not. To assume that power is present only when A affects B is to ignore

A’s capacity to affect B.

Second, it disregards ‘power to’, instead focusing only on ‘power over’. Whereas

‘power over’ is the zero-sum power involved in dominating, coercing or manipulating

another person, Morriss argues that there must also be consideration of productive power:

“the ability to affect outcomes, not the ability to affect others” (Morriss, 2006, p. 126), and

that this approach is “our primary understanding of power” (Morriss, 2006, p. 126).

Third, it represents power as a narrow relationship between two actors, A and B.

While it is a useful hypothetical position to take, rarely is power only exhibited by one person

over another. In the real world, we are subject to constant attempts to influence us from every

direction, from politicians garnering our support, to advertisers attempting to convince us of

our need of their product. We are also affected by positive power: ‘power to’. This is

exhibited through the collective action of voters, community groups, NGOs and businesses.

Morriss notes too that, if we are powerless, this is often due to the social structures that we

are part of, rather than the actions or inactions of others (Morriss, 2006).

Lukes accepts much of Morriss’ critique, stating in his second edition that the

underlying concept of power is “plainly, entirely unsatisfactory in several respects” (Lukes,

23
2005, p. 109). He concedes that, rather than addressing the concept of power, his theory

addresses the narrower concept of domination and, even more specifically, the question of

how the powerful “secure the compliance of those they dominate” (Lukes, 2005, 110). In

response to the charge of ignoring ‘power to’, Lukes accedes. He argues against the position

held in his first edition, stating instead that ‘power over’ can be understood as a subspecies of

‘power to’, however he notes that the focus on ‘power over’ was a supposition of the debate

to which he contributed, and thus a requirement, at least in part, of his contribution (Lukes,

2005). Despite accepting Morriss’ position on ‘power to’, Lukes nonetheless holds that

‘power over’ remains the more important and interesting site of analysis, and that ‘power to’

“does not yet correspond to what, in common parlance and in the writings of philosophers,

historians and social scientists, ‘power’ is commonly taken to identify” (Lukes, 2005, p. 73).

Similarly, he accepts that he has committed the ‘exercise fallacy’, but maintains that his

approach still useful interrogates the exercise of power, even if it fails to catch the complete

essence of power.

While Morriss’ critique is instructive, it primarily highlights the fact that Lukes’

theory addresses a narrower subspecies of power than he initially asserts. It also raises some

empirical challenges that Morriss does not address, namely, how one studies both the

capacity and the exercise of power. However, he is right to note the significance of ‘power

to’. He argues that ‘power over’ is often a ‘means’ to the ‘ends’ of ‘power to’. That is, if A

manipulates or coerces B, this is likely in pursuit of some other goal, not merely the

subjugation of B. This is crucial, as it highlights the importance of understanding A’s agenda

setting and use of discourse without necessarily assessing its impact on B.

The second group of critics target the core thesis of the three-dimensional approach:

that we can be compliant and even complicit in our own domination. James Scott (1990)

offers an interesting account of this. In his book, Domination and the Arts of Resistance:

24
Hidden Transcripts, Scott uses studies of disempowered groups such as slaves, serfs and

prisoners to argue that what may appear to be quiescence or acceptance of domination in the

“public transcript” (1990, p. 2) – that is the more studied, open interaction between subjects

and subjugators – often belies a quiet but ever-present resistance that is expressed in private,

through a “hidden transcript” (1990, p. 4). This resistance, Scott argues, can take many

forms, including songs, humour, ritual, stories and the celebration of martyrs and outlaws

(1990). Similarly, compliance may in fact be a calculated act to improve the circumstances of

the subject. For instance, a prisoner who constantly rebels, resists the orders of the guards and

attempts to escape is punished by further and more secure incarceration, fewer privileges and

greater supervision. Whereas the prisoner who is compliant may receive preferential

treatment and a reduced sentence at best, or benign neglect and less strict supervision at

worst. While the second prisoner could be said to be ‘accepting’ of their domination while

the first rejects and resists it, the second also benefits from their compliance, and so could not

be said to be wholly ‘dominated’, or acting against their ‘interests’ in the three-dimensional

sense. While Scott’s argument is certainly persuasive and sheds new light on historical

perspectives of domination, I share Lukes assertion that the existence of the sort of resistance

that Scott observes does not preclude the third dimension of power, it merely highlights the

importance of critiquing the ‘official’ narrative. After all, Lukes notes that “power is it its

most effective when least observable” (2005, p. 1), and the power relations in Scott’s studies

– that of master and slave, lord and serf or warden and prisoner – are hardly subtle.

The focus of this study, by contrast, is far more mundane. The response is neither a

piece of legislation nor a media release. Rather, it is one of a number of small, translational

documents that exist in longer processes of policy development. But its importance lies in its

mundanity. The overt processes of power, such as policy implementation and legislation, are

made up of many smaller moments of consultation, conflict drafting and redrafting. By

25
looking beyond the ‘big’ issues, events and documents, and scrutinising these ‘everyday’

documents like the Response, it is possible to explore the assumptions and covert assertions

that underpin the more ‘legitimate’ exercises of power. It is precisely because the audience of

the Response (whomever they may be) are not visibly ‘dominated’, that this relationship may

constitute power in its third dimension.

The third category of critique is perhaps the most common, though I will cite

Bradshaw (1976) as emblematic. This critique holds that the concept of ‘real interests’ is

overly simplistic, uses a normative account of values and ideals, and comes dangerously

close to employing a concept of ‘false consciousness’, without relying on the Marxist

assumptions to back it up. As Bradshaw notes:

Lukes’ argument suffers from employing a Marxian notion in a very non-Marxist

way. Whereas Marxists are able to justify the terms ‘real interest’ and ‘true

consciousness’ of individuals as objectively ‘real’ and ‘true’ by their appropriateness

to what Marxism considers to be the inevitable, transcendent course of history, Lukes’

usage lacks the Marxian dimension of objective social inevitability, retaining instead

the merely subjective aspect of personal preference.

Bradshaw, 1976, p. 122, original emphasis

Lukes accepts this critique. He notes that, in reality, people have many interests, some of

them better articulated or more ‘rational’ than others, and some which are also contradictory,

and it is therefore far too simplistic to assert that an observer can access some objective truth

about what is best for the subject, or that this can be based on some ‘ideal’ circumstance of

autonomy.

This recognition becomes even more important, the less ‘tangible’ interests are. For

example, an atheist might assume that, in giving up their earthly possessions and taking vows

of poverty and celibacy, a devout catholic monk has been manipulated into giving up their

26
autonomy in service to the church. However, if the monk genuinely believes that they have a

relationship with God that is strengthened by their service, then this will likely have positive

impacts on their self-esteem, while giving them a sense of purpose, meaning and belonging.

Similarly, a Marxist might argue that a factory worker who spends their life in physically

demanding labour for the prospect of one day having a relatively comfortable retirement is

manipulated by the factory owner into accepting a narrative of a working life that is akin to

serfdom, however if the worker eventually retires in comfort and derives identity and pride

from their work, is this narrative still illegitimate?

Despite this critique, Lukes maintains that interests are still a crucial indicator of

whether or not someone has been dominated in the three-dimensional sense. However, rather

than arguing as he did in his first edition that ‘real interests’ should not be determined by A,

but by B exercising relative autonomy (even hypothetically) Lukes instead takes the view that

it is up to the researcher, through their explanatory framework, methods and purpose, to

justify which interests are fabricated by domination, and which actually serve the subject.

This is of course, a value judgement that should be open to scrutiny from critics, however if

this judgement is properly justified then this should not compromise the analysis.

This critique, and Lukes’ response to it, highlights the way in which he has

approached the issue of power. Lukes focuses on the interests of the powerless (whether

‘real’ or just ‘unrealised’). However, this can reveal only whether or not someone has been

manipulated, not how this manipulation occurs. By analysing the behaviour of the powerful

and the representation and construction of interests, beliefs, agendas and values, it is possible

to meaningfully interrogate the mechanisms of manipulation. The ‘real’ interests of the

powerless, whoever they may be, is secondary to this focus. This particular issue is the focus

of this thesis.

27
‘Influencing’, ‘Shaping’ and ‘Determining’

The assertion that preferences can be influenced, shaped and determined by powerful

actors is core to Lukes’ theory, and separates the three-dimensional view from its two

predecessors. He asks: “How… is one to identify the process or mechanism of an alleged

exercise of power, on the three-dimensional view?” (Lukes, 2005, p. 52). But it is only the

fact of the ‘identification’ of the process that Lukes registers, not the detail. In referring to

this process, Lukes only alludes to what it may entail, seeming to rely instead on general

conceptions of those terms. This is indeed effective; while many critics disagree with the

existence of the third-dimension of power, I am unaware of any who quibble over Lukes’

meaning. Nonetheless, what is hidden within the black box of ‘shaping’ is, I argue, a complex

idea that can involve a series of processes and histories, and can engage the first, second and

third dimension of power. Lukes notes this too, making the omission ever starker. He states

that: “power in its more overt one- and two-dimensional forms has all kinds of three-

dimensional effects. These are often misperceived as merely the effects of some impersonal

process of ‘cultural transmission’” (Lukes, 2006, p. 121-122).

This ‘cultural transmission’ is complex and can take many forms, none of them

neutral: the inclusion or exclusion of certain discourses; the ‘translation’ of meaning from

one text or ‘moment’ to another; the revaluation of certain issues, ideas and behaviours. In

addition, its effects might not be apparent for a long time, and may only be seen through

close scrutiny of people’s values and opinions. After all, the examples that Lukes employs –

that of Crenson, Nussbaum, Sen and others – are not cases of binary relationships between

individuals, they are cases of structural influence in which the actions of individuals or

groups (such as US Steel) are mediated by numerous other bodies (local government, the

media, unions), and are contextually interpreted by those whom they effect (the population of

28
Gary). To trace the impacts and interpretations of these effects through multiple actors,

representations and contexts is, needless to say, no simple task.

Rather than attempt to follow a ‘complete’ process of power from the beliefs or

articulated interests of B to the actions, inactions or reputation of A, I will instead take a

narrow view of the attempt to exert power, that is, the complex process by which discourses

are articulated, interest groups are represented and agendas are formulated with the intention

of ‘shaping’ the opinions of an audience. In doing this, I hope to open the black box of

‘shaping’, while also expanding Lukes framework to better explore prospective, rather than

retrospective, cases of three-dimensional power. Key to the investigation of ‘shaping’ is the

recognition of its processual nature, as a series of articulated moments, and the process of

power more generally.

Power as Process

The longevity of Lukes’ work and the analysis and critique that it inspired is evidence

enough of the impact of his theory, though, some of its strengths are not immediately

apparent. The obvious advantages of Lukes’ work are its accessibility, clarity and brevity

compared to many other theories of power. Even critiques of his approach note that “it was

commendably clearly written” (Morriss, 2006, p. 124), though by some accounts, this brevity

comes at the cost of a more thoroughly conceived framework (Edwards, 2006). However, one

of the most important aspects of Lukes’ approach for my analysis is what I call the ‘power as

process’ feature.

In his article, The Concept of Power (1957), Dahl lays out some conditions of a power

relationship. The first is that there must be some passage of time between the actions of A and

the response of B. While this seems to be an obvious point to note, doing so highlights a key

feature of the ‘intuitive idea’ of power with which the one- two- and three-dimensional views

engage. When power is represented as a structure or a state – when someone is said to be ‘in

29
power’ or ‘under the power of another’ – or when it is represented as a capacity – when

someone ‘has power’ – the processual nature of manipulation, influence and domination is

ignored. Power, in this conception, has temporality. Its process can (notionally) be observed

from the actions of A through to their impact on B, and B’s response to that impact. By

employing this conception, Lukes’ theory therefore lends itself to the study of processes

rather than simply observing static relationships based on social positioning.

This is crucial for my thesis, as I will use Lukes’ approach to explore the use of

discourse and the articulation of interests in the policy production process. In particular, I will

be focusing on one ‘moment’ in this process (in the form of a single document) to engage

more deeply with this specific use of discourse. By looking closely at one document – the

Response – I can situate the discourse within a longer process of policy production, while

attempting to discover what the document attempts to do. Policy is a process of formulation

and reformulation of ideas and agendas. What seems static in a single document is in fact a

short history of consultation, debate and ‘agenda setting’ that reflects the process of writing,

as well as a long history of discourse, power, values and ideology that underpins the

‘knowledge’ of the document. It is contemporary in that it relies on, and reconstructs an

image of what society looks like now. It is backwards facing in how it interprets the

successes and failures of past policies, and the discourses and values they articulated. And it

is forward facing in its agenda, its proposals and its view of what an ‘ideal’ society might

look like. A document like the Response may seem insignificant, but it exemplifies the

‘steps’ in the policy process and therefore provides a window into the ‘everyday’ of policy

development.

Interestingly, while Lukes’ framework certainly lends itself to this more temporal

analysis, many of the case studies that employ it do so retrospectively to explain situations of

domination that have already occurred, or to retroactively justify people’s beliefs and values

30
as evidence of three-dimensional power, thereby seeing them in a more relational sense.

While these are of course important and effective uses of the approach, they ignore the

prospective capacity of Lukes’ theory and lose sight of attempts to influence, shape and

determine people’s desires.

Conclusion

Lukes three-dimensional view of power suffers from some theoretical shortcomings

such that many, including Lukes himself, have described it more narrowly as a view of

domination. While it is true that Lukes addresses only one form of power, I argue that he

does so very effectively. His framework has been usefully expanded by several other

theorists, providing a robust approach to the concept of domination. However, some areas

still lack focus. By capitalising on the capacity of Lukes’ theory to see power as a process, I

hope to explore the role that ‘shaping’ has in this process by focusing on a very specific and

seemingly mundane moment in policy formation. In Chapter 2, however, I set up this analysis

by exploring some of the broader expressions of neoliberalism in Australia, and map a

discursive trajectory to highlight the way in which this rhetoric has attempted to foreground

certain groups and values while ignoring others.

31
 Chapter 2: Neoliberalism and government discourses

of economics in Australia

Analyses and critique of neoliberal ideas, discourses and policies, including in Australia,

have become increasingly more frequent in the past few decades (Cahill, 2013). While the

labelling of any state as ‘neoliberal’ can raise issues of the limits and applications of the term,

a focus on the rhetoric and logic of neoliberal ideas can highlight the influence that they have

had on economic and political discourses more generally. In this chapter I will engage with

critical academic literature on the history and manifestations of neoliberalism in Australia, in

order to map its discursive trajectories, and show how such discourse attempts to centre

certain issues while relegating others to the periphery. As I discussed in the previous chapter,

Lukes frequently uses the terms ‘influencing’, ‘shaping’ and ‘determining’ in his work, but

he only alludes to the complex processes that these terms refer to. By exploring the way in

which neoliberal discourse has been used to represent different interests and actors, I argue

that it is possible to better understand this process of ‘shaping’. My provisional definition of

neoliberalism – based on numerous works cited in this chapter – is a political economic

theory that emerged in opposition to Keynesian policies of market regulation, and attempts to

reify liberal tenets of ‘rational man’ and individual entrepreneurial freedom, through

privatisation of public services, deregulation of existing markets and the implementation of

new markets where they did not otherwise exist (Harvey, 2005). I argue that this definition is

provisional for several reasons. First, it does not take adequate account of specific, context-

bound policies and arguments that, while not always yielding all of these effects, depend on

(and often proliferate) a neoliberal discursive framework. Second, it does not allow enough

space for what Aalbers (2013, p. 1084) refers to as “neoliberalization”, or the ‘process’ rather

than ‘state’ of neoliberalism. Third, it focuses on the economic face of neoliberalism and

ignores the atomising effect that it can have both socially and culturally (Brown, 2015).

32
Fourth, it presents neoliberalism as a class-based theory, and therefore ignores how

thoroughly masculine, colonialist and ableist the culture, discourse and structures of

neoliberalism can be, though this point I will leave for others to discuss (Pusey, 1991; Harris

Rimmer & Sawer, 2016; Connell, 2013; Yu, 2014). Throughout this chapter I will analyse the

discursive components of neoliberalism in Australia to provide more depth and nuance to this

definition, while also highlighting the way in which this discourse attempts to construct a

certain image of society. I will use these discursive components as themes for my analysis in

Chapter 3, in which I will explore the use of neoliberal language in government

documentation as an attempt to ‘shape’ the readings of the Response.

Economic Rationalism

In Australia, neoliberal ideas and policies historically emerged under the banner of

‘economic rationalism’ in the late 1970s and early 80s (Harvey, 2005). While this term took

hold in Australian political discourse before the large-scale adoption of neoliberal policies, it

was the ‘economic rationalists’, (most of them Labor politicians) who, in the late 70s,

espoused the principles of free-trade and regarded themselves as unfettered by emotion,

ideology or a commitment to economic practices on the basis of tradition. They held that

theirs was a position based on reasoned analysis, scientific evidence and, as the name

suggests, rationalism (Quiggin, 1999). While economic rationalism was by no means the first

political economic framework (in Australia or elsewhere), to tout a foundation of reason, it

was advantaged by being named for such an assertion; as the rationalists were rational, their

opponents, by definitional fiat, were irrational (Gates & Steane, 2007).

In the wake of a decade characterised by the oil crises of 1973 and ‘79, the recession

of 1973-1975 and a long period of ‘stagflation’, many countries had lost faith with Keynesian

policies of market regulation, which had been largely unable to mediate high levels of

unemployment, wage stagnation and inflation (Harvey, 2005). As free-market policies gained

33
support throughout the 1980s, and the economic mainstream moved further in the direction of

what is now regarded as neoliberalism, the ‘rationalist’ position moved with it, and began to

espouse more strongly and more ideologically, the virtues of the market (Quiggin, 1999).

Rather than relying on the scepticism that they had previously championed, the rationalists,

Quiggin (1997) argues, increasingly based their arguments on “supposedly self-evident

truths, which were effectively immune from any form of empirical testing”. Supporters of the

framework used the term ‘economic rationalism’ as an expression of approval, thereby

reinforcing the rhetorical assumptions that economic rationalists were indeed rational (Battin,

1992), while other proponents eschewed labelling altogether, claiming instead that they

merely applied mainstream economic principles to policy (Stokes, 2014). Throughout this

period however, many of those politicians and commentators who supported a more laissez-

faire approach, also supported a strong welfare state, although this was often qualified by

workforce casualisation and tax cuts, and so did not conform wholly to either a Keynesian or

a Neoclassical (or neoliberal) approach (Stokes, 2014). While the term was occasionally

deployed in critical contexts throughout the 80s, it was used primarily as a pejorative after the

publication of Michael Pusey’s Economic Rationalism in Canberra in 1991, when critics

used it to refer more and more to a framework of small government, privatisation and a

rolling back of social welfare such as healthcare and tertiary education (Gates & Steane,

2007). Eventually, ‘economic rationalism’ largely gave way to the term ‘neoliberalism’

among detractors in the early 2000s (Stokes, 2014). While ‘economic rationalism’ is still

occasionally used as both a pejorative and a supportive label, it receives less attention than it

once did (Stokes, 2014).

While proponents did not always label themselves as economic rationalists, their

criticisms of opponents and praise of themselves, relied on the same rhetorical dichotomy

between ‘rational’ and ‘irrational’. Upon gaining office in 1983, Prime Minister Bob Hawke

34
stated that his would be a government based on “consensus” (Battin, 1992, p. 12), rather than

the previous era of party politics. This set the discursive tone of much of the decade, which

saw politicians on both sides of politics more frequently adopting a rationalist position on

different issues. In a 1992 newspaper article, former National Party Senator John Stone

advocated for the framework, stating: “economic rationalism is not basically about political

ideology at all (and hence, not about cultural or moral positions either), but chiefly about

what works” (Weekend Australian, 1992, cited in Battin, 1992, p. 13-14, original emphasis).

The corollary of Stone’s assertion is of course that opposing positions are ideological, and do

not work. To the rationalists, government intervention and regulation was equivalent to

“’ideologies of mindless nationalism and selfsufficiency [sic] [and a] fear of the rest of the

world…’” (Whitwell, 1986 p. 259 cited in Battin, 1992, p. 14). This rhetoric could be seen in

arguments within academic community as well. As Stokes (2014) notes, the development and

normalisation of economic rationalism was superimposed onto an existing conflict between

Marxian political economists, and orthodox economists who favoured more liberal (and

eventually neoliberal) policies. Those academics from various heterodox schools often

challenged the amorality of the orthodoxy, and in particular, its disregard for economic and

social inequality. Orthodox economists on the other hand, championed the impartiality and

scepticism of their position, and, in some cases accused their heterodox colleagues of not

being ‘real’ economists (Quiggin, 1999). The conflict then, was about the legitimacy of their

various positions, on one hand, and the ethics on the other.

In addition to relying on an image of impartiality, the rationalists also attempted to

reframe the ‘public interest’ (Battin, 1992). Battin asserts that economic rationalism sought to

construct the economy as the ‘general interest’, while painting interventionist opponents as

‘self-interested’, or acting on behalf of some other ‘vested interest’. Whitwell echoes this in

his analysis of Treasury policy and documentation (1990). He suggests that, implicit in

35
Treasury policy was the belief that “governmental initiatives which try to mould the nature of

economic change will ultimately and inevitably serve to protect existing, or spawn new,

interest groups” (Whitwell, 1990, p. 133, cited in Battin, 1992, p. 16). As I discussed in

Chapter 1, a key element of Lukes’ theory of power is the centrality of ‘interests’, and how

these interests are represented and ‘shaped’. Battin’s and Whitwell’s arguments show that,

for economic rationalism, ‘the public interest’ is an important metric of success, and so the

capacity to define ‘public interest’ is even more important. I will revisit this in Chapters 3 and

4.

Beyond the name itself, ‘economic rationalism’ brought with it a range of rhetorical

tools that helped to legitimise the positions of its proponents, and bring economic issues to

the centre of the political stage. Stokes (2014) notes that, during the consecutive Labor

governments of Bob Hawke and Paul Keating (1983-1996), economic policy debates often

relied on this discourse. He states that:

government ministers, journalists, commentators and ordinary citizens became

accustomed to using a new rhetoric that included references to ‘competition’, ‘level

playing fields’, ‘price signals’ and ‘picking winners’

Stokes, 2014, p. 195

This not only presented the economy as a ‘fairer’ determinant of prices and spending, but

also a more ‘scientific’ one. ‘Efficiency’ also became an important goal and measure of

successful economic policy. Exposing businesses to the ‘discipline’ of the market was

believed to force them to deliver better, cheaper products and services in order to have an

edge over their competitors (Whitwell, 1990, p. 132), and while markets were held to be

inherently efficient, intervention of any sort was inherently inefficient (1990). As Quiggin

(1997) notes, groups like the Business Council of Australia maintained that competition

energised businesses to “‘work harder and work smarter’” (Quiggin, 1997), while critics of

36
such rhetoric rightly identified that harder work for the same wage equates to a pay cut

(1997). Though these policy trends had come out of debates over trade barriers and industry

protectionism, they began to increasingly support industrial relations reforms and the

privatisation of public assets in the late 1980s and early ‘90s (although some of this support

came from conservative think tanks rather than government itself) (Stokes, 2014).

This rhetoric impacted how some politicians presented their duties. Battin describes a

speech given by Nick Greiner to the Liberal Party’s Federal Council in October, 1990. Battin

summarises Greiner’s claim that: “there was no longer any fundamental differences between

the major parties…. Elections in the future would be fought over who had claim to be the

better managers” (Battin, 1992, p. 12). This assertion removed political values and ideologies

from the equation, focusing only the parties’ credentials of economic management. This, in

turn, was treated as a social good, not merely an economic one, as evidenced by the Greiner

Government’s motto: “The N.S.W. Government: Putting People First by Managing Better”

(Battin, 1992, p. 12).

A focus on economic management could also be seen within Canberra bureaucracy

throughout the 1980s, both structurally, in the dispersion of qualifications through different

departments, and symbolically in the attitudes towards different personnel, as explored by

Pusey (1991). He notes that, while the central agencies of Treasury, Finance, and Prime

Minister and Cabinet were populated by a high proportion of so called ‘Senior Executive

Service’ (SES) officers with higher qualifications, the program and service agencies had a far

lower proportion, with the department of Aboriginal Affairs having the lowest (1991). Pusey

also asserts that these central departments tended to have a younger staff who were

overwhelmingly male, many of whom had come from higher socio-economic backgrounds

and a handful of esteemed private schools, and who held (or came to hold) a more

econocentric world view (1991). The program and service agencies on the other hand, were

37
by and large staffed by older employees with a history of public service and more socio-

economically diverse backgrounds, and with a more equal (though still majority male) gender

ratio.

In addition, many of these employees, rather than being university educated, had

learned on the job, and were therefore less inclined to adopt the rationalist perspectives of

their young professional counterparts. To the younger staff, these older employees were seen

as being “’too close to their clients’” (Pusey, 1991, p. 9), a sentiment which reflects the

‘vested-interest’ claims outlined by Battin (1992) and Whitwell (1990). They older staff are

also seen to be incapable of being “‘hard-nosed’” or “taking ‘the broader view’” (Pusey,

1991, p. 9). By contrast, the older employees from the program and services agencies saw the

younger central agencies’ officers as “‘intellectuals’” with little real-world experience

(Pusey, 1991, p. 9), who were “‘ruthless’” (p. 86) and had little regard for the practicality or

impact of their recommendations. They were also seen to by their colleagues to be primarily

concerned with power and influence, and to enjoy having the ear of the Prime Minister.

Interestingly, the central agency officers were, themselves, also concerned with

power. Pusey notes that these officers were “nearly four times more likely to mention the

satisfactions of political influence than were their counterparts in the program departments”

(1991, p. 87), and that this figure was even more concentrated among those who had attended

conservative private schools. This suggests that, with the rise of economic rationalism

(whether coincidentally or causally), the ethic of public service began to shift in Canberra,

towards a younger, male, more affluent, more highly educated workforce with an

increasingly individualistic and econocentric mindset.

‘Microeconomic Reform’

As previously noted, the publication of Pusey’s book in 1991 proliferated a

significantly more negative usage of the term ‘economic rationalism’ than had previously

38
existed (Quiggin, 1997). At around the same time, the Liberal-National Coalition under John

Hewson, brought to the 1993 election a policy package described by some as “the epitome of

economic rationalism” (Stokes, 2014, p. 210), but lost the election in large part because of a

proposed 15% consumption tax which became the target of criticism by the sitting Labor

government (Stokes, 2014). Stokes notes that, in the wake of the election Prime Minister Paul

Keating leaned away from economic rationalist rhetoric, focusing instead on concepts of

citizenship and civic engagement, and developing Australia’s national identity in the face of a

growing discourse of, and interest in globalisation (2014), however, Quiggin asserts that,

rather than being a shift away from rationalism, this period instead saw a shift towards a more

technocratic approach to economic policy (Quiggin, 2005, p. 29). Meanwhile, policy

continued along more or less the same trajectory, with centrally fixed wages giving way to

“’enterprise bargaining’” (Stokes, 2014, p. 212), and a continued reliance on markets to

determine best practices (Beeson & Firth, 1998).

The 1996 election saw the end of 13 years of Labor Government, and the election of

Prime Minister John Howard, whose campaign focused primarily on the length of Labor’s

term in government, combined with its perceived mismanagement of the early 1990s

recession (Hollander, 2008). In the years that followed, the Coalition Government under

Howard reiterated a commitment to what they referred to as “economic liberalism”

(Hollander, 2008, p. 93), escalating many of the previous government’s rationalist policies

through privatisation of the national telecommunications service (Telstra, formerly Telecom),

a consumption tax and a new set of ‘enterprise bargaining’ policies that gave more power to

businesses in their capacity to set wages and dismiss staff (Stokes, 2014). The election of the

Coalition to government also saw a change in the tenor of economic policy from the Labor

years. While Labor’s economic policy was tempered, for the most part, by a commitment to a

strong welfare state and a reliance on the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) for

39
support, the Coalition quickly sought a reduction or modification in many aspects of

government service provision, usually applied under the euphemistic label of

‘microeconomic reforms’ (O’Neill & Fagan, 2006). Tuohy (2012), explores the rhetoric of

‘reform’, noting that, while marketisation is often described in lucrative terms of ‘growth’,

‘production’ and ‘expansion’, social spending is rarely described as ‘development’ or

‘improvement’ within this rhetoric, and is instead cast either euphemistically (with public

sector job cuts regarded as ‘reform’ or ‘cutting red tape’), or negatively, with social spending

treated as a ‘cost’. For the Coalition, these ‘reforms’ came in the form of significant

reductions in public spending, the implementation of work-based welfare programs and a

reduction in the capacity for collective bargaining of workers (O’Neill & Fagan, 2006).

While the Howard Government made some reductions in the welfare state, its tenure was also

characterised, interestingly, by numerous subsidies for education, child care and medical

care. However, these were all targeted at private services. This had the effect not only of

improving the Coalition’s base of support, but also reducing the appeal of public services,

which in turn lead to more people using private services, and justified greater cuts to public

funding (Cahill, 2007; Cranston, Kimber, Mulford, Reid & Keating, 2010).

Competition Policy

The vast majority of ‘microeconomic reforms’ followed on from the establishment,

by the previous Labor Government, of a National Competition Policy framework (NCP). In

1992, the Government commissioned an inquiry into the existing competition legislation in

Australia, with a view to developing policy more in line with its rationalist position. The

National Competition Policy Review Report (nicknamed the Hilmer report, after the chair of

the committee, and the policy forebear of the Harper Review) was published in 1993, and

made broad recommendations across a range of policy areas, designed to abolish government

monopolies and avoid practices that were seen as restricting competition between businesses

40
(Valentine, 1999) While the federal government had already made many policy shifts in

favour of competitive markets and privatisation, most of these policies did not have

jurisdiction over the states, which had ownership over enterprises that had moved towards

more market oriented activities (King, 1997). As well as impacting policy design in many

government departments at both state and federal levels, the report influenced the discursive

framework of economic rationalism, giving life to a new language of economic rhetoric. The

review and its recommendations came to be known by the shorthand ‘Hilmer’ among

economists and bureaucrats, with the term being used both for the policy package as a whole,

and for the individual recommendations, particularly in regards to the public sector (Quiggin,

1997). It was also used by some to express their opposition to the recommendations or the

method of their implementation. Because of the terms of the report and its implementation

through the newly formed Council of Australian Governments (COAG), few of the

recommendations were subject to any feedback from public sector employees or members of

the Canberra bureaucracy. Quiggin notes that:

’Hilmer’ is seen by many as a policy imposed from above without consultation, and

competition policy is regarded as a codeword for increased work intensity and

reduced job security.

Quiggin, 1997

As Quiggin’s analysis shows, this rhetoric was deployed by both supporters and opponents of

the review. On a more general level, Kolsen (1996) explores how the terms ‘microeconomic

reform’ and ‘National Competition Policy’ quickly developed a sort of capital beyond their

deployment in actual policy realms, such that any microeconomic reform, and all the Hilmer

recommendations were seen by some people as positive in their own right, rather than being

assessed in terms of their likely outcomes (Kolsen, 1996). A rhetoric also evident in the

41
Government Response to the Competition Policy Review, which I will analyse in the

following chapter. He elaborates:

NCP is an important part of microeconomic reform; however, the theory which lies

behind the concept of economic efficiency does not yield simple, unambiguous

conclusions which can be applied to policy.

Kolsen, 1996, p.83

This is evidenced by the numerous bodies of oversight that were established to ‘facilitate’

competition at different levels of the economy. Kolsen asserts too that, because the Australian

Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) attempted to follow the core principles set

out in Hilmer as closely as possible, circumstances were likely to arise where absolute faith

in the efficiency of competition would produce less efficient scenarios, because of what he

describes as “the characteristics of duopoly structures” (Kolsen, 1996, p. 84). Ambiguities

also lay in the specific wording of aspects of Hilmer. In particular, the provision of ‘access to

essential facilities’ stated that conditions of access must be “’fair and reasonable’” (Kolsen,

1996, p. 84), but provided no metric for assessing this reasonableness. The effect was to

reproduce the biases of fairness and reasonableness in the reader, and potentially lead to

conflict over different readings (1996). While these issues are by no means catastrophic

failings of the report, what they indicate is a move away from the rationalism espoused by the

earlier generation of ‘rationalists’, towards an ideological approach that give prima facie

importance to certain concerns (competition being chief among them), without properly

interrogating the circumstances under which these can be beneficial or detrimental. As

Valentine (1999) asserts, the Hilmer review, “is both a blueprint for change and an

ideological statement on competition reform” (p.26).

In part then, the role of NCP can be seen (whether intentionally or not) to have

legitimated the existing ideologies of the rationalists, through both structural adjustments and

42
discursive changes to the role of government. Increasingly, the economy and the market were

treated as self-regulating ‘actors’. Valentine (1999) explores this in detail. Central to NCP

was, of course, the role of competition. Because competition was seen as being the best

driver of production and efficiency, policy dictated that it should be introduced, wherever

possible, to replace government monopolies, particularly in the areas of utility delivery,

education, aged care and healthcare, all of which had been seen, before the adoption of

economic rationalism, as an extension of the responsibilities of government to its citizens

(Valentine, 1999). As Pusey (1991) notes, this was particularly characteristic of Australia,

and was a foundational ethic at the time of federation. In the wake of rationalism, and

particularly NCP, the role of government changed in economic and policy discourse.

Increasingly, the market was seen to be the best service provider, while the duty of

government was to protect private wealth (through law enforcement and military), protect the

freedoms of the market (by challenging organised labor and restricting collective bargaining)

and neutral analyst of regulatory action (to ensure that, competition is only restricted if doing

so can be shown to provided public benefit that outweighs the cost of losing competition)

(Valentine, 1999). Valentine further argues that, if the role of the government under NCP was

to be a neutral judge, advocating for neither public nor private ownership of an industry, and

thereby discounting its own role, it would also be discounting its capacity to advocate for the

public good through service provisions (1999). This was reflected in the ‘The Principles and

Guidelines for National Standard Setting and Regulatory Action’, one of the three documents

that made up NCP. These guidelines set out criteria for assessing the costs and benefits of

anti-competition regulation, but only allowed for assessments to be made in “economic

terms” (Valentine, 1999, p. 28). No criteria were provided for qualitative assessment of social

costs, beyond the economic costs that these social impacts may have.

43
 This also had the effect of presenting citizens as responsible for their own welfare,

through their role as consumers. Valentine identifies this trend in NCP documentation, where

citizens are, overwhelmingly, referred to as consumers, and are atomised through the

representation of individual relationships with producers, rather than collective relationships

with other citizens (1999). He asserts that this representation tied the value of citizens to their

economic capacity. Successful producers were valuable because of their contributions to the

market and their inclination to turn a profit, while consumers were valuable because they

provided a market for consumers, but because of the lack of tools to analyse the qualitative

aspects of value, citizens who did not fit this economic framework were largely invisible

from documentation. The economic focus of NCP and the government masked both the

social fallout of policy changes, and the citizens who were disadvantaged by them (Valentine,

1999). This is a core theme of neoliberal discourse and can be seen as an effort to redefine the

role of the individual and their interests. I will explore use of this theme in the Government

Response to the Competition Policy Review in Chapter 3.

Neoliberal Australia and the Welfare State

The Hilmer report influenced government policy throughout the Howard

Government’s tenure, and helped to shape many aspects of Australia’s current political and

social landscape, perhaps most notably in the abandonment of full employment, and adoption

of low interest rates, as policy goals (Mitchell & Muysken, 2008), reflecting a mindset that

sees citizens as being responsible for their own wellbeing, and governments as being

responsible for guaranteeing an economic environment that facilitates entrepreneurship

(Battin, 1992). Wilson, Spies-Butcher, Stebbing and St John (2013), describe this as the

“hollowing out” of Australia’s welfare state. They note that, income support in particular has

been radically changed under the regime of economic rationalism. While Australia’s welfare

state remains strong in comparison to many other OECD countries, unemployment support

44
has failed to keep up with living costs, and ‘workfare’ programs, welfare waiting periods and

increased supervision of recipients have contributed to a perception of unemployed people as

being responsible for their own circumstances (Wilson et al., 2010; Stonehouse, Threlkeld &

Farmer, 2015). In addition, the increased funding of private industries has led to what Cahill

(2007) describes as “state subsidization of the already privileged” (p. 226), coupled with a

system that increasingly conforms to a ‘user pays’ framework. Because of the lack of

centralised wage setting, and diminished collective bargaining, these changes have, according

to Wilson et al., (2010), primarily affected wage earners, whose position is already made

precarious by an increasingly casualised workforce. The remaining welfare state is

increasingly regarded on its costs and benefits to the economy, rather than to society more

broadly. This is particularly evident in funding cuts to disability services and frontline

services for domestic violence, which are more difficult to justify on a purely economic basis

(Harris Rimmer & Sawer, 2016). Nonetheless, and despite rising levels of inequality since

the beginning of economic rationalist policy formation, Australia’s welfare state has suffered,

but endured (Spies-Butcher, 2014).

The deep roots of the Australian welfare system, as well as the public backlash

against sudden and serious threats against it, complicate the narrative of neoliberalism, and

present challenges for applying this label to Australia. Spies-Butcher (2014) describes instead

the “dual welfare state” of Australia (p. 186). He notes that, despite funding of private service

delivery and cuts to the public system, Australia still has a relatively strong welfare state.

However, these public services exist alongside a developing system based on a liberal, rather

than egalitarian ethic of delivery. This second system of privately operated services receive

government subsidies, while offering a non-means tested delivery of service. In other words,

their services are equally available to the lowest, and higher income earners. Meanwhile, the

public system has remained means tested, but has become increasingly paternalistic and

45
supervisory (Higgins, 2014). Spies-Butcher concludes that, while this dual welfare system

emerged as an attempt to reconcile rising inequality, an economic rationalist ideology and

Australia’s existing welfare state, it has resulted in a system that applies a supervisory and

paternalistic regime to more marginalised groups, while essentially rewarding the wealthy

(2014). This dynamic is at risk of intensifying in the future.

‘Neoliberalization’ and the invasion of neoliberalism into non-economic

spheres

If Spies-Butcher’s (2014), and Wilson et al’s (2010) analyses highlight the problems

in applying the label of neoliberalism to Australia, then Aalbers (2013) concept of

‘neoliberalization’ provides a more useful approach to understanding Australia’s political,

economic and social layout. Two years after his election in 2007, Prime Minister Kevin

Rudd, having taken office on the eve of the financial crisis, wrote an essay which blamed the

crash on the failure of global markets and, notably, on the ideology of “neo-liberalism”

(Rudd, 2009, cited in Stokes, 2014, p. 211). Despite this indictment, many of the policies that

Rudd proposed and implemented throughout his term, conformed to a neoliberal standard.

For example, in an effort to tackle climate change and reduce greenhouse emissions, Rudd

proposed an ‘emissions trading scheme’ (ETS), which would allow businesses to buy and sell

‘carbon credits’, rewarding low emitters and leverage a cost on high emitters through the

‘discipline’ of the market. This non-linear trajectory of neoliberalism reflects Aalbers’ (2013)

principle. ‘Neoliberalization’, he notes, presents neoliberalism as a process, rather than a

condition. Even those policies that operate against the logic of neoliberalism, such as many

of the Keynesian solutions to the financial crisis that bailed out many firms and protected

them from the ‘discipline’ of the market, are often deployed in an effort to protect existing

structures, values or theories of neoliberalism (2013). The focus of Aalbers concept is the

underlying ideological aspects of neoliberalism, rather than just neoliberal policies or

46
institutions. While Australia does not clearly conform to a neoliberal model, there is, a

durable undercurrent of neoliberal values; one that allowed Rudd to speak out against the

ideology, then implement its principles.

These values of neoliberalism stretch beyond the limits of economic policy rhetoric,

permeating many different facets of society. In particular, it has demanded that individuals

and families engage with global financial trends and complex economic phenomena in their

day to day life (Allon, 2011). Increasingly, middle-class Australians are expected to manage

an economic portfolio that can include multiple loans, assets and investments. Not only does

this reflect a shift towards individual relationships between citizens and markets, external to

the role of the state, it also echoes the responsibility that individuals are expected to take over

their retirement and social welfare, rather than relying on dwindling public services (Allon,

2011). This culture of “’citizen-speculator’” (Allon, 2010, p. 366) has been thrown into stark

relief in the years following the financial crisis, particularly in the U.S. In the years leading

up to the GFC, individuals and families were encouraged, throw low interest rates and loose

loaning practices, to buy houses, both as first homes and as investments. After the crash,

these investors were portrayed both as the hapless victims of the crisis, manipulated by

greedy banks and irresponsible loan agencies, and as the naïve, selfish perpetrators, who, in

an effort to climb up the housing ladder or make a quick buck, overextended themselves and

paid the price3 (Allon, 2010).

Home ownership and the household are by no means the limit of this trend. McGloin

and Stirling (2011) recognise the impact of competing discourse of the economy and service

provision, on the culture of academia. They note that, while governments have attempted to

implement strategies within universities to improve accessibility for indigenous students,

3
Or didn’t, as the case may be.

47
migrant students and students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, teachers and staff are

required to interpret these initiatives alongside a rhetorical focus on financial viability and

commodification of degrees, which often leaves qualitative metrics such as student

experience and inclusivity by the wayside (2011). Similarly, Wardman (2016) examines the

discursive construction of school students as ‘productive’, ‘disciplined’ members of society,

and how this reflects similar discourses of economic citizens (2016). Numerous other studies

explore the same theme, from immigration (Yu, 2014), to medicine and the clinical space

(Plastow, 2010), Reflecting a discursive trend that interprets more and more social spaces

through an economic lens. Increasingly, neoliberal discourse has been used to reimagine

social issues as economic issues, and social actors as economic actors.

Conclusion

While Australia’s deployment of neoliberal policies has been erratic and uneven

across different areas, the discourse of neoliberalism is ever present. It has historically been

used to construct economic interests as the public interest, and challenge the ‘vested interests’

of unionism, industry protectionism and government intervention into the market. More

recently, this rhetoric has canonised competition as a core determinant of public and private

‘good’ through increased consumer choice and lower cost products and services, and fairer

markets for businesses. It has also presented economies and markets as self-sufficient

‘agents’ that operate most efficiently without intervention. These discursive trends attempt to

construct a certain image of society which is econocentric and atomised yet made ‘more

efficient’ and ‘more equal’ by the governance of competition. In the following chapter I will

apply these discursive themes as lenses for analysis to explore the specific use of rhetoric in

the Government Response to the Competition Policy Review.

48
 Chapter 3: Exploring the articulation of neoliberal

discourse in government policy

As Chapter 2 shows, government discourse in Australia has undergone a process of

‘neoliberalization’ (Aalbers, 2013) over the past three decades, that foregrounds some issues

and groups, while largely ignoring others. Although this has not always reflected the realities

of Government policy – Australia has retained a relatively robust welfare state compared to

many other ‘neoliberal’ countries (Spies-Butcher, 2014) – it has nonetheless changed the way

many aspects of society are represented and discussed. It has also arguably stifled the

emergence of competing discourses, or forced them to be framed in economic terms (Yu,

2014). As I discussed in Chapter 1, analysing these discursive techniques – ‘framing’,

recontextualising, translating etc. – provides a valuable opportunity to explore Lukes’ theory

of power and refocus his conceptual lens while developing a deeper understanding of the

power of policy documentation. In this chapter I will undertake a case study of the the

Response to explore the articulation of neoliberal discourse in policy documentation. I will

also examine the role of policy and the ‘policy cycle’, and discuss my choice of

documentation. This case study lays the groundwork for Chapter 4, in which I will explore

how this analysis illustrates the concept of ‘shaping’ in Lukes’ three-dimensional view of

power, and discuss whether this case study can meaningfully add to his framework.

Reading Policy

Making assertions about the discursive ‘impact’ of policy is contentious: treating

policy documentation as simply a blueprint of the intentions of Government neglects the

multiple readings that different audiences will produce (Codd, 1988; Ball, 1993). Moreover,

to claim that the discourse deployed in a document like the Response will have a direct and

hegemonic impact on the public imaginary is to ignore the way in which such discourse is

49
sharpened, qualified, challenged and interpreted through various peak bodies, NGOs,

advocacy groups and media organisations. After all, the Response, while being far briefer

than the Harper Review is still unlikely to be read by the general public, and so the influence

that it has will be tempered by a variety of readers with a variety of readings; as Ball notes,

“Some texts are never even read first hand” (1993, p. 12). Of course, this is not to say that

such a document cannot have an impact on the public, nor that this impact cannot be subtle or

even invisible. Rather, it means that this process will not necessarily be straightforward or

direct.

Codd (1988) offers an insight into one of the ways to think about policy

documentation. He begins by critiquing what he identifies as the “technical-empiricist

approach to policy analysis” (p. 235). This approach, according to Codd, treats policy

documents as “expressions of political purpose” (p. 237), that indicate a plan of action for

governments and other participants in the enactment of policy. The role of a technical-

empiricist policy analyst is therefore to attempt to discern the ‘real’ intentions of the ‘author’

of the document – separating the ‘correct’ interpretations from the ‘incorrect’ ones – and to

evaluate the likely effectiveness of the proposed policies (1988). Codd rejects this approach.

He argues that reading a document through what the reader perceives are the author’s

intentions, rather than the text of the document itself, relies on an idealistic relationship

between text and meaning that ignores the context of reading. In other words, by shackling

the meaning of a document to the author’s intentions, the analyst denies the validity of

different interpretations of the text. Identifying a single ‘author’ or a single ‘intention’ is a

problem in itself, but I will return to that shortly. Codd suggests that: “Instead of searching

for authorial intentions, perhaps the proper task of policy analysis is to examine the different

effects that documents have in the production of meaning by readers” (1988, p. 239). This

echoes Barthes’ concept of the ‘death of the Author’ (1977, cited in Codd, 1988, p. 239). His

50
focus therefore, is the many ways in which a policy document is read, rather than the

narrower context in which it is written.

While I think Codd is right not to give primacy to authorial intentions, I think he goes

too far in the other direction, largely neglecting the complex role of the ‘author’ when

analysing the meaning of a document. Policy can be thought of as a process rather than

simply a set of institutions and actors. It involves stages of issue identification, drafting and

redrafting, resource management, implementation and impact analysis (Althaus, Bridgman &

Davis, 2013). In addition, there may be numerous authors at different stages of the process

with competing intentions, and these authors may be hidden from the final product, or

subsumed under a departmental masthead.

Codd is right to assert that these stages involve significant amounts of interpretation

on the part of readers, but he himself notes that “policies are produced in response to the

failure of other policies” (Codd, 1988, p. 237). This means that, if a policy document is not

interpreted and implemented ‘correctly’, it is likely that the ‘reading’ intended by the authors

will find its way into a new document. Of course, this is not to say that such a reading should

be treated by analysts as correct simply because it conforms to the author’s interpretation,

only that this interpretation should not be discounted altogether. Ball sums this up concisely:

“…authors cannot control the meanings of their texts – policy authors do make concerted

efforts to assert such control by the means at their disposal” (1993, p. 11).

Ball’s approach provides an opportunity to consider the importance of both the

author’s and readers’ interpretations, while giving neither side the final word. He agrees with

Codd, that policies are read in multiple contexts by multiple audiences, producing multiple

interpretations. However, he also notes that these contexts and audiences are determined at

least in part by the efforts of the author, often through the use of particular rhetorical styles or

jargon, or through the representation of different interest groups and, importantly, the

51
omission of others. Simply put, policies “...create circumstances in which the range of

options available in deciding what to do are narrowed or changed” (Ball, 1993, p. 12). In

addition, while it is perhaps too simplistic to treat policy documents as blueprints of

Government intent, they can be considered to be evidence of what Ball calls “the

micropolitics of legislative formulation” (1993, p. 11). They indicate (or more often, try to

conceal) the debates and discussions that take place within and between government

departments about whose interests will be represented and prioritised in the document, and

how this will take place. This can produce not only a plurality of readings among readers, but

also a plurality of readings among authors.

There is an opportunity, therefore, to analyse policy documents neither as the material

expression of Government policy initiatives, nor as interpreted and challenged readings of

audiences, but as an attempt by the author – or more likely, authors – to produce certain

readings, to include and exclude certain audiences, and to prioritise certain interest groups.

Analysing a document of the policy process in this way also foregrounds this processual

characteristic of policy. Whereas focusing on ‘reading’ can see a document as a ‘static’

artifact, a focus on ‘writing’ highlights the steps that come before and after the ‘moment’ of

the document. It also highlights the processual nature of power in policy. This case study

therefore explores Lukes’ third dimension of power in prospect, rather than in retrospect; the

impact of the document can tell us whether an attempt to exert power is successful, but the

discourse itself can tell us whether the attempt has been made in the first place.

Why choose the Response?

How then can an analysis of Government Response to the Competition Policy Review

explore this process? And why choose the Response rather than the Harper Review itself, or

more specific policy papers? These are important questions. After all, and despite my

discussion of ‘policy documentation’, the Response is neither legislation nor an analysis of

52
existing policy (like the Harper Review). Despite this, it plays an important role. In

‘responding’ to the Harper Review, the Government is engaging in a sort of knowledge

translation. This can be seen in a number of ways.

First, the Response takes a 548-page review and trims it down to a tidy 52-pages,

while still managing to address each of the recommendations made by the Harper Review.

This makes the Response far more accessible for many readers, while retaining the ‘most

important’ parts of the review, and canonising them as such by reproducing them within

Government documentation.

Second, the Government has excluded the vast majority of the arguments and

justifications for each of the recommendations to produce a document that reads in a more

‘managerial’ way; it has done the job of interpreting the arguments and weighing the

evidence for each recommendation, so the reader need not.

Third, by omitting the arguments of the Review and ‘filtering’ sections that do not

conform to the Government’s position, the conclusions of the Response are made more

difficult to interrogate, as the ‘thought-process’ of the author(s) is concealed. This presents

these conclusions as self-evident.

Fourth, because the Response is authored by members of the Government, rather than

merely commissioned by it, it necessarily represents the Government’s interests, but it also

represents the Government’s view of others’ interests. This means that even those parts of the

Response that are close or identical to the Review are reformed within this new context, and

are therefore part of an attempt by the Government to shape the ‘reading’ of the document,

and the beliefs, opinions and possible responses of readers. This also conveys them

governmental legitimacy.

While I refer to ‘the Government’, it is important to remember Ball’s point that, the

Response does not represent a single, cohesive point of view shared by all members of the

53
Government, nor the view of a single author. Rather, it was likely written by multiple people

through numerous processes of consultation, debate and redrafting, and probably represents a

compromise of numerous conflicting perspectives that have been deliberately hidden from

view in a document that attempts to present an otherwise uniform narrative. This in itself

would be an interesting topic for investigation, but, for my purposes, I will continue to refer

to the Response as having been authored by ‘the Government’ for the sake of brevity. After

all, and despite any conflicts that took place during its composition, the Response has still

been published on behalf of the Government as a whole, and therefore is read ‘through’ the

legitimacy of the Government.

Because of the transitional nature of the Response – it translates the Harper Review

into several more specific future policy documents – it is likely to be overlooked by other

analysts. After all, once these specific policy documents are released its purpose will have

been served. These smaller ‘steps’ tend to disappear from view when the policy process

moves past them, which is another reason why the Response should be scrutinised now while

it is relatively recent, and before focus is shifted to the legislative documents that stem from

it.

Commission of the Harper Review and Context of the Response

In the lead up to the 2013 federal election, the Liberal-National Coalition included in

its electoral platform, a promise to review of Australia’s competition policy (Our Plan, 2013).

After winning the election, the Coalition Government made its announcement of a “root and

branch” review (Billson, 2013), releasing the Terms of Reference and announcing the review

panel early in 2014. The panel consisted of four people, Professor Ian Harper, Peter

Anderson, Su McCluskey and Michael O’Bryan, QC. Their experience ranges from

academia, business government and competition law, with McCluskey and Anderson having

worked with various industry peak bodies, and Harper serving as the former chair of the

54
Australian Fair Pay Commission (The Harper Review, 2015). The panel released a draft

report in 2014 and, after a round of consultation with business, community and consumer

advocacy groups, published the final report in 2015 (The Harper Review, 2015). The

Government released its Response to the Competition Policy Review towards the end of

2015, supporting 39 of the 56 recommendations in full or principle, 5 in part and noting or

‘remaining open’ to 12 recommendations (The Response, 2015). While the Response does

include any policy outlines itself, it indicates areas where the Government intends to

implement policies, and points to other white papers, committees and reviews in which some

of these policies are covered in more detail. In this sense, it looks forward by discussing

future policy plans, as well as backwards, by responding directly to the Harper Review. This

highlights the specific role that it plays in the policy production process, and shows how such

a document can be seen as a ‘moment’ within this broader process. By focusing on this

document, I hope to provoke others to look more closely at individual documents within

longer policy narratives, as this sort of close analysis will be able to complement existing

studies that follow Codd’s approach, while considering the ways in which authors attempt to

exert control over the readings of their texts.

Recommendations of the Harper Review

The Harper Review was commissioned to highlight areas of microeconomic reform

and to evaluate Australia’s 20-year-old National Competition Policy. In contextualising its

recommendations, the Review identifies several challenges that it sees as potentially

impacting the Australian economy and affecting the suitability of competition policy in the

future. These challenges are: the economic growth of Asian countries, the ageing Australian

population and new advances in digital technologies that upset existing modes of service

delivery, or existing markets. It argues that in order to adapt to these changes, Australia’s

policies have to be ‘fit for purpose’ based on the criteria of:

55
  making markets work in the long-term interests of consumers;

 [fostering] diversity, choice and responsiveness in government services;

 [encouraging] innovation, entrepreneurship, and the entry of new players;

 [promoting] efficient investment in and use of infrastructure and natural resources;

 [including] competition laws and regulations that are clear, predictable and reliable;

and

 [securing] necessary standards of access and equity.

The Harper Review, 2015, p 23

These criteria establish the goals of the Review.

The Harper Review makes 56 recommendations grouped into 5 different areas of

reform Recommendations 1 to 21 refer to areas of reform in competition policy including in

human services, transport, ride-sharing, intellectual property, zoning and planning, utilities

and retail regulations. Recommendations 22 to 42 refer to areas of reform in the Competition

and Consumer Act 2010 including simplifications and the removal of sections that the

Review argues are redundant or limit competition unnecessarily. Recommendations 43 to 52

refer to changes to institutional structures to sustain enduring reform, including

recommendations for the establishment of new institutions, combining existing institutions

and abolishing roles that the Review sees as limiting competition. Recommendations 53 and

54 refer to reform in areas of concern raised by small business during the consultation period

of the Review process including the capacity for collective bargaining among small business

Recommendations 55 and 56 refer to the implementation process for the other 54

recommendations. Of these 56 recommendations, the government supports 39 in full or in

principle, 5 in part and (somewhat euphemistically) ‘remains open’ to the remaining 12

recommendations (The Response, 2015). A close analysis of the discourse in the Response is

necessary to look beyond these recommendations to the subtler aspects of the document.

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Themes of Analysis

In Chapter 2 I explored the concepts of neoliberalism and “neoliberalization”

(Aalbers, 2013), and discussed the discursive history of neoliberalism in Australia. As I

asserted in that chapter, this discourse has produced an image of society as consisting of

interactions between ‘consumers’ or ‘customers’, and ‘businesses’ or ‘producers’. Not only

does this ignore all social interactions that have no economic component, but it also conceals

the economic roles within these interactions. Most notable is the absence of the ‘wage

earners’ that facilitate these relationships. In addition, neoliberal discourse constructs

markets and economic processes as productive agents, or affords them primacy over non-

economic processes and structures. this image that can be seen in assertions such as

“competition energises enterprise” (The Response, 2015 p. 1). When these economic

structures and processes are presented as the subjects of sentences, they are also presented as

having agency and therefore not requiring human (or more importantly, government)

intervention and oversight (Brown, 2015). In this case study I will use these components of

neoliberal discourse (the ‘consumer/producer’ theme and the ‘agency of economy’ theme) as

lenses for my analysis.

Analysis of the Australian Government Response to the Competition

Policy Review

While the details of which recommendations the Government plans to enact offers

some insight into the agenda present in the Response, it is important to engage more closely

with the discursive features of the document. As Codd notes, treating the text as a transparent

communicator of meaning belies the multitude of readings that different readers will produce

(1988). By looking beyond ‘what’ is said to ‘how’ it is said, it is possible to explore the

attempts made by the authors to produce certain readings, and in doing so, to assert power

over the readers that shapes their opinions and values.

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‘Consumer/Producer’ Theme

It is to be expected that, as a document that addresses competition policy, the

Response is econocentric in its use of language. However, this language is not neutral; it

implicitly foregrounds some interests and some groups – or more specifically, some

representations of these interests and groups – while ignoring others. This can be seen in

several ways. First, the response renders the public in economic terms only. Categories such

as ‘seniors’ or ‘senior citizens’, ‘parents’, ‘children’, ‘family’ or ‘families’, ‘citizens’ and

other social groups are absent from the document.4

Second, the actors that are discussed in the Response are constructed not only in

economic terms, but in transactional terms: as ‘consumers’ of goods and services on the one

hand, and the ‘businesses’ who produce these goods and services on the other hand.

Indicative of this is the frequency with which the term ‘consumer’ appears in the text,

compared to ‘wage’, ‘employee’ or ‘labour’ (or their declensions). ‘Consumer’ appears 33

times, excluding in the titles of Government acts or advocacy organisations, and ‘business’

appears 48 times as a noun, excluding in the title of positions (such as Small Business

Commissioner). By contrast, there are zero mentions of ‘wage’, 1 mention each of

‘employees’ and ‘staff’, and zero mentions of ‘labour’ outside of the phrase ‘labour

productivity’ (mentioned twice). The Harper Review explains this use of terminology. It

states that:

Consumers in this context are not just retail consumers or households but include

businesses transacting with other businesses. In the realm of government services,

consumers can be patients, welfare recipients, parents of school-age children or users

of the national road network.

4
The term ‘citizens’ appears once, in reference to the Response’s focus on “the economic welfare of

Australians, not citizens of other countries” (The Response, 2015, p. 21).

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 The Harper Review, 2015, p. 23

This explanation highlights the overt econocentrism of the Harper Review; various different

groups are literally redefined as consumers. However, the absence of such a statement from

from the Response treats this redefinition as an assumption: it is already latent within the

document.

Third, references to the public in collective terms are accompanied by assertions of

how they will benefit from increased competition. For example, the ‘Foreword’ states that the

reforms discussed in the response will promote: “more dynamic, competitive and well-

functioning markets for the benefit of all Australians” (The Response, 2015, p. v), this

constructs the ‘public interest’ as primarily (if not purely) economic.

Fourth, and following on from the previous three points, this reference to ‘all

Australians’, ‘the public’ or ‘the community as a whole’ is not an indication of the inclusivity

of the document, but is in fact an extrapolation of the economic individual – the consumer –

to the economic collective – the public. The discussion of consumers and business only,

coupled with the frequent references to the public benefits of ‘competition’ highlights the

lack of focus on groups and interests outside of this framework. ‘All Australians’, then, does

not refer to a diverse group with diverse interests and concerns, but a homogenous group of

consumers and businesses with singular, economic interests. I will discuss the implications of

these representations in the following chapter.

The primacy of consumers and consumer interests is clear throughout the response.

Aside from the numerous mentions of ‘consumers’ compared to other groups, the

‘competition principles’ outlined in ‘Recommendation 1’ of the Harper Review and

supported in the Response state that: “Competition policies, laws and institutions should

promote the long term interests of consumers”, and that “Governments should promote

consumer choice when funding, procuring or providing goods and services and enable

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informed choices by consumers” (The Harper Review, 2015, p. 33; The Response, 2015, p.

3). Similarly, in describing previous reforms to human services, the Response states that:

“These examples are models of consumer choice which can lead to better outcomes for

individuals and the community” (The Response, 2015, p. 4). These two excerpts illustrate a

concept present throughout the Response: that which benefits consumers, benefits the

community.

The exception to this is the ‘public interest test’, which is the metric provided in both

documents, against which restrictions to competition must be measured. It states that

restrictions should only be put in place if: “the benefits of the restriction to the community as

a whole outweigh the costs”, and “the objectives of the legislation can only be achieved by

restricting competition” (The Harper Review 2015, p. 45; The Response 2015, p. 9). The

inclusion of this ‘test’ is the only indication in the Response that the community’s ‘interests’

can lie outside of competition. And even then, these interests should only be pursued if there

is no other way to achieve them than the restriction of competition.

The ‘public interest test’ illustrates an important aspect of the Response’s ‘translation’

of the Harper Review. When discussing the ‘public interest test’, the Harper Review also

references the community consultation that took place as part of the review process. It notes

two submissions that take issue with the wording of the ‘test’. The first, from Marsden Jacob

Associates suggests that in the second limb, the word ‘best’ should replace the word ‘only’,

to read “the objectives of the legislation can [best] be achieved by restricting competition”

(The Harper Review, 2015, p. 97). Similarly, the second submission, from The Pharmacy

Guild of Australia suggests that the word ‘only’ should be replaced by the words ‘most

efficient’. While the Harper Review concludes that the test does not need to be changed, the

inclusion of these submissions reveals the conflicting interests that exist in the policy process.

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By ‘filtering out’ this content, the Response presents the ‘test’ as an unproblematic guarantor

of efficiency, and ignores the very real ‘interests’ that seek to change the ‘test’.

When discussing the merits of competition (whether to consumers, business or the

community), the Response generally refers to two main benefits. The first is greater

efficiency in business, leading to high quality, low price goods and services. ‘Efficiency’ and

its declensions appear 23 times in the text, excluding the titles of reports. The second is

greater product choice, driven by a plurality of providers competing over market share.

‘Choice’ appears 13 times in the text, ‘flexible/flexibility’ appears 5 times and ‘innovate’ and

its declensions appear 14 times. In addition, these benefits are placed at the forefront of the

document, as can be seen in this excerpt from the ‘Foreword’:

Effective competition encourages businesses to pursue efficiencies, rewarding the

most innovative and dynamic that provide the best services at the lowest cost. It also

benefits households by giving them more and better products and services to choose

from at lower prices.

The Response, 2015, p. v

The foregrounding of these benefits often shifts others to the periphery, or treats them

as byproducts of either choice or efficiency. ‘Recommendation 2: Human Services’ states

that: “User choice should be placed at the heart of service delivery”, and “Innovation in

service provision should be stimulated, while ensuring minimum standards of quality and

access in human services” (The Harper Review, 2015, p. 36; The Response, 2015, p. 4). In

supporting this recommendation, the Response is both reframing the human services sector in

economic terms (by assessing it through the metrics of competition) and making user choice

a central focus of the sector. In addition, while ‘quality’ and ‘access’ are both mentioned, the

use of ‘minimum standards’ frames them as regulatory requirements of ‘innovation’, rather

than goals or values in their own right.

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 Once again, this is made clearer by noting what has been removed in the ‘translation’

from Harper Review to Response. The Harper Review notes that:

Access to high-quality human services – including health, education and community

services – is vital to the lives of all Australians. Good health makes it easier for

people to participate in society; education can help put people on a better life

pathway; and quality community services, including aged care and disability care and

support, can provide comfort, dignity and increased opportunities to vulnerable

Australians.

The Harper Review, 2015, p. 34

In this paragraph, ‘access’ and ‘quality’ are given clear value without mentioning ‘choice’,

‘innovation’ and ‘efficiency’. While these latter values are (unsurprisingly) the focus of the

following paragraphs of the Harper Review, this paragraph reveals a recognition of interests

beyond ‘user choice’. Its omission from the Response is therefore significant. Similarly, the

Harper Review states that: “Special consideration is also needed to empower people with

multiple disadvantages or severe disadvantage to exercise effective choice” (The Harper

Review, 2015, p. 235). This statement, too, is absent from the Response, but presumably it is

this to which ‘minimum standards of quality and access’ refers. Of course, ‘equality’,

‘affordability’ and ‘accountability’ are absent from the ‘human services’ sections of both

documents, so ‘innovation’, ‘choice’ and ‘efficiency’ remain clear priorities. It is notable, for

example, that neither document states that quality, affordability and access should be placed

at the heart of service delivery, while maintaining minimum standards of choice and

innovation.

As the second quote above illustrates, ‘choice’ is also presented in both documents as

‘empowering’ people. Similarly, the Response states that simplifying competition laws will

strengthen “incentives to innovate, empowering consumers, and promoting better use of an

62
investment in infrastructure” (The Response, 2015, p. 1). This treats the ‘consumer’ role as

fundamental to people’s identities, such that exercising their choice of products and services

is seen by both documents as a form of self-actualisation.

The references throughout the Response to ‘the public’, ‘the community as a whole’

and particularly ‘all Australians’ reflects the use of a ‘national interest’ discourse as well as

the more managerial, economistic discourse that permeates the document. At times, these

discourses come in to conflict. This is most notable in the Response’s rejection of

‘recommendation 5’, which suggests a removal of the restrictions on air and cabotage along

many flight paths. This would allow international airlines to pick up passengers on routes

currently only serviced by Australian transport companies. The Response ‘notes’ this

recommendation, but adds “The Government does not have immediate plans to ease aviation

cabotage arrangements” (The Response, 2015, p. 7) without offering an explanation as to

why there are no plans to take up the recommended actions. The Harper Review argues that

cabotage restrictions remain in place even in situations where Australian-flagged airlines are

unavailable to service the required route. It states that “foreign-flagged ships can apply for

permits to engage in coastal shipping where there is no Australian-flagged vessel to

undertake the task, but this is not available to foreign-flagged airlines” (The Harper Review,

2015, p. 209).

Because the Response omits both the Harper Review’s argument, and any reasoning

of its own, it is difficult to understand why this recommendation has been rejected. Certainly,

the Harper Review argues that air cabotage restrictions hinder the choice and affordability of

transport for domestic passengers, so by taking a more protectionist stance towards

Australian airlines, the Government is at odds with the pro-competition stance that is

espoused at the outset of the document.

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 This alludes to the challenges that competition can pose to businesses, and highlights

a contradiction in the rhetoric of the Response. As the foreword states: “competition

encourages businesses to pursue efficiencies, rewarding the most innovative and dynamic…”

(The Response, 2015, p. v). Elsewhere, it states that competition law reforms will “reduce

barriers to entry for new businesses” (2015, p. 1), and that “Excessive intellectual property

protection can result in higher costs for Australian businesses and consumers” (2015, p. 8).

What is absent from these statements is the notion that competition also punishes those

businesses that do not adapt or innovate. Absent too is any suggestion of how this punitive

competition will affect the employees and business owners who do not succeed, or how they

will be supported if they are unable to compete. While there is extensive discussion of the

options for businesses that have been subject to misuse of market power by their competitors,

there is no such remedy for businesses that are simply unable to remain in the game. In

discussing the ‘benefits’ of competition, the Response alludes to this more hostile side of the

market – after all, the nature of competition is success or failure – but avoids ever addressing

it directly. However, the structure of the clause ‘competition encourages businesses’ indicates

that businesses are at the whim of competition: ‘competition’ is the subject, and ‘businesses’

the object. This is a trend throughout the document, as seen in the sentence: “Excessive

intellectual property protection can result in higher costs for Australian businesses and

consumers” (The Response, 2015, p. 8). When presented this way, economic forces,

regulations or policies ‘impact’ consumers and businesses, and are therefore seen as having

agency in the sentence, while actual actors like governments and oversight bodies are made

invisible.

‘Agency of Economy’ Theme

Within the document, economic processes are consistently given primacy over

stakeholders. This is clear in both the content of some of the recommendations that are

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supported, particularly those that favour deregulation, and the syntax used in the Response.

These processes are often framed as the subjects of sentences, filling the role of ‘actor’ in the

structure of the sentence.

The opening sentence of the ‘Overview’ states that: “Competition is one of the surest

ways to lift long-term productivity growth” (The Response, 2015, p. 1). By making

competition the subject of the sentence, it is presented as the ‘actor’: it exerts an effect (‘to

lift’) on the object (‘long-term productivity growth’). While describing it as “one of the surest

ways to lift long-term productivity growth” might either suggest that there are other ways to

bring about the same effect, or that ‘competition’ is a method that must be used by someone,

rather than being a determinant of ‘long-term productivity growth’, these other choices and

actors are absent from the sentence. The following statement: “Competition energises

enterprise…” (p. 1) reinforces the primacy of competition. In this sentence, it is not ‘one’ of

several choices that energise enterprise, nor is it a method or ‘way’ to achieve this goal, it is

the actor rather than the action. Instead, the relationship between competition and enterprise

is presented as deterministic and automatic; the lack of any qualifying modal verb in the

sentence (may/might, can/could) suggests that competition achieves this effect unless

operated on by an outside force.

It is not only competition that is constructed this way. In discussing resale price

maintenance (RPM), the Response states that: “RPM may be beneficial to competition and

consumers…” (The Response, 2015, p. 27). Similarly, “Excessive intellectual property

protection can result in higher costs for Australian businesses and consumers and inhibit

innovation” (The Response, 2015, p. 8). Importantly, neither ‘resale price maintenance’ nor

‘Excessive intellectual property protection’ are actors, yet by constructing them as subjects of

the sentence, the real actors who utilise and regulate them are made invisible.

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 When real actors are removed from the sentence, economic processes are presented as

being capable of achieving desired outcomes on their own, and therefore not requiring

government oversight or mediation from any other body, such as a union. The sentence

“Competition energises enterprise” is stated without qualification, suggesting that the natural

state of competition is to energise enterprise, and it does so without any outside influence. To

intervene in any way would therefore be likely to compromise this process. By constructing

competition as natural, the sentence is presenting regulation as unnatural.

This is also reflected by the ‘public interest test’ discussed earlier. By placing the

onus of responsibility on government to prove the merits of regulation, both the Harper

Review and the Response establish competition as the status quo, and present government

intervention as being suitable only when it can be proved to be necessary. This discursively

relegates the Government to a caretaker position, responsible only for ensuring the unfettered

operation of the market and safeguarding competition.

This is, however, inconsistent throughout the document. In other sentences, the

Government is presented as the subject. For example: “The Government is committed to

ensuring that aviation is safe, reliable, efficient and competitive” (The Response, 2015, p. 7).

And again, when discussing the National Competition Policy (NCP) changes ushered in by

the Hilmer Review in the 1990s and early 2000s, the Response states that: “The reforms

delivered by the NCP are a strong example of how all governments can work together and

utilise competition to increase economic growth” (the Response, 2015, p. 1). In this sentence,

‘competition’ is the object of the clause “all governments can work together and utilise

competition”, and ‘governments’, the subject. It is ‘governments’ that ‘utilise’ ‘competition’.

Competition is no longer presented as an actor, but as an action or ‘tool’ that must be

‘utilised’ by governments. Unlike the previous examples, this sentence presents competition

as a tool to be used by government, rather than a force that produces its own results. In

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addition, the use of ‘can’ suggests that the result of increased economic growth is a

possibility, rather than a certainty. Once again, this highlights the way in which the Response

reformulates the language of the Harper Review to set its own agenda.

Despite this shift, competition is still given primacy throughout the Response. In the

earlier sections of the document, competition is more frequently constructed as the sentence

subject, and the focus of these sections is on the benefits of competition. This establishes a

shorthand in the Response so that in later sections, restrictions on competition are

automatically seen to also restrict the many benefits previously outlined in the document,

while actions that encourage competition, also facilitate these benefits. For example, the

sentence “These reforms introduced greater competition into electricity generation, gas

supply arrangements and encouraged more retail competition” (The Response, 2015, p. 17) is

discursively coded as a positive. Whereas in the sentence: “the Government… will consider

how best to effectively capture conduct that harms competition” (The Response, 2015, p. 22),

‘harming competition’ is coded as negative. This is also assisted by the use of the verbs

‘encouraged’ and ‘harms’.

This shift from subject to object also illustrates a change in the way competition is

portrayed in the Response. In the early sections, competition is a means to and end: it

‘energises enterprise’ and ‘encourages businesses’. Later, competition becomes an end in

itself: reforms are assessed on the strength of whether they increase or reduce competition.

The ‘translation’ process from the Harper Review to the Response is important yet again. The

Response details two submissions that discuss the ‘competition principles’ of the document.

The first, from CHOICE argues that “competition and consumer choice are means of

improving consumer welfare rather than objectives in and of themselves”. The second, from

National Seniors Australia calls for “competition policy to focus on making markets work in

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the long-term interests of consumers” (The Harper Review, 2015, p. 96). The omission of this

section makes the transition from ‘means’ to ‘end’ far less visible.

This theme not only shows the way in which competition is naturalised and given

agency within the Response, but also how some human actors and interest groups are hidden

in the document. In the sentence “Secondary boycotts are harmful to trading freedom and

therefore harmful to competition” (2015, p. 29) the Response discusses human action,

without mentioning human actors. Secondary boycotts are not ‘things’, they are ‘practices’,

but by removing the ‘practitioners’ from the sentence, the Response conceals these groups.

This is particularly important, as these boycotts tend to be carried out as part of industrial

action campaigns by unions. While some actors are present throughout the document (most

notably, consumers and businesses), ‘union’ does not appear a single time in the response. It

is clearly not prioritised as a stakeholder in the document. It is clear, then, that economic

processes, particularly competition are the primary focus of the document, and are often

presented not only as actors, but as ends in and of themselves.

Conclusion

By engaging in discourse analysis of government documentation, it is possible to look

beyond the meaning intended by the authors, and explore the ways in which they attempt to

shaping the readings of the audience. In this way, neither the writers nor the readers have

total authority over the meaning of the text, instead, the variety of readings can be seen as a

product of both the context of the readers and the power asserted by the writers. In exploring

the Government Response to the Competition Policy Review, I have highlighted two

discursive themes in the document that illustrate the ways in which it constructs particular

representations of interests, groups and agendas. These two themes, the ‘consumer/producer’

theme and the ‘agency of economy’ theme, show how the Response prioritises some

representations of groups over others, while ignoring some representations altogether. In

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addition, these themes naturalise economic processes, particularly competition, affording it a

priori value, while treating regulation cautiously, as something whose benefits must be

proved. In the following chapter I will discuss my analysis and explore this ‘shaping’ through

the lens of Lukes’ three-dimensional view of power.

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 Chapter 4: Discussing the Response through the Lens of

Lukes’ Three Dimensional View

As Chapter 3 indicates, the mobilisation of neoliberal rhetoric within the Response can be

understood to produce and reproduce a specific political and economic agenda: one which

reduces citizens to economic, rather than social or political actors, and within that narrow

economic representation reduces their roles to that of consumers, rather than wage earners. In

addition, it constructs the economy as the central structure of society and the primary focus of

governments, as well as treating economic processes as natural, self-regulating forces.

But can this analysis be understood as an exercise of power and the ‘shaping’ of

interests in the three-dimensional sense? Or does it move too far beyond Lukes’ theory? A

core argument of his approach is that “A exercises power over B… by influencing, shaping or

determining his [sic] very wants” (2005, p. 27). However, I argue that it is possible to explore

discursive power without focusing on its ‘impact’ on B, by focusing instead on the actions of

A, and understanding these as an attempt to shape interests and agendas. After all, Lukes

argues that: “the most effective and insidious use of power is to prevent such conflict from

arising in the first place” (2005, p. 27). This can surely be achieved by working proactively to

establish and reinforce normative interests and agendas, rather than reactively trying to

suppress existing grievances.

This thesis has sought to explore the discursive processes of ‘shaping’. Lukes’

terminology simplifies a far more complicated series of processes as well as the different

contexts and actors through which the actions and inactions of the powerful are interpreted.

Lukes himself asks “How… is one to identify the process or mechanism of an alleged

exercise of power, on the three-dimensional view?” (Lukes, 2005, p. 52). This chapter

attempts to identify and explain this “mechanism”.

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 The chapter explores the implications of the discursive representations of actors and

interests identified in Chapter 3, and relocates them in a broader history of neoliberalization

so that they can be understood as attempts to ‘shape’ interests, agendas and social realities,

and exercise discursive power. It then discusses the specific ‘techniques’ that have been used

in the Response to illustrate the different processes involved in ‘shaping’. Finally, it returns

to Lukes’ framework to discuss whether this case study can meaningfully add to a three-

dimensional view of power, or whether it moves beyond such an approach. It concludes that,

despite engaging in a narrower analysis than other proponents of Lukes’ theory, this case

study has lent useful analysis to a core concept of the three-dimensional view. It has also

reoriented this view to see on ‘everyday’ and ongoing exercises of power such as the policy

production cycle, without requiring a focus on ‘impact’.

Implications of the Response

As the analysis in Chapter 3 shows, the Response reframes citizens in economic and

transactional terms; as ‘consumers’ on the one hand and ‘businesses’ on the other. By doing

so, it also attempts to frame the interests and behaviours of citizens as that of consumers and

businesses. This is not a new phenomenon; it conforms to a long running trend of

econocentrism in neoliberal discourse (Clarke, Newman, Smith, Vidler & Westmarland,

2007). Clarke et al discuss the representations of the “citizen-consumer” (2007, p. 1). They

note that these two identities are both key figures in “the liberal social imaginary of Western

capitalist democracies” (2007, p. 2). However, they are also, in many ways, contradictory

figures. “The citizen is an egalitarian figure, lodged in a republican imaginary of liberty,

equality and solidarity” (2007, p. 1-2). The consumer, on the other hand, “is located in

economic relationships…. engaged in economic transactions in the marketplace, exchanging

money for commodified goods and services” (2007, p. 2). The citizen forms bonds of

egalitarianism with their peers, and has a relationship of “mutual obligation” with

71
government (2007, p. 2). The consumer, too, forms bonds of egalitarianism (of a sort), but

these are characterised by “mutual indifference” (2007, p.2) and the equality of the market,

which (ideally) does not discriminate on the basis of character or identity. Similarly, whereas

the citizen is a public figure, the consumer is a private one. “The citizen is associated with the

rise of a ‘public realm’ in which both citizens and public institutions are more or less

insulated from private interests and passions” (2007, p. 2).

By redefining citizens as consumers, the Response also restructures these identities

and relationships. It reduces the ‘mutual obligation’ to its simplest form: consumers obey the

law and governments guarantee the safety of private property and the freedom of the market.

This in turn makes ‘consumers’ self-reliant and self-interested. They are free to make their

own choices, but responsible for the results. In addition, the ‘public figure’ of the citizen

disappears, and is replaced by the previously ‘private figure’ of the consumer. The ‘public

realm’ is therefore populated by self-interested figures with an economic focus who interact

by means of exchange. Their interest – the public interest – becomes economic.

Social and political issues that cannot be rendered economically also disappear from

this representation of society, reflecting Battin’s assertion from Chapter 2, that: “there was no

longer any fundamental differences between the major parties…. Elections in the future

would be fought over who had claim to be the better managers” (Battin, 1992, p. 12). Brown

(2015) discusses this in a US context through an exploration of Barack Obama’s 2012 State

of the Union address. She states that:

While Obama called for protecting Medicare; progressive tax reform; increasing

government investment in science and technology research, clean energy, home

ownership, and education; immigration reform; fighting sex discrimination and

domestic violence; and raising the minimum wage, each of these issues was framed in

terms of its contribution to economic growth or American competitiveness.

72
 Brown, 2015, p. 24-25

These issues that are on the surface, questions of morality, equality and sustainability, only

become politically ‘valuable’ when they can be quantified economically. In addition,

Brown’s argument echoes Kolsen’s (1996) evaluation of the Hilmer Report, discussed in

Chapter 2, notably its demand for quantitative evaluations of social policies, whose outcomes

rely largely on qualitative expression.

By reframing these issues as economic, rather than social, environmental or moral, it

also opens them up to economic critique. Policies or actions that address these issues can be

dismissed if they are not ‘affordable’ or ‘economically sound’, while those that support them

are presented as ‘naïve’ ‘idealistic’ or ‘poor economic managers’ (Yu, 2014). This ‘sanitises’

the discussion around these issues to maintain a relatively ‘safe’ agenda, which can be

understood as an exercise in two-dimensional power, and as Lukes notes, “power in its more

overt one- and two-dimensional forms has all kinds of three-dimensional effects” (2005, p.

121-122). In turn, those who have a reputation for economic success are afforded authority

and legitimacy when discussing non-economic issues. The election of US President Donald

Trump is perhaps the clearest example of the real impact that this discursive shift can have

(Kellner, 2016).

Even within this econocentric representation of the public, some roles remain less

visible than others. While ‘consumers’ and ‘businesses’ enjoy first billing, ‘employees’,

‘staff’, ‘wage earners’ and ‘labour’, are relatively absent from the document. ‘Employees’

and ‘staff’ each appear once, ‘labour’ appears twice and neither ‘wage’ nor ‘earner’ is present

in the Response. In the context of competition and repeated references to ‘efficiency’, this

omission is potentially significant in its implications. As Shaikh (2016) notes, while

competition can have the (in this case, desired) effect of lowering the prices of goods and

services, improving the final product or increasing efficiency throughout the process, there is

73
also a likely cost to workers. He argues that “Costs can be lowered by cutting wages and

increasing the length or intensity of the working day, or at least by reducing wage growth

relative to that of productivity” (p. 14). The apparent trade-off for this is more and better

products and services, which further entrenches the role of individuals as consumers first and

foremost, and employees second (if at all). Given the lack of attention paid to wage earners in

the Response, it is clear too that their interests are not represented. In fact, one of the Harper

Review’s recommendations, which receives full support in the Response, advises removing

regulation on retail trading hours. While the Response encourages state and territory

governments (whose jurisdiction this falls under) to consider whether these regulations can

be removed “without imposing undue pressure on retailers to remain open when it is

uneconomical to do so” (2015, p. 12), there is no mention, in either the Response, or the

excerpt from the Harper Review, of how this may affect wage earners, or how to ensure

penalty rates and existing work hours remain in place. As the Fair Work Commission’s recent

proposal to reduce Sunday and public holiday rates shows, this is an area in which wage

earners are particularly vulnerable, and one in which their interests receive little

representation (Jericho, 2017).

These representations often appear in the Response in service of greater ‘choice’ for

consumers. The section on human services makes this apparent, by stating that “User choice

should be placed at the heart of service delivery” (The Harper Review, 2015, p. 36; The

Response, 2015, p. 4). As noted previously, Clarke et al (2007) highlight the fact that

‘citizens’ have a ‘mutual obligation’ with governments. But this focus on choice, particularly

in the realm of government provisioned services, undermines the Government’s obligation to

its citizens. By placing ‘user choice’ ‘at the heart of service delivery’, the Government also

gives citizens the responsibility of choosing their services. After all, if a wide choice of

74
services and providers exists and a user is still unhappy with their service, then surely it is up

to the user to choose a better service.

This is compounded by the representation of government as inherently less efficient

than private providers. ‘Recommendation 2’ also states that: “Governments commissioning

human services should do so carefully, with a clear focus on outcomes” (the Response, 2015,

p. 4; the Harper Review, 2015, p. 36). In a sense, this statement says very little: there is no

further indicator of how outcomes should be identified or measured, and so as a sentence it

functions as little more than a truism. However, the use of rhetoric in the statement speaks

volumes. First, it implies that human services are at the outer limit of what governments are

capable of delivering, and so any attempt should be undertaken with caution. Second, it

implies that most government commissioned human services are flawed, establishing a

precedent that justifies the warning. Third, it suggests that human services are often delivered

frivolously, or without a ‘clear focus on outcomes’. This conforms more broadly to neoliberal

attitudes towards human services, and particularly healthcare. Smith and Lipsky highlight the

appeal of this argument: “Which would you choose to safeguard your health: a federal

government bureaucracy, or yourself?” (Herzlinger, 1991, p. 81 cited by Smith & Lipsky,

1992, p. 235).

The discourse of “responsibilisation” is prevalent in neoliberal policy (Stonehouse, et

al, 2015, p. 295), and attempts to erase government culpability over social issues. Stonehouse

et al highlight this in the context of housing risk and homelessness in Victoria. They argue

that, by constructing homelessness as an issue of personal responsibility, attention is moved

away from the highly inflated housing market and funding cuts to public housing (2015).

These discourses serve to protect the existing structures of neoliberalism.

75
Techniques of ‘Shaping’

It is clear that the Response attempts to promote particular representations of interests,

groups and agendas, and in doing so reinforce an image of neoliberalism that compliments

the goals of the Government. However, the methods by which these representations are

created and perpetuated should not be overlooked. This ‘shaping’ represents a key concept in

Lukes’ theory of power, and can involve many complex discursive processes, some of which

can be seen in the Response.

As previously discussed, the Response is a translational document: it interprets the

recommendations of the Harper Review and repurposes them into policy forecasts. While the

Response includes many direct excerpts from the Harper Review, there are other sections that

are ‘filtered’, or removed altogether. This colours the way in which the Response is read, and

turns many overt arguments or statements into less visible assumptions, which in turn makes

them seem natural, or more difficult to scrutinise. As discussed in Chapter 3, this process can

be seen in the way the two documents represent ‘competition’. Throughout both documents,

competition is given primacy and is treated as beneficial to other aspects of society,

particularly consumers. The assertion in the Response that “Competition is one of the surest

ways to lift long-term productivity growth” (The Response 2015, p. 1) is a clear example of

this. However, the inclusion of submissions from community groups, industry groups and

peak bodies in the Harper Review indicates the need to see competition as a means to an end,

that is only beneficial if it in turn improves “consumer welfare” (The Harper Review, 2015,

p. 96). By omitting this section, the Response suppresses these qualifying views of

competition, and makes its asserted benefits seem automatic.

In referring to citizens as consumers, the Response redefines these terms, and

redefines the interactions and interests that they might have. The ‘consumer’ goes from being

a private figure, to replacing the ‘citizen’ as a public figure. And while citizens obviously

76
have many interests and concerns beyond the procurement of goods and services, this

redefinition makes them invisible, or else serves to also redefine them as economic interests.

Referring to individual ‘consumers’ and the collective ‘public’ or ‘community’, reinforces

this redefinition by treating ‘the community’ as a community of consumers.

The omission of other groups and identities also contributes to this redefinition.

Unlike the representations that are ‘filtered’ from the Harper Review to the Response, these

groups are absent from both documents, and therefore absent from this discourse more

generally. Wage earners, unions, families, seniors, children, teachers and numerous other

groups are all affected by competition policy changes, but by omitting these groups or

redefining them as consumers, their specific interests and concerns are made invisible in the

discourse.

By discussing issues like human service provision in economic terms, and prioritising

‘choice’ in these discussions, the Response also recontextualises these issue areas. The

provision of human services is, ostensibly, a social issue. It is affected by questions of

equality, access, dignity and quality. The inclusion of this area within a document addressing

competition policy, moves this issue from the social sphere to the economic sphere. In doing

so, it exposes the issue to economic scrutiny and authority, and treats the above concerns as

byproducts of ‘choice’ and ‘innovation’, if mentioning them at all.

This confers responsibility of service choice from government to the individual, and

in doing so revalues self-interest as a positive attribute. Independence, personal responsibility

and even shrewdness in business are treated as more desirable traits than interdependence,

solidarity and compassion. The latter set become the traits of the naïve and idealistic.

As Van Dijk (1993) notes, the representation of certain interests is a key aspect of

discursive power. While the Response is not primarily intended to be a publicly read

document, it nonetheless translates the significantly longer Harper Review into a ‘sharper’,

77
more readable document that more accurately forecasts government policy intentions. This

translation comes in the form of many smaller processes that each serve to ‘shape’ the issues

in the document. Though it may not have a large, direct impact on public or media

discourses, its representation of different interests indicates the way in which these interests

are understood and perceived by the authors, and how these authors attempt to produce or

highlight these interests in its audience. As I discussed in Chapter 2, Battin (1992) and

Whitwell (1990) argue that a goal of neoliberalism is to represent the economy as the general

interest, while representing regulation or government intervention as the manifestation of

‘vested interests’. This serves to benefit those who are economically powerful, while

impacting those who are not.

Applying Lukes’ Framework

As this discussion has begun to suggest, this case study does not clearly conform to

Lukes’ analytical framework. Rather than identifying a case of compliance and exploring the

mechanisms of power involved to attempt to justify it as power in its third dimension, I have

engaged in a close exploration of discourse in a single document, that represents a ‘moment’

within the process of policy development. While the Response produces a discursive

representation of neoliberalism (albeit one that is modified by other agendas and policy

priorities) it is unlikely that it was written with the goal of directly influencing public

opinion, compared to, say, a campaign advertisement, speech, or national press club address.

Nonetheless, it was written deliberately to express and further an agenda, and it was written

to be read, to convince readers of this agenda whether they are members of the public, the

media, industry, Government or any other organisation. If “A may exercise power over B by

getting him to do what he does not want to do, but he also exercises power over him by

influencing, shaping or determining his very wants” (Lukes, 2005, p. 27), then it is crucial to

understand what “influencing, shaping or determining” involves. I argue that this is not an

78
‘action’ or even an ‘inaction’, but a complex series of choices – both to act and not to act, to

include and to omit – which is then interpreted, reframed and responded to by numerous

other actors before producing an ‘effect’ in B. The Response offers one example of what this

‘shaping’ can look like at its inception; it is an attempt to ‘shape’.

But does this ‘shaping’ constitute three-dimensional power? At the time of writing

this thesis, the Response is still a relatively recent document. While it has begun to affect

policy debates and broader government discourse such as speeches and press releases

(Hutchens, 2016), it is still too early to hope to identify any meaningful impact on voter or

community ‘interests’. This also means that the first test of Lukes’ theory, the “relevant

counterfactual” (p. 44), does not apply. As Lukes notes, in order to assert that A has exercised

power over B, eliciting from B some action or opinion that favours A, we must be able to

describe a plausible situation in which, had A not exercised power over B, B would have not

acted (or held that opinion), or acted differently. Because this case study is focused on the

actions of A, and not the actions of B, there is no relevant counterfactual to justify.

However, the second test of Lukes’ theory remains valid. It asks, “How… is one to

identify the process or mechanism of an alleged exercise of power, on the three-dimensional

view?” (Lukes, 2005, p. 52). In order to answer this, it is important first to address the issue

of ‘interests’ in the Response, as this plays a key role in Lukes’ theory of power, and in the

power of discourse as it is conceptualised elsewhere (Van Dijk, 1993, Fairclough, 2013). As

my analysis has shown, the Response articulates a relatively narrow set of interests. While it

makes frequent reference to ‘the public interest’ and the interests of ‘the community as a

whole’, it includes no metric for judging what these interests may be, stating only that they

should be judged “on a case by case basis” (the Response, 2015, p. 8). The public interests

that are clearly articulated are economic ones, namely the interests of consumers and

business. For consumers, the interests described in the Response are lower priced goods and

79
services, more choice, and better quality service delivery. For business, the interests are fairer

markets and less regulation. The Response also implies the interests of the Government.

These seem to include a retention of its managerial role in the economy, and a reduction in its

role as a commissioner of human services.

Given the absence of so many interests in the Response, it may be useful to think

about this lack of representation as a form of inaction on the part of the Government. In other

words, the Government has failed to represent (and possibly conceive of) interests more

broadly in the Response, and in doing so, has silenced these interests. In this sense, the

mechanism of power is, at least in part, inaction. As Lukes notes in his revisionary chapters

(2005), interests are often manifold and contradictory, and so by representing the interest of

some groups but not others, (or even some of a group’s interests, but not others of that same

group’s interests) the Response can be understood as an attempt to influence its audience,

whether consciously or unconsciously, to sacrifice some interests in favour of others.

However, this approach is still focused on ‘impact’. In order to meaningfully analyse

the findings of my case study, it is important to move past this, but the question remains

whether this can be done while remaining faithful to the themes of Lukes’ theory. While

Lukes’ articulates his theory by focusing on the impact of power, that is, the domination of B,

his theory can be used to analyse scenarios in which B has not been identified, or impacted,

and that this analysis can still be empirical. If we consider the order of operations in Lukes’

theory as: A attempts to affect B, this affecting is successful, B complies to, and reproduces

the conditions of A’s domination, then Lukes’ focus can be seen to be on the successful

affecting of B, and the complicit reproduction of these conditions by B. However, it should be

possible to focus on the initial attempt of A, or even A’s earliest articulations of this attempt,

as a locus of power. In this scenario then, the process of domination begins with A

constructing a version of B’s interests, that is at the same time capable of receiving support

80
from B, but covertly compromising some aspect of B’s other interests, and supporting A’s

interests. In the context of the Response, this conceptualisation can be interpreted in a

number of ways.

Let us observe the difference between the representations of wage earners’ and

consumers’ interests. The Response repeatedly refers to better choice, cheaper and better

goods and services, and more freedom to change between providers of human services. These

are likely to be in the interests of both consumers and wage earners. However, wage earners

are likely to also be interested in job security, a strong social safety net, high wages and fair

work: interests which are all but omitted from the Response. Revisiting Shaikh’s (2016)

observation about the way in which competition marginalises wage earners suggests that

there is some degree of mutual exclusivity between these interests, particularly if the former

set is to be reached through heightened competition. This is complicated by the fact that,

wage earners need to buy food, homes and services: they are consumers. In addition, most

consumers are employed and would therefore benefit from higher wages and greater job

security. This means that under a more competitive economic system, these groups are likely

forced to choose between these different interests. Certainly, the increase in casualisation

under economic rationalist governments in the 1990s and 2000s had this result (Cahill, 2007).

By representing only one of these two sets of interests, the Response telegraphs the

Government’s preference. As a right-wing party, the coalition Government is likely to benefit

less from a population that identifies increasingly as wage earners and workers, than it will

from a population increasingly concerned with cheaper goods and services. The prioritisation

of consumers’ interests over wage earners’ interests can be seen therefore as an attempt to

inculcate this priority in its audience, and meaningfully affect economic discourses, and

discourses of competition, to reflect this prioritisation and produce this result.

81
 Regardless of whether or not this ‘proves’ that the Government exerts, (or attempts to

exert) three-dimensional power through the Response, this analysis has clearly shown that the

discourse of the document foregrounds specific representations of groups, interests, issues

and agendas while backgrounding others. By focusing on the ‘everyday’ processes of

governance, the more covert assumptions and assertions of government discourse can be

explored and understood. This understanding is crucial to any study of discursive power,

particularly one that focuses on the ‘shaping’ of interests, as Lukes’ does.

Conclusion

Lukes’ theoretical framework, while receiving useful additions from other works –

notably Gaventa’s ‘powercube’ project and its expansion by Hathaway (2016) – remains

somewhat limited in the relationships it can observe. Its focus on the impact of power, while

providing an accessible site for empirical observation, relies on a retrospective analysis of

events that have either already happened, or that are continuous. It therefore does not make

the most of its temporal nature that has the capacity to analyse processes of power, both at the

broad, historical level, and at the specific level of textual ‘moments’ in this history. The

policy production process is one such history that this approach should be able to study. After

all, it is crucial for a theory of power to understand the ‘everyday’ discursive power of policy.

Similarly, Lukes’ use of the terms ‘influencing’ ‘shaping’ and ‘determining’ relies on

common assumptions about what these words mean, and therefore conceals the complexities

of these terms. Because my case study of discourse in the Government’s Response to the

Competition Policy Review (2015) focuses on this ‘influencing’, ‘shaping’, and

‘determining’ – on the actions and inactions of A rather than the responses and attitudes of B

– I have had to look beyond the framework presented by Lukes, Gaventa and Hathaway.

Despite this, I argue that the framework can be expanded, and the focus shifted, without

compromising the core theoretical principles upon which it is based. This ‘shaping’ can be

82
understood as numerous discursive processes. Among them are the ‘filtering’ and

‘translating’ of language from one text to another, the ‘redefinition’ of terms and

‘recontextualisation’ of actors and structures, and the ‘revaluation’ of concepts and ideas.

This is by no means an exhaustive list: the processes by which discourses and ideas can

construct social realities requires more investigation, but this work provides an important

addition to the task.

By focusing on the conceptualisation of interests by actors who may or may not

attempt to dominate, manipulate or influence others, it is possible to preemptively assess the

nature of future exertions of power, and better understand the black box of ‘shaping’. In the

case of the Response, I argue that the selective representation of public interests, both

collective and individual, can be understood as operating within the framework of Lukes’

three-dimensional view of power. They attempt to construct the agenda of the authors as that

of the ‘public’, while presenting contentious concepts as self-evident. While this may or may

not meet Lukes’ requirements for an exercise of three-dimensional power, it is clear that the

Response nonetheless seeks to influence the discursive representation of actors and interests

in society.

83
 Conclusion

Lukes’ three-dimensional theory of power includes a temporality that makes it

effective in exploring social and political processes as sites of domination and compliance.

However, he only briefly alludes to the complexities of ‘influencing’, ‘shaping’ and

‘determining’ the wants, values and beliefs of the powerless, instead relying on common

conceptions of what these terms describe. By engaging with the discourse of policy

documentation, I argue that it is possible to understand how powerful actors attempt to shape

the beliefs of others through specific representations of different interests, issues and groups.

The Government Response to the Competition Policy Review refines and repurposes

the content of the Australian Competition Policy Review in order to portray the public as

either consumers or businesses, while also foregrounding economic issues at the expense of

other issues, and treating economies and markets as self-regulating. This echoes a longer

history of neoliberal discourse in Australia, that has seen Government take a more managerial

and supervisory role in the economy and the provision of social services, where it once

actively regulated the economy and invested widely in the welfare state. These changes have

often been justified through a focus on competition, which proponents argue is responsible

for introducing lower cost, higher quality goods and services, and a wider choice of

providers.

This thesis usefully explores the way in which this discourse can be understood as an

attempt to exert power in its third dimension. In addition, by focusing on the attempt of

power, rather that its impact, it expands the parameters of Lukes’ framework and allows it to

explore prospective, as well as retrospective, cases of three-dimensional power. While it does

not completely conform to Lukes’ framework as it has been used in his work and the work of

others, it is nonetheless makes a valuable addition to the three-dimensional view by exploring

84
the ‘black box’ of ‘shaping’, and demonstrating the processual analytical capacity of his

approach.

The close textual analysis of this study can meaningfully add to both Lukes’ ‘three-

dimensional’ view of power, and Hathaway’s ‘regime evolution’ approach to power. Both of

these theories take broad approaches to power and therefore risk overlooking the ‘everyday’

processes through which power can be attempted and exercised. Further work could usefully

expand my thesis by engaging in close analyses of other documents in this same policy

network, such as the Harper Review itself, or any future documents that stem from the

Response.

This work also highlights the importance of examining the ‘everyday’ processes of

government. Other analyses interested in the articulation of neoliberal discourse in Australian

government documentation could look at specific policy areas such as education, healthcare

or immigration to explore how these issue areas are permeated by the concepts found in this

thesis.

The discursive focus of this work also highlights the value of bringing in aspects of

other power theories in order to compliment Lukes’ approach. While my work includes a

Foucauldian influence in its use of discourse as a site of power, closer attention to Foucault’s

‘productive’ approach to power may help to move beyond the limited concept of ‘power

over’ in the three-dimensional view. Lukes’ own theory expands on Gramscian concepts of

‘hegemony’, so comparative analyses of other theories could usefully highlight the strengths

and weaknesses of his approach and expand on the discussions of temporality and ‘shaping’

in this work.

This thesis has added to Lukes’ theory by deepening the conception of ‘shaping’ that

underpins the three-dimensional view. It has also demonstrated the capacity of this view to

85
meaningfully analyse power as a process that is reflected both in longer histories of

discourses, ideas, actions and inactions, and in specific ‘moments’ of text.

86
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