NEO-LIBERALISM, POLICY NETWORKS, AND POLICY CHANGE - AGRICULTURAL POLICY REFORM IN AUSTRALIA AND CANADA

Developments favouring the liberalisation and globalisation of economic exchange and increasingly rigid constraints on domestic fiscal policy have provided support for neoliberal policy ideas. Neo-liberalism challenges the logic of embedded liberalism that underscored trade multilateralism in the post-second world war period, and the exclusion of sectors like agriculture from the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Focusing on agricultural policy, the article examines the pace and extent to which neo-liberal ideas have been able to gain hold and displace non-liberal domestic policies in Australia and Canada. The article shows that neo-liberal ideas have been more easily translated into domestic policy change in Australia than in Canada A significant part of the explanation for this cross-national difference is found in the differing domestic political-institutional arrangements, including federalism, bureaucratic arrangements, the presence or absence of a neo-liberal epistemic community, and the structure of interest intermediation systems. These factors, in turn, have their impact on policy change through their effects on the structures of agricultural policy networks and policy communities.