Looking back to look forward: the future of public debate of social policy in Australia.

Hunter, Boyd ; Lahn, Julie

The Australian Journal of Social Issues is the sole Australian journal concerned with issues of social policy and social justice. Since its first issue in 1961, the AJSI has published a wealth of peer-reviewed scholarship dealing with crucial social policy issues potentially affecting the welfare of Australian citizens. As editors our fundamental vision is to continue to strengthen the journal as a key venue for robust multidisciplinary analysis of issues that inform public debates concerning effective social policy design. In order to achieve this, we seek to develop the journal further so that we facilitate quality research on both conceptual and applied social policy analysis, in both international and Australian contexts. This special issue commemorates the 50th volume of the journal. However, beyond the matter of celebration, it also provides an opportunity to reflect on where the journal has come from in order to envisage what it might become.

Janus, the two-faced Roman deity, has particular resonance with this anniversary issue. Looking to the future and to the past at the same time, he is the god of beginnings and transitions--of entrances, passages and endings. As we look to the future we need to envisage a path for the journal that allows it to remain relevant for a complex and changing social policy environment while retaining a distinct sense of identity. How can the journal remain an active contributor to public debate about social policy so that it can achieve its other significant milestones?

One reason why Janus provides an appropriate analogy for this issue is that he presided over the beginning and ending of conflict, and hence of both war and peace; social policy is intrinsically bound up with resolving social conflict and coordinating the interests of citizens. Without social justice in the outcomes of social policy there is little prospect for peace and harmony among the citizenry.

At the risk of over-extending the analogy, the doors of Janus's temple were left open in time of war, and closed to mark peace. As it is unrealistic for any social policy to expect to achieve complete peace, we always need to keep the temple doors open. This is necessary in order to remain open to an important question in social policy: how can society reform social policies to achieve greater harmony among its citizens? Of course, in aspiring to answer a big question such as this, we need to acknowledge the constraint to resources facing modern governments. Notwithstanding such constraints, social policy and social justice need to be taken seriously even when budgets are squeezed by persistently low economic growth rates. Indeed, an argument can be made that this is the most important time to focus on social policy, when economic stress exacerbates social conflict.

This anniversary issue provides us with an opportunity to ask what the journal can do to inform public debate in order to achieve its aspirations. Historically, most contributors to the journal are not direct actors in the design and implementation of social policy, but their research can nonetheless inform the public and actors in social policy regimes in regard to what does and does not work.

We have commissioned five leading scholars for the 50th anniversary volume and asked them to reflect on the core issues of Australian social policy with a view to identifying strategic priorities for the journal for the next 50 years. All these scholars are prominent contributors to the public debate and are in an excellent position to reflect on the historical and future roles of the Australian Journal of Social Issues.

Mitchell and Rowse (2005) provided a detailed history of the journal, including a retrospective account of the organisation in its first four decades, and a summary of the coverage and scope of the research published. This issue does not attempt to replicate that analysis, but instead attempts to provide fresh perspectives as a complement to the insight of those researchers with an enduring commitment to social policy research in Australia.

Overview of this issue

Amid the range of specific subjects addressed by the commissioned authors, two general concerns are readily apparent. The first involves understanding inequality; while the second considers the nature of the relationship between research and policy formulation and, more particularly, of affecting alternate approaches to policy. These two areas reflect prominent and persistent themes characterising many contributions to AJSI over the years.

Social policy scholar Peter Saunders interrogates current definitions of material disadvantage and poverty, noting areas of improvement in academic conceptualisation and statistical measures while highlighting some pressing challenges. At the same time, his paper draws our attention to worrying signs of government abandonment of concern, evidenced by the disappearance of the term 'poverty' from the policy lexicon, the lack of a dedicated national statistical time-series for measuring poverty, and an apparent unwillingness to engage in wide-ranging discussions that draw on expertise from academics, community groups and other sources.

Fellow contributors criminologist Don Weatherburn and economist Kevin Schnepel reflect on the wide impact of situations of disadvantage, with particular focus on reviewing what they perceive as a gradual shift in analysing the causes of crime from a socio-economic to more individualistic perspective. In arguing strongly for the continued relevance of economic adversity in the commission of crime, they assert a clear role for social and economic policy in preventative strategies aimed at reducing crime and recidivism. They note the continuing importance of such approaches for several groups, including Indigenous people, who remain vastly overrepresented in prison.

Sociologist Maggie Walter draws attention to a less well-known aspect of the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, one certainly overlooked previously in the journal: the increasing numbers of urban-based Indigenous people with tertiary qualifications entering professional occupations. Interrogating the well-known concepts of social mobility and social capital, she suggests their relationship is especially multifaceted and even hazardous for Indigenous people, and raises important questions about the breadth and potential durability of Indigenous social mobility. The paper provides concrete suggestions for policy approaches seeking to support Indigenous career trajectories, at the same time that it urges a broader and more nuanced consideration of the full diversity and complexity of contemporary Indigenous people's experience.

The paper by Margaret Alston examines the relationships between social work as a discipline, AJSI, and social policy. AJSI was originally an initiative of social work scholars who envisaged a clear role for the discipline in contributing to public debate and directly influencing the formulation of social policy. While social work academics contributed much to the journal's early stewardship and have performed valuable work in editorship, their participation in the journal has declined since the 1970s. Alston considers why this might be so and presents the case for an expanded and reinvigorated future engagement of the discipline with the journal as a valuable instrument through which to intervene meaningfully in discussions of public policy.

In his wide-ranging paper, Keith Jacobs situates issues of declining public housing and housing affordability within analysis of the housing policy arena, observing that housing policy is both highly contested and thoroughly politicised. His paper characterises the research literature in this field as being overly concerned with issues of service delivery alongside 'typologies of housing need'. Despite being worthy of consideration, Jacobs suggests these concerns have come at the expense of alternative investigations that might seek to analyse and theorise deeper structural underpinnings that give rise to current policy.

A final theme emerging from the papers in this issue is an identified need for continued improvement to the quality and quantity of research data and the concomitant ability of research to influence policy. Margaret Alston, for example, argues that social work practitioners' ability to present direct, 'grounded evidence' of the effects of policy holds potential to create important opportunities for suggesting and debating policy alternatives.

Somewhat in contrast, Jacobs provocatively queries the extent to which governments are 'amenable to evidence-based research' in a policy area as dominated by competing interest groups and agenda as housing. He suggests that in such circumstances it may be worth abandoning hope that evidence will sway policy-makers to adopt appropriate reforms. Instead, a more effective role for researchers involves critique. At the same time, Jacobs highlights continuing strong demand from government for predictive research findings, though they inevitably give short shrift to the complexity of establishing causal relationships within social research. That complexity is noted also by Saunders, who argues not just for improved quantitative measures in poverty research, but also for more diverse research methods, notably much greater contribution from qualitative studies. The papers provide a convincing case that broad issues of concern--for example, poverty--necessitate contributions from a diversity of academic and practitioner perspectives around a set of interrelated research foci.

In looking at the future of social issues research in Australia, the papers appearing here suggest a combined vision: namely, that strong disciplinary efforts alongside genuinely multi-disciplinary research will be critical in offering effective policy analysis--analysis that, while evidence-based, is also adequately nuanced and sufficiently robust and comprehensive to offer the strongest possibility of intervening in and influencing debate over policy alternatives. As a site for multi-disciplinary contribution and collaboration, AJSI strongly supports such endeavours.

Reform begins at home

The concept of social justice is bound up with an ideal of how the world should be. Unless such normative standards are set very low, the world will invariably disappoint most people. Accordingly, most social policy research leads to suggestions for reform. If the journal provides an avenue for discussion of policy change, we certainly cannot be immune to the notion of reform. Indeed, the process of reform begins by acting on those things we can influence. In a real sense, reform begins at home.

In recent years the editorial team has introduced several reforms aimed at increasing the journal's responsiveness to both our readership and our authors. One initiative facilitating renewal for the journal was the appointment of four Associate Editors by former Editors Gabrielle Meagher and Tony Eardley. Associate Editors are typically early to mid-career researchers with their fingers on the pulse of the conduct and analysis of social policy. Certainly without their active involvement it would be much harder to run a journal. In a sense, they personify the future of social policy research in Australia. Appendix A lists all of the editors and associate editors for the journal since 1961.

As editors our fundamental vision is to continue to strengthen the AJSI as a significant venue for robust multidisciplinary analysis of issues that inform public debates regarding effective social policy design. In order to achieve this, we seek to develop the journal further so that we facilitate quality research on both conceptual and applied social policy analysis in international and Australian contexts.

Since taking up our positions as editors during October 2013, we placed high priority on the timely publication of four issues each year. Another priority has been to ensure that the entries in the leading international citation indexes

Thomson Reuters, Informit, ProQuest, and EBSCOhost are up to date. We have initiated a process of enhancing the journal and its production, beginning with updated information regarding the scope of the journal and its style guidelines. We also want to enhance further our online presence through augmentation of our website and user interfaces.

One recent innovation is the Forum section of the journal, which is aimed at shorter contributions that review and analyse debates and research in current policy areas. All scholarly journals require a process of rigorous peer review to ensure the quality of their articles; however, our emphasis on social policy and social justice issues means that there is a need to engage actively in broader public debate as well as academic debate. In a sense, this Forum section allows us to return to the roots of the journal, which has historically been read by many social policy practitioners as well as academics in a range of disciplines.

The AJSI Editorial Board has remained relatively stable for over a decade. We have begun a process of reviewing and renewing membership of the board, and are particularly keen to appoint both national and international researchers to the board. We see renewing the board as an important step towards expanding the journal's engagement with global conversations through a more strategic approach to publishing. We aim to involve the Editorial Board in annual discussions with editors and associate editors in order to identify opportunities for raising the profile of the journal. This would include commissioning high-level conceptual and theoretical papers from leading and emerging scholars on contemporary social issues with a view to positioning national data and debate in broader comparative contexts.

Note that the peer-review element of the journal is crucial for maintaining the quality of the research. Obviously the academic world is truly international and there is no guarantee that academic peers reside solely in Australia. Indeed, social policies--and the academic disciplines used to analyse and evaluate such policies --are so complex that one would be surprised if all relevant expertise was located in Australia. While it is important to maintain a distinctly Australian flavour to the journal, it is crucial to look beyond national borders for suitable expertise wherever it resides. In order to actualise the vision of the journal expressed above, we propose three definitive actions:

1. Reform the Editorial Board to facilitate International membership. The Editorial Board could be easily expanded to 12 members. Our explicit intention is to seek a significant international membership for the Board with highly regarded scholars from North America, Europe and Asia. The rest of the Board will be drawn from other continents, with the presumption that most of the remainder will be drawn from Australia.

2. We will also commission one special issue per year to be edited by Guest Editors. The intention of these commissioned issues is to attract new authors, which in turn should draw in new readers. One possible issue could involve effective social policy for First Nations people in former colonial settler states. Another potential issue could consider welfare reform in a time of low economic growth.

3. The third specific initiative would be to commission international feature articles on a regular basis. These articles are likely to have a comparative focus, reflecting a specific aspect of social policy in one region or nation to the local experience.

The overall aim of these reforms is to broaden the journal's reach and appeal to a wider audience while presenting an expanded range of relevant research ideas to our valued domestic readership. The refinements to the structure and logistics of the journal will also have the benefit of further facilitating and consolidating the international reputation of the journal as an efficiently run professional operation, producing high quality that can and is used to inform social policy debate.

Just as Janus is the god of new beginnings, the Australian Journal of Social Issues is clearly entering a transitional phase. Both society and social policy research on that society are adjusting to the prospect of prolonged periods of low growth and manifest limitations on global natural resources (Piketty 2014). This issue documents the insight of eminent social policy researchers--it is our intention to work in conjunction with the Australian Social Policy Association to build on such insight, thereby developing a constructive agenda for the journal that secures its future and provides a platform for public and scholarly debate on effective and justifiable social policy. We trust that the journal will remain an active contribution to public and academic debate, and remain confident that the reforms suggested above will help to ensure the journal achieve the other significant milestones.

March 2015

Appendix A. Editors and Associate Editors of the Australian Journal of
Social Issues

Tenure      Editors               Institutional     Issues edited
                                  affiliation

1961-1967   Tom Brennan           University        1 (1) - 3 (2)
                                  of Sydney

1968-1969   Harold Throssell      University        3 (3)-4 (2)
                                  of Sydney

1969-1970   Interim Editorial     University        4 (3)-5(1)
            Committee             of Sydney

1970-1974   Ronald Burnheim       North Ryde        5 (2)-9 (4)
                                  Psychiatric
                                  Centre

1975-1982   Margaret Sargent      University of     10(1)-17 (2)
                                  Sydney

1982-1984   John Dixon            Canberra CAE      17 (3)-19 (4)

1985-1987   Sheila Shaver         Macquarie         20 (1)--22 (4)
                                  University

1988-1992   Gillian Bottomley,    Macquarie         23 (1)--27 (2)
            Murray Goot,          University
            Ross Homel,
            Susan Kippax
            & Sheila Shaver

1992-1993   Gisela Kaplan         Queensland        27 (3)-28 (4)
                                  University
                                  of Technology

1994-1995   Ross Daniels,         Queensland        29 (1)--30 (3)
            Catherine             University
            McDonald, Mary        of Technology
            Lou O'Connor,
            Adam Shoemaker
            & John Tomlinson

1995-2000   Richard Hugman        Edith Cowan       30 (4)-35 (1)
                                  University

2000-2002   Tim Battin            University of     35 (2)-37(1)
                                  New England

2002-2010   Deborah Mitchell      Australian        37 (2)-45 (4)
                                  National
                                  University

2011-2013   Tony Eardley          University        46(1)-48 (3)
            & Gabrielle Meagher   of NSW
                                  & University
                                  of Sydney

2013-2015   Boyd Hunter &         Australian        48 (4) -
            Julie Lahn            National
                                  University
Associate Editors

2013-2015   Myra Hamilton         University of     48 (1)-
                                  New South Wales

            Cameron Parsell       University        48(1)-
                                  of Queensland

            Kelly Richards        Queensland        48(1)-
                                  University of
                                  Technology

            Peter Smith           Monash            48(1)-
                                  University

Reference

Mitchell, D. & Rowse, T. (2005) 'Australian Social Issues: A Retrospective', Australian Journal of Social Issues, 40 (1): 3-11.

Piketty, T. (2014) Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Cambridge, MA, Belknap Press.