The failure of the academic lobby: From policy community to bureaucratic management

The Hawke government's far‐reaching proposals for the reform of the tertiary education sector at the end of 1987 were formulated in the absence of any consultation with established academic interests. The nature of this outcome constituted a major failure on the part of academic institutions and organizations for these groups had long been regarded as a particularly powerful lobby in Canberra. It is argued that the lobby's failure was the result of a marked change in the style of policy‐making in the tertiary education arena. In the late 1970s and early 1980s the nation's universities and colleges functioned very much in terms of Richardson and Jordan's concept of an internally regulated policy community. The sudden influx of a number of new group interests, however, undermined the unity of the community. This development resulted in a confused and disjointed policy milieu that bore some resemblance to Heclo's notion of issue networks. Such an environment necessitated remedial action by the government and a new framework of bureaucratic management emerged.