Book Reviews : JANE KELSEY, Rolling Back the State: Privatisation of Power in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Wellington: Bridget Williams, 1993, 391 pp
| Author | Alan Norrie |
| Published date | 01 June 1995 |
| DOI | 10.1177/096466399500400215 |
| Date | 01 June 1995 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
290
REFERENCES
Carlen,
P.
(1989)
’Crime,
Inequality
and
Sentencing’,
pp.
8-28
in
P.
Carlen
and
D.
Cook
(eds),
Paying
for
Crime.
Milton
Keynes:
Open
University
Press.
Garland,
D.
(1990)
Punishment
and
Modern
Society:
A
Study
in
Social
Theory.
Oxford:
Clarendon
Press.
IAN
LOADER
Department
of
Criminology,
Keele
University,
UK
JANE
KELSEY,
Rolling
Back
the
State:
Privatisation
of Power
in
Aotearoa/New
Zealand.
Wellington:
Bridget
Williams,
1993,
391
pp.
Jane
Kelsey’s
excellent
account
of
law and
state
in
New
Zealand
over
the
last
ten
years
is
both
particular
in
its
focus
and
general
in
its
implications.
New
Zealand
is
an
ex-British
colony,
built
on
the
expropriation
of
the
native
Maoris
(now
10
per
cent
of
the
population),
which
possessed
privileged
links
to
first
world
markets.
White
New
Zealanders
enjoyed
a
high
standard of
living
together
with
a
generous
welfare
net.
The
world
economic
recession
of the
1970s
and
the
loss
of
privileged
markets
when
Britain
joined
the
EEC
threatened
this
situation
and
encouraged
an
indigenous
neo-liberal
economic
policy
(known
as
’Rogernomics’
after
its
progenitor,
a
leading
Labour
(sac)
politician,
Roger
Douglas).
In
the
first
part
of
her
book,
Kelsey
charts
the
rise
and
rise
of
this
ideology
through
Labour
(1984-90),
and
then
through
the
conservative
National
Party.
She
charts
its
effect
on
state
owned
enterprises,
which
were
’corporatized’
and
then
sold
off,
on
public
services
and
on
labour
regulation.
With
regard
to
welfare,
ideologies
of
public
choice
and
devolution
were
used
to
legitimate
the
state’s
withdrawal,
and
then
to
deny
responsibility
for
subsequent
failures
of
service.
With
regard
to
the
labour
market,
she
shows
how
a
previously
highly
regulated
system,
advantageous
to
labour,
was
dismantled
in
favour
of
deregulation.
These
policies
were
the
internal
effect
of
an
ideology
whose
aim
was,
without
regard
for
the
dependent
character
of
the
economy,
to
open
New
Zealand
up
to
international
capital
and
to
slot
it
into
the
liberalized
world
economic
system.
The
relationship
between
internal
and
external
economic
policies
is
emphasized
by
Kelsey
in
her
summation
of
these
developments
as
involving
the
question
of
state
autonomy,
by
which
she
means
the
’ability
of
a
nation
state
to
act
independently
of
other
domestic
or
international forces
and
constraints’
(p. 125).
This
is
an
important
theme
to
which
I
will
return.
Changes
in
the
economy
could
not
be
accomplished
quickly
against
popular
opposition
if
existing
democratic
and
legal
channels
were
maintained.
These
were
therefore
overridden,
and
Kelsey
charts
in
the
book’s
second
part
the
effect
of
economic
policy
on
party
political
structures
and
membership,
electoral
democracy,
parliamentary
procedure
and
publicly
constituted
watchdogs.
The
story
is
one
of
constitutional
rules
waived
as
it
suited
the
government
in
power
(both
Labour
and
National).
There
was
a
general
’marginalisation
of
democratic
accountability
from
the
source,
nature
and
operation
of
political
economic
power’
(p. 173)
so
that
by
the
end
of
the
1980s,
a
cynical
and
alienated
population
was
increasingly
distanced
from
its
political
parties.
The
disenchantment
of
the
population
encouraged
the
New
Zealand
judiciary
to
attempt
a
legitimating
role
in
defence
of
consensual
and
democratic
rule,
and
this
story
constitutes
the
third
part
of
the
book.
Justice
Cooke,
President
of
the
New
Zealand
Court
of
Appeal,
launched
an
ideological
offensive
in the
name
of
’judicial
glasnost’
(his
term)
which
involved
a
common
law
’search ...
for
the
solution
that
seems
fair
and
just
after
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