Authors: O'neill, Phillip; McGuirk, Pauline

Source: Space and Polity, Volume 9, Number 3, Number 3/December 2005 , pp. 283-305(23)

Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group

Abstract:

This paper is an account of institutional and spatial shifts in the Sydney basin economy that coalesce around Australia's current, long period of prosperity. The paper briefly sources this prosperity, noting the key shifts towards the financial and professional services sectors that accompany it. This material is then used to make the argument that two reterritorialisation processes underpin Australia's—and Sydney's—contemporary accumulation project. The first reterritorialisation is a spatial reformation of distributional flows. Whereas Australian governments had two parallel purposes in post-war economic management, successful accumulation and sustainable socio-spatial distributions, the latter has been largely abandoned. The assumption now is that successful accumulation processes are per se the most appropriate distributional strategies. The second reterritorialisation, in a Deleuzian sense, is the reformation of institutional structures that regulate economy and promote economic growth. Here we find a tension in Australia's state apparatus between, on the one hand, an aggressive neo-liberalist reconstruction of the economic regulatory and production arms of the state, but with an adherence to a Keynesian mood within the nation's key spending and human services agencies on the other. The historical reasons for this tension are explained and possibilities for future change are speculated on.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13562570500510016

Affiliations: 1: Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia

Publication date: 2005-12-01

More about this publication?

• Editorial Board
• Information for Authors
• Subscribe to this Title
• ingentaconnect is not responsible for the content or availability of external websites

Related content

• In this: publication
• By this: publisher
• In this Subject: Political Science ,  Social Science (General)
• By this author: O'neill, Phillip ;  McGuirk, Pauline

Website © Publishing Technology. Article copyright remains with the publisher, society or author(s) as specified within the article.

• Terms and conditions
• Privacy policy
• Information for advertisers