Research paperGovernance versus government: Drug consumption rooms in Australia and the UK
Section snippets
Governance and government
The term governance is well-established, being used in a variety of contexts to refer to ‘the exercise of authority within a given sphere’ (Hewitt de Alcantara, 1998). More recently, it has come to be associated with the rise of new public management, the prevalence of self-organising policy networks, the hollowing out of the state and governing at arm's length (Rhodes, 1996). On the other hand, government as a conceptual framework is seen as limited because it does not recognise the
Pluralism versus asymmetry
The Differentiated Polity Model, or Narrative (Bevir & Rhodes, 2008), has defining features which are associated more closely with governance. In this model, power is decentralised and more openly contested, structures are more horizontal and networks from outside government have access to both power and resources to organise and participate in decision-making. Conversely, an Asymmetric Power Model can be closely associated with more traditional forms of Government: the character of
Description of the case study
The UK and Australia witnessed a growth of injecting heroin use in the 1980s and 1990s. By the late 1990s, the problem of street-based injectors had been identified in both countries, with associated public health and public nuisance consequences. Drug consumption rooms as a harm reduction strategy were being discussed since the mid-1990s in Kings Cross, Sydney, and the trial of a safe injecting centre was recommended by the Royal Commission into the New South Wales Police Service in 1997 (
Methods
The case study of drug consumption rooms was selected according to a number of criteria, with contrast and similarity as the principal criteria. Contrast and similarity also inform the selection of countries, Australia and the UK, as units of analysis. In particular, the contrast between success and failure, understood as the implementation or non-implementation of the intervention, offers significant potential for generating more powerful explanations (Varese, 2011). A multi-level embedded
Decentralisation of power
In England, attention has been dedicated to the impact of new localism legislation on the ability for local authorities to make independent political decisions. However promising localism may look in terms of the potential it provides for power decentralisation, most considerations up to this point have been speculative, with much scepticism characterising the debate. This was recognised by participants in relation to the possibility that Brighton might opt for piloting a drug consumption room:
Power centralisation/centralism
While there is indication of power centralisation in New South Wales, centralism, defined as the political dependence of local authorities on central government, appears to dominate UK accounts (Davies, 2000). This is because in New South Wales, the type of power centralisation encountered is more managerial in character. After the New South Wales Drug Summit, an Office of Drug Policy was created and managed through the Cabinet Office and ministerial staff to coordinate reforms that followed
Independent self-organising networks and partnerships
Peters and Pierre claim that ‘the dominant feature of the governance model is the argument that networks have come to dominate public policy’ and ‘if governments attempt to impose control over policy, these networks have sufficient resiliency and capacity for self-organisation’ (1998, p. 225). In Sydney, some participants argued that an act of civil disobedience – which saw a network establish a tolerance room for injecting in Wayside Chapel, Kings Cross, weeks before the Drug Summit – was the
Role of evidence/experts: governance, government or both?
Evidence has a crucial role in shaping policy debates and informing policy practice. The number of agencies external to government that act as advisory bodies has increased, and government structures and mechanisms are set up to encourage expert participation (MacGregor, 2012). Participants have stressed the role of independent experts and evidence as prevalent in decision-making around this intervention. In the UK context, the gathering of evidence was seen as being able to move the debate on
Top-down steering/directing
The New South Wales government apparently saw itself as a political shepherd, strategically managing the setting up of the facility as a trial, the evaluations, and media communication:
The centre wasn’t the way some people would have liked it but it's still there today because of the way it was set up and all the restrictions [that] protected it […]it was shepherded through so carefully! (AP1).
Participants agreed that had the premier not supported the first trial, there probably would never
Legislation
In the UK, passing legislation to implement this type of intervention is not essential (Independent Working Group, 2006):
You don’t have to ask any high-powered permission of parliament to do it, the whole issue is around, is anybody wanting to take the criticism? And that does affect local politicians […] police chiefs, directors of public health, are very conscious of that (UADP).
As such, the problem is not around the law as much as it is around whether local authorities are willing to take
Discussion: governance with government
The Sydney Medically Supervised Injecting Centre came into being in the context of a burgeoning heroin epidemic which disproportionately affected the population around Kings Cross (van Beek, 2004). The factors which prompted the trial of the Medically Supervised Injecting Centre were manifold: cheap heroin, together with the characteristics of Kings Cross itself as hosting a transient, bohemian community, the already existing illegal shooting galleries facilitated by police corruption, the
Conflict of interest statement
The author acknowledges no conflict of interest, while acknowledging the University of Kent for funding my PhD and the Drug Policy Modelling Program for providing support during fieldwork in Australia.
Acknowledgements
The author acknowledges the University of Kent for funding my PhD and the Drug Policy Modelling Program for providing support during fieldwork in Australia. I am thankful to Alex Stevens, Phil Hubbard and Alison Ritter for their comments on this paper.
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