From Mobsters to Magnates: Shifting Blame for Modern Slavery in Australian Parliamentary Inquiries
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O’Brien, Erin [1]
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[1] Queensland University of Technology
Queensland University of Technology
Australia
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- Localización: Parliamentary affairs: A journal of representative politics, ISSN 0031-2290, Vol. 75, Nº 2, 2022, págs. 340-361
- Idioma: inglés
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
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Resumen
Policy problems are typically framed through a representation of those who have been harmed, and those who are to blame, with parliamentary inquiries playing a key role in setting the agenda by mediating between competing problematisations. In order to reveal the politics behind policy-making through inquiries, it is necessary to examine both the aspects of the issue that are problematised and those aspects that remain unproblematised. Adopting modern slavery policy in Australia as a case study, this article utilises Bacchi’s ‘what is the problem represented to be?’ framework for analysing discourse in parliamentary inquiries on modern slavery between 2003 and 2018. I argue that across three clear phases of policy-making, problematisation has shifted and evolved, though blame has consistently been deflected away from the role of the state in contributing to the conditions that cause modern slavery.
