Browsing by Author "Rimmer, Daniel"
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- ItemBreakdown of governance : a critical analysis of New Zealand's climate change response : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand(Massey University, 2016) Rimmer, DanielThis thesis critically analyses the organisation and practice of climate change governance in New Zealand. Grounded in neo-Marxist state theory, the research identifies and deconstructs the political and economic structures that have shaped New Zealand’s policy response to climate change from 1988 to 2012. The fourth Labour Government, acting in response to the emergent threat of anthropogenic climate change, initiated New Zealand’s Climate Change Programme (NZ CCP). Subsequent governments persevered with the NZ CCP; effecting a relatively continuous pattern of minimal interventionist and least cost policy change. This culminated in late 2008, with the passage of the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme (NZ ETS) – a comprehensive, all sector economic instrument that would impose a price on domestic greenhouse gases. Despite this policy change, the NZ CCP has failed as an ameliorative response to climate change. Between 1990 and 2012, New Zealand’s gross emissions increased by 21 percent. Furthermore, there has been little evidence to suggest that the response has encouraged either afforestation or greater investment in renewable energy. To this point, little progress has been made in decarbonising New Zealand’s economy. Using Marxian systems-analysis, the research treats this pattern of policy change as a case study of policy breakdown and dysfunctional governance. The predominant (and ineffectual) mode of governance practiced in New Zealand is argued an outcome of the contradictory structural dynamics of New Zealand’s capitalist state. In the first instance, the state is functionally obliged to develop remedial climate change policy in response to the existential threat of climate change. This involves the formulation of policy that directly intervenes in New Zealand’s productive sources of greenhouse gas emissions. However, in the second instance, the state is constrained in its policy-making activities by the systemic logic of capital. This precludes the formulation of authoritative interventionist policy capable of effecting behavioural changes in carbon-intensive actors. Moreover, the capitalist biases of New Zealand’s climate change response precipitate legitimation crises, further undermining the state’s ability to drive mitigation and adaptation efforts. Policy change wrought between discordant systemic imperatives is invariably subject to policy breakdown. As this dysfunction is structural in nature, the thesis argues that modern capitalist states cannot practice a meaningful politics of climate change.
- ItemSensible or senseless : a frame analysis of the Sensible Sentencing Trust's penal populist discourse : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Sociology at Massey University(Massey University, 2011) Rimmer, DanielRecently many western societies, including New Zealand, have seen a distinct change in public attitudes towards law and order. Support for more punitive forms of punishment have seen governments adopt tougher penal and judicial policies. Scholarly attempts to define and understand this phenomenon have resulted in creation of 'penal populism'. Penal populism operates as a discourse that defines the arguments made for tougher sentences, harsher prison conditions, and greater rights for victims' of crime as well as conceptualizing the intricate social conditions from which these changes are born. This research is concerned with the discursive positions used to construct penal populist discourse; the ideas which argue for punitive reform. The aim of this research is to delineate and understand the discursive resources deployed by penal populist organizations as they seek support from the public. This research examines the penal populist discourse produced by the Sensible Sentencing Trust as a case study. The SST is New Zealand's preeminent organization dedicated to punitive reform. As a penal populist organization, the SST operate within a complex penal populist social movement; a global collectivity, where various groups and actors are bound by a punitive narrative. Frame analysis, a qualitative research method, will be used to identify penal populist discursive positions and understand their function as a resource used to elicit support from the public. The three fundamental processes of diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational framing will be identified to understand how the SST frames their discourse to produce a meaningful punitive message that resonates with the public. This research suggests that the SST gain and retain support for their cause by adapting fundamental conservative concepts with their penal populist discursive positions. The SST act as a signifying agent, interpreting the political philosophy of compassionate conservatism and aligning conservative principles. This act of re-contextualizing conservative concepts to suit the discursive needs of New Zealand's law and order debate translates their inherent resonance into the punitive narrative. Compassionate conservatism functions as a master frame, a conservative grammar, or algorithm that structures penal populist discourse making it strike a responsive chord with conservative members of the public. This act of framing however has potentially negative implications. The SST's framing creates an anti-liberalism frame that acts as an important discursive unit. This frame is hegemonic; seeking to dominate the national law and order conversation by casting contrary penal and judicial discourses as an adversary. This has the effect of divisively curtailing constructive law and order debate in New Zealand.