The authorising roles of public institutions in job creation and training: legitimating New Zealand employment policy 1980 - 1985

This paper analyses the roles of central and local goven1ment public sector institutions in conferring and denying ideological legitimacy to alternative job creation and training strategies. The past decade has seen numerous changes in employment policy direction. In all cases the policy changes have been accompanied by the promulgation of rhetorical information proclaiming why and how they represent rational and appropriate responses to identified problems. There has in fact been no general consensus on priorities nor on the best means to achieve objectives. Institutional power to authorise particular policy rationales therefore is of paramount importance in determining what forms support for employment initiatives are able to take. Through a review of the past decade of the public sector special employment programmes, this paper traces and interprets the dynamics of this coercive political process, and its part in wider social change in New Zealand.