The Study Of Policy Change For The Skilled Immigration Policy For Overseas Student In Australia,1973-2019

This dissertation examines policy change of the skilled immigration policy for overseas student in Australia.As one of the traditional immigration countries,Immigration policy is a key ingredient in Australia’s public policy agenda.Within the whole immigration policy system,skilled immigration policy for overseas student plays a significant role.Since the year of 1973,the policy has experienced the processes of"expand-restrain-expand-restrain",this research sought to exam the underlining factors that drove the changing process.The two research questions posed by this study were"how the policy changed?" and "why the policy changed?"Based on the questions,the study gives priority to descriptive and explanatory analysis,and make every effort to test policy experience and theoretical framework.These two research questions give this thesis a two-part structure,the first part provids a comprehensive review of the policy paradigm transition process based on four dimensions:policy goal,defining policy problem,policy instrument,and paradigmatic background.Four paradigmatic phases were distinguished:1973-1978 the paradigm of"racial equality",1979-1998 the paradigm of "protectionism",1999-2008 the paradigm of "brain gain and high education industry expansion",2009-2019 the paradigm of"pluralism".The second part explores the dynamic mechanisms for policy change,firstly,the paper sorts out the basic theoretical perspectives of punctuated equilibrium theory(PET)and advocacy coalition framework(ACF).By reviewing the weaknesses and strengths of the frameworks,and their complementarity and compatibility,the framework"focus question-----police image----interaction" is developed,which aims at providing much richer explanatory power.Based on the insights from the attention shift and policy belief system,three explanatory variables(influencing factors)are used to exam the dynamic mechanisms of policy change.《The Hansard》,《The Sydney Morning Herald》and《The Canberra Time》are analyzed in-depth to address the research question,content analysis and statistic analysis are used as basic research methods.By examining the causality relationship between focus questions and policy change,the study finds focus question can cause the parliamentary and media attention shift,which bring "critical junctures" of policy change.By examining frequency of parliamentary discussion and media coverage,the policy punctuations and focus questions were identified:"restriction on non-European graduates in applying skilled immigrant" in 1973,"75%of overseas graduates granted permanent residency" in 1979,"the big Australia plan" and "compulsory cooling off period" during 1999 to 2001,"violence to Indian students","skill mismatch","education sector abuses","fail to train local youngs" during 2009-2011.Those questions were caused by both internal and external factors,including the positive/negative feedbacks of existing policy,the exposure of problems,internal events,changes to socio-economic conditions,public opinions and dominant coalition,and influences from other policy subsystems.By examining the causality relationship between policy image and policy change,as policy images are structured based on policy beliefs,the study finds shift in main policy images represents the change of policy beliefs,which leading up to the major policy change.During the period of punctuation,the relationship between different policy images is featured by conflicts,led by the game between different policy beliefs.While change in secondary beliefs results in fine tunings of the major policy images,but it would only lead to mirror policy changes.Policy images are drawn from the content coding applied to parliamentary discussion and media,the main policy images in different paradigm are include"racial equality","consuming resources","creating a win-win situation" and"sustainable development".By examining the causality relationship between coalition interaction and policy change,two long-term coalitions and five short-term coalitions within the policy subsystem are identified,the dominant coalitions are including "fighting for racial equality" coalition,"Aussies first" coalition,"brain gain and expanding high education industry" coalition,and "brain gain" coalition.The study finds the dominant coalitions represent the effort of "maintaining stability" that opposing policy change,while the non-dominant coalitions represent the force of "destabilizing" that advocating policy change,the conflicts and coordinations between coalitions leading up to policy punctuations or equilibrium.Policy-oriented learning is catalyzed by focusing problems,which causes the redistribution of rescores between dominant and non-dominant coalitions.The main efforts of each coalition are to shape policy according to coalition policy beliefs.To do this,the coalitions employ various strategies to make the best use of resources and conduct policy-oriented learning,during some critical moments,policy-oriented learning between coalitions severs as a platform for reaching crosscoalition negotiated agreement.Based on the research findings,the causal relationship between disproportionate attention and policy beliefs is proved,so as the interrelationship within the three explanatory variables in causing policy change or maintaining equilibrium.The parlimentry and media attention shift is triggered by focus question,the policy issue within the question is then pushed onto the legislative agenda,the dominant coalition and the main policy images are therefore beening chanllenaged,which causes the breakdown of the previous policy monopolies.The outcome of a policy punctuation is the establishment of some new equilibrium state,in which parliment is able to revert to management of the policy through parallel processing.The study also finds that the pathway of policy change shfts from the features of"distergration and conflict" to"negotiation and cooperation".The study may have the following contributes,firstly,theories of the policy process are applied to exame the change of the skilled immigration policy for overseases student in Australia,the methodology and theoretical constructs have rarely been used for this subject matter.Sencondly,the framework "foucus question---image--interaction" is developed to provide much richer explanatory power.The framework is based on the insights from the two frameworks of PET and ACF because they complement each other with important areas of emphasis.