Policy success and failure in Australia

This paper introduces the seven articles in the symposium on policy success and failure together with a short introduction to the large literature on policy success and failure. The issue brings together an analysis of success and failure within seven discrete policy domains, including Indigenous policy; immigration; foreign policy; water; government roll-outs; education; and foreign aid. Previous case studies have not looked as systematically at both success and failure within the same policy domain, and so the direct comparison in a most similar systems framework has not previously been adopted. Each paper sets its own criteria for what it considers success and failure, allowing for the forthcoming analyses to remain relevant to their specific context and parameters. However, despite their differences, the papers reflect on the importance of institutions, implementation processes-specifically their attentiveness to the on-ground conditions and target groups-political dimensions, time, expectations, and memory. This suggests that while it may be difficult to compare across policy domains, our within-policy domain comparison reveals that good governance, despite some failures, is not a lost art. Points for practitioners The criteria for success or failure of government policy is relative to time, perspective, ideology, and context. The criteria for success or failure of government policy might vary across policy domains; what is appropriate for some domains might not be for others. We can consider policy success and failure in terms of programme, outcome, or political agenda. Programmes can succeed in some aims and fail in others. Case studies are the appropriate means for examining success and failure, and capturing the narrative is important in how a policy is viewed.