Current Issue: Summer 2009
Inaugural Fully Electronic Version of JESP

Introduction

'JESP: prosaic origins and enduring dreams'
A Special Editorial from Founding Editor, Alex Millmow

The Journal of Economic and Social Policy had humble beginnings, starting life as an idea that took shape and then form in a spare bedroom in a Canberra suburb in the spring of 1995. The two founding editors, Malcolm Cook and Alex Millmow, had a vision of creating a journal that filed a void in the debate about Australian public policy. Its brief was to commission articles into print that were ‘relevant to current or emerging policy issues in areas such as economics, society, policy, economic and social history, health and education’. The editors welcomed contributions from other disciplines that were ‘non-technical and accessible to a broad audience’. At the time Cook was an economics lecturer at the Faculty of Business, Coffs Harbour campus of Southern Cross University while Millmow was a lecturer in economics at Charles Sturt University. Millmow was also involved with a think-tank called the Centre for Policy Research, founded by Alec Pretorius which was essentially trying to offer an alternative to economic rationalism. It was rather ironically registered in Canberra, then considered the bastion of ER. These were the heady days of protest against some of the excesses of economic rationalism. There was plenty to protest about: high unemployment, a job-less economic recovery and perennial concern about the trade deficit and the wasting away of the manufacturing sector. These were the days before the great resources boom. Initially JESP was sparked by the controversy and ideological wars that sprang by the imposition of economic rationalism into public policy. Not long after that doctrine was banished from officialdom. The Federal Treasury, for instance, dropped it from its lexicon. It became a doctrine that dare not speak its name. It was replaced by phrases like the Washington consensus and neo liberalism. Recently, the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, in a scattergun attack, attributed the global financial crisis to the wiles and excesses of neo-liberalism. Except for the first few issues JESP has never really had all that a partisan line, entertaining copy that was balanced and timely.

The two editors decided that what Australian academia needed was a public policy focused journal with SCU and the Centre for Policy Research as joint partners. The first issue came out in the summer of 1995/96 featuring articles by some reputable academics including Jenny Stewart, Russell Mathews (One of his last), Ted Wheelwright and Graham Dunkley. These articles had been solicited by the two editors as were several others in subsequent issues. Some of the most illustrious names in Australian economics and the social sciences have graced its pages.

Now after nearly 15 years, 23 issues and some 142 scholarly refereed articles, it will undergo a generational change and find new life as an online journal in its trademark blue and white colour livery. It already, of course, has a web presence but now this will be its main carriage of delivery. More importantly, researchers will be able to access the contents of all past issues including the very first issue. Its new format might actually increase circulation.

Over the past decade this journal has been managed edited and published by SCU. Jeremy Buultjens invested his editorial talents with help from Denis O’ Brien, Dennis Howard and Don Fuller. JESP has been an outlet for research and commentary on pressing contemporary policy concerns. That it does reflects well on the leadership of the university. Looking back some issues have been better than other ones. At times the quality has been inconsistent. It is not a problem unique to JESP. Other journals in this research genre encounter the same problems, namely, the lack of good copy in accessible, compelling language on contemporary social and economic problems. The editors, especially Jeremy Buultjens, worked hard to maintain consistent standards. We are delighted he is returning to the journal again. Many young scholars got their first break in this journal. Apart from Agenda which is published online by the College of Business and Economics at the Australian National University. JESP is the only Australian economics journal published by a university. Long may it last.

Alex Millmow
Founding editor