Catherine Althaus

A Disciplinary Perspective on the Epistemological Status of Risk

A unique multidisciplinary perspective on the risk literature is used to establish a fresh and provocative argument regarding the epistemological understanding and definition of risk. Building on economic conceptualizations that distinguish risk from uncertainty and argue that risk is an ordered application of knowledge to the unknown, the survey identifies each of the disciplines as having a particular knowledge approach with which they confront the unknown so as to order its randomness and convert it into a risk proposition. This epistemological approach suggests the concept of risk can act as a mirror, reflecting the preoccupations, strengths, and weaknesses of each discipline as they grapple with uncertainty. The conclusion suggests that the different disciplines can, and desirably should, act in concert toward a cumulative appreciation of risk that progresses our understanding of the concept. One way in which the article challenges risk experts to join disciplinary forces in a collaborative effort is to holistically appreciate and articulate the concept of political risk calculation.

Human Embryo Transfer and the Theology of the Body

One group argues in favour of embryo transfer and suggests the moral object of the act to be: to transfer an unborn baby from the freezer to a woman’s womb, for her to be impregnated and to gestate and nurture the baby there until birth. In this volume, this group is represented through the work of Christopher Tollefsen, Darlene Fozard Weaver and Sarah-Vaughan Brakman. The other group, amongst which I place myself (and which Reverend Tadeusz Pacholczyk also represents in this volume), suggest the moral object of the act is: to seek pregnancy outside the conjugal act (or put another way to impregnate a woman outside the conjugal act and/or more widely to offend against marital fidelity because pregnancy is viewed to be a continuum from the conjugal act that causes an ontological change in the woman that cannot morally be isolated from the conjugal act).

The Administrative Sherpa and the Journey of Public Service Leadership

The sherpa is offered as a helpful metaphor amid the rich and diverse metaphorical landscape describing public administration at the interface between senior public servants and ministers. The sherpa model acknowledges the complexity and nuanced leadership now demanded in the Westminster tradition, offering fresh tools for practitioners to think more critically about their role and how they can improve leadership skills. It also offers theoretical ability to incorporate relevant but underdeveloped factors, such as the environment, into the administrative leadership equation, thus enlarging issues at stake and forces demanding scrutiny, if administrative leadership is to be better understood.

Federalism Dreaming? Re‐imagining the Governance of Australian Landscapes

We propose a re-imagining of Australian federalism in response to the White Paper on Reform of the Australian Federation. We acknowledge the unique nature and existing strengths and challenges confronting the Australian federation. In so doing we argue the value of listening to the history of the land in connection with its people and bringing landscape lessons into federation calculations moving forward. The distinctiveness of our federalism dreaming is distinguished from traditional calls for regionalism or regionalization.

What Do We Talk About Now? Reflecting on Publications in AJPA 1970–2015

This article reflects on 45 years of articles published in the Australian Journal of Public Administration (AJPA), providing commentary not only on the journals status and future but also the state of public administration in Australia. The analysis builds on a first study conducted in 1997, continuing the themes of institutional affiliation, subject matter and research methodology as key categories for AJPA article analysis. The context for the analysis is the advent of the journals new editorial team. The article concludes that several opportunities present themselves for AJPAs future including performing a strategic stocktake of the discipline and debating its merits as well as marking out what might make for a peculiarly Australian form of public administration (if any) in the contemporary era.

Fear, Risk, and the Responsible Choice: Risk Narratives and Lowering the Rate of Caesarean Sections in High-income Countries

In Canada, as elsewhere in the world, caesarean sections are the most common surgical procedure performed in hospitals annually. Recent national statistics indicate 28% of infants in Canada are born by c-section while in the United States that number rises to 33%. This is despite World Health Organization recommendations that at a population level only 10–15% of births warrant this form of medical intervention. This trend has become cause for concern in recent decades due to the short and long-term health risks to pregnant women and infants, as well as the financial burden it places on public health care systems. Others warn this trend may result in a collective loss of cultural knowledge of a normal physiological process and, in the process, establish a new “normal” childbirth. Despite a range of interventions to curb c-section rates—enhanced prenatal care and innovation in pregnancy monitoring, change in hospital level policies, procedures and protocols, as well as public education campaigns—they remain stubbornly resistant to stabilization, let alone, reduction in high-income countries. We explore—through a review of the academic and grey literature—the role of cultural and social narratives around risk, and the responsibilization of the pregnant woman and the medical practitioner in creating this kind of resistance to intervention today.

Establishing the Moral Object of Heterologous and Homologous Embryo Transfer

Many liken the quest to determine the moral object of the act of heterologous and homologous embryo transfer an exercise in casuistry. Some proponents in favor of embryo transfer bemoan a lack of feeling, theology or feminism in the debates that exist and have sought to widen the scope of thinking. I have wrestled with this topic as a Catholic woman on a personal level for over a decade, spanning a development in my own vocation as a single woman to now being a married mother of three children. As a public administration academic as well as woman of faith I support broadening discussion concerning the issue, but my position remains nevertheless focused on precision determining the moral object of the act in order to help achieve human freedom for all. This chapter elaborates my thinking and position opposing the morality of embryo transfer. It addresses the various objections aimed at my reasoning since 2007 and considers the contents of Dignitas personae as the most recent teaching of the Church relevant to the matter. The chapter closes with some brief thoughts on the implications of the moral object I propose from the perspective of Christian anthropology and dialogue with humanity as a whole.