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Where do capabilities end and dynamic capabilities begin? Unpacking the “dynamic” nature of capabilities

By Ruth Puttick and Fernando Monge

As we develop the Public Sector Capabilities Index, a question we have been asked is, What are ‘dynamic’ capabilities? And how are they different from ‘ordinary’ capabilities?

In this post, we explain how dynamic capabilities differ from operational ones and why the distinction matters.

Why dynamic capabilities matter

Stating that governments are facing complex problems is a well-rehearsed argument. City governments are having to balance large-scale shocks, such as those caused by geopolitical conflicts or health crises, with managing the demands of day-to-day delivery, often with fiscal constraints.

The first full program of courses in political economy at an Australian university began in 1975. It was in the product of a long struggle by a dissident student-staff movement at the University of Sydney, campaigning for a PE course that students could take as an alternative to mainstream economics.

The struggle took place at a time when social activism in Australia was developing on many fronts – feminist, environmentalist, anti-apartheid and anti-imperialist, for peace and Indigenous peoples’ rights. It was a context in which the local activists’ success in getting a PE course up and running contributed to the view that ‘another world is possible’ because it showed that formally powerless groups can make a difference in driving change.

The early PE activists hoped that similar course programs would be established at other universities, and many struggled to try to make it happen. The Australian Political Economy Movement (APEM) was formed in 1976 to provide nationwide support and set up the Journal of Australian Political Economy (JAPE). as its flagship publication. In practice, however, the development of PE courses beyond Sydney Uni turned out to be more sporadic, usually depending on the personal interests and comings and goings of academic staff at those other universities. Moreover, the changing social, political and economic context has become less conducive to initiatives of this kind than it was in the 1970s.

Donghoon Lee and Joseph Tracy

The frog, who has seen scorpions sting and kill its brethren, is cautious and tells the scorpion no, because he is afraid of being stung.

The scorpion reassures the frog by telling it he too would die if he stung the frog while riding it across the river, and the frog sees the truth in this and offers the scorpion his back. As they approach the middle of the river, the frog feels the scorpion’s tail pierce his skin, and the poison immediately begin to flow through and paralyse his body.

“Why?” he gasps as he and the scorpion sink beneath the water.

“I’m sorry,” the scorpion says as the two see the face of death. “It is but my nature.”

The moral of the story, at least as it was relayed to me as a child, is that you cannot expect rationality from those unwilling to fight their worst nature.

This week, watching Tim Wilson and the Liberals attempt to reignite the work-from-home debate, just months after the Coalition was forced to dump its policy to force the public service back into the office mid-election because of how unpopular it was, brought the frog and the scorpion front of mind.

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan announced plans last week to enshrine employees’ rights to work from home for at least two days a week in law, setting off the predictable culture war over whether workers deserve any gains.

Andrew Beck has made a cogent case for why the U.S., like other countries, requires cultural and moral cohesion to protect its nationhood and act with a unified will on behalf of the common good. Beck correctly notes that the U.S. started out as a country with a well-defined collective identity. If we look back at America’s beginnings, we discover John Jay in Federalist 2 defining this original American identity in a memorable observation:

Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people—a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence.

At the time this was written, the newly formed American nation-state was composed overwhelmingly of Northern European Protestants; its legal institutions were largely British. Its shared culture was shaped by, among other things, reading and revering the King James Bible. Among the professional class, the Bible’s authority was supplemented by that of Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England, Shakespeare’s tragedies, and (to some extent) classical texts like Plutarch’s Lives.

For some Gen Zers, it’s already time to retire. A new trend known as “micro-retirement” has spread like wildfire on social media. It involves young adults working for a few years, quitting their jobs to pursue life experiences, and then repeating the cycle. While it is tempting to dismiss this trend, micro-retirement’s appeal to Zoomers reveals much about their unique perspective on life.

One popular influencer, Adama Lorna, made the case for micro-retirement in a TikTok video: “Instead of waiting until you’re 60 or 70 to travel the world and indulge in hobbies, you do them while you have your youth, your energy, and health.” As she sees it, micro-retirement is a way for young people to have their cake and eat it too. By “retiring” every few years, they’re able to reap the freedom that comes with retiree life while enjoying their youth.

Lifestyle guru Timothy Ferriss coined the term “micro-retirement” in his book titled The 4-Hour Workweek. Although it was written in 2007, it didn’t catch on among Millennials. The fact that Zoomers popularized a term coined while they were learning their ABCs suggests that something about their generational experience primed them for it.

It remains true. And that’s how we know business is very worried about the productivity roundtable Jim Chalmers has called for later this month.

Back in 2020, when the pandemic had all elements of Australia’s industrial relations sector in a panic, the emphasis was on the ACTU and business working together.

Countless op-eds were written about how union boss Sally McManus and the Coalition’s then-IR minister Christian Porter worked to find elements of consensus in how to address the looming crisis.

“No time for a workplace brawl”, advised the Australian Financial Review. That push for consensus continued into 2022 when Labor held its Jobs Summit, with the Business Council of Australia and the ACTU jointly releasing “shared principles and policy suggestions” ahead of the talkfest, as if laying the groundwork for the shared interest would make disagreeing later easier.

It didn’t. And getting along doesn’t mean good policy. Usually it just dulls any progressive push for structural change.

Which is why the immediate pushback against the ACTU’s call for a 25 per cent tax on revenue from gas exports in place of the flawed Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT), a minimum 25 per cent tax rate on family trusts and individuals earning more than $1 million a year, changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions and caps to the diesel fuel rebate very telling.

On this special crossover episode of Follow the Money and After America, Dr Emma Shortis joins Glenn Connley to discuss the Australian protests calling for more action to protect Palestinians, the momentum against the troubled AUKUS submarine pact, and Trump’s decision to fire his chief of labour statistics after job growth slowed.

This discussion was recorded on Monday 4 August 2025.

You can sign our petition calling on the Australian Government to launch a parliamentary inquiry into AUKUS.

Dead Centre: How political pragmatism is killing us by Richard Denniss is available for pre-order now via the Australia Institute website.

Guest: Emma Shortis, Director, International & Security Affairs, the Australia Institute // @emmashortis

Host: Glenn Connley, Senior Media Advisor, the Australia Institute // @glennconnley

Introduction  This response to the government’s call for evidence draws upon the Equality Trust’s research, collaboration with partners, stakeholder insights from place-based and participatory projects, and practitioner insights from the field. We have chosen to address the specific questions where we have the most relevant data and experience to make a contribution. This includes proposals […]

The post Equality Law Call for Evidence appeared first on Equality Trust.

10 September, 5:00-7:30 pm (drinks and canapés from 5pm, lecture starts 6 pm)
Lecture Theatre 200, Social Sciences Building (A02), The University of Sydney

**** Please register to attend

18th Annual E.L. ‘Ted’ Wheelwright Memorial Lecture

Speaker: Raewyn Connell

In the last generation there has been heavy criticism of what universities have become, in an era of commercialism and managerial control. This lecture will discuss the main points of criticism, whether they amount to a case for abolition, and what practical processes of abolition are under way. It looks at the prosperity of higher education as a global industry, and tries to probe a little into the contradictory situation we are now in: the corrosion of the labour process, the sustainability of the workforce, the appropriation of benefits, and current pressures on critique and truth. Finally it touches on the history of the sector and some memorable examples of struggle and change.

Which brings us to Labor’s revamped ‘Safeguard Mechanism’.

First, let’s set one thing straight. This is basically all about the coal and gas industries. More than 54% of emissions covered by the Safeguard Mechanism come from gas or coal:

This chart shows how big the emissions from the gas and coal industries are compared to other industries covered by the Safeguard Mechanism. Often industries like cement production, agriculture or manufacturing are presented as being a big part of Australia’s climate debate. This chart shows that they’re not, at least in terms of the Safeguard Mechanism.

So, here’s how the Safeguard Mechanism manages to look effective while actually facilitating gas and coal projects.

A few years ago, I was invited to observe some student presentations on the topic of Leisure: The Basis of Culture. It is one of the perks of my job as a professor at a Catholic liberal arts university that I get invited to such events. I thoroughly enjoyed the presentations, but I could sense from the Q&A that one part of the audience remained unpersuaded: the students’ parents. Moms and dads who had worked hard to pay for their children to attend college were not enthusiastic about the main point their sons and daughters were making: work is not what life is all about.

Leisure is the goal of work, after all. Leisure activity (rather than do-nothing inactivity) awakens the greatest part of our souls, the part that is capable of wonder and contemplation. Beginning with Aristotle, excellent philosophical authorities over the years have made that very argument. Classicist Sarah Broadie once observed that Aristotle’s idea that “we are not-at-leisure in order to be at leisure” remains understudied—except by the mid-20th century Thomist philosopher Josef Pieper, the foremost recent thinker who has argued for leisure’s importance. In 1948, he wrote that “the power to be at leisure is the power to step beyond the working world and win contact with those superhuman, life-giving forces that can send us, renewed and alive again, into the busy world of work.”

What City Observatory Did This Week