The policy analysis movement revolves around the idea that a generic analytic toolkit can be productively applied to substantive policy problems, but different patterns of policy analysis can be observed across organizations, sectors, and jurisdictions. This article identifies how policy analysis and governance contexts can each be differentiated at a theoretical level, and how the latter might affect the former. It is argued that successful modes of policy analysis are attributable both to the skills of policy analysts/managers, and congruence with broader institutional contexts. The case of Canada is used to probe the ability of investigators to identify distinctive policy styles over time and to encourage more systematic, finer-grained, comparative study. The article considers the implications for teaching policy analysis and for managers balancing the need to match policy analysis styles with institutional context and to challenge the perceptions of decision makers.
Comprehending external environments is an increasingly important facet of the work of senior public servants. The purpose of this paper is to introduce concepts that will help practitioners and academic observers to describe and analyse the structure and dynamics of policy communities. The paper first draws from the political science literature to identify different networks in policy communities, considering how the role of public managers changes from network to network, and then models policy communities as “learning” entities consisting of advocacy coalitions responding to policy challenges in competitive and cooperative interactions. The paper concludes that public managers have a special stewardship function in facilitating more productive learning within policy communities. Sommaire: Dans le cadre du travail des fonctionnaires supérieurs, il devient de plus en plus important de bien comprendre l'environnement extérieur. Le présent exposé vise à présenter des concepts qui aideront les professionnels du métier et les théoriciens à décrire et à analyser la structure et les dynamiques des communautés qui formulent les politiques. L'exposé se fonde d'abord sur la littérature dans le domaine des sciences politiques pour identifier divers réseaux'au sein de ces communautés, en tenant compte de l'évolution du rôle du gestionnaire public d'un réseau à l'autre, puis il présente un modèle de ces communautés en tant qu'ensembles «d'apprentissage» composés de coalitions qui militent en faveur d'un certain objectif et qui interagissent de façon concurrentielle et coopérative aux défis que posent les politiques. Selon la conclusion de l'exposé, les gestionnaires publics ont un rôle‐clé dans la facilitation d'un apprentissage plus productif au sein des communautés qui décident des politiques.
Proposing mega-policies to solve social and economic problems no longer carries much appeal for Canadian policy makers. This reluctance is a product of perceived failures of many large-scale programmes, the heightened political conflict promised by such interventions and, of course, continuing pressure to reduce government spending. Nevertheless, complex problems persist. Reliance on incremental responses is likely to prove insufficient to redress such problems and there will continue to be a need for policy responses of considerable scope. However, the nagging problem is that governments, despite possessing considerable analytic expertise, often struggle to deliver comprehensive strategies in a timely fashion. This suggests that we pay closer attention to the role of government bureaucracy in policy innovation, and recognize that the difficulty in producing comprehensive responses to problems may be due less to policy and political errors and more to organizational factors.Consider the three cases that inform this study. The first involves the disjointed efforts of the federal Department of Energy, Mines and Resources (EMR) to achieve energy security following two oil crises ). 5 By the term successful, we are not referring to the content of the final design. Significant changes in policy direction are bound to be accompanied by clashes over what constitutes the appropriate policy stance. Nevertheless, we think our analysis is salient for two kinds of critics of such interventions. Critics who claim comprehensive policies were not bold enough should consider whether there was sufficient capacity to design a more ambitious programme. Critics who believe the policy went too far should look for future circumstances when such capacity has been created, and think about how to neutralize such capacity from inside and outside the government.Abstract. Governments often operate under considerable pressure to respond effectively to the emergence of increasingly complex policy dilemmas. This article first explains some key difficulties in bringing forth comprehensive policy interventions. Despite the ubiquity of social and political constraints to policy innovation, many failures can be attributed to public bureaucracies that are not designed to deal with complex problems, and which all too quickly exceed their policy-making capacities. This study then analyzes why comprehensive policy-making does sometimes occur, and links its occurrence to bureaucratic design factors, arguing that extending organizational capacity for innovation involves more than generous budgets and expertise. The article draws upon, and develops further, Mintzberg's ideas on administrative adhocracy to show how administrative units can be organized to enable bureaucracies to transcend professional compartmentalization and routine; and how structures can be designed for comprehensive policy innovation. The study focuses on Canadian federal bureaucracy, and it is supported by three case studies of recent policy experiments: energy, environment and AIDS....
Furthering the accountability of elected governments and the public administration apparatus which serves them is a fundamental principle of democratic societies. Over the last fifty years, there have been significant debates about how to operationalize and balance the principles of accountability in our federal governance system. The emergence and proliferation of Web 2.0 capabilities and advocates for their use in government has led to new rounds of experimentation, initiatives and reform under the banner of Government 2.0 in many jurisdictions. This article surveys the Canadian and international literature on accountability in the digital era, including contributions from scholars with interests in information technology, transparency and digital culture, to identify whether Canada is lagging or leading international contributions in this area. It sets out a research agenda inspired by the concepts of interactive, dynamic, and citizen-initiated accountability (Schillemans, Van Twist, and Vanhommerig 2013).Sommaire : Un principe fondamental des soci et es d emocratiques consiste a promouvoir l'imputabilit e des gouvernements elus et de l'appareil d'administration publique qui est a leur service. Nous sommes aux prises, depuis les cinquante dernières ann ees, avec des d ebats très importants sur la manière d'op erationnaliser et d' equilibrer les principes d'imputabilit e au sein de notre système de gouvernance f ed eral. L' emergence et la prolif eration des capacit es du Web 2.0, ainsi que de leurs d efenseurs pour l'utiliser au sein du gouvernement, a engendr e de nouvelles s eries d'exp erimentation, d'initiatives et de r eformes sous la bannière du gouvernement 2.0 dans de nombreuses comp etences. Cet article examine la litt erature canadienne et internationale portant sur l'imputabilit e dans l'ère num erique, y compris les contributions d' erudits qui s'int eressent a la technologie de l'information, la transparence et la culture num erique, afin de d eterminer si le Canada est en retard ou en tête des contributions a l' echelle internationale dans le domaine. L'article article etablit un programme de recherche inspir e par les concepts d'imputabilit e interactive, dynamique, et a l'initiative des citoyens (Schillemans, Van Twist, et Vanhommerig 2013).
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