University of Northern British Columbia: Open Journal Systems
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Global Austerity and Local Democracy: The Case of Participatory Budgeting in Guelph, ON.
Full text linkThis paper examines the role of participatory budgeting in policy-making at the municipal level, through a case study of the longest experiment with participatory budgeting in Canada, the Neighbourhood Support Coalition (NSC) in Guelph, ON. While existing scholarship tends to view participatory budgeting largely as oppositional to neoliberalism, I argue that participatory budgeting in Guelph is better understood as an adaptation of community groups to a neoliberal political context, rather than a direct challenge to neoliberal policies. When participatory budgeting began to be perceived as contravening neoliberal rationalities of autonomy, self-sufficiency, and marketization, the grassroots democratic elements of the practice were ultimately sacrificed in favour of a process that fit better with these logics. This work builds on previous research on participatory budgeting in Guelph by both bringing participatory budgeting in explicit dialogue with neoliberalism, and temporally extending the narrative of Guelph’s experience with participatory budgeting beyond 2009
Open Practices: lessons from co-design of public services for behaviour change
Full text linkThis paper explores what the distinctive value of design may be in a policy context. The paper broadly supports the contention by Smith and Otto (2014) that design offers a “distinct way of knowing that incorporates both analysing and doing in the process of constructing knowledge”. The paper will also outline potential limitations of the direct translating of design practice and methods into a policy context. To achieve this, the paper uses insights gained from an on-going design research project, Open Practices, which aims to co-design services and policy interventions to enable sustainable behaviour change. In this case, co-design, as a method and context for policy design, interweaves alternative ideas and perspectives (e.g. interdisciplinary knowledge, desirable visions of future behaviours), new policy practices (e.g. co-creation, policy labs, practical experiments, ethnographic study) and new social relations (e.g. new networks and actors).
When is a Myth Itself a Myth? Immigrant Criminality and the Canadian Public
Full text linkSurvey-based evidence gathered over the past several decades suggests that substantial minorities of the Canadian public associate immigrants with crime and crime with immigrants. In this note, we ask whether the myth of immigrant criminality imputed to the public is not itself a myth. We question whether the connection is a salient and enduring part of the public’s mindset or whether it is largely an artifact of the closed-ended items employed to explore the topic. We argue that responses to closed-ended questions on this topic are affected by a “halo effect” response bias – a tendency to associated positive attributes with positively evaluated targets and negative attributes to negatively evaluated targets. In support, we show (1) that responses to open-ended questions tell a very different story, (2) that attitudes toward immigrants strongly predict the likelihood of making the immigrant-crime connection when closed-ended items are used, and (3) that priming a possible immigrant-criminal linkage in a survey enhances this likelihood for subsequent items
Pol 856 Simon Fraser University Policy Design Graduate Syllabus 2017
No full textPol 856 Simon Fraser University Policy Design Graduate Syllabus 201
Making the most of collaboration an international survey of public service co-design
Full text linkAt its heart collaborative design seeks to make public services match the wants and needs of their beneficiaries. Policy makers and practitioners have increasingly embraced closer collaborations between users and designers, hoping to reinvigorate public services under pressure from a more demanding public, increasing social complexity and overstretched resources. The returns from this engagement are more responsive, fit-for-purpose, e-ciient public services. More broadly, co-design provides an avenue for addressing a disengagement from politics and democracy, and building social capital
Behavioural insights applied to policy: European Report 2016
Full text linkJoana Sousa Lourenço, Emanuele Ciriolo, Sara Rafael Almeida, and Xavier TroussardBehavioural Insights Applied to Policy (BIAP) 2016 draws on information collected via desk research, a survey and personal exchanges, including interviews with policy-makers, academics and a range of other stakeholders from 32 countries (28 EU Member States and the 4 EFTA countries). Such information is used to provide a twofold overview of: Behavioural policy initiatives; Institutional developments regarding the policy application of BIs.
DPI-130 Harvard University Masters Policy Design Syllabus
No full textDPI-130 Harvard University Masters Policy Design Syllabu
Conceptualizing Effective Social Policy Design: Design Spaces And Capacity Challenges
Full text linkThis article addresses the rise of design thinking and its problematics in the social policy sphere. In particular, it argues that studies of social policy design, like all design work in policymaking, must differentiate more carefully between technical and political considerations in public policymaking and examine the implications each process has for the content of social policy design, its implementation, and its prospects of success or failure. The article develops a model of social policy formulation spaces based on the extent to which policies are intended to address technical or political problems and a government’s capacity to engage in policy analysis and alternative assessment. This model is applied in the articles in this special issue to help understand the patterns of policy content and outcome success and failure found in this sector across multiple jurisdictions and issue areas.
Designing policies in uncertain contexts: Entrepreneurial capacity and the case of the European Emission Trading Scheme
Full text linkThe paper focuses on enterprising agents in policy formulation and design by looking at their capacity of dealing with different levels of uncertainty. In climate policy specifically, different degrees and types of uncertainties pose a challenge to policymakers. Policy entrepreneurs and the combination of their analytical, operational and political compe- tences are a relevant component in reducing ambiguity in policy design and translating broad policy goals to operational programmes and specific policy instruments. Using the case of the European Emission Trading Scheme, we suggest that the success of policy entrepreneurs in catalysing policy change is determined by their capacity to work against multiple kinds of uncertainty. This ‘uncertainty mitigating’ capacity on the part of policy entrepreneurs rests significantly on balancing managerial expertise and political acumen. We conclude that entrepreneurial capacity goes beyond current definitions in the literature, involving the balance among analytical, operational and political compe- tences to navigate a politicized policy context.
Declaration by Design: Rhetoric, Argument, and Demonstration in Design Practice
Full text linkCommunication as the key to good desig