University of Northern British Columbia: Open Journal Systems
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“Wildrose Wild Card”: Alberta Newspaper Coverage of the 2009 Wildrose Alliance Leadership Contest
Get PDFThis study uses quantitative and qualitative methods to examine Alberta newspaper coverage of the Wildrose Party’s 2009 leadership contest. We compared the overall visibility of the two candidates, Danielle Smith and Mark Dyrholm, and contrasted news framing of their public and private personas and assessments of their ideological positions and leadership skills. Smith was more visible than her male opponent, reflecting her front-runner status during the leadership race. Somewhat surprisingly, Smith was not framed as a woman candidate, nor were evaluations of her performance marked by sexism or gender stereotypes. We argue that these findings are atypical and other women leadership contenders are not likely to receive the glowingly positive assessments Smith enjoyed. Smith’s conservative ideological position, and the possibility that she had the skills and public appeal necessary to topple the longstanding governing party, prompted the remarkably adulatory coverage accorded her candidacy by the Alberta press corps
Public Opinion Research Procurement in the Saskatchewan Government: Polling for the Public Good?
No full textPublic opinion research has become a key element of both governmental policy-making and communications strategies in most democratic jurisdictions. However, there are differences among jurisdictions in how public opinion research is procured, how the results of this research are disseminated, and what contribution this research might make to the “public good”. Saskatchewan’s approach to the commissioning and publication of public opinion research raises questions about how government approaches procurement of polling and other public opinion research, how this research supports government decision-making (including agenda-setting) and communications strategies, whether or not it should have the role it does in decision-making, and what – if any – contribution polling makes to the overall good of the citizens in the province. Given the requirement of public release, how do political actors see the relevance and importance of public opinion research in policy-making
Evaluating Prime Ministerial Leadership in Canada: The Results of an Expert Survey
Get PDFThis article reports the results of the largest survey of expert opinion on prime ministerial leadership in Canada, conducted in 2011. The top-rated prime ministers were, in order, Laurier, King, Macdonald and Pearson, who were preferred because of their creative records of achievement and capacity to see the country whole, champion its unity and make for positive change. Survey respondents valued transformational leadership that altered the country, but did so in a cautious way that did not threaten national cohesiveness. The article makes frequent reference to the international literature on leadership, allowing for comparisons across a range of countries
A Framework Document for Evidence-Based Programme Design on Reintegration
Get PDFThis is a Framework Document on evidence-based reintegration programme design, prepared by the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) for the Inter-agency Working Group(IAWG) on Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR). The purpose of this Framework Document is to develop and introduce a Conceptual Framework for working with evidence in the design of reintegration programmes to support efforts towards greater local impact at the field level. This is critical to achieving strategic goals at both the national and the international levels
Towards Evidence-Driven Policy Design: Complex Adaptive Systems and Computational Modeling
Get PDFEfforts to design public policies for social systems tend to confront highly complex conditions which have a large number of potentially relevant factors to be considered and rapidly changing conditions where continuous adaptation delays or obscures the effect of policies. Given unresolvable uncertainty in policy outcomes, the optimal solution is difficult, if ever possible, to nail down. It is more reasonable to choose a solution that is robust to as many future scenarios that might ensue from the decision. Arriving at such a solution requires policy makers to actively explore and exploit rich information to support their decision making in a cost-efficient, yet rigorous manner. We name this new working style as evidence-driven policy design and outline the characteristics of favorable evidence. We then argue that computational modeling is a potential tool for implementing evidence-driven policy design. It helps the study and design of solutions by simulating various environments, interventions, and the processes in which certain outcomes emerge from the decisions of policy makers. It allows policy makers to observe both the intended and, equally important, unintended consequences of policy alternatives. It also facilitates communication and consensus-building among policy makers and diverse stakeholders
Politics, Policy, and Participation: Contemporary Issues in Canadian Gender Equality
Get PDFIntroduction to the Symposiu