University of Northern British Columbia: Open Journal Systems
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Thinking Outside the Box? Applying Design Theory to Public Policy
Get PDFDesign involves an account of expertise which foregrounds implicit, heuristic skills. Most models of policy making have a stronger interest in structural and exogenous pressures on decision making. Research suggests that high-level experts develop unique capacities to process data, read a situation, and see imaginative solutions. By linking some of the key attributes of a design model of decision making to an account of expertise, it is possible to formulate a stronger model of public policy design expertise. While other approaches often concern themselves with constraints and structural imperatives, a design approach has a focus upon the capacities of individual actors such as policy experts. Such an approach rests upon central propositions in regard to goal emergence, pattern recognition, anticipation, emotions engagement, fabulation, playfulness, and risk protection. These provide a starting point for further research and for the professional development of policy specialists
Design for Public Good
Get PDFIn this publication, members of SEE share experiences of enhancing design in public sector activities
Assessing the Collaboration That Was “Collaborative Federalism” 1996-2006
Get PDFFrom a vantage point fifteen to twenty years after a number of scholars labeled the intergovernmental climate of the mid/late 1990s as "collaborative federalism," this article re-assess the appropriateness of this label. Looking particularly at social policy, we consider the process of col- laboration itself, both in terms of the institutions and forums where the federal and provincial partners to the collabora- tion met (have initial attempts to grow the apparatus of intergovernmental negotiations had lasting effects), and in terms of the culture and relationships involved (have prov- inces and the federal government negotiated in ways that place the two orders of government on equal footing, or have they reverted to a hierarchical relationship). The article also considers whether provincial and federal governments pro- duced collaborative policy outcomes, given their pledges to do so, as elaborated in a series of intergovernmental agree- ments. We find that the “collaborative” of collaborative federalism comes to look quite thin, particularly compared to the definition of collaboration advanced by scholars a decade ago. We conclude with some brief reflections on what the lack of collaboration in collaborative federalism means for the broader taxonomic question of how we understand the intergovernmental relations of these years, and suggest that a more accurate descriptor might be the unraveling of competitive federalism
The Political Integration of Immigrant and Visible Minority Women
Get PDFThis article examines how immigrant and visible minority status, and the intersection of the two, affect women’s ability and willingness to participate in conventional and unconventional political activities. Using a telephone survey undertaken with English-speaking women in nine of Canada’s ten provinces, we find that women’s political integration varies by the type of political activity in question but that it is particularly weak for immigrant women from an ethnic minority. We also find that resource and socio-demographic profiles are limited in their ability to explain participation deficits, especially for unconventional political activity, and that mobilizing networks offer some possible insight into women’s propensity to participate politically
The Making of a Conservationist: Audubon’s Ecological Memory
Get PDFIn the centuries since Audubon lived, the extent of disruption to natural ecosystems has relentlessly increased throughout North America. Yet during the first half of the 19th century Audobon already recognized threats to environmental integrity and biodiversity long before such concepts were articulated by 20th-century ecologists. Based on his own extensive observations of nature’s abundance and destruction throughout North America, Audubon anticipated the broad outlines of conservation in many ways consistent with principles of environmental protection in our time. Fundamental to these understandings, as prescient as they seem today, was his extraordinary sense of ecological memory. Based on his own observations of the changing range of wildlife populations during his lifetime, he could extrapolate to consequences for the continent of North America as a whole and recognized what was at stake for future generations
Design and Innovation in the Public Sector: Matters of Design in Policy-Making and Policy Implementation
Get PDFAs more and more governments seek new design approaches to policy-making and policy- implementation that promise to innovate and transform governments, we urgently need to understand the relationships between policy-making, policy implementation and designing. In this paper, I discuss policy-making and policy implementation as problems of design and as activities of design. I begin by pointing out traditional and emerging relationships between design and policy and by offering a design definition of policy. I roam in the field of policy-making to show that policies themselves are not yet fully acknowledged as design outcomes in contemporary policy studies. Instead, this literature treats design almost exclusively as an isolated, in-itself-closed activity, part of problem-solving that begins after a policy problem has been recognized as such and defined. I critically engage with this view of design and identify it as an obstacle for the kinds of innovation and transformation governments now seek to initiate and materialize. The general aim of this paper is to initiate a critical and necessary discourse for matters of design in policy-making and policy implementation
The lexicon of mainstreaming equality: Gender Based Analysis (GBA), Gender and Diversity Analysis (GDA) and Intersectionality Based Analysis (IBA)
Get PDFIn the last 15 years, much debate has ensued at the international level regarding gender mainstreaming (GM), its efficacy and future utility. In Canada, similar discussions have taken place where GM has largely been operationalized in the form of gender-based analysis (GBA). However, there has been a lack of clarity regarding the ways in which GBA as a conceptual framework compares to other approaches available for working towards equality in public policy, namely gender and diversity analysis (GDA) and intersectionality-based analysis (IBA). As a result, the potential of these models to respond to diversity and inequality, especially GBA and GDA, are often overstated and/or conflated. The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the similarities and differences between GBA, GDA, and IBA. This analysis illuminates the strengths and limitations of these types of approaches, especially in terms of how each conceptualizes and is able to address a wide variety of diversities among the Canadian population. This paper argues that only IBA is flexible enough to capture the multidimensional nature of oppression and discrimination because it disrupts the systematic prioritization of gender as a starting place for assessing experiences of inequality
Intra-Party Federalism and the Impact of the Provincial Parties on 'Uniting the Right'
No full textThis article examines the role played by the Ontar- io and Alberta Progressive Conservative Parties in the movement to ‘unite the Right’ in Canada in the late 1990s and early 2000s. This movement sought to unify the Re- form/Canadian Alliance and the federal Progressive Con- servative party, who all suffered from frequent electoral losses as a result of vote-splitting on the right of the political spectrum. This movement resulted in the creation of the Conservative Party of Canada in 2003. The ‘unite the right’ movement was greatly aided by the power and influence of provincial Progressive Conservative parties, especially in Ontario and Alberta. The paper explores the various strate- gic and pragmatic concerns of the provincial wings, and details the balancing of ideology, partisanship, and electoral success