University of Northern British Columbia: Open Journal Systems
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The 2020 Provincial Election in New Brunswick: The First Canadian COVID-19 Election
Full text linkAbstractNew Brunswick’s 2020 election was Canada’s first election during the COVID-19 pandemic. It produced a slim majority government for the Progressive Conservatives under Premier Blaine Higgs after all-party talks to create a quasi-coalition arrangement failed. The major parties continued to decline in voter support, and two newer parties, the Green Party and the People’s Alliance, still have a presence in the Legislative Assembly. The Liberal Party failed to win seats in Anglophone New Brunswick, reducing their support to just the francophone areas of the province. Higgs is left to govern a province polarized along linguistic lines with French-speaking New Brunswickers distrustful and unsupportive of the premier.RésuméL’élection provinciale au Nouveau-Brunswick en 2020 a été la première élection provinciale au Canada pendant la pandémie du COVID-19. Elle a mené à l'élection d'un gouvernement avec une faible majorité pour le Parti progressiste-conservateur sous le premier ministre Blaine Higgs après l'échec des pourparlers entre tous les partis pour la création d'un arrangement de quasi-coalition. Les partis traditionnels continuent de voir leur soutien s'effriter au sein de l’électorat, et deux nouveaux partis, le Parti vert et l’Alliance des gens, ont toujours des représentantes à l’Assemblée législative. Le Parti libéral n'a pas réussi à remporter des sièges dans les régions anglophones de la province, réduisant son soutien aux seules régions francophones de la province. Les considérations linguistiques jouent un rôle de premier plan dans la polarisation politique dans la province. Higgs doit ainsi gouverner en tenant compte des citoyennes francophones qui sont méfiantes et peu favorables au premier ministre.Key words: New Brunswick, Election, Election campaigns, polls, Majority government, BilingualismMots-clés : Nouveau-Brunswick, Élections, Campagnes électorales, Sondages, Gouvernement majorité, Bilinguism
The “Inherent Vices” of Policy Design: Uncertainty, Maliciousness, and Noncompliance
Full text linkPolicy designs must not only “work” in the sense of accomplishing their goals but must also work in their intended fashion. Most research to date has focused on the former topic and dwells on the technical aspects of how various tools and instruments could be utilized to achieve the aims and goals of policymakers. This branch of research tends to underemphasize the difficulties inherent to policy making including policy contexts that are often highly un- certain, policymakers who fall short of an idealized version of high capacity, well-intentioned decisionmakers grappling with relevant public problems, and policy-takers who fail to comply with government wishes. These “inherent vices” of policy making are factors which contribute to policy volatility or the risk of policy failure. The paper stresses the need for improved risk management and mitigation strategies in policy formulation and policy designs to take these risks into account. It sets out and develops an approach borrowed from product failure man- agement (in manufacturing) and portfolio management (in finance) to help better assess and manage these risks
Policy shops, hired guns, and gatekeepers: The organization and distribution of policy analysts in Ontario
Full text linkPolicy professionals play an important role in political and administrative systems. However, the exact configuration and distribution of such personnel within agencies remains largely unknown. Early works noted the creation of small dedicated “policy shops” in many governments after 1960 where many policy professionals were located. Studies in Canada and elsewhere subsequently confirmed this organizational form but questions such as how many professionals are employed and where these units are located within existing departmental structures remain opaque. In this article, we provide an organizational mapping of professional policy personnel in the Ontario Public Service (OPS). We find that four major personnel distribution patterns exist within the OPS with only some analysts and professionals working in “classical” policy shops. These findings underscore the need to re‐evaluate the organization and staffing of professional policy analysts in government in order to better account for the kinds of work policy professionals do in modern administrations
A model for choice infrastructure: looking beyond choice architecture in Behavioral Public Policy
Full text linkInterventions that tackle ‘last mile’ behaviors in the form of improved choice architecture are fundamental to Behavioral Public Policy (BPP), yet far less attention is typically paid to the nature and design of underlying system conditions and infrastructures that support these interventions. However, inattention to broader conditions that impact participant engagement and intervention functionality, such as barriers to access that deter participa- tion or perverse structural disincentives that reward undesirable behaviors, may not only limit the effectiveness of behavioral solutions but also miss opportunities to deliberately design underlying ‘plumbing’ – the choice infrastructure – in a way that improves overall system efficacy and equity. Using the illustrative case of civic policy in food licensure, this article describes how using a ‘SPACE’ model to address Standards, Process mechanics and policies, Accountability, Culture within systems, and Evaluative and iterative feedback can support the development of improved choice infrastructure, contributing to BPP problem- solving efforts by helping practitioners create system conditions that are more conducive to the success of behavioral solutions
Leadership, Change and Conflict: An Examination of Informal Human Resources Theory for Policy Capacity
Full text linkIn recent times, academics and practitioners have focused on the optimal processes and capabilities required to increase an organization’s policy capacity, but there is little research on the human resource theory adopted by practitioners to improve public policy and its development. This article presents the results of a 2018 case study of policy capacity involving thirty-one interviews with civil servants in a small provincial government in Canada. An informal theory of policy capacity and human resources centering on leadership, conflict management, change management, and analytical capabilities is articulated using the language of practitioners. For practitioners, the findings of this article provide guidance and context for human resource strategies for policy capacity. The article concludes that there is an opportunity for academics to expand the paradigmatic boundaries of human resources research in public administration for the purposes of improving policy capacity
The Theory of Planned Behavior
Full text linkResearch dealing with various aspects of the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1985, 1987)is reviewed, and some unresolved issues are discussed. In broad terms, the theory is found to be well supported by empirical evidence. Intentions to perform behaviors of different kinds can be predicted with high accuracy from attitudes toward the behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control; and these intentions, together with perceptions of behav- ioral control, account for considerable variance in actual behavior. Attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control are shown to be related to appropriate sets of salient behavioral, normative, and control beliefs about the behavior, but the exact nature of these relations is still uncertain. Expectancy- value formulations are found to be only partly successful in dealing with these relations. Optimal rescahng of expectancy and value measures is offered as a means of dealing with measurement limitations. Finally, inclusion of past be- havior in the prediction equation is shown to provide a means of testing the theory’s sufficiency, another issue that remains unresolved. The limited avail- able evidence concerning this question shows that the theory is predicting behavior quite well in comparison to the ceiling imposed by behavioral reli- ability
The Politics of Policy Design
Full text linkThis paper highlights a major disconnect between the theory and practice of policy design. It provides a contrast between two ways to envisage design in political science. The first focuses on functional requirements and techniques, highlighting what policymakers need to do and the steps they use. The second focuses on theories and empirical studies that situate policy design within the wider study of policy processes, highlighting a major gap between requirements and outcomes. These approaches should complement and inform each other, but rarely do. Most policy theories treat classic descriptions of policy design (such as making policy via series of steps or stages) as divorced from reality, and only useful as ideal-types to contrast with what actually happens. Policy theories may be more accurate, but very few provide equivalent practical lessons (and most do not try). If so, what are the prospects of bringing together these literatures? The paper examines two kinds of theory-informed policy design: theories at the service of analysis or sources of critical analysis and cautionary tales
A Good Decision? The New Arrangement for Health Care in Ontario
Full text linkAbstract Recently, a new government of Ontario decided to replace the province’s health care system with a different approach to the management of health services. The major portion of the change meant that several regional health agencies would be combined into a single health authority. The decision mirrored one that had been made ten years earlier in Alberta, which allows for an opportunity to assess the decision of Ontario. This paper compares the performance of the single authority in Alberta and the regional authorities in Ontario for the past ten years. A superior performance by Alberta would suggest that the single authority is preferable to the regional arrangement and that Ontario had made a sound decision. A contrary result would give reason for believing differently. The comparison indicates that the Ontario government might have been too hasty in opting for a single health authority.RésuméRécemment, un nouveau gouvernement de l’Ontario a décidé de remplacer le système de soins de santé de la province par une approche différente de la gestion des services de santé. La majeure partie du changement signifiait que plusieurs organismes régionaux de santé seraient regroupés en une seule autorité sanitaire. La décision reflétait celle qui avait été prise dix ans plus tôt en Alberta, ce qui permet d’évaluer la décision de l’Ontario. Le présent document compare le rendement de l’administration unique en Alberta et des administrations régionales de l’Ontario au cours des dix dernières années. Un rendement supérieur de l’Alberta donne à penser que l’autorité unique est préférable à l’entente régionale et que l’Ontario a pris une décision judicieuse. Un résultat contraire donnerait des raisons de croire différemment. La comparaison indique que le gouvernement de l’Ontario a peut-être été trop hâtif en optant pour une seule autorité sanitaire.Key Words: Ontario, Alberta, health authorities, comparison, regional approachMot-clés: Ontario, Alberta, régies de la santé, comparaison, approche régional
Decision-Makers’ Generation of Policy Solutions amidst Negative Performance: Invention or Rigidity?
Full text linkBehavioral theory proposes that decision-makers engage in search to identify satisfactory policy solutions to organizational problems. For complex problems, required solutions cannot be identified merely through search, but must be created and designed. While behavioral theory suggests that negative performance will spur creative solution generation, threat-rigidity theory provides a competing view that decision-makers’ creative efforts are ultimately thwarted through restricted information processing and constriction of control. We test these competing expectations through a survey-experimental comparison of the creativity of policy solutions in response to negative budgetary performance, generated by a nationally representative sample of local government decision-makers. The findings indicate that negative performance decreases the creativity of policy solutions as rated by policy experts, and reveals that key mechanisms of threat-rigidity theory are at play. This reduced generation of creative policy solutions amidst negative performance places limits on public organizations’ capacity to adapt to adverse circumstances
Design for public policy: Embracing uncertainty and hybridity in mapping future research
Full text linkAddressing contemporary public policy challenges requires new thinking and new practice. Therefore, there is a renewed sense of urgency to critically assess the potential of the emerging field of ‘design for policy’. On the one hand, design ap- proaches are seen as bringing new capacities for problem-solving to public policy de- velopment. On the other, the attendant risks posed to effective and democratic policy making are unclear, partly because of a limited evidence base. The paper synthesises recent contributions in design research, policy studies, political science and democratic theory which have examined the uses of design for public policy making. Mapping out areas of debate building on studies of design from policy studies and from within de- sign research, we suggest promising directions for future crossdisciplinary research in a context of uncertainty