University of Northern British Columbia: Open Journal Systems
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Conservative Populism, or Unpopular Liberalism? Review of the 2018 Ontario Provincial Election
Full text linkOntario’s general election on June 7, 2018, brought the Progressive Conservative party to government for the first time in the 21st Century. The PCs’ victory over the incumbent Liberals, however, reached this point despite much turmoil. Months before the election the party faced a crisis when its leader, Patrick Brown, resigned amid a scandal. The PC party hastily organized a leadership election that put Doug Ford at the helm, who then led the party to victory. The following election review traces these steps and looks at some dynamics that contributed to both the PC leadership vote and the overall result of the election. The PC leadership election is analyzed, providing evidence that Ford’s rise may reflect some of the populist sentiment that has gripped other democracies. The analysis then turns to the general election, focusing on media coverage and issue salience, particularly as they relate to the party leaders. Survey data are examined to build some explanatory vote-choice models, which shows that voters in the general election appeared less moved by populism than a desire to punish the Liberals
Policy capacities and effective policy design: a review
Full text linkEffectiveness has been understood at three levels of analysis in the scholarly study of policydesign. The first is at the systemic level indicating what entails effective formulation environmentsor spaces making them conducive to successful design. The second reflects moreprogram level concerns, surrounding how policy tool portfolios or mixes can be effectivelyconstructed to address complex policy objectives. The third is a more specific instrumentlevel, focusing on what accounts for and constitutes the effectiveness of particular typesof policy tools. Undergirding these three levels of analysis are comparative research concernsthat concentrate on the capacities of government and political actors to devise andimplement effective designs. This paper presents a systematic review of a largely scatteredyet quickly burgeoning body of knowledge in the policy sciences, which broadly askswhat capacities engender effectiveness at the multiple levels of policy design? The findingsbring to light lessons about design effectiveness at the level of formulation spaces,policy mixes and policy programs. Further, this review points to a future research agendafor design studies that is sensitive to the relative orders of policy capacity
Rhetoric Revisited: Decennial Reflections on Canada's Coalition Crisis
Full text linkThis paper reassesses Canada’s “coalition crisis” of 2008 though a rhetorical analysis of the national addresses of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Opposition leader Stéphane Dion. Focusing especially upon the classical rhetorical categories of ethos (the speaker’s self-identification and positioning relative to the audience) and logos (the use of reason in argument), it explores how Harper and Dion construct divergent “legitimacy principles” in defence of their positions, arguing that Dion’s speech failed, not merely because of the poor production values which dominated commentary at the time, but because of an inferior ethos appeal marked by a mishandling of the key rhetorical icon of nationhood. When we consider argumentative substance, however, we find that Harper’s address was marred by a misrepresentation of key principles of parliamentary government. Because the crisis represented a potentially significant moment of political socialization – thus involving “constitutive” rather than “ordinary” political rhetoric – the paper argues that it is consistent with a realistic model of rhetorical ethics to condemn this misconstrual as a violation of the trust reposed in democratic leadership
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 alsowork in their intended fashion. Most research to date has focused on the former topic anddwells on the technical aspects of how various tools and instruments could be utilized toachieve the aims and goals of policymakers. This branch of research tends to underemphasizethe difficulties inherent to policy making including policy contexts that are often highly uncertain,policymakers who fall short of an idealized version of high capacity, well-intentioneddecisionmakers grappling with relevant public problems, and policy-takers who fail to complywith government wishes. These “inherent vices” of policy making are factors which contributeto policy volatility or the risk of policy failure. The paper stresses the need for improved riskmanagement and mitigation strategies in policy formulation and policy designs to take theserisks into account. It sets out and develops an approach borrowed from product failure management(in manufacturing
Becoming Queer in Canada: Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity (SOGI) Refugee Identities and the Canadian Immigration Apparatus
No full textThe ongoing global refugee crisis has been, and continues to be, one of the most pressing humanitarian issues facing the world today. The global trends of destabilization, conflict, and persecution that have been fueling this crisis show no signs of stopping. Clearly, the issues that must be considered are too numerous to cover exhaustively in a single paper. Refugee and migration studies is a vast and complex topic with many specializations and subfields. Thus, for the sake of feasibility and actually generating meaningful information, it seems necessary to focus specifically on both a category of asylum seekers and a country to which they are applying. By doing so, the goal of this paper will be to participate in a more nuanced, and therefore more personal, exploration of a specific set of issues within a specific refugee intake apparatus that may then potentially be used to explore how current immigration systems may be improved. Therefore, this paper shall focus specifically on the experience of SOGI (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) asylum seekers, perhaps more commonly known outside of legal documents as LGBTQ+, as they navigate the Canadian refugee intake apparatus
Design and Policy: an attempt for disambiguation of concepts through issue mapping and digital methods
Full text linkOver the last ten years, design approaches have been appearing as a central issue in the public sector. At the same time, diverse actors in design but also in the policy disciplines have been producing content using the words design and policy from their own perspective. Consequently, these couple of concepts have been paired in diverse forms, creating new terms and variety of meanings. This theoretical research aimed to identify the features of some of the terms resulting from the combination of the words design and policy. Seeking to outline the differences among them and contribute to a common basis for their use. For this purpose, the tools of digital methods and issue mapping (such as Google search engine) were used. These methods served to identify some of the terms in relation to the actors and their social significance. As a result, five terms were identified: design policy, policy by design, design for policy, policy design and design in policy. The data processing and a further analysis allowed to characterize three main streams of significance. One, the inclusion of design in innovation policies. Two, the design of policies, and three, the use of design approaches in policy
More Than the Usual Turmoil: The 2019 Provincial Election in Newfoundland and Labrador
Full text linkTurmoil in the House of Assembly leading up to the 2019 general election in Newfoundland and Labrador foreshadowed an unusual result. Liberal Premier Dwight Ball, stung by public outrage over his government’s 2016 austerity budget, spent the balance of his term wary of difficult decisions while ministers and MHAs hurled accusations of bullying at each other. The Liberal government routinely evoked its The Way Forward planning document as a source of policy solutions and blamed the Progressive Conservatives for sanctioning the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project boondoggle. Public opinion polls often put the Liberals in front, but Ball’s popularity lagged behind his party’s and occasionally that of the opposition leaders. The election produced the first minority government in nearly half a century, including the rare victory of two Independents, and the Liberal caucus soon agitated for new leadership. The province’s dire economic circumstances mean that more political turmoil is likely.RésuméLes turbulences à l’assemblée législative à l'approche des élections générales de 2019 à Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador laissent présager un résultat inhabituel. Le premier ministre libéral Dwight Ball, piqué par l'indignation de la population à propos du budget d'austérité de son gouvernement pour 2016, a passé le reste de son mandat à se méfier des décisions difficiles, tandis que les ministres et les députés se lançaient des accusations d'intimidation les uns envers les autres. Le gouvernement libéral a régulièrement évoqué son document de planification «The Way Forward» comme une source de solutions politiques et a reproché aux progressistes-conservateurs d'avoir sanctionné le gâchis du projet hydroélectrique de Muskrat Falls. Les sondages d'opinion mettent souvent les libéraux en avance, mais la popularité de Ball est à la traîne par rapport à celle de son parti et, parfois, des chefs de l'opposition. L'élection a produit le premier gouvernement minoritaire en près d'un demi-siècle, y compris la rare victoire de deux indépendants, et le caucus libéral s'est rapidement agité pour changer de leadership. La situation économique désastreuse de la province laisse présager de nouvelles turbulences politiques.Keywords: Newfoundland and Labrador, 2019 provincial election, Dwight Ball, House of Assembly, minority governmentMots-clés: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador, élections provinciales de 2019, Dwight Ball, assemblée législative, gouvernement minoritaire
The 2018 Provincial Election in New Brunswick
Full text linkNew Brunswick’s 2018 election produced a minority legislature, the first in a century. The major parties continue to decline in voter support, and two new parties now have a presence in the Assembly. The election brings New Brunswick’s electoral politics increasingly into the modern Canadian mainstream; one new caucus is the Greens. In other respects, the election made the old new again. The populist People’s Alliance gained three seats partly on the basis of criticism of bilingualism policy. The Alliance and the Progressive Conservatives, in an informal alliance to govern, are all but confined to the anglophone parts of the province, while the defeated Liberals have all their strength in the Acadian north-east. The campaign mattered, as did constitutional conventions. The Liberals squandered a large lead in the polls, and the parties struggled to sort out the conventions of government formation
Studying Policy Design Quality in Comparative Perspective
Full text linkThis article is a first attempt to systematically examine policy design and its influence on policyeffectiveness in a comparative perspective. We begin by providing a novel concept and measure ofpolicy design. Our Average Instrument Diversity (AID) index captures whether governments tendto reuse the same policy instruments and instrument combinations or produce policy solutions that arecarefully tailored to the policy problem at hand. Second, we demonstrate that our AID index is a valid andreliable measure of policy design quality with a strong explanatory power for the outcome variables tested.Analyzing the composition of environmental policy portfolios in 21OECDcountries, we show that higherlevels of AID are positively associated with a country’s policy effectiveness in environmental matters.Based on this finding, we analyze, in a third step, the factors that lead countries to adopt more or lessdiverse policy portfolios. We find that the policy design quality is significantly improved when policymakers are not bound b
Policy Assemblages and Policy Resilience: Lessons for Non‐Design from Evolutionary Governance Theory
Full text linkEvolutionary governance theory (EGT) provides a basis for holistically analyzing the shifting contexts and dynamics of policymakingin settings with functional differentiation and complex subsystems. Policy assemblages, as mixes of policy toolsand goals, are an appropriate unit of analysis for EGT because they embody the theory’s emphasis on co‐evolving elementswithin policy systems. In rational practice, policymakers design policies within assemblages by establishing objectives, collectinginformation, comparing options, strategizing implementation, and selecting instruments. However, as EGT implies,this logical progression does not always materialize so tidily—some policies emerge from carefully considered blueprintswhile others evolve from muddled processes, laissez faire happenstance, or happy accident. Products of the latter ofteninclude loosely steered, unmoored, and ‘non‐designed’ path dependencies that confound linear logic and are understudiedin the policy literature. There exists the need for a more intricate analytical vocabulary to describe this underexplored‘chaotic’ end of the policy design spectrum, as conjuring images of ‘muddles’ or ‘messes’ has exhausted its usefulness. Thisarticle introduces a nove