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Transforming Provincial Politics is the first province-by-province analysis of politics and political economy in more than a decade, and the first to directly examine the turn to neoliberal policies at the provincial and territorial level and examines how neoliberal policies have affected politics in each jurisdiction in Canada.
Recent years have seen the retrenchment of Canadian social programs and the restructuring of the welfare state along neo-liberal lines. Social programs have been cut back, eliminated, or recast in exclusionary and punitive forms. Poverty: Rights, Social Citizenship, and Legal Activism responds to these changes by examining the ideas and practices of human rights, citizenship, legislation, and institution-building that are crucial to addressing poverty in this country. It challenges prevailing assumptions about the role of governments and the methods of accountability in the field of social and economic justice.
This volume explores and contextualizes the contributions of Gilles Paquet as a social scientist. A quintessential public intellectual, Gilles Paquet's long and multifaceted career has shown him to be a thinker of significant power and creativity. This self-described "homo hereticus"--always critical and sometimes controversial--has influenced scholars and policy makers in Canada and around the globe. The contributors reveal how his assessments of economics, politics, public administration, and education have stirred their minds and helped them make sense of the world around them. The volume also provides comments on Paquet's vision of governance, touching on concepts of which he has made extensive use: meso-analysis, social learning, and moral contracts.
Collectively, provincial deputy ministers command the largest assembly of government budgets, employees, and influence in Canada, but despite their importance, they have not been the subject of systematic study until now. This unique volume, which deals with a uniquely significant topic, reviews the role of deputy ministers within government, providing a major new understanding of their responsibilities and interactions at both the federal and provincial levels. It also contributes important comparative analysis not previously available. Featuring contributions by many of Canada’s most prominent scholars of public administration, Deputy Ministers in Canada examines a number of factors in the evolution of deputies’ roles. Taking into account social, political, and administrative history, the essays probe topics such as the socio-economic characteristics of administrative elites, the politicization of recruitment processes, the impact of New Public Management, and varieties of ministerial-bureaucratic relations. Together, the essays in Deputy Ministers in Canada make an important contribution to the political science and public administration literature.
The Case for Decentralized Federalism and its sister volume The Case for Centralized Federalism are the outcome of the Federalism Redux Project, created to stimulate a serious and useful conversation on federalism in Canada. They provide the vocabulary and arguments needed to articulate the case for a centralized or a decentralized Canadian federalism. The Case for Decentralized Federalism brings together experts who believe decentralized federalism is the optimal arrangement for governing the contextual diversity and cultural pluralism in Canada. Using different approaches, they argue that by dividing the work of public governance among different levels of government, it is easier to address the needs and aspirations of the diverse groups that make up Canada.
Manitoba has always been a province in the middle, geographically, economically, and culturally. Lacking Quebec’s cultural distinctiveness, Ontario’s traditional economic dominance, or Alberta’s combustible mix of prairie populism and oil wealth, Manitoba appears to blend into the background of the Canadian family portrait. But Manitoba has a distinct political culture, one that has been overlooked in contemporary political studies. Manitoba Politics and Government brings together the work of political scientists, historians, sociologists, economists, public servants, and journalists to present a comprehensive analysis of the province’s political life and its careful “mutual fund m...
In Crippling Epistemologies and Governance Failures, Gilles Paquet criticizes the prevailing practices of the social sciences on the basis of their inadequate concepts of knowledge, evidence and inquiry, concepts he claims have become methodological “mental prisons”. Paquet describes the prevailing policy development process in Canada in terms of its weak information infrastructure, poor accountability, and inflexible organization design. In contrast, he suggests that social science and public policy should promote forms of “serious play” that would allow organizations to experiment with new structures. Paquet engages with numerous foundationalist programs in the social sciences in order to show their inadequacy and suggests important and unexplored directions in policy areas as diverse as education, science, health, intergovernmental and foreign policy. He closes the work with a plea for experimentalism in academic research, policy development, and organization design.
In a highly networked world, where governments must cope with increasingly complex and inter-related policy problems, the capacity of policy makers to work intergovernmentally is not an option but a necessity regory Inwood, Carolyn Johns, and Patricia O'Reilly offer unique insights into intergovernmental policy capacity, revealing what key decision-makers and policy advisors behind the scenes think the barriers are to improved intergovernmental policy capacity and what changes they recommend. Senior public servants from all jurisdictions in Canada discuss the ideas, institutions, actors, and relations that assist or impede intergovernmental policy capacity. Covering good and bad economic tim...
A festchrift in honour of Peter C. Aucoin, professor emeritus of political science and public administration.
In the early hours of April 22, 1914, American President Woodrow Wilson sent Marines to seize the port of Veracruz in an attempt to alter the course of the Mexican Revolution. As a result, the United States seemed on the brink of war with Mexico. An international uproar ensued. The governments of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile offered to mediate a peaceful resolution to the crisis. Surprisingly, both the United States and Mexico accepted their offer and all parties agreed to meet at an international peace conference in Niagara Falls, Ontario. For Canadians, the conference provided an unexpected spectacle on their doorstep, combining high diplomacy and low intrigue around the gardens and catara...