Search

Canadian charities have a history of advocating for social and policy change. With the 1985 Income Tax Act, charities became restricted to using up to 10% of their resources toward nonpartisan political activities. They subsequently underwent an audit initiated by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2012. The legal climate changed again when the 10% rule was dropped in 2018, enabling charities to pursue political activities with no predefined limit. In this article, we examine grey literature on the political advocacy 'situation' of charities between 1983 and 2021, guided by Adele Clarke's situational analysis methodology (2005). Our findings and discussion center around the prevalent discursive positions taken and not taken in the situation and the assumptions and rationalities that inform them. We explore what turns out to be a non-linear situation influenced by an assemblage of rationalities and practices that primarily foster distrust in the charitable sector and call for enhanced discipline-oriented regulation. Particular attention is paid to the neoliberal logics that underlie these positions. Alternative conceptualizations of charitable sector advocacy are also offered through appeals to democratic participation and freedom of expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Leisure/Loisir: Journal of the Canadian Association for Leisure Studies is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Politicians learning about public opinion and responding to their resulting perceptions is one key way via which responsive policy-making comes about. Despite the strong normative importance of politicians' understanding of public opinion, empirical evidence on how politicians learn about these opinions in the first place is scant. Drawing on survey data collected from almost 900 incumbent politicians in five countries, this study presents unique descriptive evidence on which public opinion sources politicians deem most useful. The findings show that politicians deem direct citizen contact and information from traditional news media as the most useful sources of public opinion information, while social media cues and polls are considered much less useful. These findings matter for substantive representation, and for citizens' feeling of being represented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This exploratory article examines the contemporary state of formal government policy staff in Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand, contributing to the ongoing research seeking to understand the policy capacity of governments. It analyzes the size, composition, and distribution of the countries' formal policy staff across government units. Comparative analysis reveals significant differences in the basic organizing approaches used to categorize policy staff as well as important differences in their numbers, composition, and distribution across government units. While uneven distributions characterize all four cases, there is significant variance in where staff work, their seniority, and functional classifications as "analysts" or "managers". The analysis provides fresh insights into the nature and availability of policy analytical capacity within these governments. It also underscores major gaps in how governments collect and make available basic data on their policy staff, which raises questions about their ability to effectively manage and deploy those staff. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessing the policy analytical capacity (PAC) of governments has suffered in the past from the anecdotal nature of most studies, leading to different evaluations of specific analytical activities and of the overall competences and capacities of governments as a whole. What is needed to advance the field is a set of metrics that can generate insights into the capabilities of different units and how changes to their and overall government capacity develop over time. Focusing on this component of policy capacity, we map and measure the distribution of policy professionals in the provincial, territorial, and federal governments in Canada. Our measures are tested against two major findings regarding PAC: first that variation among governmental PAC varies by size of the civil service, with smaller jurisdictions likely to have less capacity, and second, that concentration of professionals in specific issue areas underscores that area's political and/or policy salience to the government concerned. Both measures prove robust in assessing Canadian government activities in these areas. Points for practitioners: Policy capacity is acknowledged as a significant perquisite for policy success.While some general frameworks exist highlighting policy relevant competences and capabilities important to policy success, how to measure these remains under‐investigated.Focusing on policy analytical capacity, this paper draws on the literature on policy professionals to develop two measures of this component of policy capacity linked to the extent to which an agency focuses on analysis and the proportion of their staff who work on the subject compared to other agencies.The measures are deployed in an illustrative case of Canada and Canadian governments at the territorial, provincial, and federal level which confirms their utility and robustness as indicators of the different levels of analytical capacity different agencies employ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sources and types of information that prospective university students access during the recruitment phase have been widely researched. However, there is limited research on the usefulness of the learning and teaching (L&T) information provided by universities to prospective students in describing their own learning experiences of the programme. The study investigates the meaningfulness of the efforts of HEIs in (1) providing L&T information to prospective students and (2) attending to guidance from government bodies on L&T information that universities should make available to prospective students. Findings based on secondary data analysis of L&T information available for prospective students on 36 university websites and the students' satisfaction scores of their perceived learning experience whilst on programme indicate that only a small proportion of information provided on university websites reliably reflects the students' actual learning experience on the programme. Furthermore, the study provides guidance on the L&T information universities should feature on their programme webpages which is likely to be a more realistic indicator of their actual learning experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Policy Analysis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The comparably small scope of municipal politics creates a unique setting within which elected officials act as representatives. Here, we explore how mayors and councillors in Canadian cities do so by addressing and explaining variation in their representational style and focus. Across three studies, we explore how these elected officials allocate their time and aspire to allocate their time between different representational activities and who they attempt to represent. We do so using data from a new survey of Canadian mayors and councillors. Canadian mayors and councillors tend to prioritise policy representation over other types of representation and aspire to spend further time on policy-related matters. Further, mayors and councillors, despite some variation, tend to prioritise representation of their cities as wholes. A number of institutional and individual-level factors help to explain variation in these responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Public Administration is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Advances in implantable medical devices have increased the role for industry‐employed allied professionals (IEAPs) in providing training and support during surgical procedures and follow‐up care. The effect of these changes on the organization of medical knowledge and the sharing of information remains largely unexplored. Recent work in social epistemology and the conceptualizing of implantable medical device companies as part of a knowledge‐based industry provide a framework for engaging with this issue. In this article, we argue that the insertion of industry technicians into hospitals diminishes epistemically valuable knowledge‐sharing practices. This is in part a result of health care professionals' increased dependence on IEAPs, who control access to knowledge about devices, limiting opportunities both for independent learning and for dialogic education practices through which participants work toward a common goal. Ultimately, we claim that overdependence on the IEAP as expert undermines a basic social value regarding knowledge sharing for everyone's benefit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing international use of consulting firms in public administration has attracted warnings against diminishing policy capability, accountability and transparency. Whilst significant debates and multiple tensions exist, this article introduces an innovative Australian model which provides scope to harness and balance the strengths of the contributions of consultants and consultancy firms to improve government policy capacity. We argue that advantages exist for engaging Tier 1 consultants provided the conditions are right. Moving past binary debates about whether or not consultants should be used in the public sector, we call for a more nuanced understanding and discussion about how to better leverage expertise, comparative analysis and contestability. Using Wu et al.'s (Policy Soc 34(3–4):165–171, 2015) framework, our pragmatic and sophisticated approach shifts theory and practice on the use of consultants to ensure clarity in the rationale of seeking external advice in order to build or improve policy capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If politicians believe they will be rewarded for responsive behaviour at the ballot and punished for the opposite, they are disciplined to follow-up on the public's desires. That the treat of electoral accountability prompts re-election minded politicians to act in line with the public's wishes, vitally hinges on the assumption that politicians feel monitored in the first place. To tunderstand how this precondition for anticipatory representation works in reality, this article examines politicians' perceptions of voters awareness of party initiatives and parliamentary questions. Quantitative and qualitative survey evidence collected among Belgian Members of Parliament (N = 164) shows that politicians consider citizens as rather uninformed about politics but, paradoxically, believe that some of them are aware of specific party initiatives and oral questions. Evidence on citizens' actual knowledge shows that politicians strongly overestimate voter awareness. Why is that? From their reflections, we learn that MPs overgeneralise feedback they receive from engaged citizens, leaving them with a biased image of how aware voters actually are. Also, the exceptionally of gaining visibility with their work causes politicians to overestimate the scope of awareness when they are covered in the media, receive reactions on their social media accounts or simply work on salient topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on Bourdieu's Field Theory and on Thomas Medvetz's study of American think tanks, this article introduces the concept of modalities of integration to examine how a selection of three Canadian think tanks have emerged and endured to promote specific views. Results show that the political identities of these think tanks are mediated by the communities they maintain and the forms of power these represent. These findings suggest that it is the way think tanks mediate the power structures of modern societies that can explain the convergence and cohesion of their policy ideas and political identities. The centrist think tank achieves its 'centrism' by catering to dominant interests and the state while extending a hand to 'middle powers.' The more activist think tanks maintain more homogenous communities by securing ties to specific interests and particular intellectual/ideological commitments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although choosing between several alternatives is the basic and most common process of decision-making, it has been well established that when having to decide, people are prone to various biases and seldom elect an alternative rationally. One of the most common and well-researched biases is the 'choice-bias' and many researches demonstrated its effect on decision-makers (both high-level and daily decisions) of the previous generations. This research examined the hypothesis that since the psychological development of 'generation Y' differs significantly from the researched generations, youth today are more resistant to this specific bias. A lifetime of constant exposure to the overabundance of suggestions and opportunities may have influenced decision-making capabilities. A study conducted on two separate groups of students (256 participants) revealed that no choice bias was observed, unlike similar studies conducted with previous generation populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Governance Review / Revue Gouvernance is the property of University of Ottawa, Center on Governance and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this issue, Elert and Henrekson offer an important and promising framework through which Austrian scholars to contribute to the study of entrepreneurship and innovation. I suggest a way to build upon their framework: incorporating insights from public choice. While Elert and Henrekson downplay self-interest in their institutional analysis, public choice offers important insights about the formation of public policies that affect innovation activity. Without this, a gap exists among the identification of institutional bottlenecks that hinder collaboration in the innovation bloc and the subsequent alleviation of those bottlenecks. Infusing public choice assumptions into the Collaborative Innovation Bloc framework reveals several promising areas for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study takes an in-depth look at the roles and utility of consultants in local economic development, focusing on whether there is ultimately a need for this outsourcing of policymaking. Through a series of in-depth interviews with municipal officials and consultants from Ontario, focus is specifically on place branding, a subfield of place-based local economic development. The findings indicate that while the consultants and local officials view themselves as vital in the policy development process, the use of consultants for most communities is actually problematic, as they generally lack the in-depth local knowledge needed for successful place branding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fighting traffic congestion is a key policy challenge in large developing countries such as China and Russia. Highly populated, fast-growing cities like Beijing and Moscow develop urban transportation strategies that focus mainly on combating traffic congestion and modernizing existing infrastructure, but these problems are tied in with air pollution, safety on roads, parking issues, and public transport. In authoritarian landscapes, the policy-making process is not widely open to external actors or the general public, but it still requires expert knowledge. The usefulness of the advice offered by policy advisory institutions that are not a part of the bureaucracy depends strongly on authorities' capacity to absorb their innovative proposals, informal contacts between advisers and authorities, and financial priorities. This paper analyses aspects of current urban transport policies in Beijing and Moscow with a particular focus on the nature of policy advisory practices in this sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study contributes to debate on three related questions in Policy Advisory System research. Is the Policy Advisory System concept applicable in countries other than developed democracies? How does it function in a state-centred authoritarian regime? How does the authoritarian environment affect tendencies such as "politicization" and "externalization"? These questions are addressed using materials on the current Russian governance structure and advisory practices, focusing on two broadly defined "governance subsystems" in the Presidential Administration of Russia, "Political Bloc" and "Economic Bloc", both acting as regular customers for advisory communities. One finding is the phenomenon of "Dual Demand" from the same centre of power—"stability" for "Political Bloc" and "innovation" for "Economic Bloc"—which contributed to creation of two different clusters of policy advisory agencies with different statuses. Other findings include transformation of "politicization" to policy control mechanisms and attempted "externalization" turning into the reverse—"internalization"—bringing independent advisory organizations under the supervision of government structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of "policy advisory systems" was introduced by Halligan in 1995 as a way to characterize and analyze the multiple sources of policy advice utilized by governments in policy-making processes. The concept has proved useful and has influenced thinking about both the nature of policy work in different advisory venues as well as how these systems change over time. However, to date this work has examined mainly cases of developed countries and its application to developing and transitional countries is less certain. This paper sets out existing models of policy advisory systems based on Halligan's original thinking on the subject and assesses the findings of many existing studies into OECD countries that advisory systems have been changing as a result of the dual effects of increased use of external consultants and others sources of advice – "externalization" – and the increased use of partisan advice inside government itself – "politicization". Determining whether or not such changes have also characterized the situations found in developing and transitional countries and at the international-domestic and state-sub-state levels is the subject of the papers in this Special Issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change, a governance document released by Canadian government for managing greenhouse gases in the region. Topics discussed include climate change over there, public administration of Canada and government policies implemented over there.

This article analyses late 19th-century French liberal socialist syntheses of liberty and equality, building on the existing body of literature on liberal socialism to illustrate the influence of the non-Marxist left on its development through a focus on the work of the Radical, Célestin Bouglé, and the Socialists, Benoît Malon and Charles Andler. The analysis of these thinkers demonstrates the ideological similarities of liberal socialisms of thinkers hailing from both the non-Marxist left and the new liberalism. A concluding section suggests that liberal socialism offers social democrats and progressive liberals an ideological heritage from which to pose a radical alternative to contemporary forms of neoliberalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In both Israel and India the globalisation process of the 1990s led to the development of advanced domestic industry. This article sketches the socioeconomic impact of this development in the two countries. The analysis suggests that the unique comparative advantage of each of these countries underlies the differences in the form of development and its social impact. Where the relative advantage consisted of innovativeness (Israel), globalisation led to development of an advanced industry focusing on research and development centres and local start‐up companies. In contrast, where the relative advantage consisted of low labour costs (India), globalisation resulted in the development of an advanced industrial sector focusing on manufacturing and service centres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Croatian & Comparative Public Administration is the property of Institut za Javnu Upravu and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The dynamics of policy advice giving in a policy advisory system (PAS) is complex, multifaceted, and relational. Research on policy advice has shifted from a “first wave” to a “second wave” that places a greater focus on the dynamics of PASs. This article expands our understanding of the impact of advice giving in a PAS by developing a framework that integrates supply, demand, content, and contextual factors. This article introduces a new type of policy actor (the “thinker in residence”) to better understand the relational dynamics of a PAS and compare why some actors achieve greater impact than others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No one can deny the importance of policy advice in the affairs of the government but the actual role played by consultants in policymaking is poorly understood and little researched, particularly in developing countries where data are scarce. This article is an initial attempt at examining the demand for policy consulting in a developing country. It sought to confirm whether the trends in policy advice - externalization and proceduralization - found in developed countries are present in an emerging economy such as the Philippines based on an extensive coding and analysis of a recently made public database of bid notices for consulting services. The study confirms that the demand for external policy advice is growing in Philippines, as expected from a government of a developing country. The proceduralization hypothesis of externalizing process-related work is partially confirmed but strategic policy advice is also found to be important where the government almost equally also outsources substantive, highly specialized advice. However, administrative politicization is not observed in this data set. A new category of advice is also generated - training - to capture demands of the bureaucracy to delivery advice expeditiously through workshops facilitated by experts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Public Administration is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The goal of this paper is to assess the role of "national curricula" (national education standards) determining the contents of public-administration (PA) education. To achieve our goal we deliver five case studies describing relevant information about the situation in the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Russia and Slovakia, all with different approaches how to apply national PA curricula. In the final part we try to evaluate the pros and cons of "national curricula" from the point of view of the development of PA education. Our research documents that extremes (no regulation and too strict regulation) do not deliver in less developed countries; the right path for such conditions should be somewhere in between - indicative national curricula and also indicative course contents should be available - something that seems to be achieved in Romania somehow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In development research, much effort has gone into analyzing the impact of economic and political institutions and their adequate design. However, unforeseen factors such as the impact of the cumulative behavior of individuals as shaped by informal institutions - especially social norms and moral values - may also determine the pace and path of development. Thus, positive economic, social or political triggers may only then translate into development if the relevant actors adapt their strategies and actions appropriately. Similarly, while negative triggers may induce a deterioration of the socioeconomic situation if no adaptation or a mal-adaptation takes place, in another real-world setting with a different set of institutions and actors it may in turn be possible to preserve the status quo. Sound analytical frameworks are needed to gain a deeper understanding of the complex and dynamic interaction of factors leading to a case-specific outcome and history of change. These frameworks have to be specific enough to allow the interpretation of complex changes and dynamics and at the same time general enough to fully cover a broad range of diverse settings and all important but possibly unforeseen aspects. In this paper, I present a modified version of the Framework for Modeling Institutional Change developed by Jean Ensminger (1992). Accounting for the relationships and dynamics of incentives, formal and informal institutions, bargaining power and the constellation of actors, Ensminger's framework, which is rooted in the theoretical approach of New Institutional Anthropology, merges important aspects from New Institutional Economics and anthropology. However, it fails to leave room for agency which, as the paper illustrates, has been shown to play an often important role in development. The modified version of Ensminger's framework incorporates agency as a main factor. For the purpose of demonstration, it is applied to a case study on informal constraints to cope with cattle rustling in Madagascar. The paper illustrates the modified framework's analytical strength for a meticulous investigation of a wide range of empirical cases and discusses to which development-related cases and research interests it fits best. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tax havens and tax flight have lately received increasing attention, while interest toward multilateral trade policies has somewhat diminished. We argue that more attention needs to be paid exactly to the interrelations between trade and tax policies. Drawing from two case studies on Panama's trade disputes, we show how World Trade Organization (WTO) rules can be used both to resist attempts to sanction secrecy structures and to promote measures against tax flight. The theory of new constitutionalism can help to explain how trade treaties can ‘lock in’ tax policies. However, our case studies show that trade policy not only ‘locks in’ democratic policy-making, but also enables tax havens to use their commercialized sovereignty to resists anti-secrecy measures. What is being ‘locked in’ are the policy tools, not necessarily the policies. The changing relationship between trade and tax policies can also create new and unexpected tools for tackling tax evasion, underlining the importance of epistemic arbitrage in the context of new constitutionalism. In principle, political actors with sufficient technical and juridical knowledge can shape global tax governance to various directions regardless of their formal position in the world political hierarchies. This should be taken into account when trade treaties are being negotiated or revised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a notable departure from long-standing childcare policy in Australia, in January 2016 fee relief was extended to nannies providing in-home care in a 2-year pilot program. This policy is significant as fee relief is not tied to the meeting of regulatory requirements designed to ensure quality early learning and care for young children. Drawing on Carol Bacchi's approach to policy analysis, this paper extends previous problematising of evidence-based policy by highlighting the value of first considering how a policy 'problem' has been constructed. We propose that the nanny pilot is an ideologically driven policy that has emanated from a construction of childcare that is adult (parent)-centred and marginalises the needs and interests of young children. Accordingly, certain evidence is privileged while other evidence is ignored, with the ensuing policy focused on economic imperatives rather than quality early learning and care experiences for young children. We draw on an analysis of parent, peak body and researcher submissions to the Productivity Commission's 2013-2014 childcare inquiry, nanny-focused research, and data from three national surveys to explore the limitations of such a policy approach. The utility of problem reconstruction as a means of disrupting policy-informed evidence and the legitimisation of purported evidence-based policy is considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy analytics combines new data sources, such as from mobile smartphones, Internet of Everything devices, and electronic payment cards, with new data analytics techniques for informing and directing public policy. However, those who do not own these devices may be rendered digitally invisible if data from their daily actions are not captured. We explore the digitally invisible through an exploratory study of homeless individuals in Phoenix, Arizona, in the context of extreme heat exposure. Ten homeless research participants carried a temperature-sensing device during an extreme heat week, with their individually experienced temperatures (IETs) compared to outdoor ambient temperatures. A nonhomeless, digitally connected sample of 10 university students was also observed, with their IETs analyzed in the same way. Surveys of participants complement the temperature measures. We found that homeless individuals and university students interact differently with the physical environment, experiencing substantial differences in individual temperatures relative to outdoor conditions, potentially leading to differentiated health risks and outcomes. They also interact differently with technology, with the homeless having fewer opportunities to benefit from digital services and lower likelihood to generate digital data that might influence policy analytics. Failing to account for these differences may result in biased policy analytics and misdirected policy interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Policy advisory systems' have been central to moving beyond individual actor considerations to assessments of the interactive effects of multiple interlocking sets of suppliers, in specific jurisdictions, that provide policy advice to policymakers. This article argues, while useful, the advisory system concept should be revised given that previous approaches animated by the location of supply and government control over it have been weakened. We argue for a 'second wave' of advisory system studies that: (1) reorients the unit of analysis from the public service to advisory systems themselves, (2) better contextualizes advisory system operation and dynamics based on the subsystems within which they operate, and (3) focuses on questions of why advisory system components combine in particular policy instances and with what effect. Using access and compatibility, we posit a typology of policy advisory networks and develop four archetypes of policy ideational compatibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments in many jurisdictions have called for an increase in ‘evidence-based’ policy-making. However, the international evidence-based policy movement has so far shown little progress in transforming the way that public policy is formulated and implemented. Much research on evidence-based policy has focused on political interference and contextual frames of reference as barriers to the uptake of research evidence. With the support of data from a survey of over 2,000 Australian public servants, we argue that individual and organizational deficits can leave the public service structurally unprepared for an engagement with diverse forms of evidence, including academic research in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article develops the concept of executive style to explore how variations in the relationships between politicians, career civil servants, and political appointees affect the types of policy outputs. A comparative analysis of home care policies in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia finds that the former’s civil service executive style – where professional civil servants work in close partnership with politicians in all phases of the policy process – led to the development of an innovative home care program with a long-term vision, whereas the latter’s politicized executive style – where politicians marginalize the role of civil servants in favor of political appointees – led to frequent changes in policy largely driven by short-term considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue Canadienne de Science Politique is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Examining multi-level vertical party linkages in Canada’s largest province, this paper makes two primary contributions to the literature. First, drawing on data from a unique survey of constituency associations, the paper focuses on an often unexplored aspect of parties: their local organisations. Second, the paper offers an exploratory analysis of constituency level factors in order to determine which types of constituency associations are the most likely to be integrated. The results of the logistic regression demonstrate the possibility of non-party-based factors such as electoral strength that may contribute to vertical party integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public policies are composed of complex arrangements of policy goals and policy means matched through some decision-making process. Exactly how this process works and which comes first-problem or solution-is an outstanding research question in the policy sciences. This article argues the emerging concept of an 'instrument constituency'-a subsystem component dedicated to the articulation and promotion of particular kinds of solutions regardless of problem context-can help policy scholars answer this critical question and better understand policymaking. At present, however, there is only limited empirical evidence of the existence, accuracy, and relevance of the instrument constituency concept. This article clarifies and refines the concept through cross-sectoral and cross-national case studies, demonstrating its utility in aiding our understanding of policy processes and their dynamics, including the issue of how problems and solutions are proposed and matched in the course of policy adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter provides a comprehensive survey of the contributions of the Austrian school of economics, with specific emphasis on post-WWII developments. We provide a brief history and overview of the original theorists of the Austrian school in order to set the stage for the subsequent development of their ideas by Ludwig von Mises and F. A. Hayek. In discussing the main ideas of Mises and Hayek, we focus on how their work provided the foundations for the modern Austrian school, which included Ludwig Lachmann, Murray Rothbard and Israel Kirzner. These scholars contributed to the Austrian revival in the 1960s and 1970s, which, in turn, set the stage for the emergence of the contemporary Austrian school in the 1980s. We review the contemporary development of the Austrian school and, in doing so, discuss the tensions, alternative paths, and the promising future of Austrian economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1990s, subnational governments in Canada have become increasingly active towards immigrant selection and immigration integration. In dialogue with scholarship on immigration policy-making and public administration, this article demonstrates that bureaucrats, acting as policy entrepreneurs, have been instrumental in initiating subnational immigration activism in Canada between 1990 and 2010. By studying immigration policy-making ‘from the ground up’, three types of entrepreneurs are identified based on empirical research in the 10 Canadian provinces: classical entrepreneur, policy puzzler and diagonal innovator. New research questions are generated by the demonstration that subnational immigration politics in Canada is a form of client of mode politics, but where clients are absent and where independent within state actors are the moving forces. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents the author's views regarding the use of academic research by policy makers to formulate and implement government policies. It provides a critique on the article by Lawrence Mead who states that policy makers do not use research by the academic community. Topics discussed include the distinction of the use of research in three categories such as instrumental, political and conceptual and knowledge transfer and brokering will lead to the improvement in policies and will identify the linkages between policy makers and academicians.

“Policy analytical capacity” is an important component of overall policy capacity, bringing together individual level analytical skills (competencies) and resources (capabilities) needed for the systematic evaluation of policy alternatives and practices. Despite the existence of a large body of literature on policy analysis, a more complete picture of the roles played by policy analysts in policy appraisal is needed if the nature of contemporary policy work and formulation activities and the impact and influence of higher and lower levels of capacity of governments in this area are to be better understood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Public Administration is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

A growing corpus of empirical findings suggests that appointed partisan advisers are established and influential policy actors within the executive. Their policy work has long attracted concerted attention with respect to issues of accountability and politicization. Less attention however has been cast to concept and theory building, to link empirical findings with extant policy theory. This article presents careful analysis of the leading conceptual approaches to the study of these policy workers. It offers a critique of these approaches but suggests they share common logic and identify common attributes that can usefully be synthesized into a new framework. A framework is then advanced through the elaboration of four key concepts: buffering, bridging, moving, and shaping to focus on the substantive and procedural nature of partisan advisers' policy work. Combined with additional criteria, these are used to develop two subsidiary frameworks focusing on partisan advisers' policy advisory and policy process participation. The study of these actors is argued to not only benefit from improved linkages with policy theory, but that policy theory itself may be improved through focused study of these unique, politically appointed, policy workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a case study of the outsourcing of IT services between 1996 and 2003 by the Government of Ontario using a Public Private Partnership (P3) as an example of the commodification of public services including the impact on labour. It argues that three key features of the arrangement led to it becoming an 'unequal partnership.' First, ideological notions of a 'knowledge economy' and the techno-wizard status of independent IT workers were used by IT corporations to charge very high corporate rates for the time of outsourced IT staff, despite the fact that they were in fact undergoing a process of proletarianisation. Second, the P3 cost-benefit structure of shared costs and shared payments provided the framework for corporate partners to realise higher profits from investment in privatised state activities. Third, the explicit support of influential state and near-state actors undermined opposition to P3 projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the use of the euro in international trade, particularly as a unit of account. It seeks to analyze the evolution of the single currency in its essential facet of international currency, especially in the academic sphere, by examining the ideas and assumptions made by economists prior to the launch of the euro, right up to today’s crisis. Although data regarding international trade invoicing are scarce, stylized facts reveal that the euro is a high and stable invoicing currency regionally, but not internationally. Indeed, the euro has failed to reach the status of vehicle currency: the euro is used only on specific markets where exporters are able to choose the currency of denomination. Moreover, since the euro was conceived in a neoclassical way, it is subject to institutional concerns, especially a lack of political support to foster a dynamics of internationalization. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]