Across the globe, the traditional practices of public administration are faced with the challenge of adapting to an increasingly digital society. This is not a new problem. The state has steadily lagged behind leading practices in technological adoption for decades but with the increasing pace of technological innovation and adoption elsewhere, government risks falling steadily further behind. With public health crises like the COVID-19 pandemic forcing the public administration to adopt digital practices in the absence of the analog and in-person work-arounds that have long substituted for meaningful digital adaptation, in 2020, chickens have come home to roost.
Donald Savoie is worried about Canada. He argues that Canadian representative democracy may appear robust when compared with other democracies but is besieged by a democratic deficit rooted in the history and creation of Canada. He sets out to prove that this path leading towards democratic failure can only be altered if we realise that our institutions have drifted too far from fundamental democratic values and principles to reverse themselves.
‘Urban governance’ may imply that governance in urban metropolitan cities is confined to local governments and actors. Zack Taylor’s analysis, however, illustrates that the urban is not necessarily at the centre of urban governance at all. In fact, it is the upper levels of government that dictate governance in cities. Taylor illustrates the differences in the regulation of urbanization processes, and argues they are not random or accidental. In fact, such differences are the result of deliberate actions and unintended consequences of upper levels of government that have structured government resources and capabilities. Different developmental paths have set diverging systems of multi-level urban governance.
In Opening the Government of Canada Clarke takes us beyond the rhetoric of digital, and provides a compelling discussion of the need for more openness, while also balancing open with accountability, equal treatment of citizens, and public service neutrality. The book adds much to the public administration literature, but also invites scholars in information management and information systems to think about how their theories and practices can add to the discussion. Her call to invest in digital talent, literacy and infrastructure advocates for a modern interdisciplinary approach to government transformation.
What is Aboriginal law? What is its purpose, sources, and justifications? How is it linked to the history of Aboriginal-state relations in Canada, to the trajectory of federal and provincial Aboriginal policy making, and to Canada’s constitutional structure? These are the core questions taken up in Jim Reynolds’ Aboriginal Peoples and the Law. Reynolds provides a clear and highly readable summary, and critical analysis, of Canadian law as it pertains to Aboriginal and treaty rights, self-government, Aboriginal title, the duty to consult, and to both Indigenous and international sources of law.
How do you know how to behave when you have to do some kind of business in a place and with people you do not know, say, a military base, a manufacturing plant, a scientific laboratory, or a technologically sophisticated start-up? You go to the only references available: books, movies, TV shows. You draw upon the residues of popular culture portrayals of the environment in question. It may not be perfect, but it is all you have.
In this scholarly work, White seeks to explain the reasons behind fundamental shifts occurring in early childhood education and care policy in Canada and the United States and why these two countries lag behind other advanced democracies; not just to Sweden or France, as might be expected, but kindred liberal welfare states such as Australia and the United Kingdom.
This slim booklet sets out to achieve an ambitious goal, namely, the education of Canada’s public servants about how government works and what their role in it should be. Put another way, it aims to give them important information about their employer and their jobs. On the whole, it does this very well. The authors know their subject.
While most of society is able to benefit from the technological advances associated with the information age and industrial revolutions, governments everywhere lag far behind the cutting edge. This is not simply a question of governments being slow to adopt modern technologies into their operations- although incidents like the federal Phoenix pay system fiasco demonstrate that this too continues to be a problem- but the principal issue of the age comes down to redefining the relationship between state and citizenry in light of the potential that comes with digital technologies. At the core of Newman’s work is his decision to treat P3s as examples of governance (sometimes called networked governance to avoid confusion with the use of the term simply to mean the act of governing). In a policy field characterized by governance, government is one of many partners who have a say in shaping and implementing policy. Government needs to lead the partnership, but cannot too overtly command, if networked arrangements are to succeed. Beginning from that insight, Newman chooses to evaluate two similar P3 projects. These are the transit lines connecting Vancouver, BC, and Sydney, Australia to their respective airports and nearby suburbs. Vancouver’s Canada Line is often described as a public-policy success. The Sydney Airport Rail Link as a public-policy failure. Can governance failure in the latter case explain the difference in outcomes? Newman makes a strong case that it can.
What does state feminism in Canada look like and how can it help improve democracy and political representation? These are some of the questions that Tammy Findlay tackles in her thought-provoking historical examination of the Ontario Women’s Directorate in Femocratic Administration. At the core of Newman’s work is his decision to treat P3s as examples of governance (sometimes called networked governance to avoid confusion with the use of the term simply to mean the act of governing). In a policy field characterized by governance, government is one of many partners who have a say in shaping and implementing policy. Government needs to lead the partnership, but cannot too overtly command, if networked arrangements are to succeed. Beginning from that insight, Newman chooses to evaluate two similar P3 projects. These are the transit lines connecting Vancouver, BC, and Sydney, Australia to their respective airports and nearby suburbs. Vancouver’s Canada Line is often described as a public-policy success. The Sydney Airport Rail Link as a public-policy failure. Can governance failure in the latter case explain the difference in outcomes? Newman makes a strong case that it can.
