The centralization of power thesis is one of the best- known tenets in Canadian political science. Patrice Dutil’s Prime Ministerial Power in Canada: Its Origins under MacDonald, Laurier, and Borden makes an important empirical contribution to this debate. 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.
Month: October 2018
Genevieve Fuji Johnson, the author of “Democratic Illusion” provides an interesting introduction to the literature of deliberative democracy and embarks upon the task of assessing if the ‘ideal of deliberative democracy’ has been achieved by analyzing four cases invoking procedures associated with deliberative democracy in Canadian public policy. In separate chapters, case studies were selected that were most likely to be successful in approximating the deliberative ideal, including the participatory budgeting (2001-12) of Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC), deliberative polls (2004,2005, 2009) of Nova Scotia Power Incorporated (NSPI), an iterative national consultation process (2002-2005; 2008-2010) of the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), and embedded policy consultations (2000-2012) of the Government of Nunavut in regard to official languages. Rich detail is presented and analyzed through interpretive case studies, evaluating them using deliberative democratic criteria, including participatory inclusion, procedural equality, access to information and empowerment in policy decisions. 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.
ipaccpa.wordpress.com 