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Fifteen - Transforming governance patterns: challenges and opportunities for voluntary sector policy capacity
- Edited by Laurent Dobuzinskis, Simon Fraser University, Canada, Michael Howlett, Simon Fraser University, Canada
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- Book:
- Policy Analysis in Canada
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 19 April 2022
- Print publication:
- 23 May 2018, pp 317-330
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Summary
The question of who shapes policy and under what conditions is a critical one with a deep legacy of scholarship in the field of public administration. Traditionally, government policies and services were designed internally, with some ad hoc stakeholder engagement at various stages of the policy process. In today's world, policy problems are increasingly intricate and call on all sectors of the economy (Ansell & Bartenberger, 2017). Service delivery systems rely on a complex mix of networks and providers from the public, private and voluntary sectors (Hofstad & Torfing, 2016). As a result, the boundaries between public, private and voluntary organizations are blurring and our public policy curriculums need to adapt to this new multi-sectoral reality (Peters & Pierre, 2017). The ability to navigate these new interconnected networks and share knowledge will be invaluable, especially in an increasingly fast-paced policy environment. It is no longer possible to gain a systematic understanding of policy dynamics by focusing solely on the ‘public sector’. Indeed, a greater focus on voluntary organizations can enrich policy analysis, challenge existing paradigms, and contribute to better implementation and evaluation of policy because voluntary organizations are often on the front lines of tackling important social problems.
In this chapter, we examine some of the current trends shaping the nature of government–voluntary sector relations. Increasingly, we are seeing new collaborative ways of engaging voluntary organizations as partners and co-creators of policy (Torfing et al., 2012). Governance is currently in a moment of transition as the ebb and flow of political and institutional changes are restructuring the funding and the delivery mechanisms of social services. With a tight fiscal framework and slow economic growth on the horizon, governments are looking to their partners to find new ways of delivering better services by demonstrating impact and value. These important changes in the public policy landscape are occurring in the context of increased competition for public resources and this is driving pressure for innovation, performance and accountability within the voluntary sector. As we will illustrate, these governance dynamics continue to shape voluntary sector practices, albeit in new and interesting ways, ultimately compounding policy capacity issues. The chapter concludes by drawing out some of the implications of these trends for the theory and practice of public policy analysis.
The Expendables: Community Organizations and Governance Dynamics in the Canadian Settlement Sector
- Nicholas Acheson, Rachel Laforest
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- Journal:
- Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique / Volume 46 / Issue 3 / September 2013
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 28 August 2013, pp. 597-616
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Abstract. An emerging pattern of governance in contemporary liberal democratic welfare states is a move away from interest group representation and a public sphere organized around demands for extensions of rights to something much more constrained. This article asks how such a profound shift in representation has occurred through governance spaces that are co-constructed by community organizations. It examines the case of Canadian immigrant settlement where beliefs about citizen representation, the role of the state and the nature of the public sphere have undergone profound change, leaving immigrant organizations as either marginal players or fully incorporated in state sanctioned immigrant service provision. Drawing on documentary evidence and interviews with immigrant organizations and public officials in Ottawa, it shows how immigrant organizations have actively interpreted their interests in the light of this changing web of beliefs to co-construct a new policy regime that favours organizational interests over citizen participation.
Résumé. Au cours des dernières décennies, une des tendance de gouvernance qui se desssine dans la plupart des États providence est que l'espace de représentation politique et de la défense des droits collectifs est devenu de plus en plus restraint. Cet article examine comment ce changement a pris forme dans des espaces de gouvernance qui sont de plus en plus marqués par une interaction dynamique de coconstruction des politiques publiques. L'analyse est basée sur une étude de cas d'organismes communautaires oeuvrant dans le domaine de l'intégration des immigrants dans la ville d'Ottawa. L'analyse de documents et les entrevues qualitatives révèlent que les organismes ont stratégiquement redéfinis leurs intérêts en matière de représentation politique et ont contribué à la coconstruction d'un nouveau régime de gouvernance qui privilégie les intérêts organisationnels au-dessus de la participation citoyenne.