Jonathan Craft
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 1487777 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Jonathan Craft |
| NOMBRES | Jonathan |
| APELLIDO | Craft |
| FIRMA | CRAFT J |
| AFILIACIONES | University of Toronto |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4397-9995 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 25 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 481 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 24 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 1 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2009 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2024 |
| ÍNDICE H | 10 |
Expertise, policy advice, and policy advisory systems in an open, participatory, and populist era
This article examines the themes of policy advice, expertise, and policy advisory systems. It argues that persistent challenges and more emergent trends involving their intersection can be effectively understood through the lenses of instrumentality , authority , and adaptability . In the wake of renewed questions about the continued viability of longstanding public administration advisory arrangements, these themes help locate new pressures on t…
Policy staff and the evolving nature of policy analytical capacity in Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand
This article provides fresh empirical insights into the evolving nature of policy analytical capacity in Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand. We argue for a focus on the formal policy staff employed in government to provide greater conceptual clarity and empirical purchase regarding specific types of policy analytical resources linked to capacity. Using ten years of administrative data we chart the evolution of the size, composition, and …
Low-fidelity policy design, within-design feedback, and the Universal Credit case
A Stewardship Approach to Policy Practice and Capacity Renewal in Canada
One of Canada's most significant public administration challenges is ensuring the public service possesses the capacity and modern practices needed for effective policymaking. This article argues that Canada's policy renewal efforts have been hampered by a lack of focused and coherent public service reform more generally. Informed by international best practice and an appreciation for Canada's unique public administration context and history, I a…
Ministerial Advisers as Power Resources
In this article, we argue that the entourage of ministerial advisers available to prime ministers and other ministers is an institutional power resource that can serve as a useful indicator to measure the changing nature of the political executive. Two novel contributions are made utilising four new datasets on ministerial advisers coupled with a comparative analysis of 21 governments in Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand, in varying date…
Comparing Formal Public Sector Policy Staff
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 categ…
Punching above their weight or falling flat? Flagship policy modernisation initiatives in Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand
Concerns of a decline in public service policy capacity coupled with evolving policy advisory systems have seen public services seek to reform their policy capacity and practices. This article examines the flagship policy modernisation initiatives launched by the Australian, Canadian, British, and New Zealand governments. Comparative analysis reveals a shared emphasis on overarching objectives, but important differences in their design, how they …
Theorising policy advisory system management
This article develops the concept of policy advisory system (PAS) management in recognition of the need to better theorise and empirically study how governments approach the complex systems of advice around them. In our analysis, we go beyond the conceptualisation of degrees of government’s “control” over advisory sources. We use the dimensions of government agency and discretion and argue that PAS management falls into four forms: authoritative,…
Composition, distribution, and change in Canada's federal policy staff
Using a decade of administrative data from the Government of Canada, we provide fresh analysis of the composition and distribution of staff most formally associated with policy work, the Economics and Social Science (EC) classification. Comparative analysis across unit levels including “ministerial departments” and central agencies, as well as non‐standard organizations support but clarify the nature of the uneven distribution of policy analytica…
Beyond Covid‐19
Several Canadian and international scholars offer commentaries on the implications of the COVID‐19 pandemic for governments and public service institutions, and fruitful directions for public administration research and practice. This first suite of commentaries focuses on the executive branch, variously considering: the challenge for governments to balance demands for accountability and learning while rethinking policy mixes as social solidarity…
The twin faces of public sector design
Design thinking has become a popular approach for governments around the world seeking to address complex governance challenges. It offers novel techniques and speaks to broader questions of who governs, how they govern, and the limits of rational instrumentalism in policy making. Juxtaposing design thinking with an older tradition of policy design, this article offers the first critical analysis of the application of design thinking to policy ma…
Policy Work in Canada
Partisan advisers and political policy failure avoidance
Empirical examinations of partisan advisers detail significant differences in their policy work, influence, and their patterns of interactions with other policy actors. This raises important implications for their potential contributions to policy failure avoidance. Using recent qualitative data from elite interviews in Canada, this study finds that advisers’ policy work contributes to political policy failure avoidance as policy is developed. Th…
The vestiges and vanguards of policy design in a digital context
This article explores the opportunities, challenges and expectations that the digital context of design and new digital era policy instruments, such as open data, big data, robotics and crowdsourcing, present to policy designers operating in today's governments. Adopting an instruments perspective, the article identifies four characteristics of digital era policy design before detailing three issues that must be addressed to ascertain the promise…
Digital era policy advising
The growing body of literature on digital governance, and policy advisory systems, often neglects the perspective of elected decision makers. What types of policy advice do ministers need in the digital governance era? Is digitization of government and policymaking reshaping supply and demand dynamics, the content of policy advice, or how advice is used within the policy process? This article borrows existing theoretical frames on digital governa…
Catching a Second Wave
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 …
A Comparative Assessment of Elite Policy Recruits in Canada
Recent case studies and large-N survey evidence has confirmed long-suspected shortages of public sector "policy capacity". Studies have found that government policy workers in various jurisdictions differ considerably with respect to types of policy work they undertake, and have identified uneven capacity for policy workers to access and apply technical and scientific knowledge to public issues. This suggests considerable difficulties for governm…
Assessing 30 years of Westminster policy advisory system experience
Conceptualizing the policy work of partisan advisers
Policy Capacity and the Ability to Adapt to Climate Change
This special issue contributes to extant empirical scholarship assessing governmental capacity to meet significant policy challenges, in this case those related to climate change adaptation. The study includes detailed examination of five policy sectors—finance, infrastructure, energy, forestry, and transportation—in two countries, C anada and the U nited S tates—in order to determine what kinds of governance arrangements and analytical capacitie…
Appointed political staffs and the diversification of policy advisory sources
Appointed political staffs were featured in the initial elaboration of the ‘policy advisory systems’ (PAS) model yet have received considerably less attention than other components. This article revisits the PAS model and argues that political staffs engage in important procedural advisory activities masked by the PAS focus on location and control. The principle contention being that political staffs influence within advisory systems may also be …
The dual dynamics of policy advisory systems
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 work and change over time. This article sets out existing models of policy advisory systems b…
Assessing Policy Capacity for Climate Change Adaptation
This article examines the infrastructure policy sector's capacity to respond to climate change adaptation through an analysis of theCanadian case. It includes a three-level examination of capacity: at the macro level through a virtual policy network analysis; at the meso level through examination of the lead department's evolving mandate and resources; and at the micro level through analysis of survey data related to departmental workers policy t…
Policy formulation, governance shifts and policy influence
Most studies of policy formulation focus on the nature and kind of advice provided to decision-makers and think of this as originating from a system of interacting elements: a “policy advisory system”. Policy influence in such models has historically been viewed as based on considerations of the proximate location of policy advisors vis à vis the government, linked to related factors such as the extent to which governments are able to control sou…
Government communication and democratic governance
Government communication is now a large growth industry in many countries. Exactly what is meant by the term, however, varies from author to author. In this paper government communication is conceived as a policy tool or instrument, that is, as a means to give effect to policy goals. Key policy-relevant aspects of the term are examined including differences between the role of government communications in the ‘front-end’ of the public policy and …
Policy formulation, governance shifts and policy influence
Most studies of policy formulation focus on the nature and kind of advice provided to decision-makers and think of this as originating from a system of interacting elements: a “policy advisory system”. Policy influence in such models has historically been viewed as based on considerations of the proximate location of policy advisors vis à vis the government, linked to related factors such as the extent to which governments are able to control sou…
The dual dynamics of policy advisory systems
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 work and change over time. This article sets out existing models of policy advisory systems b…
Catching a Second Wave
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 …
Assessing 30 years of Westminster policy advisory system experience
The twin faces of public sector design
Design thinking has become a popular approach for governments around the world seeking to address complex governance challenges. It offers novel techniques and speaks to broader questions of who governs, how they govern, and the limits of rational instrumentalism in policy making. Juxtaposing design thinking with an older tradition of policy design, this article offers the first critical analysis of the application of design thinking to policy ma…
Conceptualizing the policy work of partisan advisers
Theorising policy advisory system management
This article develops the concept of policy advisory system (PAS) management in recognition of the need to better theorise and empirically study how governments approach the complex systems of advice around them. In our analysis, we go beyond the conceptualisation of degrees of government’s “control” over advisory sources. We use the dimensions of government agency and discretion and argue that PAS management falls into four forms: authoritative,…
Appointed political staffs and the diversification of policy advisory sources
Appointed political staffs were featured in the initial elaboration of the ‘policy advisory systems’ (PAS) model yet have received considerably less attention than other components. This article revisits the PAS model and argues that political staffs engage in important procedural advisory activities masked by the PAS focus on location and control. The principle contention being that political staffs influence within advisory systems may also be …
Policy Capacity and the Ability to Adapt to Climate Change
This special issue contributes to extant empirical scholarship assessing governmental capacity to meet significant policy challenges, in this case those related to climate change adaptation. The study includes detailed examination of five policy sectors—finance, infrastructure, energy, forestry, and transportation—in two countries, C anada and the U nited S tates—in order to determine what kinds of governance arrangements and analytical capacitie…
The vestiges and vanguards of policy design in a digital context
This article explores the opportunities, challenges and expectations that the digital context of design and new digital era policy instruments, such as open data, big data, robotics and crowdsourcing, present to policy designers operating in today's governments. Adopting an instruments perspective, the article identifies four characteristics of digital era policy design before detailing three issues that must be addressed to ascertain the promise…
Expertise, policy advice, and policy advisory systems in an open, participatory, and populist era
This article examines the themes of policy advice, expertise, and policy advisory systems. It argues that persistent challenges and more emergent trends involving their intersection can be effectively understood through the lenses of instrumentality , authority , and adaptability . In the wake of renewed questions about the continued viability of longstanding public administration advisory arrangements, these themes help locate new pressures on t…
Ministerial Advisers as Power Resources
In this article, we argue that the entourage of ministerial advisers available to prime ministers and other ministers is an institutional power resource that can serve as a useful indicator to measure the changing nature of the political executive. Two novel contributions are made utilising four new datasets on ministerial advisers coupled with a comparative analysis of 21 governments in Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand, in varying date…
Beyond Covid‐19
Several Canadian and international scholars offer commentaries on the implications of the COVID‐19 pandemic for governments and public service institutions, and fruitful directions for public administration research and practice. This first suite of commentaries focuses on the executive branch, variously considering: the challenge for governments to balance demands for accountability and learning while rethinking policy mixes as social solidarity…
Partisan advisers and political policy failure avoidance
Empirical examinations of partisan advisers detail significant differences in their policy work, influence, and their patterns of interactions with other policy actors. This raises important implications for their potential contributions to policy failure avoidance. Using recent qualitative data from elite interviews in Canada, this study finds that advisers’ policy work contributes to political policy failure avoidance as policy is developed. Th…
Digital era policy advising
The growing body of literature on digital governance, and policy advisory systems, often neglects the perspective of elected decision makers. What types of policy advice do ministers need in the digital governance era? Is digitization of government and policymaking reshaping supply and demand dynamics, the content of policy advice, or how advice is used within the policy process? This article borrows existing theoretical frames on digital governa…
Assessing Policy Capacity for Climate Change Adaptation
This article examines the infrastructure policy sector's capacity to respond to climate change adaptation through an analysis of theCanadian case. It includes a three-level examination of capacity: at the macro level through a virtual policy network analysis; at the meso level through examination of the lead department's evolving mandate and resources; and at the micro level through analysis of survey data related to departmental workers policy t…
Composition, distribution, and change in Canada's federal policy staff
Using a decade of administrative data from the Government of Canada, we provide fresh analysis of the composition and distribution of staff most formally associated with policy work, the Economics and Social Science (EC) classification. Comparative analysis across unit levels including “ministerial departments” and central agencies, as well as non‐standard organizations support but clarify the nature of the uneven distribution of policy analytica…
A Comparative Assessment of Elite Policy Recruits in Canada
Recent case studies and large-N survey evidence has confirmed long-suspected shortages of public sector "policy capacity". Studies have found that government policy workers in various jurisdictions differ considerably with respect to types of policy work they undertake, and have identified uneven capacity for policy workers to access and apply technical and scientific knowledge to public issues. This suggests considerable difficulties for governm…
A Stewardship Approach to Policy Practice and Capacity Renewal in Canada
One of Canada's most significant public administration challenges is ensuring the public service possesses the capacity and modern practices needed for effective policymaking. This article argues that Canada's policy renewal efforts have been hampered by a lack of focused and coherent public service reform more generally. Informed by international best practice and an appreciation for Canada's unique public administration context and history, I a…
Punching above their weight or falling flat? Flagship policy modernisation initiatives in Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand
Concerns of a decline in public service policy capacity coupled with evolving policy advisory systems have seen public services seek to reform their policy capacity and practices. This article examines the flagship policy modernisation initiatives launched by the Australian, Canadian, British, and New Zealand governments. Comparative analysis reveals a shared emphasis on overarching objectives, but important differences in their design, how they …
Policy staff and the evolving nature of policy analytical capacity in Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand
This article provides fresh empirical insights into the evolving nature of policy analytical capacity in Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand. We argue for a focus on the formal policy staff employed in government to provide greater conceptual clarity and empirical purchase regarding specific types of policy analytical resources linked to capacity. Using ten years of administrative data we chart the evolution of the size, composition, and …
Low-fidelity policy design, within-design feedback, and the Universal Credit case
Comparing Formal Public Sector Policy Staff
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 categ…
Government communication and democratic governance
Government communication is now a large growth industry in many countries. Exactly what is meant by the term, however, varies from author to author. In this paper government communication is conceived as a policy tool or instrument, that is, as a means to give effect to policy goals. Key policy-relevant aspects of the term are examined including differences between the role of government communications in the ‘front-end’ of the public policy and …
Government communication and democratic governance
Government communication is now a large growth industry in many countries. Exactly what is meant by the term, however, varies from author to author. In this paper government communication is conceived as a policy tool or instrument, that is, as a means to give effect to policy goals. Key policy-relevant aspects of the term are examined including differences between the role of government communications in the ‘front-end’ of the public policy and …
Policy formulation, governance shifts and policy influence
Most studies of policy formulation focus on the nature and kind of advice provided to decision-makers and think of this as originating from a system of interacting elements: a “policy advisory system”. Policy influence in such models has historically been viewed as based on considerations of the proximate location of policy advisors vis à vis the government, linked to related factors such as the extent to which governments are able to control sou…
Policy Capacity and the Ability to Adapt to Climate Change
This special issue contributes to extant empirical scholarship assessing governmental capacity to meet significant policy challenges, in this case those related to climate change adaptation. The study includes detailed examination of five policy sectors—finance, infrastructure, energy, forestry, and transportation—in two countries, C anada and the U nited S tates—in order to determine what kinds of governance arrangements and analytical capacitie…
Appointed political staffs and the diversification of policy advisory sources
Appointed political staffs were featured in the initial elaboration of the ‘policy advisory systems’ (PAS) model yet have received considerably less attention than other components. This article revisits the PAS model and argues that political staffs engage in important procedural advisory activities masked by the PAS focus on location and control. The principle contention being that political staffs influence within advisory systems may also be …
The dual dynamics of policy advisory systems
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 work and change over time. This article sets out existing models of policy advisory systems b…
Assessing Policy Capacity for Climate Change Adaptation
This article examines the infrastructure policy sector's capacity to respond to climate change adaptation through an analysis of theCanadian case. It includes a three-level examination of capacity: at the macro level through a virtual policy network analysis; at the meso level through examination of the lead department's evolving mandate and resources; and at the micro level through analysis of survey data related to departmental workers policy t…
Conceptualizing the policy work of partisan advisers
A Comparative Assessment of Elite Policy Recruits in Canada
Recent case studies and large-N survey evidence has confirmed long-suspected shortages of public sector "policy capacity". Studies have found that government policy workers in various jurisdictions differ considerably with respect to types of policy work they undertake, and have identified uneven capacity for policy workers to access and apply technical and scientific knowledge to public issues. This suggests considerable difficulties for governm…
Assessing 30 years of Westminster policy advisory system experience
Policy Work in Canada
Partisan advisers and political policy failure avoidance
Empirical examinations of partisan advisers detail significant differences in their policy work, influence, and their patterns of interactions with other policy actors. This raises important implications for their potential contributions to policy failure avoidance. Using recent qualitative data from elite interviews in Canada, this study finds that advisers’ policy work contributes to political policy failure avoidance as policy is developed. Th…
The vestiges and vanguards of policy design in a digital context
This article explores the opportunities, challenges and expectations that the digital context of design and new digital era policy instruments, such as open data, big data, robotics and crowdsourcing, present to policy designers operating in today's governments. Adopting an instruments perspective, the article identifies four characteristics of digital era policy design before detailing three issues that must be addressed to ascertain the promise…
Digital era policy advising
The growing body of literature on digital governance, and policy advisory systems, often neglects the perspective of elected decision makers. What types of policy advice do ministers need in the digital governance era? Is digitization of government and policymaking reshaping supply and demand dynamics, the content of policy advice, or how advice is used within the policy process? This article borrows existing theoretical frames on digital governa…
Catching a Second Wave
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 …
The twin faces of public sector design
Design thinking has become a popular approach for governments around the world seeking to address complex governance challenges. It offers novel techniques and speaks to broader questions of who governs, how they govern, and the limits of rational instrumentalism in policy making. Juxtaposing design thinking with an older tradition of policy design, this article offers the first critical analysis of the application of design thinking to policy ma…
Beyond Covid‐19
Several Canadian and international scholars offer commentaries on the implications of the COVID‐19 pandemic for governments and public service institutions, and fruitful directions for public administration research and practice. This first suite of commentaries focuses on the executive branch, variously considering: the challenge for governments to balance demands for accountability and learning while rethinking policy mixes as social solidarity…
Composition, distribution, and change in Canada's federal policy staff
Using a decade of administrative data from the Government of Canada, we provide fresh analysis of the composition and distribution of staff most formally associated with policy work, the Economics and Social Science (EC) classification. Comparative analysis across unit levels including “ministerial departments” and central agencies, as well as non‐standard organizations support but clarify the nature of the uneven distribution of policy analytica…
Comparing Formal Public Sector Policy Staff
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 categ…
Punching above their weight or falling flat? Flagship policy modernisation initiatives in Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand
Concerns of a decline in public service policy capacity coupled with evolving policy advisory systems have seen public services seek to reform their policy capacity and practices. This article examines the flagship policy modernisation initiatives launched by the Australian, Canadian, British, and New Zealand governments. Comparative analysis reveals a shared emphasis on overarching objectives, but important differences in their design, how they …
Theorising policy advisory system management
This article develops the concept of policy advisory system (PAS) management in recognition of the need to better theorise and empirically study how governments approach the complex systems of advice around them. In our analysis, we go beyond the conceptualisation of degrees of government’s “control” over advisory sources. We use the dimensions of government agency and discretion and argue that PAS management falls into four forms: authoritative,…
Expertise, policy advice, and policy advisory systems in an open, participatory, and populist era
This article examines the themes of policy advice, expertise, and policy advisory systems. It argues that persistent challenges and more emergent trends involving their intersection can be effectively understood through the lenses of instrumentality , authority , and adaptability . In the wake of renewed questions about the continued viability of longstanding public administration advisory arrangements, these themes help locate new pressures on t…
Policy staff and the evolving nature of policy analytical capacity in Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand
This article provides fresh empirical insights into the evolving nature of policy analytical capacity in Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand. We argue for a focus on the formal policy staff employed in government to provide greater conceptual clarity and empirical purchase regarding specific types of policy analytical resources linked to capacity. Using ten years of administrative data we chart the evolution of the size, composition, and …
Low-fidelity policy design, within-design feedback, and the Universal Credit case
A Stewardship Approach to Policy Practice and Capacity Renewal in Canada
One of Canada's most significant public administration challenges is ensuring the public service possesses the capacity and modern practices needed for effective policymaking. This article argues that Canada's policy renewal efforts have been hampered by a lack of focused and coherent public service reform more generally. Informed by international best practice and an appreciation for Canada's unique public administration context and history, I a…
Ministerial Advisers as Power Resources
In this article, we argue that the entourage of ministerial advisers available to prime ministers and other ministers is an institutional power resource that can serve as a useful indicator to measure the changing nature of the political executive. Two novel contributions are made utilising four new datasets on ministerial advisers coupled with a comparative analysis of 21 governments in Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand, in varying date…
Political science (25 obras) · Public Administration (22 obras) · Public Administration (21 obras) · Public Policy and Administration Research (19 obras) · Economics (16 obras) · Policy Transfer and Learning (16 obras) · Law (15 obras) · Law (15 obras) · Public relations (14 obras) · Business (12 obras)