Andrea Migone
Biographic Data
| ID | 363551 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Andrea Migone |
| GIVEN NAMES | Andrea |
| FAMILY NAME | Migone |
| SIGNATURE | MIGONE A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Simon Fraser University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8521-5024 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 38 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 178 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 38 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
A convergence of executive management styles? new elements of comparison
We compare the Italian Directors General and Canadian Deputy Ministers’ use of time during their average work week using a survey instrument and propose a four-fold categorization of managerial styles. We find that the activities of top executives in the two countries differ, but not dramatically. In particular, we find a very close match in time devoted to ‘administrative’ tasks and confirm that, in general, these executives have relatively limi…
Policy termination in state-driven spheres: The role of inter-agency de-alignment
Early studies of policy termination focused on identifying the drivers and barriers to ending programs, such as the emergence of fiscal and other exigencies, which can lead to policy and program cancellation, but also noted that such factors do not always lead to closure. More recent work has advanced thinking on the subject and acknowledged a wider range of possible policy choices beyond simple cancellation, including modest reform or terminatio…
Multiple Streams and Plausibility Cones: Using Concepts from Future Studies to Depict Policy Dynamics
Anticipating the future is a highly uncertain but essential task in policy-making made complex by the existence of both linear and non-linear policy dynamics. One framework which is useful in anticipating both kinds of change is the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) which has expanded from looking mainly at aspects of policy-making such as agenda-setting to depicting other complex activities related to policy implementation and administration amon…
Kicked cans and poison pills: Third generation policy advisory system studies and the management of quality political advice
The decision-making process in government is influenced by a complex system of policy advice, which affects both the kinds of advice solicited and how it is received. Previous first and second generation studies of these policy advisory systems (PAS) focused primarily on identifying the structures and dynamics of advisory relationships in different contexts and jurisdictions. However, managing these systems to inform policy (in)action is now a ma…
Management and quality: Third-generation research into policy advisory systems
In this article, we argue that in order to better understand how Policy Advisory Systems (PAS) have evolved during the 21st century, we need to reframe consideration of their nature. This requires recognizing that what could previously be relatively precisely described as a highly institutionalized system of advice provision is now often a hybrid, where the weight of institutionalized sources of advice is declining, and more agile and fluid inter…
A theory of policy advisory system quality: Hirschman 2.0 or what makes for good policy advice
Not everyone’s ideas count equally in terms of influencing and informing policy design and instrument choices. As the literature on policy advice has shown, such advice arises from many different actors interacting with each other often over relatively long timeframes. Actors within these ‘policy advisory systems’ operate within the confines of an existing set of political and economic institutions and governing norms, and each actor brings with …
Lessons from Canada for green procurement strategy design
We derive lessons for green public procurement (GPP) by examining it in the context of Canadian federal government expenditures in several sectors. These show that successful GPP is neither simple nor automatic but requires alignment of green policy visions between payers, purchasers and producers, and the existence of appropriate procurement frameworks to allow this alignment to persist. Attaining and maintaining this alignment longitudinally is…
Paradigmatic stability, ideational robustness, and policy persistence: Exploring the impact of policy ideas on policy-making
In the policy world, the idea of ideational robustness deals with why and how policy elements can be maintained over time and the implications this has for government strategy and activity. Past approaches to ideas and their influence on public policy stressed the disparate roles of multiple policy mechanisms such as path dependency or the nature of policy networks in either driving policy change forward or ensuring persistence of a policy. Ideat…
Words not deeds: The weak culture of evidence in the Canadian policy style
The Canadian policy style has been described as one of overpromising and underdelivering, where heightened expectations are often met by underwhelming outcomes. Here, we examine the evidentiary style of Canadian policy-making which undergirds and reflects this policy style, particularly the nature of the policy advisory system that contributes to this pattern of policy-making. We do so by assessing how the different components of the advice syste…
The purpose of policy portfolios: Design, intention, and logic
We propose a qualitative method of assessing a policy mix’s content, which can be utilized alongside currently common quantitative techniques such as counting the number of tools, policies, and levels of government involved. Focussing on whether or not the mix promotes flexibility or standardization and whether it is intended to be maintaining or innovating helps to better map existing policy mixes and inform design decisions than do more content…
The Pigeons Coming Home to Roost: The Continuing Perils of Contracting Out in Canada
This article explores the growing trend of contracting‐out public services in Canada, highlighting its increasing impact on government activities as governments have expanded outsourcing from traditional goods like office supplies to complex infrastructure management and professional services. Recent cases, including federal government spending on consulting and high‐profile failures of Public Private Partnership (P3) projects, underscore the nee…
The Problems of Public Procurement in Canada: Rule Layering, Strategic Purchasing, and Risk Aversion as a Toxic Stew
This article analyzes persistent challenges in Canadian public procurement, examining in particular the federal government's complex, multi‐layered purchasing processes which have contributed to high‐profile failures, such as most recently the ArriveCan app and, over the past century, the majority of major military procurement projects. The primary issues found to contribute to these problems include excessive rule layering, unnecessary strategic…
The politics of military megaprojects: Discursive struggles in Canadian and Australian naval shipbuilding strategies
Large-scale military platform procurement is an essential but understudied component of the policy studies of megaprojects. Procurement decisions in this area, from ships to aircraft, are examples of a specific type of often very expensive purchases which feature complex multi-actor and multiyear processes characterized by high degrees of conflict between actors over purchases and planning horizons. This study of military procurement efforts of t…
Assessing the ‘forgotten fundamental’ in policy advisory systems research: Policy shops and the role(s) of core policy professionals
During the past 30 years, research on policy analytical capacity's multidimensional nature and the evolution of policy advisory systems (PASs) has both increased knowledge of these processes and structures and opened new avenues of inquiry. While it is clear that changes in PASs in many countries have occurred ‐ featuring processes such as the increased externalisation and politicisation of policy advice ‐ studies of changes among the roles playe…
Regulating the wild west? Management consulting reform in Canadian government
Globally, the increased reliance on consultants and contract employees has raised many concerns vis‐à‐vis more traditional “in‐house” provision. One such concern is the manner in which consultants have been displacing traditional advisors in important aspects of government business while others raise issues with the quality of services rendered and the (undue) influence of the advice tendered. This trend has fuelled research in political science,…
Super‐users and hyper‐experts in the provision of policy advice: Evidence from a survey of Canadian academics
The relationships of influence and activity between academics and other actors (public, private, and non‐governmental) in the policy process are complex. Although older work often argued academic research at best had an indirect “environmental” or “enlightenment” effect on policy‐makers, (May et al. (2016). Journal of Public Policy, 36, 195) recently argued that in the US case previous studies misconstrued the role of academic policy advice becau…
The politics of military procurement: The F-35 purchasing process in Canada and Australia Compared
The willingness of defence departments to select the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) for their fifth-generation multirole fighter has frequently been analyzed as stemming from the close historical connections allies such as Japan or Canada have with the United States. However, such an approach glosses over or ignores the operation of military procurement processes which are more idiosyncratic and subject to many pushes and pulls from different ac…
Assessing policy analytical capacity in contemporary governments: New measures and metrics
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…
Advising Governments in the Westminster Tradition: Policy Advisory Systems in Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand
(Mis)aligning politicians and admirals: The problems of long‐term procurement in the Canadian Surface Combatant project 1994‐2021
Popular depictions of the largest single procurement project in Canadian history—the Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC) project—characterize it as a bureaucratic failure. What began in 2008 as a $26.2B project has expanded to at least $77.3B, and $2B has already been spent without having produced a single vessel. Unlike other major Canadian aircraft, helicopter, and submarine contracts over the past four decades, however, participants in the CSC ha…
The time management styles of deputy ministers in Canada: Towards a taxonomy
Deputy Ministers in Canada play a critical role in defining all aspects of policy and operations for their respective departments and also contribute significantly to their government's collective initiatives. While there exists a solid understanding of the roles and functions of Deputy Ministers, there is little perception of how individuals actually shape the position in terms of time management. Understanding how senior executives in Canadian …
Policy shops, hired guns, and gatekeepers: The organization and distribution of policy analysts in Ontario
Policy professionals play an important role in political and administrative systems. However, the exact configuration and distribution of such personnel within agencies remains largely unknown. Early works noted the creation of small dedicated “policy shops” in many governments after 1960 where many policy professionals were located. Studies in Canada and elsewhere subsequently confirmed this organizational form but questions such as how many pro…
The changing and enduring priorities of Deputy Ministers through the Ipac survey
Since 1994, the Institute of Public Administration of Canada (IPAC) has conducted a survey among Canadian Deputy Ministers (DM) to measure what administrative issues they considered the most important. Carried out in varying methods, the IPAC surveys present a unique longitudinal dataset that can shed light on the core focus of top administrative executives over the past 25 years. The results show a consistency in DM priorities. The tasks of prep…
Trust, but customize: Federalism’s impact on the Canadian Covid-19 response
This article explores how Canadian federalism, with its complex mix of competencies, and the country's punctuated gradualism policy style interface with urgent, complex decision-making like the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that while punctuated gradualism favors tailored responses to pandemic management it is weaker when coordination and resourcing are to be undertaken during non-crisis situations and that, while the level of cooperation among Cana…
Financial capacity of First Nations in Canada
This article analyzes the financial capacity of First Nations in Canada using data contained in the audit information on the First Nation Financial Transparency Act (FNFTA) website for fiscal years 2013‐2014 through 2016‐2017 inclusive. Our analysis tackles three connected questions: What is the general state of First Nations finances? Are there recurrent issues with financial practices? Are principles of good government and good management, espe…
Policy advice through the market: The role of external consultants in contemporary policy advisory systems
The use of external policy consultants in government has been an increasing focus of concern among governments in the U.S., the UK, Canada and Australia, among others. Concern has arisen over the costs incurred by governments in this area and over the possible rise of a ‘consultocracy’ with the corresponding diminishment of democratic practices and public direction of policy and administrative development that could entail. However, current under…
Charles Lindblom is alive and well and living in punctuated equilibrium land
Incrementalism enjoyed an almost uninterrupted 40 year run as the dominant model of policy change from the publication of Lindblom and Dahl's first mention of the subject in 1953. In the mid-1990s, however, the elements of a new orthodoxy of policy dynamics began to appear in the form of various models of ‘punctuated equilibrium’, most notably in the works of Peter Hall, Frank Baumgartner and Bryan Jones. It is important to note, that the new ort…
The permanence of temporary services: The reliance of C anadian federal departments on policy and management consultants
The use of external consultants in government management and policy realms has drawn increasing attention in many countries including C anada. Studies were undertaken internationally in the 1990s and 2000s as legislatures and their accounting arms became concerned with the hidden costs of “corporatization” of the public service and tried to expand benchmarking measures for government efficiency to include external consultants. Accounting for thes…
Duplicative or Complementary? The Relationship between Policy Consulting and Internal Policy Analysis in Canadian Government
Policy consultants are external analysts who provide paid policy-related advice to governments on a contractual basis. Previous research on policy work has examined the work done within governments and by policy consultants separately but has not systematically compared and contrasted the two. A key question regarding the nature of policy advisory practices and policy advice systems in general, however, is whether consultants are duplicating the …
Making the invisible public service visible? Exploring data on the supply of policy and management consultancies in C anada
The use of external policy and management consultants in government has been receiving increasing attention in many countries, including C anada. We explore new data on management consulting compiled from information released since the creation of the F ederal A ccountability A ct to address the supply side of contracting. We find several large multi‐year contracts have taken up a larger percentage of contracting activity while the number of smal…
Trust, but customize: Federalism’s impact on the Canadian Covid-19 response
This article explores how Canadian federalism, with its complex mix of competencies, and the country's punctuated gradualism policy style interface with urgent, complex decision-making like the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that while punctuated gradualism favors tailored responses to pandemic management it is weaker when coordination and resourcing are to be undertaken during non-crisis situations and that, while the level of cooperation among Cana…
Academic research and engagement with the Canadian public service: Insights from three surveys
This article explores the area of research engagement between two very important communities in the Canadian public policy landscape: academics and senior public service executives. Using data from three surveys, we argue that while public sector executives may be more receptive to academic research than the literature suggests, academic advice and knowledge remain underutilized. While there does not seem to be a strong cleavage between the two g…
(Mis)aligning politicians and admirals: The problems of long‐term procurement in the Canadian Surface Combatant project 1994‐2021
Popular depictions of the largest single procurement project in Canadian history—the Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC) project—characterize it as a bureaucratic failure. What began in 2008 as a $26.2B project has expanded to at least $77.3B, and $2B has already been spent without having produced a single vessel. Unlike other major Canadian aircraft, helicopter, and submarine contracts over the past four decades, however, participants in the CSC ha…
A theory of policy advisory system quality: Hirschman 2.0 or what makes for good policy advice
Not everyone’s ideas count equally in terms of influencing and informing policy design and instrument choices. As the literature on policy advice has shown, such advice arises from many different actors interacting with each other often over relatively long timeframes. Actors within these ‘policy advisory systems’ operate within the confines of an existing set of political and economic institutions and governing norms, and each actor brings with …
Policy shops, hired guns, and gatekeepers: The organization and distribution of policy analysts in Ontario
Policy professionals play an important role in political and administrative systems. However, the exact configuration and distribution of such personnel within agencies remains largely unknown. Early works noted the creation of small dedicated “policy shops” in many governments after 1960 where many policy professionals were located. Studies in Canada and elsewhere subsequently confirmed this organizational form but questions such as how many pro…
The politics of military megaprojects: Discursive struggles in Canadian and Australian naval shipbuilding strategies
Large-scale military platform procurement is an essential but understudied component of the policy studies of megaprojects. Procurement decisions in this area, from ships to aircraft, are examples of a specific type of often very expensive purchases which feature complex multi-actor and multiyear processes characterized by high degrees of conflict between actors over purchases and planning horizons. This study of military procurement efforts of t…
Assessing the ‘forgotten fundamental’ in policy advisory systems research: Policy shops and the role(s) of core policy professionals
During the past 30 years, research on policy analytical capacity's multidimensional nature and the evolution of policy advisory systems (PASs) has both increased knowledge of these processes and structures and opened new avenues of inquiry. While it is clear that changes in PASs in many countries have occurred ‐ featuring processes such as the increased externalisation and politicisation of policy advice ‐ studies of changes among the roles playe…
Regulating the wild west? Management consulting reform in Canadian government
Globally, the increased reliance on consultants and contract employees has raised many concerns vis‐à‐vis more traditional “in‐house” provision. One such concern is the manner in which consultants have been displacing traditional advisors in important aspects of government business while others raise issues with the quality of services rendered and the (undue) influence of the advice tendered. This trend has fuelled research in political science,…
Assessing policy analytical capacity in contemporary governments: New measures and metrics
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…
The changing and enduring priorities of Deputy Ministers through the Ipac survey
Since 1994, the Institute of Public Administration of Canada (IPAC) has conducted a survey among Canadian Deputy Ministers (DM) to measure what administrative issues they considered the most important. Carried out in varying methods, the IPAC surveys present a unique longitudinal dataset that can shed light on the core focus of top administrative executives over the past 25 years. The results show a consistency in DM priorities. The tasks of prep…
Financial capacity of First Nations in Canada
This article analyzes the financial capacity of First Nations in Canada using data contained in the audit information on the First Nation Financial Transparency Act (FNFTA) website for fiscal years 2013‐2014 through 2016‐2017 inclusive. Our analysis tackles three connected questions: What is the general state of First Nations finances? Are there recurrent issues with financial practices? Are principles of good government and good management, espe…
The distribution of analytical techniques in policy advisory systems: Policy formulation and the tools of policy appraisal
The literature on policy analysis and policy advice has not generally explored differences in the analytical tasks and techniques practiced within government or between government-based and non-government-based analysts. 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 is to be better understood. This article addresses both these gaps …
Paradigmatic stability, ideational robustness, and policy persistence: Exploring the impact of policy ideas on policy-making
In the policy world, the idea of ideational robustness deals with why and how policy elements can be maintained over time and the implications this has for government strategy and activity. Past approaches to ideas and their influence on public policy stressed the disparate roles of multiple policy mechanisms such as path dependency or the nature of policy networks in either driving policy change forward or ensuring persistence of a policy. Ideat…
Super‐users and hyper‐experts in the provision of policy advice: Evidence from a survey of Canadian academics
The relationships of influence and activity between academics and other actors (public, private, and non‐governmental) in the policy process are complex. Although older work often argued academic research at best had an indirect “environmental” or “enlightenment” effect on policy‐makers, (May et al. (2016). Journal of Public Policy, 36, 195) recently argued that in the US case previous studies misconstrued the role of academic policy advice becau…
The politics of military procurement: The F-35 purchasing process in Canada and Australia Compared
The willingness of defence departments to select the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) for their fifth-generation multirole fighter has frequently been analyzed as stemming from the close historical connections allies such as Japan or Canada have with the United States. However, such an approach glosses over or ignores the operation of military procurement processes which are more idiosyncratic and subject to many pushes and pulls from different ac…
The time management styles of deputy ministers in Canada: Towards a taxonomy
Deputy Ministers in Canada play a critical role in defining all aspects of policy and operations for their respective departments and also contribute significantly to their government's collective initiatives. While there exists a solid understanding of the roles and functions of Deputy Ministers, there is little perception of how individuals actually shape the position in terms of time management. Understanding how senior executives in Canadian …
Classifying biotechnology-related policy, regulatory and innovation regimes: A framework for the comparative analysis of genomics policy-making
An important part of the study of the policy response of government in the area of a novel technology, such as genomics, lies in identifying the technological trajectory followed in the sector and how it intersects or impacts upon existing policy, regulatory and innovation regimes. Part of the challenge in studying the impacts and outcomes of such trajectories, therefore, is their multilayered nature. This has led to the proliferation of differen…
Policy termination in state-driven spheres: The role of inter-agency de-alignment
Early studies of policy termination focused on identifying the drivers and barriers to ending programs, such as the emergence of fiscal and other exigencies, which can lead to policy and program cancellation, but also noted that such factors do not always lead to closure. More recent work has advanced thinking on the subject and acknowledged a wider range of possible policy choices beyond simple cancellation, including modest reform or terminatio…
The Pigeons Coming Home to Roost: The Continuing Perils of Contracting Out in Canada
This article explores the growing trend of contracting‐out public services in Canada, highlighting its increasing impact on government activities as governments have expanded outsourcing from traditional goods like office supplies to complex infrastructure management and professional services. Recent cases, including federal government spending on consulting and high‐profile failures of Public Private Partnership (P3) projects, underscore the nee…
The Problems of Public Procurement in Canada: Rule Layering, Strategic Purchasing, and Risk Aversion as a Toxic Stew
This article analyzes persistent challenges in Canadian public procurement, examining in particular the federal government's complex, multi‐layered purchasing processes which have contributed to high‐profile failures, such as most recently the ArriveCan app and, over the past century, the majority of major military procurement projects. The primary issues found to contribute to these problems include excessive rule layering, unnecessary strategic…
The Decline of Politics: Governance, Globalization and the Public Sphere
The Decline of Politics: Governance, Globalization and the Public Sphere, Peter Marden, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003, pp. xvi, 286Here is a book that takes readers above and beyond the usual one-dimensional approach to globalization, all too often couched in economics, with which we have become familiar of late. Marden's Decline of Politics will reward those readers who are looking for a multifaceted analysis of global trends, and will intrigue and c…
Hedonistic Consumerism: Patterns of Consumption in Contemporary Capitalism
The post-Fordist accumulation regime has drifted toward hedonistic consumerism: a mix of highly unequal and bourgeoning consumption. Since World War II, cultural and structural elements have led to a situation in which consumption, fostered by induced wants, far exceeds levels of basic need and tends to be monopolized by the wealthiest, both among and within nations. I suggest that a possible solution to these tensions may be found by applying Se…
Classifying biotechnology-related policy, regulatory and innovation regimes: A framework for the comparative analysis of genomics policy-making
An important part of the study of the policy response of government in the area of a novel technology, such as genomics, lies in identifying the technological trajectory followed in the sector and how it intersects or impacts upon existing policy, regulatory and innovation regimes. Part of the challenge in studying the impacts and outcomes of such trajectories, therefore, is their multilayered nature. This has led to the proliferation of differen…
The Canadian biotechnology regulatory regime: The role of participation
Charles Lindblom is alive and well and living in punctuated equilibrium land
Incrementalism enjoyed an almost uninterrupted 40 year run as the dominant model of policy change from the publication of Lindblom and Dahl's first mention of the subject in 1953. In the mid-1990s, however, the elements of a new orthodoxy of policy dynamics began to appear in the form of various models of ‘punctuated equilibrium’, most notably in the works of Peter Hall, Frank Baumgartner and Bryan Jones. It is important to note, that the new ort…
Controversial science-based technology public attitude formation and regulation in comparative perspective: The state construction of policy alternatives in Asia
Addressing emergent charisma in Roman military leaders: Triumphal practices in the Republican period
Starting from the premise that charisma is to be understood as both a social and political process, it is argued that in Republican Rome it represented a moment of political and personal consecration for military leaders. Within this context some of the practices associated with the triumph had the function of dampening emergent charisma. They helped to maintain as foremost the institutions of the Republic in the face of extremely successful mili…
Policy advice through the market: The role of external consultants in contemporary policy advisory systems
The use of external policy consultants in government has been an increasing focus of concern among governments in the U.S., the UK, Canada and Australia, among others. Concern has arisen over the costs incurred by governments in this area and over the possible rise of a ‘consultocracy’ with the corresponding diminishment of democratic practices and public direction of policy and administrative development that could entail. However, current under…
The permanence of temporary services: The reliance of C anadian federal departments on policy and management consultants
The use of external consultants in government management and policy realms has drawn increasing attention in many countries including C anada. Studies were undertaken internationally in the 1990s and 2000s as legislatures and their accounting arms became concerned with the hidden costs of “corporatization” of the public service and tried to expand benchmarking measures for government efficiency to include external consultants. Accounting for thes…
Making the invisible public service visible? Exploring data on the supply of policy and management consultancies in C anada
The use of external policy and management consultants in government has been receiving increasing attention in many countries, including C anada. We explore new data on management consulting compiled from information released since the creation of the F ederal A ccountability A ct to address the supply side of contracting. We find several large multi‐year contracts have taken up a larger percentage of contracting activity while the number of smal…
Duplicative or Complementary? The Relationship between Policy Consulting and Internal Policy Analysis in Canadian Government
Policy consultants are external analysts who provide paid policy-related advice to governments on a contractual basis. Previous research on policy work has examined the work done within governments and by policy consultants separately but has not systematically compared and contrasted the two. A key question regarding the nature of policy advisory practices and policy advice systems in general, however, is whether consultants are duplicating the …
The distribution of analytical techniques in policy advisory systems: Policy formulation and the tools of policy appraisal
The literature on policy analysis and policy advice has not generally explored differences in the analytical tasks and techniques practiced within government or between government-based and non-government-based analysts. 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 is to be better understood. This article addresses both these gaps …
Academic research and engagement with the Canadian public service: Insights from three surveys
This article explores the area of research engagement between two very important communities in the Canadian public policy landscape: academics and senior public service executives. Using data from three surveys, we argue that while public sector executives may be more receptive to academic research than the literature suggests, academic advice and knowledge remain underutilized. While there does not seem to be a strong cleavage between the two g…
Financial capacity of First Nations in Canada
This article analyzes the financial capacity of First Nations in Canada using data contained in the audit information on the First Nation Financial Transparency Act (FNFTA) website for fiscal years 2013‐2014 through 2016‐2017 inclusive. Our analysis tackles three connected questions: What is the general state of First Nations finances? Are there recurrent issues with financial practices? Are principles of good government and good management, espe…
Trust, but customize: Federalism’s impact on the Canadian Covid-19 response
This article explores how Canadian federalism, with its complex mix of competencies, and the country's punctuated gradualism policy style interface with urgent, complex decision-making like the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that while punctuated gradualism favors tailored responses to pandemic management it is weaker when coordination and resourcing are to be undertaken during non-crisis situations and that, while the level of cooperation among Cana…
The changing and enduring priorities of Deputy Ministers through the Ipac survey
Since 1994, the Institute of Public Administration of Canada (IPAC) has conducted a survey among Canadian Deputy Ministers (DM) to measure what administrative issues they considered the most important. Carried out in varying methods, the IPAC surveys present a unique longitudinal dataset that can shed light on the core focus of top administrative executives over the past 25 years. The results show a consistency in DM priorities. The tasks of prep…
Super‐users and hyper‐experts in the provision of policy advice: Evidence from a survey of Canadian academics
The relationships of influence and activity between academics and other actors (public, private, and non‐governmental) in the policy process are complex. Although older work often argued academic research at best had an indirect “environmental” or “enlightenment” effect on policy‐makers, (May et al. (2016). Journal of Public Policy, 36, 195) recently argued that in the US case previous studies misconstrued the role of academic policy advice becau…
The politics of military procurement: The F-35 purchasing process in Canada and Australia Compared
The willingness of defence departments to select the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) for their fifth-generation multirole fighter has frequently been analyzed as stemming from the close historical connections allies such as Japan or Canada have with the United States. However, such an approach glosses over or ignores the operation of military procurement processes which are more idiosyncratic and subject to many pushes and pulls from different ac…
Assessing policy analytical capacity in contemporary governments: New measures and metrics
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…
Advising Governments in the Westminster Tradition: Policy Advisory Systems in Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand
(Mis)aligning politicians and admirals: The problems of long‐term procurement in the Canadian Surface Combatant project 1994‐2021
Popular depictions of the largest single procurement project in Canadian history—the Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC) project—characterize it as a bureaucratic failure. What began in 2008 as a $26.2B project has expanded to at least $77.3B, and $2B has already been spent without having produced a single vessel. Unlike other major Canadian aircraft, helicopter, and submarine contracts over the past four decades, however, participants in the CSC ha…
The time management styles of deputy ministers in Canada: Towards a taxonomy
Deputy Ministers in Canada play a critical role in defining all aspects of policy and operations for their respective departments and also contribute significantly to their government's collective initiatives. While there exists a solid understanding of the roles and functions of Deputy Ministers, there is little perception of how individuals actually shape the position in terms of time management. Understanding how senior executives in Canadian …
Policy shops, hired guns, and gatekeepers: The organization and distribution of policy analysts in Ontario
Policy professionals play an important role in political and administrative systems. However, the exact configuration and distribution of such personnel within agencies remains largely unknown. Early works noted the creation of small dedicated “policy shops” in many governments after 1960 where many policy professionals were located. Studies in Canada and elsewhere subsequently confirmed this organizational form but questions such as how many pro…
The politics of military megaprojects: Discursive struggles in Canadian and Australian naval shipbuilding strategies
Large-scale military platform procurement is an essential but understudied component of the policy studies of megaprojects. Procurement decisions in this area, from ships to aircraft, are examples of a specific type of often very expensive purchases which feature complex multi-actor and multiyear processes characterized by high degrees of conflict between actors over purchases and planning horizons. This study of military procurement efforts of t…
Assessing the ‘forgotten fundamental’ in policy advisory systems research: Policy shops and the role(s) of core policy professionals
During the past 30 years, research on policy analytical capacity's multidimensional nature and the evolution of policy advisory systems (PASs) has both increased knowledge of these processes and structures and opened new avenues of inquiry. While it is clear that changes in PASs in many countries have occurred ‐ featuring processes such as the increased externalisation and politicisation of policy advice ‐ studies of changes among the roles playe…
Political science (31 works) · Business (22 works) · Public Administration (22 works) · Public Administration (22 works) · Economics (19 works) · Public Policy and Administration Research (19 works) · Law (18 works) · Law (17 works) · Policy Transfer and Learning (17 works) · Government (linguistics (15 works)