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Originally published in 1988. Leading international researchers in
regional economic development have contributed an integrated set of
chapters reviewing the whole field and taking stock of current
thinking. The book is in honour of Francois Perroux, the father of
regional development theory, whose contributions to two important
concepts in economics - time and space - have been substantial. The
book comprises five parts. Part one covers Perroux's work in
general and on growth poles in particular. Part two deals with 'the
politics of place', population and regional development, techniques
for regional policy analysis and a neoclassical approach to
regional economics. In part three the Canadian scene is reviewed at
national and regional levels. In part four chapters on urban
development, small and medium-size cities, and capital grants deal
with the experiences of other countries. Part five concludes the
book with a chapter on growth poles, optimal size of cities, and
regional disparities and government intervention.
This authoritative new volume contains a selection of the most
important articles and papers spanning over 20 years on budgeting
and managing public spending. It is divided into five succinct
parts, covering the main areas of the field including the
political-economic environment, approaches to expenditure budgeting
and implementing the budget. Donald Savoie does not limit his
examples to just one country - budgeting and spending is discussed
in a variety of countries, including the UK, Australia, New
Zealand, America, Canada and Spain. He has also written a new
introduction to accompany the piece. All those with an interest in
government spending, budgeting and how finances are controlled will
find this work - which includes articles and papers not immediately
accessible - an essential reference tool.
Originally published in 1988. Leading international researchers in
regional economic development have contributed an integrated set of
chapters reviewing the whole field and taking stock of current
thinking. The book is in honour of Francois Perroux, the father of
regional development theory, whose contributions to two important
concepts in economics - time and space - have been substantial. The
book comprises five parts. Part one covers Perroux's work in
general and on growth poles in particular. Part two deals with 'the
politics of place', population and regional development, techniques
for regional policy analysis and a neoclassical approach to
regional economics. In part three the Canadian scene is reviewed at
national and regional levels. In part four chapters on urban
development, small and medium-size cities, and capital grants deal
with the experiences of other countries. Part five concludes the
book with a chapter on growth poles, optimal size of cities, and
regional disparities and government intervention.
Canada’s political structure runs contrary to North America’s
economic geography and the north-south economic pull. Canada
imported political and administrative institutions designed for a
unitary state, and its political leaders have struggled to make
them work since the country was founded. Because of this, many
Canadians, their communities, and their regions view themselves as
victims, to a greater degree than groups in other Western
democracies do. Our federal government has shown a greater
willingness to apologize for historical wrongs than other Western
countries. Canada also outperforms other nations in helping victims
make the transition to full participants in the country’s
political and economic life. Donald Savoie maintains that Canada
continues to thrive despite the many shortcomings in its national
political institutions and the tendency of Canadians to see
themselves as victims, and that our history and these shortcomings
have taught us the art of compromise. Canada’s constitution and
its political institutions amplify rather than attenuate
victimization; however, they have also enabled Canadians to manage
the issue better than other countries. Canadians also recognize
that the alternative to Canada is worse, and this more than
anything else continues to strengthen national unity. Drawing on
his extensive experience in academe and as an advisor to
governments, Savoie provides new insights into how Canada works for
Canadians.
Citizens have lost trust in their institutions of public
governance. In trying to fix the problem, presidents and prime
ministers have misdiagnosed the patient, failing to recognize that
government bureaucracies are inseparable from political
institutions. As a result, career officials have become adroit at
managing the blame game but much less so at embracing change.
Donald Savoie looks to the United States, Great Britain, France,
and Canada to assess two of the most important challenges
confronting governments throughout the Western world: the
concentration of political power and the changing role of
government bureaucracy. The four countries have distinct
institutions shaped by distinct histories, but what they have in
common is a professional non-partisan civil service. When
presidents and prime ministers decide to expand their personal
authority, national institutions must adjust while bureaucracies
grow to fill the gap, paradoxically further constricting government
efficacy. The side effects are universal - political power is
increasingly centralized; Parliament, Congress, and the National
Assembly have been weakened; Cabinet has lost standing; political
parties have been debased; and civil services have been knocked off
their moorings. Reduced responsibility and increased transparency
make civil servants slow to take risks and politicians quick to
point fingers. Government astutely diagnoses the problem of
declining trust in government: presidents and prime ministers have
failed to see that efficacy in government is tied to
well-performing institutions.
Inspired by the realization that, in most countries, the commitment
to regional development is determined by national ideological
swings rather than the socio-economic conditions in a particular
region (here meaning an area smaller than a country). Surveys and
evaluates the history of regional polic
Winner: Donner Prize for Excellence and Innovation in Public Policy
Writing by Canadians (2016) Winner: New Brunswick Book Award for
Non-Fiction (2016) Recent decades have shown the public's support
for government plummet alongside political leaders' credibility.
This downward spiral calls for an exploration of what has gone
wrong. The questions "What is government good at?" and "What is
government not good at?" are critical ones - and their answers
should be the basis for good public policy and public
administration. In What Is Government Good At?, Donald Savoie
argues that politicians and public servants are good at generating
and avoiding blame, playing to a segment of the population to win
the next election, embracing and defending the status quo, adding
management layers and staff, keeping ministers out of trouble,
responding to demands from the prime minister and his office, and
managing a complex, prime minister-centred organization.
Conversely, they are not as good at defining the broader public
interest, providing and recognizing evidence-based policy advice,
managing human and financial resources with efficiency and
frugality, innovating and reforming itself, being accountable to
Parliament and to citizens, dealing with non-performers, paying
sufficient attention to service delivery, and implementing and
evaluating the impact of policies and programs. With wide
implications for representative democracy, What Is Government Good
At? is a persuasive analysis of an approach to government that has
opened the door to those with the resources to influence policy and
decision-making while leaving average citizens on the outside
looking in.
In Governance in the Twenty-first Century Canadian and
international experts recognize both the difficulty of making
predictions and the need to consider the future in order to prepare
the public sector for new challenges. The authors' predictions and
recommendations are anchored in a thorough understanding of
contemporary public administration. They point out that not only
have previous reforms made yet more change necessary and inevitable
but that the purpose of these reforms is to attempt to return
government to the position of respect and competence it enjoyed in
the past. Contributors include Peter Aucoin (Dalhousie), Jonathan
Boston (University of Wellington, New Zealand), Jacques Bourgault
(Ecole nationale d'administration publique Montreal), David R.
Cameron (Toronto), Ralph Heintzman (Treasury Board Canada),
Christopher Hood (London School of Economics and Political
Science), Patricia W. Ingraham (The Maxwell School, Syracuse
University), Donald P. Moynihan (The Maxwell School, Syracuse
University), Jon Pierre (Goteborg University), B. Guy Peters,
Christopher Pollitt (Erasmus University, The Netherlands), Donald
J. Savoie, Richard Simeon (Toronto), Ignace Th.M. Snellen (Erasmus
University, The Netherlands), and Vincent Wright (Oxford, England).
Distinguished scholars from six countries investigate the effects
of reforms in a number of areas, including budgeting, personnel
management, and accountability. While reforms have been beneficial
in some of these areas, success has been far from universal. By
comparing and contrasting measures in Canada, the United States,
Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe, contributors isolate
and evaluate factors - such as individual political leaders and the
complexity of government - that influence the success or failure of
reforms. Contents: Introduction - B. Guy Peters (Pittsburgh) and
Donald J. Savoie (Moncton) The Changing Role of the State - Bert A.
Rockman (Pittsburgh) Managerialism Revisited - Christopher Pollitt
(Brunel) What Works? The Antiphons of Administrative Reform - B.
Guy Peters Public Sector Values and Administrative Reforms - Nicole
de Montricher (Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris) Public Consultation
and Citizen Participation: Dilemmas of Policy Advice - Jon Pierre
(Goteborg) Making Public Policy: The Changing Role of the Higher
Civil Service - Patricia W. Ingraham (Syracuse) Assessing Past and
Current Personnel Reforms: The Pursuit of Flexibility,
Pay-for-Performance, and the Management of Reform Initiatives - Hal
G. Rainey (Georgia) Innovation in Public Sector Management - Michel
Paquin (Ecole nationale d'administration publique) A New Generation
of Budget Reform - Naomi Caiden (California State) Central Agencies
and Departments: Empowerment and Coordination - John Hart
(Australian National) Restructuring Government for the Management
and Delivery of Public Services - Peter Aucoin (Dalhousie); The
Changing Nature of Accountability - Paul G. Thomas (Manitoba);
Fifteen Years of Reform: What Have We Learned? - Donald J. Savoie
Fiscal cutbacks, the public's declining confidence in government,
and new ideologies are forcing the public sector in industrialized
democracies to undertake major reforms. In these essays
contributing authors examine changes to the political and economic
envirnoment and the ways in which governments have responded. The
essays attempt to explain what is happening in government in the
late 20th century and suggest changes that can be expected in the
future.
Fiscal cutbacks, the public's declining confidence in government,
and new ideologies are forcing the public sector in industrialized
democracies to undertake major reforms. In these essays
contributing authors examine changes to the political and economic
envirnoment and the ways in which governments have responded. The
essays attempt to explain what is happening in government in the
late 20th century and suggest changes that can be expected in the
future.
This work suggests that the 1980s were an especially tumultuous
decade for the bureaucracies of Great Britain, the United States
and Canada. Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and Brian Mulroney
came to office convinced that the bureaucracies of their countries
were massively flawed: in addition to exerting too much influence
over policy, they were inefficient, resistant to change and
responsible for many economic woes. Savoie, a writer, scholar and a
senior administrator in the Canadian government, considers the war
of reform waged by the leaders of these major industrialised
countries. Reagan declared that he had come to Washington "to drain
the swamp" of bureaucracy; he set up the Grace Commission to
investigate the operation of the US government. Thatcher and
Mulroney were equally committed to reform and initiated
wide-ranging changes. By the end of the decade, the changes were
dramatic. Many government operations had been privatised in all
three countries, and new management techniques had been introduced.
In Great Britain, one observer judged that the changes were
historically as important as the collapse of Keynesian economics.
This book asks: is government now better in these three countries,
and was the political leadership right in focusing on management of
the bureaucracy as the villain? Professor Savoie suggests that the
reforms overlooked problems now urgently requiring attention and,
at the same time, attempted to address non-existent problems. His
viewpoint combines theory and practice, and should appeal to
scholars, students and practitioners. His research is based, in
part, on interviews with 62 officials, almost all in the executive
branch, of the governments of Great Britain, the United States and
Canada.
Canada's representative democracy is confronting important
challenges. At the top of the list is the growing inability of the
national government to perform its most important roles: namely
mapping out collective actions that resonate in all regions as well
as enforcing these measures. Others include Parliament's failure to
carry out important responsibilities, an activist judiciary,
incessant calls for greater transparency, the media's rapidly
changing role, and a federal government bureaucracy that has lost
both its way and its standing. Arguing that Canadians must
reconsider the origins of their country in order to understand why
change is difficult and why they continue to embrace regional
identities, Democracy in Canada explains how Canada's national
institutions were shaped by British historical experiences, and why
there was little effort to bring Canadian realities into the mix.
As a result, the scope and size of government and Canadian
federalism have taken on new forms largely outside the
Constitution. Parliament and now even Cabinet have been pushed
aside so that policy makers can design and manage the modern state.
This also accounts for the average citizen's belief that national
institutions cater to economic elites, to these institutions' own
members, and to interest groups at citizens' own expense. A
masterwork analysis, Democracy in Canada investigates the forces
shaping the workings of Canadian federalism and the country's
national political and bureaucratic institutions.
In Governance in the Twenty-first Century Canadian and
international experts recognize both the difficulty of making
predictions and the need to consider the future in order to prepare
the public sector for new challenges. The authors' predictions and
recommendations are anchored in a thorough understanding of
contemporary public administration. They point out that not only
have previous reforms made yet more change necessary and inevitable
but that the purpose of these reforms is to attempt to return
government to the position of respect and competence it enjoyed in
the past. Contributors include Peter Aucoin (Dalhousie), Jonathan
Boston (University of Wellington, New Zealand), Jacques Bourgault
(Ecole nationale d'administration publique Montreal), David R.
Cameron (Toronto), Ralph Heintzman (Treasury Board Canada),
Christopher Hood (London School of Economics and Political
Science), Patricia W. Ingraham (The Maxwell School, Syracuse
University), Donald P. Moynihan (The Maxwell School, Syracuse
University), Jon Pierre (Goteborg University), B. Guy Peters,
Christopher Pollitt (Erasmus University, The Netherlands), Donald
J. Savoie, Richard Simeon (Toronto), Ignace Th.M. Snellen (Erasmus
University, The Netherlands), and Vincent Wright (Oxford, England).
What implications does the GDA approach have for federal-provincial
relations? How does it relate to the constitutional division of
responsibility? What advantages and drawbacks does it hold for
Canada's political system? More generally, what can we conclude
about the GDA approach?
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