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 Canadian jurisdictions has progressively increased over the years, policy is still almost exclusively handled at the federal, provincial and territorial levels. Furthermore, the model appears to have critical ‘blind spots’ in terms of vulnerable communities that do not emerge as such until after a crisis hits.
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 understanding of the origins and significance of the use of policy consultants in modern government is; poor with some seeing this development as part of a shift in the overall nature of state-societal relations to the ‘service’ or ‘franchise’ state and away from the ‘positive’ or ‘regulatory’ state, while others see it as a less significant activity linked to the normal development of policy advice systems in modern government. This article surveys the existing literature on the phenomena, in general, and identifies several methodological and data-ralated issues germane to the study and understanding of the activities of this set of external policy advisory system actors.
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 orthodoxy did not replace the old, but rather supplemented it through the addition of notions of ‘atypical’ or ‘paradigmatic’ change to the pattern of marginal or incremental change put forward by Lindblom and his colleagues in the 1950s and 1960s. Contemporary models thus owe a great debt to incrementalism, attempting to incorporate its strengths while overcoming its weaknesses. This article discusses this evolution in theories of policy dynamics and the research agenda currently found in this area of policy studies.
This article discusses the correlation between national policy characteristics and the success in "flattening the curve" of infection of the COVID-19 virus, which is a generally acknowledged measure to contain the worst medical outcomes of a pandemic. While individual cases require careful and granular analysis to properly unpack, the article finds that the best correlation is found when looking at the pattern of choice related to either proactive or reactive approaches to the implementation of containment measures. This is especially evident for countries that have either very low or very high infection rates per million persons. For intermediate rates we find that a variety of institutional, political, and procedural variables intervene in the process.
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 Sen's notion of equality of opportunity to modern patterns of consumption.
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