From Fellegi to Fonberg: Canada’s Policy Capacity Groundhog Day?

“We’re Still Struggling a Bit to Actually Figure Out What That Means for Government”: An Exploration of the Policy Capacity Required to Oversee Robot Technologies in Australia and New Zealand Care Services

“…As we have outlined in our findings, there is an urgent need for governments to possess appropriate policy capacity if we are to harness the best of these technologies and guard against some of the potential negatives of these. Yet, over the past four decades, many studies of policy capacity have suggested that instead of improving and enhancing this, we have seen a general decline [31]. In Australia, for example, we have seen successive reviews of the Australian Public Service, including the most recent Independent Review [32], that have identified policy capacity as being a significant area of concern and which has not improved despite these reviews and programs to enhance it.…”

Canadian government policy innovation labs: An experimental turn in policy work?

“…While the proliferation of GPILs at the federal level is associated with the arrival of the Trudeau Liberals in government in 2015, there is a longer history of searching to upgrade the policy function. In 1996 a federal Deputy Minister Task Force recommended improving the internal policy analysis role including more public participation in the policy process (Wellstead 2019; Howlett and Wellstead 2012). NPG is concerned with how government and non‐government policy actors interact in co‐constructing policy and programs.…”

Perceptions of Policy Capacity: A Case Study of the Prince Edward Island Public Service Using Theory and Practice

“…As noted by Baskoy, Evans, and Shields (2011, p. 3) and Johns (2014, p. 14, 16) the empirical policy capacity literature has been understood mainly in the neo-institutionalist tradition, is lacking in focus on non-state actors, is largely compartmentalized (e.g., it is either government-focused or nongovernment-focused, not both), is often aggregated across an entire level of government or across an entire department, and is often focused on policy capacity within or between jurisdictions. Based on a bibliometric analysis of peer-reviewed policy capacity literature, Wellstead (2019), found that "broad macro-level political-economic topics such state, governance, institutions, and politics" were most common, followed by meso-level studies in the Australian and Canadian contexts (p. 169). As such, policy capacity has been observed at different scales and has been the focus of the political and administrative components of the policy process.…”

“…This review identified scholars who have critically reflected on the body of policy capacity literature (e.g., Gleeson, Legge, & O'Neill, 2009;Baskoy, Evans, & Shields, 2011, p. 3;Johns, 2014, p. 14, 16;Loureiro, Lima-Silva, Aranha, et al, 2018, p. 4;Wellstead, 2019). From their review of policy capacity recommendations from Canadian, New Zealand, Australian, and UK government reports, Gleeson, Legge, and O'Neill (2009, p. 5) found that policy capacity recommendations focused mainly on organizational capacity and individual competencies.…”