Bureaucracy and innovation

Article Abstract:

As public bureaucracies have increasingly assumed responsibility for the satisfaction of human needs a logical adjunct is that they be innovative and creative in fulfilling these tasks. While the literature on conditions necessary for innovative behaviour in public organizations is slim, this paper suggests that such a list should recognize that innovation is most likely to occur when a government wants action for symbolic reasons but does not know or care about what sort. This might best be characterized as a policy of benign neglect, but for purposes of innovation it allows the policy implementators a free hand in developing programs to fit local conditions and circumstances. The dilemma or paradox here is that while this relationship is necessary for innovation to occur it contains within it the seeds of its undoing. Increasing political prominence of the activity in question, and the growing demand on public resources to fund it lead to greater public awareness of the policy area; interest among other bureaucratic actors on one's activities and often subsequent competition for policy primacy; bureaucratic expansion to accommodate this increased public and political interest; and given this, the necessity for greater external review of policy developments and expenditures - all of which ultimately kills innovation. One of the best examples of this type of policy development is the federal government's experiments in designing 'better' housing for Canadian Eskimo-Inuit peoples between 1953 and 1959. By the use of this case, the paper explores the innovative process in some detail, demonstrating the kind of creativity possible in public bureaucracies and the limits to such innovative activity once politicization of a policy field and bureaucratic growth occurs. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Housing, Bureaucracy, Inuit

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Liberal "chefs de cabinets ministeriels" in Quebec: keeping politics in policy-making

Article Abstract:

During the Parti Quebecois tenure of office, relations between the chiefs of staff and senior officials were frequently characterized by conflict. By contrast, current Liberal chiefs of staff have managed to establish harmonious relations with senior officials. These different relations are explained by comparing the social origins, career paths and ideological inclinations of Pequiste chiefs of staff with those of their Liberal successors. The social origins of the two groups are of little significance in explaining their different relations with senior officials. However, the para-public service experiences of Pequiste chiefs of staff and their interventionist-oriented ideological inclinations largely account for the tension and conflict which tended to characterize their relations with senior officials. The public service experiences and non-interventionist predispositions of Liberal chiefs of staff have largely been responsible for their co-operative relations with senior officials. In the final analysis, the professional experiences and ideological inclinations of Liberal chiefs of staff have enabled them to acquire a clear understanding of the functions of their office. Moreover, these experiences and inclinations have shaped their determination to separate the political from the technical aspects of policy-making in order to maintain harmonious relations and to enhance their ministers' control over the politics of policy-making. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Political aspects, Quebec, Liberal Party (Canada), Parti Quebecois, Quebec (Province), Quebec Liberal Party (Canada)

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