Public inquiries
Article Abstract:
The author contends that under current practice, public inquiries tend to be unreasonably protracted and costly, vulnerable to political manipulation and threatening to civil liberties. The author proposes a number of avenues for reform. Public inquiries should be used more sparingly. Ordinary civil and criminal processes my be sufficient or may be rendered sufficient through a modest adaptation such as bringing in an outside prosecutor. The creation and oversight of public inquiries should be taken out of the exclusive control of governments, and more of a say should be given to bodies such as parliamentary committees. Inquiries are often hastily created in the heat of public controversy over a newly emerged tragedy or scandal. Instead, they should only be established after extensive investigation and deliberation. Any inquiry that is created should have a well-defined and manageable mandate and should be directed to observe an explicit set of safeguards for civil liberties. Once an inquiry is in operation, it should consider conducting at least the first part of its investigation through more efficient means than through a "trial" format. An initial compilation of interviews and documents may enable those in charge of an inquiry to narrow the issues and to select the limited set of witnesses whose evidence should be further developed and tested at the trial-like stage of the inquiry. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)
Publication Name: Canadian Public Administration
Subject: Government
ISSN: 0008-4840
Year: 1997
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The policy process: an institutionalist perspective
Article Abstract:
The stages model of the policy process constitutes the conventional wisdom about the policy-making for much of political science and public administration. That model has performed a number of important tasks for these disciplines, but also contains a number of fundamental weaknesses. These include its assumptions concerning linearity and the temporal ordering of the stages, and the difficulty of the model in coping with policy change. Further, outcomes of the stages model, and the difficulty of the model in coping with policy change. Further, outcomes of the stages model tend to be determined by the environment of politics, rather than by the actors and institutions within govenment. The analysis presented in this article attempts to restore institutions (including the public bureaucracy) to a more appropriate central position in the formulation and determination of policy choices. The use of institutional analysis is not only reflects more clearly the complex reality of policy-making and the interaction of organizations within the public sector, but it restores value concerns to a central place in the analysis and interpretation of public policy. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)
Publication Name: Canadian Public Administration
Subject: Government
ISSN: 0008-4840
Year: 1992
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