York University
Department of Political Science

POLS 6155.03
    DEMOCRATIC ADMINISTRATION
Winter, 2004-05

Location:  Verney Room, S674, Ross Building    Web Page:  http://www.yorku.ca/igreene
Time:  Wednesdays, 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

Instructors:  Ian Greene & Thomas Klassen

Office Hours:
    Ian Greene:  Tuesdays & Thursdays, 10:30 to noon, or by appointment
        Office:  224 McLaughlin College; ext. 77083; igreene@yorku.ca
    Thomas Klassen:  Wed. 12:30 to 1:30; Friday 10-11.
        Office:  S636 Ross; ext. 88828; tklassen@yorku.ca

    Web pages:
        Class:  www.yorku.ca/igreene/demad05
        Thomas Klassen:  www.arts.yorku.ca/politics/tklassen
        Ian Greene:  www.yorku.ca/igreene

Overview

The study of democratic administration is premised on a commitment to the progressive extension of people's capacities to govern themselves collectively. However, many of the principles of public administration were developed prior to the democratization of the state, and one result has been public administration and public policy-making procedures that are unnecessarily hierarchical, inflexible, and inefficient.  During the 1990s, citizen political apathy, cynicism and alienation from the state was met with a neo-liberal response that has drastically altered the state public service through downsizing, out-sourcing, privatization, and "new public management" approaches that apply business administration tools to public administration.  Currently, however, there is increased citizen demand for participation in the policy-making process, a higher standard of public service ethics and accountability, and there have been some innovative responses from the state to address important public policy issues.  If the challenges created by the dynamics of the past two decades are to be met successfully, it will be necessary to transcend the real factors that produce apathy and alienation from the state. This seminar addresses these issues through:

     an investigation of the bureaucratic impediments to increased democracy
     an examination of the promise and limits of recent attempts by governments to overcome such impediments
     an historical and comparative focus to better understand the possibilities of citizen empowerment and the way in which social and political contexts shape those possibilities.

The seminar will include readings on both the theory and practice of democratic administration.

Texts

Required:
     Janice Gross Stein, The Cult of Efficiency (Toronto:  Anansi, 2002).
     Course kit, available from the Keele Copy Centre, on the east side of Keele Street, across from the main gate of York University (416-665-9675). [Copies will be brought to the first two classes for sale at a cost of $55.]

In addition, some readings, as indicated below, can be found either on the class web page, or on a link to an internet site on the class web page.

Requirements

The requirements for this course consist of:

    weekly seminar readings and participation     (25%)
    oral presentation of final paper                      (20%)
    Draft outline for research paper (Feb. 9)         (5%)
    final research paper (due April 6)                  (50%)

In the first class, students will have the opportunity to sign up to help lead the discussion for one reading each week.  In one of the last two classes, students will have an opportunity to present their final papers so that they may receive comments from the class.  (At this point, only a ten minute summary of the final paper is needed.  The purpose of the presentation is to obtain feedback that may help to improve the quality of the final product.)

    Seminar Outline

Items in Course Kit are shown with an asterisk.

I.    Jan. 5
    Introductions/Course Outline

    •*L. Sossin, "Democratic Administration" in Handbook of Public Administration in Canada (Toronto: Oxford, 2002), 77-99.
    •*Carole Pateman, "Rousseau, John Stuart Mill and G.D.H. Cole: a participatory theory of democracy," in Participation and Democratic Theory (Cambridge: Cam. Univ. Press, 1970), 22-44.
    •Andrew Stark.  "What is the new public management?" (Book Review Essay). Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Jan 2002 v12 i1 p137 (15).  [found through electronic journals, YUL web site, or link on class web page]

II.    Jan. 12
    Democratic Administration and Innovation

    •*J. Frug, "Administrative Democracy" 40 University of Toronto L.J. (1990)
    •*Eleanor Glor, "Conclusion:  Is Innovation a Question of Will or Circumstance?" in Eleanor Glor, Is Innovation a Question of Will or Circumstance?  The Innovation Journal:  2000, 172-182.
    •Peter Gabor and Ian Greene, "Factors for Success in Participative Community Planning: Lessons from a Case Study in Child Welfare in the Province of Alberta," The Innovation Journal, Case Studies, 06/07/02 (http://www.innovation.cc).
    •*Michael Howlett, "Do Networks Matter?  Linking Policy Network Structure to Policy Outcomes" (35:2 Canadian Journal of Political Science, June 2002, 235)
    •*Joan Price Boase, "Beyond government?  The appeal of public-private partnerships," 43 Canadian Public Administration, 75-92.

III.    Jan. 19
    Democracy and Regulation
    
    •*Kenneth Kernaghan and David Siegel, Ch. 10, "Regulatory Agencies," Public Administration in Canada (Toronto: Nelson, 1995), 248-285.
    •*"Governance, Development and the Ecology of Administration" in Rethinking Public Administration: An Overview (New York: United Nations, 1998), pp. 4-18
    •*Peter Aucoin, "Independent foundations, public money and public accountability:  Whither ministerial responsibility as democratic governance?" 46(1) Canadian Public Administration (2003), 1-26.
    •Stein, Chapters 1 & 2.
            

IV.    Jan. 26
    The Democratic Deficit in Public Policy and Administration
    
    •*M. Weber, "Bureaucracy" in H. Gerth and C. Mills, From Max Weber, ch.8.
    •*L. Sossin, "Law and Intimacy in the Bureaucrat-Citizen Relationship." (Ottawa: Law Commission of Canada, 2000)
    •*Caroline Andrew, "Women and the Public Sector,"Handbook of Public Administration in Canada (Toronto: Oxford, 2002), 159-168.
    •Excerpts from Ian Greene and David Shugarman, Honest Politics:  Seeking Integrity in Canadian Public Life.  Toronto:  Lorimer, 1997, Ch. 1 & 2. [retrieve from class web page]
    •*Gary M. Woller, "Toward a Reconciliation of the Bureaucratic and Democratic Ethos," 30(1) Administration and Society (1998), 85-109.
    •*Linda DeLeon and Peter DeLeon, "The Democratic Ethos and Public Management," 34(2) Administration and Society, 229-250.

V.    Feb. 2
    The Politics of Discretion

    •*L. Sossin, "The Criminalization and Administration of the Homeless: Notes on the Possibilities and Limits of Bureaucratic Engagement" 22 N.Y.U. Review of Law & Social Change (1996), 623-700.
    •*C. Goodsell, The Case for Bureaucracy (1994), ch.5
    •*"Public Administration and Ethics," in Gregory Inwood, Understanding Canadian Public Administration (Toronto: Prentice-Hall, 1999), Ch. 11.
    •*Joel Bakan, "The Significance of the APEC Affair," and Philip Stenning, "Someone to Watch over Me: Government Supervision of the RCMP," in W. Wesley Pue, Ed., Pepper in Our Eyes: The APEC Affair (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2000), 77-116
    •*"Judicial Discretion and Democracy," Excerpts from Ch. 1 of Ian Greene, Carl Baar, Peter McCormick, George Szablowski and Martin Thomas, Final Appeal (Toronto, Lorimer, 1998).
    •L. Sossin, "The Politics of Discretion: Towards a Critical Theory of Public Administration" 36 Canadian Public Administration 364 (1993) [link on class web page]
    •*A. Roberts, "Administrative discretion and the Access to Information Act", 45(2) Canadian Public Administration (2002), 45.

VI.    Feb. 9  (outline due)
    Reinventing Government: The Marketization of the State?

    •*D. Osborne & T. Gaebler, Reinventing Government (1992), preface and introduction.
    •*D. Savoie, Thatcher, Reagan, Mulroney: In Search of a New Bureaucracy, (1994) chs. 4-8.
    •*J.C. McDavid and E.G. Clemens, "Contracting out local government services:  the B.C. experience," 38 Canadian Public Administration, 177-194.  
    •*D. Whorley, "The Andersen-Comsoc affair: Partnerships and the public interest," 44 Canadian Public Administration, 320-345.
    •Stein, Ch. 3
    •Ian Greene, "Lessons Learned from Two Decades of Program Evaluation in Canada," Deitmar Braunig and Peter Eichorn (Eds.), Evaluation and Accounting Standards in Public Management (Baden-Baden:  Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2002), 44-53. [link on class web page]
    •*B. Guy Peters, "Governance Without Government?  Rethinking Public Administration,"  8(2) Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory (1998), 223.
    •*Mark S. Winfield, David Whorley and Shelley Beth Kaufman, "Public Safety in Private Hands:  A Study of Ontario's Technical Standards and Safety Authority," 45(1) Canadian Public Administration, 24-51.

    Feb. 16:  No class -- Reading Week
    
VII.    Feb. 23    
    Public Employees, Social Movements and Public Participation
    •* L. Panitch, "Globalization and the State" The Socialist Register, 1994.
    •*Eleanor Glor, "Ideas for enhancing employee empowerment in the Government of Canada, 30 Optimum (2001), 14-26.
    •*S.R. Osmani, Participatory Governance, People's Empowerment and Poverty Reduction (Geneva: United Nations Development Program (UNDP), 2000).
    •*M. Flumain, "Redesigning Government around the Citizen: The Creation of Nunavut" in S. Delacourt & D. Lenihan (eds.), Collaborative Government: Is There is a Canadian Way? (Toronto: Institute of Public Administration in Canada (IPAC), New Directions, No. 6, 1999)
    •"Ethics and SARS: Learning Lessons from the Toronto Experience", A report by a working group of The University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics  [retrieve from class web site]
    
VIII.    March 2
    Democratic Administration, Public Administration and Democracy
    Special guests:  Prof. Thomas Wilson, and possibly Prof. Richard Phidd.
    •Richard W. Phidd, "Democratic Administration: Public Administration and Democracy," lecture notes prepared for Democratic Administration class. [retrieve from class web page]
    •*H.T. Wilson, "The Civil Service in Capitalist Democracies," and "Bureaucratic Representation through Implementation Processes," Chapters II and VIII of Bureaucratic Representation: Civil Servants and the Future of Capitalist Democracies (Brill: Boston, 2001).
    •*Greg McElligott, "Front-Line Workers and Public Policy," and "State Workers and Democratic Administration," Chapters 7 & 8 in Beyond Service:  State Workers, Public Policy, and the Prospects for Democratic Administration (Toronto: U of T Press, 2001).
    •*"Canadian Administrative Culture Between Past and Present," Ch. 6 in O.P. Dwivedi and James Iain Gow, From Bureaucracy to Public Management: The Administrative Culture of the Government of Canada (Broadview, 1999).

IX.    Mar. 9
    International Development and Democratic Administration

    •*J. Barker, "Political Settings: An Approach to the Study of Popular Action" (pp.27-56) and "Local Action and Global Power: Shifting the Balance" (pp.238-250) in J. Barker (ed.), Street-Level Democracy (Toronto: Between the Lines, 1999)
    •*J. Shields & B. Evans, Shrinking the State: Globalization and Public Administration "Reform" (1998) (Intro. & Ch.1)
    •*B. Guy Peters, "Globalization, Institutions and Governance," G. Guy Peters and Donald J. Savoie, Governance in the Twenty-first Century:  Revitalizing the Public Service (Ottawa:  Canadian Centre for Management Development:  2000), 29-57.
    •Chapter 6: Making State -Institutions More Responsive to Poor People," World Development Report 2000/2001: Attacking Poverty, Ch. 6 (World Bank, 2001) (http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/wdrpoverty/report/ch6.pdf)
    •Lorne Sossin, "Human Development, Law & Democratic Administration" (Rome: United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), 2000 [link on class web page]
    •"The Responsibility to Protect," [retrieve PDF file from class web site] (Canadian government policy proposal on international interventions, July 2003)
    •Stein, Ch. 6


X.    Mar. 16
    Future Trends

    •*M. Ogden, "Technologies of Abstraction: Cyberdemocracy and the Changing Communications Landscape" in L. Pal & C. Alexander (eds.), Digital Democracy: Policy & Politics in a Wired World (Toronto: Oxford, 1998), pp.63-86
    •*John Langford, "Partnering for e-government:  Challenges for public administrators," 44 Canadian Public Administration, 393-416.
    •*B. Barber: Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), ch. 7
    •* David Held, "Cosmopolitan Democracy and the New International Order," in David Held, Democracy and the Global Order (Sanford: Sanford Univ. Press, 1995) Ch. 12.
    •*B. Guy Peters, "The Future of Reform," in G. Guy Peters and Donald J. Savoie, Governance in the Twenty-first Century:  Revitalizing the Public Service (Ottawa:  Canadian Centre for Management Development:  2000), 425-436.
    •*C. Fox & H. Miller, Ch. 6 in Postmodern Public Administration: Toward Discourse (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1995)
    •Stein, Chapters 4 & 5

XI. &    Mar. 23 & 30
XII.    Student Presentations (Papers)

Useful electronic sources of information:
http://faculty.maxwell.syr.edu/asroberts/foi/track/  (Canadian access to information database)
http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/ (Canadian social science resources)
http://www.tecsoc.org/govpol/govpol.htm (site on egovernment)
http://www.elections.ca/ (another site on egovernment)
http://www.elections.ca/ (Elections Canada; voting results of federal elections and by-elections; election income and expenses declarations)
http://www.ipaciapc.ca/ (Institute of Public Administration of Canada)

Other useful sources:
•Evert Lindquist and Tammy Sica, Canadian Governments and the Search for Alternative Service Delivery and Financing: A Preliminary Survey (Institute of Public Administration of Canada and KPMG Centre for Government Foundation: 1996).  JL 108 L55 1996.
•Gregory Albo, David Langille and Leo Panitch, A Different kind of state? : popular power and democratic administration. Toronto : Oxford University Press, 1993. (JF 1525 D4 D53 1993; out of print).