Where are we coming from? : are they any useful lessons from our administrative history?
By: GOW, J.I.; HODGETTS, J. E
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ArticlePublisher: Toronto : IPAC, Summer 2003Canadian Public Administration : the journal of the Institute of Public Administration of Canada 46, 2, p. 178-201Abstract: This article challenges the notion that contemporary conditions are so new that there are no useful lessons to be learned from administrative history. Beginning with the observation that many recent innovations in public organizations were foreshadowed under the United Canadas, 1841-1867, it asks why they were gradually abandoned over the first century of Confederation, only to be revived recently. For reasons of efficiency and democratic governance, the department became the keystone organization of Canadian public administration, and bureaucracy the key decision making technology. Changes in economic conditions, technology, elite ideology and political culture led to the introduction of public management as an alternative to bureaucracy. Neither form has met all the needs of politicians, public servants and citizens. One lesson of the past is that other values, like representativeness, will assert themselves with the result that the system will continue to evolve
This article challenges the notion that contemporary conditions are so new that there are no useful lessons to be learned from administrative history. Beginning with the observation that many recent innovations in public organizations were foreshadowed under the United Canadas, 1841-1867, it asks why they were gradually abandoned over the first century of Confederation, only to be revived recently. For reasons of efficiency and democratic governance, the department became the keystone organization of Canadian public administration, and bureaucracy the key decision making technology. Changes in economic conditions, technology, elite ideology and political culture led to the introduction of public management as an alternative to bureaucracy. Neither form has met all the needs of politicians, public servants and citizens. One lesson of the past is that other values, like representativeness, will assert themselves with the result that the system will continue to evolve
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