Developing and implementing public policy tends to be practiced more as an art rather than a discipline. All too often such policy is drawn up without clear and open consultation with the recipients to whom the policy will apply. This results in program failures and reversals (e.g., see http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/07/03/pol-refugee-health-cuts.html ).
The best public policy is created using guidelines developed over the past 20 years and elaborated many of the sources listed below. My seminar notes on Public Engagement in a Multi-Stakeholder World discusses an emerging approach developed in Canada and contains references to further reading on this topic. Perhaps it was due to my career as a psychologist that I favour collaborative approaches in this area; however, I did experience plenty of failures of public policy initiatives in my 35 years of government work.
It's my hope that these resources will be of use to consultants everywhere, although I've observed a strong trend of newly elected government regimes to totally abandon all practices of the past simply because they were associated with the previous party. So it's likely that the pursuit of getting public policy right will be a struggle for the future.
*Note: These contents are assembled from several web sites, some of whom are now defunct. Although I have the documents in my records, I've provided the current links to available items. Copies of material from defunct sites, as well as my works, are provided below. Copyright belongs to the authors and/or publishers of the material according to the information contained in the documents. An internet search of the titles or of content from the material should be made for referencing purposes. The owner of this web site only claims authorship where indicated within the material.
A Fresh Approach to Policy Research - Canada’s Policy Research Initiative (2000)
A Learning Guide to Public Involvement in Canada 2007 — The learning guide is an easy to use reference tool, with Web links to many of the sources cited. It offers a comprehensive overview of the theoretical underpinnings of public involvement and practical examples and tools to help readers plan and implement their own public involvement program or project.
An annoted bibliography of the new governance concepts (Nov, 2008) — The Continental network for the co-construction of knowledge, research and training (ReCo) provides a dynamic environment for learning and exchange between researchers, policy makers and practitioners of social policies, the social economy and local development... The goal of this bibliography is thus to take stock of the literature that has emerged during the last two decades on many of the concepts used by ReCo... By allowing researchers as well as practitioners and policy-makers to better comprehend the concepts on which our approach is based, we hope to facilitate the co-construction of knowledge and to bring this discussion into the formation of public policies that create employment, stimulate economic growth and contribute to poverty reduction.
Are Citizens Up to Making Policy: Lessons from the Citizen’s Assemblies (2008) — The Assemblies’ Process 1. Learn about the substance of the policy area 2. Listen to the Public 3. Deliberate & Decide recommendation
Building Policy Research Capacity 2007 - The Conference Board of Canada — (You can get this research for free. Take a minute and create an e-Library account.) In today’s world, government policy-makers face an increasingly complex environment, immense time pressures, and public demand for quick fixes to issues that continually shift. Formulating effective and evidence-based public policy in this environment requires strong strategic policy-making and research capacity.
Citizen Engagement and Global Economic Power (2006) — how communities can participate more effectively in defining economic policies and priorities—including trade, debt, structural adjustment, privatization, and environmental and labor standards—that affect rights and livelihoods.
Citizen engagement resources — 2003 articles: What Role for Citizens in Developing and Implementing Public Policy? by Richard Curtain of the Australian Public Policy Research Network. Curtain Consulting is a Melbourne-based consultancy specialising in public policy and research since October 1993.
Citizen Participation and Murray Darling Basin Futures – Better Practice Design — This paper argues that the inability of the Commonwealth and State governments to affect significant progress on water reform is largely a product of their inability to win the hearts and minds of rural communities. Hitherto the failure to bring the politics back in and integrate community voices into the process of policy development has proved the major obstacle to the achievement of a balanced social and environmental perspective in the Murray Darling Basin (MDB) and has served to reinforce traditional prejudices.
Collaborative Governance and Changing Federal Roles (2008) — the emergence of collaborative governance arrangements and the implications of that emergence for the roles of the federal government.
Collaborative Governance in Theory and Practice (2007) — from Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. Over the past few decades, a new form of governance has emerged to replace adversarial and managerial modes of policy making and implementation. Collaborative governance, as it has come to be known, brings public and private stakeholders together in collective forums with public agencies to engage in consensus-oriented decision making.
Community engagement framework and toolkit — The Community Engagement Framework has been developed to be the key reference for community engagement by the North East Lincolnshire Strategic Partnership (NELSP). It sets out the strategic vision and guiding principles for community engagement within North East Lincolnshire.
Crossing Sectors - Experiences in Intersectoral Action, Public Policy and Health - Public Health Agency of Canada — Prepared by the Public Health Agency of Canada in collaboration with the Health Systems Knowledge Network of the World Health Organisation's Commission on Social Determinants of Health and the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET).
Engaging the Public in Public Works — Publications, best practices, reports and other resources to help counties and cities engage their residents to address local public works-related issues.
Enhancing Collaborative Management — This chapter examines the potential benefits and costs of enhancing collaborative planning and management practices in the Murray–Darling Basin (MDB), relative to the current approach being taken at a federal level since the creation of the Water Act 2007 and the Murray–Darling Basin Authority (MDBA). In particular, the opportunities and challenges of increasing stakeholder engagement in water reform and planning processes will be investigated. A brief analysis of knowledge and expertise available for organising and implementing engagement activities to support effective collaborative planning and management practices will be provided, along with suggestions on how such knowledge and expertise might best be used to enhance the current reform process.
Good Public Policy Making: How Australia Fares (2000) — The purpose of this paper is to identify the key elements of good public policy and to assess how well Australia’s record stands against the identified criteria.
Governing Collaborative Governance: Enhancing Development Outcomes by Improving Partnership Governance and Accountability (2006) — pertains to Partnerships involving public and private actors
Handbook on Citizen Engagement: Beyond Consultation - 2008 — Citizen engagement is premised on the belief that people should have and want to have a say in the decisions that affect their lives. While some may claim that voting and consultation processes achieve this, it is clear that citizens are increasingly frustrated with these democratic mechanisms. They feel that their voices are not being heard and that decisions made by elites do not necessarily reflect their values. Citizen engagement provides a vision for a way forward – a way of reinvigorating current democratic practices and institutions, bringing meaning to people’s participation and fostering a two way dialogue between citizens and governments. The hope is that this will not be seen as a mechanism for placating peoples’ desires, but actually bring about a more just society where governments’ choices more closely reflect the needs of its population.
INTEGRATED RIVER MANAGEMENT MODELS: IMPLICATIONS FOR COLLABORATIVE GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT OF THE ANGAT RIVER BASIN, PHILIPPINES (MA thesis, 2005) — this study seeks to explore existing, international case studies of collaborative governance models,
Internet Archive: Wayback Machine — A research consultant's utopia. Sites that no longer show on Google or Bing are available here. This has over 150 billion web pages archived from 1996 to a few months ago.
It’s More Than Talk Listen, Learn and Act A New Model for Public Engagement The Final Report of the Public Engagement Initiative April 2008 — Whether we are designing complex public policy or creating a sustainable and healthy community, the bottom line is this: we need to talk to each other, but, as the title of this report states, we need to do more than just talk. Governments, stakeholders, communities and citizens need to have a real dialogue where they listen, learn and then act, together.
Knowledge Transfer Strategies Need to Engage Citizens to Be Successful (2008) — From the Canadian Policy Research Networks
Matching Methods with Policy Purpose: Two Case Examples of Public Engagement -2007 — Compared to public education initiatives and traditional consultations, deliberative methods of engaging the public usually require more time, resources and commitment on the part of policymakers, as well as openness to hearing different perspectives and working with more open-ended processes in a transparent environment.
On Collaborative Governance (2004)
Progressive Governance for Canadians: What You Need to Know (2007) — Canada 2020 is a non-partisan, progressive centre created to provide policy options and ideas forCanadian decision makers and leaders. For more information on Canada 2020, please go to www.canada2020.ca
Progressive governance for Canadians: What You Need to Know-2007 — This book is a consolidation of the decade worth of discussion and thinking generated by Crossing Boundaries. The book focuses on the why and what of the public engagement model and led directly to New Brunswick's Public Engagement Initiative (PEI). http://www.ppforum.ca/sites/default/files/book-progressive_governance_for_canadians.pdf
Public Engagement Seminar (May, 2009) - my notes — Identifies ways to engage the public in the development of policy and programs for implementation in the community. Many of today's problems are extremely complex and require the involvement of all participants not only in the formative stages but in the implementation as well. Government can no longer be relied on to do it by themselves; they need to collaborate with the stakeholders and the private citizens.
RETHINKING THE PUBLIC POLICY PROCESS - A PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT FRAMEWORK - 2009 — This paper takes seriously the claim that we need a new generation of public processes. Accordingly, the key task is to explain what public engagement processes are, why we need them, how they work, explain what public engagement processes are, why we need them, how they work, and some of the special issues, challenges and opportunities they pose for governments and the public.
Social Capital Think Tank: A case study of evidence-based public policy development (2002) — an explanation and interim evaluation of the Social Capital Think Tank (SCTT) processes as a model for policy development through the presentation of a theory-driven critical case study using ethnographic techniques.
Solving Canada's Innovation Conundrum: How Public Education Can Help The Conference Board of Canada, July 2003 — Improving innovation skills through the public education system will lead to increased human capacity and economic growth. The Issue Statement identifies strategies to build emphasis on innovation skills development in public education.
Strengthening Corporate-Aboriginal Relations: The Influence of Public Policies and Institutions The Conference Board of Canada, September 2003 — Do public policies and institutions hamper or enable Aboriginal economic relations—and what would help? Read this report of the views of Canadian private sector executives.
THE WRONG PACKAGE By Madsen Pirie and Robert M. Worcester Adam Smith Institute, 2001 — http://www.adamsmith.org There are, to some extent, two public service agendas. There is the producer agenda, consisting of what those who deliver the service want to produce. There is also the consumer agenda, consisting of what the general public who receive the service want it to deliver. The producers, be they political leaders, civil servants, local administrators, or the workforce and its unions, have a sense of what they feel able to deliver, or regard as worthwhile goals. The consumers, the general public which pays for the service through taxation, are now shown to have a clear sense of what they think the service should be delivering, and what its priorities should be.
Towards Decision Support for Participatory Democracy -2007 — In many parts of the world there is a growing demand for participation in public policy decision making. This demand could be satisfied by the design and deployment of webbased group decision support systems to aid large groups of, possibly, non-sophisticated, users in participating in such decisions. After describing several mechanisms for participatory democracy, we provide a framework for decision support in that area and describe decision support functions that could be implemented in such framework.
Web-based public participation geographical information systems: an aid to local environmental decision-making (2000) — Current research examining the potential of the World-Wide Web as a means of increasing public participation in local environmental decision making in the UK is discussed. The paper considers traditional methods of public participation and argues that new Internet-based technologies have the potential to widen participation in the UK planning system.