Chapters 2 and 3 in Smardon this week set the scene for our understanding of the evolution of Canadian industrial and R&D policy. Fordism is describes organizing for mass production, and Taylorism describes scientific approaches to management. Both of these phenomena had an impact on Canadian industrial and technological development in the first and second halves of the twentieth century.
After you have worked through the Smardon readings, we will address two questions that are central to the course.
The first question concerns policy – what is government policy? How does it relate to regulations and laws that govern each federal department and the actions of public servants and Canadian citizens?
The second question concerns the tools we bring to bear to understand policy. Since the emergence of universities in the Middle Ages, academic knowledge has evolved within disciplinary silos, which have become more specialized over time. Abbot (1988) described some of the implications of academic disciplines for the ways in which knowledge is accumulated, and later turned his attention to the way in which academic disciplines fragment knowledge over time.
Policies, regulations and laws by department or agency, look at Industry Canada and Invest in Canada in particular.
Smardon, Chapter 2, “Entrenching Dependent Technological Development: Canadian Fordism in the Early Twentieth Century”
Smardon, Chapter 3, “Reasserting Dependent Technological Development: Canadian Fordism in the Postwar ‘Golden Age’”
Abbott, A. (1988) The System of Professions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Conclusions.
This is a useful resource because it explains how claims to expertise are based on increasing specialization of knowledge, which lie at the heart of professionalization.
Kellett, S. (2008) Borrowed Knowledge: Chaos Theory and the Challenge of Learning Across Disciplines. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
As knowledge fragments through increasing specialization (Abbott, 1988, 2001) we learn to borrow specialized knowledge across boundaries, but this doesn’t always work well. “Physics envy” amongst economists is particularly risky, because society does not behave in the same way as the physical world; particles do what they have to, but people do what they want to. This should lead us towards caution about market omniscience.
Mary O’Connell, “It’s the Economists, Stupid,” CBC Ideas, Wednesday, 9 September 2015 (54 minutes). “Interest rates. Unemployment. GDP. Markets. Austerity measures. Economists tell us what we, as societies, can and can’t afford. But how do they decide? What values are at play? IDEAS producer Mary O’Connell speaks with two economists about how modern mantras on the economy limit our choices and shut down civic debate.”
This engaging set of interviews with two contrarian economists provides cause for more skepticism about the role of market determinism dictated by economists as a professional group.
Howlett, et al (2009) Howlett, M., Ramesh, M. and Perl, A. (2009) Studying Public Policy: Policy Cycles and Policy Subsystems. New York: OUP. “Studying Public Policy examines three dimensions of efforts to engage and resolve public problems: policy actors, institutions, and ideas. Using this focus, the book overviews past efforts to understand public policy-making, outlines the different stages of the policy-making process, and discusses the principal elements and patterns of policy dynamics. Developing an analytical framework of the subject, the text examines the theoretical and conceptual foundations of, and approaches used in, policy sciences giving students a solid basis for understanding public policy…”
Policy actors include the four functions of government (executive, legislative, administrative, and judicial) but concentrate in the executive and administrative functions. Policy institutions are rule-sets that govern the ways in which policies are made, including budget cycles, cost-benefit analysis, stakeholder consultations, etc. Ideas are the most insidious part of the policy process, because particular ideas can come to dominate policy choices and preclude experimentation or evolution. Enthusiasm for markets and skepticism about the utility of government intervention in the public interest (e.g. for investment or redistribution) is one example. See O’Connell above.
Complete required reading and prepare for seminar. Be prepared for each of the 60 second summaries listed.
From Smardon, chapters 2 and 3:
Why did US and Canadian R&D expenditure diverge increasingly from the 1950s on?
On policies and tools
Participation evaluation for week 4 Concepts will consist of:
Questions and discussion