Canadian Public Policy

Learning from Others: Administrative Innovations among Canadian Governments by JamesIain GowReview by: Gary MunroCanadian Public Policy / Analyse de Politiques, Vol. 22, No. 4 (Dec., 1996), pp. 399-400Published by: University of Toronto Press on behalf of Canadian Public PolicyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3551457 .

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Reviews/Comptes rendus 399

in health, education, and social services, "structural

adjustment," and the gradual dismantling of social reforms in country after country have now made their impact felt universally. These changes are con-

gruent with the growth of capitalism beyond the boundaries of the nation state which gave it birth into a global corporate structure that has usurped whatever

autonomy the nation state ever had. It is in fact re- markable how closely the changes follow the neoliberal

template of the World Bank and the International Mon-

etary Fund and other structures of global capital. No mention is made of confronting this power structure.

If social work, or any other helping profession, is to be practised consciously, it must be practised in this awareness context. This does not mean that coalition formation and solidarity within the nation state are redundant concepts; it does mean, however, that the ultimate goal of such work must be to reach

beyond the boundaries of the nation state to facili- tate organizational links among victims of the glo- bal structure that will act as a counterweight to the structures of global capital.

This work is only in its infancy in the form of initiatives on the part of labour, inter-church coali- tions, the women's movement, native groups, and others. But I am convinced that it is here - although not only here - that effort must be applied.

The practice of social work and all forms of ac- tivism must be understood and practised in the con- text of these profound transformations of contem-

porary reality. This is an even taller order than the one proposed by the author, but it is one that those who think about and try to effect a more just world

ignore at their own peril and at the peril of those

they hope will benefit by their work.

This is a worthwhile book that every practising and aspiring social worker and social activist should read. I hope my comments inspire a fourth edition.

BERNIE HAMMOND, Department of Sociology, King's College, University of Western Ontario, London

Learning from Others: Administrative Innovations among Canadian Governments

by James Iain Gow. Toronto: Institute of Public Ad- ministration of Canada, 1994. Pp. xviii, 218. $24.95.

This work is an ambitious and interesting contribu- tion to the public administration literature on inno- vation. It examines the sources and diffusion of innovation, and deals with 15 examples of innova- tion within the federal and provincial governments. Four partly overlapping groups are surveyed to as- sess questions related to innovation: members of the Institute of Public Administration of Canada; Pro- fessors at the Canadian Centre for Management De-

velopment and Ecole Nationale D'Administration

Publique; consultants in public administration; and a panel of experts on public administration which included both practitioners and academics. A number of tables are used to summarize complex data and an appendix contains short (3-5 pages) case studies of each of the 15 cases.

Innovation entails both the creation of new ideas and the diffusion and adaption of all ideas. The au- thor discusses the problems related to assessing what is an innovation. Simply passing a law is not enough. Some jurisdictions may adopt and then drop an in- novation and/or change it as they adopt it.

The four groups surveyed were in broad agree- ment that change was initiated by public servants with the ability to combine human relations skills, intellectual ability, and political skills. The groups shared a common viewpoint that was "indifferent if not hostile to theory and does not rely much on read- ing for its inspiration" (p. 62). Even the professors surveyed were only slightly more bookish in their orientation.

The 15 cases fall into categories such as meth- ods and practices (e.g., zero-based budgeting), ideas pertaining to institutions such as the ombudsman, and ideas on policy such as affirmative action or privatization. As expected, the federal government and larger wealthier provinces were quicker to adopt

CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY - ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES, VOL. XXII, NO. 4 1996

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400 Reviews/Comptes rendus

innovations. But administrative style had an impact: while Quebec was not the first to adopt any innova- tion it is among the early adopters and it tends to

change what it has adopted. Similarly, relatively small and poor New Brunswick has adopted some innova- tions such as public service language requirements.

Innovations generally are embraced in response to demands within the civil service rather than be- cause of their availability. The United States is by far the most important foreign influence. Material conditions such as economic constraints or the low birthrate of Quebec women are predominant sources of innovation. Reliance on internal sources of inno- vation is predominant. However, there are excep- tions to this: Don Rowat was influential in promot- ing the ombudsman, Ged Baldwin sponsored free- dom of information legislation, while the Fraser Institute has promoted privatization.

Some of the innovations such as privatization and

language requirements are more political than ad- ministrative and their political context might have been considered more fully. Overall, this is a valu- able addition to the public administration literature and it combines insight into innovation with mate- rial on the substance of particular innovations.

GARY MUNRO, Department of Political Science, Lakehead University

Aspects of Labour Market Behaviour:

Essays in Honour of John Vanderkamp edited by Louis N. Christofides, E. Kenneth Grant and Robert Swidinsky. Toronto: University of To- ronto Press, 1995. Pp. xv, 286. $55.00.

John Vanderkamp was a prominent Canadian econo- mist of what many now term "the old school," de- voted to the application of economic theory and sta- tistical methods to address such important policy questions as unemployment and migration. Among his many accomplishments, he was a founder of Canadian Public Policy and served as its first edi- tor. His untimely death in 1991 was a loss to his

profession and to the policy community. This vol- ume consists of nine papers - each followed by comments from a discussant - from a commemo- rative conference held at the University of Guelph in 1993. The papers provide a fitting tribute to John

Vanderkamp's work, both in terms of his interests and methodology, and they provide some indication of the current state of policy-oriented research in labour economics.

Michael Abbott, Charles Beach and Stephan Kaliski use the first panel microdata from the Labour Market Activity Surveys of 1986-87 to examine

wage growth among Canadian men who change jobs, a topic widely researched in the United States where

panel data has been available for many years. One

interesting result is that only non-personal quits, which are penalized under recent Unemployment Insurance reforms, result in substantial wage gains. They also conclude that union status and job char- acteristics such as firm size, industry, and occupa- tion explain much of the wage growth of movers rather than personal attributes, although the theo- retical underpinnings of these results are not dis- cussed nor are they well understood by economists. Daniel Hammermesh argues that firm-level microdata and "profoundly original methodologies" must be developed to address such issues. He also

provides a pr6cis of his 400-page book on what economists know about labour demand and its ap- plication to policy for those who don't have the time or inclination for the details.

The next four papers focus on unemployment. Stephen Nickell develops a Keynesian model that

explores the links between the unemployment rate and labour force growth. He finds no evidence that the unemployment rate is affected by labour force

growth and argues that measures to reduce the la- bour force, such as early retirement policies, are ill- advised. Alan Carruth, Mark Hooker, and Andrew Oswald use a similar approach to link movements in the unemployment rate to movements in the price of oil through real interest rates, although most of the trend movement in the unemployment rate is

CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY - ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES, VOL. XXII, NO. 4 1996

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