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Authority Migration and Accountability in Canadian Public Governance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 May 2014

Robert Waterman
Robert Waterman*
Affiliation:
University of Western Ontario
*
University of Western Ontario, Department of Political Science, Social Science Centre Rm 4154, London, Ontario, Canada, N6A 5C2, Email: rwaterma@uwo.ca
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Abstract

In the tradition of democratic theory, elections are recognized as important mechanisms of accountability. However, the migration of public decision-making responsibility away from elected representatives and the emergence of new governance actors necessitate a fuller conceptualization of accountability relationships. As governments pursue partnerships with societal actors and disperse authority across multiple levels, questions of public input and accountability within the democratic governance process arise. In this paper, cases of authority migration in the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Nova Scotia between the years of 1946 and 2005 are used to examine the accountability relationships between new governance actors and both government and society. The existence and relative strength of accountability relationships are evaluated using the rules stipulated in the provincial legislation. Political ideology of governing parties, geographic scale of new jurisdictions and period in time are evaluated as predictors of the strength of the accountability relationship overall.

Résumé

Dans la tradition de la théorie démocratique, les élections sont reconnues comme d'importants mécanismes redditionnels. Cependant, la diminution du rôle des représentants élus dans la prise de décision publique et l'émergence de nouveaux acteurs de la gouvernance requièrent une conceptualisation plus complète des relations redditionnelles. Dans un contexte où les gouvernements forment des partenariats avec des intervenants sociaux et dispersent l'autorité à de multiples niveaux, il y a lieu de s'interroger sur la participation du public et la reddition des comptes au sein de la gouvernance démocratique. Dans cet article, des cas de migration de l'autorité en Colombie-Britannique, en Alberta, en Ontario et en Nouvelle-Écosse, entre 1946 et 2005, sont utilisés pour examiner les relations redditionnelles entre les nouveaux acteurs de la gouvernance et les gouvernements ainsi que la société. L'existence et la force relative des relations redditionnelles sont évaluées en utilisant les règles prévues dans la loi provinciale. On y évalue l'idéologie politique des partis au pouvoir, la portée géographique des nouvelles juridictions et la période comme éléments prédictifs de la force de la relation redditionnelle dans son ensemble.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , June 2014 , pp. 215 - 235
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 2014 

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