‘In Canada of all places’: national belonging and the lost Canadians

This paper explores the role of kinship and ethnicity in the designation of Canadian citizenship. Using the phenomenon of Lost Canadians – people whose citizenship status is ambiguous due to conflicting laws, unfamiliarity with requirements to maintain citizenship and quixotic enforcement of these requirements – the paper offers evidence for the kinship basis of a contemporary liberal democracy and reveals the degree to which a Canadian ethnic identity is operative in this settler society. But the objective of the analytical exercise is not to rest at the observation that Canadian nationalism is ethnic. Rather, by examining the ways in which the complex rules of Canadian citizenship define or exclude people from citizenship, we see how thoroughly rule-bound the status of national belonging really is. It thus might be observed that Canadian nationalism, indeed, all nationalisms, are civic since they rest on rules for belonging. Once we notice the rule-boundedness of belonging it becomes possible to disentangle these rules – kinship rules – from their connections to nature and biology and thus to appreciate their social character. From this vantage we might begin to think about alternative, and potentially more democratic, forms of belonging.     

Examining Empirical Evidence on Diversity Effects: How Useful Is Diversity Research for Public‐Sector Managers?

This article reviews the body of empirical research on work-related consequences of human diversity and presents an agenda for future investigations. Ideally, a synthesis of research findings to inform managing-for-diversity efforts should enable managers to interpret events in their own administrative contexts. Our assessment of the diversity literature suggests that managers are using largely untested assumptions as a basis for diversity policies, strategies, and actions. We call for greater contribution from public administration scholars to the body of research focusing on how human diversity can best be managed to produce positive results for individuals and their work organizations.     

Four poems

S. Lewis, B. Keating, D. Russel: Inconclusive by Design: Waste, Fraud and Abuse in Federal Environmental Research, Environmental Health Network: Harvey, LA and National Toxics Campaign Fund: Boston, MA, May 1992.

Darrow Schecter: Radical Theories: Paths Beyond Marxism and Social Democracy. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994.

Peter Freund and George Martin: The Ecology of the Automobile. New York: Black Rose Books, 1993.     

Widening Participation and Higher Education

This article considers higher education 'widening participation' policy and practice, focusing upon attempts to widen access in relation to applicants from under-represented socio-economic groups and educational backgrounds. Some key United Kingdom approaches are described and discussed in the light of the concept of affirmative action. The article also examines the legal support for widening participation.     

Transforming Administrative Policy

Administrative policies and practices may evolve and change slowly and incrementally or they may be transformed intentionally. Intentional efforts to change administrative policy by transforming the structure, processes, or personnel of public sector organizations define an active administrative policy. Ideally, an active administrative policy takes as given that the organizational form to be used is open to choice, that administrative goals are clear, that a tight coupling exists between ends and means, that different organizational forms have different effects, and that there are criteria that may be used to assess those effects. This article focuses on the fulfilment of these preconditions in the three national contexts – Norway, Sweden and the United States of America – in order to determine the relevance of a transformative perspective for understanding the process of administrative change. We examine what impact constraints like polity features, historical-institutional traditions and external pressure, particularly through popular international administrative doctrines like New Public Management ideas and financial crises, have on the possibilities to enhance an active national administrative policy.