Editors' Note

Introduction

Editors' Note     

Reinventing Osborne and Gaebler: lessons from the Gore Commission

Abstract: After only a few months in office, President Clinton launched a major review of government operations. The review, commonly known as the Gore Commission, looked at government-wide issues, as well as department- or agency-specific matters. The commission consulted a widely read book by David Osborne and Ted Gaebler and studied various government efforts at reform, both in the United States and elsewhere during the 1980s. Yet the process, if not the substance, of the review goes considerably beyond any of these. This paper looks at the work of the Gore Commission, reports briefly on its findings, and compares the review process adopted by Gore with other, earlier, efforts. It also identifies a series of “lessons learned” from the Gore Commission in the hope that they will be helpful to other governments should they contemplate undertaking similar reform measures. Sommaire: Quelques mois après son entrée en fonction, le président Clinton a lancé une vaste révision des opérations gouvernementales. Dans le cadre de cette révision, connue sous le titre de “ Commission Gore ”, on a examiné des questions à l'échelon de l'ensemble du gouvernement, ainsi que des questions concernant des ministères et des organismes précis. La commission a consulté le livre trés populaire de David Osborne et Ted Gaebler et étudia divers efforts de réforme gouvernementale, aux États-Unis et ailleurs, au cours des années 1980. Le processus, sinon la substance même de ce réexamen, va nettement au-delà de ces deux volets. Le présent article analyse le travail de la Commission Gore, rend compte brièvement de ses constatations et compare le processus de révision adopté par Gore avec d'autres efforts qui l'avaient précédé. Il definit également une série de “ leçons ”à tirer de la Commission Gore, dans l'espoir qu'elles seront utiles à d'autres gouvernements qui voudraient entreprendre de mesures de réforme similaires.     

A DESIGN PERSPECTIVE ON POLICY IMPLEMENTATION: THE FALLACIES OF MISPLACED PRESCRIPTION

Implementation has been used to try to explain too much, particularly that policy formulation should be oriented around implementation. The concentration on implementation has added little to our theoretical understanding of policymaking. Implementation studies have taken either "The Horrors of War" or "The Search for Theory" views. The latter has four major views, none of which is adequate. The best approach is to treat implementation as only one of a number of conditions which must be fulfilled for successful policymaking. The design perspection, explained in the paper, is the best approach for this.     

Quebec Confronts Canada: Two Competing Societal Projects Searching for Legitimacy

Forced centralist policies, made possible by the utilizationof Ottawa's spending, taxation powers, and frequent oppositionto Québec's policy preferences led a large number ofQuébecers to favor greater sovereignty. The federal government'sattempts to reduce provinces tojunior governments in the federationhave backfired in Québec's case, and led to the constructionof a modern, liberal, pluralistic, and territorial nationalistproject. Meanwhile, Québecers continue to shape a visionof themselves lhal is marked by sharp differences with the Canadianpolitical project of undifferentiated citizens and that erectsinstead a communitarian model inspired by social democraticvalues.     

The Israeli collective memory and the Masada Syndrome: a political instrument to counter the EU funding of Israeli non-governmental human rights organizations

The EU’s practice of funding Israeli non-governmental human rights organizations (hereinafter ‘HRNGOs’) has in recent years encountered a counter-strategy, pursued by certain Israeli NGOs and members of the Israeli government, media and academia. This counter-strategy has succeeded in discrediting the HRNGOs and the EU and rendering their mutual collaboration less effective. The purpose of this article is to contextualize the counter-strategy within the sphere of Israel’s collective memory. The article analyses the manner in which certain politicians and various members of the Israeli society (agents of memory), who themselves are the product of the evolving Israeli collective memory and identity (structure), attempt to draw on Israel’s collective memory/structure in order to advance their particular political agenda.     

The dynamics of policy change: Policy succession

This paper suggests that the policy model assumed by most writers on policy analysis neglects the implications of the fact that most new policies in contemporary Western political systems are in fact replacing old policies, and that this is increasingly likely to be the case. Similarly, the recent interest in policy termination is partly misplaced since it fails to follow through adequately the implications of the fact that most policy terminations lead to policy succession. Accordingly, there is a need to study and analyse the processes involved in policy succession. This paper places policy succession in the context of policy change, sketches a model which describes the distinctive features of the policy succession process, outlines the various kinds of policy succession which occur, and draws out some implications for policy makers resulting from the increasing importance of policy succession.This article is a revised version of a paper entitled The policy succession process: Implications of policy change, presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, 28–31 August 1980.