Strange bedfellows: Federal systems and performance management

This paper offers the first link between models of the measurement and management of performance and the dimensions of governance arrangements in federal systems. Four ideal type approaches to governance in federal systems are correlated against four ideal types of measuring and managing performance. The paper develops a model that will support empirical research examining reform trajectories where evolving systems of federalism require evolving systems to manage performance in joint arrangements between levels of government.     

The Changing Nature of Public Entrepreneurship

This article proposes a cyclical theory of public entrepreneurship that is rooted in contextual conditions. The authors use material presented to the Institute of Public Administration of Canada for the annual innovation award, as well as an extensive literature review, to illustrate a new model for public entrepreneurship, arguing that today's public entrepreneurs are teams and their actions are systemic. Public entrepreneurs do not create new artifacts, nor do they design grandiose projects, but they slowly reinvent their organizations and, in so doing, transform the systems that control government effectiveness and efficiency. The authors generalize and contextualize the idea of public entrepreneurship and structure the emergence of entrepreneurs into a cycle theory. The individual entrepreneur dominates when the organization is new or there is a need for novel activities. As the organization matures and the need for efficiency takes over, dominant individual entrepreneurship disappears, and with time, a new systemic entrepreneurship arises to tackle them.     

Suivre la carrière des solutions de politique publique : les grands projets d’aréna au Québec

Drawing on three Quebec cases, this article examines the place occupied by the big arena project in urban public action. More specifically, the authors question the reasons behind the success of these projects. From a public policy standpoint, the analytical entry through the “solutions” (Zittoun 2013a) rather than the “problems” makes it possible to grasp the dynamic character of the construction of these public policies and to show the malleability of the “arena solution”. The analysis uses public discourse, taken from documentary sources, as an entry point to follow the career of the “arena solution”.     

Solidarity forever? ABC,ALBA and South–South Cooperation in Haiti

The growing influence of the global South in international affairs has prompted a passionate discussion about the role of South–South cooperation (SSC). SSC is sometimes uncritically portrayed as a uniform phenomenon that presents a superior alternative to North–South Cooperation (NSC). To problematise and deepen our knowledge about SSC, this article examines the intriguing case of Haiti, which has seen a wealth of SSC cooperation since the international intervention in 2004. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, the study compares the approaches of two distinct Southern groupings working in Haiti: Argentina, Brazil and Chile (the so-called ABC countries) and the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) led by Venezuela. We argue that ABC and ALBA display marked differences and that, while their approaches have distinct strengths and weaknesses, they do not necessarily represent a fundamental improvement over NSC.     

Maturité organisationnelle des organisations publiques et management des connaissances

Mass retirements from the public service and non‐renewal of roughly half the workforce create challenges both for the intergenerational transfer of knowledge and knowledge management more generally. This article reviews the literature on organizational learning, learning organizations and intelligent organizations, concluding that these concepts are not well linked together. It reports on findings from interviews with 50 executives from the Quebec public service, which create a portrait of knowledge management and transfer practices and how they could be improved. The article then develops a model of organizational maturity in five phases, based on these findings, linking the concepts of organizational learning, learning organizations and intelligent organizations.     

Lung embolism with liquid silicone

A lung embolism was reported in a case involving death following repeated injections of liquid silicone for aesthetic reasons. The liquid extracted from the sites of injection was identified as methylsilicone using infrared spectrophotometry, and the presence of silicone in vacuoles in the lung was verified by scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDXA). A study has been carried out with rats after intravenous and subcutaneous injections of methylsilicone.     

Socialist Intergovernmental Policy During the Mitterrand Era

Many observers of French politics see intergovernmental decentralizationas President Mitterrand's most impressive domestic policy accomplishment.This article assesses the current state of affairs in the Frenchintergovernmental system by focusing on how Socialist reformshave altered relations among levels since the early 1980s. Itexamines the Mitterrand government's most recent effort to addressremaining nettlesome issues in a system that is, ten years afterthe first legislation, still very much influx. Using evolutionin intergovernmental finances as an indicator of changing center/peripheryrelations, this study reveals both fundamental transformationsand significant continuity in the French system.