What do policy analysts in government do (besides the cheeky definition above offered by Arnold Meltsner [1976: vii])? And more to the point, what do practicing policy analysts think they do, and what do they think they should be doing? In my recent dissertation research, I came at this question by asking practicing policy analysts to [...]
Canadian federal Minister of Public Safety, Vic Toews, was in the news recently for taking a position that directly contradicts what his departmental officials had advised in a briefing note. That’s not really news, in my opinion: it’s both a minister’s right and their habit to disregard advice. The civil service proposed something … the minister [...]
What is Policy Analysis 2.0? This is the term we use for the application of collaborative social tools to the internal process of problem identification and solution generation. Whether that activity is formally called “policy analysis” or not, the purpose is to focus on the people inside an organization and how they can use social [...]
Decision-making is hard, and it can often be made harder still when the issue or environment is complex. Profound uncertainty, rapid emergence and multiple issue interconnectedness are some of the features of a complex policy environment that challenge public policy makers. One approach to dealing with complexity in a policy context is horizontality, the act [...]
A draft The final version of my doctoral dissertation is now available for download. This document will be was defended on December 18 2012 at the University of Victoria. The abstract is below. To download the full document, please enter your email address below and the download link will be sent to you or you can download it [...]
The SPSS data file (with some variables removed to avoid the risk of de-anonymization) that provides much of the empirical basis for “Towards Policy Analysis 2.0″ is available to interested researchers. To download the file, please enter your email address below and the download link to the file surveyresponses.sav will be sent to you. Please note [...]
We recently completed a summative and formative evaluation report on the Digital Fishers project: The CANARIE investment in the Digital Fishers (DF) component of its NEP-67 grant to NEPTUNE Canada was intended to build a capacity within Oceans 2.0 to support ongoing interaction with a growing Internet-based community interested in contributing to scientific research into oceans [...]
If there is any part of writing the briefing note (especially the “for decision” note) that really seems to cause angst for people, it’s the “Proposed Options” section – and maybe not for the reason you might think. Generally, this section (see the template we provided a little while ago to see where this fits) [...]
I’ve had several people ask me over the years for a briefing note template, so I’ve made this one available on Google Docs: This template is based on the work in our White Paper #07-10-004 “The Briefing Process in British Columbia” by Colleen Cunningham and is modeled on a standard template used by the British Columbia Government. [...]
Where is policy analysis – that particular internal public sector communications function, that’s not limited to the public sector but is certainly endemic to it – heading in the context of Web 2.0?