Module 1.3  Government and Markets

(Development in progress)

Introduction

In the final week of Module 1 we’ll look more closely at markets in general, and the policymaking marketplace in particular.  This involves an overview of the way in which policy-making in Ottawa works, and an exploration of the tools that can be used to influence policy. Our seminar this week focuses on how lobbying works in the world of government contracts, something that will be helpful when we come to explore procurement in the final module. 

Learning objectives

• • Understand engineering interactions with health, safety, and law
• • Explain the link between politics and policy

Required reading (372)

• • Milne (2020) Markets. Glen Milne is an architect by training, and a long-time Ottawa insider going back to the Prime Minister’s Office under Pierre Trudeau. The many issues of his book, Making Policy in Ottawa have been used to educate generations of public servants on Ottawa policy process, including students at RMC and CFC.   
• • Glen Milne (2020) How markets work (5 minute video).  
• • Glen Milne (2020) The Ottawa Policy Marketplace (15 minute video) 
• • Bardach (2011) Appendix B: Things Governments Do

Other links and references (374)

• • Cooke and Etxebarria (1997) sub-national innovation 
• • Lundvall (2007) origin of, and alternative conceptualizations of, national innovation system
• • Evolving theory of public administration (see summary in table from Last, 2013 PCO)
• • Savoie (2013) making government more like the private sector hasn’t helped
• • Auger (2016) Evolution of Defence Procurement
• • Barry and Bratt (2008) Canada-US Defence Relations
• • Gutstein (2018) think tanks and interest groups for oil
• • Engler (2016) military-industrial complex influence system
• • Johnson (2016) public administration and politics in Canada; ideologies of public service (ch.2); accountability (ch. 9)
• • Marland and Wesley (2018) overview: 
• • Stone and Solomon (2019) figure 9.6 cabinet committee responsibilities for procurement (see also week 13)
• • MacDonald in Juneau (2019) on defence lobbying
• • Winkler (2018) Corporations, responsibility to shareholders, and corporate standing in US law
• • Lobbying regulations in Canada

Presentations

Lecture 1

In the first lecture we will briefly review how Canadian government works (review from POE205) and then introduce the concept of the policy marketplace as a description of the way in which policy is made.  We will consider the roles of regulation, profit, the nature of business, distance, and identification as enablers and constraints on innovation and growth.  We will then survey Smardon’s description of the evolution Canadian innovation strategies since the Second World War

Link to the slides

Lecture 2

The second lecture will focus on the ways in which the public sector, the private (profit) sector, and the voluntary (NGO) sector attempt to influence policy, including the asymmetry in tools available to different groups and how this asymmetry changes over time.

Link to the slides

Seminar (for POE374, optional for POE372)

My tendency is to emphasize the failings of capital and business, and we will try to bring representatives of the business and industry community into the class to discuss tactics and answer questions.