The Importance of Policy for Community Economic Development: A Case Study of the Manitoba Context

This Participatory Action Research project will engage community economic development and social economy actors in Manitoba in identifying policy priorities that will support the sector in building stronger communities and will identify various effective strategies and models of policy advancement. The project will include a scan of existing policy and programs in Manitoba as well as a comparative analysis with the policy context in Quebec, this later component completed in partnership with the National Social Economy Research Hub. The research will also consider various effective models of policy advancement in order to design more effective policy implementation strategies

Hard Infrastructure, Hard Times: Workers Perspectives on Privatization and Contracting out of Manitoba Infrastructure

For several years, the Manitoba government led by the Progressive Conservatives has been pushing hard to reduce the number of government workers, while transferring work and contracts to the private sector. This report examines the push for privatization and contracting out of design and maintenance of Manitoba’s infrastructure and transportation services. The report focuses on gathering the perspective of government workers who are or were responsible for a variety of tasks such as highway and bridge maintenance, including snow clearing, capital project planning and delivery, road safety and enforcement, including regulation of trucking, maintenance of the provincial vehicle and equipment fleet, operation of water structures and ferries, as well as winter roads. Findings, based on reports from workers, include: Short-staffing is jeopardizing public safety and leading to burnout. Workers predicting a reduction in quality of service and assets from the changes. Workers expecting higher costs for taxpayers and reduced value for money. Civil service expertise is being ignored, with workers shut out of the process. These negative results regarding service quality and public safety are consistent with earlier studies, with Manitoba ignoring the evidence. The report concludes that the destruction of internal capacity built up over decades will be costly and challenging to undo, and that Manitobans, along with public sector workers, are already paying the price.Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, MGEUhttps://mra-mb.ca/publication/hardinfrastructurehardtimes

The explanatory power of the landscape perspective on inter-organizational collaboration

Collaboration between organizations is generally seen as a pre-requisite for dealing with complex problems, but such efforts appear to be inherently difficult and often disappoint expectations regarding their problem-solving capacity. In this article we add to the existing literature by taking a systemic, landscape perspective on collaborative success and failure. Using a case study of urban regeneration in the Dutch Randstad conurbation, we show that when practitioners aim to collaborate on an inter-organizational level (between organizations), they also need to collaborate productively on intra-organizational (between teams) and supra-organizational (between coalitions) levels. We investigate the tense relationships within and among these levels, and highlight what happens in-between, thereby picturing a bigger collaborative landscape. Drawing on interviews and participant observation we reveal horizontal and vertical practices of “in-betweening” within and between each level. These practices are a promising way to overcome difficulties that may surface on the inter-organizational level but are influenced by the two other levels. Understanding and synchronizing collaborations on all three levels is presented as an effective way to increase the problem-solving capacity of inter-organizational collaboration

The explanatory power of the landscape perspective on inter-organizational collaboration: Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space

Collaboration between organizations is generally seen as a pre-requisite for dealing with complex problems, but such efforts appear to be inherently difficult and often disappoint expectations regarding their problem-solving capacity. In this article we add to the existing literature by taking a systemic, landscape perspective on collaborative success and failure. Using a case study of urban regeneration in the Dutch Randstad conurbation, we show that when practitioners aim to collaborate on an inter-organizational level (between organizations), they also need to collaborate productively on intra-organizational (between teams) and supra-organizational (between coalitions) levels. We investigate the tense relationships within and among these levels, and highlight what happens in-between, thereby picturing a bigger collaborative landscape. Drawing on interviews and participant observation we reveal horizontal and vertical practices of ?in-betweening? within and between each level. These practices are a promising way to overcome difficulties that may surface on the inter-organizational level but are influenced by the two other levels. Understanding and synchronizing collaborations on all three levels is presented as an effective way to increase the problem-solving capacity of inter-organizational collaboration

A futuring approach to teaching wicked problems

This paper investigates how the teaching and learning about ?wicked? environmental problems may be fostered through an educational approach premised on futuring ? the active imagination of the future. The growing academic interest in possible and desirable futures provides a promising starting point for restructuring education as coupling knowledge to imagination and teaching to policy practice can open up new, experiential ways of learning. Empirically, this paper draws upon research on an experimental futuring course employing a ?mixed classroom? formula in which students and policy-makers learn together about sustainability challenges. Drawing on the notion of inquiry, this course is set up with the aim to foster a critical engagement with the ways futures are imagined in political debates and decision-making. Through complementary activities, the students were pushed to imagine possible futures around a central theme, the transition to a circular economy, in interaction with the policy-makers and other practitioners. This culminated in a ?Museum of the Future?. From our action-research-based investigation of the learning experiences in the course, we conclude that a futuring approach to teaching wicked problems results in a more active attitude of students towards the space in which wicked problems and solutions are collectively imagined and deliberated

Working to align energy transitions and social equity: An integrative framework linking institutional work, imaginaries and energy justice

Recent academic evidence suggests that, in contrast to what is often thought, the introduction of renewable energy infrastructures often leads to negative, not positive, social equity outcomes. Against this background, this paper aims to develop and empirically illustrate an integrative framework for analysing the work – or ‘agency’ – exercised by actors operating within and across different global contexts to align renewable energy and social equity. To this end, the paper first reviews three generative conceptions of agency in the energy transitions literature: institutional work, imaginaries and energy justice. In reviewing their explanatory power as well as their shortcomings, the paper concludes that these different conceptions of agency can be integrated meaningfully in an expanded conceptualisation of institutional work that spans three distinct domains: i) ‘reimagining’, ii) ‘recoding’ and iii) ‘reconfiguring’. This article demonstrates that the three domains can be understood to reiteratively feed into each other in what we call the ‘triple re-cycle’. These iterations produce either bolstering effects that strengthen the potential for positive social equity outcomes or evaporative effects that diminish or undermine this potential. We empirically illustrate the framework in case studies from Germany and South Africa. Overall, we argue that the triple re-cycle, as a heuristic, can provide new insights by conceptually connecting multiple domains of agency in energy transitions, including discursive and material aspects, across different global contexts. Our hope is that identifying potential agency in this way supports work to improve the social equity outcomes of energy transitions globally

Working to align energy transitions and social equity: An integrative framework linking institutional work, imaginaries and energy justice

Recent academic evidence suggests that, in contrast to what is often thought, the introduction of renewable energy infrastructures often leads to negative, not positive, social equity outcomes. Against this background, this paper aims to develop and empirically illustrate an integrative framework for analysing the work – or ‘agency’ – exercised by actors operating within and across different global contexts to align renewable energy and social equity. To this end, the paper first reviews three generative conceptions of agency in the energy transitions literature: institutional work, imaginaries and energy justice. In reviewing their explanatory power as well as their shortcomings, the paper concludes that these different conceptions of agency can be integrated meaningfully in an expanded conceptualisation of institutional work that spans three distinct domains: i) ‘reimagining’, ii) ‘recoding’ and iii) ‘reconfiguring’. This article demonstrates that the three domains can be understood to reiteratively feed into each other in what we call the ‘triple re-cycle’. These iterations produce either bolstering effects that strengthen the potential for positive social equity outcomes or evaporative effects that diminish or undermine this potential. We empirically illustrate the framework in case studies from Germany and South Africa. Overall, we argue that the triple re-cycle, as a heuristic, can provide new insights by conceptually connecting multiple domains of agency in energy transitions, including discursive and material aspects, across different global contexts. Our hope is that identifying potential agency in this way supports work to improve the social equity outcomes of energy transitions globally

A futuring approach to teaching wicked problems

This paper investigates how the teaching and learning about ?wicked? environmental problems may be fostered through an educational approach premised on futuring ? the active imagination of the future. The growing academic interest in possible and desirable futures provides a promising starting point for restructuring education as coupling knowledge to imagination and teaching to policy practice can open up new, experiential ways of learning. Empirically, this paper draws upon research on an experimental futuring course employing a ?mixed classroom? formula in which students and policy-makers learn together about sustainability challenges. Drawing on the notion of inquiry, this course is set up with the aim to foster a critical engagement with the ways futures are imagined in political debates and decision-making. Through complementary activities, the students were pushed to imagine possible futures around a central theme, the transition to a circular economy, in interaction with the policy-makers and other practitioners. This culminated in a ?Museum of the Future?. From our action-research-based investigation of the learning experiences in the course, we conclude that a futuring approach to teaching wicked problems results in a more active attitude of students towards the space in which wicked problems and solutions are collectively imagined and deliberated

Precautionary principles: general definitions and specific applications to genetically modified organisms

Precautionary principles have been proposed as a fundamental element of sound risk management. Their advocates see them as guiding action in the face of uncertainty, encouraging the adoption of measures that reduce serious risks to health, safety, and the environment. Their opponents may reject the very idea of precautionary principles, find specific principles unacceptably vague or see them as clearly doing economic damage-either to society as a whole or to their own interests. This article traces the development of alternative precautionary principles, primarily in Europe. Their adequacy is considered in one context where such principles have often been invoked, using genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture. Although some precautionary principles can be given analytical rigor, the concerns that they express strain the intellectual and institutional structure of conventional policy analysis. © 2002 by the Association for Policy Analysis and Management.