Equilibrium Shift: government transitions and public policy theories of change and continuity

Transcription

1 DRAFT for discussion only Not for publication without the permission of the authors Equilibrium Shift: government transitions and public policy theories of change and continuity Kayle Hatt Department of Political Science Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario David C.G. Brown, PhD School of Political Studies University of Ottawa Ottawa, Ontario Abstract For a modern democracy to function properly, it is important to have an orderly changeover from one government to another when this is the result of an election or other circumstances. The process of transferring power, known as government transition, is reasonably well studied in the public administration and public management literature in Canada and elsewhere. However, less attention has been paid to the impact these events have on the public policy environment. Public policy theory with respect to policy continuity and change does not, generally speaking, address democratic changes of government as significant events affecting the policy cycle and decision-making system, not to mention the supporting public administration environment. This may be because many of these theories originate from the United States, where decision-making authority is more widely dispersed and a change of government is less of a paradigm-shifting event at the systemic level. Against the backdrop of Canadian experience with government transitions, this paper engages the major theories of policy change and examines how well they address the changes in the policymaking environment that come with a change of government. The authors find reason to believe that government change has a major potential impact on both the process and the substance of public policy at the systemic level and argue that this needs greater recognition in the analysis of public policy change. Canadian Association of Programs in Public Policy and Administration Third Annual Research Conference Kingston, Ontario May 22, 2014

2 An election has been held, a new Parliament has been elected; from it a new party and its leader have been democratically selected and are taking over government. Alternatively, an incumbent Prime Minister has announced his or her departure and a party leadership convention has selected a replacement who is beginning the process of assuming office. In either scenario there is a period in which the Prime Minister-designate puts in place the cabinet and machinery of government that will come into office when they do, while the outgoing government, and public administration generally, operate under caretaker ground rules. The entry into office of a new Prime Minister, whether of the same or a different party, demarcates a new administration. At a minimum such transitions mark a change in personality, World view and management style. They also offer the possibility of significant changes both in government organization and processes and in public policy and programs, potentially amounting to constitutional regime change. There is a small but significant body of literature that looks at the constitutional and public administration dimensions of government transition, the political management of transition, transition planning, the role of political parties, and the dynamics of cabinet selection, to name just a few of the many elements that are in play. Three Canadian volumes have been written from the perspective of managing government transitions (Savoie 1993, Larson 2001, Zussman 2013). This body of literature considers both the theoretical and the practical insights that might assist a new government leader and their party as they transition into government or help senior public administrators as they prepare to organize an orderly changeover. But what significance does this event have for public policy? This paper seeks to engage with public policy theory with the aim of understanding the role of transitions within the public policy process. There is a lacuna in the public policy literature CAPPA Third Research Conference 1 Kayle Hatt and David C.G. Brown

3 with regard to government transitions, whether in the specifically Canadian context or more generally, which this paper seeks to address. Specifically, it argues that government transitions are an important point in the public policy process, that they have characteristics that differ from the existing understanding of key events in public policy formation, and that newly selected leaders in particular at the head of newly elected parties alter the public policy environment both deliberately and by mere consequence of their ascension to office. The general thesis of this paper is that transitions are critical events in public policy, ones that come at an identifiable point in the political and the policy cycle, carry their own identifiable ground rules and dynamics and upset existing conditions in the policy environment. In a liberal democratic system they are points both of significant vulnerability and of opportunity for change and renewal. Operating within the broader constitutional context they also provide an important degree of continuity and, if successful, reinforce the legitimacy both of the new government that results from the transition and of the entire system of governance. At the same time, transitions are highly contextual, a function of the constitutional system and of the political culture within which they occur. The backdrop to this paper is therefore the Canadian federal government, with attention concentrated by the possibility of a transition arising from the October 2015 fixed-date election. Any attempt to apply or to refine general public policy theory is from that starting point. This paper proceeds in an exploratory and inductive fashion, trying to identify the characteristics of government transitions, as illustrated by the Canadian federal government case, and how those characteristics relate to the literature on public policy. In order to simplify analysis, it builds primarily on the assumption of an inter-party transfer of power (even though intra-party change can also produce significant change). The paper begins, therefore by discussing whether party change matters and what in fact changes in a transition. It then situates CAPPA Third Research Conference 2 Kayle Hatt and David C.G. Brown

4 transitions as a change in the issue-attention cycle of public opinion and discusses how transitions are different from policy windows or from the dynamics of punctuated equilibrium theory. This leads to consideration of some of the elements of the transition toolkit and then to reflections on how transitions might be built into public policy theory. In order to provide a concrete foundation for this discussion, however, the paper begins with a brief summary of experience with transitions in the federal government. A brief history of Canadian transitions The cautionary case of federal government transitions but also the one that laid the foundation for what has followed was in 1948 when Louis St-Laurent was elected Liberal leader and prospective prime minister at a party convention on August 7 but had to wait for Mackenzie King to finally retire three months later, on November 15. This experience was still in mind when St-Laurent was defeated by John Diefenbaker and the Progressive Conservative party in 1957, setting up the first modern inter-party transition and establishing the basis in constitutional conventions and political culture for all subsequent transitions. Contemporary thinking about transitions has developed in these two contexts: intra-party transitions, after a leadership convention has named a successor to a retiring prime minister (1968, 1984, 1993, 2003); and inter-party transitions, where a change in government has followed a general election (1957, 1963, 1979, 1980, 1984, 1993, 2006). A third potential scenario, evoked during the 2008 prorogation crisis, relates to an inter-party transfer of power during a sitting Parliament. The latter case also flagged the issues concerning government formation and related transition dynamics in the context of a coalition government, for which there is limited precedent in Canada, although ample experience internationally, especially in CAPPA Third Research Conference 3 Kayle Hatt and David C.G. Brown

5 systems with some form of proportional representation. All federal transitions to date have involved a single-party government, most with a parliamentary majority but in four cases (1957, 1963, 1979, 2006) involving minority government 1. All these transitions have been predictable, by the nature of the events that led to them, and in preparation for all of them there has been contingency planning by the Privy Council Office, led by the Clerk of the Privy Council/Secretary to the Cabinet, who has played a central role in working with the incoming prime minister and their advisors. Political parties with a prospect of gaining government have also actively prepared for a possible transition in the lead-up to all general elections since at least 1979, although to varying degrees of preparation and sophistication. In each transition there has been an intensive period generally lasting from ten days to two weeks, although in one case 2003 as long as a month, in which the incoming prime minister takes key decisions about the structure and processes of cabinet and other aspects of the machinery of government, shaped by their agenda and the broader circumstances of public policy, and in that context assembles their cabinet. This initial deployment is unveiled with the swearing in of the new ministry and the associated public communications. The outgoing prime minister, on the other hand, assumes a caretaker role, constrained by convention from taking new initiatives. Is there reason to think party change matters? The idea that transitions are an important moment in public policy is based on a foundational postulate that party has an impact on public policy. Said another way, the hypothesis is that the policy process is not indifferent, in terms of outcomes, to the party in government or to a party 1 A notable provincial variant is the 1985 Ontario transition, which involved a governing accord between two minority parties in which the second party assumed government on its own with the support of the third party for a fixed period and to implement an agreed agenda. CAPPA Third Research Conference 4 Kayle Hatt and David C.G. Brown

6 change. There are two major reasons to believe that party change has an impact on the policy process: ideology and party competition. An extensive literature analyzes political ideology defined in the broadest possible sense to capture not just the traditional understandings of political left-right alignments but also differences in world views, opinions on the role of the state, and all the other ways in which ideas and attitudes affect political action and its impact on public policy. Comparative international studies have shown that even political parties that are primarily focused on obtaining power tend to favour some positions in terms of ideological and partisan alignment, although with less than complete consistency and contingent on a battery of other factors. For instance, the choice of tax instruments has been shown to be heavily influenced by ideology and political parties have distinctive orientations on tax policy, with more left-leaning parties favouring progressive taxation and more right-leaning parties favouring income-neutral measures of taxation such as flat income taxes or sales taxes (Adolino and Blake 2010, 205; Steinmo 1993). Similarly, a recent statistical study by the Calgary School of Public Policy, found that provincial governments with NDP or Liberal governing parties were less likely to cut, and more likely to increase, personal income tax rates compared to right leaning parties (Ferede, Dahlby and Adjei 2013). The importance of ideologically-oriented party positions extends beyond taxation policy to healthcare and welfare state policy (Adolino and Blake 2010, 241-2), environmental policy (370) and, to a more divergent degree, fiscal policy (Blais, Kim and Foucault 2010; Adolino and Blake 2010, 165-6) and foreign policy (Brommesson and Ekengren 2013, 3-4,19-20). This impact of partisan orientation on policy formation is not only observed comparatively in international studies but it can also be observed in policy changes longitudinally over the CAPPA Third Research Conference 5 Kayle Hatt and David C.G. Brown

7 course of several governments within the same country. Steinmo charts taxation policy changes in the UK over several government changes and notes that the design of new tax measures appears heavily influenced by ideological orientation and differed based on the identity of the governing party (Steinmo 1993). Brommesson and Ekengren specifically look at the role of government change in influencing foreign policy positions within the realist-rationalistrevolutionism foreign policy ideological alignment (as opposed to the traditional left-right partisan alignment) and finds significant foreign policy shifts centred around changes in government (Brommesson and Ekengren 2013, 18). This is to say that one government the New Labour government under Tony Blair for instance possessed or communicated a different approach to international issues than the previous UK Conservative government, and that this different World view likely influenced decision-making. This observation is all the more significant in that foreign policy is sometimes considered an area of public policy that is above partisanship and beyond debate or is more directly tied to contextual influences (Brommesson and Ekengren 2013, 3-4), making it one of the least likely places for the influence of party change to appear. The fact that such a privileged area of policy is affected by government change suggests that all areas of government have the potential to be affected. Beyond the role of ideology, however, the observed patterns of party competition suggests that a change in the party in government will have an impact on public policy. One feature of party competition in democratic systems is policy competition and dynamic shifts in the policy positions of political parties (Savoie 1993, 7). Parties seek to gain voter support through their policy positions, and opposition parties especially seek to differentiate themselves from government parties on select issues (Laver and Hunt 1992, 3, 22-26; Nadeau, Pétry and Bélanger 2010; Jennings, Bevan and John 2011, 74). In essence, political parties adopt different policy CAPPA Third Research Conference 6 Kayle Hatt and David C.G. Brown

8 positions, and opposition parties seek to position themselves as alternatives to the government not just in terms of personalities and style but also in substance. This implies that a change of government will result in significant changes in public policy, at least in selected areas, as part of and after the transition to a new governing party. This would likely occur in cases even where ideological differences between parties are limited since the incoming party would have sought to position itself with election stances that were different than the government s existing policy. If the identity of the political party in power has an impact on public policy, it follows that a change of government has the ability to change the public policy process as well. The logical extension is to ask, How do these events fit within public policy theory? The starting point is to look at what changes during a transition. What changes during transitions? On the face of it, public policy theory does not appear to include transitions as significant events within the policy cycle. However, engagement with the public policy literature helps to identify key features of policy change in a transition and how it fits within the public policy process. To begin the process of building transitions into public policy theory, it is important to first understand the nature of change in the policy environment that occurs at the time of transition. Miljan describes the factors influencing policy making as being either contextual influences, that exist as background factors affecting policy (for example, political culture or the economy), or proximate influences, which have direct contact with the policy making process and therefore greater impact. The proximate influences include cabinet, the legislature, machinery of government (i.e., the executive), the courts, the media and interest groups (Miljan 2008, 51). Clearly, most contextual influences over policy do not change as a result of a change of CAPPA Third Research Conference 7 Kayle Hatt and David C.G. Brown

9 government, however the change in select proximate influences is at the heart of Canadian government transitions, especially change in the cabinet (and, centrally within that, the prime minister) and the legislature. This is important because the Canadian parliamentary system gives extensive agenda-setting powers to government with reduced agenda-setting authority given to the media or public at large, compared with other systems (Pal 2010, 126); and party discipline in Canada reduces the power of individual MPs, as opposed to cabinet, to influence the policy agenda (Montpetit and Foucault 2010, 2). (This is a key difference between the Canadian system and the US system, on which Kingdon based his analysis of agenda-setting and policy making (Kingdon 1984), where policy-making authority is divided between the executive and the legislative branch.) So, in essence, a government transition is a restructuring of the pinnacle proximate influence over public policy. At a minimum this occurs in terms of the personalities, networks and policies of those in charge of the machinery of government but it has also been used in Canadian practice as a significant opportunity to rework the machinery itself. Few of the other proximate influences in the policymaking environment experience this type of rapid, significant change; even the introduction of new interest groups or shifts in social movements likely happens on a longer time-frame than the rapid government changes during transition. Moreover, there is evidence to suggest that transitions also change the nature of interactions between various contextual and proximate influences within the policy process. The democratic responsiveness model suggests that in a democracy public opinion a proximate influence (Miljan 2008, 51) has a strong effect on the policy choices of government. However, statistical analyses of Canadian public opinion polling and public policy choices from 1968 to 2001 by Pétry suggests that different governments are influenced to differing degrees by public CAPPA Third Research Conference 8 Kayle Hatt and David C.G. Brown

10 opinion (Pétry 1999, 506-7; Pétry and Mendelsohn 2004, 513-6). While this date range only includes a select number of transitions, it is clear from the data that the responsiveness to public opinion differed significantly between the Trudeau, Mulroney and Chrétien governments. 2 Pétry and Mendelsohn suggest that divergences between public opinion and government policies may reflect the greater influence of organized interests party activists, interest groups, business associations on policy makers (Pétry and Mendelsohn 2004, 507-8). It follows that reduced levels of responsiveness to public opinion by different governments may reflect the increased influence of organized interests; Pétry reinforces this when he posits that decreased policy/public opinion convergence on the economy during Mulroney s government might reflect influence by the business elite (Pétry 1999, 548). Therefore transition is not just an event in which the pinnacle proximate influence over public policy changes but also an event in which the dynamics of interactions among other influences in the policy process, and their relative strength, is changed. Changes in the Issue-Attention Cycle of Public Opinion Not only does a change of government affect the relative importance of public opinion (and other proximate influences) in the policy process but it also has the ability to affect the dynamics of public opinion. The issue-attention cycle concept proposed by Anthony Downs postulates that varying public opinion is the major driver of public policy change over time, as the public becomes more interested in an issue then gradually losses interest, is satisfied with a government action or realizes the costs of action is prohibitive (Downs 1972, 39-42). This theory has significant merit, and it is certainly the case that public opinion shifts can have significant impact 2 It can be speculated that the same would have been true of the Clark, Turner and Campbell governments had they lasted longer. CAPPA Third Research Conference 9 Kayle Hatt and David C.G. Brown

11 on the policy agenda. However, transition as an event has the potential to interact with this cycle in a significant way. First, as demonstrated above, a change of government results in a change in the level and orientation of government responsiveness to public opinion. Second, and more significantly, new governments attempt to influence public opinion and change the issueattention cycle (Montpetit and Foucault 2010). While some government communication is informative and designed to convey the details of policy implementation, which Howlett et al characterize as back-end, other government communication is front-ended at the beginning of the policy formation process to influence public opinion in support of intended government policies (Howlett, Craft and Zibrik 2010, 14-5, 19-20). Newly elected governments attempt to influence public opinion and change the focus of the issue-attention cycle. To start, there is both a motivation and a strong capacity on the part of a newly elected party to emphasize its own policy issues and drop those of the previous government in a parliamentary, single-party government system (Montpetit and Foucault 2010, 2). The new government seeks to establish its brand, both symbolically and substantively. In single party government systems, it can therefore be expected that the months following the electoral defeat of one government and the installation of a successor will be characterized by changes in issue attention. During this period, the newly elected party will be eager to emphasize its own issues and leave behind the preferred issues of the previous government (Montpetit and Foucault 2010, 16). Since attention to a new government is high, it will want to use this attention to influence public opinion with early actions and communications. Some newly elected government make very early announcements to signal change; Blakeney and Borins note that initial throne speeches are important events for communication of policies, setting priorities and to persuade CAPPA Third Research Conference 10 Kayle Hatt and David C.G. Brown

12 the public (Blakeney and Borins 1998, 50-51). Savoie makes a similar point about transitions: it is now widely recognized that these early weeks can be critical because they set the tone for how the new government will govern (Savoie 1999, 82). Since throne speeches are both persuasive tools and statements of the government priorities, analyzing them can reveal which policy areas have the government s attention and how this has changed over time. Studies using this method to analyze policy attention over time, including during periods of government transition, have found evidence in the parliamentary system of very significant shifts in policy attention following the election of a new government (John and Jennings 2010; Jennings, Bevan and John 2011, 74-78, 81,89; Montpetit and Foucault 2010, 10-15). An Australian study found that newly elected governments used speeches from the throne to signpost new policy priorities (Dowding, et al. 2010, 538). A Canadian study that explores this approach to throne speeches, and makes comparisons with the UK study, demonstrates a pattern of policy attention shifts both at the beginning of terms and during the mid-term periods of British governments, although recording more issue stability in the latter. Montpetit and Foucault then argue that in Canada, federalism and the importance of intergovernmental relations act as an intervening variable that reduces the freedom of a newly elected government to completely shift its focus or influence issue attention and public opinion (Montpetit and Foucault 2010, 10-15). Intergovernmental relations can prevent a party newly elected to a majority government to pay attention to its preferred issues since, in essence, governments in other jurisdictions are also seeking to influence the policy agenda (Montpetit and Foucault 2010, 17). In a time-series analysis of policy issues mentioned in Canadian and UK throne speeches Montpetit and Foucault find that the issues that receive attention change frequently in Canada, CAPPA Third Research Conference 11 Kayle Hatt and David C.G. Brown

13 with significant changes occurring in both transition and non-transition years, while in the UK they are concentrated around government changes (Montpetit and Foucault 2010, 10-15). Montpetit and Foucault hypothesize that intergovernmental relations are a partial driver of changes in the issue-attention cycle in Canada. They suggest that one of the reasons intergovernmental affairs are in such flux in Canada is that there is often a change in government in one jurisdiction occurring between intergovernmental meetings and new actors influence the intergovernmental consensus. This indirectly supports the argument that transitions are a significant influences on the public policy process since there are constantly changing intergovernmental dynamics in Canada and new governments attempt to exercise influence on public opinion at the same time that governments at other levels are attempting to do the same thing. Additionally, it is worth noting that the Montpetit and Foucault study examines which issues are featured in the throne speech and at what frequency, but not what positions are being taken on those issues; therefore the greater observed issue attention stability in Canada (between transitions in any given jurisdiction) does not necessarily imply that policy content changes are not occurring. Even allowing for these variable, there is significant reason to believe that new governments seek to alter public opinion following a transition and that, at least in the UK, Australia and Canada, the issues that a government focuses on and promotes change after a change of government. To recapitulate for theory building purposes, this means that transitions are events where the pinnacle proximate influence over policy changes significantly, where the dynamics and relative strengths of the other proximate influences change and where government attempts to actively refocus public opinion and the policy agenda. CAPPA Third Research Conference 12 Kayle Hatt and David C.G. Brown

14 Why transitions are different than a policy window Public policy theory does allow for periodic change in dynamics between and strength of policy influences and, in fact, this is a central concept in modern policy studies. However, there is substantial reason to believe that the dynamics around transitions fall outside of concepts of punctuated equilibrium and policy windows, two widely used theoretical models of policy change. Kingdon proposed the idea of policy windows that open, either periodically or as a result of triggering events, and present a window of opportunity for policy entrepreneurs to advance a position and initiate policy change (Pal 2010, ; Kingdon 1984). This concept of a temporal change in the dynamics of the policy system is in some ways comparable to a transition. Indeed, as a Canadian example of a policy window Pal describes a cabinet shuffle (Pal 2010, 127), which is similar to a change of government in the sense that some decision makers have changed. However, transitions are different from the traditional understanding of policy windows, as the public policy changes during transition are internally driven to a far greater degree and the window itself is more structured. Core to the concept of policy windows is the idea of policy entrepreneurs, who promote policies like travelling salesmen looking to close on a sales opportunity. Policy entrepreneurs are members of organized interests (business, labour, interest groups, etc.) or citizen groups that are external to decision making and trying to exercise influence over policymakers. Transitions, on the other hand, relate to what happens inside the edifice the replacement of the old internal decision makers with a new group of internal decisions makers who are put in a position, by virtue of an election result, to implement a new agenda. If policy entrepreneurs can be thought of as salesmen, an incoming prime minister might be thought of as a new tenant, who is given an CAPPA Third Research Conference 13 Kayle Hatt and David C.G. Brown

15 opportunity to reconfigure the furniture, or even the layout of the walls and rooms, and set new house rules (but without moving the foundations). The difference between these internal actors and the traditional understanding of policy entrepreneurs is that actors in transition events are in a much stronger position to shape the decision-making process itself and through that to implement policies. A transition is similar to a policy window, however, in that it allows a new set of internal actors to behave like policy entrepreneurs in advancing positions and initiating changes to public policy with the difference that that they reside closer to decision making power (which, again, is more centralized than in the diffused system which Kingdon s model was developed to describe). A useful frame might be the one of champion politicians described by Althaus, a concept similar to the policy entrepreneur. These individuals have a privileged position in the policy process and can sponsor a policy position in the process to help overcome concerns of political risk or viability (Althaus 2008, ). Althaus makes the argument that even politicians in executive positions act as champions using President Bush as an example in cases when they lack the power to act unilaterally and must seek the consent of other actors (Althaus 2008, ). This is not to say that transition events do not provide external policy entrepreneurs with policy windows to promote policies to the new government. To begin with, political parties coming into government often lack experience and specific policy knowledge. As Lindquist says, never is the capacity of a government to govern at a lower ebb, while Savoie notes that political parties often arrive into transition ill-prepared to govern and often hold ill-defined policy positions (Lindquist 1993, 29; Savoie 1993, 7). In this circumstance, external actors might sense an opportunity to advise the new government and will treat these events as CAPPA Third Research Conference 14 Kayle Hatt and David C.G. Brown

16 advocacy opportunities. In d Ombrain s observation, Interest groups clamour for attention from newly elected officials (D Ombrain 2001, 47). At the same time, as noted earlier, the specific external groups that have access to government decision-making and their relative prospects of success will change with a transition. However, the fact that external policy entrepreneurs may engage with transitions as a type of policy window does not diminish the fact that the transitions themselves have different internal characteristics than the policy windows model generally implies. And different than punctuated equilibrium theory. The concept of punctuated equilibrium suggests that the policy cycle is characterized by long periods of incremental changes followed by policy ruptures (Montpetit and Foucault 2010, 3) or, expressed differently, that the course of public policy is disjoint and episodic. Long periods of stability are interrupted by bursts of frenetic policy activity (Baumgartner and Jones 2010, xvii). In this model, policy changes are driven by slow and gradual changes in the relationships between policy influences and actors, with rapid change occurring after the underlying conditions reach critical points, sometimes initiated by triggering events, as in the policy window concept. This is somewhat similar to changes that occur during transition events in that both emphasize the shifts in the interactions and relationships between influences on policy. However, there is a difference in the scale of policy change that occurs within punctuated equilibrium events and transition events. As Baumgartner and Jones remark in their second edition: Grossman, Peterson and Stimson (2006) show the profound policy consequences of the mandate elections of 1964, 1980 and But this is not what we emphasize here. We stress policy-by-policy change that happens through a very different CAPPA Third Research Conference 15 Kayle Hatt and David C.G. Brown

17 dynamic than systemic change. Policymaking at equilibrium occurs in more or less independent subsystems, in which policies are determined by specialists located in federal agencies and interested parties and groups. These interests reach policy equilibrium, adjusting among themselves and incrementally changing policy. (Baumgartner and Jones 2010, xvii-xviii) In essence, then, punctuated equilibrium theory deals with policy change on a micro-level, issueby-issue basis by assuming changes within policy subsystems. Change involving government transitions is in the first instance a macro-level change of proximate influences that affect all policy issues and potentially the system as a whole. Baumgartner and Jones consider the possibility of system-level change, and accept that it does occur in rare mandate elections, but conclude that it falls beyond the range of their theory. Like Kingdon, they are writing about the American system, which has more diffuse decision making, more centres of power and more veto holders than the Canadian parliamentary system. In such a system, it might make sense to see a government change as a non-critical event since a new president would only be one actor in a diffused policy system. Indeed, one of the critical mandate elections that Baumgartner and Jones refer to (1994) was a mid-term election and therefore did not result in a presidential change. The differences between the parliamentary and the American systems make government transitions a more important event in the former, focused as they are on an executive that combines decision-making with implementation authority at both the system and the subsystem level, as opposed to the policy subsystem focus of punctuated equilibrium theory. Other transition dynamics There are several other dynamics that distinguish transitions from policy windows and punctuated equilibrium events. CAPPA Third Research Conference 16 Kayle Hatt and David C.G. Brown

18 First, the policy changes that occur during transition events are not necessarily short-term changes; a notable feature of transitions is the use of longer-term policy instruments, including structural and process changes. In several cases, major changes in machinery of government have accompanied Canadian transitions. A qualitative study of machinery of government changes in Australia, Canada and the UK from 1950 to 1997 found that reorganization was most often associated with new governments (David, et al. 1999, 30). All but one of the major reorganizations took place in the first year of a government s election, and the exception was the case of Campbell s intra-party transition in 1993, which included substantial public sector restructuring (David, et al. 1999, 30) and has remained substantially in place. Excluding short-lived prime ministers, the study found that all but three prime ministers in the three countries initiated some form of organizational change. (Interestingly, two of the abstaining prime ministers were Canadian Diefenbaker and Mulroney (David, et al. 1999, 30-1); in Mulroney s case he came into office in 1984 shortly after Turner had made substantial changes in the cabinet system that he had inherited from Trudeau and Clark, changes that Mulroney retained (Clark 1985)). Additionally, governments up until recent years favoured creating royal commissions or policy inquiries earlier in their terms (D Ombrain 1997, 91). While commissions are a tool that governments can use at any time, a classic study on royal commissions in Canada noted that they seem to be most prevalent following a change of government ; it was speculated that this is in part because of the lack of effective policy research resources in opposition parties (Doern 1967, 419). As discussed above, lack of experience or policy knowledge is an issue for incoming governments. However, the use of such commissions might also be favoured since they can serve to delay policy decisions and influence public opinion (D Ombrain 1997) or change the public s CAPPA Third Research Conference 17 Kayle Hatt and David C.G. Brown

19 issue attention. The decline in the use of royal commissions, and the lack of any royal commissions since Romanow (i.e., under the Harper government), can partly be attributed to prime ministerial leadership styles (D Ombrain 1997, 88) but also to the amplified short-term focus and increased risk aversion that characterizes minority governments, which were in place from 2004 until Nevertheless, the device remains in the public policy tool kit and it remains possible that such commissions can play a significant role in the future. Indeed, in 2012 NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair suggested that an NDP government would initiate a royal commission on drug policy, similar to the Le Dain commission (Bryden 2012; Smith 2012). In view of their very different perspectives on a wide range of public policy issues from the Harper government, it seems likely that both of the current opposition parties would make use of royal commissions and other external policy studies if they were to come into office after the 2015 election. The rationale for a government to frontload major changes is clear. Blakeney discusses why governments are motivated to undertake mid-to-long term policy changes, such as machinery of government changes, during transition or after an election: The public does not like change. They very often like the results of change, but rarely do they like the process. So we felt that changes should be introduced as soon after an election as possible so that the results would be apparent by the next election and so that there would be time to deal with a glitch or two. This is not just a matter of avoiding administrative problems; it has more to do with gaining public acceptance for new programs. (Blakeney and Borins 1998, 50) Immediately after an election is the appropriate time to 'put government through the wringer' - that is, to identify and cut the least effective programs, so as to free resources, which can then be utilized more effectively as the next election approaches. (Blakeney and Borins 1998, 244) CAPPA Third Research Conference 18 Kayle Hatt and David C.G. Brown

20 This idea of frontloading significant changes, especially unpopular ones or changes that need to be sold to the public, but also ones that require time to implement, is consistent with the concept of a political business cycle. Second, as mentioned previously, transition events in the policy cycle are executivefocused, unlike the underlying systemic assumptions in punctuated equilibrium or policy windows theories. In Canadian constitutional thinking the prime minister is first among equals but the practice in Canadian politics grants far more power to the prime minister; Savoie notes that the prime minister has access to virtually all the necessary levers in cabinet to ensure that he or she is the 'boss' in cabinet and often feels the need to manage their cabinet (Savoie 1999, 81). Moreover, in the nature of cabinet formation in a Westminster system, PCO transition planning is focused on the party leaders, and then incoming prime ministers, with no involvement from other cabinet members (Savoie 1999, 81-82; D Ombrain 2001). By the same token, partisan transition teams are often directed almost entirely by party leaders or their delegates (Lindquist 1993, 32, 42-4). This makes sense, since in the crucial days between the election victory and formally taking power, the only known member of the incoming cabinet is the prime minister. For other potential cabinet ministers, it is a 'moment of high anxiety,' waiting to see if they will actually be invited to sit in cabinet, and if so, in what portfolio (Savoie 1999, 82). It has been observed that, while they have considerable power, prime ministers in Canada are not one-man bands and typically follow a cadre leadership model consistent with brokerage politics (Malloy 2013, ); this is more the case once a new government has been established in office, however, and is functioning normally. During transition, prime ministers and premiers have a monopoly of decision power especially in the early period before they have selected their cabinets. CAPPA Third Research Conference 19 Kayle Hatt and David C.G. Brown

21 Conclusions and theory-building A change of government can have significant impacts on the public policy cycle in a way that has not been fully explored or anticipated by the academic literature in this area. A partial explanation for the existence of this gap is that much of the literature on agenda setting, policy making and the public policy cycle originates in the United States, where a government change would be expected to have fewer systemic consequences. The literature on public policy in parliamentary systems, especially the United Kingdon, is more consistent with the role that a government transition can play in public policy change, but it is fragmented and lacking an overarching theoretical understanding of dynamics of transition. To summarize the arguments made in this paper, a government transition is a public policy event that represents a system-wide, macro-level policy change, in which 1) the pinnacle proximate influence over policy (the Prime Minister and cabinet) is completely exchanged, 2) the dynamics of interaction and the strength of other proximate influences on the policy system are altered substantially, 3) the issues on which the government is focused can change significantly, along with how it approaches those issues, and 4) new internal actors notably the incoming prime minister and their advisors enjoy a brief period of time with the ability to exert significant control over the policy agenda. This can be thought of as an equilibrium shift in the policymaking environment, where a temporal event has changed potentially and to varying degrees in practice the dynamics between influences and actors, allowing a new equilibrium to develop. It is a game-changing moment. While the term punctuated equilibrium came from the field of evolutionary biology, the change around transition events is more akin to the situation in economics where a base CAPPA Third Research Conference 20 Kayle Hatt and David C.G. Brown

22 condition in the market changes and results in a shift of the curve and therefore in the general market equilibrium. And as with economic shifts, it is possible that multiple equilibrium shifts over time could create the impression of a state of flux in policy dynamics and the relative importance of various proximate policy influences. For instance, the increased impact of public opinion as a policy influence in the Mulroney era compared to the Trudeau era and subsequent decreased influence after the transition to the Chrétien government (Pétry and Mendelsohn 2004, 513-6) might be thought of as a series of equilibrium shifts. Several questions remain and merit further study: First and foremost, how transformative are government transitions in terms of substantial policy change? Do they impact all policy areas, and if not, is a selective impact the result of more resilient proximate influences that can withstand the effects of transition or is the selective impact a feature of prime ministerial prerogative? How lasting are the system-level effects of a policy equilibrium shift? Do the agents behind the proximate influences who have lost sway in such an event (for example, business or labour groups, not to mention the internal dynamics within the public sector) attempt to slowly regain their previous favour in the policy environment? Put differently, will (or under what circumstances will) the inherent conservatism of institutions prevail? And how much of the observed policy change in parliamentary systems can be attributed to game-changing equilibrium shifts, in the sense that we have proposed in this paper? Besides a change of government, are there other events with structural impacts and system-wide policy effects which might be regarded as equilibrium shifts, such as constitutional or electoral reform? A fuller exploration of the impacts of government transitions will lead to a deeper understanding of the dynamics of policy change in parliamentary systems. CAPPA Third Research Conference 21 Kayle Hatt and David C.G. Brown

23 CAPPA Third Research Conference 22 Kayle Hatt and David C.G. Brown

24 Works cited Adolino, Jessica R., and Charles H. Blake Comparing Public Policies; Issues and Choices in Industrialized Countries, Second Edition. Washington DC: CQ Press. Althaus, Catharine Calculating Political Risk. London, UK: EarthScan 'Risk in Society' Series. Baumgartner, Frank, and Bryan D. Jones Agendas and Instability in American Politics - Second edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Blais, André, Jiyoon Kim, and Martial Foucault Public Spending, Public Deficits and Government Coalitions. Political Studies, 58, 2010: Blakeney, Allen, and Sandford Borins Political Management in Canada, Second edition. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Brommesson, Douglas, and Ann-Marie Ekengren What happens when a new government enters office? A comparison of ideological change in British and Swedish foreign policy Cooperation and Conflict, 2013: Bryden, Joan Mulcair clarifies stand on marijuana in time for 4/20 pot holiday. Globe and Mail, April 20, 2012: / <Accessed November 22, 2013>. Clark, Ian Recent Changes in the Cabinet Decision-Making System in Ottawa. Canadian Public Administration, 28, 1985: David, Gyln, Patrick Weller, Emma Craswell, and Susan Eggins What drives machinery of government change? Australia, Canada and the United Kingdon Public Administration Vol. 77, 1999: Doern, G. Bruce The Role of Royal Commissions in the General Policy Process and in Federal-Provincial relations. Canadian Public Administration, 10, 1967: D'Ombrain, Nicholas Public inquiries in Canada. Canadian Public Administration, 40, 1997: D'Ombrain, Nicolas Managing Transitions at the Federal Level in Canada. In Changing the Guard: Effective Management of Transitions in Government, by Peter Larson, editor. Ottawa, Ontario: Public Policy Forum. Dowding, Keith, Andrew Hindmoor, Richard Iles, and Peter John Policy Agendas in Australian Politics: The Governor-General's Speeches, Australian Journal of Political Science 45, 2010: Downs, Anthony Up and down with ecology - the issue-attention cycle. Public Interest, 1972: Ferede, Ergete, Bev Dahlby, and Ebenezer Adjei The Timing and Direction of Statutory Tax Rate Changes by the Canadian Provinces, The School of Public Policy Technical Paper, CAPPA Third Research Conference 23 Kayle Hatt and David C.G. Brown

25 Howlett, Michael, Jonathan Craft, and Lindsay Zibrik Government communication and democratic governance: Electoral and policy-related information campaigns in Canada. Policy and Society, 2010: Jennings, Will, Shaun Bevan, and Peter John The Agenda of British Government: The Speech from the Throne, Political Studies, 59, 2011: John, Peter and Will Jennings Punctuations and Turning Points in British Politics: The Policy Agenda of the Queen s Speech, British Journal of Political Science, 2010: Kingdon, John W Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. Larson, Peter, editor Changing the Guard: Effective Management of Transitions in Government. Ottawa: Public Policy Forum. Larson, Peter Introduction by the Editor. In Changing the Guard: Effective Management of Transitions in Government, by Peter Larson, editor. Ottawa: Public Policy Forum. Laver, Michael, and Ben W. Hunt Policy and Party Competition. New York: Routledge. Lindquist, Evert A Transition Teams and the Government Succession: Focusing on the Essentials. In Taking Power: Managing Government Transitions, by Donald J. Savoie, editor. Toronto: The Institute of Public Administration of Canada: Malloy, Jonathan Prime Ministers and their Parties in Canada. In Understanding Prime- Ministerial Performance: Comparative Perspectives, by Paul Strangio, Paul t Hart and James Walter. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press: Miljan, Lydia Public Policy in Canada: An Introduction, Fifth Edition. Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press. Montpetit, Éric, and Martial Foucault Canadian Federalism and Change in Policy Attention: A Comparison with the United Kingdom. Paper presented to the American Political Science Association 2010 Annual Meeting. Nadeau, Richard, François Pétry, and Éric Bélanger Issue-Based Strategies in Election Campaigns: The Case of Health Care in the 2000 Canadian Federal Election. Political Communication, 2010: Pal, Leslie, A Beyond Policy Analysis: Public Issue Management in Turbulent Times, Fourth Edition. Toronto, ON: Nelson. Pétry, François, and Matthew Mendelsohn Public Opinion and Policy Making in Canada Canadian Journal of Political Science, 2004: Pétry, François The Opinion-Policy Relationship in Canada. The Journal of Politics, Vol. 61, 1999: Savoie, Donald, editor Taking Power: Managing Government Transition. Ottawa, ON: The Institute of Public Administration of Canada. Savoie, Donald Introduction. In Taking Power: Managing Government Transition, by Donald J. Savoie, editor. Ottawa, ON: The Institute of Public Administration of Canada. CAPPA Third Research Conference 24 Kayle Hatt and David C.G. Brown