CCA Research Report: The Effects of Administrative Reforms on the Activities of Advocacy Groups

CCA Bul­letin 42/08 

Octo­ber 9, 2008

Just the facts

In prepa­ra­tion for the con­sul­ta­tions it has orga­nized over the com­ing two months in 14 cities through­out Canada, lead­ing to the March 11–12, 2009 National Pol­icy Con­fer­ence in Ottawa, the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) has com­mis­sioned research papers to pro­vide a com­mon back­ground for the dis­cus­sions with its mem­bers and other stake­hold­ers inter­ested in art and cul­ture in the country.

We are pleased to release today a sec­ond report enti­tled The Effects of Admin­is­tra­tive Reforms on the Activ­i­ties of Advo­cacy Groups which aims to describe changes in pub­lic gov­er­nance in Canada in recent years, to assess the cul­tural sector’s adap­ta­tion to this new envi­ron­ment, and to present poten­tial future ori­en­ta­tions for the sec­tor. This research, pre­pared for the CCA over the sum­mer by Pierre-André Hudon, doc­toral stu­dent at the Fac­ulty of Polit­i­cal Sci­ence, Uni­ver­sity of Ottawa. This research has been real­ized in part­ner­ship with the Cen­tre on Gov­er­nance of the Uni­ver­sity of Ottawa under the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts’ Cul­tural Pol­icy: Next Gen­er­a­tion Pro­gram. The CCA wants to thank par­tic­u­larly Dr. Car­o­line Andrew, Direc­tor, School of Polit­i­cal Stud­ies, and Dr. Mon­ica Gat­tinger, Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor, School of Polit­i­cal Stud­ies, with­out whom this project would not have been possible.

The fol­low­ing is an exec­u­tive sum­mary of the full report which we encour­age you very much to con­sult in full in prepa­ra­tion for the CCA Regional Forums.

Exec­u­tive Summary:

This study is one part lit­er­a­ture review, cov­er­ing the­ory rel­e­vant to the vol­un­tary sec­tor, and three parts case study. The report begins by recall­ing recent admin­is­tra­tive reforms and ana­lyz­ing their influ­ence on the vol­un­tary sec­tor, and con­cludes the following:

• Recent gov­er­nance mod­els (acquired from new pub­lic man­age­ment and hor­i­zon­tal gov­er­nance) have increased the respon­si­bil­i­ties of the vol­un­tary sec­tor in terms of the plan­ning and imple­men­ta­tion of pub­lic pol­icy, while at the same time rais­ing account­abil­ity expectations.
• Due to the desta­bi­liza­tion of fund­ing, the change in nature of their activ­i­ties, and the oblig­a­tion to com­ply with demand­ing performance-measurement and account­abil­ity require­ments, these orga­ni­za­tions’ abil­ity to ful­fill their man­date has been hampered.
• Despite allow­ing for greater col­lab­o­ra­tion between gov­ern­ments and this sec­tor in plan­ning and imple­ment­ing pol­icy, the hor­i­zon­tal gov­er­nance model has also reduced these organization’s abil­ity to influ­ence gov­ern­ments, and hence to effec­tively rep­re­sent sec­toral interests.

The paper then turns to an analy­sis of the speci­fici­ties of the cul­tural sec­tor (con­sid­ered here as a sub sec­tor within the vol­un­tary realm), and iden­ti­fies the chal­lenges it faces. These chal­lenges may be sum­ma­rized as follows:

• The cul­tural sector’s legit­i­macy is con­tin­gent on its abil­ity to tran­scend the dia­logue between politi­cians and pro­fes­sion­als in order to mobi­lize a wider audi­ence by “speak­ing its lan­guage” and pre­sent­ing cul­ture and cul­tural insti­tu­tions as tan­gi­ble assets.
• The cul­tural sec­tor must rec­og­nize and adapt to the rise of local decision-making power (munic­i­pal­i­ties, local net­works, etc.) and of glob­al­ized net­works which erode tra­di­tional insti­tu­tions based on national government.
• The cul­tural sec­tor must adapt to the hor­i­zon­tal gov­er­nance model by engag­ing its stake­hold­ers, by devel­op­ing new abil­i­ties and by cre­at­ing admin­is­tra­tive struc­tures that sup­port these abilities.

Case stud­ies con­sti­tute the third sec­tion of this paper. The analy­sis is focussed on the var­i­ous adap­ta­tion strate­gies selected by com­pa­ra­ble sec­tors or move­ments (envi­ron­ment, forestry, fem­i­nism) in the face of change, and yields the fol­low­ing conclusions:

• The envi­ron­men­tal sec­tor derives its effi­cacy from its strong legit­i­macy, its size­able media foot­print (enhanced by an effi­cient use of spokesper­sons), as well as its care­ful selec­tion of out­lets accord­ing the message.
• The forestry sec­tor owes its influ­ence mainly to its astute use of polit­i­cal lever­age, the con­sis­tency and coher­ence of its mes­sage, and its legit­imiza­tion through both con­crete demon­stra­tion (pre­sent­ing the tan­gi­ble ben­e­fits of the indus­try: jobs, exports, etc.) and more sym­bolic appeals (use of salient imagery, par­tic­i­pa­tion in eco­log­i­cal discourse).
• Fem­i­nist move­ments, despite fac­ing sim­i­lar con­straints as the cul­tural sec­tor, have found suc­cess by show­ing them­selves able to sen­si­tize a wide audi­ence, keep­ing their strate­gic objec­tives in sight and becom­ing the main inter­locu­tors in a wide range of issues affect­ing women.

The study finally presents the find­ings rel­e­vant to the cul­tural sec­tor. The chal­lenges this sec­tor faces are numer­ous, and can be sum­ma­rized as follows:

• It must man­age a less for­mal, more chal­leng­ing form of inter­ac­tion with var­i­ous lev­els of government.
• It must strive to con­tinue to deliver results in an admin­is­tra­tive con­text of scarce resources com­bined with high and costly account­ing expectations.
• It must remain rel­e­vant in order to con­sol­i­date its legitimacy.
• Finally, it must cope with the grad­ual dis­ap­pear­ance of cul­tural policy.

A pro­found, quasi-existential self-examination is there­fore called for. The sec­tor must con­sider its orga­ni­za­tion, the legit­i­macy of its demands and inter­ven­tions and how this legit­i­macy is derived, as well as the very nature of its activ­i­ties. The fol­low­ing ori­en­ta­tions are suggested:

• The sector’s organization:
• Greater inter­ac­tion with local local/municipal bodies;
• Greater inter­ac­tions with the glob­al­ized cul­tural sector;
• A more con­sis­tent mes­sage through improved coor­di­na­tion amongst the sector’s con­stituent organizations.
• The legit­i­macy of the sector’s demands:
• Greater vis­i­bil­ity, derived from increased use of imagery and spokespersons;
• Spark­ing a wide-ranging, pub­lic opin­ion debate reach­ing beyond pub­lic pol­icy circles.
• The nature of the sector’s activities:
• An in-depth look at what the sec­tor aspires to, par­tic­u­larly when it comes to its stake in pub­lic pol­icy plan­ning and implementation;
• Devel­op­ing skills rel­e­vant to the new hor­i­zon­tal, con­trac­tual and decen­tral­ized gov­er­nance paradigm.