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- Title
Changing the design: cabinet decision-making in three provincial governments.
- Authors
Dunn, Christopher
- Abstract
The subject of this investigation is cabinet decision-making in the provincial governments of Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and British Columbia. Specifically, it attempts to examine the forces that underlie the initiation and persistence of cabinet institutionalization in the postwar period. The postwar period has witnessed the replacement of the unaided (or traditional) cabinet by the institutionalized (or structured) cabinet. In other words, unstructured and relatively uncoordinated central executives have given way to those which are more structured, more collegial, and more prone to emphasize planning and coordination. The factors promoting initial cabinet institutionalization in the three provinces were a mixture of ideology, pragmatism, and historical precedent unique to each province. There were both endogenous factors (those growing from within government) and exogenous factors (those acting from without) which affected the persistence of institutionalized cabinets. They were common to more than one province but their relative weight differed between premiers. Not surprisingly, the institutionalization of provincial cabinets has had major effects on political actors and functions in the three provinces studied. Cabinet structure has both changed and been changed by power relations within cabinet. Full cabinet appears to have been overshadowed as a decision-making centre. It is apparent that central agencies and central departments do not always yield similar political effects. Lastly, planning and budgeting have grown in both complexity and complementarity.
- Subjects
BRITISH Columbia; BRITISH Columbia politics &; government; POLITICAL systems; CABINET system; CABINET officers; PROVINCIAL governments; REPRESENTATIVE government; MINISTERIAL responsibility; JUSTICE ministers
- Publication
Canadian Public Administration, 1991, Vol 34, Issue 4, p621
- ISSN
0008-4840
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/j.1754-7121.1991.tb01489.x