GOVN 405 / POLI 405: Innovative Public Management (Rev. C3) Report a Broken Link

The purpose of this course is to enable students to understand and to think critically about the fundamental changes that have taken place throughout the bureaucracies in the Western world, and to enable students to evaluate these changes in a comparative perspective.


These Supplementary Materials will be useful to you throughout the course.

Supplementary Materials


Unit 1

Required Readings


Donald J. Savoie, “What Is Wrong With the New Public Management?”
Sandford Borins, “The New Public Management Is Here to Stay.”
Donald J. Savoie, “Just Another Voice from the Pulpit.”
Sandford Borins, “A Last Word.”
Kenneth Kernaghan, “Keeping the New Public Management Pot Boiling.”

Unit 2

Required Readings


Lapsley, Irvine. 2009. “New Public Management: The Cruellest Invention of the Human Spirit?”

ABACUS 45(1): 1-21. 

Hood, Christopher and Ruth Dixon. 2015. What We Have to Show for 30 Years of New Public Management: Higher Costs, More Complaints

Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions, 28 (3): 265–267.

Dahl, Adam and Joe Soss. 2014. “Neoliberalism for the Common Good? Public Value Governance and the Downsizing of Democracy.”

Public Administration Review. 496-504.

Unit 3

Required Readings


Garnet Garven. 2005. Governance Reform: A Values Framework for Canadian Public Administration.

Underneath the Golden Boy, Manitoba Law Journal l4.

Unit 4 Required Readings


Bannister, Frank. 2011. “The Trouble with Transparency: A Critical Review of Openness in e-Government.”

Policy and Internet 3(1): 1-30.

Hood, Christopher. 2011. “From FOI World to WikiLeaks World: A New Chapter in the Transparency Story?”

Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions. 24(4): 645-648.

Lorna Stefanick. 2015. “Blurring the Boundaries of Private, Partisan, and Public Interests: Accountability in an Oil Economy."   

in Meenal Shrivastava and Lorna Stefanick eds.,  Alberta Oil and the Decline of Democracy in Canada.   Edmonton: Athabasca University Press, 363-389.

Unit 5

Required Readings


Farazmand, Ali. 2002. Administrative ethics and professional competence accountability and performance under globalization.

International Review of Administrative Sciences 68(1): 127–143.

Unit 6

Required Readings


Michels, Ank. 2011. Innovations in democratic governance: how does citizen participation contribute to a better democracy?

International Review of Administrative Sciences 77(2): 275-293.

Lawrence R. Jacobs. 2014. The Contested Politics of Public Value.

Public Administration Review 74 (4): 480–494.

Bryer, Tom A. 2011. Online Public Engagement in the Obama Administration: Building a Democracy Bubble?

Policy and Internet 3(4): 1-22.

Unit 7

Required Readings


Brandsen, Taco and Victor Pestoff. 2006. “Co-production, the third sector and the delivery of public services: an introduction.”

Public Management Review. 8(4): 493-501. (read pages 493-497)

Stefanick, Lorna. 2009. “Alberta's Ombudsman: Following Responsibility in an Era of Outsourcing,”

In Provincial and Territorial Ombudsman Offices in Canada, Stewart Hyson, ed., Institute of Public Administration of Canada, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Unit 8 Required Readings


Ali Farazmand. 2009. Building Administrative Capacity for the Age of Rapid Globalization: A Modest Prescription for the Twenty-First Century. Public Administration Review, 69 (6): 1007-1020.

Public Administration Review, 69 (6): 1007-1020.

Radelet, Steven. 2016. “Governance and the Great Development Transformation.”

Governance: An International Journal of Policy Administration and Institutions. 29(1) : 9-11.

Cheung, Anthony B.L. 2013. "NPM in Asian countries." Tom Christensen and Per Laegreid. The Ashgate Research Companion to New Public Management. Ashgate, 131-144.

Unit 9 Required Readings


Sproule-Jones, Megan. 1996. Crusading for the Forgotten: Dr. Peter Bryce, Public Health, and Prairie Native Residential Schools.

Canadian Bulletin of Medical History. 13: 199-224.

Timpson, Annis May. 2008. “Building an Aboriginal-Oriented Public Service in Nunavut.”

Paper presented at the Canadian Political Science Association AGM.

Ostroff, Joshua. 2016. Attawapiskat's Suicides Need More Than Superficial Solutions.

The Blog. Huffington Post Canada.

Unit 10

Required Readings


Norris, Pippa. 2000. The Worldwide Digital Divide: Information Poverty, the Internet and Development.  

Paper for the Annual Meeting of the Political Studies Association of the UK, London School of Economics and Political Science, 10-13 April 2000. Roundtable on The Future Role of New Media in Elections Wednesday 12th April 10.45-12.15.

Shark, Alan R. 2015.

Privacy, Trust, and Future Challenges. In Technology and Public Management. New York: Taylor and Francis.

Unit 11 Required Readings


Farazmand, Ali. 2009. Building Administrative Capacity for the Age of Rapid Globalization: A modest prescription for the twenty-first Century.

Public Administration Review 69(6): 1007-1020.

Bibliography and Supplementary Materials


Doer, Audrey. 1996. “Delivering Public Services Differently: Some Practical Issues.” Public Sector Management 7(2): 26–27.
This title is not presently available from the Athabasca University Library.
Gow, James Iain. 1991. Innovations in the Public Service. Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Management Development.
This title is not presently available from the Athabasca University Library.
Harder, Peter. 1997. “Public Administration in Canada: New Ideas.” Speech to Rendez-vous 97, 14 July.
This title is not presently available from the Athabasca University Library.

Please navigate to page 36 of this PDF file to see Langford's paper.

Langford, John. 2000. “Out Basket.” Public Sector Management 11(1): 30.
This title is not presently available from the Athabasca University Library.
Mintzberg, Henry, and Jacques Bourgault. 2000. Managing Publicly. Toronto: Institute of Public Administration of Canada.
This title is not presently available from the Athabasca University Library.
Mylvaganam, Chandran, and Sandford Borins. 2004. If You Build It . . . Business, Government and Ontario's Electronic Toll Highway. Toronto: University of Toronto Centre for Public Management.
This title is not currently available in the Athabasca University Library.
Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. 1994. “Partnership Resource Kit.” Toronto: Queen’s Printer.
This title is not presently available from the Athabasca University Library.
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