A hitch‐hiker's guide to Ottawa public policy

Abstract

Canadian Public Policy: Ideas, Structures, Process. By G. Bruce Doernand Richard W. Phidd. Toronto: Methuen. 1983. Pp. 624. $21.95.G. Bruce Doern and Richard Phidd's Canadian Public Policy: Ideas, Structures, Process is an important addition to the field of public policy studies and demands to be read in part, if not in full. Its importance lies, first, in the authors who are well known and recognized as among the leaders in the field. This volume represents an effort by the two authors to bring to paper nearly twenty years of thinking and writing about Canadian public policy. Second, the book represents an ambitious attempt to introduce a neo‐institutional approach to the study of public policy, the “interplay” approach. In this regard, the book is ground‐breaking, for it represents the first book‐length effort in recent memory that systematically studies Canadian public policy under the rubric of a general, integrating conceptual scheme. Finally, its importance rests with its extraordinary wealth of detail and insights into public policy institutions, actors, historical trends, contemporary events, and political and public policy theory.