Abstract: This article assesses the of Manitoba's childcare system, drawing on welfare state regime theory. Childcare in Manitoba is characterized by more solidarity than in other English provinces. Longstanding design features have created a distinctly progressive Manitoba tradition in childcare, in place since the establishment of provincially regulated childcare. Recently, under the NDP, restructuring has occurred in childcare policy, policy-making institutions and the political opportunity structure. Key examples include a wide-reaching community consultation, the announcement of a provincial Five Year Plan, innovative funding, and a new relationship between actors and the state. Despite the flux introduced by such changes, the overall effect has been to further entrench liberalism rather than generate regime change. Failure by legislators to significantly improve childcare cannot be attributed to entrenched policy legacies, which instead readily lend themselves to transformation. As a result childcare in Manitoba highlights the degree to which policy redesign is a political, not a technical, problem. Resume: Inspire de la theorie des regimes providentiels, cet article evalue le social du systeme manitobain de garde a l'enfance. Au Manitoba, les services de garde se caracterisent par davantage de solidarite sociale que ceux des autres provinces anglophones, Dans cette province, des caracteristiques institutionnelles presentes depuis l'etablissement d'un mode provincial de regulation ont cree une tradition progressiste distincte dans le champ des services de garde a l'enfance. Recemment, sous le regne du NPD, il s'est produit une restructuration des politiques de garde, des institutions d'elaboration des politiques publiques ainsi que de la structure d'opportunite politique. Les exemples les plus marquants incluent une vaste initiative de consultation publique, l'annonce d'un Plan Quinquennal provincial, des innovations en maniere de financement et l'avenement d'une nouvelle relation entre les acteurs sociaux et l'Etat. Malgre le mouvement perpetuel apporte par ces initiatives, leur effet global a ete de renforcer davantage le liberalisme au lieu de generer un changement de regime. L'absence d'amelioration majeure aux services de garde ne peut etre attribuee a de profonds heritages institutionnels, qui ont au contraire tendance a se transformer. Consequemment, les politiques de garde au Manitoba soulignent la nature politique, et non technique, de ce probleme. Introduction Welfare state regime theory provides a powerful explanatory and comparative framework for policy. (1) Although most regime studies have been oriented to nation-states, the framework is also useful for analyses of smaller units. This flexibility is particularly valuable for Canadian policy inquiry. Canada has a patchwork of varying provincial programs, characterized by diverse institutional arrangements and bases of entitlement, as well as varying levels and forms of expenditures. Across the provinces, we can identify distinct differences despite identical federal cost-sharing arrangements. Such variation points to the significance of close study of similarities and differences in policy design and political arrangements, including the role of actors. From a comparative perspective, Canada sits squarely within the world of welfare, characterized by a narrow notion of state intervention and a high reliance on the family and the market. In liberal states, a certain constellation of public welfare policies coexist with, and help to reinforce, certain sorts of family and market relations. A key dimension of their policy logic is the primacy of the market and the privacy of the family, resulting in a doctrine of minimal government intervention in the economy and family life. (Sainsbury 1999). In consequence, they express a gender-logic which relies on a traditional sexual division of paid and unpaid labour. …
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Jul 1, 2012
Jayne E Bisman 
Open Access