The Strategic Planning Component in the Policymaking Process for Municipalities in Canada
Canadian municipalities are the products of precedent and the statute law of their respective provinces. Their nonpartisan politics have focussed on the servicing and enhancement of the interests, largely related to property, of a long-dominant commercial elite. Contrary priorities have been subverted by provincial conditional grant programs and other administrative guidance. Even in the largest cities, the realities of fiscal austerity beginning in the 1980s encountered structures and practices unable to manage imaginatively under conditions of stress.
E-Participation and Citizen Relationship Management in Urban Governance: Tools and Methods
Citizen relationship management (CiRM) is a combination of management approaches and information technologies for improving citizen services and citizen participation used at all levels of government. As an adaptation of private sector customer relationship management (CRM), CiRM is experiencing significant public sector adoption rates globally. However, while private sector CRM has demonstrated significant impact in the private sector, CiRM benefits are limited, and particularly lagging in the area of citizen e-participation in urban governance. This chapter provides an overview of the scope of CiRM functionality, with particular regard to the CRM origins and CiRM extensibilities, to develop a broader perspective of CiRM’s capacity for addressing e-participation. Developing this perspective further, theoretical and methodological approaches to e-participation are presented and evaluated in four categories: generic CiRM participation models, e-government CiRM, democratic CiRM, and strategic CiRM. Further research opportunities are highlighted within the context of emerging organizational, technological, and societal trends.
Cultural constraints on the delivery of HIV/AIDS prevention in Ireland.
HIV appeared in Ireland following an opiate epidemic in the early 1980s. Initially, however, the gay community mounted the only response to the spread of the virus while the implementation of early actions by the government was hampered by the constructions of the disease within Irish society. This paper considers the influence of the religious hierarchy in both the development of AIDS policy and in the shaping of public perceptions of the disease and those affected. A qualitative methodology is used to examine the role of such cultural constraints in an evaluation of the social context within which the prevention of HIV infection occurs. Three key issues pertinent to the policy context in Ireland are explored in depth. These are the role of the Catholic Church, the influences on health education programmes, particularly information giving, and the development of services and other interventions. These findings are discussed within the social and political contexts in which health policy is formulated.