Where are we coming from? Are there any useful lessons from our administrative history?
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract: This article challenges the notion that contemporary conditions are so new that there are no useful lessons to be learned from administrative history. Beginning with the observation that many recent innovations in public organizations were foreshadowed under the United Canadas, 1841–1867, it asks why they were gradually abandoned over the first century of Confederation, only to be revived recently. For reasons of efficiency and democratic governance, the department became the keystone organization of Canadian public administration, and bureaucracy the key decision‐making technology. Changes in economic conditions, technology, élite ideology and political culture led to the introduction of public management as an alternative to bureaucracy. Neither form has met all the needs of politicians, public servants and citizens. One lesson of the past is that other values, like representativeness, will assert themselves with the result that the system will continue to evolve. Sommaire: Cet article conteste la notion voulant que les conditions contemporaines sont si nouvelles qu'il n'y a pas de leçon utile à chercher dans I'histoire administrative. Partant de I'observation que plusieurs innovations récentes en organisation publique avaient leur pendant sous les Canadas Unis, 1841–1867, I'article cherche à comprendre pourquoi celles‐ci furent graduellement abandonnées pendant le premier siècle de la Confédération puis redécouvertes récemment. Pour des raisons d'efficience et de gouveme démocratique, le ministère devint I'organisation de préférence au sein de I'administration publique canadienne, tandis que la bureaucratie devint le mode décisionnel préféré. Des changements aux conditions économiques, à la technologie, à I'idélogie des élites et à la culture politique ont menéà I'introdudion du management public comme alternative à la bureaucratie. Aucun de ces changements n'a satisfait tous les besoins des politiciens, des fonctionnaires et des citoyens. Le passé suggère que d'autres valeurs, telle la représentativité, vont s'imposer, poussant le système àévoluer encore.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.010 | 0.013 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.024 | 0.062 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.025 | 0.029 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.005 |
| Research integrity | 0.004 | 0.014 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.011 | 0.003 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".