Shapeshifting: Political rationalities, Lean, and the transforming landscapes of Canadian public bureaucracies

In this dissertation, I explore the question of how Canadian public bureaucracies have changed over time to reflect broader shifts within and between political rationalities. Drawing from a range of critical approaches to power, policy, and public administration including governmentality studies and critical policy studies, I offer complex answers. By deploying concepts such as political rationalities, political programmes and technologies, assemblages, and translation, I argue that Canadian public bureaucracies “shapeshift” alongside changes in their broader contexts, forming and “re-forming” as Canada has transitioned from its nation-building period in the nineteenth century to the Keynesian welfarist period in the mid-twentieth century and, ultimately, the neoliberal period of the last thirty years. I pay particular attention to the neoliberalization of bureaucracies through the case study of Saskatchewan’s implementation of Lean Management (Lean), a management approach derived from the industrial practices of mid-century Toyota. I begin by tracing the genealogies of both Canadian public bureaucracies as well as Lean. My genealogy of Canadian public bureaucracies draws on Royal Commissions and other similar state transcripts to trace how public bureaucracies have been conceptualized throughout the history of the Canadian state. I then utilize sources such as historical budget documents and departmental reports to explore how the discursive claims of these periods are rendered tangible through material arrangements. Following this, I explore the genealogy of Lean, tracing how it emerged in 1950s Japan, how it was introduced into North America industry in the 1980s as part of the wave of emulation of Japanese manufacturing techniques by North American firms. Next, I trace how Lean became a form of knowledge and expertise around which a global network of experts, consultants, authors and management gurus crystalized. I then draw on interviews and extensive documentary analysis to tell the story of Saskatchewan’s Lean initiative, an enormously contentious process that dominated the province’s political landscape in the past decade. Drawing on this diverse set of methods and sources, I demonstrate how and why Lean’s trajectory came to intersect with that of Canadian public bureaucracies, arguing that as bureaucracies “shapeshift,” they adopt, repurpose and deploy an ever-changing set of political programmes and technologies to more closely reflect the shifting dynamics of political rationalities.

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