Document Type
Article
Publication Date
December 1998
Journal
Politics & Society
Volume
26
Issue
4
Abstract
The writer considers the prospects for the strategic construction of associative governance in liberal politics and capitalistic economies, taking as an example Ontario, Canada, which is one of North America's leading associative democratic laboratories. He examines innovative dynamics in three discrete but interrelated fields that constituted the policy foundation of an effort undertaken between 1985 and 1995 to build a new partnership-based governance regime mandated to put in place a diversifies quality production restructuring project. The fields that he explores are occupational health and safety, labor market training, and industrial development. He points out that the outcome of Ontario's experiment with new policy structures and practices proved disappointing, as it was only in its third attempt at associational reform, that of industrial policy, that Ontario found any success in coalescing viable partnerships for policy change. He contends that the rise and fall of associative governance in Ontario was driven by the dynamic interplay among party politics,state capacities, and societal constraints.
