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The Expendables: Community Organizations and Governance Dynamics in the Canadian Settlement Sector

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 August 2013

Nicholas Acheson  and
Rachel Laforest
Nicholas Acheson*
Affiliation:
University of Ulster
Rachel Laforest*
Affiliation:
Queen's University
*
Nicholas Acheson, School of Criminology Politics and Social Policy, University of Ulster, Shore Road, Newtownabbey, BT327 0QB, Northern Ireland UK
Rachel Laforest, School of Policy Studies, Queen's University, 138 Union, Sutherland Hall, Kingston ON, K7L 3N6
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Abstract

Abstract. An emerging pattern of governance in contemporary liberal democratic welfare states is a move away from interest group representation and a public sphere organized around demands for extensions of rights to something much more constrained. This article asks how such a profound shift in representation has occurred through governance spaces that are co-constructed by community organizations. It examines the case of Canadian immigrant settlement where beliefs about citizen representation, the role of the state and the nature of the public sphere have undergone profound change, leaving immigrant organizations as either marginal players or fully incorporated in state sanctioned immigrant service provision. Drawing on documentary evidence and interviews with immigrant organizations and public officials in Ottawa, it shows how immigrant organizations have actively interpreted their interests in the light of this changing web of beliefs to co-construct a new policy regime that favours organizational interests over citizen participation.

Résumé. Au cours des dernières décennies, une des tendance de gouvernance qui se desssine dans la plupart des États providence est que l'espace de représentation politique et de la défense des droits collectifs est devenu de plus en plus restraint. Cet article examine comment ce changement a pris forme dans des espaces de gouvernance qui sont de plus en plus marqués par une interaction dynamique de coconstruction des politiques publiques. L'analyse est basée sur une étude de cas d'organismes communautaires oeuvrant dans le domaine de l'intégration des immigrants dans la ville d'Ottawa. L'analyse de documents et les entrevues qualitatives révèlent que les organismes ont stratégiquement redéfinis leurs intérêts en matière de représentation politique et ont contribué à la coconstruction d'un nouveau régime de gouvernance qui privilégie les intérêts organisationnels au-dessus de la participation citoyenne.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , September 2013 , pp. 597 - 616
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 2013 

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