Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T21:21:23.094Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

L'analyse cybernétique des politiques gouvernementales

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Réjean Landry  and
Vincent Lemieux
Réjean Landry
Affiliation:
Université Laval
Vincent Lemieux
Affiliation:
Université Laval
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Cybernetic analysis is part of the systems approach and has been used by several authors to study governmental policies or public decisions. Nevertheless, the way in which it is used in this article is different from preceding attempts. Regulation by feedback is considered as being complex rather than simple; positive feedback seems neither exceptional nor pathological, and great emphasis is placed on power relations in the phenomena of regulation by feedback through which government policies are formed.

The presentation of different sub-systems of the cybernetic model and of different types of regulation by feedback are illustrated by examples touching on the adjustment of electoral boundaries. In the last part of the article, the first results of research bearing on the sector of social affairs and on that of energy serve to underline three characteristics of the cybernetic analysis of government policies as proposed in this article: the key role that it gives regulation by feedback, its particular attention to the unexpected consequences of action, and its insistence on the phenomena of communication as essential to action.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 11 , Issue 3 , September 1978 , pp. 529 - 544
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1978

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Dans Encyclopaedia Universalia tome 5, 266.

2 Deutsch, Karl W., The Nerves of Government (New York: The Free Press, 1963)Google Scholar.

3 Mehl, Lucien, «Pour une théorie cybernétique de l'action administrative», dans Aubry, J. M., Traité de science administrative (Paris: Mouton, 1966), 781–833Google Scholar.

4 Easton, David, L'analyse du système politique (Paris: Colin, 1974)Google Scholar.

5 Lapierre, Jean-William, L'analyse des systèmes politiques (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1973)Google Scholar.

6 Steinbruner, John D., The Cybernetic Theory of Decision (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974), 83–84Google Scholar.

7 Mayurama, Magoroh, «The Second Cybernetic: Deviation-Amplifying Mutual Causal Processes», dans Buckley, Walter (dir.), Modern Systems Research for the Behavioral Scientist (Chicago: Aldine Publications, 1968), 306Google Scholar.

8 A ce propos voir David, Aurel, La cybernétique et l'humain (Paris: Gallimard, 1965)Google Scholar.

9 Roig, Charles, «La théorie des systèmes et ses perspectives de développement dans les sciences sociales», Revue française de sociologie 11–12 (1971), 85Google Scholar.

10 Ashby, W. Ross, Introduction à la cybernétique (Paris: Dunod, 1958), 249 et sqGoogle Scholar.

11 Cette distinction entre information indicative et information impérative vient de Mackay, Donald M., Information, Mechanism and Meaning (Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1969)Google Scholar.

12 Ace propos voir Watzlawick, Paul et al. , Pragmatics of Human Communication (New York: Norton, 1967), 52 et sqGoogle Scholar.

13 Dorsey, John T. Jr., «A Communication Model for Administration», Administrative Science Quarterly 2 (1957), 310CrossRefGoogle Scholar.