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Governance is a term with various meanings that originated in the business world before being used in the context of public-sector organisations. After summarising the history of the concept and the way it is used in the voluntary sector, the author identifies three lines of thinking about governance issues connected with the development of the voluntary sector model. The first perspective is based on the ability of a voluntary sector organisation to engage with multi-stakeholder models. The second concerns the voluntary sector’s mission to develop inclusive and participative approaches that embrace the groups that are most marginalised in public programmes. The third perspective reflects the wide movement recognising the commons. In conclusion, governance in the voluntary sector appears to have its own dynamics and opens up a new field of research.

ABSTRACTThe role of public demand on innovation is the central theme of this exploratory study which tries to evaluate the weight of the canadian public sector as 1) first user of innovation; 2) user of inventions patented by Canadians; 3) buyer of manufactured products, 25% of innovations find their first use in the public sector, as do 13% of patents and 8% of the manufacturing production. This tremendous market power provides the state with significant impact on innovation, whether it applies an explicit procurement policy or not. Several questions need to be examined in order to develop a deeper understanding of the role of public purchasing and of its potential impact on technological development through such elements as: its buying power, its supply structure, the magnitude of its orders and its requirements concerning product characteristics and links with supply mechanisms.

In 2001, several new municipal governments will be created in Québec. As is the case in Québec City and Hull, Montréal will merge with the surrounding cities. If one considers the differences amongst the public libraries on the island of Montréal, especially regarding the per capita funding, the mergers will have a considerable impact on these libraries.Based on the experiences of Toronto and Ottawa, the stakes faced by Montreal's libraries have become clear. In order to create high quality library service, services will have to be upgraded. Harmonising expenditures will be a major challenge. Following in the footsteps of Toronto and Ottawa, the city of Montréal will become a mega-city. In the near future, it is possible that all services offered by the cities on the island will be overseen by a new structure. This new structure will be responsible for roads, garbage collection and libraries. Should librarians, technicians, managers and library users be wary of mergers? Given that Bill 170 does not specifically mention libraries, this brings us to wonder how the transition committees will consider the issues. This article attempts to identify the stakes faced by libraries in Montréal.

Citizen audit is about investigating, as citizens, local public finances and holding elected officials and decision-makers to account. By studying the trajectories of activists engaging in this practice in France, Spain, and Belgium, this article contends that dissatisfaction with existing representative institutions does not necessarily lead to political apathy or to the delegitimisation of representative democracy. The aim of the paper is to contribute to the literature on critical political judgments. It highlights the critical dispositions of the activists, embedded in social trajectories, and how it gives rise to a yet unconsidered political imaginary: the will to democratise representative democracy through popular control over political representatives. Subsequently, such critical judgments are put into perspective with a repertoire of practices operationalising the control of citizens over powerholders and elected officials. It helps to overcome the idealistic bias of the literature on democratic imaginaries, while helping to shed light on modes of action and citizen participation that are little taken into account in scholarship on collective action.

Keywords: audit citoyen, citoyen-contrôleur, citoyenne-contrôleuse, contrôle citoyen, démocratisation, lien représentatif, action collective, militantisme, France, Espagne, Belgique, citizen audit, citizen-monitor, citizen monitoring, democratisation, representative democracy, collective action, France, Spain, Belgium

AbstractThis paper discusses the impact of the municipal mergers of 2002 on public policies in the area of the municipal cultural sector for the eight Quebec cities of more than 100,000 inhabitants. An examination of cultural responsibilities and activities in Quebec City, Montreal, Sherbrooke, Gatineau, Lévis, Longueuil, Trois-Rivières and Saguenay, on the one hand, and an analysis of their cultural policies, on the other, leads us to conclude that the links between public cultural initiatives and the municipal territories were weak until the municipal reorganisation. The new regional reality of each city will help foster the development of the municipal cultural sector.

Keywords: Politique culturelle municipale, réorganisation municipale, compétences culturelles, Municipal cultural sector, municipal reform, cultural policies

For the last decades the international community has taken for granted that the priority for African women was the question of development. At a moment when development policies and programmes are being seen as clear failures, there is a rediscovery that within African societies women have other priorities. Based on the reality of women in Cameroon, this article shows that a feminist vision of the problems facing African societies is perhaps the only real alternative to the totalitarian systems in power in these countries. The author describes the feminist struggles of the Collectif des femmes pour le renouveau, their positions on certain social questions that are usually seen as being specific to women, and argues that for these feminists, social change in Africa today depends on a personal political choice, a choice to do politics differently.

Cette thèse examine les pratiques d’évaluation des politiques publiques d’innovation dans six juridictions aux économies avancées : le Canada, la France, le Québec, la Suisse, les États-Unis et le Royaume-Uni. À travers l’analyse de 301 rapports d’évaluation, l’auteur démontre que les gouvernements ne s’appuient pas sur des cadres théoriques clairs pour apprécier les efforts, ce qui nuit à la capacité de bien mesurer le retour sur investissement des mesures d’encouragement à l’innovation. Ces évaluations, souvent partielles, parfois superficielles, et basées sur des approches linéaires d’une autre époque, empêchent une bonne orchestration des politiques publiques, conduisant potentiellement à des investissements inefficaces et à des pertes pour l'État et la société en général. La recherche révèle que les méthodes actuelles d’évaluation, notamment l'utilisation d'indicateurs axés sur les …

The aim of this article is to provide a historical perspective on the political and institutional underpinnings of the federal equalization program. The article shows how political institutions and the very development of the program over time structure the debates that surround it and the changes adopted since its inception. After formulating a theoretical framework inspired by historical institutionalism, the article explains the emergence of equalization as a policy issue and the adoption of the federal program in 1957 before exploring the debate over, and subsequent changes to that program and, ultimately, the controversies of the Martin and Harper years. In the last part of the article, we explain how the governance structures of equalization and the competitive nature of executive federalism as well as some of the perceptions surrounding the program make it a potential source of intergovernmental conflict. We also explain how the emergence of minority governments starting in 2004 and the political dynamics during the Martin government have stimulated the politicization of the equalization program.

This paper examines the question of the institutionalization and the autonomy of feminism in the Chilean case. I propose to consider the institutionalization as a process of access to the symbolic, material and political resources, and to evaluate the autonomy of the institutionnalized feminist organizations. Does the institutionalization impeed to defend an autonomous political project? Or, to the contrary, is it a lever for a more autonomous action? To answer this question, the paper will provide a historical and contextualized perspective on the autonomy vs institutionalization debate. The notions of institutionalization and autonomy will then be analyzed by considering the reconfiguration of the feminist movement and the development of the equal opportunities policies, as well as the reaction against this process. As a conclusion, I suggest to considerate these two notions in a positive relationship of mutual reinforcement, in a context where the financial needs of the NGOs lead them sometimes to look for a partnership with the State, even with the private companies, whatever the price is.