Policy Communities and Policy Networks: The Establishment of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada Education Policy in the Saskatchewan Region

by Wilke, Larry

ABSTRACT The purpose of the study was to determine what policy documents reveal about the domains of policy communities and policy networks in the development of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada educational policies for band managed schools in the Saskatchewan Region.

This was a documentary study, which involved in excess of 5000 pages of documents for the period 1993 to 2005. The conceptual framework used for this study was based upon the theory relating to policy communities and policy networks in three processes: (a) the problem stream, (b) policy stream, and (c)political stream. This was drawn mainly from the work of John Kingdon (2002, 1995), Leslie Pal (1997, 1992), A. Paul Pross (1992), and Grace Coleman and William Skogstad (1990).

The policy process was found to be state-directed with minimal involvement from the associational actors until 2003, when a critical event occurred which resulted in a realignment of the associational actors. Implications for theory included the role of a critical event in the realignment of the associational actors and the resulting change in the policy network. The networking within the subcommunities actors influenced the networking among them. Implications for practice emerging from this study pointed to the need for a tightly integrated associational system of actors when they are faced with a tightly integrated set of government actors, and the need to keep an issue on the public agenda even when it is not on the government and decision agenda. Implications for future research included the issue of policy development and implementation of the policy for the nominal roll process in other INAC regions in Canada and nominal roll policy development and implementation post 2005.