Critical News Reflection
This assignment requires you to find a recent news clipping about a contemporary issue that involves Canada’s public administration. Relating the issue to at least one of the theories of public administration from Chapters 3, 4, or 5 of the Barker and Mau text or the modules (e.g. structuralism, humanism, or New Public Management), critically reflect upon how the issue you’ve identified is connected to some of these broader theories.
You might explain who the central actors are and how the decisions they’ve made and the policy instruments they’ve chosen impacted the outcomes? Who are the potential stakeholders involved?
How can the theoretical frame(s) you have selected be applied to the issue you’ve identified in the issue? What can they tell you about the topic you have chosen? How do they help you to understand the topic? How might the application of this theoretical frame have changed/influenced the issue? Has the theoretical frame you selected made the situation better or worse, in your view?
In your assessment, you might explain what you might have done differently/similarly within the reasonable constraints of the role and in light of the theoretical framework you have chosen?
This assignment should be approximately 1000 words and be should demonstrate the capacity to both identify and explain why the issue you’ve chosen is reflective of one of the theoretical frameworks in your text, while also critically engaging with it.
The best assignments will seek to incorporate themes from the course into their analyses, and will include references from external scholarly sources. They will also offer an assessment of the issue in the context of a theoretical approach.