Charles Conteh (Brock University)
The proposed paper aims to reconceptualize alternative service delivery (ASD) mechanisms in the context of the current era of New Public Governance (NPG). We argue that ASDs can no longer be understood through the market-based orientation and managerialist lens of NPM prevalent in the 1980s and 1990s. Instead, they are best viewed as instruments for deploying collaborative governance to facilitate responsive, adaptive and network-based mechanisms of public value co-creation. These transformations are necessitated by the increasing complexity and turbulence of most policy issues in the twenty-first century. The rationale for their deployment has thus undergone a fundamental shift informed by governance-based logics rooted in principles of relational contracting and the facilitation of fluid networks in program and service delivery. Yet, the scholarly literature has not caught up with conceptualizing these modern manifestations of ASDs within the context of the twenty-first-century policy environments.
We examine the delivery of Canada’s agrifood innovation policy by agencies created and funded by the federal government. These organizations serve as autonomous intermediary platforms, delivering their programs and services through joint ventures with industry and a plethora of innovation ecosystem stakeholders. Drawing insights from the collaborative governance and network governance literature, this paper aims to reconceptualize the mandates and activities of Canada’s agrifood innovation policy delivery agencies, illustrating the emergent practices of ASDs. We will conclude with general observations about ASDs as instruments for enhancing the legitimacy and capacity of semi-autonomous entities to engage in complex and fluid network-based arrangements within their policy delivery ecosystems.