Policy Paradigms and Policy Change

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Abstract
Canadian policy towards Aboriginal Peoples is a complex regime involving property rights, constitutional entitlements, cultural concerns, and interlocking administrative, social, economic, and political aims and goals. Recent events related to constitution‐making have led investigators to suggest that an old “assimilationist” paradigm established in colonial times is in the process of being replaced by a new policy paradigm of “self‐government” and “peaceful coexistence.” Utilizing a model of paradigmatic policy change put forward by Peter Hall, this paper examines the development of the old and new Canadian policy and the reasons for the transition between the two. In so doing, it establishes the need to focus more closely on the relationships existing between endogenous and exogenous sources of change in policy subsystems in understanding the liming and content of policy change.