Explaining Institutional Change: Local Special Purpose Bodies in Ontario, 1810-2010

This dissertation examines the institutional histories of local special purpose bodies in Ontario from their origins in the nineteenth century to the present. The analysis is organized around two research questions. First, how have the institutional structures of special purpose bodies changed over the long term? Second, what can an analysis of the long-term dynamics of these institutions contribute to our present theories of institutional and policy change? The dissertation is divided into two parts. In the first part, I focus on special purpose bodies in the midsized city of Kitchener, Ontario. This part tracks a wide range of ABCs - from water commissions to conservation authorities to police commissions, among many others - through the course of Kitchener's history. In the second part, I examine changes to school boards, boards of health, and hydro commissions in municipalities across the province of Ontario. I make three general arguments in this dissertation. First, I argue that changes to local special purpose bodies have a distinctly patterned character, with just one or two kinds of change occurring again and again for long periods of time. Second, I argue that we can explain these patterns, and the shifts from one pattern to another, using a synthetic theoretical approach that I call "Policy Fields". This approach focuses our attention on the institutional and cultural structure of the environment or "field" in which policy decisions occur, as well as the wider interaction among those fields over time. Finally, I argue that we can understand the timing of institutional changes within the broader patterns using a typology of policy fields. This three-part typology enables us to understand the factors that tend to trigger changes within different kinds of fields.Ph.D.2016-11-30 00:00:0