Academic Respectability Meets Professional Utility

This paper has two objectives. The first is to provide a new, detailed mapping of the content of Canadian public administration and public policy Master’s programs (hereafter called “MPA/MPP programs”). There have been several attempts to do this in the past (École nationale d'administration publique 1993; Dufour 2000; Gow 2004; Pal, 2008) but in all cases the methodology consisted essentially of a review of calendar descriptions of program requirements and course titles. No attempt was made to actually examine the content of courses to see if similar titles implied similar content. The new approach (discussed below) builds on a database of both detailed course content and an even more microscopic analysis of the concepts that make up that content. This has been made possible through the Public Policy and Governance Portal, a project led by the School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Toronto on behalf of the Canadian Association of Programs in Public Administration (CAPPA). For the first time, it allows, with reasonable confidence, a mapping of close to the complete universe of concepts and definitions constituting the academic field of “public policy and public administration” across the country (and by implication, despite differences in national traditions, a good part of what is taught internationally). Based on cooperative contributions from faculty and students from most MPA/MPP programs in Canada, it provides data on what might be termed the “intellectual molecular” level of the discipline. We have also included a discussion of leading Master’s programs in international affairs – this is also a first – since these programs train students for careers in one branch of public administration, that of international affairs and foreign policy.