So-Called Experts: How American Consultants Remade the Canadian Civil Service, 1918-1921

by Alasdair Roberts

In 1918-1919, the Canadian government hired consultants to undertake a project of government restructuring that was hailed as “the most advanced measure of civil service reform” in the world. But the men charged with running the Canadian government hated the results. They called it “the vicious system.” The 1918-1919 reforms hindered the effectiveness of the Canadian government for decades. So why were the reforms adopted at all? In So-Called Experts, Alasdair Roberts examines the critical role of an emerging group of civil service experts whose view of the reform problem was driven by their experience in the corrupt world of Chicago's municipal government. Struggling to establish their own credentials, these experts refused to concede that their prescriptions were irrelevant to the problems that the Canadian government faced at the end of the First World War. All experts must develop “rhetorical strategies” to defend their legitimacy, Roberts says. But these rhetorical strategies sometimes have perverse effects for the organizations that receive expert advice.Alasdair Roberts is presently the Jerome L. Rappaport Professor of Law and Public Policy at Suffolk University Law School in Boston. He received his BA in Politics from Queen’s University in Canada, a JD from the University of Toronto, and an MPP and PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University. He is a Fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Public Administration.

114 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 3, 2012

About the author

Alasdair Roberts is a professor of political science and public policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.