Performance measurement in Canadian employment service delivery, 1996-2000

Abstract

This article draws on the theoretical insights of Foucauldian governmentality scholarship to analyze a performance measurement system developed by the federal government in the 1990s to assess employment services for the unemployed. An examination of Human Resource Development Canada's Results-Based Accountability Framework yields insights into contestation and incoherence in performance measurement, often overlooked in governmentality research. This argument is developed by detailing three obstacles to implementing the performance measurement system: dilemmas of technical coordination, contestation by actors invested in different terms of measurement, and widespread recognition of the ambiguities of the performance data. The paper concludes by calling for more variegated accounts of governance in governmentality scholarship.