The institutional impediments to state - sponsored community development in Canada's north : the case of the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation ...

• Main Author: McMillan, Ross J.
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2010
• Subjects: Northwest Territories
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0098507; https://doi.library.ubc.ca/10.14288/1.0098507

This study identifies and describes three institutional impediments to state-sponsored community development in Canada's North. Community development is defined as both the process and product of purposive social action aimed at community empowerment. The central premise of the study is that community development initiatives offer promise for overcoming the pernicious effects of colonialism in the North. Dominant modes of northern economic and political development are described and are shown to have resulted in few lasting benefits for northern communities and to have contributed to a pervasive alienation and sense of powerlessness. Recent theory on community development and the state is used to demonstrate that state agencies can be expected to adopt community development objectives in response to conflict or community demands — not out of the benevolence of liberal policy makers. Similarly, the study argues that if community demands for empowerment wane, institutional impediments may undermine ...