Les sondages sur la qualite des services au Canada et aux Etats-Unis: Des pretentions discursives universelles aux particularismes des choix strategiques et operationnels (French text)

In this doctoral study I analyze the modalities of elaboration, employment and interpretation of national surveys which inquire individuals about their satisfaction towards public services. The use of this managerial tool follows from the administrative reforms which took place last decade, inspired mostly from the New Public Management. It is based on the premise that the quality of public services and programs must be evaluated from the clients' point of view, as they are the only ones entitled to judge them, according to their personal needs and personal expectations. However, even if the New Public Management claims universal proposals, we can notice important differences between the surveys adopted in Canada and the United States.; My research aims to define and explain the nature and origin of the pronounced differences between the satisfaction surveys adopted by the federal governments in the United States and Canada. In my field research, I tried to recreate the historical and institutional contexts which gave place to the decisions for the adoption of this particular managerial tool. So doing, I purport to better understand the initiative of surveys as well as some general characteristics of the administrative reforms held by the Canadian and American governments. The critical managerial theories and the neo-institutional theories guided the research.; Through my study, I arrived at two important conclusions. First, one of the most influent elements in the configuration of surveys strategies is the group of governmental actors who planned and carried on these surveys. The profile of the group of actors responsible for the surveys in the countries studied differ in important ways. Their particular profile constitutes an important factor to explain the differences in the surveys adopted. The differences between these groups can be understood by the presence of two different governance systems in Canada and in the United States (Whitehall and Whitehouse systems) which cause the emergence of different senior civil servant profiles. However, the presence of a particular group of actors isn't per se sufficient to understand the differences between the survey approaches adopted in the United States and Canada, which leads us to a second conclusion. My thesis is that, once those actors got the mandate to carry on satisfaction surveys, they used institutional elements to legitimize their approach. On one hand, this legitimacy guaranteed the approval of decision makers to realize the survey. On the other hand, it made possible the adhesion of services and jurisdictions which were supposed to participate in the survey. Two institutional elements were examined in detail: (1) the Federal coordination in both countries, both among federal agencies and in inter-governmental relations; (2) the values that oriented the reforms in the United States and Canada, particularly those which characterize the relations between the administration and the public.