PARTNERSHIP AS A NEW STRATEGY IN MENTAL-HEALTH POLICY - THE CASE OF QUEBEC

The notion of partnership is increasingly adopted as a sine qua non for the successful resolution of strategic problems in the field of human services. In this paper, I examine Quebec's recent mental health policy and its operational definition of the concept. I then suggest some of the roots and reasons behind this province's adoption of le partenariat as the basis for policy. I suggest that it is a response to four key strategic problems: (1) the exhaustion of resources and allocation of losses; (2) the loss of faith in government and the consequent need to redefine the role of the state; (3) the loss of faith in professional knowledge and the increasingly forceful voice of alternative and ''psychiatric survivor'' groups; (4) the problem of overload in pluralist and competitive democracy and, related to this, the ubiquitous search for consensus and frictionless solutions. I conclude that in adopting the language of partnership, policymakers in Quebec and elsewhere are being seduced by the possibilities of neocorporatist ideas applied to the management of human services.