In 1908, after decades of struggling with a public administration undermined by systemic patronage, the Canadian parliament decided that public servants would be selected on the basis of merit, through a system administered by an independent agency: the Public Service Commission of Canada. This history, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Commission, recounts its unique contribution to the development of an independent public service, which has become a pillar of Canadian parliamentar...

The Canadian Federal Election of 2011 is a comprehensive analysis of all aspects of the campaign and election outcome. The chapters, written by leading academics, examine the strategies, successes, and failures of the major political parties the Conservatives (Faron Ellis and Peter Woolstencroft), the Liberals (Brooke Jeffrey), the New Democrats (David McGrane), the Bloc Qubcois (Eric Belanger and Richard Nadeau), and the Green Party (Susan Harada).Also featured in this vo...

Winner: Donner Prize for Excellence and Innovation in Public Policy Writing by Canadians (2016)Winner: New Brunswick Book Award for Non-Fiction (2016)Recent decades have shown the public's support for government plummet alongside political leaders’ credibility. This downward spiral calls for an exploration of what has gone wrong. The questions "What is government good at?" and "What is government not good at?" are critical ones - and their answers should be the basis for goo...

In this informative critique of contemporary leadership renowned political scientist Donald Savoie poses and answers the crucial questions: where is power located and who is in charge? In recent years it has become extremely difficult to pinpoint the location of political and economic power making it complicated to determine who is to blame for political and economic catastrophes and leading to increased disenchantment with Western politicians and bureaucrats. Power considers how forces such...

There is a consensus throughout much of the western world that the public sector is in urgent need of repair. This study seeks to understand why this is so by comparing developments in Canada and the United Kingdom. It looks to changes in values both in society and inside government, and to the relationships between politicians and civil servants at the top and between civil servants and citizens at the bottom.Donald J. Savoie argues that both Canada and the UK now operate under co...

Global governance is here--but not where most people think. This book presents the far-reaching argument that not only should we have a new world order but that we already do. Anne-Marie Slaughter asks us to completely rethink how we view the political world. It's not a collection of nation states that communicate through presidents, prime ministers, foreign ministers, and the United Nations. Nor is it a clique of NGOs. It is governance through a complex global web of "government networks....

Canadian public administration has provided a rich ground for examining the changing nature of the state. Currents of political change have rippled through the administration of the public sector, often producing significant alterations in our understanding of how best to organize and administer public services. This volume brings together some of the leading Canadian and international scholars of public administration to reflect on these changes and their significance. Providing a histori...

The Hill Times: Best Books of 2016Written by the foremost authorities, The Canadian Federal Election of 2015 provides a complete investigation of the election.A comprehensive analysis of the campaigns and the election outcome, this collection of essays examines the strategies, successes, and failures of the major political parties: the Conservatives, the Liberals, the New Democrats, the Bloc Québécois, and the Green Party.Also feat...

Publicity pervades our political and public culture, but little has been written that critically examines the basis of the modern Canadian “publicity state.” This collection is the first to focus on the central themes in the state’s relationship with publicity practices and the “permanent campaign,” the constant search by politicians and their strategists for popular consent. Central to this political popularity contest are publicity tools borrowed from private enterprise, turning politica...

Bilderberg People explores the hidden mechanisms of influence at work in the private world, and personal interactions, of the transnational power elite. It is not concerned with conspiracy theories; instead it is about certain fundamental forces that shape the world in which we live. These forces, with their power to bring about transitions in emotion and preference within, and beyond, the elite community have potentially profound implications for all of us.Through exclusi...

The federal election campaign of 2005-06 offered the usual mix of lofty rhetoric, competing interests, and skullduggery. Nonetheless, this campaign laid the foundation for a major shift in Canadian politics, bringing the Conservative Party to power and changing the balance of opposition parties. Inside the NDP War Room takes readers behind the scenes to investigate the nature of credibility in the complex communicative game of election campaigns. James McLean considers the ways in which th...

The labor movement sees coalitions as a key tool for union revitalization and social change, but there is little analysis of what makes them successful or the factors that make them fail. Amanda Tattersall—an organizer and labor scholar—addresses this gap in the first internationally comparative study of coalitions between unions and community organizations.Tattersall argues that coalition success must be measured by two criteria: whether campaigns produce social c...