Interview on Global News’ West Block
On May 4, I talked with Mercedes Stephenson on Global News’ The West Block about my book The Adaptable Country. Full video here; interview starts about four minutes in .
Posts from the ‘Adaptable Country’ Category
May 4
Keynote speaker at OHA meeting
I’m looking forward to being a keynote speaker at the Ontario Hospital Association’s Health Care Leadership Summit, being held in Toronto on May 1. You can read a Q&A on the OHA website related to my talk.
Review of “Adaptable Country” in Literary Review of Canada
The Adaptable Country is reviewed by George Anderson in the May issue of Literary Review of Canada. Anderson writes: “This is a timely book, especially given Canada’s need to deal with the brutal reality of Donald Trump, whose animus toward us, including talk of annexation, is creating a fundamental crisis for our federal and provincial leaders . . . While Canadians continue to have an enviable place in the world, we face growing uncertainty. Most dramatically, even our close relationship with the United States can no longer be taken for granted. There is a pressing need to develop new capacity for crisis management and for in‑depth reflection on our longer-term challenges. The Adaptable Country helps make the case for action.” Read the full review.
Working paper: “The Broken Republic”
I’ve revised my working paper, “The Broken Republic.” It is available on SSRN. Comments are appreciated. I’ll be giving a couple of talks based on this paper later in the semester.
Abstract: “Advocates for the American republic have long celebrated its capacity for reinvention in the face of new challenges. But there are strong reasons to question that claim today. The American system of government is broken. It cannot respond effectively to major problems or reconfigure itself to perform better. It would be misguided to blame President Trump alone for this state of affairs. Trump policies are largely a symptom of systemic failure, not the cause. The real weaknesses of the American republic go to the core of its current design, which is not equal to the requirements of a large and complex polity. The system is over-centralized. Federal institutions are incapable of expressing and reconciling the aspirations of American citizens. States lack capacity to compensate for dysfunction in Washington. Political innovation and systemic reform are hampered by a nationalized party duopoly, constitutional rigidity, and populist political culture. In large part, this systemic crisis is the unintended consequence of a century of good-government reforms. Putting the system right will also be a multi-generational project.”
Essay in the Hill Times
My essay “Rudderless in the storm: The crisis of adaptability in Canadian government” was published in The Hill Times on February 15. Read it online here | Download as PDF here.
You can also read my follow-up interview with Kate Malloy here (Paywalled) | Download as PDF here
Interview on Hill Times’ Hot Room podcast
I spoke with the The Hill Times’ Peter Mazereeuw on The Hot Room podcast on February 7. The subject was steps that can be taken to preserve Canadian sovereignty. Listen to the podcast here.
Quoted in Hill Times: Trump and Canadian sovereignty
I spoke with Sophall Duch of Ottawa’s The Hill Times about Donald Trump and the threat to Canadian sovereignty. Read the story here.
Excerpt of “Adaptable Country” in The Walrus
The Walrus, a Canadian public affairs magazine, has run a long excerpt from my book The Adaptable Country. Read the excerpt here.
“Rudderless in the storm” in CPA
I’ve written a short paper, a precis of my book The Adaptable Country, for Canadian Public Administration. Read it here.
Citation: Roberts, Alasdair. 2024. “ Rudderless in the Storm? The Crisis of Adaptability in Canadian Governance.” Canadian Public Administration 67.4: 439–448. https://doi.org/10.1111/capa.12592.
Review of “Adaptable Country” in PAR
Public Administration Review has published a review of my book The Adaptable Country. Eric Zeemering writes: “This book is a valuable contribution to public administration scholarship. The Adaptable Country demands attention to big picture questions that do not receive enough attention from public administration’s scholarly community . . . For public administration scholars around the globe, this book should be taken as a challenge to ask more difficult questions about the extent to which governing systems can deliver security and prosperity for democratic societies.” Read the full review here.
Alasdair S. Roberts 
