Aug 21
I participated in two sessions at the annual conference of the IIAS European Group for Public Administration in Glasgow on August 27-29. On August 27, I gave a presentation based on my open-access article, “The Crisis of Design in American Government.” On August 28, I participated in a plenary session on “EU Relations in Turbulent Times.”
On August 21, I will give a presentation to the National Conference on State Capacity, hosted by the Administrative Staff College of India in Hyderabad. Details to follow.
I spoke with Aaron Wherry of the CBC for his article on the revival of first ministers’ meetings in Canada. The article draws on my book, The Adaptable Country.
My paper “False globalism: Public administration in the United States in the Twenty-First Century” is now open access in Administrative Theory & Praxis. It was originally published in January 2025. Read the article here | Read the manuscript version here.
I’ve also posted a statement about the investigation into this article completed by the publisher, Taylor & Francis, in response to a complaint that requested retraction of the article.
I contributed a chapter, “Estrategias Para Gobernar: Los Fundamentos De La Administración Pública,” to Debates Emergentes Sobre Administración Y Políticas Públicas, edited by Mauricio I. Dussauge-Laguna and Alberto Casas Benitez. Mexico City: FLACSO Mexico, 2025. 297–320. Details here.
My article “The Crisis of Design in American Government” has just been published in the Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration. Read it here. This paper is based on my May 2025 Levine Lecture at American University. You can watch a short explainer video about the article here.
Choice, which is part of the American Library Association, has included The Adaptable Country in its June 2025 list of Top 75 Community College Titles. The complete list is here.
The Choice review says: “”Governments, like living organisms, must adapt to their environments or they will die. This is the premise of Roberts’s timely book. Roberts argues that Canada needs both regular and monumental Royal Commission–style efforts to discuss, weigh, plan, and execute ideas to help it adapt to rapidly changing conditions at home and abroad. [H]is analyses of the problem should be given very serious attention.”
My article “The Crisis That Made Trump Possible Didn’t Start with Trump” was published by The Walrus on June 17. Read it here.
I spoke with guest host Angela Kokott about my op-ed in the Globe and Mail about the need for an annual Canada Summit. Listen here.
My op-ed on the need for annual meetings of Canada’s first ministers and Indigenous leaders was published in the Globe and Mail on June 9. Read it here.
Alasdair S. Roberts 
