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.
Feb 7
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.
Reorganization study published, thirty years later
In 1993, Prime Minister Kim Campbell (right) launched a reorganization exercise that was promoted as “the most significant downsizing and restructuring of government ever undertaken in Canada.” A federal agency, the Canadian Centre for Management Development, contracted with ten academics to conduct a study of the restructuring. (I was one of them.) The overall study was completed, prepared for publication — and then shelved. Nine of the studies have now been posted online. (The tenth study is still unavailable: “There was difficulty in securing the necessary approvals for its release under the current publication guidelines of the Government of Canada.”) The author of the lead chapter, Peter Aucoin of Dalhousie University, passed away in 2011. The Canadian Centre for Management Development is now the Canadian School for Public Service.
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.
Research note on strategic state in AJPA
I’ve written a research note with Ian Elliott: “The concept of the strategic state: An assessment after thirty years.” It has just been published, open-access, in the Australian Journal of Public Administration. Read the note here.
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.
Review of “The Adaptable Country” in Publius
Thanks to Michael Atkinson for his review of The Adaptable Country in Publius: The Journal of Federalism: “A sober look at Canada’s political architecture in light of the social and economic challenges the country is facing. The strong admonitions and constructive advice contained in this excellent book could not come at a more opportune time.” Read the full review.
Conversation at Canada School of Public Service
On December 18, I visited the Canada School of Public Service for a webcast conversation about my book The Adaptable Country. Available on YouTube. And in French.
Bloomberg post on FDR’s ‘dictatorship plan’
This short piece was published by Bloomberg Opinion in March 2012 to mark the seventy-fifth anniversary of FDR’s proposals to renovate the executive branch and Supreme Court. Some critics called it the “dictatorship plan.” I covered some of this history in journal articles published a few years back.
FDR’s `Dictatorship Plan’
In February 1937, Franklin D. Roosevelt was beginning his fifth year as U.S. president. His first term had been grueling, as the administration improvised a response to the country’s unprecedented “national emergency.”
He had been assailed by critics for trampling on rights and creating an unmanageable sprawl of new federal agencies. But now, three months after an election that he took as vindication, the president’s mood lightened. He told friends that he had earned some political capital, and he was going to spend it.
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Alasdair S. Roberts 
