Jerald Sabin

• PhD (Political Science), University of Toronto, 2016

• MA (Public Administration), Carleton University, 2009

• Bachelor of Public Affairs and Policy Management, Carleton University, 2007

Jerald Sabin’s research explores the formation of Canada’s administrative state, including its Westminster parliamentary democracy, federal system, and relations with Indigenous nations and collectivities. His work examines the development of Canada’s territorial system, contemporary territorial governments, and how Indigenous resurgence is reshaping the governance systems of Canada’s North.

Sabin is leading three research projects. The first is a SSHRC-funded study examining leadership selection in the “consensus governments” of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. A second research project examines the role of the Canadian Department of the Interior (1873-1936) in reshaping the Canadian prairies and setting out the administrative and governance framework for all of Canada’s colonial possessions. A final research project considers the use of territories as a jurisdictional form to govern both remote and Indigenous-majority lands in Canada, the United States, and Australia.

“Canada represents a singular experiment: a settler federation grappling with its past, facing its colonial present, and charting an innovative future. I have witnessed this future most clearly working alongside Northern Indigenous and settler communities. Canada’s North is on the leading edge of political, constitutional, and administrative changes that are fundamentally remaking how Canadians govern themselves. Learning from the past, while planning for our shared future, is at the heart of my research agenda.“

• Sabin, Jerald. 2024. “Settler colonialism and the administrative state: The transfer of the Government of the Northwest Territories to Yellowknife in 1967.” Canadian Public Administration. 67.1: 149-165.
• Sabin, Jerald, Daniel Mosannef, and Christopher Alcantara. 2024. “Representative democracy and cabinet selection: The determinants of ministerial appointment in territorial government.” Canadian Public Administration. 67.1: 54-71.
• Sabin, Jerald. 2023. “What is a territory? Comparative federalism and state formation in North America.” Territory, Politics, Governance, 1-17.
• Sabin, Jerald. 2022. “Federalism, Multilevel Politics, and the Occupation of Ottawa.” Canadian Journal of Political Science. 55.3: 747-753.
• Thomas, Paul E.J. and Jerald Sabin. 2019. “Religion and the 2017 Conservative Party of Canada Leadership Race.” Canadian Journal of Political Science, 52.4: 801-823.
• Sabin, Jerald and Andrea Olive. 2018. “Slack: Adopting Social Networking Platforms for Active Learning.” PS: Political Science & Politics, 51.1: 183-189.
• Sabin, Jerald. 2014. “Contested Colonialism: Responsible Government and Political Development in Yukon.” Canadian Journal of Political Science, 47.2: 375-396. [Winner 2015 John McMenemy Prize]

• Rayside, David Morton, et al. Religion and Canadian Party Politics. UBC Press, 2017.

• Sabin, Jerald and Kyle Kirkup. 2019. “Competing Masculinities and Political Campaigns.” Mediation of Gendered Identities in Canadian Politics. Eds. Angelia Wagner and Joanna Everitt. Vancouver: UBC Press.
• Sabin, Jerald. 2018. “Fiscal Outlier: Yukon in an Austere Age.” Canadian Provincial and Territorial Paradoxes: Public Finances, Services and Employment in an Era of Austerity. Eds. Carlo Fanelli and Bryan Evans. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 380-408.
• Sabin, Jerald. 2016. “Alternatives North: A History.” Care, Cooperation, and Activism in Canada’s Northern Social Economy. Eds. Frances Abele, Chris Southcott. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 125-140.

• Jerald Sabin, School of Public Policy and Administration (FPA News, Oct 2020)
• Douglas Todd: How Religion Cuts into Politics in B.C (Vancouver Sun, Mar 2018)
• 2016 Trudeau ends Harper’s tradition of attending Artic military exercise (CBC News, Aug 2016)
• Justin Trudeau’s Election Redefined Politics of Manliness, Study Suggests (CBC News, May 2016)