Recent Publications

With an authoritative and courageous approach, Beyond Policy Analysis examines public policymaking in Canada at all areas of governance, including Heath Care, Education, Economic Development and Trade. This title goes beyond conventional categories and concepts to examine how the world of policymaking has changed with the increasing pressures of globalization, information technology, changing public values and cultural assumptions, citizen distrust, and decentralization and subsidiary. The sixth edition investigates ever-evolving governance, and proactively discusses contemporary Canadian issues.

For far too long, Canada has lacked a comprehensive resource examining Canada’s charitable sector. That has now ended.

The Muttart Foundation has spent many years focusing on building the capacity of charities in this country. The publication of this collection is another contribution to that effort. By understanding more about itself, the sector can continue to develop and find new ways to serve Canadians and those in need outside our nation.

The authors of these essays bring different perspectives on the role and inner workings of Canada’s charities. Collectively, they bring an unprecedented insight into the work of organizations whose diversity is exceeded only by their desire to serve.

It is difficult to express adequate appreciation to Dr. Susan Phillips of Carleton University for her leadership of this project. She has been a source of encouragement, persuasion, cajoling and improving authors from across the country. Her efforts now bear fruit as we make this material available to students, academics, practitioners and others interested in the history and future of Canada’s charities.

In the digital age, governments face growing calls to become more open, collaborative, and networked. But can bureaucracies abandon their closed-by-design mindsets and operations and, more importantly, should they?

Opening the Government of Canada presents a compelling case for the importance of a more open model of governance in the digital age – but a model that continues to uphold traditional democratic principles at the heart of the Westminster system. Drawing on interviews with public officials and extensive analysis of government documents and social media accounts, Clarke details the untold story of the Canadian federal bureaucracy’s efforts to adapt to new digital pressures from the mid-2000s onward. This book argues that the bureaucracy’s tradition of closed government, fueled by today’s antagonistic political communications culture, is at odds with evolving citizen expectations and new digital policy tools, including social media, crowdsourcing, and open data. Amanda Clarke also cautions that traditional democratic principles and practices essential to resilient governance must not be abandoned in the digital age, which may justify a more restrained opening of our governing institutions than is currently proposed by many academics and governments alike.

Re-issued in 2019 by Routledge Publishers, London. Originally published in 1985. This in-depth analysis of federal energy policy and politics in the oil and gas sector critically evaluates the National Energy Program, one of the most controversial and wide-ranging policy initiatives in Canadian history – an import case study. Bridging Canadian politics and public policy, the book gives an historical overview of the development of energy policy since 1945, examining the shifts in the balance of power between public and private energy interests. It presents the NEP’s positive and negative impacts on energy policy and the nature of political power.

Issues in Canadian Governance demonstrates how the key principles and institutions of governance affect Canadians by revealing how they work in the real world. This text uses an applied case study format to breathe life into the debates that shape Canadian public policy. These timely cases bring valuable context to the various issues explored in the text and allow the text to be leveraged in a practical, hands-on way.

This text also incorporates the voices of expert scholars who provide readers with a holistic snapshot of current thinking in the field of public administration. This broad perspective is invaluable in exploring matters such as responsible government, ethics and public spending, accountability of public officials, access to information, political neutrality and the public service, and contemporary policy debates.

Ottawa, ON, CA: Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy

When the United Nations announced the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000, approximately half a million women worldwide died each year from complications associated with pregnancy and childbirth. The fifth MDG aimed to reduce the maternal mortality rate by 75 per cent between 1990 and 2015, but by the target date, the goal had not been reached.

In The Limits of Trust Lisa Nicole Mills investigates the reasons why Mexico in particular did not meet its objective. Focusing on the states of Guerrero, Chiapas, and Oaxaca, where maternal mortality rates are the highest in the country, Mills looks into how MDG 5 has been implemented in Mexico, how it has been experienced by individuals and groups, what obstacles have been encountered, and what factors have facilitated improvements in maternal health. Using data gathered from interviews with NGOs, government officials, and health care workers, the book argues that government and feminist NGO efforts to build trust in the health care system have fallen short because of systemic failures to protect women’s rights and enhance the quality of health care.

Philanthropy – the use of private resources for public purposes – is undergoing a transformation, both in practice and as an emerging field of study.

Expectations of what philanthropy can achieve have risen significantly in recent years, reflecting a substantial, but uneven, increase in global wealth and the rolling back of state services in anticipation that philanthropy will fill the void. In addition to this, experiments with entrepreneurial and venture philanthropy are producing novel intersections of the public, non-profit and private spheres, accompanied by new kinds of partnerships and hybrid organisational forms. The Routledge Companion to Philanthropy examines these changes and other challenges that philanthropists and philanthropic organisations face.

With contributions from an international team of leading contemporary thinkers on philanthropy, this Companion provides an introduction to, and critical exploration of, philanthropy; discussing current theories, research and the diverse professional practices within the field from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. The Routledge Companion to Philanthropy is a rich and valuable resource for students, researchers, practitioners and policymakers working in or interested in philanthropy.