The Canadian Political Science Association announces the fifteenth competition for the Donald Smiley Prize. The prize was established to honour the life and work of Donald V. Smiley (1921-1990) and to encourage the ideals of scholarship represented by this great Canadian political scientist. An internationally renowned professor of Canadian government and politics and later Professor Emeritus at York University, Professor Smiley served as President of the Canadian Political Science Association.

Rules

• The Donald Smiley Prizes will be awarded to the best book published in French and the best book published in English in a field relating to the study of government and politics in Canada.
  
  
• To be eligible, a book may be single-authored or multi-authored. Textbooks, edited books, collections of essays, translations and memoirs will not be considered.
  
  
• In the case of a single-authored book, the author must be a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident of Canada or a member of the CPSA in the year the book was published. In the case of a multi-authored book, at least one of the authors must be a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident of Canada or a member of the CPSA in the year the book was published.
  
  
• A single distinguished prize jury has been appointed by the Canadian Political Science Association, which administers the prize for the English and French books.
  
  
• For the 2010 award, a book must have a copyright date of 2009.
  
  
• The deadline for submission of books is 15 January 2010.
  
  
• The Prize winner(s) will be announced at the 2010 Conference of the Canadian Political Science Association, to be held in Montreal.
  
  
• The Prize winner(s) will receive a commemorative plaque. They will also receive/share the set of books submitted in the language of their own book for the 2010 prize.
  
  
• To nominate a book, a copy must be sent directly to each member of the Prize Jury and the office of the CPSA at the addresses provided below. Packages must be clearly marked DONALD SMILEY PRIZE ENTRY.
  

Donald Smiley Prize Jury
Canadian Political Science Association
Suite 204, 260 Dalhousie Street
Ottawa ON Canada K1N 7E4

Gerald Baier
Department of Political Science
University of British Columbia
C425-1866 Main Mall
Vancouver BC Canada V6T 1Z1

Karen Bird
Department of Political Science
McMaster University
1280 Main Street West
Hamilton ON Canada L8S 4M4

Pierre-Gerlier Forest (Chair)
President
Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation
1514, avenue Docteur-Penfield
Montréal QC Canada H3G 1B9

Alain Noël
Département de science politique
Université de Montréal
C. P. 6128, succursale Centre-ville
Montréal QC Canada H3C 3J7

Michael Orsini
School of Political Studies
University of Ottawa
55 Laurier Avenue East
Desmarais Building, Room 9166
Ottawa ON Canada K1N 6N5

2010
Kristin Good
Municipalities and Multiculturalism (Toronto: The University of Toronto Press, 2009)

Excerpt from jury report:
This book will contribute to a renewal of urban policy studies in Canada. By combining a critical questioning of multiculturalism with an in-depth examination of integration and accommodation policies in eight communities in two major Canadian metropolitan areas, Kristin Good establishes the basis for a new field of research and reflection, one in which generally accepted ideas on local democracy, skill sharing and social change are shattered. Her approach relies on a well-developed theoretical framework that allows the author to reveal the profound effect of the demographic and cultural transformations that accompany mass immigration. The effective structure of this well-documented, well-written work predisposes it to be quickly embraced as a course textbook on local politics, but will also find a wide readership among all who are interested in the question of immigration. Kristin R. Good is Assistant Professor with the Department of Political Science at Dalhousie University.

2010
Éric Bélanger and Richard Nadeau
Le Comportement électoral des Québécois (Montréal (QC), Presses de l’Université de Montréal)

Excerpt from jury report:
This work brilliantly revives a tradition of empirical research once prevalent in Quebec political science. With a rigorous and direct style the two authors attempt to provide "avenues of explanation and analysis" illuminating fluctuations in Quebecers' electoral behaviour. Relying on 2007 and 2008 election results and an empirical model drawn from a highly sophisticated original survey, Bélanger and Nadeau draw clear and convincing conclusions about the political and ideological determinants of the vote. Their interpretation of the electoral effects of the debate on the national question and the role of government will undoubtedly influence the political parties and their strategies in the years ahead. More broadly, this book should be mandatory reading for all political commentators in Quebec, who will thereby avoid much misinterpretation – particularly with regard to the ADQ and the party system. Éric Bélanger is Assistant Professor with the Department of Political Science at McGill University; Richard Nadeau is Professor of Politcal science with the University of Montreal.

2009
Gerard W. Boychuk
National Health Insurance in the United States and Canada. Race, Territory and the Roots of Difference, (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2008)

Excerpt from jury report:
In this clear, thorough and accessible essay, Gerard Boychuk proposes a thought-provoking explanation of the divergent paths Canada and the United States have taken with respect to the financing and management of public health care. Moving away from the well established views according to which political culture, institutional configuration or path dependency account for the differences between the two countries, Boychuk emphasizes factors seldom considered by other specialists of health care policy and argues that the politics of territorial integration in Canada and race relations in the United States provide a more compelling explanation for the different history and development of public health care in the two countries. This book offers an inspiring illustration of the comparative turn scholars of Canadian politics are increasingly taking and is bound to become an essential reference in the field.

Gerard Boychuk is director of global governance at the Balsillie School of International Affairs and an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo. He is also a research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Policy Research at the University of Calgary.

2009
Christian Jetté
Les organismes communautaires et la transformation de l’État-providence. Trois décennies de coconstruction des politiques publiques dans le domaine de la santé et des services sociaux, (Presses de l’Université du Québec, 2008)

Excerpt from jury report:
This meticulously documented work, filled with much previously overlooked detail, tells the story of the relations between community health and social services organizations and the Quebec government since the early 1970s. Christian Jetté clarifies the central role played by Quebec community organizations in developing social and health policy. He makes an extremely convincing contribution to our understanding of the process by which the welfare state was formed and transformed in Quebec. His reading of the facts and events involved in the formulation of government health care and social services policy forces us to reconsider the explanations accepted until now of the nature of the Quebec state and the interface between government and Quebec civil society. This is a book that will permanently affect our views of the socio-political dynamic in contemporary Québec.

Christian Jetté is a professor at the École de service social of the Université de Montréal and co-director of LAREPPS, its social practice and policy research laboratory.

2008
Douglas Macdonald (University of Toronto)
Business and Environmental Politics in Canada (Broadview Press, 2007)

Excerpt from jury report:
Macdonald’s book is well-written, accessible, concise, and one of the most outstanding studies of public policy in Canada to appear in recent years. Surveying the whole history of environmental politics in Canada over the last half century, it presents and tests a number of hypotheses about the role of business in the formation of policy in this area. Examining a number of case studies ranging from the controversy over acid rain to the regulation of beverage containers in Ontario, it concludes that business corporations essentially reacted, although not without success, to changes in the political agenda and that they were as much concerned with their legitimacy and “image” as with their balance sheets. Its judgements and conclusions are balanced and firmly based on the evidence, and its analysis will be appreciated not only by students of Canadian environmental politics but by anyone interested in the relationship between business and the state in industrialized liberal democracies.

2007
Garth Stevenson (Brock University)
Parallel Paths: The Development of Nationalism in Ireland and Quebec (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006)

Excerpt from jury report:
Parallel Paths is an intellectually bold foray into the history of nationalism in Ireland and Quebec. Garth Stevenson’s thoughtful and systematic comparison of the development of these two societies from their origins as rebels within the British Empire, yields rich insights into the study of nationalism as well as the present political choices facing the two nations. Stevenson illuminates the effect that Quebec’s early achievement of self-government within the Canadian federation had on its later pursuit of independence in contrast with Ireland’s failure to secure home rule within the United Kingdom and its more volatile struggle for independence culminating in partition. By looking back, he captures the current dilemma facing Quebec and Ireland as they struggle to balance their historical national identities with more inclusive civic nationalities. Stevenson concludes that nationalism is a powerful, positive force in achieving the goals of political and social justice and tempering the effects of economic globalization and mass migration provided that it indulges neither xenophobic intolerance nor mindless diversification.

2006
Gregory Inwood (Ryerson University)
Continentalizing Canada: The Politics and Legacy of the Macdonald Royal Commission (University of Toronto Press, 2005)

Excerpt from jury report:
Continentalizing Canada provides an original, comprehensive, and authoritative account of the Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada. The Macdonald Commission is widely recognized as one the most influential public transcripts in the history of Canadian confederation, steering federal decision makers toward both a neoliberal governing paradigm and the continental integration of the Canadian political economy. Gregory Inwood’s careful research and critical insights into the many and complex processes through which consensus is built around public policies, which initially find little support in public opinion, is a major contribution to the study of contemporary Canadian politics. Though an extensive review of academic and popular writing, archival research, discourse analysis, and elite interviews, Continentalizing Canada skillfully reconstructs the story of how free trade became the major plank of Canadian development policy in the late twentieth century in the face of widespread political opposition and ambiguous evidence. This book also represents a definitive contribution to the growing literature that situates ideas and royal commissions as critical structuring mechanisms in Canadian political life.

2005
A.W. Johnson
Dream No Little Dreams: A Biography of the Douglas Government of Saskatchewan, 1944-1961 (University of Toronto Press, 2004)

Excerpt from jury report:
This is an intensely personal account of a remarkable government. Al Johnson was present at the creation, and for nearly two decades after, as the Douglas Government set about not just reforming but revolutionizing Canadian understanding of the meaning of modern government. The Douglas years marked a political transformation in three respects: the creation of an expert bureaucracy, the introduction of universal social policies and the establishment of active and, on balance, profitable federal-provincial fiscal relations.

Reading Dream No Little Dreams creates the sensation that Harold Carter and Lord Carnarvon must have experienced when they broke through into the tomb of Tutankhamon. ‘So this is what it was like!’ Intimate, knowledgeable and scholarly, Johnson’s account of how populist or protest movements evolve when suddenly confronted with the rigours of governing has timeless relevance. In addition, there are insights about the mechanics of provincial politics and policy-making. Mesmeric as the leader was, Johnson makes clear that the Douglas Government was by no means a one-man operation.

Even the story of how this book came to be published is unique, with a senior civil servant going back to rework his forty-year-old dissertation to document a government and movement that has been woefully understudied.

2004
David A. Good (University of Victoria)
The Politics of Public Management: The HRDC Audit of Grants and Contributions (University of Toronto Press, 2003)

Excerpt from jury report:
David Good’s The Politics of Public Management is the product of a happy circumstance in a very unhappy episode in recent Canadian politics. During the first six months of 2000, questions arising from an internal audit conducted by HRDC (Human Resources Development Canada) dominated national politics. Dr. David Good, a career public servant with a Ph D in Public Policy, was an Assistant Deputy Minister in HRDC during the period when his Department was under intense public scrutiny. His book is a superbly written, insightful insider’s account of the story. It provides a close-up look at the trade-offs that are made as the imperatives of the classic system of responsible government give way to those of the New Public Management. It also shows the power of the media both to drive the agenda of those on the inside of government and to create on the outside their own public version of events. Good’s book is a healthy reality check for citizens and political scientists concerned with declining public confidence in democratic governance.

2003
John Borrows (University of Victoria)
Recovering Canada: The Resurgence of Indigenous Law (University of Toronto Press, 2002)

Excerpt from jury report:
John Borrows had a formidable task in writing Recovering Canada: The Resurgence of Indigenous Law. First, in outlining the contribution of traditional aboriginal law to the Common Law in Canada, he had to find a way to make the narrative compelling to those whose interest in legal studies extends beyond standard case law, and into a more esoteric realm. Second, at least for the purpose of this prize, he was obliged to make his argument broadly appealing to political scientists. He succeeded brilliantly on both dimensions. The book constitutes a fascinating journey into a portion of our shared heritage that most Canadians know little about. Recovering Canada should become a staple for students of aboriginal studies and constitutional politics in Canada.

2002
Patrick Macklem (University of Toronto)
Indigenous Differences and the Constitution of Canada (University of Toronto Press, 2001)

Excerpt from jury report:
The book Indigenous Difference and the Constitution of Canada is a landmark study. Professor Patrick Macklem has produced a sweeping account of "indigenous difference", in which he first explores its dimensions and then demonstrates how Aboriginal differences imply distinct indigenous interests, rights and positions in the Canadian constitutional order, an order that itself gains legitimacy by justly accommodating indigenous difference. The book is remarkable for its scope, its deep and thorough research in law, political science, philosophy and history, and its subtle and sophisticated argumentation. It is also distinguished by the author's unbending concern for justice, fairness and equality.

2001
Tom Flanagan (University of Calgary)
First Nations? Second Thoughts (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2000)

2000
David E. Smith (University of Saskatchewan)
The Republican Option in Canada, Past and Present (University of Toronto Press, 1999)

1998
Samuel V. LaSelva (University of British Columbia)
The Moral Foundations of Canadian Federalism (McGill-Queen's University Press, 1996)

1996
Ronald Manzer (University of Toronto)
Public Schools & Political Ideas: Canadian Educational Policy in Historical Perspective (University of Toronto Press, 1994)

1994
Stephen McBride (Simon Fraser University)
Not Working: State, Unemployment, and Neo-Conservatism in Canada (University of Toronto Press, 1992)

1992
Donald J. Savoie (Université de Moncton)
The Politics of Public Spending in Canada (University of Toronto Press, 1990)