2022 Award Winners (two)
DONALD SAVOIE, UniversitÉ de MONCTON
Donald Savoie is a prolific author who has documented the governance process in Canada like no other. In 33 books, more than 40 articles and over 100 chapters, Dr. Savoie has illustrated in detail for students, scholars, practitioners and policy-makers how Canadian politics – including public administration and public policy – really works. The “Savoie thesis” about the centralization of power in government is routinely referenced when talking about Canadian government. He has also been commissioned to write more than 70 reports for government. Dr. Savoie is widely recognized in academia, government and around the world for his expertise, and he has received multiple honorary degrees. The Université de Moncton renamed its public policy and public administration institute after him. He has also been called upon to serve on advisory boards for Senate appointments and the Order of Canada. Beyond these achievements, he is also a past president of the Canadian Political Science Association and a valued mentor of scholars and public servants alike.
GRAHAM WHITE, University OF TORONTO
Graham White is an outstanding scholar of Canadian politics who has had a profound impact on the field through his scholarship, leadership and mentorship. Dr. White’s scholarship on executive and legislative institutions in Canada and Ontario is foundational, but his more recent focus on governance in the northern territories has had a profound effect on Canadian political science. His work has brought the study of the northern territories into a conversation that would usually encompass only provincial politics, and at the same time has expanded our knowledge of how alternative and Indigenous governance practices can enrich parliamentary institutions. Dr. White has held many important leadership positions in the academy, including president of the Canadian Political Science Association, director of the Ontario Legislative Internship Program, and co-editor of the Canadian Journal of Political Science. Dr. White has also been a dedicated and inspirational mentor for more than two dozen PhD students, many of whom have taken his enthusiasm for the Canadian institutions to new levels.
2021 Award Winner
ELISABETH GIDENGIL, McGILL UNIVERSITY
Elisabeth Gidengil’s many accomplishments include a position as a Shorenstein Fellow in Press, Politics, and Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government in 2000 and as President of the Canadian Political Science Association from 2006-7. Her work includes 9 books, 5 edited books or special issues, 72 peer-reviewed articles and 18 book chapters as well as over $10 million in funded research projects. Her impressive career has been recognized with an honourary doctorate from Université Laval (2014) and with her induction as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (2013).
Professor Gidengil helped shape the literature on Canadian voters and kept the Canadian Election Study going with her fundraising skills and continued leadership and scholarship. In particular, her work on gender and diversity has established Canada at the forefront of those fields and her mentorship of generations of scholars has broadened her reach. Her work has become foundational in the comparative literature and her theories and findings have been applied to cases worldwide.
Over her 35-year career at McGill, Professor Gidengil has served as a patient mentor and role model to multiple generations of political scientists and the community of Canadian Political Science is unthinkable without her.
2020 Award Winner
ALAIN-G. GAGNON, UNIVERSITÉ DU QUÉBEC À MONTRÉAL
Alain-G. Gagnon currently holds a Canada Research Chair in Quebec and Canadian Studies at UQAM. Among his many awards and prestigious honours, he has served as the President of the Academy of Social Sciences, Royal Society of Canada, and received the Governor General’s International Award for Canadian Studies. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada.
We note his impressive contributions to the study of Canadian politics generally, and especially concerning Quebec politics and society, federalism and multinationalism. He has written, edited or co-produced over sixty books and almost three hundred journal articles and book chapters along with many additional academic presentations, book reviews and press commentaries.
Dr. Gagnon has studied particular aspects of Canada’s political system and has also viewed Canada in comparative perspective. During his distinguished career he has contributed many highly valued studies such as: L’Âge des incertitudes: essais sur le fédéralisme et la diversité nationale (2011; nominated for the Canadian Political Science Association’s Donald Smiley prize), James Bickerton, Alain-G. Gagnon and Patrick Smith, Ties That Bind: Parties and Voters in Canada, (1999); Alain-G. Gagnon and Mary Beth Montcalm, Quebec: Beyond the Quiet Revolution (1989); Alain-G. Gagnon and François Rocher, “Multilateral Agreement: The Betrayal of the Federal Spirit”, in D. Brown and R. Young, eds., Canada: The State of the Federation (1992); and Alain-G. Gagnon and Guy Lachapelle, “Quebec Confronts Canada: Two Competing Societal Projects Searching for Legitimacy”, published in Publius: The Journal of Federalism (1996).
2019 Award Winner
GRACE SKOGSTAD, UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
Grace Skogstad (PhD, University of British Columbia) is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto, where she has served as Chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto Scarborough since 2012.
Professor Skogstad has published 10 books and over 100 journal articles, book chapters and policy briefs. Her interest in Canadian agricultural policy led to the publication of two major studies, The Politics of Agricultural Policy-Making in Canada (1987), and Internationalization and Canadian Agriculture: Policy and Governing Paradigms (2008). She helped to pioneer the study of policy networks in Canada. Her edited book, Policy Paradigms, Transnationalism, and Domestic Politics (2011) and her many articles in the top Canadian political science and comparative public policy journals have made her a leading authority on ideas and policy change in Canada, the US and Europe. She is also the co-editor of the most widely read text on Canadian federalism, Canadian Federalism: Performance Effectiveness and Legitimacy, the 4th edition of which will be published in 2020.
Professor Skogstad has trained a generation of Canadian political scientists, supervising or co-supervising 28 PhD Students. Her former students hold tenured positions in a variety of universities, including Exeter in the UK and Yale in the US. Others hold senior positions in the Canadian and Ontario governments. As President of the Canadian Political Science Association, Co-Chair of the Aid to Scholarly Publications Program, and, currently, as the President of the International Public Policy Association, she has also sought to advance the study of Canadian politics and comparative public policy in Canada as well as overseas.
2018 Award Winner
ANDRÉ BLAIS, UNIVERSITÉ DE MONTRÉAL
André Blais‘ research and publications have established important networks linking Canada to the international political science community, as well as encouraging the study of Canada as an important case within the comparative study of electoral politics and election systems. His research has led to breakthroughs in many areas of Canadian politics and comparative politics: political participation, public opinion, voting behaviour, electoral campaigns, democratic accountability, electoral systems, the impact of institutions, and public policy. He is also at the forefront of the use of experimental methods in political science.
2017 Award Winner
Richard Johnston, University of British Columbia
Richard Johnston (PhD Stanford) holds the Canada Research Chair in Public Opinion, Elections, and Representation. He has also taught at the University of Toronto, the California Institute of Technology, Harvard University (Mackenzie King chair, 1994-5), and the University of Pennsylvania. He has held visiting fellowships at Queen’s University at Kingston, the Mannheimer Zentrum für Europäische Sozialforschung (MZES), and the Australian National University. From 2009 to 2012, he was a Marie Curie Research Fellow attached to the European University Institute. His research falls into three major areas:
Electoral systems, party systems, and parties. This interest spans his entire career and involves close investigation of patterns in Canada and the US. On the Canadian side, much of the work is captured in a forthcoming book with UBC Press, The Canadian Party System: An Analytic History (working title, suggestions welcome!). On the US side, the major contribution is The End of Southern Exceptionalism: Class, Race, and Partisan Change in the Postwar South (with Byron E. Shafer). This book won prizes from both APSA and the Southern Political Science Association.
Communications media and campaigns. This interest dates from his time as Principal Investigator of the 1988 and 1992-3 Canadian Election Studies. These were the first designs for national-scale fieldwork that enabled capturing the ephemera of campaigns and linking them to media quantities. The first product of this research was Letting the People Decide: Dynamics of a Canadian Election (with André Blais, Henry E. Brady, and Jean Crête), which won the Harold Adams Innis Prize for the best book in the social sciences in Canada. The 1992-93 study resulted in The Challenge of Direct Democracy: the 1992 Canadian Referendum (with Blais, Elisabeth Gidengil, and Neil Nevitte). The Canadian work attracted an international audience and led Johnston to the University of Pennsylvania, where he brought the National Annenberg Election Survey into existence. The NAES was fielded in 2000, 2004, and 2008. The most important product of this initiative is The 2000 Presidential Election and the Foundations of Party Politics (with Michael G. Hagen and Kathleen Hall Jamieson). He is now embarked on a comparative study of campaigns, funded by a SSHRC Insight grant awarded in 2016.
Social capital, diversity and the welfare state. This interest found its first expression in the 1980s with Public Opinion and Public Policy in Canada: Questions of Confidence. It was rekindled in the late 1990s with his participation in a multidisciplinary research group on “Equality, Society, and Community”. It involves ongoing collaborations with Keith Banting, Will Kymlicka, Stuart Soroka, Matthew Wright, and Jack Citrin. The work ranges from survey- and experimentally-based work on civic (and uncivic) orientations to multi-country comparative work on immigration and social spending.
2016 Award Winner
Keith Banting, Queen’s University
Keith Banting is the Queen’s Research Chair in Public Policy and a professor in the Department of Political Studies and the School of Policy Studies. His research interests focus on public policy in Canada and other contemporary democracies. He has had a long-standing interest in the politics of social policy, and has more recently extended his research agenda to include ethnic diversity, immigration and multiculturalism. He is the author and editor of twenty books, and the author or co-author of a long list of articles and book chapters. His publications have been translated in seven languages.
Professor Banting earned his BA (Hon) from Queen’s University and his doctorate from Oxford University. He taught for thirteen years at the University of British Columbia, before returning to Queen’s. In addition, he has been a visiting scholar at the London School of Economics, the Brookings Institution, Harvard University, Oxford University, the European University Institute, University of Melbourne, and Stockholm University.
In 2004, Professor Banting was appointed as a member of the Order of Canada. In 2012, he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, was awarded an honorary doctorate by Stockholm University, and received a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.
2015 Award Winner
Lawrence LeDuc, University of Toronto
Lawrence LeDuc is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Toronto. His publications include The Politics of Direct Democracy, Comparing Democracies (with Richard G. Niemi and Pippa Norris), Dynasties and Interludes: Past and Present in Canadian Electoral Politics (with Jon H. Pammett, Judith I. McKenzie and André Turcotte), and Absent Mandate(with Harold D. Clarke, Jane Jenson and Jon H. Pammett) as well as articles on voting, elections and related topics in North American and European Political Science journals. He is a member of the editorial boards of Electoral Studies and the Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties. In 2013, he was Visiting Senior Research Fellow with the Electoral Integrity Project at the University of Sydney. His current research deals with electoral reform, political participation, and direct democracy.
2014 Award Winners (two)
Sylvia Bashevkin, University of Toronto
Sylvia Bashevkin is a professor of political science at the University of Toronto. She served in 2005-2011 as the Principal of University College in the University of Toronto. Best known for her research contributions in the field of women and politics, Bashevkin served in 1993-94 as President of the Canadian Political Science Association and in 2003-2004 as the President of the “Women and Politics” Research Section of the APSA. She is a felloe of the Royal Society of Canada. Bashevkin is the author of Women, Power, Politics: The Hidden Story of Canada’s Unfinished Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2009), Tales of Two Cities: Women and Municipal Restructuring in London and Toronto (UBC Press, 2006); Welfare Hot Buttons: Women, Work and Social Policy Reform (University of Toronto Press and University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002); Women on the Defensive: Living Through Conservative Times (University of Chicago Press and University of Toronto Press, 1998); Toeing the Lines: Women and Party Politics in English Canada (2nd ed., Oxford University Press, 1993); True Patriot Love: The Politics of Canadian Nationalism (Oxford University Press, 1991); and Toeing the Lines: Women and Party Politics in English Canada (University of Toronto Press, 1985), as well as numerous journal articles and chapters in books.
She is the editor of Opening Doors Wider: Women’s Political Engagement in Canada (UBC Press, 2009); Women’s Work is Never Done: Comparative Studies in Caregiving, Employment and Social Policy Reform (Routledge, 2002); Women and Politics in Western Europe (Frank Cass, 1985); and Canadian Political Behaviour: Introductory Readings (Nelson, 1985).
Charles F. Doran, Johns Hopkins University
Charles Doran is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of International Relations, Director of the Global Theory and History Program, Director of the Center for Canadian Studies, The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), The Johns Hopkins University.
Charles F. Doran serves as co-director of the SAIS Global Politics and Religion Initiative. He is a former professor and director of international management program at Rice University. Doran also directed major research projects on North American trade, Canadian-U.S. relations, Persian Gulf security and U.S.-German-Japanese relations. He is a regular adviser to business and government and has provided congressional briefings and testimony on trade, security, and energy policy. Additionally, he is a recipient of the Donner Medal, the Governor General’s Award for Scholarship on Canada and the International Studies Association’s Distinguished Scholar Award (Foreign Policy). Doran received his Ph.D. in political science from The Johns Hopkins University.
2013 Award Winner
R. Kenneth Carty, University of British Columbia
Ken Carty (Ph.D. Queen’s) is a professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia. He is a specialist on the structure, organization and behavior of political parties and competitive party systems. His widely published research has dealt with issues of political recruitment, leadership and the electoral activities of parties in Canada, Europe and Australia. Carty is a former (1996-2001, 06-07) Head of the Department and a Past President (2002) of the Canadian Political Science Association. A long-time chair of the Publications Board of UBC Press, he currently serves on the Editorial Board of Party Politics, and the editorial team of the Oxford University Press Comparative Politics book series sponsored by the European Consortium for Political Research.
Carty has served as a consultant to both national and provincial royal commissions on issues of electoral organization and was a member of the Federal Electoral Boundary Commission for British Columbia for the last national redistribution. During 2003-04 was the Director of Research for the British Columbia Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform. He is the past Chair (2001-06) of the Board of Governors of the Vancouver School of Theology, one of Canada’s major graduate centers of theological education and research. During 2005 Carty was a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies and in 2005-08 he held the Brenda and David McLean Chair in Canadian Studies.
2012 Award Winner
Peter H. Russell, University of Toronto
Peter H. Russell was a faculty member in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto since 1956, an Officer of the Order of Canada, a member of the Royal Society of Canada, a University Professor at Toronto (the University’s highest internal academic honour), a former President of the Canadian Political Science Association and the recipient of four honorary degrees. Dr. Russell has been at the forefront of profound changes in two subfields of political science in Canada. In judicial politics, Russell was one of the first Canadian social scientists to understand that courts did not act in a vacuum as doctrinal “black letter” interpretivists might assume, and that one needed a more nuanced understanding of the “inputs” and “outputs” of law. His pioneering monograph, The Judiciary in Canada (1987), together with numerous articles on judicial behavior, established an important baseline in interdisciplinary scholarship on legal issues whose fundamental importance has only grown with the advent of the Charter. In constitutional politics and reform, Russell’s Constitutional Odyssey: Can Canadians Become a Sovereign People? explained the perils of what he calls “mega-constitutional politics” and why they don’t work well when their force is prospective and aspirational rather than retrospective in nature. Russell in addition has written the APSA award-winning book Recognizing Aboriginal Title: The Mabo Case and Indigenous Resistance to English-Settler Colonialism and is an expert on indigenous rights. In sum, Peter H. Russell is one of the great treasures of Canadian academia and a giant in Canadian political and legal analysis. Extraordinary scholar, dedicated teacher, respected public intellectual, engaged citizen, theater impresario – Peter Russell has profoundly shaped Canadian scholarship and Canadian public life.
2011 Award Winners (two)
Allan Kornberg, Duke University
Allan Kornberg recently retired as the Norb F. Schaefer Professor of Political Science at Duke University, where he had a distinguished career and contributed immeasurably to the high regard with which Canadian Studies is held at that university and throughout the political science community here and abroad.
Among his notable achievements at Duke has been the mentoring of a significant number of students who have themselves gone on to study Canada.
Allan’s scholarship has been recognized in a number of forums, for example, in his receiving the Samuel Eldersveld Award for Lifetime Achievement from the American Political Science Association.
Professor Kornberg’s scholarly contribution includes eleven books and numerous articles that he has authored or co-authored. His entire corpus of scholarly research has something important to say about Canada, whether exclusively or through comparative analysis with other countries.
John C. Courtney, University of Saskatchewan
John C. Courtney, Professor Emeritus at the University of Saskatchewan, is a distinguished political scientist who is recognized internationally as an expert on electoral systems.
He is the author or co-author of ten scholarly volumes plus numerous articles. In addition, he has written many reports for government agencies, both in Canada and abroad, recommending policy changes with respect to electoral systems.
Recognition of Professor Courtney’s scholarly contributions to the study of Canada comes from many international sources. In particular, we call attention to his tenure as: Canada-US Fulbright Scholar at The Brookings Institution; Halbert Visiting Professor of Political Science and Canadian Studies, Hebrew University; William Lyon Mackenzie King Visiting Professor in Canadian Studies, Harvard University; and Visiting Professor of Canadian Studies, Philipps-University, Marburg, Germany.
2010 Award Winner
Jill Vickers, CARLETON UNIVERSITY
Jill Vickers received her Ph.D. at the London School of Economics and joined the faculty of Carleton University in 1971. She is a renowned authority on the politics of women’s rights, comparative approaches to women’s participation, and the relationship between gender and nationalism.
In 2002 the Canadian Political Science Association established the Jill Vickers Prize in Gender and Politics to celebrate her scholarship. She was named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2003, the same year that Carleton University awarded her a Chancellor’s Professorship in Political Science.
She was President of both the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women and the Canadian Association of University Teachers, Secretary-Treasurer of the Canadian Women’s Studies Association, and Parliamentarian with the National Action Committee on the Status of Women.
Jill Vickers retired in 1997 as Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Emeritus Professor at Carleton University.