Donald Savoie’s rumpled, rounded, amiable and fatigued figure was ubiquitous in the Ottawa of the 1980s, ’90s and the first half of the present decade. Now a Canada Research Chair at the University of Moncton, he is free to pursue intensive scholarly work after years of quasi-academic positions in federal and provincial government—all pursued while holding a named chair in Moncton.
His latest book is a fast-moving but repetitive meta treatment of power in institutions and organizations, in and around Canada, the United States and Britain, the three effectively handled as a single case. The subject is important, the author says, because the future of representative democracy is at stake.
For the thesis, Savoie’s words best reveal the subject of the book, while also indicating its confusion of the concept of power with that of hierarchy (understood as classic rule-driven bureaucracy):
In this book, I argue that...
S.L. Sutherland is a long-time university professor and student of representative institutions (including ministerial responsibility), public administration and social science methodology. She is now at the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria. More information about her can be found at www.slsutherland.com.
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