The Machinery of Government: Public Administration and the Liberal State. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that a book about public administration had won the 2020 Donner Prize, which is awarded annually “to recognize and reward the best public policy thinking, writing and research by a Canadian, and the role it plays in determining the well-being of Canadians and the success of Canada as a whole.”

Take a Number: How Citizens’ Encounters with Government Shape Political Engagement. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020. 235 pp., with index

In this first comprehensive study centred on Canada, Gidengil argues that Canada has more in common with European countries than with its less generous and more stigmatizing neighbour (see also Daigneault et al. 2021: 243-4), which leads to different and more optimistic expectations about the feedback effect of Canadian social programs.

The Right to an Age-Friendly City: Redistribution, Recognition and Senior Citizen Rights in Urban Spaces. McGill-Queens University Press, 2020, 209 pp.

Launched by the World Health Organization, the Age-Friendly Cities (AFC) program has been adopted around the world as a framework for developing policies, services and spaces that support active ageing and enable older adults to live well.  In her book, The Right to an Age-Friendly City: Redistribution, Recognition and Senior Citizen Rights in Urban Spaces, Meghan Joy takes a detailed and critical look at the optimistic claims perpetuated by researchers, governments, and institutions that the program can address the challenges of population aging and empower older citizens to shape local policy.