Public administration in Canada needs to change. A handful of scholars across Canada have been sounding the alarm for years but to no avail. Talented young bureaucrats have been joining the public service with fresh ideas capable of creating real change, but the black hole consumes all. In The Black Hole of Public Administration, experienced public servant Ruth Hubbard and public administration iconoclast Gilles Paquet sound a wake-up call to the federal public service. They lament the lack of "serious play" going on in Canada's public administration today and map some possible escape plans. They look to a more participatory governance model - "open source" governing or "small g" governance - as a way to liberate our public service from antiquated styles and systems of governing. In their recognizably rebellious style, Hubbard and Paquet demand that public administration scholars and senior level bureaucrats pull their heads out of the sand and confront the problems of the current system and develop a new system that can address the needs of Canada today.

In 2004, Paul Martin asked Justice John Gomery to lead a public inquiry into potential misspending in the federal Sponsorship Program, a relatively small investment of taxpayers' money to try to convince Quebeckers of the benefits of Canadian federalism in the aftermath of the 1995 referendum on Quebec separation.

The Gomery inquiry chose to focus exclusively on the sordid details of the money laundering and paid no attention to the deeper causes and sources of the problem: the dysfunctions of an existing centralized governing apparatus that is tearing the fabric of the country apart and the collusion of centralizing groups defending the status quo.

This volume explores and contextualizes the contributions of Gilles Paquet as a social scientist. A quintessential public intellectual, Gilles Paquet's long and multifaceted career has shown him to be a thinker of significant power and creativity. This self-described "homo hereticus"--always critical and sometimes controversial--has influenced scholars and policy makers in Canada and around the globe. The contributors reveal how his assessments of economics, politics, public administration, and education have stirred their minds and helped them make sense of the world around them. The volume also provides comments on Paquet's vision of governance, touching on concepts of which he has made extensive use: meso-analysis, social learning, and moral contracts.
Cet ouvrage examine et remet en contexte les travaux de Gilles Paquet, economiste et historien qui tout au long de sa carriere a ete un intellectuel public et un penseur d'une remarquable creativite. Celui qui se decrit lui-meme comme un homo hereticus -- esprit critique ne craignant pas la controverse -- a exerce une grande influence dans les milieux universitaires et dans le monde des decideurs au Canada et ailleurs. Les auteurs montrent comment ses ecrits et ses commentaires sur l'economie, la politique, l'administration publique et l'education les ont aides a mieux comprendre le monde qui les entoure. Cet ouvrage presente notamment certaines des reactions par rapport a sa conception de la gouvernance et a son usage de concepts tels la meso-analyse, l'apprentissage social et le contrat moral.

"The Case for Decentralized Federalism" and its sister volume "The Case for Centralized Federalism "are the outcome of the Federalism Redux Project, created to stimulate a serious and useful conversation on federalism in Canada. They provide the vocabulary and arguments needed to articulate the case for a centralized or a decentralized Canadian federalism.

"The Case for Decentralized Federalism" brings together experts who believe decentralized federalism is the optimal arrangement for governing the contextual diversity and cultural pluralism in Canada. Using different approaches, they argue that by dividing the work of public governance among different levels of government, it is easier to address the needs and aspirations of the diverse groups that make up Canada.

Can genes determine which fifty-year-old will succumb to Alzheimer's, which citizen will turn out on voting day, and which child will be marked for a life of crime? Yes, according to the Internet, a few scientific studies, and some in the biotechnology industry who should know better. Sheldon Krimsky and Jeremy Gruber gather a team of genetic experts to argue that treating genes as the holy grail of our physical being is a patently unscientific endeavor. Genetic Explanations urges us to replace our faith in genetic determinism with scientific knowledge about how DNA actually contributes to human development. The concept of the gene has been steadily revised since Watson and Crick discovered the structure of the DNA molecule in 1953. No longer viewed by scientists as the cell's fixed set of master molecules, genes and DNA are seen as a dynamic script that is ad-libbed at each stage of development. Rather than an autonomous predictor of disease, the DNA we inherit interacts continuously with the environment and functions differently as we age. What our parents hand down to us is just the beginning. Emphasizing relatively new understandings of genetic plasticity and epigenetic inheritance, the authors put into a broad developmental context the role genes are known to play in disease, behavior, evolution, and cognition. Rather than dismissing genetic reductionism out of hand, Krimsky and Gruber ask why it persists despite opposing scientific evidence, how it influences attitudes about human behavior, and how it figures in the politics of research funding.

Genes have become mythologized as truth-tellers and explanations for everything from homosexuality to heavy drinking. More and more, the unregulated findings of genetic science are being written into insurance policies, employment contracts, into law enforcement and education. This new edition of Hubbard's book challenges the current hegemony of gene research, exploring both its scientific and social implications, including new advances such as genetic cloning.

"Exposing the ideological bases of the medical/scientific information (and disinformation) we receive, Hubbard . . . gives us a book sophisticated in its analysis but accessible in its style." --Ms. Magazine For a range of historical and contemporary issues in eugenics, human evolution, and procreative technology, Ruth Hubbard explains why scientific descriptions and choices should not generalize human, or female, attributes without acknowledging the realities of people's lives. Sophisticated in its analysis, yet not at all technical in its exposition, this book will find a wide readership among feminists, the general public, and the scientific community.