Posted Tue, 05/11/2010 - 10:35 in Politics

Dalhousie professor wins Donner Prize

Dalhousie professor Brian Bow wins the Donner Prize for his book on Canada-U.S. relations, The Politics of Linkage: Power, Interdependence and Ideas in Canada-U.S. Relations,

Key Points:

Dalhousie professor Brian Bow has been awarded the 2009/2010 Donner Prize for the best book on Canadian public policy. The award carries with it a $35,000 prize.
The book, The Politics of Linkage: Power, Interdependence and Ideas in Canada-U.S. Relations, argues there was a genuinely “special relationship” between both countries in the 1950s and ’60s and that policy-makers in both countries had a set of “rules” for bilateral bargaining that strengthened Canada's negotiating position. However, while still cooperative today, the relationship is no longer “special” as it once was.
Brian Bow doesn't expect the bilateral relationship between Canada and the U.S. to change much through the next decade or so due to Canada's strategic and economic dependence on the U.S. Canada—and most of the Western Hemisphere—appear to be down on the Obama administration's list of priorities now and likely to stay there.
Brian Bow is the Fulbright Visiting Research Chair at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C. He is working on a new book, moving beyond the bilateral Canada-U.S. relationship to the “Canada-US-Mexico triangle” and the process of regional integration built around NAFTA.
The Donner Prize was established in 1998 to reward “excellence and innovation in Canadian public policy thinking, writing and research.”

Pull Quotes:

“After the early 1970s, control over foreign policy-making in the U.S. became much more fragmented, and that meant that the Americans were no longer able to follow the old post-war bargaining norms. The U.S. still exercises restraint in its dealings with Canada, but that restraint is predicated on costs associated with interdependence, not on a sense of moral obligation or shared understanding.” - Brian Bow, professor in the Department of Political Science at Dalhousie.
“The main thing I expect to see over the next little while is a series of choices made in Washington about national or global policy challenges – (such as) energy, environment, immigration – which will have unintended consequences for Canada, and the two governments will have to get together to figure out how to cope with those changes, after the fact." - Brian Bow, professor in the Department of Political Science at Dalhousie.
"In most cases, Canada will have to adapt to what the U.S. does, but there will also be some opportunities for us to work out compromises or special side deals, if only we are sufficiently engaged, creative, and persistent.” - Brian Bow, professor in the Department of Political Science at Dalhousie.
“The Donner Prize is not just about quality scholarship, but more particularly for scholarship which engages with important real-world policy problems in a way that is accessible not only to academic experts and policy-makers, but to a broader audience.” - Brian Bow, professor in the Department of Political Science at Dalhousie.