Jack Lucas - Böcker

Everywhere we turn in Canadian local politics – from policing to transit, education to public health, planning to utilities – we encounter a peculiar institutional animal: the special purpose body. These "ABCs" of local government –  library boards, school boards, transit authorities, and many others – provide vital public services, spend large sums of public money, and raise important questions about local democratic accountability.In Fields of Authority, Jack Lucas provides the first systematic exploration of local special purpose bodies in Ontario. Drawing on extensive research in local and provincial archives, Lucas uses a "policy fields" approach to explain how these local bodies in Ontario have developed from the nineteenth century to the present. A lively and accessible study, Fields of Authority will appeal to readers interested in Canadian political history, urban politics, and urban public policy.

Local elections are an increasingly popular area of research among scholars of Canadian political behaviour, offering invaluable insights into the attitudes and motivations of Canadian electors. The Canadian Municipal Election Study (CMES) has collected unparalleled individual-level survey data in eight major Canadian municipal elections: Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, London, Mississauga, Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec City. These elections, which took place in 2017 and 2018, were high-profile, contentious, and often surprising, featuring mayoral defeats, record-breaking turnouts, provincial-municipal tensions, and the first ranked-ballot election in Canada in decades.Combining unprecedented individual-level survey data from the CMES with local expertise from political scientists across Canada, Big City Elections in Canada provides a data-driven overview of each election, while also highlighting the more general lessons the elections teach us about municipal politics and voting behaviour. The chapters in this book make substantial empirical and theoretical contributions to the voting behaviour and urban political science subfields and will appeal to students, journalists, and engaged citizens who are interested in learning more about municipal elections in their cities.

Local elections are an increasingly popular area of research among scholars of Canadian political behaviour, offering invaluable insights into the attitudes and motivations of Canadian electors. The Canadian Municipal Election Study (CMES) has collected unparalleled individual-level survey data in eight major Canadian municipal elections: Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, London, Mississauga, Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec City. These elections, which took place in 2017 and 2018, were high-profile, contentious, and often surprising, featuring mayoral defeats, record-breaking turnouts, provincial-municipal tensions, and the first ranked-ballot election in Canada in decades.Combining unprecedented individual-level survey data from the CMES with local expertise from political scientists across Canada, Big City Elections in Canada provides a data-driven overview of each election, while also highlighting the more general lessons the elections teach us about municipal politics and voting behaviour. The chapters in this book make substantial empirical and theoretical contributions to the voting behaviour and urban political science subfields and will appeal to students, journalists, and engaged citizens who are interested in learning more about municipal elections in their cities.

One of the most peculiar features of municipal politics in Canada is how frequently local politicians, activists, and scholars disagree about how to describe the municipal arena. For some, municipal politics is distinct from other levels of government, a world of non-ideological elections, pragmatic and technical policymaking, and issue-by-issue policy coalitions. Others argue that municipal politics is similar to politics at other scales, with persistent axes of political disagreement and a recognizable "left" and "right." This recurring debate features prominently in municipal election campaigns across Canada.In Ideology in Canadian Municipal Politics, Jack Lucas investigates municipal ideology in Canada. Using data from original surveys of municipal politicians and the Canadian public, the book reveals how municipal politics is clearly structured by left-right ideology. It shows that municipal politicians represent their constituents’ ideological preferences quite well: they understand their constituents’ ideological perspectives, they align with their constituents’ preferences, and they are elected in part because of their ideological alignment with voters.A lively and accessible study, Ideology in Canadian Municipal Politics will appeal to readers interested in municipal politics, political ideology, and political representation.

One of the most peculiar features of municipal politics in Canada is how frequently local politicians, activists, and scholars disagree about how to describe the municipal arena. For some, municipal politics is distinct from other levels of government, a world of non-ideological elections, pragmatic and technical policymaking, and issue-by-issue policy coalitions. Others argue that municipal politics is similar to politics at other scales, with persistent axes of political disagreement and a recognizable "left" and "right." This recurring debate features prominently in municipal election campaigns across Canada.In Ideology in Canadian Municipal Politics, Jack Lucas investigates municipal ideology in Canada. Using data from original surveys of municipal politicians and the Canadian public, the book reveals how municipal politics is clearly structured by left-right ideology. It shows that municipal politicians represent their constituents’ ideological preferences quite well: they understand their constituents’ ideological perspectives, they align with their constituents’ preferences, and they are elected in part because of their ideological alignment with voters.A lively and accessible study, Ideology in Canadian Municipal Politics will appeal to readers interested in municipal politics, political ideology, and political representation.

Canada’s big cities are at the forefront of social and economic change. They account for most of Canada’s population growth, they are magnets for immigrants from all parts of the world, and they have led Canada’s shift from an industrial to a post-industrial economy. Today, perhaps more than ever, Canada’s cities are the places where new policy problems, new political movements, and new demands for representation first emerge. In City Politics in Canada: Forty Years of Continuity and Change, co-editors Martin Horak, Jack Lucas, and Zack Taylor and their team of authors explore how these great transformations have reshaped the practice of politics in seven large Canadian cities: Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Halifax, Ottawa, Winnipeg, and Calgary. In doing so, they revisit and carry forward the ambition of City Politics in Canada, edited by Warren Magnusson and Andrew Sancton and published by UTP in 1983. That landmark volume was the first to offer an in-depth view of Canadian city politics. Forty years later, a new generation of scholars take up the same expansive, cross-country goal. The editors’ introduction presents a holistic picture of urban change in Canada, complete with up-to-date social, economic, fiscal, and electoral data, and identifies important questions. The city chapters, written by local experts, illuminate the dynamics of political continuity and change over four transformative decades. In the closing chapter, the editors synthesize the findings to draw out new insights about the nature of Canadian urban politics.