A Civil Society? Collective Actors in Canadian Political Life

Abstract

A Civil Society? Collective Actors in Canadian Political Life, Miriam Smith, Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2005, pp. 224.A curious thing about Canadian political science is that, compared to its American or British counterparts, it offers very little analysis of collective action outside of political parties. Even the interest groups in Canada don't call themselves interest groups any more. So, when a book on collective actors by a respected scholar like Miriam Smith—who has made significant contributions to the study of Canadian institutionalism and whose book on the lesbian and gay movement is a gem—comes along, it is an event for the field. Because Smith starts the book with a quote from my 1996 article with Jane Jenson on regime shift, I was well invested from the first line and had high expectations that Smith would not only set the macro institutional context that she always does so well, but would provide an insightful analysis of developments in collective action over the past decade that would build on where Jenson and I left off.