The Adaptable Country: How Canada Can Survive the Twenty‐First Century. By AlasdairRoberts, Montreal: McGill‐Queen's University Press. 2024. pp. 192. $24.95 <scp>CAD</scp> (paperback). <scp>ISBN</scp>: 9780228022008

Drawing attention to problems in Canada's governing system, The Adaptable Country by Alasdair Roberts should be found in the hands of politicians, public servants, and academic leaders across Canada upon its release. The book critiques politicization and red tape within Canada's bureaucracy, while directing attention to features of the political system that divert attention from long-term strategy and adaptation. Roberts argues the country's capacity for critical self-reflection and change is eroding, and prompt action is required to adapt to today's challenges. Critically, the book shows public administration scholarship can and should grapple with the dilemmas of long-term capacity for self-governance in democratic societies. The Adaptable Country opens with a sober assessment of the instability of established nation states, including Canada. Roberts argues that governing requires “grand strategy,” or a set of goals and implementation mechanisms to maintain internal order, prosperity, and security. Over time, strategies fall out of sync with world events and threats in the external environment. Historically, Canada's governing system has demonstrated a “higher-level rethinking of goals,” or adaptation (pg. 12). To adapt, Roberts argues, a nation must anticipate dangers, redesign governing institutions to meet these threats, bolster political support for change, and execute new strategy by updating institutions and implementing policy. Canada, Roberts posits, is on the brink of an adaptability trap, “a condition in which large-scale reforms have compromised its capacity for future reform” (pg. 23). The book is animated by a concern that federal, liberal, democratic systems like Canada are slower to adapt than authoritarian systems, raising existential concern about the future of governance around the globe. Roberts' examination of the adaptability of Canadian government unfolds over seven chapter. The first presents the general argument summarized above. Chapter 2 reviews Canada's history of fragility, political conditions that forced political leaders to make conscientious adjustments to governance to maintain the fractured federal polity. How did Canada adapt? First, leaders recognized fragility as a political reality, and leaders maintained a focus on consensus and accommodation within Canada's federal system and political community. Roberts explains political leaders turned to Royal Commissions to study and scrutinize policy and administrative challenges, and these independent inquiries often engaged expertise outside of government. Canada fostered political discourse within the mass public through a robust media environment that illuminated the nation's challenges. This included publicly subsidized media to protect and broadcast Canadian content. A professional public service, capable of policy implementation, and coherent intergovernmental relations between the national government and provinces are also credited with placing Canada on the path of adaptation to major challenges throughout the twentieth century. Roberts documents how Canada's ability to adapt is under threat in the remainder of the book. In Chapter 3, Roberts argues that party discipline and fidelity to party platforms has narrowed political discourse in Canada, reducing the range of expertise contributing to policy formulation. While theories of representation and party government might celebrate politicians' dedication to an electoral platform, Roberts suggests Canada's political system has become overly focused on political messaging and credit-claiming, narrowing the ability of the government to adapt to changing circumstances or embrace innovative problem-solving. According to Roberts, the rise of the party platform as a policy instrument reduces the role of specialized expertise. He explains “Cabinet's role as a delivery body—never substantial—has shrunk…There is less space for ambiguity and complexity, two essential features for any conversation about the future” (pg. 51). Intergovernmental relations are the focus of Chapter 4. First ministers’ conferences, meetings of the Prime Minister and the provincial and territorial premiers, have declined in frequency since the mid-twentieth century. Roberts depicts these dialogues as critical to the adaptation of Canada's governing system, including dealmaking to maintain the federation. The erosion of the first ministers’ conferences illustrates the adaptation trap. As these political forums were used to hammer out complicated consensus on Constitutional questions, other purposes of the meetings, including general deliberation and the illustration of solidarity within the federation, eroded. While meetings among the premiers continue, and while Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is an advocate for international summitry, Roberts argues intergovernmental relations within the federation need repair. In Chapter 5, Roberts argues a healthy public sphere, which includes “all the ways by which citizens talk about public affairs, from broadcast television to social media to neighbourhood meetings,” is also under threat (pg. 85). Historically, investments in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and support for newspapers bolstered domestic content; however, rapid technological change and consumer use of social media for news access renders many of the old policy tools ineffective. Roberts argues that by placing news and media support under the umbrella of the Department of Canadian Heritage, no clear strategy has been developed to foster civic discourse about public affairs. So too, gaps in public knowledge, including faulty understanding of differences between Canada and the United States, leave citizens ill equipped to engage in discourse about how Canada's governing institutions should adapt to meet future needs. Finally, limitations to the national bureaucracy's role in adaption are presented in Chapter 6. Over time, Canada's public servants have become more risk averse due to political pressures. As the number of political staff in the national government expands, professional public servants face more constraints on using their expertise to offer policy alternatives outside the confines of party platforms. Roberts also describes the evolution of mechanisms to monitor federal agencies for wrongdoing and to protect a wide range of individual rights. As the audit culture spawns more reports of government wrongdoing, Roberts argues, “we are more likely to suspect that it is only the top of the iceberg and less likely to believe that the system will correct mistakes on its own” (pg. 117). Again, the adaptation trap strikes as past reforms constrain future flexibility. Roberts offers a nuanced argument about Canada's adaption trap, and while the policy prescriptions presented in Chapter 7 are most relevant to Canada's citizens and political leaders, the book is a valuable contribution to public administration scholarship. The Adaptable Country demands attention to big picture questions that do not receive enough attention from public administration's scholarly community. First, Roberts offers vigorous defense of Royal Commission investigations throughout the book and argues for their renewal in the final chapter. This argument is consistent public administration's contemporary emphasis of evidence-based decision-making, but Roberts acknowledges the appetite for independent inquiry and analysis has been stifled in Canada. Public administration scholars in Canada and around the globe should engage with Roberts' argument about Royal Commissions to consider the investigatory structures that guide governments in future reform. How can independent institutions harness the expertise of society to focus attention on key challenges, and can their reports have sufficient weight to capture both the public and politicians' attention? Second, Roberts reminds us that the conduct of intergovernmental relations in federal systems cannot be taken for granted, requires monitoring, and may be eroding. For Canada, the decay of first ministers’ conferences draws attention. For the United States, the elimination of advisory commissions on intergovernmental relations at the national and state levels over the last three decades should cause alarm. Limited pressure exists for political leaders to work at the intersections of governments within federal systems. Recently, public administration has neglected this topic. Renewed attention to intergovernmental relations is a welcome contribution of The Adaptable Country. Third, public administration gives attention to public engagement and participation mechanisms, but few studies scrutinize the wide range of government supports for the public sphere. In the final chapter, Roberts argues for reorganization of Canada's federal government to systematically consider support for the public sphere, including a Department for Democracy and Heritage and a Council on Technology and Society. Readers will raise critiques about government intervention and independent media and will ponder the implications of these recommendations for public trust in government. Still, The Adaptable Country illustrates that public administration research needs to examine government engagement with the public sphere through a much broader lens than recent scholarship exhibits. In sum, The Adaptable Country challenges Canada's political leaders to reflect critically upon their eroding ability to adapt to pressing global challenges. In Canada, the book should foster discussion about new commitments to intergovernmental relations, systematic and independent inquiry to major challenges through Royal Commissions, and renewed attention to the consequences of technological change for civic discourse about public affairs. For public administration scholars around the globe, this book should be taken as a challenge to ask more difficult questions about the extent to which governing systems can deliver security and prosperity for democratic societies. Eric S. Zeemering is an Associate Professor in the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia. In 2014, he was Fulbright Visiting Research Chair in Governance and Public Administration at the University of Ottawa, and his research has appeared in Canadian Public Administration and The American Review of Canadian Studies.

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