Alasdair
Roberts
Alasdair Roberts is a professor of public policy at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He writes extensively on problems of governance, law, and policy. Among his many books are Strategies for Governing, which won a book award from the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA); The Logic of Discipline, which received an ASPA honourable mention; and Blacked Out, which received the Brownlow Book Award from the US National Academy of Public Administration. He received the 2014 Grace-Pépin Access to Information Award for his research on open government and the 2022 Riggs Award for Lifetime Achievement in International and Comparative Public Administration. Roberts serves on the editorial boards of several journals in the field of public administration and is the first non-US citizen to be elected as a Fellow of the US National Academy of Public Administration. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Award History
2025 Finalist
Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writingfor The Adaptable Country: How Canada Can Survive the Twenty-First Century
Jury Citation
“It is popular to claim Canada is broken. Public frustration builds as governments seem reluctant or unable to effectively address the everyday problems Canadians face. Alasdair Roberts expertly suggests the problem is that our institutions lack a plan to adapt to the changes the future is bringing. His evidence includes the short-term focus of politicians; no regular, constructive federal-provincial engagement on policy issues; and a public service drowning in rules and layers of bureaucracy that stymies action. In a cogently argued, tightly focused, very accessible 141 pages, The Adaptable Country outlines how Canada can fix what is broken. It’s a timely guide for rebuilding trust and efficacy in Canada’s institutions and should be required reading for all Canadians, particularly those presently sitting in parliament and provincial legislatures.” —2025 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize jury (Jennifer Ditchburn, Sara Mojtehedzadeh, and Christopher Waddell)
