2009 Donald Smiley Prize

Winner: Gerard W. Boychuk

National Health Insurance in the United States and Canada. Race, Territory and the Roots of Difference, (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2008)

Excerpt from jury report: 

In this clear, thorough and accessible essay, Gerard Boychuk proposes a thought-provoking explanation of the divergent paths Canada and the United States have taken with respect to the financing and management of public health care. Moving away from the well established views according to which political culture, institutional configuration or path dependency account for the differences between the two countries, Boychuk emphasizes factors seldom considered by other specialists of health care policy and argues that the politics of territorial integration in Canada and race relations in the United States provide a more compelling explanation for the different history and development of public health care in the two countries. This book offers an inspiring illustration of the comparative turn scholars of Canadian politics are increasingly taking and is bound to become an essential reference in the field.

Gerard Boychuk is director of global governance at the Balsillie School of International Affairs and an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo. He is also a research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Policy Research at the University of Calgary.