Given the pressures of integration and assimilation, how are people within communities able to make decisions about their own environment, whether individually or collectively? Governing Ourselves? explores issues of influence and power within local institutions and decision-making processes using numerous illustrations from municipalities across Canada. It shows how communities large and small, from Toronto to Iqaluit, have distinctive political cultures and therefore respond differently to changing global and domestic environments. Case studies illuminate historical and contemporary challenges to local governance. This book covers topics including government structures and institutions and intergovernmental relations and reaches more broadly into geography, urban planning, environmental studies, public administration, and sociology.

Mary Louise McAllister's profile page

• Winner, Outstanding Academic Title, Choice Magazine

Mary Louise McAllister is an associate professor in the Department of Environment and Resource Studies at the University of Waterloo.

By asking the question, ‘are we governing ourselves?’, McAllister delves into theses muddy waters in an admirably honest manner ... McAllister’s book is a useful teaching and scholarly resource for grappling with the democratic and administrative uncertainty that remains a large dimension of Canada’s public sector.

Local Government Studies, vol. 32, no. 4, Autumn 2004

Highly recommended.

Choice, June 2005