Nationality Canada Education Universite de Moncton | Name Dennis Savoie | |
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Known for Deputy Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus | ||
What is Government Good At? | Donald J. Savoie
Donald J. Savoie, OC ONB FRSC is a Canadian university professor and expert in public administration and regional economic development. In 2015 he was awarded the Killam Prize for his contribution to the field of Social Sciences.
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Biography
Donald J. Savoie was born in 1947 in Saint-Maurice, near Bouctouche, New Brunswick. The family moved to Moncton when he was young, his father founded La Construction Acadienne (Acadian Construction), which became one of the largest construction companies in New Brunswick.
He founded the Canadian Institute for Research on Regional Development at l'Universite de Moncton in 1983 where he also taught public administration. The institute was renamed the Donald J. Savoie Institute in 2015. He has advised governments in Canada and abroad. He has, among others, advised governments in Russia, China, Brazil, Hungary and Bosnia Herzegovina. He also advised a number of international organizations including the United Nations, the World Bank and OECD.
Donald Savoie has published over forty books and some 200 articles in journals and edited collections during his career. Among the most important are Federal-Provincial Collaboration, Breaking the Bargain: Public Servants, Ministers, and Parliament, Governing from the Centre: The Concentration of Power in Canadian Politics (shortlisted for the Donner Prize) and Thatcher, Reagan, Mulroney: In Search of a New Bureaucracy, What Is Government Good At? A Canadian Answer and Visiting Grandchildren: Economic Development in the Maritimes (shortlisted for the Donner Prize). His 2013 book, Whatever Happened to the Music Teacher? How Government Decides and Why was shortlisted for the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing. His biography, Harrison McCain: Single-Minded Purpose, was nominated for the 2014 National Business Book Award. His Politics of Public Spending in Canada was the inaugural recipient of the Smiley prize (1992). He has also been awarded several prizes and awards for his work in Canada, Europe and the United States.
His articles have been published in leading journals of political science, public administration and public policy. His work has been reviewed in leading peer reviewed journals of political science, public policy and public administration and some of the world's leading newspapers including The Sunday Times (UK), Financial Times (UK), The Daily Telegraph (UK) and The Times of India. He holds the Canada Research Chair in Public Administration and Governance (Tier 1) at the University of Moncton.
He was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1993, a member of the Order of New Brunswick in 2011 and elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1992. He obtained a D.Phil. in 1979 and a D.Litt. in 2000 from Oxford University and has been awarded seven honorary doctorates by Canadian universities. He was awarded the Vanier Gold Medal (1999), the Trudeau Fellowships Prize (2004) and the Sun Life Public Service Citation Award (2004). He was elected a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford in 2006 and named Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics in 2007. He was also a Senior Fulbright Scholar at Harvard University in 2001-02. He was elected President of the Canadian Political Science Association in 1998. He has served as a member of boards of directors for both private and public sector organizations.
Donald Savoie was awarded the 2015 Killam Prize in Social Sciences. He was the first scholar at an Atlantic Canadian university to receive this award.
Sole author
Visiting Grandchildren was Savoie's stated final book on the subject of economic development. His focus has been on governance and other matters in his latter works.