Pal, Leslie A. 1954-

(Leslie Alexander Pal)

PERSONAL:

Born 1954. Education: Mount Allison University, Sackville, New Brunswick Canada, B.A.; Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, M.A., Ph.D.

ADDRESSES:

E-mail—leslie_pal@carleton.ca.

CAREER:

Political scientist, educator, and author. During early career, taught at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, and the University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada; Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, professor of public policy and administration, beginning 1999, director of School of Policy and Administration, 2001-05. Open Society Institute, senior teaching fellow for International Policy Fellows program, Budapest, Hungary, teacher in affiliated programs in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Mongolia, and director of Canada/Russian Academy of Public Administration project for the Governance Advisory and Exchange Program. Director, Canadian Parliamentary Internship Programme, 1998-2001. Board member, Canadian Political Science Association, Institute of Public Administration of Canada, Institute on Governance, and the Performance and Planning Exchange.

MEMBER:

International Political Science Association (member of executive committee, 2006-09).

WRITINGS:

Public Policy Analysis: An Introduction (textbook), Methuen (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1987.

State, Class, and Bureaucracy: Canadian Unemployment Insurance and Public Policy, McGill-Queen's University Press (Kingston, Ontario, Canada), 1988.

Interests of State: The Politics of Language, Multiculturalism, and Feminism in Canada, McGill-Queen's University Press (Kingston, Ontario, Canada), 1993.

Beyond Policy Analysis: Public Issue Management in Turbulent Times, ITP Nelson (Scarborough, Ontario, Canada), 1997, 3rd edition, Thomson/Nelson (Scarborough, Ontario, Canada), 2006.

Contributor to books and periodicals. Beyond Policy Analysis was published in Armenian.

EDITOR

(With David Taras) Prime Ministers and Premiers: Political Leadership and Public Policy in Canada, Prentice-Hall Canada (Scarborough, Ontario, Canada), 1988.

(With Rainer-Olaf Schultze) The Nation-State versus Continental Integration: Canada in North America, Germany in Europe, Universitätsverlag Dr. N. Brockmeyer (Bochum, Germany), 1991.

(With G. Bruce Doern and Brian W. Tomlin) Border Crossings: The Internationalization of Canadian Public Policy, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1996.

(With Cynthia J. Alexander) Digital Democracy: Policy and Politics in the Wired World, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1998.

(With R. Kent Weaver) The Government Taketh Away: The Politics of Pain in the United States and Canada, Georgetown University Press (Washington, DC), 2003.

(With Robert M. Campbell and Michael Howlett) The Real Worlds of Canadian Politics: Cases in Process and Policy, 4th edition, Broadview Press (Orchard Park, NY), 2004.

Member of editorial board, Canadian Public Policy, Canadian Journal of Political Science, Canadian Public Administration, and the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis.

SIDELIGHTS:

Leslie A. Pal is a political scientist whose primary interests include social movements, the Internet, and global governance and governance institutions, often with a focus on Canada. He is also the author and coeditor of several books focusing on government and public policy. In his textbook, Public Policy Analysis: An Introduction, Pal provides an analysis of Canadian public policy and discusses issues such as how to evaluate the efficiency of public policy and the influence of power and ideas on public policy outcome. Writing in the Canadian Journal of Political Science, Stephen Brooks noted of this work: "In focusing on other types of policy analysis Pal liberates the subject from the narrow instrumentalist confines that characterize most books on policy analysis." In another book titled State, Class, and Bureaucracy: Canadian Unemployment Insurance and Public Policy, the author "seeks to assess the validity of ‘society-centered’ approaches as opposed to ‘state-centered’ theories in explaining the development of Canadian UI [unemployment insurance] policy from its origins to the present," as Andrew F. Johnson explained in the Canadian Journal of Political Science.

The author focuses on Canadian government funding of advocacy organizations and the consequences of such funding in his Interests of State: The Politics of Language, Multiculturalism, and Feminism in Canada. Pal's primary goal is to analyze how modern governments ultimately influence society. Covering the period of 1969 to 1988, Pal focuses on those groups "concerned with official languages, multiculturalism, and women's issues," according to American Political Science Review contributor Grace Skogstad. Skogstad continued: "Interests of State succeeds as an empirical documentation of the state's rationale for entering uncharted waters in financially assisting advocacy organizations." Julia S. O'Connor, writing in Contemporary Sociology, commented that the author "offers a wealth of information on citizen policy in Canada," adding: "These give interesting insights into the formation of collective identity and illustrate the dependency of some advocacy groups on the state for their original and continued existence."

Pal has also served as coeditor of numerous books focusing on government and policy issues. With David Taras, for example, he edited Prime Ministers and Premiers: Political Leadership and Public Policy in Canada, which presents fourteen chapters by various contributors on leadership issues in the government as it relates to policy analysis and other issues. "The book adds considerably to our understanding of leadership at the federal and provincial levels in Canada," observed Rand Dyck in the Canadian Journal of Political Science. With Robert M. Campbell and Michael Howlett, Pal also edited The Real Worlds of Canadian Politics: Cases in Process and Policy. This volume presents various case studies—such as those focusing on the Canadian Firearms Act and on airline policy concerning deregulation—as a way of analyzing and understanding Canadian politics. "The Real World of Canadian Politics encourages us to think about why case studies work," remarked William C. Green in the American Review of Canadian Studies."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Political Science Review, March, 1995, Grace Skogstad, review of Interests of State: The Politics of Language, Multiculturalism, and Feminism in Canada, p. 234.

American Review of Canadian Studies, spring, 2006, William C. Green, review of The Real Worlds of Canadian Politics: Cases in Process and Policy, p. 137.

Canadian Journal of Political Science, March, 1988, Stephen Brooks, review of Public Policy Analysis: An Introduction, pp. 144-145; December, 1988, Andrew F. Johnson, review of State, Class, and Bureaucracy: Canadian Unemployment Insurance and Public Policy, pp. 827-828; September, 1989, Randy Dyck, review of Prime Ministers and Premiers: Political Leadership and Public Policy in Canada, pp. 625-626.

Contemporary Sociology, July, 1994, Julia S. O'Connor, review of Interests of State, pp. 545-546.

ONLINE

Carleton University Web site,http://www.carleton.ca/ (November 7, 2006), faculty profile of Leslie A. Pal.

International Policy Fellowships Web site,http://www.policy.hu/ (November 6, 2006), brief profile of Leslie A. Pal.