Philippe Lagassé
Biographic Data
| ID | 1667743 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Philippe Lagassé |
| GIVEN NAMES | Philippe |
| FAMILY NAME | Lagassé |
| SIGNATURE | LAGASSÉ P |
| AFFILIATIONS | Carleton University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4890-0839 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 61 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
The Rules of the Coronation: Differentiating Convention from Practice and Custom
The coronation of a new monarch is a constitutional event governed by unwritten rules. To understand which aspects of the coronation are constitutionally significant—and which are better understood as the product of tradition or novel approaches—this article examines how three types of unwritten rules structure the ceremony: conventions, customs and practices. The article argues that the central elements of the coronation service—notably the oath…
Parliamentarizing war: Explaining legislative votes on Canadian military deployments
The parliamentarization of military deployments is a burgeoning area of study but has tended to neglect the peculiar cases of legislatures deprived of any war powers. This article contributes to this literature by examining the curious case of Canada. Since Canadian governments are not required to secure parliamentary support to deploy the military, it analyzes why they occasionally have and increasingly do. We propose and test four hypotheses to…
The Efficient and Dignified Roles of the Crown in Canadian Foreign Policy
This article draws on Walter Bagehot's distinction between efficient and dignified institutions to examine an understudied facet of the monarchy in Canada: the Crown's role in Canadian foreign policy. The Canadian Crown acts in global affairs in two ways: through the efficient prerogative powers of the Crown exercised by Cabinet, and by means of the dignified “public diplomacy” performed by the office of the governor general. The article demonstr…
Some Assembly Required: Explaining Variations in Legislative Oversight over the Armed Forces
Legislatures vary widely in how they affect democratic civil–military relations. In some countries, legislative oversight plays a critical role in guiding their defense establishment. In others, legislators are largely ignorant and happily so. In this article, we explain the sources of these variations in fifteen democratic states. After discussing the importance of the legislature's role in democratic civil–military relations, we clarify what we…
Proceed with caution: A reply to The perilous prerogative
This article provides a reply to Leah West's article The Perilous Prerogative . In this reply, I argue against West's contention that the Canadian military no longer has prerogative authority to conduct foreign signals intelligence. I demonstrate that the Communication Security Establishment Act has not entirely displaced the prerogative for foreign signals intelligence in a military context. Next, I examine West's argument that the Canadian mili…
Defence intelligence and the Crown prerogative in Canada
This article examines the role of the Crown prerogative in the intelligence activities of the Department of National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces. Defined as the legal authorities of the Crown as recognized by common law, the prerogative was at the centre of two reports by Canada’s National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP). These reports questioned the prerogative as a source of authority for defence intellige…
Bridging the academic‐policy gap in Canadian defence: What more can be done
This article assesses the academia‐policy gap in Canadian defence. The field of Canadian defence studies is inherently interested in the work of defence practitioners, and the Department of National Defence has had an ongoing interest in supporting academic defence expertise. A gap nonetheless persists between the two communities, owing to their different cultures, approaches, and objectives. Drawing on personal experiences as members of both the…
The Crown and Government Formation: Conventions, Practices, Customs, and Norms
The Crown’s role in government formation is poorly understood in Canada. As demonstrated by the confusion surrounding the Lieutenant Governor’s duties in the aftermath of recent elections in British Columbia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador, the functions of the Crown are misrepresented by politicians vying for power and misconstrued by commentators. These cases also suggest a degree of uncertainty about the Cro…
Justin Trudeau and Canadian Foreign Policy
When civilian control is civil: Parliamentary oversight of the military in Belgium and New Zealand
This study introduces a new type of oversight in civil-military and executive-legislative relations: community policing . Building on principal-agent theory, this type of oversight emphasises trust rather than confrontation. To illustrate how community policing functions, the study examines how legislative oversight of military affairs operates in Belgium and New Zealand. Legislative defence committees in both countries rely on trust when oversee…
The unintended consequences of parliamentary involvement: Elite collusion and Afghanistan deployments in Canada and Germany
This article argues that there is a need to question whether parliamentary involvement actually leads to the intended effects of increased democratic deliberation and responsiveness. We compare the unintended consequences of parliamentary votes on the use of force in two ‘most-different cases’: Canada and Germany. Despite substantive differences in the formal war powers of their parliaments, we find that military deployment votes on Afghanistan l…
Royal Succession and the Constitutional Politics of the Canadian Crown, 1936–2013
Canadian governments held opposite views on how to alter the laws of royal succession for Canada in 1936 and 2013. This contrast was not the result of refined thinking about how the law of succession operates in Canada. Rather, the difference is explained by these governments’ political aims and institutional constraints. In 1936, the government of William Lyon Mackenzie King denied that Canada necessarily followed the British line of succession,…
A Promise Too Far? The Justin Trudeau Government and Indigenous Rights
Parliament and the War Prerogative in the United Kingdom and Canada: Explaining Variations in Institutional Change and Legislative Control
The British and Canadian Parliaments have no legal control over military deployment decisions. Recently, however, governments in both countries have held votes in the House of Commons on expeditionary missions involving combat. In the United Kingdom, this has led to a convention of legislative control of the executive’s prerogative to deploy the armed forces. In Canada, the votes have benefited and enabled the executive, rather than strengthening…
Public critic or secretive monitor: Party objectives and legislative oversight of the military in Canada
This paper analyses how democratic legislatures oversee the military, using Canada as a case. The paper argues that the tendency to engage in intrusive oversight versus reactive oversight is shaped by institutional structures and party preferences. Canadian institutional structures discourage parliamentary defence committees from engaging in intrusive oversight of the armed forces to achieve policy influence, and encourage opposition parties to f…
Military frames and Canada’s Conservative government: From extending to transforming perceptions of Canadian identity
This article looks at framing strategies behind the recent Canadian Conservative government’s rhetoric on the military. Critics argue that Conservative rhetoric has politicised Canadian history and overemphasised the armed forces. Few scholars, however, have looked at the specific forms this rhetoric took and the strategies it suggested. The article presents the results of a systematic analysis of Conservative rhetoric between 2005 and 2015. It a…
Parliament will decide: An interplay of politics and principle
Debates about Parliament's role in deciding military deployments are clouded by misunderstandings of the relative legal authorities of the executive and the legislature, and the mixture of political objectives and democratic obligation that inform these discussions. Much has been written about the legal aspects of this question. This article considers instead the issues of politics and principle, which we argue are consistently interwoven: while …
Parliamentary and judicial ambivalence toward executive prerogative powers in C anada
This article argues that ambivalence surrounds the prerogative powers of the Canadian Crown and the significant authority they afford the executive in Canada. In strictly legal terms, these residual Crown powers are vulnerable to parliamentary abolition, displacement and limitation, and their exercise is subject to judicial review and remedy, leading scholars to suggest that these powers are an increasingly marginal source of executive authority.…
Nils Ørvik's “Defence against Help”: The Descriptive Appeal of a Prescriptive Strategy
Four catchphrases encapsulate the history of Canadian policy since 1945. When accounting for Canada's involvement in military alliances and operations, scholars often borrow Lieutenant-General E.L.M Burns's image of Ottawa's aim to secure seat at the table, while R.B. Byers's description of the commitment-capability gap aptly depicts the tendency of Canada's ambitions to surpass the means allocated to the armed forces.1 In a similar vein, Joel J.…
Canada and the Bureaucratic Politics of State Fragility
Canada's 2005 International Policy Statement announced that the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces were committed to “whole of government” interventions in failed and fragile states. This led both the Canadian government and outside observers to declare that Canada was successfully harmonising the aims and practices of its internationally focused departments and cra…
A Mixed Legacy: General Rick Hillier and Canadian Defence, 2005–08
General Rick Hillier was a remarkable chief of the defence staff. During his tenure from January 2005 to June 2008, Hillier wielded an unusual degree of influence for Canada's highest ranking general, and he sought to use this influence to rebuild and reshape the Canadian forces. As part of this effort, he assumed a prominent role in the formulation of Canadian defence policy. Hillier was also a widely recognized public figure, achieving near-cel…
Canadian Security Policy: New Perspectives and Debates
Studies of Canadian security policy have traditionally centred on certain key debates and issues, such as Canada's role in multilateral organizations; its international standing as a middle, model, or principal power; and the relative importance of the United States in Canada's international security policies. With the end of the Cold War, a number of other perspectives and debates took their place alongside these established issues and concerns.…
Canada, Strategic Defence, and Strategic Stability: A Retrospective and Look Ahead
Canada has contributed to North American strategic defence, and been an ar- dent proponent of strategic stability, since the early Cold War. Though seem- ingly compatible, Canada's involvement in continental strategic defence and advocacy of strategic stability has been nagged by an underlying contradiction. As part of its contribution to the strategic defence of the continent, Canada has tacitly endorsed and facilitated the United States' offens…
The International Criminal Court and the Foreign Policies of the United States
ON 6 MAY 2002, AMERICAN PRESIDENT George W. Bush withdrew the United States' signature from the Rome statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Three months later, Bush signed the American Servicemembers' Protection Act (ASPA) into law. The ASPA prohibits the United States from cooperating with the ICC and authorizes the president to use all means necessary to free American personnel imprisoned in by the ICC in The Hague. In addition, the…
Public critic or secretive monitor: Party objectives and legislative oversight of the military in Canada
This paper analyses how democratic legislatures oversee the military, using Canada as a case. The paper argues that the tendency to engage in intrusive oversight versus reactive oversight is shaped by institutional structures and party preferences. Canadian institutional structures discourage parliamentary defence committees from engaging in intrusive oversight of the armed forces to achieve policy influence, and encourage opposition parties to f…
The unintended consequences of parliamentary involvement: Elite collusion and Afghanistan deployments in Canada and Germany
This article argues that there is a need to question whether parliamentary involvement actually leads to the intended effects of increased democratic deliberation and responsiveness. We compare the unintended consequences of parliamentary votes on the use of force in two ‘most-different cases’: Canada and Germany. Despite substantive differences in the formal war powers of their parliaments, we find that military deployment votes on Afghanistan l…
Parliament and the War Prerogative in the United Kingdom and Canada: Explaining Variations in Institutional Change and Legislative Control
The British and Canadian Parliaments have no legal control over military deployment decisions. Recently, however, governments in both countries have held votes in the House of Commons on expeditionary missions involving combat. In the United Kingdom, this has led to a convention of legislative control of the executive’s prerogative to deploy the armed forces. In Canada, the votes have benefited and enabled the executive, rather than strengthening…
Canada and the Bureaucratic Politics of State Fragility
Canada's 2005 International Policy Statement announced that the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces were committed to “whole of government” interventions in failed and fragile states. This led both the Canadian government and outside observers to declare that Canada was successfully harmonising the aims and practices of its internationally focused departments and cra…
Parliament will decide: An interplay of politics and principle
Debates about Parliament's role in deciding military deployments are clouded by misunderstandings of the relative legal authorities of the executive and the legislature, and the mixture of political objectives and democratic obligation that inform these discussions. Much has been written about the legal aspects of this question. This article considers instead the issues of politics and principle, which we argue are consistently interwoven: while …
A Promise Too Far? The Justin Trudeau Government and Indigenous Rights
Parliamentary and judicial ambivalence toward executive prerogative powers in C anada
This article argues that ambivalence surrounds the prerogative powers of the Canadian Crown and the significant authority they afford the executive in Canada. In strictly legal terms, these residual Crown powers are vulnerable to parliamentary abolition, displacement and limitation, and their exercise is subject to judicial review and remedy, leading scholars to suggest that these powers are an increasingly marginal source of executive authority.…
Some Assembly Required: Explaining Variations in Legislative Oversight over the Armed Forces
Legislatures vary widely in how they affect democratic civil–military relations. In some countries, legislative oversight plays a critical role in guiding their defense establishment. In others, legislators are largely ignorant and happily so. In this article, we explain the sources of these variations in fifteen democratic states. After discussing the importance of the legislature's role in democratic civil–military relations, we clarify what we…
Defence intelligence and the Crown prerogative in Canada
This article examines the role of the Crown prerogative in the intelligence activities of the Department of National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces. Defined as the legal authorities of the Crown as recognized by common law, the prerogative was at the centre of two reports by Canada’s National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP). These reports questioned the prerogative as a source of authority for defence intellige…
When civilian control is civil: Parliamentary oversight of the military in Belgium and New Zealand
This study introduces a new type of oversight in civil-military and executive-legislative relations: community policing . Building on principal-agent theory, this type of oversight emphasises trust rather than confrontation. To illustrate how community policing functions, the study examines how legislative oversight of military affairs operates in Belgium and New Zealand. Legislative defence committees in both countries rely on trust when oversee…
The International Criminal Court and the Foreign Policies of the United States
ON 6 MAY 2002, AMERICAN PRESIDENT George W. Bush withdrew the United States' signature from the Rome statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Three months later, Bush signed the American Servicemembers' Protection Act (ASPA) into law. The ASPA prohibits the United States from cooperating with the ICC and authorizes the president to use all means necessary to free American personnel imprisoned in by the ICC in The Hague. In addition, the…
Canada, Strategic Defence, and Strategic Stability: A Retrospective and Look Ahead
Canada has contributed to North American strategic defence, and been an ar- dent proponent of strategic stability, since the early Cold War. Though seem- ingly compatible, Canada's involvement in continental strategic defence and advocacy of strategic stability has been nagged by an underlying contradiction. As part of its contribution to the strategic defence of the continent, Canada has tacitly endorsed and facilitated the United States' offens…
Canada and the Bureaucratic Politics of State Fragility
Canada's 2005 International Policy Statement announced that the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces were committed to “whole of government” interventions in failed and fragile states. This led both the Canadian government and outside observers to declare that Canada was successfully harmonising the aims and practices of its internationally focused departments and cra…
A Mixed Legacy: General Rick Hillier and Canadian Defence, 2005–08
General Rick Hillier was a remarkable chief of the defence staff. During his tenure from January 2005 to June 2008, Hillier wielded an unusual degree of influence for Canada's highest ranking general, and he sought to use this influence to rebuild and reshape the Canadian forces. As part of this effort, he assumed a prominent role in the formulation of Canadian defence policy. Hillier was also a widely recognized public figure, achieving near-cel…
Canadian Security Policy: New Perspectives and Debates
Studies of Canadian security policy have traditionally centred on certain key debates and issues, such as Canada's role in multilateral organizations; its international standing as a middle, model, or principal power; and the relative importance of the United States in Canada's international security policies. With the end of the Cold War, a number of other perspectives and debates took their place alongside these established issues and concerns.…
Nils Ørvik's “Defence against Help”: The Descriptive Appeal of a Prescriptive Strategy
Four catchphrases encapsulate the history of Canadian policy since 1945. When accounting for Canada's involvement in military alliances and operations, scholars often borrow Lieutenant-General E.L.M Burns's image of Ottawa's aim to secure seat at the table, while R.B. Byers's description of the commitment-capability gap aptly depicts the tendency of Canada's ambitions to surpass the means allocated to the armed forces.1 In a similar vein, Joel J.…
Parliamentary and judicial ambivalence toward executive prerogative powers in C anada
This article argues that ambivalence surrounds the prerogative powers of the Canadian Crown and the significant authority they afford the executive in Canada. In strictly legal terms, these residual Crown powers are vulnerable to parliamentary abolition, displacement and limitation, and their exercise is subject to judicial review and remedy, leading scholars to suggest that these powers are an increasingly marginal source of executive authority.…
Military frames and Canada’s Conservative government: From extending to transforming perceptions of Canadian identity
This article looks at framing strategies behind the recent Canadian Conservative government’s rhetoric on the military. Critics argue that Conservative rhetoric has politicised Canadian history and overemphasised the armed forces. Few scholars, however, have looked at the specific forms this rhetoric took and the strategies it suggested. The article presents the results of a systematic analysis of Conservative rhetoric between 2005 and 2015. It a…
Parliament will decide: An interplay of politics and principle
Debates about Parliament's role in deciding military deployments are clouded by misunderstandings of the relative legal authorities of the executive and the legislature, and the mixture of political objectives and democratic obligation that inform these discussions. Much has been written about the legal aspects of this question. This article considers instead the issues of politics and principle, which we argue are consistently interwoven: while …
Parliament and the War Prerogative in the United Kingdom and Canada: Explaining Variations in Institutional Change and Legislative Control
The British and Canadian Parliaments have no legal control over military deployment decisions. Recently, however, governments in both countries have held votes in the House of Commons on expeditionary missions involving combat. In the United Kingdom, this has led to a convention of legislative control of the executive’s prerogative to deploy the armed forces. In Canada, the votes have benefited and enabled the executive, rather than strengthening…
Public critic or secretive monitor: Party objectives and legislative oversight of the military in Canada
This paper analyses how democratic legislatures oversee the military, using Canada as a case. The paper argues that the tendency to engage in intrusive oversight versus reactive oversight is shaped by institutional structures and party preferences. Canadian institutional structures discourage parliamentary defence committees from engaging in intrusive oversight of the armed forces to achieve policy influence, and encourage opposition parties to f…
Justin Trudeau and Canadian Foreign Policy
When civilian control is civil: Parliamentary oversight of the military in Belgium and New Zealand
This study introduces a new type of oversight in civil-military and executive-legislative relations: community policing . Building on principal-agent theory, this type of oversight emphasises trust rather than confrontation. To illustrate how community policing functions, the study examines how legislative oversight of military affairs operates in Belgium and New Zealand. Legislative defence committees in both countries rely on trust when oversee…
The unintended consequences of parliamentary involvement: Elite collusion and Afghanistan deployments in Canada and Germany
This article argues that there is a need to question whether parliamentary involvement actually leads to the intended effects of increased democratic deliberation and responsiveness. We compare the unintended consequences of parliamentary votes on the use of force in two ‘most-different cases’: Canada and Germany. Despite substantive differences in the formal war powers of their parliaments, we find that military deployment votes on Afghanistan l…
Royal Succession and the Constitutional Politics of the Canadian Crown, 1936–2013
Canadian governments held opposite views on how to alter the laws of royal succession for Canada in 1936 and 2013. This contrast was not the result of refined thinking about how the law of succession operates in Canada. Rather, the difference is explained by these governments’ political aims and institutional constraints. In 1936, the government of William Lyon Mackenzie King denied that Canada necessarily followed the British line of succession,…
A Promise Too Far? The Justin Trudeau Government and Indigenous Rights
The Crown and Government Formation: Conventions, Practices, Customs, and Norms
The Crown’s role in government formation is poorly understood in Canada. As demonstrated by the confusion surrounding the Lieutenant Governor’s duties in the aftermath of recent elections in British Columbia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador, the functions of the Crown are misrepresented by politicians vying for power and misconstrued by commentators. These cases also suggest a degree of uncertainty about the Cro…
Bridging the academic‐policy gap in Canadian defence: What more can be done
This article assesses the academia‐policy gap in Canadian defence. The field of Canadian defence studies is inherently interested in the work of defence practitioners, and the Department of National Defence has had an ongoing interest in supporting academic defence expertise. A gap nonetheless persists between the two communities, owing to their different cultures, approaches, and objectives. Drawing on personal experiences as members of both the…
Defence intelligence and the Crown prerogative in Canada
This article examines the role of the Crown prerogative in the intelligence activities of the Department of National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces. Defined as the legal authorities of the Crown as recognized by common law, the prerogative was at the centre of two reports by Canada’s National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP). These reports questioned the prerogative as a source of authority for defence intellige…
Some Assembly Required: Explaining Variations in Legislative Oversight over the Armed Forces
Legislatures vary widely in how they affect democratic civil–military relations. In some countries, legislative oversight plays a critical role in guiding their defense establishment. In others, legislators are largely ignorant and happily so. In this article, we explain the sources of these variations in fifteen democratic states. After discussing the importance of the legislature's role in democratic civil–military relations, we clarify what we…
Proceed with caution: A reply to The perilous prerogative
This article provides a reply to Leah West's article The Perilous Prerogative . In this reply, I argue against West's contention that the Canadian military no longer has prerogative authority to conduct foreign signals intelligence. I demonstrate that the Communication Security Establishment Act has not entirely displaced the prerogative for foreign signals intelligence in a military context. Next, I examine West's argument that the Canadian mili…
The Efficient and Dignified Roles of the Crown in Canadian Foreign Policy
This article draws on Walter Bagehot's distinction between efficient and dignified institutions to examine an understudied facet of the monarchy in Canada: the Crown's role in Canadian foreign policy. The Canadian Crown acts in global affairs in two ways: through the efficient prerogative powers of the Crown exercised by Cabinet, and by means of the dignified “public diplomacy” performed by the office of the governor general. The article demonstr…
The Rules of the Coronation: Differentiating Convention from Practice and Custom
The coronation of a new monarch is a constitutional event governed by unwritten rules. To understand which aspects of the coronation are constitutionally significant—and which are better understood as the product of tradition or novel approaches—this article examines how three types of unwritten rules structure the ceremony: conventions, customs and practices. The article argues that the central elements of the coronation service—notably the oath…
Parliamentarizing war: Explaining legislative votes on Canadian military deployments
The parliamentarization of military deployments is a burgeoning area of study but has tended to neglect the peculiar cases of legislatures deprived of any war powers. This article contributes to this literature by examining the curious case of Canada. Since Canadian governments are not required to secure parliamentary support to deploy the military, it analyzes why they occasionally have and increasingly do. We propose and test four hypotheses to…
Political science (24 works) · Law (19 works) · Politics (17 works) · Law (16 works) · Public Administration (12 works) · Public Administration (11 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Legislature (7 works) · Military and Defense Studies (7 works) · Canadian Policy and Governance (5 works)